Matt stood next to Jesse as she locked the front door. “The children are excited,” he said in a voice that sounded tired.
“I’m an idiot,” Jesse answered. She looked up at him, no longer irritated, and suddenly grateful for his calm, solid presence. “What the hell am I doing?”
“You’re trying to help a friend. I’d like to think that in your shoes, I’d do the same thing. Stupid though it may be.”
“It is stupid, isn’t it?”
“Oh, yeah. Chasing after killers in the dark? It doesn’t get much stupider than that,” he agreed.
“So, why are you helping me do it?”
“Because Vivian can’t do this for herself, and we’re all she’s got.”
Tears stung the back of her eyes, and Jesse blinked to clear the haze that blurred her vision. “If your wife wasn’t watching, I just might kiss you for that,” she whispered softly.
“Oh, don’t go all crazy on me. The last thing anyone needs is you getting all warm and fuzzy.”
“Bite me, Oliver.” As quickly as it had come, her moment of weakness was gone, and with it her hesitancy to face the night. “Let’s roll. I’ve got a sheriff to piss off, and the evening is young.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
By the time SueAnn parked her Jeep in front of an older model, medium-sized, singlewide trailer home sitting by itself on the corner of two county roads in the middle of nowhere, Matt and Connie had been brought up to speed on the short, sad life and death of Ginny Spurber and the slim possibility of Bobby Donald’s connection to Harry Kerr’s death.
A more likely possibility was that he might know something that could shed some light on why Harry was killed, and that, in turn, could lead them to who had done it. Of course, the likeliest possibility was that they were chasing ghosts, and that he was an innocent man who knew nothing.
“Okay,” Jesse said. “Here we go. You stay behind me, SueAnn. If I think I can get more out of him by myself, I’ll give you a sign, and you can come back to the Jeep and wait.”
SueAnn responded with the frowney face and pouty fish mouth that she used to express extreme disapproval without being openly insubordinate. Jesse responded with the smiley face she used to express patience in the face of SueAnn’s nineteen-year-old behavior. In their world, smiley faces trumped frowney faces every time.
SueAnn sighed. “Yes, ma’am.”
“I know that you know him, SueAnn,” Jesse said gently. “But you have to remember that what we’re doing is very unwise, and it could turn dangerous without any warning. And that at fifty, I am much more expendable than you are at nineteen, and that’s just the way things are.”
SueAnn looked stunned. “Are you serious?”
“Yes.” For once, Jesse didn’t try to tiptoe around the issue or soften the blow. “We’re peeking into dark corners, looking for a murderer, hon. And if we find him, I have no idea what we’re going to do with him. But I imagine he has a pretty good idea of what he’d do with us. So keep that in mind, and try to forget that this guy used to be a friend of yours.”
“Boy, you sure know how to take the wind out of a girl’s sails.”
“If it makes you feel any better, I wouldn’t let you go up there with me if I really thought he was the killer. But I do really think he might know something that could help us, and he’ll probably be a little friendlier with you there.”
SueAnn opened the Jeep’s driver-side door. “Let’s go then. Sitting around talking about it’s making me nervous.”
“It’s making all of us nervous,” Connie said from the narrow, cramped back seat. “I’m going to need a drink when this is over. And a back massage.”
Jesse laughed and got out on her side. “Keep out of sight,” she warned just before she shut her door. “We don’t want him to think he’s being invaded.”
They had parked on the shoulder on the opposite side of the two-laned blacktop. SueAnn waited at the edge of the road for Jesse to come around the Jeep and join her. Then they started toward the open gate in the rusted fence that fronted the property. A small, wooden bridge spanned the ditch at the edge of the road and ended just in front of the gate.
They had reached the bridge, which was barely wide enough for them to cross side by side, when the trailer’s front door opened and a young man came down the steps holding what looked like a platter and a pair of tongs. An outside light illuminated a seating area and an old charcoal grill to one side of the trailer’s front door.
“Is that him?” Jesse whispered. It was dark enough that he hadn’t noticed them yet. She didn’t want to proceed much farther without alerting him to their presence. They were in the country, and a lot of people in the country had guns. And dogs. And didn’t deal well with surprises.
“Yeah,” SueAnn said. “A few years older, but I recognize him. Should I say something?”
“It might be a good idea.”
SueAnn cleared her throat loudly and called, “Hey, Bobby. How you doin’?”
He jerked, twisting suddenly, and his leg seemed to go out from under him. He cursed and managed to catch himself on the back of a chair, dropping the tongs in the process, but holding onto the platter.
“Who the hell are you?” he demanded, not sounding in a very good mood.
“It’s me, Bobby. SueAnn. SueAnn Bailey.”
Somehow her cheerful voice made it sound as if it were a good thing, and perfectly natural that she should appear out of nowhere in the dark of night without any prior notice.
“SueAnn?” he repeated just as a large hound came out from under the trailer, barking furiously, and headed straight toward the open gate.
“Oh, goodness,” SueAnn said. She grabbed the side of the gate and tugged in an effort to close it before the dog reached them.
“Digger, sit down and shut up!” Bobby called. He limped toward the grill and set the platter on the built-in counter at the side, then turned back to the chair closest to the grill to retrieve the crutch that was leaning against it.
The dog ignored him and SueAnn tugged harder at the gate, which appeared to be stuck in the dirt at the bottom. “Oh, oh,” SueAnn whimpered. “He’s big.”
Jesse tore her gaze from the crutch and the low-heeled, square-toed boots that Bobby Donald wore. She stepped forward, moving around SueAnn, and stopped just at the edge of the gate. “Digger!” she commanded in a voice that was the deepest and loudest she could find. “Sit!”
The dog stopped immediately and plopped his rump firmly on the ground. His back was straight, his head up, and his tail thumped the dirt behind him.
“You a dog trainer?” Bobby asked. He gripped the crutch with his right hand and appeared to be using it mainly for balance.
“No. I’m just a friend of SueAnn’s.” Again, Jesse forced her fascinated stare away from the crutch. She motioned toward the dog. “You think you could get him to come back over to you now?”
“Or maybe put him in the house?” SueAnn suggested hopefully.
Bobby laughed. “You never did like dogs much, did you?” With the crutch tucked under his arm, he limped back toward the front door. “Digger, come here, boy.” He patted his leg, and the dog turned, lifted his rump and trotted back toward his owner. Bobby reached up and opened the door, and Digger went past him, up the steps and into the dim interior. Bobby let the door close behind him.
“It’s not so much that I don’t like them,” SueAnn said, obviously relieved that the dog was safely shut away. “It’s just that they scare me. At least, big ones like that do.”
“We didn’t mean to surprise you.” Jesse eased away from the gate and further into the yard. “My name’s Jesse, by the way. Jesse Camden.”
“Guess you know mine’s Bobby. Bobby Donald. Why don’t ya’ll move on in here, and I’ll get this meat on the grill.”
He turned and retraced his halting steps to retrieve the tongs. When he opened the lid on the grill, the smoky scent of charcoal added its warmth to the crisp autumn air. Glowing coals lit
the bottom side of the platter as he began to arrange what looked like a smorgasbord of meat across the rack.
Halfway through, he paused long enough to indicate an ice chest behind him. “There’s beer in there if you want one.”
It looked like they had interrupted a Sunday night party for one, but he didn’t seem to mind much.
“I’m sorry about your leg,” Jesse offered. “Are you in much pain?”
He shook his head. “It’s not bad. Just a twisted knee. I know better than to turn quick like I just did.”
“You looked like you were doing pretty well without that crutch until we startled you.”
Bobby laughed. “Yeah, it’s doing better every day so long as I don’t do anything stupid.” He pointed the tongs toward the chairs behind him. “Ya’ll go ahead and have a sit down. I’ll be with you as soon as I get these things on the fire.”
Jesse and SueAnn picked the two plastic Adirondack chairs closest to the gate.
“I was real sorry to hear about Gigi, Bobby,” SueAnn said, her voice soft in the quiet night. “Are you doing okay?”
He froze in the midst of arranging hot dogs in the bottom right corner of the rack. His shoulders slumped. “It’s just about killed me.” His words were a harsh whisper. “But, you go on. You know what I mean? There’s nothing else to do.”
He drew in a deep, shuddering breath and went back to nudging chicken breasts, racks of ribs, polish sausages and hamburger patties around to make room for the last few hot dogs.
“I’m sorry I didn’t make it to the funeral.” SueAnn spoke again in the same soothing tones. “I didn’t realize that her real name was Ginny, so I didn’t know it was her when I heard about it back last summer. I feel real bad about that. She was an awfully sweet girl.”
Bobby set down the empty platter and closed the lid on the grill. Then he wadded up the foil that had lined the platter and tossed it onto the bottom shelf of the grill. “Somebody explained to me about food poisoning and how I couldn’t put the cooked meat on the same tray the raw meat came off of.” He grinned sheepishly. “I can’t tell you how many years I did that and never got sick. But Gigi…”
His voice broke, and he quickly coughed, then cleared his throat. “Uh, Gigi, she wouldn’t eat what I cooked until I stopped it. So, here I am, alive and healthy.” The last word sounded strangled and he abruptly stopped speaking.
Forgetting his crutch next to the grill, he limped the few feet to the nearest chair and eased himself into it. Dragging the cooler next to him, he leaned over it, pulled out a dripping can and popped the top. “Sure I can’t offer you ladies one?”
Jesse held up her hands. “Oh, no thanks. I’ve already had some, and she’s driving. And nineteen.”
She dipped her head toward SueAnn, who said, “Yeah, that, too. Thank you, though, Bobby. That’s real nice of you to offer.”
He threw his head back and drained the can before coming up for air again. “Hope you ladies don’t mind staying out here. I’m gonna have to be turning some of that pretty soon. About half of it’s gonna be done in just a few minutes. Are ya’ll hungry? Cause I got some extra buns here.”
“Well, actually,” SueAnn said with a hesitant glance toward Jesse, “I haven’t had supper yet. One of those hot dogs sounds pretty tempting.”
“I ate,” Jesse said, thinking of the one slice of pizza she had managed to get down amid all the talking, and the single tuna sandwich she had before that. “But thank you. The aroma’s wonderful.”
Bobby nodded. “I got some hickory chips in there. Makes all the difference in the world.” Putting his weight on one leg, he heaved himself out of the chair and went back to the grill to turn the hot dogs, polish sausages and hamburgers.
“Are you cooking for a party?” Jesse asked, unable to restrain her runaway curiosity. “Or just cooking ahead for the week?”
He shrugged. “While you got a good fire, you might as well do some damage. This is enough for me to eat all week long, and if I give my mom some of the breasts and a couple of hamburger patties, she’ll give me a batch of potato salad and some home-cooked beans.”
After another minute, he opened three buns and set a sizzling hot dog in each of them, then squeezed mustard down the center of each and added a dollop of relish. The first one, he handed to SueAnn.
“I figure you were just being polite,” he said as he put the second one in Jesse’s hand. “It’s hard to pass up a dog fresh off the fire.” Before she could answer, he turned back and took up the rest of the wieners, taking intermittent bites of his own hot dog as he worked.
He fixed himself another while SueAnn and Jesse made short work of the ones he had given them.
Jesse stopped chewing long enough to speak. “Thank you. These are fantastic.”
Bobby nodded, his back still turned as he focused his concentration on retrieving first the sausages and then the hamburgers from the grill and stacking them on the platter. After that, he rearranged the remaining breasts and ribs, then closed the lid and left them to absorb the smoke and moist heat of the dwindling coals.
He took his second dog, settled himself back into his chair and retrieved another beer. He managed to pop the tab with one hand and applied himself to finishing both of them in record time. That done, he dropped the empty can back into the ice chest and brought out a new one.
“Okay, ladies, I’ve got a few minutes before the rest of that stuff will be done. So why don’t you tell me why you’re really here?”
Chapter Twenty-Three
Jesse’s embarrassment at being caught was fleeting. He seemed like a nice enough guy, and his lingering grief over Ginny’s loss was undoubtedly real. But she had come here intending to question him within an inch of his life and so far she had done nothing.
“You’ve been awfully polite if we were that obvious,” she said.
“I haven’t seen SueAnn in years and she barely knew Gigi. And I know who you are.” He pointed the index finger of the hand that was wrapped around the beer can at Jesse.
“You own that place over in Myrtle Grove,” he continued. “The one with the antique store and restaurant. My mom likes to go there after church on Sundays, when she can. And you’re friends with that Windsor lady with all the money. My guess is by now you know all about Gigi and Harry Kerr. And once SueAnn figured out who Ginny Spurber was, here you came, just as fast as that little yellow Jeep could get you here.”
“I think I’ll take one of those now,” Jesse said, pointing to the cooler. “If you’ve got one to spare.”
Bobby reached into the ice chest, pulled out a beer, popped the top and handed it to Jesse. “How about you, SueAnn?”
“She’s still nineteen,” Jesse said. With a salute of the can to their host, she took a drink of the very ordinary, but cold beer. “So, do you think you know anything that could help us?”
“He was a son-of-a-bitch who deserved to die.”
“And you had been trying to get back together with Ginny. How close were the two of you when she died?”
“Not close enough.”
His jaw was clenched and his breath was coming in short, jagged bursts. It was hard to tell in the dim light of the bare-dirt patio, but Jesse thought she saw tears glittering in his eyes.
“But you were seeing her again. You had been to her apartment.”
“Yeah.” He shifted uncomfortably in his chair and took a long pull on the beer.
“So, tell me what you know.” Jesse leaned forward, her elbows resting on her knees, the can cradled between her palms. Her voice was low and urgent. “Tell me why she killed herself. Tell me what got Harry killed.”
Bobby threw his head back and roared into the night. “I don’t know! God, don’t you think I’d have done something to stop her if I’d known?! It’s killing me that I couldn’t help her.”
SueAnn sat in her chair like a bunny hiding in plain sight, absolutely still, not making a sound, not moving anything but her eyes. Jesse only hoped she would keep it u
p, because Bobby was wound tight enough to come undone, and now that she had started, Jesse couldn’t stop.
“Bobby, you know more than anyone else about what happened to her. If you can’t help me, no one can. And Ginny deserves for someone to figure out the truth.”
He hung his head. “She had a neighbor,” he mumbled. “A lady who lived across the hall. Gigi talked to her.”
“And I’m going to talk to her,” Jesse said. “But the more I find out from you, the more I’ll be able to get her to open up. You’re still trying to protect Ginny, even after she’s dead. What is it? What are you hiding?”
“Sex tapes.”
His voice was almost inaudible, and Jesse held her breath waiting for him to say more. When he didn’t, she asked, “Sex tapes? What kind?”
“Her and that fat bastard.”
“Harry Kerr?” The boy was definitely bitter. Harry might have been a bastard, but he wasn’t fat. Of course, Bobby Donald was a twenty-something beanpole, so fat was relative. “She was taping herself with Harry? Did he know? And why was she doing that?”
Bobby drew in a breath that had to have gone to his toes, and let it out again in a sigh that went on forever. “Leverage.” The word sounded defeated.
Jesse was trying to be patient, but this strong, silent, suffering stuff was getting to her. “What kind of leverage, Bobby? And if you could manage more than a one or two word answer, this is going to go a whole lot faster.”
“Maybe I can just shut up and go inside. And you can go screw yourself.” His defiant answer started out as a snarl and ended in a whine.
“You’re not going to want to do that,” Jesse warned quietly.
“Well, I think you’re wrong. I think I do want to do that!”
“Don’t be a jerk, Bobby, okay? I know you were at Harry Kerr’s the Friday night he died.” Her timing probably sucked, but she had to get this guy down off the roof somehow. Maybe a little shock therapy would do it.
“What?” The word sounded as if someone had just punched him in the gut. His pale face went even paler in the semi-dark.
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