She did, did she, said Moran.
Yes, sir.
And where were you taking it?
She hesitated. Nowhere special. I just felt like a drive.
Just felt like a drive, so you took off in your friend’s car at three in the morning.
Yes, sir.
How much have you had to drink tonight, miss?
Just a little champagne, Officer. At my friend’s birthday party. Her parents were there.
Were they.
Yes, sir. They bought the champagne.
He watched her. And how old are you?
Eighteen.
Can you prove it?
Sir?
Can I see your license.
Yes, sir.
She handed it to him.
He put his light on it and handed it back.
He took a breath and put his hands on his hips, the leather belt creaking. They were all alone out there on the county road. No lights anywhere but the colored lights flashing silently.
We got us a situation here, Miss Goss.
I know.
I don’t think you do. I got you for failure to stop at a stop sign, driving under the influence, and possession of a stolen vehicle.
It’s not stolen, I told you, I—
Miss. Please. I don’t like this any more than you do. Young girl with her whole life ahead of her. College. But what am I supposed to do? What kind of officer would I be if I let you kids go driving all over the county like this, endangering the lives of others? What would your parents want me to do?
She’d begun to cry. She hated herself but she couldn’t help it—what her father would say, the way he’d look at her—or not look at her—when he came to collect her from the jail…
Officer, please, I promise…
He sighed. He clicked off the flashlight. He looked up and down the road.
Well, look, honey. There’s a solution here. Very simple. It will require just a few minutes of your time, but then you’ll be free to go on your way. You think you’re up for that?
She was looking up at him, trying to see his whole face under the brim of the hat but only half the face was there, the other half still glowing blue and red.
Either that, he said, or you get in this cruiser with me and we go back to the station and we take it from there, by the book. That how you want to do it?
No, sir.
All right then. We’ll do it the easy way. Come on back to the cruiser with me.
You said…
We’re not going anywhere.
And she got out and he walked her to the passenger side of the cruiser and opened the door for her and shut it again once she was in. She watched him walk around the front of the cruiser and then she just stared at the back end of her car—Ginny’s car—as he opened the driver’s-side door of the cruiser and got in, rocking the car with his weight. He shut the door and the dome light went out. He took off his hat and put it on his knee. He looked up and down the road again but there was no one, no lights, and there never would be on this road at this hour, and if someone did drive by they’d see the cop-lights and keep going—they’d be drunk or part-drunk themselves and they wouldn’t even look at those colored lights, they’d just drive on by—and she thought of her father and her mother and she thought of Danny Young and she thought of college and she thought of the whole town and she even thought of Holly Burke or some girl like her who would do such things, for whom such things were normal, and then she was doing it… his hand was in her hair and she was doing it and it wasn’t real and it was, and it was the only way and no one would ever know and when it was over she’d go back to Ginny’s house, back to her sleeping bag and no one would know and she would be the same person she’d been when the night began.
But she wasn’t the same, and Danny knew she wasn’t, and that was the end, really, that night. And two months later Holly Burke was found floating in the river.
46
THE WINE WAS gone. The water was gone. The music that had been playing earlier had stopped and they could hear the TV from the apartment below, a constant mumbling broken only by bursts of muffled laughter.
Audrey sat drawing her fingers under her eyes, one side and then the other. No tissues in sight. Her mind was racing ahead but she said nothing. She wiped her face dry and waited.
“When I got back to Ginny’s house,” Katie said, “she was the only one up. She was sitting there on the porchswing in the dark. She’d woken up and had seen from the bathroom window that her car was gone. Worried to death, she said, just about to wake up her parents…”
Katie told her she was sorry, she shouldn’t have taken her car, and Ginny made her sit down. She took her hands—Hey, she said, hey… what happened?
Nothing.
Did you see Danny? What did he do?
Nothing. I never got there. I got pulled over.
Oh, shit. Shit. Did they make you blow?
What—?
The Breathalyzer machine.
No.
There was a long silence.
They didn’t bust you or you wouldn’t be here.
They didn’t bust me.
What did they say?
Said go home.
What about the car?
What about it?
Did they ask you about it?
This cop, this guy. He said he knew it. He recognized it.
The two girls looking at each other, their faces close, their eyes locked in the dark.
Was it Moran?
Who?
Deputy Moran. The sheriff’s deputy.
I don’t know.
What’d he look like?
I don’t know. He looked like a cop.
Did he have big eyes, like bugged-out eyes?
Maybe. A little. Yes.
Yeah, shit. That frog-eyed goon stopped me one time for speeding. Wanted me to step out of the car. I said, Step out, my ass, Officer, you haven’t even asked for my license. I put it in his face and he took a good long look at it and handed it back. Yeah, I said, that Ginny Walsh. I believe you know my mother?
What’d he say?
Said, Get your ass home.
Did you tell her—your mom?
Tell her what? There was nothing to tell her. And nothing she could do about it anyway, except get herself fired.
You can’t tell her about this, Ginny.
Katie, what happened? What did he do?
He let me go.
Katie…
Promise me.
Katie, the guy’s a piece of shit.
He’s a deputy sheriff piece of shit.
So?
Katie said nothing.
That’s exactly what he’s counting on you thinking, Katie.
So, what—just go in there and tell the sheriff?
Why not? Why would you make something like that up?
No. No way. I’m going to college in the fall. I’m going to college, Ginny. This is not going to be my story. This ass-backwards little town. Everybody knowing, everybody talking? My parents—oh God. Danny?
You didn’t do anything wrong, Katie.
Katie hanging her head. Crying again. She’d stopped at a gas station and had bought a big Coke and washed out her mouth and chugged the rest until her throat burned, and still the taste was there.
Can we just go to bed now, Ginny? Can we just go to bed and never talk about this again, ever? Please, Ginny?
AUDREY HAD SEEN tissues on the bathroom counter. She got up and went down the hall and found them and brought them back and they both took the tissues and blew their noses and wiped their eyes and set the damp wads on the coffee table at the feet of the toy horses. Down the hall the little girl slept, dreaming a little girl’s dreams.
“Katie,” Audrey said. “He would have believed you. My father. He would have.”