Forty-Five
Forty-Four
The mall wasn’t going to happen, but McCabe thought she might be able to make it up to her daughter if she brought home pizza.
A pepperoni for herself, and a sausage and onions for Moira. McCabe couldn’t handle the onions.
She set the two pizza boxes on the kitchen counter and called out her daughter’s name.
“Dinner!”
She heard Moira thumping her way down the stairs. So, still pissed, McCabe thought. Maybe she should have bought a container of Kawartha Dairy’s Death by Chocolate ice cream too. The pizza
alone wasn’t going to make up for the canceled outing.
Moira sauntered into the kitchen, opened one pizza box lid and then the other. Her stone face cracked slightly when she saw
the sausage and onion.
“I didn’t forget,” McCabe said. “You wanna grab some plates?”
Moira went to the cupboard, got two plates, and put them on the counter. Transferred two slices of her pizza to one, two slices
of her mother’s to the other. Moira ate standing, while her mother took her plate to the table after grabbing a bottled water
from the fridge. She put her phone on the table next to her food.
“Can you let me know how long the silent treatment’s going to last? If it’s going to be a while I’ll turn on the news.”
“You totally embarrassed me,” Moira said.
Okay, here we go.
“I’m not five years old. You can’t treat me like I am. All kinds of stuff goes on around me that I can’t control. Kids are always drinking or smoking or doing whatever. Just ’cause you found me where people were doing something doesn’t make me a crackhead.”
“I know you’re not a crackhead.”
“You don’t trust me.”
McCabe sighed. “That’s not the issue. You’re just not old enough to know how to make smart decisions.”
“So I’m stupid.”
“I never said that. And you could have saved yourself the embarrassment if you’d come home when you were supposed to or had
answered my texts.”
Moira rolled her eyes. “I have to be this perfect kid because my mom’s a cop. Kids are scared to hang out with me. I had to
tell everybody it was okay to do whatever they wanted so they wouldn’t think I was going to rat them out. I almost wanted them
to get wasted so when nothing happened they’d know I was okay with it. And then what happens? You showed up. You can guess
what they had to be thinking.”
McCabe took her napkin and dabbed a drop of grease on top of a piece of pepperoni.
“I hear ya,” she said and sighed. “Okay? I hear ya. Truce?”
Moira considered it. “I guess.”
They each took a bite and were quiet for a moment.
“I heard you say Chartwell on the phone today,” Moira said. “Before you went out.”
“Okay.”
“Gage is a friend.”
“Gage Chartwell?”
Moira nodded. “It was his grandfather who killed that woman and then himself.”
“Jesus,” her mother said. “You know him.”
A nod.
“How?”
“We have classes together.”
It occurred to McCabe that she had neither spoken to, nor met, this Gage Chartwell. She figured he had to be the son of Reece
Chartwell. Small world.
“He’s pretty freaked about it.”
“You spoke to him?”
One more nod from Moira. “I texted him, and he came by for a sec. He was really sad. He was at the party.”
“The other night?”
“He left just before you raided the place.”
McCabe was too tired to challenge her on her use of the word raided.
“Why are you telling me this?”
“Because me and my friends, we’re all dealing with stuff. Some of it’s not a big deal, and some of it’s pretty huge. You have
no idea the kind of pressure we’re under, what we’re dealing with. Like kids whose parents are dead, or maybe their parents
have split up. Or their dad’s in some crazy far-off place playing poker to make a living. So sometimes people need to unwind
a bit so they forget all that. You know?”
McCabe nodded slowly.
Her phone started to vibrate.
“Shit,” she said under her breath as she took the call.
“McCabe.”
She listened. “Okay. Shoot me a text with the address.” She ended the call and put the phone away.
“You’re going out,” Moira said, looking anxious, but also a little relieved.
“I’m going out,” McCabe said, taking one last bite of her slice. “Gonna take two seconds and freshen up.”
She excused herself from the kitchen, went quickly upstairs, and as she was heading for the bathroom, something caught her
eye as she was passing her daughter’s bedroom.
She stopped, took a step back, focused on what looked like the edge of a clear sandwich bag caught between the mattress and box spring of her daughter’s bed. Stepped in, leaned over, got her fingers on the bag, and pulled.
It was, indeed, a small sandwich bag. And inside, what looked like ground leaves or, more accurately, weed.
McCabe opened the bag, gave it a sniff just to be sure, resealed it, stuffed it into her own pocket. Let Moira have a heart
attack when she looked for it later, discovered it gone. McCabe was thinking, if Moira were in an interrogation room, this
would be about the time when she’d be asked: Would you like to change your story?
She’d save that for later.