Blood Ties by S. J. Rozan Page A

her green Corolla. I wondered about the story she’d write, how something like this looked when it happened in your town and you were seventeen.
    Then I’d made two phone calls. The first was to Morgan Reed.
    He answered the phone himself with a sullen, “Hello.”
    â€œBill Smith,” I said. “Cops leave yet?”
    â€œMan, what the fuck are you calling for?” Rage boiled through the phone. “Did you tell them to come here?”
    â€œDon’t be stupid. Detective Sullivan took one look at that house, you were the first name that sprang to mind.”
    â€œGo fuck yourself.”
    â€œDon’t hang up on me, Morgan, I’ll just come over. I want to know if Gary Russell was at Tory Wesley’s party Saturday night.”
    â€œOh, fuck that party! I wish I never went to that fucking party!”
    â€œBut you did go?” I said it as a question, but neither of us thought it was.
    â€œIt’s a fucking joke, too, because like I told Sullivan, I was so fucking wasted, I came home early. People were still coming when I left. Maybe Gary got there, maybe he didn’t. I didn’t see him. Who cares?”
    â€œI guess Jim Sullivan already asked you if you killed her?”
    â€œFuck you!”
    â€œDid you know she was dead?”
    â€œNo!” His voice tamped down. “I knew shit like that, I’d tell somebody.”
    That’s what you say, I thought, until you know shit like that, and you know people you’re tied up with are involved, will be in trouble if you tell somebody. I watched a car pull into the space Stacie Phillips had pulled out of. All right, I told myself, let it go. I asked Morgan Reed, “Do you know who killed her?”
    â€œHow could I, I didn’t know she was dead?” The sneer was back. Another victory over a dumb adult.
    â€œDid the reason Gary Russell went to New York have something to do with what happened at Tory Wesley’s?”
    â€œI don’t know. I got no idea why he went and guess what? I don’t give a shit.”
    â€œI don’t buy it,” I said. “You’re a quarterback, he’s your receiver. I didn’t play, but I remember who was tight.”
    â€œThe guy’s new,” Morgan snapped. “And him and me, we don’t start.” Meaning the thing that would tie them together, these boys, create a bond they would both remember as the best friendship they’d ever had: that thing hadn’t happened yet.
    â€œOkay,” I said, and then because he was still a fifteen-year-old kid and some things were important to him, I said, “Have a good practice.”
    â€œI can’t go to practice!” The real reason for his fury came out in a blast of outrage at the scale of the injustice. “My mom was so pissed when that asshole Sullivan came here and she found out about the party, I’m fucking grounded.”
    I called Lydia.
    â€œThat camp,” I said. “Someone there has got to know something about this girl’s death, what happened at that party. It might be one of them who killed her.” I told Lydia about Stacie Phillips. “She said they were all bound to have been there, including Gary. And that Reed kid just about confirmed it. Whatever Gary’s up to, it’s got to have something to do with what happened there.”
    â€œI tried to call that kid at the camp, the one you wanted me to talk to, Randy Macpherson, but guess what—you can’t talk to the kids.”
    â€œWhile they’re at practice?”
    â€œAt all. No phone calls while they’re at camp, except for certified emergencies.”
    â€œYou’re kidding.”
    â€œIt sounded weird to me, too, but I decided it must be a guy thing. A football thing. You know, for building men.”
    â€œA lot of sarcasm going around today.”
    â€œFootball brings that out in me. What do you want me to do?”
    â€œAbout that,