I said, “So Cherish was mad at Drew.”
Valerie stomped her foot. “Trish?” Pointing at a pretty, long-legged girl with boyish hair and a fine-boned face marred by acne.
Short for “Patricia.” Lactose-sensitive. Special help with reading and penmanship.
She didn’t answer.
Valerie said, “You can tell she’s mad from her face. Say that.”
Trish smiled, dreamy-eyed. Her pajamas were sky blue with white eyelet borders.
“Say it,” demanded Valerie. “Her face.”
Trish yawned. “She never got pissed at me.”
“Just at Drew,” I said.
Another girl said, “He didn’t come home last night, prolly that made her mad.”
I said, “She didn’t like when he didn’t come home.”
“Nope.”
“Was that often?”
Shrug.
Valerie twisted a thick rope of black hair around her finger. Let it uncoil and watched it drop past her waist.
I turned back to her. “Was it once a week? Something like that?”
She gazed up at the mattress inches from her head. Rolled her shoulders and tapped her fingers and beat out a rhythm with one foot.
“Valerie?”
“Time to shower,” she said.
“Where do you shower?”
“The other place.”
“The main house?”
“The other place.”
“The building next door.”
“Uh-huh.”
I tried Trish again. “Did Drew go out a lot?”
“He was here except when he went out.” To Valerie: “Like when he went out with you-u.” Slowly spreading smile.
Valerie’s eyes flashed.
Trish said, “Tell him. You went out all the time. That’s why you always need to shower.”
Valerie got up from the bunk and charged her. Trish waved her long arms uselessly. I got between them, pulled Valerie away. Soft middle but her arms were tight and her shoulders were granite lumps.
“It’s like true,” said another girl.
Yet another opined, “He went out with you all the time, you gotta shower.”
Voice from a bunk across the room: “You get to sleep in the other place.”
“You get to shower whenever you want.”
“ ’Cause you dirty.”
Val grunted and fought to free herself from my grasp. She was sweating and the moisture flew off her face and hit mine.
“She freakin’ out.”
“Like she always does.”
Trish said, “He takes you out all the time!”
Valerie let loose a string of obscenities.
Wascomb shrank back.
Trish said, “She gets up at night and walks around like a… like a… vampire thing. That’s how she saw Cherish.”
“She wakes us up. It’s good she’s in the other place.”
“Tell ’em, Monica. You sleep in the other place now, too.”
The sole white girl, pug-faced and strawberry blond, stared at her knees.
“Monica goes out.”
“Monica gots to shower.”
“Bitch!” screamed Valerie. She’d stopped struggling but shook her fist at one group of girls, then the others. Her eyes were hard, dry, determined. “Shut up!”
“Admit it, Monica! You gots to shower!”
“He take you out, too, Monicaaaa!”
Monica hung her head.
“Admit it, Monicaa!”
Individual comments coalesced to a chant. “Admit it! Admit it! Admit it! Admit it!”
Monica began crying.
“Fuck youuu!” screamed Valerie.
Wascomb said, “That kind of language really isn’t- ”
“You the fucker,” said Trish. “You and Monica fuck him every night and then you shower.”
“Valerie fucks! Monica fucks! Valerie fucks! Monica fucks!”
Wascomb braced himself against the wall. His skin had turned chalky. His mouth moved, but whatever he was saying was swallowed by the noise.
Val lunged and nearly broke free.
Milo came over and the two of us steered her out of the cube.
The chanting continued, then faded. Behind us, Crandall Wascomb’s voice, thin and tremulous, filtered out into the morning air. “… some prayer. How about Psalms? Does anyone have any favorites?”
CHAPTER 42
I led Valerie to a lawn chair outside. The same chair Cherish Daney had occupied the first time we’d been here. Solemn and weepy, reading a book about coping with loss.
Her grief had seemed genuine. Now I wondered what she was really crying about.
“I want to take a shower.”
“Soon, Valerie.”
“I want hot water.” She bounced her knees together, tickled one. Looked up at the sky. Scrunched her mouth. Glanced back at the block building, now silent. “It’s my fuckin’ water, I want it. The bitches can’t use it up.”
“I’m sorry they did that, Valerie.”
“Bitches.” She lifted a twist of hair from her shoulder, ran it across her mouth, licked.
I said, “You know more than anyone. Do you have any idea where Drew and Cherish went?”
“I told you.”
“You said Drew left before and that Cherish was mad.”
“Yeah.”
“But where’d they go, Valerie? It’s important.”
“Why?”
“Cherish is mad at him. What if she went to yell at him?”
“He’s okay,” she said. “He goes places.”
“Like where?”
“Places.”
“What kinds of places?”
“Nonprofits.”
“He takes you to nonprofits.”
Silence.
I said, “You help him and the other girls are jealous.”
“Bitches.”
“He trusts you.”
“I get it.”
“Get what?”
Silence.
“You get it so you help him,” I said.
“Uh-huh.”
“What do you get?”
Long silence.
“Valerie? What do you- ”
“Love.”
“You understand love.”
“He prolly went to a church,” she said. “I don’t know the names. I want to shower- ”
“A church.”
Silence.
“Valerie, I know these questions are a pain, but they’re important. Did Cherish get mad at Drew a lot?”
“Sometimes.”
“About what?”
“Not making money.” She let go of the hair, held up a fist, and glanced at the main house.
“She felt he didn’t make enough money.”
“Yeah.”
“For what?”
“She wanted a trip to Vegas.”
“She told you that?”
Silence.
“Drew told you.”
Back to hair-twisting.
“Drew told you Cherish wanted to go to Vegas.”
Shrug.
I said, “Sounds like he talked to you about everything.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Did he want money?”
She faced me. “No way. He was for the soul.”
“The soul?”
“God’s work,” she said, touching a breast. “He got chosen.”
“And Cherish?”
“She did it for the money, but tough shit, he won’t give it to her.”
“Drew has money he won’t give her?”
A smile spread across her lips.
I said, “Secret money.”
She shut her eyes.
“Valerie?”
“I got to take a shower.”
She clamped her arms across her chest, kept her eyes shut, and when I spoke she hummed. We’d been sitting in silence for several minutes when Milo came out of the cube with Crandall Wascomb. He glanced at me while walking. Escorted the old man out.
He returned with uplifted eyebrows. “Everything okay?”
“Valerie’s been helpful but she and I are finished for now.”
Movement under the girl’s eyelids.
Milo said, “Helpful?”
“Valerie says Drew has money Cherish doesn’t know about.”
Valerie’s eyes opened. “It’s his. You can’t have it.”
“Never heard of finders keepers?” said Milo.