Shine - Lauren Myracle [28]
A reporter from Toomsboro interviewed Sheriff Doyle about the NCBI’s involvement, and Sheriff Doyle said it was because ethnic intimidation cases got more attention than regular old beatings.
Those were his exact words, by the way. As if “regular” beatings happened all the time.
In the article, Sheriff Doyle also reported that the pump nozzle was wiped clean of fingerprints, the handwriting analysis of the message scrawled on Patrick’s chest showed nothing, and that the weapon Patrick was hit with seemed to be a baseball bat, same as they first determined. Baseball bats didn’t leave many traces for the forensics team to go after. All paths led to dead ends, according to Sheriff Doyle.
But there was one path the sheriff hadn’t gone down, and I reckoned I knew why. I reckoned it would be tricky to bring Tommy Lawson in for questioning while at the same time bowing and scraping to Tommy’s daddy, who funded Sheriff Doyle’s election campaign. There was surely no conflict of interest in Sheriff Doyle questioning Tommy now, was there?
The thought of questioning Tommy myself made me feel sick. There was someone I could question about Tommy, however. Destiny Cooper. Destiny dated Tommy for two years, meaning that for two years she’d been one of the girl members of the redneck posse.
She and Tommy only broke up this past April, and for all I knew they were still in touch, so I hoped she might have some dirt on him and would welcome the chance to vent.
Since I had no legitimate reason to go to Destiny’s, I tried to think of a cover. The best I could come up with was that I was collecting donations for UNICEF, like we did on Halloween when we were kids.
Destiny was surprised to see me, to put it mildly. Her eyes opened so wide I could see each and every fleck of mascara on her lashes. Then her expression turned guarded.
“What do you want?” she said, holding tight to the doorknob. Behind her, I saw dark colors, low ceilings, and stacks and stacks of all sorts of things, from sewing patterns to old newspapers to sloppily folded clothes.
And hi to you, too, I thought. “I’m, um, here to see if you—“
“Nuh-uh, no way,” she said, with a talk-to-the-hand gesture. “Whatever you’re selling, I don’t want it. Whatever you’re collecting for, I ain’t giving. So bye-bye.”
She started to shut the door. I jammed my foot inside.
“Destiny. I’m not selling anything. I just thought it would be nice to come over and say hey.”
“Is that so,” she said dryly. It wasn’t a question. It was her way of saying, Oh sure, and next you’re going to pull out a check the size of a billboard and tell me I’ve won the lottery.
“Fine. I want to talk about Tommy,” I admitted.
“Girl, that boy’s nothing but a hot mess. What’re you interested in him for?”
“I’m not,” I said. “I know full well that Tommy’s a jerk. That’s what I want to talk about.”
“Oh,” she said. She pooched out her bottom lip, which was red and shiny with lip gloss. “Well, come on then.”
She led me into the living room, where we sat on an overstuffed mauve sofa. I could smell cat pee on it, or maybe the odor came from the carpet, which was filthy. Rubbed out cigarette butts had streaked entire areas gray. Destiny’s parents weren’t home, and she told me she was leaving to meet up with friends in just a bit.
“So make it quick,” she said.
I opened my mouth. Then closed it. Then said, “I don’t like Tommy.”
Destiny looked at me as if to say, Really? That’s all you’ve got? She stifled a yawn. Her fingernails were hot pink.
“But you know him better than I do,” I said. “So I’m curious what your thoughts are.”
“On what?” she said. “On how Tommy and all his kin think they’re God’s gift to creation, and the rest of us are just using up air?”
I appreciated the sentiment, especially coming from her. In her miniskirt and tight pink T-shirt, she was as different from