Free Old School Bones by Randall Peffer Page B

stuff. He’s got every Al Green album ever made. His mom and dad were addicted. Dad cranks “Sha-La -La” every time they are hauling back on the
Rosa Lee.
    “Great, Michael. We need to get out of here. There’s nothing in here that has to do with Liberty.”
    “Hauling back?” asks Gracie.
    “Bringing in our net. Full of fish … hopefully.”
    “We should get out of here. Before somebody sees …”
    He’s clicking on the stereo, suddenly feeling a little giddy, for no reason other than memories of love songs blasting over the deck of the
Rosa Lee.
The scent of fresh cod squirming in the net.
    “One song, OK?”
    “Not now!”
    Harold Melvin and the Blue Notes Launch into “If you Don’t Know Me By Now.”
    The violins are just winding up, sweet, up-tempo, when she kills the power. “We’re out of here. This is a dead end. Show’s over. Come on before we all have to answer a lot of uncomfortable questions.”
    “Can I borrow your mix?”
    She gives him a totally exasperated look. “If you swear to stop snooping around my apartment and get the hell out of here.”
    “Scouts honor.”
    She opens the CD tray, reaches for the album box to put away the mix.
    “Hey what’s this?” The open can of Red Bull is in her hands.
    He shrugs. “You forgot to finish your can of rocket fuel?”
    “I don’t drink this stuff … Girls?”
    “Liberty,” says Tory. “She craved it.”
    “Maybe she left the can in here the night she …”
    Gracie shakes her head, says maybe not. She’s pretty sure she drank her last one trying to write that freaking précis.
    He clears his throat, then asks in a low voice, “I’d like to take this for awhile.”

16
    “JESUS, let me guess. This isn’t a social call. You drove all the way out here on the Cape to ask me for a favor. Like a big fucking favor. Am I right, Rambo?”
    Detective Lou Votolatto leans back in his swivel chair, pushes back from his desk. Stretches his long legs out, exposing mismatched socks. One blue, one gray. He cups his nose between the fingers of both hands, sighs. The little cubicle in the West Barnstable state police barracks seems the size of a squirrel cage.
    “I’m on my knees, Lou.”
    “I thought you quit the law … The fishing sucks right now, eh?”
    “We’ve been stormed in … so I’m trying to help out a friend.”
    “Oh Christ. I can’t even imagine what you got yourself into this time. Please don’t tell me your dragon lady client has reappeared in Provincetown, and we are going to be dancing a tango around her immigration status again.”
    “I haven’t heard from Tuki.”
    “Well consider it a minor blessing. That little petunia had you so tied in knots, most of the time you didn’t know your asshole from your ear.”
    “I need to get this tested.” He hands the detective an open can of Red Bull.
    “What’s this?”
    “Maybe evidence a kid was murdered.”
    “A little kid?”
    “Seventeen-year-old girl. She died about two weeks ago at the Tolchester-Coates School.”
    “That place on the edge of Boston? Where our illustrious politicians send their kids?”
    “Some of them. The smart ones.”
    “No shit? A girl died there? How come I didn’t hear about it?”
    He says the M.E. ruled it a suicide. The school seems to have kept a pretty tight lid on publicity.
    “Yeah, and news seems to travel by dogsled on the Cape at this time of year. Can you believe all these freaking blizzards?!”
    He looks out the window at ten-foot piles of snow rimming the parking lot.
    “How in hell does a nice Portagee fisherboy like you get involved in a prep school scandal?”
    “I’m not involved. I’m just trying to help out a friend.”
    “Ten to one there is at least one really pretty woman involved.”
    “Come on, Lou.”
    “You think someone offed this poor kid with a can of Red Bull? Are you pulling my chain, Rambo?”
    “What do you know about rohypnol?”
    “You mean roofies? R-2, rope? Someone date-raped this