Page 72 of The Castaways
The Chief fell back in his chair. “Jesus.”
“I dealt with her. She said she got it somewhere online, couldn’t remember the name of the site. I fined her three hundred bucks, took the ID, threatened to suspend her real driver’s license. She said she wanted to talk to you.”
“To me?”
“To you.”
“Jesus,” the Chief said.
“Normally I would have told her no. Normally I would have slapped her with a ninety-day suspension for trying to go over my head. But then I wondered if maybe you wanted to question her.”
Question her. Dickson understood more than the Chief wanted him to. The Chief’s stomach squelched. He’d eaten all that food and he hadn’t moved a muscle. And he was nervous.
“Send her in.”
Dickson opened the door and poked his head out into the hallway. “Hey, Dancing Queen,” he said, “the Chief has agreed to see you.”
April entered, resplendent in some kind of sparkly black-and-silver disco dress and silver stiletto heels. Her hair was up. She wore reddish black lipstick. She looked twenty-five, not eighteen.
“Miss Peck,” the Chief said.
“You can call me April,” she said. She offered her hand. “I feel like I know you.”
“Do you?” the Chief said.
“Yes,” April said. She sat demurely, thank God, with her legs angled to the side. “Greg used to talk about you all the time.”
The Chief quietly burped up Roquefort and onions. “Greg?” he said.
“Greg MacAvoy.”
The name reverberated against the concrete walls of the Chief’s office. April’s face was open; her eyes were wide and innocent. She did not look like a kid who had just been booked for identity fraud. Was she drunk? She had been steady on the stilettos. Was she a good actress? Or maybe the three-hundred-dollar fine and the fact that she might not be able to drive for the rest of the summer didn’t bother her. Who was he kidding? If they took her license, she would drive anyway.
“Mr. MacAvoy was your singing teacher?” the Chief said.
“He was.”
The Chief looked at April’s shining blond hair and thought of how lost Greg must have been to let her lasso him. Had Greg been in that place men found themselves in when they needed bolstering? His sweet and pretty wife wasn’t enough? His two healthy kids weren’t enough? He needed more, he needed someone to worship him, someone to think he was a hero?
“And…?”
“And he was my friend.”
“Your friend?” the Chief said. Nerves jitterbugged across his chest and arms. April Peck should have been just another pretty girl in high school, not so different from the Chief’s own daughter, but instead she was a repository of information, answers, the truth. Had Greg and April Peck been having a thing—one time, three times, every week, every day? Would Greg have a reason to want to drug Tess? The Chief understood that knowing the answers wouldn’t bring Tess or Greg back, it wouldn’t help the kids, but the Chief, as an enforcer of the law, wanted the truth.
He had to be careful. April Peck had been brought in for trying to pass off a fake ID. She was not here to answer questions about Greg. He could not make her answer. For all the Chief knew, April Peck would leave the office saying that theChiefhad been inappropriate with her. Thinking this, the Chief felt the first true wash of sympathy for Greg. April Peck was a suicide bomber. The Chief should send her out right now with a ninety-day suspension. If Andrea knew April Peck was here, what would she say?
April said, “I know what people think.”
“What do people think?”
“They think Greg and I were lovers.”
The Chief burped again, and whispered, “Excuse me.” He had to tread so carefully here. “Why would they think that?”
She shrugged.
The Chief said, “I’m a little confused, Miss Peck, about why you wanted to see me.”
