Ecstasy (7 page)

Billy looked at me like I’d just grown a pointy nose. “I thought you said you weren’t running his name unless—”

“We’re not, but my guess is his folks have already been notified. Unless they’re out of town or something—”

“It’s just his mom,” Dorrie said. “She’s probably at her store in Gabriel. That’s where she usually is.”

“Oh. So listen, you don’t have to say anything if you don’t want to. It’s just that I have to write what we call a news obit,
talking about Shaun and what kind of person he was, what he liked to do and everything….” I was starting to feel like a ghoul,
a title I arguably deserved. I decided to plow ahead anyway. “It’s better if I can talk to his friends than somebody who barely
knew him, you know? That way you get a realistic picture of a person.”

Billy didn’t look convinced. “And you want to do that now? Like, right here?”

“Not necessarily, but I figured you guys would be leaving soon and I didn’t want to bother you—”

“Huh?” He looked to Trish, who’d been staring at the ground for the past few minutes. Then he tried Dorrie, who rewarded him
with a mirror image of his own cluelessness.

“Leave?” she asked. “Why would we leave?”

“Um, I just figured that with… what happened to your friend, you probably wouldn’t want to stay.”

“But what good would leaving do?”

“Don’t you, you know, want to go be with your parents?” The looks I got reminded me it had been a decade since I was seventeen.
“So… I guess you’re staying?”

“That’s what Shaun would want,” Dorrie said, and turned to Billy. “Don’t you think?”

“Yeah,” Billy said. “You could write that down if you want. We’re staying at Melting Rock because that’s what Shaun would
want.”

It was as good a quote as any, so I jotted it down. “But don’t you think they might cancel the rest of the festival?”

Now the two of them looked genuinely horrified. Dorrie recovered first. “Are you serious?”

“I’m just guessing.”

“But why would they do that?”

“Well, for one thing, the police might be worried that if Shaun really died from a drug overdose, maybe somebody else’d do
the same thing.”

Dorrie unclasped her arms and ran the butt-free hand through her spiky hair. Then she just said, “Oh.”

“And listen,” I said, “I’m not trying to be your mother or anything, but if you guys have any…you know…If you’ve got any drugs
on you, for chrissake, don’t take them. Flush them down the toilet or whatever, okay?” Dorrie and Billy offered a pair of
shrugs by way of response. “Trish?”

She looked up from the ground, though her eyes didn’t quite meet mine. “Okay. Whatever.”

Billy pulled out another cigarette and offered the pack around. This time, I took one—not so much to ingratiate myself with
them as to calm my nerves. I still couldn’t shake the memory of Shaun Kirtz’s vacant eyes.

Billy produced an expensive-looking windproof lighter, and I leaned toward the flame. “So what do you want to know about Shaun?”
he asked.

“Well, first off, how long have you guys known him?”

He lit his own butt and pocketed the lighter. “Since, like, fifth grade. He and his mom moved here from San Francisco.”

“What about his dad?”

“Shaun never met him,” Trish told the grass. “Never even knew who he was.”

“Yeah, but it isn’t like it bugs him or anything,” Dorrie said. “He and his mom are really tight.”

“Really? What’s she like?”

“She’s really cool. She lived in Haight-Ashbury back in the day, when she was our age. And when she got older, she decided
she wanted to have a baby, so she had Shaun—even though she wasn’t married. Don’t you think that’s cool?”

“You said before she had a shop in Gabriel. Which one is it?”

“You know the yarn store on the Green?”

“The one that sells all the homespun wool? Sure.”

“That’s his mom’s place. She raises her own sheep—shaves them and spins it and dyes it and everything.”

“Where do they live?”

“You know Eco-Homeland?”

I did. It was a latter-day commune a couple of miles off the main road between Gabriel and Jaspersburg, a clutch of modernish
buildings where people who earned incomes in the mid-to-high five figures could live in environmentally conscious comfort.

“So what kind of things was Shaun interested in?”

Billy fielded that one. “Lots of stuff,” he said. “He’s a huge skateboard freak, for one thing. That and computers—he’s a
total whiz. You ever see that movie
Hackers?
He
loves
that movie. He’s always saying he wishes he lived in a big city so he could hang with guys like that.”

I noticed he was still talking about Shaun in the present tense—understandable, since the guy’s body was barely cold. “So…he’s
that good at computers, huh?”

“He’s
amazing,
” Dorrie chimed in. “Like, he never paid for a long-distance call—he had some system he figured out to do it for free and—”

Billy put up a hand to interrupt her. “You can’t put that in the paper. I mean, his mom didn’t know that he—”

“Don’t worry about it.”

He exhaled smoke in a relieved plume. “Cool.”

“Listen,” I said, “this can be off the record too if you want, but I was wondering …What do you think he took?”

He eyed me, suddenly wary again. “You mean, like, what drug?”

“Yeah.”

“What difference does it make?”

“I’m just wondering.”

Dorrie shrugged. “I dunno.” My expression must’ve told her I didn’t buy it. “No, really,” she said. “I don’t know. It could’ve
been anything.”

“Well, what was his, you know, drug of choice?”

She didn’t answer, just looked at Billy with a knowing sort of smile. “Pretty much anything,” he said with a grin. “That was
Shaun for you. He’d try anything once.”

Trish offered up a mirthless laugh and looked me straight in the eye. “I guess last night,” she said, “that was one time too
many.”

T
he three of them were still standing there chattering about what an adventurous drug taker Shaun had been when Melissa showed
up and started snapping pictures. This pleased the Jaspersburg cops not at all, though there wasn’t a damn thing they could
do about it. She took photos of people who were weeping and exhausted; of others who looked strangely jazzed up; of cranky
policemen; of the chili-bedecked tent surrounded by the banner of
WET PAINT
that made the local constabulary look like a bunch of idiots.

And speaking of the tape: Two minutes later, it was ripped down by a burly fellow in a green windbreaker and jeans. I barely
had time to wonder who he was when Trish said,
“Daddy!”

The man stopped gathering up the tape and just let it drop. Trish came rushing through the crowd toward him—which, considering
that she’d recently described him as a Nazi storm trooper, rather surprised me.

If I expected him to shy away from a show of fatherly affection in the middle of a crime scene, I was off base there too.
He wrapped her in his arms, each of which appeared to be roughly the circumference of a telephone pole, and held her in an
extended bear hug. She must’ve burst into tears, because I could see her slender back shaking up and down. He rocked her gently
from side to side, his jaw set in a grimace that told me he couldn’t stand to watch his little girl cry.

They stayed like that for longer than you’d think, and when they finally let go of each other, they both looked kind of embarrassed.
After they talked for a few more minutes, Trish gestured toward the three of us; then her father sized me up just like I’ve
seen Cody do with a potential perp. He leaned in as if to ask her something, and her reply consisted of several shrugs of
her bony little shoulders.

He took a step toward us, then stopped and reached into his coat pocket to produce another big yellow roll—thus deflating
what I’d mistaken for a moderate beer belly. He whistled to one of his underlings and tossed the roll to him underhanded;
voilà, some genuine crime-scene tape.

“You’re from the newspaper,” he said, once he’d crossed the space between us in three strides.

“That’s right. The
Gabriel Monitor
.”

“I didn’t think you were from the
Jaspersburg Shopper.
” His delivery was so deadpan I wasn’t sure whether or not I was supposed to laugh, so I didn’t. “Let’s go over here.”

He commuted a few yards away from the teenagers, and I scampered to keep up with him. “I’m Alex Bernier. I’ve been covering
the festival for the paper.”

We shook hands, and when we were through, I was worried I might have to go to the emergency room and get fitted for a cast.

“Chief Stilwell. Only one
L
after the
I.
First name Steve.”

“Steve spelled the normal way?”

He fixed me with another Cody-like look. “Are you being smart with me, young lady?”

“Definitely not.”

He cracked the suggestion of a smile, which went a long way toward making him something less than terrifying. “Let’s keep
it that way.”

“Absolutely.”

“I take it you’re the one who did the front-page story on my daughter and her friends.”

“That’s right.”

“I see.” His tone said he wasn’t thrilled with the coverage, but he didn’t elaborate. “And I assume you’re doing a story on”—he
looked back toward the tent, now being reencircled—“this.”

“Yeah.”

“I also assume you know who the victim is.”

I told him I did, and he gave me the standard speech about not ID’ing the kid until they’d notified his next of kin. I said
I knew the drill, though in terms considerably less snarky than that.

“Any idea when you’ll have a cause of death?”

“As you can see, the coroner hasn’t even arrived yet. And as I’m sure you know, that’s the kind of question you’ll have to
ask him.”

“Any idea what it was he took?”

“Are you being willfully obtuse?”

“Um…no.”

“Then I’d think you’d be aware that if we don’t know the cause of death, then we damn well don’t know what he took.”

“I was just asking.”

“You’re not the regular police reporter, are you?”

“I usually cover government—common council, county board—”

“And the Melting Rock Music Festival?”

“I was sort of a last-minute substitute.”

“I see.”

“So… what’s going to happen next?”

“Meaning?”

“Is the festival going to stay open?”

“Of
course
the festival’s going to stay open,” somebody chirped, and it definitely wasn’t Chief Stilwell.

No, the voice belonged to a lady who looked like she’d leaped off a box of cake mix—a portly, Midwestern-mom type in a flowered
jumper and a straw hat. “Of course it’ll stay open,” she said again. “What would make you think otherwise?”

The woman in question was somewhere on the near side of middle age. Her lipstick was coral pink and not very accurately applied
to her kisser; her hat, perched atop a bottle-blond mane, was big and floppy and had a blue grosgrain bow.

Stilwell eyed her, and I saw his jaw tighten. The woman, meanwhile, stood there looking from the chief to me and back again.
She was clearly salivating for an introduction, while he was just as clearly savoring the act of not giving it to her. Eventually,
he gave in.

“Mrs. Rosemary Hamill, this is Alex Bernier from the
Gabriel Monitor.
Mrs. Hamill is the president of our town council and head of the Melting Rock Community—”

“I’m just so
pleased
to meet you,” she said, aiming a doughy paw my way. “So you’re the one who’s been doing all those
lovely
stories. I have to say, the council was just pleased as punch to hear that the paper was doing a special section on the festival.…”

I gaped at her, wondering what Emily Post would think of uttering “pleased as punch” within spitting distance of a corpse.

“I hope you’re having a good time so far,” she was saying. “Are you? Hmm?”

Who was this crazy person? And was she, by any chance, high as a kite herself?”

“Er…” I fumbled for something resembling a response. “It’s definitely been… interesting.”

“Of course it is,” she said. “Melting Rock is
always
interesting; that’s what we say around here. Melting Rock weekend is the most
interesting
weekend of the year. Don’t you think so, Chief?”

I wouldn’t have thought his jaw muscles could get any tighter without snapping, but they did.

“Alex here was just asking if we’re planning on shutting down the festival,” he said, and I could tell he was taking a fair
amount of pleasure in it. “Do you have any comment on that you could give her?”

She pursed her hot-pink lips. “I believe I already have.” She turned to me. “But in case Alex didn’t get my meaning, I’ll
say it again. There’s no reason this unfortunate incident should ruin a very important occasion for everyone.” She waved a
matching fingernail toward my notebook. “You may write that down if you wish.”

It was pretty much what Shaun’s friends had told me, albeit crafted like a goddamn press release. I was starting to think
there was something funny in the Jaspersburg water supply. “You see, Mrs. Hamill, the reason I’m asking is that the conventional
wisdom around here is saying Shaun Kirtz died of a drug overdose, and—”

“Your point being?”

“Well, aren’t you worried that whatever killed him could kill somebody else?”

She looked at me like I’d just run over her poodle. “Are you trying to stir up trouble?”

“It’s just a question.”

“A very irresponsible question, if you ask me.”

“Why is that?”

“There’s no need to get everyone all upset over nothing.”

Stilwell finally had enough. “Rosemary, for chrissake, it’s not nothing. A boy died. A friend of Trish’s, as a matter of fact.”

Now those neon lips made a vaguely conciliatory smooching sound. “And it’s a terrible tragedy. But these things do happen.”

I was wondering how she’d feel if she wound up reading her own idiotic comments in the next morning’s paper:
“These things do happen,” town council president Rosemary Hamill said of the rapidly stiffening corpse off to her left.…