Read Online The September Sisters by Jillian Cantor - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Jillian Cantor
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exactly give them credit for. “How long does it take to find somebody?”he said, and I think the fact that it took them that long was not a good sign.
His name was Oscar P. Derricks. The police found him after pulling him over in what Harry called a routine traffic stop. They found a Baggie of marijuana in the glove compartment and took him into the station, and someone there put two and two together. It was Kinney, not Harry, who called my father to tell him about it. This was when we also found out that Kinney had been put in charge of the case in order to avoid a “conflict of interest,” something my father said was bullshit.
What I know about Oscar Derricks came from the little I overheard of my father on the phone and the very little my father told me. Oscar was twenty-four years old; he was a high school dropout; his permanent residence was listed as a subsidized apartment in Camden. Apparently he worked as a delivery driver for FTD, delivering flowers and such. Sometimes he’d make deliveries in Pinesboro, though not often, only when the regular guy was sick or flooded with calls. He hadn’t made any deliveries in Pinesboro the week of Becky’s disappearance.
When the police asked him what he had been doing on my street, sitting in his van, he denied ever being there atfirst. The police got a search warrant for his van, his apartment, his workplace, but the only thing they turned up was fourteen pounds of marijuana, which he admitted he’d been selling.
Oscar’s story checked out when the police turned up one of Oscar’s best customers, Shawn Olney.
“I can’t believe there drugs in this neighborhood,” Mrs. Ramirez clucked one day on the ride home from school. “Used to be safe for the children.”
“Do you think he knows where Becky is?” I asked her.
She shook her head. “He sell the drug. Little Shawn. I remember him when he this high.” She held up her hand to show the size of a toddler. “He always such nice boy. He shovel my driveway when it snow.” I thought about Mrs. Olney attacking my father in the supermarket aisle, and I felt a cruel sense of satisfaction that Shawn had indeed been doing something wrong.
A few days after the police found Oscar, they charged him with drug-related crimes, but they were thoroughly convinced that he had nothing to do with Becky’s disappearance. “If he didn’t take her, then who did?” I asked my father.
He shrugged. “That’s the same thing Kinney said to meearlier.” Only I guess what my father meant was that Kinney had said it in a much more accusatory way.
After Oscar was cleared, my father hired a lawyer and a private investigator. I heard about the private investigator through Mrs. Ramirez, because he was a friend of one of her sons-in-law. “He good man,” she told me. “He find your hermana just like that.” She lifted her fingers from the steering wheel to snap, and I felt the car jerk to the right a little bit. “You no worry now.”
I found out about the lawyer only because he called one day right after I got home from school. When my mother didn’t answer the phone in her bedroom, I picked up. The man on the other end asked for my father, and when I told him he wasn’t home and asked if I could take a message, he informed me that he was my father’s attorney, Raymond Garth, and that he would appreciate it if my father could please return his call.
It made me nervous that my father had a lawyer. I wondered if the police were planning on arresting my parents.
I thought about what would happen to me if they did, where I would live. Both sets of my grandparents are dead. My father has a sister in Ohio he doesn’t talk to much, AuntClaire. I’d met her only once, and she seemed like the sort of cold woman who would sew a lot and ask children to mind their manners. I didn’t think I’d have to live with her, but maybe I would. After all, she was my only blood relative.
I didn’t think Mrs. Ramirez would take me
His name was Oscar P. Derricks. The police found him after pulling him over in what Harry called a routine traffic stop. They found a Baggie of marijuana in the glove compartment and took him into the station, and someone there put two and two together. It was Kinney, not Harry, who called my father to tell him about it. This was when we also found out that Kinney had been put in charge of the case in order to avoid a “conflict of interest,” something my father said was bullshit.
What I know about Oscar Derricks came from the little I overheard of my father on the phone and the very little my father told me. Oscar was twenty-four years old; he was a high school dropout; his permanent residence was listed as a subsidized apartment in Camden. Apparently he worked as a delivery driver for FTD, delivering flowers and such. Sometimes he’d make deliveries in Pinesboro, though not often, only when the regular guy was sick or flooded with calls. He hadn’t made any deliveries in Pinesboro the week of Becky’s disappearance.
When the police asked him what he had been doing on my street, sitting in his van, he denied ever being there atfirst. The police got a search warrant for his van, his apartment, his workplace, but the only thing they turned up was fourteen pounds of marijuana, which he admitted he’d been selling.
Oscar’s story checked out when the police turned up one of Oscar’s best customers, Shawn Olney.
“I can’t believe there drugs in this neighborhood,” Mrs. Ramirez clucked one day on the ride home from school. “Used to be safe for the children.”
“Do you think he knows where Becky is?” I asked her.
She shook her head. “He sell the drug. Little Shawn. I remember him when he this high.” She held up her hand to show the size of a toddler. “He always such nice boy. He shovel my driveway when it snow.” I thought about Mrs. Olney attacking my father in the supermarket aisle, and I felt a cruel sense of satisfaction that Shawn had indeed been doing something wrong.
A few days after the police found Oscar, they charged him with drug-related crimes, but they were thoroughly convinced that he had nothing to do with Becky’s disappearance. “If he didn’t take her, then who did?” I asked my father.
He shrugged. “That’s the same thing Kinney said to meearlier.” Only I guess what my father meant was that Kinney had said it in a much more accusatory way.
After Oscar was cleared, my father hired a lawyer and a private investigator. I heard about the private investigator through Mrs. Ramirez, because he was a friend of one of her sons-in-law. “He good man,” she told me. “He find your hermana just like that.” She lifted her fingers from the steering wheel to snap, and I felt the car jerk to the right a little bit. “You no worry now.”
I found out about the lawyer only because he called one day right after I got home from school. When my mother didn’t answer the phone in her bedroom, I picked up. The man on the other end asked for my father, and when I told him he wasn’t home and asked if I could take a message, he informed me that he was my father’s attorney, Raymond Garth, and that he would appreciate it if my father could please return his call.
It made me nervous that my father had a lawyer. I wondered if the police were planning on arresting my parents.
I thought about what would happen to me if they did, where I would live. Both sets of my grandparents are dead. My father has a sister in Ohio he doesn’t talk to much, AuntClaire. I’d met her only once, and she seemed like the sort of cold woman who would sew a lot and ask children to mind their manners. I didn’t think I’d have to live with her, but maybe I would. After all, she was my only blood relative.
I didn’t think Mrs. Ramirez would take me
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