by Cate Ashwood
“Christ, this is fucked-up,” Matt said as they made their way out of the station to where the cruiser was parked in the back lot.
“I know,” Andy said. He didn’t elaborate more than that, but for now, it was enough. Knowing he had an ally in his partner—knowing John had an ally—made Matt feel like maybe there was a chance for John to come out the other side of this.
They drove through the streets of Magnolia Ridge toward John’s place. The little town that had seemed so quaint before Chloe’s death now took on an air of malevolence. Matt imagined villagers with pitchforks and torches hiding behind the Do or Dye Hair Salon, biding their time until they could form the lynch mob.
When they arrived at John’s, Carl and Jay were already there, the car parked out front, the lights still going so the neighbors wouldn’t miss there was something going down at the Turners’. Andy parked next to them and turned off the engine before stepping out.
The exterior of the house was as it had been the last time Matt had been here, but inside was a different story. The place looked like it had been ransacked. Shit was pulled out of cupboards and drawers, papers strewn across the coffee table. Mel stood in the corner of the living room looking about ready to murder someone herself. Arms crossed over her chest, she had a look of don’t-fuck-with-my-brother so clear, a blind man would have noticed.
Matt and Andy barely had a chance to get through the doorway before Carl approached them with an intense look of anger, his shoulders set square.
“He ain’t here. Musta heard we were comin’ for him and took off.” Carl looked pointedly at Mel.
Matt heard Andy mutter, “goddammit, John,” under his breath. “Where the hell did he go on foot?”
“You’re kiddin’, right? He was raised in these goddamn woods. Christ only knows where he is now.” Carl looked around the room as though John might materialize from behind the armchair. “I’ll bet he’s got a pretty good start on us.”
“Could be,” Andy said pensively.
Matt crossed the room to stand next to Mel. He could feel the tension pouring off her. He wanted to put his arm around her, to offer some measure of comfort, but stopped himself before he could move. They weren’t familiar enough for that, and while he cared for her brother more than anything, she didn’t know that. “Where’s Birdy?”
“At school.” She narrowed her eyes and added, “Thank Christ. This would break her damn heart.”
He wanted to ask about John, about how he was holding up and where he’d gone… if he’d be okay. Matt knew Mel had told him to run. It was written all over her. Didn’t take a detective to see that, but he kept his mouth shut. It hadn’t been the right decision, or even a smart one, but it was too late now to change it.
He stood to the side watching the scene like he was sitting in his living room, watching an episode of Criminal Minds: Deep South on his TV. He might as well have been for how connected he was to reality at the current moment. As Carl searched through John’s mail and started to tear one of the envelopes open, Mel spoke.
“You got a warrant to be lookin’ through John’s mail?”
Carl let out an exasperated sigh. “We got a warrant for the house and it includes everything in it. Mel, maybe you’d be more comfortable up with Miss Ilene.”
“I’m quite comfortable here, thank you.”
Carl tore open the envelopes and tossed the contents across the kitchen table. Lord only knew what he was looking for.
Jay stood with John’s phone in his hand, looking frustrated. “Mel,” he said, glancing up at her. “What’s Birdy’s birthday?”
Mel narrowed her eyes at him, but she answered. “August fourth. Why?”
Jay didn’t answer, just typed that into the phone and then whispered a curse. “Anyone know Chloe’s birthday?” When no one answered, he looked pointedly at Mel.
“Look it up,” she said defiantly. “If you think I’m gonna help you, you can fuck off.”
Jay stepped closer to her, his grip tight enough on the phone, it looked like he could break it, but he kept his voice steady, polite. “Look, Mel, we’re gonna get into his phone and his laptop eventually. The faster we do, the faster we can move on, okay?”
Mel glared at him, let out a long, angry breath. “I don’t know his passwords,” she said finally. After a pause, though, she added, “Try five-five-oh-two.”
“What’s that from?” Jay asked as he punched it into the phone.
“Momma’s favorite song on the jukebox at the diner.”
Jay looked expectantly at the phone. “Bingo,” he said, a note of triumph in his tone. “Andy, got the phone open.”
Andy walked over to him. “Hand it here,” he said impatiently. Curiosity got the better of Matt and he stepped closer, looking over Andy’s shoulder. The first icon he hit was the texts. He pulled up Chloe’s and scrolled through them. “Last thing he said to her was ‘are you having fun?’ She didn’t respond.”
“Timestamp?” Jay asked.
“Two hours before we found the body.” Andy scrolled through the texts between John and Chloe for another minute, then passed the phone back to Jay. “Check his emails and whatnot, then get this over to the station, let Ronnie sift through it. She’s good with the techy shit.”
Jay nodded and took the phone from Andy. Carl and the others continued their search.
When Jay snorted a laugh and whispered, “Goddamn,” Matt looked up. “Guess John was tellin’ the truth about bein’ a fag,” he said.
Carl came over. “What’d ya find?”
Jay flipped the phone to where Carl could see it.
“Shit,” Carl said, looking away quickly. “Hell, boy, I didn’t need to see that.”
Jay showed Matt too, a picture of a guy with an enormous cock, stroking himself. “I doubt that’ll tell you where he went,” Matt said flatly.
With a shrug, Jay said, “I don’t know, maybe this is John’s boyfriend. Maybe they ran off together.” He continued to thumb through different apps on John’s phone. Matt’s chest tightened, making it harder to breathe. John was such a private person—and with good reason, apparently. Watching Matt’s coworkers search, dig in the dark corners of John’s life, was painful, wrong.
He turned to Mel and asked quietly, “Can I talk to you? Outside?”
If anyone noticed, it would probably only seem like Matt was trying to get Mel out of the way. But no, Matt simply needed an excuse to get out of there, and he hoped Melonie might have some information she hadn’t shared yet.
“Fine,” Melonie said as she crossed the room to the front door.
Matt followed her. She sat on the stoop and pulled out a pack of cigarettes. “You want one?”
For the first time in his life, Matt was tempted. Maybe it would help him think better, but he declined the offer. “Listen,” he said, sitting down next to her. “I know how hard this is for you.”
Melonie looked at him, distrust in her eyes.
Matt dropped his voice to a near whisper. “I just wanted you to know that I’m John’s friend. You can tell me anything, okay?”
“Two days ago, he thought Andy was his friend too.”
“No,” Matt said, meeting her eye. “I’m his close friend.”
“That don’t mean—” Realization flooded her features. “Oh.” She looked at Matt for a long moment. “This must be killin’ you.”
With a nod, Matt said, “That’s an understatement.”
“Last time I heard from him was when I called this mornin’ to let him know y’all were comin’ after him. I wasn’t lyin’, though,” she said, taking a long drag off her cigarette. “I have no idea where he went.”
“No family or friends he might lay low with? No hunting spots he likes?”
Melonie shook her head. “Nothin’ like that that I can think of. I mean, we’re related to half the state, but only a small few we’re close with.” She paused, looking like she might say something else.
“What?” Matt asked, willing her t
o tell him anything that could help.
She glanced at him but didn’t meet his eye. “Nothin’,” she said on an exhale. “Just thinkin’ about some of our more… outdoorsy family is all.”
Matt felt certain it was more than that. At the very least, she had an inkling of where John might’ve gone.
She shook her head again. “But, no. I really can’t think of anyone.” She scowled and added, “Half of his so-called friends are in there, pickin’ through his things, tryin’ to pin Chloe on him.”
That was the most he was going to get out of her. “Please, if you hear from him…. Telling me won’t be telling them, all right?” He shouldn’t have said that. Mostly, though, he shouldn’t have meant it.
“If I hear from him, I’ll ask him first.”
“Fair enough.”
Just then, Jay opened the front door. “He’s got a registered .45 and we can’t find it anywhere. Captain put out a bulletin—armed and dangerous.”
Matt scrubbed his hand over his face. “Is that really necessary?”
“Damn near every other person in this town’s armed, but John’s dangerous?” Melonie crushed her cigarette out and stood up. “My momma carries too. Might should go over and arrest her. Lord knows she’s a threat to us all.”
Ignoring her protests, Jay asked Mel again, “You sure you don’t know where he went?”
“Like I told you before. I got no idea where he might’ve been headed. Your guess is as good as mine.”
“What about friends in the area? Family members?”
Mel narrowed her eyes and straightened her back. Matt half expected her to haul off a punch at Jay, but she didn’t. She simply stared him down as she said, “You know as well as I do that the only people he trusts are either standin’ in front of you or dead.”
Mel’s hardened reference to Chloe hit Matt hard, a sharp reminder of why they were here in the first place, standing on John’s porch as people he’d known all his life looked for reasons to put him in jail.
“Fine,” Jay said as he stepped back inside, leaving Matt and Mel alone again.
Matt could hear fragments of muffled conversation through the thin walls. Dread coalesced like oil, thickened by intense heat, and settled heavy in the pit of his stomach. This was bad. So fucking bad. The situation had barreled out of control, and nothing in the world was going to slow it back down.
Andy stepped out. “Captain’s calling old man Wagner, see if he can bring his hounds by.” He glanced at Mel, an almost apologetic look on his face before looking at Matt. “They might be able to pick up a trail on John. Without any leads in here, it’s the best we got. We gotta find him ’fore this goes any further.”
“Oh, for fuck’s sake.” Mel’s frustration mirrored Matt’s own. She crossed her arms over her chest again and stormed off across the yard to Ilene and Ray’s house.
Matt turned his attention back to the other officers as they discussed what to do while they waited for the dogs to show up.
Andy tilted his head in the direction Melonie had gone. “Me and Matt are gonna head up to the house, talk to Ilene and Ray. See if they’ve got anything to tell us that might be useful.” Andy walked up to Matt and grabbed him by the arm, jolting him out of the fog he’d been in since they arrived at John’s place. “Come on. Let’s get a move on.”
“All right. Yeah. Let’s go,” Matt managed.
“You okay?” Andy asked once they were out of earshot of the others.
Matt nodded, his movements feeling sluggish. “Yeah. I’m fine.”
“You look like you’re fixin’ to pass out on me.”
“No, I’m fine,” Matt repeated. “Just a little worried. He shouldn’t have run. Running only makes him look guiltier.”
“You and me both know nothin’ coulda made him look guiltier than he already does. His temper? The knife with his prints and her blood? His… preferences?”
“You think that’s gonna come into this.” It wasn’t a question. Matt knew it as surely as he knew anything else.
“Of course it is. It’s only gonna add fuel to the fire. If he was able to hide somethin’ that big about himself from them all these years, what else has been hidin’, ya know?”
“Shit.”
If Matt felt sick before, it had nothing on this. He swallowed, trying to quell the urge to throw up.
Andy walked beside him, quiet for a few seconds before he said, “I know this is tough on you. I know you and him… you and John….”
Matt stopped in his tracks, taking a moment to process what his partner had said. “How long have you known?”
“About you?” Andy paused and chewed his thumbnail. “Since the cookout. The way you looked at John is how I expected you’d look at Chloe.”
“And you don’t have a problem with that?”
“I reckon you don’t look at me the way you look at John, so it don’t much matter to me. It’s none of my business so long as you don’t make it my business.”
Matt supposed that was as good a line of reasoning as any.
“John was a surprise. He hides it better’n you.” Andy paused. “This gonna be a problem for you?”
“I was out in San Francisco. It’s taking some adjusting to being… discreet, and no. It won’t be a problem.”
Andy nodded but didn’t offer comment, and that, Matt realized, was that. No other discussion was needed, and he needn’t worry about acceptance, at least from Andy, again.
They were almost to the main house, and Matt steeled his nerves. The last twenty-four hours he’d spent in a state of shock, but he needed to pull himself together. Walking around in a daze over everything that happened wasn’t doing John any favors. Matt was a cop. He was trained to handle shit like this, to push forward without letting his emotions get tangled up in the facts. Letting his feelings for John interfere with his ability to do his job was going to land John in jail—or worse.
There would be time to reflect on things later—time to freak out about John being on the run once they’d exhausted all methods to find him. For now, Matt had to give his head a shake and get back into the right mindset to do his job.
John needed his help.
Andy knocked on the door, the sound resonating hollowly through the yard. Neither of them spoke as they waited, and a few moments later, Ilene pulled the door open.
“Come on in,” she said, her voice thin, devastated. Matt hated to see her like this, not even trying to force a smile, her eyes red as if she’d been crying all night. Which, he realized, she probably had.
She led them into the Florida room, sun spilling through the windows against the soft chairs, the cheerfully patterned rug. Ray sat on the love seat where he’d been the first time Matt had met him. The jigsaw puzzle was gone now. Only a floral arrangement sat in the center of the table, ready to wilt.
“Can I get y’all something to drink?” Her offer lacked the usual hospitality. In fact, she somehow made the words sound more like go fuck yourselves.
Before either of them could answer, she lowered herself next to Ray and folded her hands in her lap.
Andy sat across from her, Matt standing beside him.
“Miss Ilene, I know this is hard for you.” Andy’s tone was soft, kind. “But we’re tryin’ to find John, and we’re outta leads. Can you tell us anything?”
Ilene narrowed her eyes at Andy, but she looked at Matt before saying anything. Betrayed. Ilene felt betrayed by him and he knew it. “I can tell you my son didn’t do it.” She paused, holding Matt’s eye. “Whatever else there is with John, I know that with my whole heart. He’d never hurt her—never hurt anyone.”
The image of John beating Charles Thompson flashed in Matt’s mind. Matt felt that was justified, but her testimony was a little stretched there. “Did you see him Saturday night?”
“I saw his truck when we got home, but his lights were out,” Ilene said with a sort of heated resolve. “Kept Birdy here that night so as not to wake him.”
Andy clear
ed his throat and asked, “What time was that?”
Ilene looked to Ray who answered for her. “Round nine or so? Maybe a little later.”
“All right,” Andy said. “That’s helpful, thank you.”
Matt knew it wasn’t helpful. Seeing John’s truck in the driveway didn’t do a damn thing.
“We’re tryin’ to find him, Miss Ilene.” Andy leaned in, as if closing some of the space between them might help her give up her only son. “I wanna find him before he gets himself into more trouble, or gets hurt.”
Ilene wasn’t buying it, and Matt could tell just from the way she looked at Andy.
“If I knew where he was, you’d be the last to know.”
Ray only nodded in agreement as he looked coolly at Andy.
“Miss Ilene, I’m just doin’ my job here.”
“Your job is to protect and serve,” she said sternly. “Y’all didn’t protect Chloe, and you sure ain’t servin’ anyone while you go on a wild goose chase after the wrong man.”
Ray put his hand on Ilene’s shoulder, for comfort or to keep her from slapping Andy, Matt wasn’t sure. Probably both. “I think that’s about all we got to say, son,” Ray said slowly.
“Oh, I got plenty more to say.” Ilene leaned closer and stared Andy straight on, just as she had when she and Mel had fought in John’s kitchen. “My boy has a lot to take care of—needs to get himself right with the Lord for more than a few things, so I’ve heard.” She was fired up now, and Matt was glad her attention was set on Andy and not him. “But he didn’t kill Chloe, and y’all are a bunch of idgits for thinkin’ he might’ve.” After a pause, she added, “I’d bet my soul on it.”
Matt knew what that meant. Ilene wouldn’t say something like that lightly.
Things were going from bad to worse, and Andy seemed to know it. “I guess we’ve taken up enough of your time.” He stood and crossed the room, not even glancing at Matt to see that he followed.
In the distance, the sound of dogs barking had Matt picking up the pace across the yard. There were two more vehicles parked in front of John’s place—one more cruiser and an old green pickup.