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LaChance had repulsed me long before he metastasized into a personal injury attorney. Five years older than Kevin and me, he’d skulked around with high school kids long after he’d graduated. He had no friends; a weasel like him rarely did, but he’d provided a useful link to local liquor stores. During his senior year, Chuck knocked up a fi fteen-year-old cheerleader from the Catholic high school. Rumor: Her father threatened a charge of 34
    statutory rape unless Chuck married the girl. Apparently, I sat hip-to-hip with the result of that blessed union.

    “No, I don’t like him. Does that matter?”

    “Guess not because I don’t like him sometimes, either.”

    “Does he know you hired an investigator?” Fortunately, Charles LaChance reciprocated our feelings and never used Kevin’s investigative services.

    “Yeah.” He squirmed, earlier poise gone. “Umm, he didn’t approve.” Two spots of color dotted his high cheekbones, square chin met muscled chest. “Said it wasted my money to fi nd some two-bit whore I was better off without.”

    Kevin said, “David, why don’t you start at the beginning? Julie’s asking questions since this is basically review for me.”

    Finally, the chance to try out my interview techniques. I hoped I wouldn’t come off as a hard-ass, and I bestowed my most sincere smile on David. “Start whenever you’re ready.”

    His words tumbled out like a child’s wooden blocks.
    “Sam and I met last summer working at the resort off Highway 79. I’d fi nished freshman year in college, thought I was hot shit, working the primo gig in the golf pro-shop.”
    He closed his eyes. “She waited tables in the clubhouse and wasn’t impressed with me in the least. I fell for her, fell hard.
    Crazy in love with her the fi rst time I ever saw her.” His awkward chuckle was sweet. “Sounds corny, doesn’t it?”

    35

    “No, it sounds nice.” I lit a cigarette. “Go on.”

    “We dated, neither of us expecting much since Sam was only sixteen. But she wasn’t a typical sixteen.”

    I wondered what passed for typical these days.
    “How so?”

    “She didn’t hang around me while I worked or call me three times a day. Didn’t brag to the other girls she’d hooked up with a ‘frat’ guy or expect me to chauff er her around. We just had fun.”

    When he smiled, a deep-set dimple popped out. I was utterly charmed. No wonder Samantha had played it cool.
    “She sounds like an interesting girl.”

    He nodded. “Sam was the best. She had depth, intelligence, and a great sense of humor.”

    “So, she wasn’t much like her friends?”

    David eyed my Marlboro Light with polite distaste.
    “She didn’t have many friends except for her little sister.”

    “How old is her sister?”

    “Meredith?” He scratched his chin, perplexed. “I dunno. I guess about fi fteen.”

    “So, if Sam had a problem, she’d talk to . . .”

    “Meredith usually, or me. Sam was pretty much a loner.” He shrugged, as if that were natural. “Sometimes she’d go to a priest at her church if something really bugged her.”

    “What about her parents?”

    He gave me: you’ve-got-to-be-kidding.

    36

    “Did she tell you everything?”

    “I think so.”

    “Were you intimate?”

    His chin notched higher, but the brightness in his eyes showed discomfort. “Not until the last few weeks of summer. She was pretty hardcore Catholic and wanted to wait.” His cheeks fl amed. “But, well, we didn’t.”

    Ah. Guilt. At least he wasn’t yet full of male swagger, but no doubt with his looks that’d happen eventually. Pity.
    “Did you continue your relationship after you’d gone back to college?”

    “Yes, we talked on the phone and I came back to see her at least once a month. We spent all of our time together during Christmas break.”

    I balanced the killer whale ashtray I’d bought Kevin on my knee. “How did your parents and her parents feel about your relationship?”

    “My