Beautiful Dead 3: Summer

  ‘No, really. You were talking about the no-chemistry thing between you and Summer – that’s the way I feel about Logan. I know he’s a good guy and he’ll always be there for me, and I’m grateful.’

  ‘I hear you.’ Phoenix tightened his hold on my hand and walked on.

  ‘And you’re cool with it?’

  ‘I’m cool. Moving on – Iceman was there when Zak got in your car and you drove him home.’

  ‘He’s in trouble. I wanted to help.’

  ‘Go to Brandon.’ He paused and dug the toe of his boot into some loose pebbles, making them crunch and shift.

  ‘Brandon has his own problems. He and your mom have been locking horns. But press Pause – go back to what you were saying about weaknesses.’

  ‘It’s crazy,’ he sighed. ‘I can look at you now and see you love me – it’s in your eyes, your heart.’

  ‘True,’ I confirmed. It was my turn to take his hand and lead him forward.

  ‘But I’m not really cool about Logan. When you’re away from me, spending time with him, I get scared. And Christian and Lucas – there are a hundred guys out there waiting to hit on you.’

  ‘Logan is my friend from way back – you know that. But zilch chemistry, like I said.’

  ‘For you maybe,’ Phoenix argued.

  ‘And that’s what counts.’ I interrupted him because once and for all I wanted to settle this. ‘You have to trust me and I have to trust you.’

  We stood under an aspen tree, listening to the new leaves rustle overhead, enjoying the dappled light and shade.

  ‘So we agree,’ he murmured. ‘No room for doubts?’

  ‘Life’s too short,’ I whispered before I reached up and kissed him. ‘Honestly – for us especially.’

  I was on a permanent rollercoaster, up-down, up-down again with my emotions. Out at Foxton with Phoenix I was soaring over the heights, screaming with delight and hanging on for dear life. Back here in Ellerton, I was in the grey, murky depths.

  ‘Your mom called your cell phone three times this morning,’ Jim told me when he walked into the house with a stack of groceries. ‘You never answered.’

  ‘I guess I lost the signal,’ I shrugged.

  ‘So where were you?’

  ‘What is this, are we living in a police state?’

  ‘Laura worries about you. The least you can do is answer your phone.’

  ‘I said I lost the signal.’

  ‘She works too hard. The extra stress is bad for her.’

  ‘Read my lips – I lost the signal!’

  I guess I pushed him a centimetre too far. ‘Darina, think about your mom for a change. Get past your own stuff and grow up!’ Jim was red in the face, slamming packages on to shelves. It was the first time he’d yelled at me, ever, in five whole years.

  ‘Believe me, that’s what I was doing – ditching my problems, trying to help someone else.’

  Jim shook his head.

  ‘It’s true. You want to know who? It’s Zak Rohr, Phoenix’s thirteen-year-old brother. The kid’s in trouble with the cops.’

  ‘I didn’t know he had a kid brother.’ My revelation made him take the volume down a little. ‘Sure, I know about the older one, Brandon – he’s bad news and that’s one of the reasons why Laura stresses.’

  ‘Because I see Brandon?’

  ‘Yeah. Because he gave you the car. What’s that about?’

  I shrugged again. ‘Why do I have to justify it? Brandon promised Phoenix he’d take care of me. What can I do?’

  ‘Give the car back,’ he suggested.

  ‘And leave myself stranded? How do I get from A to B?’

  ‘OK, so keep the car. But now you say the kid brother is following Brandon’s bad example. What exactly did he do?’

  ‘Nothing. He was there when a couple of older kids started a fire.’

  ‘Jeez, Darina, that’s perfect! Now the Rohrs are nurturing a crazy-boy arsonist.’

  ‘Zak was in the wrong place at the wrong time. I spoke to him – he swears he didn’t plan it or play any part.’

  ‘And you believe him?’

  ‘I do. I want to help him. Jim, you’ve driven a taxi, you hang out with a lot of the older guys in Ellerton. Do you know a cop called Henry Jardine?’

  ‘Maybe. What does Jardine have to do with Zak Rohr?’

  ‘He arrested the three kids outside the school janitor’s office, where they set the fire.’ Out of nowhere I was having a long conversation with my stepfather and it was going in the direction I wanted. If I played it carefully, I could pull off the difficult challenge of making direct contact with the cop Dean had told me about. ‘What kind of a guy is he?’

  ‘I hardly know him. I only met him through the fishing club we both go to.’

  ‘A fly-fisher?’ The sport was big around here, and I knew Jim spent his leisure time out at Hartmann Lake. ‘He’s cool then?’

  ‘He’s a regular guy and a big fisherman. Like I said, I only see him at the lake. He’s there most Sundays.’

  This was good enough. ‘Thanks, Jim,’ I told him, heading upstairs to my room. ‘And sorry about earlier. I’ll call Mom right away.’

  It’s cool when I have a job to do, a new task to focus on, so I made a plan to drive out to Hartmann early next morning.

  I mean, seriously early.

  I was up with the dawn, creeping downstairs and out of the house before Laura and Jim were up, and I was dressed in cut-off denim shorts, Laura’s two-sizes-too-big plaid shirt and her hiking boots, secretly borrowed from her closet. How cool did I look!

  The thing was – I had to appear like a regular hiker who liked to catch the early bird. Could I do it? Maybe, if I smoothed down my hair and rolled up my sleeves. I refused to leave off the mascara though – I drew the line there. I drove out through Centennial, almost forgetting to take a right turn before I reached Turkey Shoot Ridge, so programmed was I into following the route to Foxton.

  ‘Shoot!’ I swung the wheel at the last moment, on to the dirt road leading to the lake. On the way I passed two Jeeps carrying groups of campers who were coming away from the National Forest camp ground. Neither gave way to my shiny red car and I ended up twice with two wheels in the ditch. On each occasion, my Summer Madison demo CD jumped out of its groove. I played it on a loop, making her the current soundtrack to my life.

  ‘Red sky when you say goodbye/Red sky makes me cry/Forever.’ I was singing out loud when I finally reached Hartmann, parked the car in the campsite car park alongside half a dozen SUVs and took a small shoulder pack from the trunk.

  If I’m honest, this is the point where my detailed plan grew less detailed. I’d come looking for fishermen, and one in particular, so it made sense to make my way down to the lake shore where I saw figures dotted along the water’s edge, each with a rod and a line. Of course, they were too far away to make out clearly, and in any case I didn’t know what Henry Jardine looked like. So now which way did I go?

  I was still hesitating when footsteps approached from behind.

  ‘Darina?’ It was Jon Madison speaking – he owned the footsteps and stopped in fake shock. ‘My God, is it you or did my eyes just play tricks on me?’

  ‘Funny, Mr Madison. Of course it’s me.’ I saw that he was carrying a big, old-time, non-digital camera, slung on a strap around his neck, and he was dressed in the same plaid shirt and hiking boots uniform as me.

  ‘What are you doing out here?’

  ‘Hiking,’ I said with a frown. ‘What does it look like?’

  ‘Alone?’ Still Summer’s dad made like he couldn’t believe what he saw. ‘I didn’t have you down as an outdoors kind of girl.’

  I ignored him and stated the obvious. ‘So you’re taking photographs.’

  ‘For Heather, actually. Hartmann is one of her favourite places.’

  ‘She didn’t come too?’

  ‘No. Lately she’s gone back to how she was after it first happened. We’re coming up to the anniversary, so she??
?s not strong enough to leave the house.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Mr Madison.’

  ‘Me too. Heather and Summer were the same – real sensitive, creative people. You just want to protect them from all the bad stuff in life. You know you can’t, but it doesn’t stop you trying.’

  ‘I hear you.’ I thought of Summer out at Foxton, the girl with the golden gifts. And of her mother, the faded, grief-stricken lady I’d seen at the party.

  ‘Anyways, I had the idea that showing Heather pictures of the lake in the early spring will, you know, revive her a little. She may even use the photographs to start painting from.’

  ‘I hope you’re right.’

  ‘I have another thought.’ He paused uncertainly. ‘How would it be if you came to visit us again?’

  ‘Would Heather be cool with that?’ I asked, considering her response to seeing me in Summer’s room during my birthday visit.

  ‘I’m guessing yes. She talks about you, says it makes her feel closer to our daughter. So will you?’

  I thought for a while, then nodded.

  Jon Madison took a deep breath and forced a smile. ‘Good. Call this evening then.’

  ‘At six-thirty,’ I promised.

  ‘Don’t let me hold up your hike, Darina. See you tonight.’

  ‘Yeah, goodbye, Mr Madison.’ I lurched off to my left, through bulrushes and reeds towards a willow thicket, not realizing that the soggy ground would suck me down.

  ‘Watch out!’ Summer’s dad warned, too late.

  Fifty metres further along the lake’s edge, a fisherman flicked his line over his shoulder and then jerked it forwards, letting his reel unwind. I heard the whirring noise above the squelch and suck of my boots in the mud. ‘Actually, I’m out here looking for someone!’ I turned to confide in Jon Madison. ‘Do you know Henry Jardine?’ But this time it was me who was too late – Summer’s dad had taken off in the opposite direction and didn’t look round.

  ‘You’re looking for Henry?’ The fisherman up ahead had overheard my question. ‘You’re out of luck. He’s not here.’

  Shoot again! I didn’t have any backup to my crappy plan. ‘Are you certain?’ I checked with the old guy with the rod.

  ‘Trust me,’ he grunted. ‘I see everyone arrive and leave. He’s not here.’

  So what could I do except turn around and squelch back towards the car park? My feet were already wet and the mud was oozing between my toes inside Laura’s boots. When I reached dry land, I sat on a rock to unlace them, not even looking up at a newly arrived fisherman who passed close by. The boots and socks were laid out in a row to dry in the sun when I heard the old guy in the distance call out a greeting to the newcomer. ‘Hey, Henry, did you talk with the girl?’

  Now I looked up. I saw the back view of the new arrival – a middle-aged man in a grey T-shirt, wearing the long rubber waders that fishermen use, with a canvas pack slung from one shoulder and carrying a rod in his right hand. I sprang up from the rock and ran barefoot after him.

  He turned towards me, obviously expecting trouble, concentrating his disapproval on my feet. Then, as I arrived, he looked me up and down. ‘Do I know you?’ he demanded.

  ‘No. Yes! Well, not exactly. I was a witness at the Summer Madison shooting.’

  ‘Honey, do you see me in uniform? Does it look like I’m on duty?’ the deputy sheriff grunted, getting ready to walk right on.

  I ran to block his path. ‘You’re Henry Jardine, right? You knew Dean, the cop who was killed in a road crash?’

  This halted Henry in his tracks. He didn’t let down this guard though – he kept his eyes narrowed. His drooping, dark, western-style moustache hid his mouth and stopped me reading his mood. ‘What’s Dean Dawson got to do with anything?’ he asked.

  ‘Nothing. He was a friend of yours?’

  ‘So?’

  ‘I … knew him. He shared a few theories with me about Summer’s death. And no, before you ask, I don’t have anything new to tell you about his crash.’

  ‘And I’m still out of uniform,’ Henry reminded me. But he hung around long enough to show he was interested in what I was doing there.

  ‘It’s about Zak Rohr,’ I told him.

  Jardine swatted a fly that buzzed around his face. ‘Zak who?’

  ‘Rohr. You caught him setting a fire with two other kids, remember?’

  ‘Oh, the Rohr family – they’re a great addition to the Ellerton community.’ He gave a hollow laugh and was about to walk on again. ‘What happened to your shoes?’ he asked as an afterthought.

  ‘They’re on the rock back there. Listen, I talked with Zak. He had nothing to do with the fire.’

  ‘You’re the girlfriend,’ Jardine recalled all of a sudden. ‘Phoenix Rohr had a girlfriend. He was planning on meeting you the night he got stabbed. Wait, I got the name on the tip of my tongue … Davina … Darina. Yeah, Darina!’

  I could have praised Jardine’s powers of recall, but decided against it. Instead, I let my shoulders sag at the mention of Phoenix’s name.

  ‘So now you’re trying to help out the kid brother,’ Jardine went on more kindly than I’d expected. ‘But go figure – maybe he doesn’t deserve your help.’

  ‘I talked it through with him – the older kids—’

  ‘Jacob Miller and Taylor Stafford,’ Jardine interrupted.

  ‘It was down to them. Zak was a pure spectator.’

  ‘But he didn’t try to stop them.’

  ‘It was two bigger guys against one young kid – how could he?’

  ‘I hear you,’ Jardine said, turning me around and walking me back towards my footwear. ‘I already got the number of Miller and Stafford, believe me.’

  ‘So Zak is off your radar?’ I felt hopeful enough to press for a straight answer.

  ‘I’m writing a report,’ was all Henry would say.

  ‘Including the fact that Zak wasn’t directly involved?’

  ‘Let’s say I didn’t see him with the empty gas can or the lighter in his hand, and leave it at that. OK?’ We stopped by the rock with my boots and socks steaming in the sun. ‘I’m not handing out any promises,’ Jardine added.

  ‘Thanks,’ I said anyway and let out a relieved sigh, sitting down to pull on my soggy socks.

  He kept a watchful eye on me and ran a hand over his moustache. ‘You pop right up in the centre of events, don’t you, Darina? I’m not only talking about Zak Rohr – I mean, you’ve had some serious bad luck over the past twelve months. Witness to a shooting. Bereaved girlfriend. Anything else?’

  ‘It’s plenty,’ I said quickly. ‘On the Summer shooting – I was actually wondering if there are any moves to follow up the arrest of Scott Fichtner?’

  ‘Whoa!’ Jardine put out his hands in protest then waved his arms as if he was stopping a runaway horse.

  ‘Sorry,’ I mumbled. ‘I just read about it online.’

  ‘And you jumped to a conclusion, huh?’

  ‘I need to know what happened to Summer!’ Suddenly I let it all hang out – my feeling of horror at what I’d witnessed, my sense of loss.

  Jardine heard it in my voice and read it in my eyes. ‘Come see me in my office,’ he told me quietly. ‘Tomorrow morning, early.’

  ‘It’s taking me a while, but I’m getting there,’ I told Summer as I drove out to her parents’ house in Westra.

  She wasn’t with me in the car, but I guessed the Beautiful Dead had set a spy on me, so I went ahead and talked. Somehow the message would get through.

  ‘I’m following up the Fichtner connection,’ I explained. ‘Dean told me straight that you can’t remember the face of the guy who shot you and I hear what he’s saying. The others couldn’t remember the details either – I mean, Jonas and Arizona. I understand about you blocking out the actual event – the trauma and everything. So the photograph of Fichtner didn’t help – I get that.’

  I stopped at a red light, glanced left, then when I looked right again, Phoenix was sitting beside me in his
halo of silver light.

  He looked straight at me, giving me his lopsided smile, saying nothing. God, he was beautiful!

  The light turned green but I was too busy gazing at Phoenix to move forward. ‘So cool!’ I breathed.

  He grinned at me. ‘Flying visit.’

  ‘Ha!’ The driver behind me blasted his horn. ‘Wait,’ I told Phoenix as I eased through the lights, then off the road. ‘If they don’t let you use your cell phone while driving, they sure don’t let you talk to the undead!’

  ‘Do they allow talking to yourself or do they pull you over for being a crazy person?’ He waited until I was safely parked, then drew me over. ‘I’ve been watching you since you left home,’ he explained between kisses.

  ‘How long can you stay?’ There were more kisses, before, during and after my question.

  ‘Really, this is a flying visit. Hunter wants an update.’

  ‘Tell him I spoke to Henry Jardine. I have an official meeting with him tomorrow at his office. I’m guessing he’ll put Scott Fichtner into the frame for us.’

  ‘So we really are getting close to an answer.’ Phoenix pulled away from me so that he could see me more clearly. ‘Summer needs good news. She’s having a hard time right now.’

  ‘So is her mom. It’s the anniversary coming up – Jon Madison says she can’t handle it.’

  ‘Summer is so fragile. She’s scared there’ll be more violence.’

  ‘Heather Madison won’t even leave the house.’

  ‘I don’t know how much more Summer can take.’

  ‘Jon says they’re the same – Heather and Summer.’ We spoke quickly, not giving the other the chance to finish until in the end we both stopped and sighed.

  ‘Summer is the last person this should happen to,’ Phoenix added.

  I agreed. ‘Remember Arizona – how tough she came across? None of us were scared she couldn’t handle the stress of coming back to the far side.’

  ‘Summer’s different. Sometimes I think it would be better if we didn’t try too hard for her, just let the anniversary pass without any answers.’

  ‘And leave her in torment!’ I felt a spark of anger. ‘Don’t say that, Phoenix. I already talked to Summer about it. We have to solve this thing – you know we do!’