Vengeance Road by Rick Mofina Page B

there’s nothing in the papers about it. Even right after they found Bernice.”
    â€œI had it.”
    â€œYeah, you did. A few days later, we all thought, Great! Yes! Nailed Him! And you were, like, a hero. This Gannon guy’s good. He prints the truth, you know.”
    Gannon didn’t say anything.
    â€œThen your paper prints a correction, retraction thing, like the stuff about Styebeck was all a big mistake, and we’re all, like, ‘what the—?’ Know what I mean? What happened?”
    â€œThe paper was told that Styebeck was downtown that night doing some community-outreach work for a charity and wrongly got caught up in the investigation of Bernice’s murder.”
    â€œThat’s a crock of shit.”
    â€œWhat do you mean? He goes down there to help, right?”
    â€œYeah, right. This is what he does, every month or so. Styebeck comes down there and first he gets in our face. He calls us whores and wants to save us. We tell him to go f—,” Tuesday caught herself. “We tell him to take a hike.”
    Gannon took notes.
    â€œHe goes away then he comes back, and it’s like his whole personality’s changed. He wants to date some of the girls, but he asks for girls who are shaved.”
    â€œShaved?”
    â€œNo hair down there because he likes them ‘young and clean,’ he says.”
    Gannon flipped quickly to a clear page.
    â€œAnything else?” he asked.
    â€œOne girl said he once told her that he knew he was sick for what he was doing, and that he was that way because of his father.”
    â€œHis father? Did he say any more about that?”
    â€œNo, that’s all I’d heard,” Tuesday said.
    â€œWhat about the night before Bernice was killed?”
    â€œHe was bothering Bernice that night. He was in her face. We told the detectives. And he was asking us about some stupid truck. Some of the girls said they saw it.”
    â€œWhat kind of truck?” he asked.
    â€œI don’t know. It was in the news—a blue truck with writing on the door, or something.”
    â€œWhat about Jolene Peller?”
    â€œWho?”
    â€œJolene Peller. She had a little boy and was trying to get out of the life.”
    â€œYou talking about J.P. Got a boy named Jody?”
    â€œCody,” Gannon said.
    â€œThat’s her. Yes. I heard she left town.”
    â€œShe was supposed to leave for Florida the night Bernice disappeared from the street. Jolene’s mother says she never got there and she hasn’t heard from her.”
    â€œOh Christ, does anybody know what happened?”
    â€œNo. Did anyone see her talking to Bernice that night?”
    Tuesday shook her head.
    â€œI can ask around.” She sifted through her bag for her wallet and then showed him a snapshot of her laughing with Bernice Hogan in front of Toronto’s skyline.
    â€œThat’s us a few months ago. We went shopping in Canada. Bernie was like a little sister to a few girls on the street. She didn’t belong there. I mean, who does?”
    Gannon nodded.
    â€œI grew up in St. Paul, Minnesota, where my family was a freak show. Got pregnant by my stepdad, who turned me out to his two friends for drugs. By the time I was sixteen, I’d had two abortions. One day, I stole all the cash I could find and just left on a bus to anywhere. We all make mistakes. We all mess up.”
    Tuesday’s eyes teared as she placed her photo back in her wallet. “Your job is to tell the truth, right?”
    Gannon nodded.
    â€œPeople think we’re garbage,” she said, “that we deserve the life we’re in, that we’re something you scrape off of your shoe. Nobody deserves what happened to Bernice. You’ve got to tell the truth about what’s happening with Styebeck, because if you don’t do it, who will? And if the truth doesn’t come out, who’s gonna stop him?”
    â€œI’m just a