Page 39 of All Good People Here

“Hello?” he answered.

“Pete, hi. This is Margot Davies.”

“Oh, Margot, hey.” He sounded pleasantly surprised. “How’d you get my number?”

“I called the station and Deb at reception gave it to me. Didn’t take much convincing, actually.”

Pete laughed. “Ah, yeah, Deb’s not exactly a steel trap. What’s up?”

“I’m calling for a favor.” Margot squished up her face. Asking for help did not come easily to her.

“Okay…What is it?”

“I’m leaving town for a few days and I was wondering…Do you think you could swing by my uncle’s house a couple of times? Just, like, once a day to check on him? I’m sorry to ask, but I suggested a part-time caregiver and it didn’t exactly go over well and I don’t know what else to do.”

“Oh. Sure,” he said. “No problem.”

Margot let out a breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding. “Really?”

“Yeah, of course. Like I said, I went through this with my grandpa and it’s tough. I get it.” The kindness in his voice made Margot’s throat tighten. “Anyway,” he said. “I’m on patrol for the next few days, so it’ll be easy to stop by. Just give me the address.”

“Thank you,” she said after she’d told him the street name and number. “That’s…thank you. And if it’s possible…could you sort of try to be, like, subtle about what you’re doing there? Maybe say you’re looking for me or something? I don’t want him to…”

“Hey,” he said before she could think of how to finish. “I get it. No problem.”

She closed her eyes. “Thank you, Pete. I owe you.”

“You’re good. Anyway, where’re you headed?”

“Chicago. I’m pretty sure that’s where Jace went. I’m gonna try to track him down for an interview.”

There was a brief silence, then, “Wow. Okay…Are you sure you wanna do that?”

She let out a small breath of laughter. “I’ll be fine, Pete. This isn’t the first time I’ve interviewed someone about a crime.”

“No, I know. But it’s more than that. I remember Jace from school. He was…not a good guy.”

Margot thought back to her conversation with Eli. He’d painted a picture of Jace as a regularly angsty teenager, one who stayed out late, smoked weed, and probably did a bunch of other stupid stuff teenagers did. It was no more than she’d done herself. “We can’t all be perfect, Pete.”

“No, Margot, you don’t get it. You left when we were—what? Eight?”

“Eleven.”

“Eleven. Okay. So before any of us really grew up. You didn’t see what Jace was like. He was fucked up.”

Margot frowned. “Fucked up how?”

“Like, he got busted in seventh grade for starting a fire in one of the bathroom trash cans. I don’t think he was trying to burn down the school or anything, but it got out of control and we all had to evacuate. He got into a lot of trouble for it.”

“What?”

“Yeah. And in ninth grade, he beat up Trey Wagner so bad the guy had to go to the hospital.”

She closed her eyes, thinking about how Billy had described his son in the years after January’s death. What had he said? That Jacetended to get into a bit of trouble. Nothing too bad, just boy stuff.She’d gotten the feeling he’d been protecting Jace when he’d said this, but the discrepancy between a bit of trouble and putting a kid in the hospital was a pretty big gulf. “Jesus.”

“And that evidence I told you about? January’s blood on his pajamas? A lot of the older guys here think that means he killed his sister.” By this point, Margot had assumed some of the Wakarusa PD must harbor that theory, but hearing it spoken aloud still unsettled her. “I have no idea what happened that night,” Pete said. “But if they’re right and Jace, at the age of six, did kill someone, accident or not, think about what he could be capable of now.”

“Yeah. Okay.” Margot pinched the bridge of her nose. “Listen, I should go. Thanks again for checking on my uncle.”

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