Page 84

“He came to me—”
“Coach Testen?” Mallinger repeated.
“He borrowed my truck. He said he wanted to move some stuff out of Josie’s place. Later, when he brought it back, it was like this. I asked him about it. You gotta know I asked him about it. Look what he did to my truck. I asked him and Coach says, he says, ‘Looks like we don’t need to worry about McKenzie anymore.’ ”
Mallinger grabbed my wrist and squeezed hard to keep me from speaking.
“When did this happen?” she said.
“Yesterday morning,” Hugoson said. “He took the truck at about seven. He brought it back just before noon.”
“He said, ‘We don’t need to worry about McKenzie, anymore.’ Exactly those words.”
“Yes.”
“What else did he say?”
“He said to keep my mouth shut or he’d fuck me over, too.”
“Coach said that?”
“Not those exact words, but that’s what he meant.”
“You didn’t do anything about it?”
“No.”
“What about Josie?”
“I didn’t hear about Josie until—until later that night.”
“What did you think when you heard about Josie?”
“I thought Coach must’ve fucked him, too.”
“Still you did nothing?”
Mallinger scowled again when I asked, “What does he have on you, Gene?”
Hugoson began massaging his temples.
“A while ago, he and Josie—they asked me if I had—They said they didn’t want to go through a dealer. They asked . . . shit. I gave them some anhydrous ammonia.”
Shit is right.
“What is anhydrous ammonia?” Mallinger asked.
“It’s a chemical fertilizer,” Hugoson said. “Farmers use it in the spring and fall to add nitrogen to the soil.”
“It’s also a chief ingredient in the manufacture of methamphetamine,” I added. “Did you know Coach Testen and Josie were cooking meth?”
“No, but . . .”
“But what?” asked Mallinger.
“I knew they weren’t growing soybeans.”
“Why didn’t you come forward?” Mallinger asked. “If you knew they were cooking meth, why didn’t you say so? When Josie was killed . . .”
“I couldn’t. Don’t you see? I gave Coach the fertilizer. Later, when he brought the truck back, he told me if I said anything, he’d take me down with him, claim I was in on it. What could I do? Tell me, what could I do? Even if I beat the meth rap, I’m not supposed to go anywhere near the bad thing. They would have violated my parole sure as shit. I can’t go back to prison.”
“Why did you give him the fertilizer in the first place?”
“He was my coach.”
It was one of the few things Hugoson said that I understood. I’ve had coaches I would have walked through fire for.
“Josie and the Coach dealing meth,” Mallinger said. “It doesn’t make sense.”
“It makes perfect sense,” I told her.
“How does it make perfect sense?”
“People deal drugs for only one reason. Money. Josie needed a lot of cash for his pull-tab enterprises, and Coach—I saw his house, his car, his clothes. I didn’t think of it at the time, but he does awfully well for a retired high school basketball coach.”
“Not much money in coachin’ high school ball,” Hugoson said. “Coach had his pension—thirty years in the school system. He figured the town owed him more. He figured it shoulda done better by him. He had, whatchamacallit, illusions of grandeur.”
“Delusions,” I said.
“What?”
“Never mind.”
Hugoson stood a few feet off. He was looking down at the toes of his heavy boots, probably wondering what was going to happen next. Mallinger gave him a hint when she went to the back of the pickup and examined the bed.
“We’re going to impound your truck,” she said.
“I need my truck,” Hugoson said.
“I want the county lab to take a look, see if they can find anything, any residue, that could link it to a meth lab.”
“That’s why Coach borrowed it,” I said. “To haul away Josie’s lab.”
“After I talk to the county attorney, you’re going to come in, Gene. You’re going to make a full statement—on camera—and then you’re going to testify in court.”
“I promise, Chief. I’ll do everything you tell me that’ll keep me from going back to prison. Only, beyond what I just told you—the truth is, I never saw Coach or Josie with meth, never saw them sell it or cook it or anything. So I don’t know.”
“Just tell us what you do know.”
“Yes, sir . . . ma’am. Yes.”
“In the meantime . . .”
Mallinger turned and walked out of the pole barn. Before following her, I turned on Hugoson.
“Listen to me.” I was leaning so close to Hugoson that I could have kissed him. “Listen to me carefully. The night Elizabeth was killed—”
“I had nothing—”
“Shut up and listen! After you guys had your fun, after she left, what did you do?”
“Had a beer.”
I was so angry now I was shaking.