Free Sisters of the Road by Barbara Wilson Page B

I smiled brightly and waved my clipboard.
    “Perhaps you would be able to answer a few questions?”
    “National Institute for—yeah, come on in. I got nothing better to do this afternoon. It’s about Patti, am I right?”
    “Ah, Patricia Hemmings, yes, that’s who I’m interested in. Sometimes goes by the name Trish?”
    “Maybe she does,” he said, allowing me to step past him into the hall. “Wouldn’t know. Hemmings isn’t her last name though. She kept her father’s, Margolin.”
    I pretended to consult my clipboard. “Yes, that’s right. You’re Robert Hemmings? The girl’s stepfather?”
    “Rob,” he said. “Take your jacket?”
    “Thanks but no, this should be brief.” I followed him into the living room, where male and female elements warred. On the sofa back and arms, crocheted doilies; over the fireplace a pair of moose antlers; in the magazine rack, Good Housekeeping and Sports Illustrated. On the teak coffee table, cute little coasters, and next to them, making rings on the wood, beer cans. The television was turned up loudly on a soap. “No, Billy, I won’t let you take the blame. I’ll tell you the name of the child’s real father!” Duh-dum sounded the music, piano and a somber violin. Rob turned it off.
    “Construction’s a little slow this time of year,” he said.
    “You’re a carpenter?”
    “Welder. Worked on some of those big buildings down in Seattle.” He said it as if it were another city. “Got a back problem right now,” he added, easing himself slowly into a vinyl recliner. “Like a beer?”
    “Ah, no thanks.” Now what? He didn’t seem like such a bad guy. I felt a little guilty.
    He took a gulp from his can. “Good thing Melanie kept her job at the Bon. Course I’ve got disability and workman’s comp, but it doesn’t go very far.”
    I murmured something sympathetic and wrote down, “Bon Marché Dept. Store” on my clipboard.
    “So it’s about Patti, is it? Well, I’ll tell you, we don’t have much to do with her now, haven’t for a long time.”
    “How long has she been away from home?”
    “She’s always been a troublemaker,” snorted Rob. “Said to her mother when we first got together, that girl is going to cause you a mess of problems if you don’t watch out. But Melanie wouldn’t listen. She’d been raising the girl alone, couldn’t see the girl’s attitude.”
    I pretended to write something down. “Stubborn?” I suggested.
    The girl needed straightening out and fast. I tried, but I was too late. Girl should have been straightened out a long time ago. She got in with a bad group of kids, hell, you’re studying juvenile delinquents—some of them was real delinquents. Drinking, motorcycles, cutting school….”
    “She must have been pretty young, twelve or thirteen, when she started to get influenced…?”
    “Old enough to get whipped for it—but Melanie wouldn’t let me touch her. Not even when we found out she was messing around. That’s when this all started.”
    “You know she’s been a… a…”
    “Whore? The whole damned neighborhood knew it. Picked up one night down in Seattle—she was still living here then and we were the ones responsible for her. We had to go down to the detention center and get her. I wanted to smack it out of her good and hard, but Melanie was just crying and crying. I told Patti, this happens again and you’re on your own. Two weeks later they got her again. They said she had V.D. I told Melanie, we’re not going to go get her and if she ever sets foot in this house again, I’m leaving.”
    Rob had worked himself up to a righteous anger. His face and ears were red enough to light a fire.
    “You have a son as well, don’t you?” I asked, as dispassionately as I could.
    “If Melanie was here she’d tell you he had something to do with Patti going bad, but that’s a goddamned lie. Patti’s a whore and she’s always been a whore and no goddamned social worker is going to put her