Thread of Truth, стр. 20
“Who exactly should I ask?”
He stepped in closer to me, trying to look mean. “I told you to fuck off.”
I held my ground. “It's easy to see why she dumped you. Even dead, I'll bet Desmond looks better to her than you.”
He took a step back and I saw it coming a mile away. He came around with his right arm. I stepped in closer to him, grabbed the arm, and twisted it as hard as I could. He yelped and went down on his back. I locked my hand around his wrist and twisted his arm as far as I could without tearing it off.
“Jesus,” he gasped. “Let go. That hurts.”
I cranked it a fraction more and his body jerked on the ground. “Who should I ask about Desmond?”
His face contorted with pain. “Come on!”
I uncranked his arm and his body relaxed. He was breathing heavy, his body rising up and down against the pavement.
“School,” he said, in between gasps for air. “Just ask around at school. I'm not lying.”
I dropped his arm and he pulled it in close to his body, hugging it.
“You better not be,” I said. “Or I'll be back.”
SEVENTEEN
I called Tom Locker and asked if he could send me a list of Desmond's friends from school. He told me he'd send it as soon as we hung up. Two minutes later, I had an email from him with names and contact info.
“But your best bet would be the skate park by the school,” he wrote. “That's where Des hung out when he wasn’t working or with Olivia, and that's where you'll find them.” He included an address for the park. I typed it into my maps app and headed in that direction.
The park was back closer to the Locker home, nestled in the middle of a neighborhood filled with identical-looking tract homes and postage stamp lawns. The skating area was adjacent to a basketball court. There were multiple ramps and ledges and other things I didn't know the names of, and maybe half a dozen skaters using every inch of the space.
I parked at the curb and headed over.
The first thing I noticed was the heavy odor of marijuana in the air. The second thing was how all of the skaters stopped and watched me approach. They didn't look terribly welcoming.
They were a crew of six but two of them took the lead, taking a couple steps toward me as I reached the edge of the concrete that the obstacles rested on.
“Park's closed,” the tall, thin one said. He wore a black helmet with a Mickey Mouse sticker on it. The strap on the helmet was loose under his chin and didn't look like it would keep it on his head. He wore a long-sleeved gray T-shirt and khaki shorts that hung low on his hips. “Sorry.”
“I don't think you can close a park,” I told him. “And I didn't come to skate.”
“No shit, dude,” the stockier kid next to my initial greeter said. He had on nearly the same outfit, sans the helmet.
“No shit I didn't come to skate or no shit you were aware you can't close a park?” I asked. “Be more specific.”
He frowned, then turned and spit on the ground. He had his board under his left foot and he rocked it back and forth gently.
I looked at the tall kid. “You guys know Desmond Locker?”
Something flashed in the tall kid's eyes. “Yeah. Do you?”
I shook my head. “Never met him. Did you know he's dead?”
“Shit,” the stocky kid whispered.
There was some murmuring in the group behind them.
“Bullshit,” the tall kid said. “He's not dead.”
“They found him on Torrey Pines Road yesterday,” I said. “Car hit him.”
The shorter kid seemed genuinely distraught. He ran a hand through his hair and shook his head. “Damn.”
“How do you know?” the taller kid asked, still skeptical.
“Because I found him,” I said. “I'm working for his parents. They hired me to locate him. My name's Joe.”
“Are you a cop?” the shorter one asked, squinting at me.
I shook my head. “Not a cop. His dad said he hung out here?”
They all sort of looked at one another before the taller one nodded. “Yeah. He skated here.”
I pulled out my phone and tapped the screen. “Are you...Donnie?”
He raised his eyebrows, surprised. “Yeah. How'd you know my name?”
“Mr. Locker gave me the names of some of his friends,” I said. “Told me I might find you here.”
I didn't tell him that Tom had also given me a few physical descriptors to help identify everyone.
“You guys see him recently?” I asked.
They all shook their heads.
“He was pretty busy,” Donnie said.
The shorter one snickered. Donnie glared at him and poked him in the arm.
“What's so funny?” I asked.
“Nothing,” Donnie said. “He's just an idiot. But we hadn't seen him for a while. He was working and he and his girlfriend were having a baby. He didn't have much time to skate. Sucked.”
“Right,” I said. “You know his girlfriend?”
Donnie shrugged. “Sure. Olivia. She's okay. But she didn't skate much, so she wasn't here a whole lot.”
“How about Sal Boston?”
Donnie rolled his eyes and another murmur rippled through the group.
“I take it you know him,” I said.
“He's a dick,” the shorter kid said.
“He is,” I said. “I left him rolling around in his driveway because he tried to take a swing at me.”
The short kid laughed. “Cool.”
“He claims Desmond might've been hiding a few things,” I said. I looked at Donnie, since he'd been the most talkative. “Know anything about that?”
“What'd he say?” Donnie asked.
“Just that I should ask around school,” I answered. “I assumed he meant talking to you guys, but I'm just trying to get a handle on this.”
“Why would what was going on at school matter if he got hit by a car?”
“I don't know that it does. I'm just trying to get a sense of what was going on in Desmond's life,” I told him. “And the way you just said that makes me think there was