resistance. Beneath him, Karl could hear the kid sobbing. He smelled like a brewery.
“How much did you drink, Drew?”
“What does it matter now?”
“You shouldn’t have been driving.”
“I don’t care. I don’t give a shit about anything anymore.”
He stood the kid up, trying not to get blood on his uniform. Drew lunged for Julian, but Karl managed to hold on to him long enough to guide him into the backseat of the cruiser. Once inside, Drew fell sideways onto the seat and continued to sob. After closing the door, Karl approached father and son.
“What happened?”
“He came over here and assaulted us. I want to press charges against that boy,” Beckett said.
“Any reason why he attacked your son?” He looked at Julian’s bloody face.
“He’s drunk and pissed off that his girlfriend chose to hang out with me instead of him,” Julian said. “We were tight.”
“Tight?”
“For real.”
“My son has done nothing wrong, Officer,” Beckett said.
“Seriously, I would have kicked his ass if my pops hadn’t come out swinging.”
“Look what he’s done,” Beckett said, pointing toward his ripped-up lawn. “He even threw a rock through our window. That kid was drunk and out of his mind. It’s a good thing he didn’t kill anyone while driving over here.”
“I’m going to take him down to the station. Do you need medical attention, Julian?”
“A little ice on that bruise and he’ll be fine,” Beckett said.
“With all due respect, sir, I was asking your son.”
Beckett turned and looked at Julian with a glare, which Karl interpreted as threatening. Something told him that the McCallister family dynamics were a lot more complicated than anyone believed.
“Nah, I’m good,” Julian said, eyeing his father warily.
“I’ll be in touch, then,” Karl said.
“I fully expect charges to be brought. And I want this piece of shit towed off my lawn as soon as possible,” Beckett muttered.
“I’ll call the tow company, but it may be a while before anyone gets here. I’ll take a statement from you later,” Karl told him.
With Drew lying silent in the backseat, he headed back to the station. What the hell was going on in this town?
* * *
After processing Drew and locking him up, he called the boy’s parents. They informed him that Drew could stay in jail for the night. That would teach the kid a lesson. Typical fisherman hard-ass family. Then again, Karl knew his own parents would have done the same thing had he done what Drew had.
He went to the computer and typed in the name Jalen Stark and “Los Angeles” and was surprised to see a number of listings. Jalen Stark’s father was African American and had played seven years of professional football before retiring. His mother had been a Playboy centerfold and a wannabe reality star. The first ten entries were about his death. He clicked on one and read quotes from his parents, all of which expressed their profound sadness at Jalen’s passing. They claimed not to have known that their son was a hard-drug user. The detective on the case, Tilly Cruz, was quoted as saying that it appeared to be an overdose, but that they were still looking into the boy’s death.
On a whim, Karl called the LA Police Department, explained his situation, and asked to speak to Detective Cruz. He was expecting a callback, but he heard a Latino woman’s voice answer almost immediately.
“Yeah, I remember that case,” Cruz said. “It was ruled a heroin overdose for lack of any other evidence.”
“Did you suspect otherwise?”
“It was weird. The kid had no history of hard-drug use, according to his parents. No track marks on his arm. No evidence he used anything stronger than weed. Then again, it was well known that he liked to have a good time.”
“So you assumed that he tried heroin once and accidentally overdosed?”
“That’s pretty much all we could conclude from the evidence.”
“Any indication that he knew or was friends with a Willow Briggs?”
“Let me access the file on my computer.” A few minutes of Cruz humming passed. “Here it is. Seems this boy had a lot of girlfriends. And yes, one of them was named Willow Briggs, but we didn’t question her. No reason to. His mother said he went over to her house from time to time.”
“She was a freshman then.”
“Yes, and he was a senior.”
He thanked the detective and hung up. His hand shook because of the overwhelming feeling that he was getting closer to the truth—and that the truth would lead him back to Willow Briggs. He speculated that she