The Replacement Child - By Christine Barber Page 0,53
wrong?” he asked.
“Just girl stuff,” she said and went back to her sweeping.
At ten P.M., he turned on the local news. The investigation into Melissa’s death was the lead story. They had picked up the Capital Tribune’s article about her drug use. But they went further than the newspaper article: they mentioned her brother Daniel’s drug death and had talked to the Bacas’ next-door neighbor, who said into the camera with enthusiasm, “If I thought one of my kids was doing drugs, I’d kill them.”
Lucy was bored. She was reading articles on the Associated Press wire on her computer when she heard a voice behind. She spun around in her chair without thinking.
And came face-to-face with Mrs. Claire Schoen. Hell. Damn. Dear God, please make her have Alzheimer’s or dementia or maybe a bad case of glaucoma so she can’t see me.
“I thought you were an EMT?” Mrs. Schoen said shrewdly.
Oh, hell.
“Um … I am a medic, but I just do that as a volunteer. I really work here.” Smile brightly, Lucy thought, smile brightly.
“You could have told me that when we talked before. How much of what you told me was bullshit?” Mrs. Schoen’s voice was cold. Help. Change the subject.
“So can I help you with something?” Keep smiling brightly, Lucy.
Mrs. Schoen watched her closely for another moment before saying, “Someone named Tommy Martinez asked me to drop off this photo of Patsy.”
Lucy noticed that she was clutching a picture. She could just make out the image of a group of women who looked like they were playing cards.
“Right. I didn’t know Tommy had asked you to do that,” Lucy said. “Um … Well … We just need a photo of…” Lucy almost said “Scanner Lady.” “We just need a photo of Mrs. Burke to put in the story for tomorrow’s paper. That way the readers know what she looked like. We do that a lot in cases like this.”
Claire Schoen just stared at her.
“Let me have you talk to the photo editor,” Lucy said as she steered Mrs. Schoen to the darkroom and made the introductions.
Lucy sat back down at her desk and cursed up a holy storm, trying to remember what lies she had told Mrs. Schoen. Lucy had purposely tried to give her the impression that she was a full-time medic. Damn. This was karma coming back to bite her in the butt.
As Mrs. Schoen was leaving, Lucy stopped her. “Look, I’m sorry I didn’t say anything before about working here. I’m an idiot. I wasn’t trying to trick you. I’m … I’m very sorry about Mrs. Burke. Honestly.”
Tears came to Mrs. Schoen’s eyes as she said, “Thank you, bless your heart.” She wiped away the tears with a Kleenex she pulled out of her bra and said, “The more you cry, the less you pee.” Then she walked away.
Lucy was finished with work by eleven forty-five P.M. and by midnight she was sitting at the Cowgirl bar with a table of drunk journalists from both local papers. No wonder the public had no faith in the press. They were all alcoholics.
The letter of the night was S. Lucy had started with a screwdriver and a stinger. Now she was waiting for the waitress to deliver her snakebite—whatever that was—while she and the copy editors debated whether a slow comfortable screw counted as two S’s or one. She had wanted a tequila sunrise but a cute sports reporter from the Santa Fe Times had nixed that, saying that the drink had to start with an S to count, not end in one. Lucy could have argued the point. The game was of her creation, after all, but she decided instead to go sit on the sports reporter’s lap. It seemed like a good solution.
She hadn’t even considered not drinking tonight. She thought she would go insane if she kept thinking of Patsy Burke. Or kept trying not to think of her. Lucy took a sip of her snakebite and changed it to a gulp in midsip. She would give up drinking tomorrow. Maybe. If she didn’t find another dead body. If she didn’t get someone else killed. Help. Another gulp.
She tried to focus her attention on the man whose lap she was sitting on. She took his beer out of his hand and put the mug on the table. Then she took his now-free hand and wrapped it around her waist.
“I was falling off,” she said, smiling. He smiled back. They talked in the slurry voices