“Are you kidding me?” Riley sat back and shook her head as she said it. “My mother would absolutely kill me. Like, literally. Dead meat.”
“Awww, c’mon,” he said. “Just tell her you’re at a sleepover or something. She’ll never suspect a thing. My mom’s not home and we’ll have the place all to ourselves.”
He stuttered when she gave him a suspicious look and added, “ya know, to play games all night.”
“First, she would never, ever go for that. I haven’t been to a sleepover in years. And second, I don’t have any friends that I would stay with anyway. And third, I’m already pushing my luck by being out here.”
“Live a little,” he said through a greasy smile. “You know you want to.”
“Yeah. No.” Riley began stuffing her magazines into her backpack. “In fact, I gotta go. It’s late and my mom’s gonna kill me anyway.”
“That’s cool.” He stood up and took her hand. “Can I text you later?”
“Yeah, sure.”
He handed her his phone and she typed in her cell number. She handed it back to him and it dinged with a new message.
“Ah, shit,” he said in disgust.
“What’s wrong?”
“I gotta go into work. Apparently, they got a special order in for some big party tonight and Troy can’t boil the damn shrimp by himself. Stupid idiot.”
“Okay.” Riley arched her eyebrows and shrugged her shoulders. “Not even sure what that means, but that’s cool.”
“Kim and Dana couldn’t deal with that stuff either. If I didn’t work there a couple days a week, that place would fall apart.”
Riley gave him an awkward thumbs-up as she shouldered her backpack. She walked to the door and the bell tinkled as she opened it.
“Hey, but I’ll text you tonight, okay?” he jutted his chin out trying to look cool.
“Not after ten,” she pointed at him.
“Got it.”
Riley grabbed her bike and walked it to the road. She glanced at her watch. It was after six.
“Mom’s gonna kill me,” she muttered to herself as she pedaled down the sidewalk.
Troy walked into the Thai Room Restaurant and the smell of hot curry blasted him in the nose. Luckily, Barry had strolled into the Austin Fish Company and agreed to save the day and do the big order for Trixie Cameron.
“I ain’t drivin’ that shit out there though,” he’d grumbled to Troy. “You’re the delivery boy on this one, dude.”
Troy agreed and flung his grimy apron at the kid on the way out and promised he’d be back in an hour. He didn’t wait to hear Barry gripe any more about it.
Meira Carr looked fully refreshed and beautiful sitting at a small table for two. Her hair was pulled back in a tight blonde ponytail and wore a loose fitting, off the shoulder white blouse. Her lanky runner’s legs poked out of a pair of distressed denim shorts that were almost too short. Her skin was pink with her nose bordering on red. Troy guessed she looked that way from the sun she’d gotten on her run earlier. As he got closer, he realized she was glaring at her cell phone.
“Trouble in paradise?” he asked as he pulled the second chair out from under the table.
“Ugh, it’s nothing,” she said and sat down her phone. “My thirteen year old decided to go on an adventure on her own tonight to some gaming shop up the road. She’s sitting at home, grounded, and keeps trying to get me to tell her the new Wi-Fi password.”
“Hmmm,” Troy said with a grin. “No Wi-Fi, home alone, nothin’ to do? Sounds wonderful to me.”
Meira laughed. “Yeah, me too. Not so much for a teenage girl I guess.”
“I wouldn’t know.”
She laughed again. Putting her phone down, she slid a menu over to Troy. He looked over if for a minute and then put it down.
“Well, I ain’t got a clue what’s good here. You feel like makin’ a recommendation?”
“You like shrimp?”
Troy snorted and licked his lips. She smiled and winked at him.
“Then you’ve got to try the Thai Shrimp Curry. How hot?”
“They got Corona here?”
She nodded.
“Then I’ll take it as hot as they got.”
“You sure about that? Curry is pretty darn hot.”
“Bring it on.”
A few minutes later, the waiter sat their plates in front of them. Ten minutes and four beers later, Troy was mopping his forehead and cheeks.
“Dangit, woman, you weren’t kiddin’. That’s some hot stuff right there.”
Meira grinned at him.
“You shoulda warned me!” he joked.
“I tried!”
“Whew, I’m gonna get a box and save the rest…which I’ll be throwin’ in the ocean after you leave.”
She leaned back in her chair and wiped her mouth.
“If you’re going to throw it out, I’ll take it with me.”
“It’s all yours.”
Troy waved the waiter over and ordered two more Coronas. The Thai Room didn’t have any sliced oranges, so he settled for lime wedges. His mouth was on fire.
“That stuff’s hotter’n a two dollar call girl with a fifty-dollar bill. I don’t know how you can stand it.”
“Takes practice. You’ll get used to it.”
“You invitin’ me to a second date?”
“We’ll see.”
A silence fell between them, but it wasn’t awkward at all. It was sweet. Troy wondered if he was imagining it, but she reached out and touched his hand. He found himself telling her all about his adventures in Pawleys Island, down in the Keys, up to Savannah, and now here… He realized he was telling her everything. There was something about her that made him open up. He hadn’t done that in a long time. Not since…Karah. He felt himself drift down that memory until she startled him out of it.
“Why don’t you tell me why you called me and we’ll go from there. That could have a lot to do with whether or not we do this again.”
Troy took a deep breath. “I s’pose you heard about those two girls gettin’ murdered?”
She nodded and he leaned closer and lowered his voice.
“ ‘Bout how they got their heads cut off and such?”
“Yes.” Her eyes revealed suspicion.
“Well, I worked with ‘em down at the Austin Fish Company.”
“Oh?” She said taking her hand away from his.
“Yeah.”
She started to say something, but he held up a hand to stop her.
“There’s more.”
He described how he’d found their heads in lobster traps that were attached to his boat. And how he’d found two of his beds soaked in their blood. He watched as her unease became full-on fear as he told the story.
“But as bad as it sounds, I’m clean of it all. There’s a lot of stuff the police have that shows it wasn’t me. You can check it all out if you want.”
She didn’t say anything.
“Yeah. Guess there won’t be a second date after all.”
“Let’s not be hasty,” she said, but a wall had clearly gone up between them. “I’ll check all this out at the police station tomorrow and give you a call. I know Darla pretty well. She’ll show me the files.”
For a few minutes, they said nothing and she waved the waiter over for the check. It looked like she was calling this date to an end. Troy felt his stomach lurch as he swallowed the last Corona. He knew he was going pay for the curry in his belly. His cell beeped and he looked down to see a message from Barry.
-Shrimp done. All yours delivery boy.
“Okay, well,” Troy stood and opened his wallet. “I’ve got a delivery I gotta get out of the store. Maybe look up that stuff and call me tomorrow?”
“Deal.”
He put two twenties down on the table and tipped his hat to her. He turned and walked out wondering if she would ever call again. He found himself hoping she would.
7
Peace and Blessings
He almost stepped on a shaggy golden retriever lying under a charcoal grill licking the metal legs. He had a flashback to Afghanistan, but couldn’t quite remember the story that went along with the memory. The dog looked up at him and sniffed at the cooler he was carrying with Trixie Cameron’s five pounds of shrimp inside.
“Sorry, buddy. Can’t give you any now, but I’m bettin’ if you hang around long enough, there’ll be some shells scattered about.”
The dog snorted and went back to licking the grill. Troy pulled the slip of paper out of his pocket and found the lot number of the grieving mother’s trailer. He ambled down the rows of RV’s nodding to various vacationers, squatters, and vagrants huddled around campfires and picnic tables. The strong odor of citronella wafted out from every direction almost cancelling out the smell of the tide. Troy thought more than once about telling these people that citronella had almost no effect on the bugs that were biting them…but he never did. Let them have their false sense of security.
When he turned the corner of the second row, he was shocked to see the…contraption…sitting in the spot Mrs. Cameron had scribbled on the piece of paper. He didn’t know what he’d expected, but it certainly wasn’t what he saw. An over-the-cab RV with no sign of its original paint showing, hunched in the space on four rusted wheels. None of them even had a dry-rotted tire to give it the impression that it might ever move again.
The sides of the trailer were hand-painted in wild blues, oranges, yellows, greens, and reds with stars, swirls, circles, diamonds, spots, paisleys, flowers, and hearts. On top of the trailer was a pile of junk that seemed likely to start falling off and crashing to the ground any second now. Ladders, crumpled metal barrels, an old grill, the remnants of a crib, a crutch, two bicycles both missing their tires, a couple of suitcases – the Samsonite kind – and various unidentifiable hunks of rusty metal perched precariously on top of the vehicle.
The passenger’s side of the windshield was also painted over with a yellow and purple peace sign. The view into the driver’s side was obstructed with a velvet painting of Jesus. Troy tipped his cap to the smiling image and took a long slow breath.
He walked to the side of the trailer and rapped his knuckles on the door through a torn screen. He could hear the sounds of music drifting through the open windows and Bob Marley told him not to worry ‘bout a ting.
“Hold your horses. I’m comin’, I’m comin’,” Trixie’s voice echoed from inside.
The sounds of someone stomping through the trailer and maybe throwing things out of the way rattled around, as she got closer to the door. She jerked the door open with a loud squeak and a bang as it flung to the side.
“What is it?”
She stood in the doorway, one arm propped above her head leaning against the doorjamb. Her eyes were bloodshot and her hair was a rat’s nest. She didn’t look anything like she had earlier when she came by to order the shrimp. Also gone were the black jeans she’d had on, replaced by a pair of rebel flag boxers. They hung loosely on her hips threatening to fall to her ankles. The tank top was skewed to the side, one shoulder hanging off. It was like that scene from Flashdance, but on acid.
“Got yer shrimp.” Troy held up the white Styrofoam cooler and shook it a little.
Trixie Cameron struggled to make sense of what he’d said. Troy could almost see the fog in her mind trying desperately to clear. She stoned out of her gourd, he thought.
“You know…for the memorial gatherin’?”
Something seemed to click and she smiled.
“Right, right,” she said.
She didn’t make any move to take the cooler, invite him in, or send him away. She just stood there smiling oddly.
“So…I’ll just leave this on the table?”
“Oh, yeah. Right.”
She pulled her arm down and waved it behind her into the trailer.
“C’mon in. Everybody’s done left, but we can sit a while if you want.”
“Maybe I’ll just leave the shrimp and let you be.”
She grabbed his elbow and tugged him inside.
“No, no, no. Don’t do that,” she whined. “I wouldn’t be able to eat all that shrimp by myself and it ain’t a night to be lonely neither.”
Troy groaned as he stepped up the aluminum stairs into the Grateful Dead caravan vehicle. Inside, he found almost exactly what he expected. Trixie had lain down on the Aztec pattern sectional sofa…or at least it had been a sectional at one time, but the shorter section was missing. The tank top had slipped dangerously down off her shoulder and exposed most of her leathery left breast. She had her legs crossed in a strangely demure fashion and was holding a cigarette lightly between her lips.
“Came up a little late, did ya?” she winked at him as she asked.
“Uh, yeah.” Troy cleared his throat and sat the cooler down on the kitchen counter, which incidentally, was in the same room as the living area. “Actually, I can’t stay. Got a…um…previous engageme—.”
“Mhmm.” She interrupted him and pointed toward the kitchen table. “Hand me that lighter, would ya?”
Troy grabbed the lighter and flipped it over to her. He clapped his hands together and edged backward toward the trailer door.
“Okay, then, enjoy yer shrimp.”
“You wanna beer? I got Coronas in the fridge left over from the party…er, I mean, the memorial.”
Troy glanced down at his wrist where he hadn’t worn a watch since Afghanistan.
“Nah, it’s gettin’ late.”
“Hell, Troy, we both know you ain’t got nowhere to go. Yer just scared of what might happen if you stay.”
She tugged on the edge of her boxers and what might’ve been the ears of a rabbit tattoo peeked out over the waistband. There was no sign of a tan line and Troy wondered how long she’d spent in the tanning bed over the course of her life.
“Well, maybe just one.”
“That’s what I’m talkin’ about.” She flicked the lighter and her cigarette flared to life in a puff of smoke.
Troy opened the refrigerator and, sure enough, there were a couple of Corona longnecks left in a wet cardboard container. He pulled them out, found a bottle opener lying nearby on the counter, and popped the two tops off. He almost asked for an orange slice, but then realized he hadn’t seen anything else in the fridge besides the beer.
He took a swig of his and handed the second one to Trixie. The beer hit his stomach and it made a strange groan, but then quieted quickly. She took a long slug of hers and patted the couch indicating that he should sit down. He scooted down to the end as far from her as he could and sat. She licked her lips and puffed the cigarette. She didn’t say anything, but leered at him under what she must’ve thought were sultry eyes. Troy couldn’t help but think of the drag queens back in Savannah.
“Dang shame,” he said finally.
“What’s that?” she arched an eyebrow.
“Ya know. Kimberly…and Dana.”
For a second, she just stared. She looked for all the world like she had no idea what he was talking about.
“The murders.” Troy reached up and tipped his hat back as he said it. “Your daughter and Kim. It’s a dang shame what happened to ‘em.”
She shook her head and suddenly seemed to reali
ze what he was talking about.
“Oh…oh yeah. Damn shame.” She took a sip of her beer and an odd look clouded her face. “Can we not talk about that tonight?”
“Sure. I just thought on their memorial night—.”
“I get it. Yer just tryin’ to change the subject.”
Troy opened his mouth to ask exactly what subject he was avoiding when his stomach rumbled again and a sharp pain stabbed him in the gut. He slowed his breathing and realized he was sweating a cool sweat. His mouth wanted to clench shut, but worse than that…so did his bowels.
“You got a bathroom in here?”
“Down the hall, only door on the left.”
“Much obliged.” Troy started to stand up and felt a heat in his bowels that could not be a good sign.
“You gon’ be all right?” Trixie asked, apparently just starting to notice his distress.
“Yeah, yeah. No problemo,” Troy said realizing that there was definitely going to be a problemo.
In between pains, he was able to clench enough to stand safely. He shuffled down the hall and hurried into the tiny bathroom.
“Light a match,” Trixie called from the living room.
Troy spent the next fifteen minutes with his knees pressed against the bathroom door in a stall the size of those he thought belonged on an airplane or a Greyhound bus. It was then and there that he swore off any Thai food for the rest of his life.
He flipped the knobs of the sink to try and mask the sounds with running water, but when he twisted them, nothing happened. No water. He thought about coughing a few times, but that might be worse. Eventually, he decided relieving the horrible pain in his belly was more important than any embarrassment he might feel from the noises he was making. The smell was awful, so he reached up and opened the sliding glass window next to his head.
“You okay in there?” He heard Trixie call from down the hall.
“Yup. Right as rain.”
When he was sure his stomach had emptied itself into her pint-sized commode and he’d exhausted her meager roll of toilet paper, he reached behind him and pushed the lever. Nothing happened.
Skull Wave (A Troy Bodean Tropical Thriller Book 5) Page 5