They were meeting in a separate room at the center. Corbin had hand-painted a sign that read Private Meeting in Progress and hung it on the door.
All eight of the boys were there along with Corbin and John Saunders. The boys had heard Josh’s story and hashed it over, and they thought it sounded good enough that the police should hear it, too.
Josh was nervous. He was fifteen, and he was going to be talking to the police about something that was none of his business. They were professionals. He was a schoolboy. Yet, just as he always had when he believed in something, he plowed ahead regardless of his doubts. If he was wrong, he was wrong, and he’d deal with that when it came. The truth was, in the past when he’d thought something out, he’d rarely been wrong. He believed in himself, and if he was wrong about this, at least it had certain logic about it, and the police should hear it.
They were all sitting in a circle. Corbin had had comfortable chairs brought in and set up—ten of them. Now, after everyone had been introduced, John took the floor, figuratively. He remained in his seat. He’d dealt with teens before. They didn’t respond well to authority figures throwing their weight around. Tended to make them go mute. So, he spoke softly, reassuringly, without standing.
“Guys, Parrish and Peter told me to come listen to this. I’d asked them to keep their noses to the ground about the crystal meth in this town. They told me today that what they’d heard here, I need to hear as well. They also told me something else. They said some of it will be embarrassing for you guys to tell to adults. I want you to know I’ve been a cop long enough that I’ve seen most anything you can tell me. I know teenagers have sex. I know pre-teens do, too. Just ask Peter. He’s twelve, but the oldest, most outrageous twelve I’ve ever met.”
He grinned at Peter, and Peter could see the affection in his eyes. He didn’t see it often, but this wasn’t the first time. He knew John liked him.
“Anyway, he and Parrish are boyfriends, and I don’t mind what they’re doing in their room because they’re great kids. I worry about kids who don’t have what they do and feel the need for alcohol and shit like meth and other substances to make their lives bearable and understandable. So if you’re going to say things that embarrass you, believe me, they won’t embarrass me. I know the world isn’t a Hallmark card, all cutesy and perfect. Life is real.”
He sat back. “I guess the floor is yours, Josh.”
Josh took a deep breath. “Probably the best way to do this is to tell it chronologically rather than from each person’s perspective. It makes more sense that way. I’ll start with part of Dill’s story. He went to the library almost every day this summer. He liked to read and liked the library.”
Dill smiled. Josh was skipping the part about him not having friends. Protecting him. He didn’t know Josh well, but he really liked what he knew.
“He got used to seeing the same people all the time. The Scowler—a late-teen or early-twenties guy who read magazines and napped. An old guy who toddled along with a cane, although Dill remembered a time or two when he saw him without the cane. A lady lawyer or paralegal always working on briefs. A 40ish man who seemed to be muttering to himself all the time and wandering around looking out the windows more than anything else. These four were there most days.”
He stopped briefly to look at Dill, and Dill nodded his approval.
“OK, next comes Jordan and Micah. These two had been in love with each other for a long time and neither had had the courage to tell the other. Just like a lot of gay boys who are best friends. Jordan couldn’t take it any longer and decided to tell Micah how he felt, and being the romantic he is, he wanted to do it at the old mill as the sun rose. So he and Micah rode their bikes there before dawn and spread a blanket on the grassy slope, then sat on it, Micah waiting for the sun, Jordan waiting to say what he came to say.”
Micah looked at Jordan, smiled, and took his hand. Jordan looked smug.
“Corbin was there, too. He’d shown up perhaps an hour before the boys did. He’d brought his easel, some blank canvasses and his paints. He, too, was there for the sun. He had a vision of what the sunrise over the mill would look like and wanted to capture it. Little did he dream he’d get more drama than he expected. He was up a tree in a blind. He didn’t see the boys arrive, and they didn’t know he was there.
“By pure happenstance, Dill was there, too. His father had given him permission to camp out, and this was the place he’d chosen: the woods behind the mill. The mill was between him and where Corbin was. They were both ignorant of the other’s presence. Dill had arrived and set up his camp back in the woods away from the mill the evening before. He was the first one there. The first to leave, too.
“During the night, someone else arrived. He woke Dill, and Dill explored and discovered a moped, one that looked exactly like the one the Scowler rode home from the library. Dill didn’t see him anywhere, and the only logical explanation was he had gone inside the mill.”
Josh had been looking at Dill when saying this part. Now, he turned his head to look directly at John. “I think the mill was being used for a meth drop. I think the supplier would bring the meth there, then get word to the middleman, the Scowler, and he’d come and retrieve it.
“At sunrise, Jordan told Micah he loved him, and Micah said the feelings were mutual, and they, uh, celebrated. Corbin was on hand, but busy painting the sky turning colors and didn’t realize they were there till they jumped in the water to cool down, afterwards. Then, when they returned to the blanket, they wrapped themselves in each other’s arms, and Corbin memorialized them.
“While they were swimming, Dill left. After a time, quite a bit later, Corbin left. He didn’t want to leave while the two boys on the blanket were there; he didn’t want to embarrass them.”
Josh stopped. He had a bottle of water and took a drink from it. Then he continued, saying, “This next is a guess, but it makes sense. The Scowler had planned to leave early in the morning. He was up before dawn. He wanted to get out before there was any traffic on the road because he didn’t want anything suggesting he’d been at the mill. But he saw the boys on the slope and was stuck; he couldn’t leave till they were gone. And while waiting, he somehow spotted Corbin, because Corbin didn’t see him leave. He would have gone earlier but for knowing Corbin was still there.”
John interrupted at this point. “You say this is a guess. That’s for sure! It all sounds pretty vague to me. Maybe this Scowler fellow just sleeps there. Might have nothing to do with meth. Where is all this conjecture coming from?”
Josh smiled. “Corbin?”
Corbin spoke up. “I didn’t paint everything I saw. Early on, when the sun was just appearing, I saw a glint in one of the upper windows. I thought it was the sun reflecting off the glass, but then realized the angle was wrong. The light had to be coming from inside the mill. And it was only there briefly. I just decided to ignore it at the time. I didn’t think of it again till today when the boys came to me. I told Josh about it while we were mulling all this over. If the guy had been only sleeping there, not doing anything else, he wouldn't have cared all that much if the boys had seen him. But he did care, and his being furtive suggests at the very least that he had something to hide.”
“We talked about this and we all agreed,” said Josh, picking up the thread from Corbin. “If this guy was just sleeping there and planning to leave early, why not do so? So what if a couple of kids were on the bank across the pond? But it did matter to him that nothing should draw interest in him or the mill. This was a perfect drop, and he didn’t want to compromise it. What other reason would he have for staying behind when leaving early was in his best interest?
“Plus, we now know who he is from the police artist’s sketch and the moped. This makes his movements at the mill more suspicious, don’t you think?”
John thought, then said, “I guess what you’re saying is plausible, enough to send some guys out there to look around. Maybe find some evidence he was there, and if we’re lucky, some meth.”
Josh smiled, then said, “You might find that, but you won’t find him, if I’m guessing right.”
John frowned. “Why not?”
“Because of what happened after that. The Scowler got word to the supplier that the drop might not be safe, as he’d seen the boys there, and shortly thereafter it was in the newspaper that Corbin Fuller had an amazing new picture in his gallery—of the old mill at sunrise. All that publicity for the mill! No, it was no longer a safe drop.”
John’s frown became a grimace. “So we’re no further ahead than we were.”
“Yes, I think we are,” Josh contradicted him, “and perhaps we even have a line on the supplier.”
“This I want to hear,” John grumbled.
“OK,” said Josh, taking another deep breath. “Don’t forget: we think we’ve fingered your middle man. That has to be a good thing. Now let’s think about the situation.
“You have a middleman who thinks the drop that’s been used can’t be in play any longer. He doesn’t know if the supplier is aware of that. If the supplier is unknown to him, he has to have a way to contact him. If the supplier is known, then he also has a way to contact him. So, either way, known or unknown, contact is probable. And the Scowler makes contact to tell the supplier, in person or by some other means, that they need a new drop.
“That may be a guess, but I think it’s solid conjecture. I think that’s what happened. From here on, it’s pure guesswork, but the facts we do have don’t eliminate it. And from what Parrish tells me, you don’t even have a theory, so, after hearing this, maybe you will.”
Josh didn’t say this in a confrontational way at all. He just spoke in a fact-stating, even-keeled sort of way, not wanting to incur rancor. He’d spoken to unbelieving adults about things before.
Even so, John looked pissed. Josh ignored him.
“OK, from what you told us, meth use is up rather than down. That must mean sales are up, and for sales to be up, demand is up. If demand is up, then there’s pressure on the supplier to produce product or his territory will probably be invaded, and he doesn’t want that. So…”
He paused for another drink, and, incidentally, to keep John waiting so he’d really listen.
“The supplier has a store of product, or more likely, it’s easily available to him. What he doesn’t have is a secure drop point—at least temporarily until they can replace the mill with another permanent location. So, what does he do? He uses what’s handy, and what he can vouch for as safe. Make sense?”
John grunted. “Go ahead,” he muttered.
“OK. We know where the Scowler hangs out. The library. We learned of a very neglected place in the library: the two upper floors. It’s a place only naked boys go.” He grinned, then moved on quickly before John could think about it.
“What happened next was seen by Dill and Kirk. Dill saw a woman walk upstairs to get a book, something she’d never done before. In fact, in all the time he’d been at the library, he’d never seen anyone go up those stairs before. That gave him the urge to explore up there just to see what it was like. Well, one thing led to another, and he was up there awhile. When he came down, he met the Scowler on the stairs, headed upwards.
“So, here’s what I think. It’s possible the lady was the supplier, making the drop out of the purse she was carrying when she went up. And the middleman was going up after her to make the pickup and to make sure the two boys who’d gone up after she did hadn’t discovered it.”
John sat still, mulling it over. “So the supplier is a woman?”
Josh shook his head. “I doubt it. I think he’s a man who dresses as a woman. A disguise. I’d guess—I do a lot of guessing, I know—that the Scowler still doesn’t know who the supplier is. He was probably told that the woman who frequented the library would be coerced to make the drop for him and where she would leave it, and after she came down from above, he should wait a few minutes, then pick up the stuff.”
“Why do you think she’s a he?”
“Because this is much more something a man does than a woman, but also, we think this guy is pretty sharp, and if he’s going to be out in public, to be safe, to feel safe, he probably would use a disguise. And there’s one other thing.” He turned and looked at Dill, then finished. “Dill said she always wore heavy makeup. That could be to cover any five o’clock shadow.”