“Now, Mister Bodean—.”
“Troy,” he interrupted her.
“Okay, Troy. I’ll have you know, I’m a grown woman and I can take care of myself against any Boy Scout.”
“I think I’ve got some champagne.”
Meira took a deep breath and considered this.
“Let me check in on Riley and grab some things. You’ll have me back here by seven?”
“Before seven.”
She smiled and winked at him. “Okay then, It’s a date…a deal…I meant to say it’s a deal.”
Her cheeks reddened and made her even more beautiful than she had been before.
“I’ll be in the truck,” he said.
Meira tapped lightly on her daughter’s door. The butterflies in her stomach made her giddy with excitement. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d been alone with a man. Riley didn’t say anything. Meira turned the knob as slowly and quietly as she could and peeked around the door. Her daughter (or what she thought was her daughter) was lying in bed, snuggled up under the quilt her grandmother had made.
“I love you, baby girl,” she whispered into the room.
She closed the door and tiptoed back to her bedroom. She grabbed a duffel bag and tossed in an old Clemson Football T-shirt, some pink boxer shorts, and her toothbrush. She locked the front door, checked it three times, and then jogged out to the pickup truck. Troy was sitting inside with the motor running. She slid into the passenger’s side and was pleased to find that he had the radio playing an oldie’s station. Marvin Gaye sang them out of the driveway and as they pulled onto the road, Troy leaned over and pecked her on the cheek. Her heart fluttered and she leaned her head on his shoulder as he drove.
She leaned on the same shoulder after he built the small fire on the beach and sat down next to her. He wrapped a blanket he’d gotten from the boat around her shoulders. He emptied the remaining contents of a bottle of Pinot Noir into two red Solo cups and handed one to her. He clinked it against her and raised it up.
“To new friends.” He smiled as he said it.
“Friends, eh?” she asked with a grin.
It was the first time all night that she’d seen him look flustered. But as they sat and watched the waves roll into the shore, her mind began to travel back to the details of the gruesome murder of those two girls. They worked with Troy and by all accounts, had been out drinking with him the night of their deaths. She shivered as she remembered that he’d found the sword that might’ve killed the girls, but didn’t turn it in to the police. So, this man she was leaning against had been in direct contact with the victims and likely, the murder weapon.
Her pulse quickened as she realized he might be luring her out to be his next victim. She tried to formulate a way to leave…to go home…to get away from him.
“Ya know,” she tried to sound as casual as she could, “I really should just get back home.”
He arched an eyebrow. “Somethin’ I said?”
She opened her mouth to answer, and then closed it. No, it couldn’t be him. The evidence had given him an alibi…right?
“Troy…”
“Yes, Meira?”
“Did you kill those girls?”
His face softened into a grin and he chuckled.
“Is that what’s got you all tightened up and shakin’ like a leaf all the sudden?”
She shrugged. He put his hand under her chin and lifted her eyes toward his.
“I had nothin’ to do with those girls gettin’ killed.”
She took in a deep breath.
“Okay. I trust you. I don’t know why…but I trust you.”
He grinned. “Must be the hat.”
She laughed out loud. “Must be.”
Leaning her head back onto his shoulder, she felt herself relax. She closed her eyes and hoped that he was as honest as the Boy Scout he claimed to be. She slipped into sleep as the first few drops of rain reached them.
13
Oops, I Did It Again
Barry stood out in front of his trailer, shirtless, arms crossed, listening to the old hag of a woman from down the street yelling like a banshee. A storm was brewing out to the west and apparently had thrown the trailer park into darkness. Barry had been tromping around in his game whacking the heads off of villagers for a bit, but then the power had gone off.
It happened frequently enough that he wasn’t surprised, but he felt sure that Riley would prefer that there be lights on when she got here. He felt the rain start on his chest and watched as the rest of the bizarre menagerie of trailer park inhabitants began exiting their rolling tin cans like a bunch of ants. Old lady Witherington, the Decharmarnel landlord, stood at the end of the street waving her hands and shouting at the complainers.
“And just what the hell should I do? Run down to the electric department and turn it back on? You people kill me. You wanna stand out in the rain, go for it. But I’m goin’ back inside and waitin’ for the lights to come on.”
Barry smirked as the residents began to slowly trickle back to their homes, grumbling all the way. They were a picky lot of people who complained about everything. Some had even started noticing the smell coming out of his deep freezer.
A while back, the Fish Company had upgraded their coolers and had sold him the massive unit at a ridiculously low price. Mostly, he used it to store food he casually stole from the place when he worked late by himself. A few filets here and a few pounds of shrimp there and nobody noticed a thing.
But the thing was faulty at best and sometimes decided to quit...for no reason. This time, the storm that had rolled through a couple of days ago had knocked it out for good. Barry had done his best to keep it closed and hopefully seal in the lingering cold. Yesterday, the smell had started. Most people didn’t mind a smell in the Outer Bank. Hell, almost everything stinks in low tide. And just about everywhere you could possibly go smelled like fish, or rotten fish. So, to get someone’s attention, an odor had to be particularly bad.
The odor coming from his freezer happened to be the smell of decaying flesh…human flesh. His original plan had been to dump their bodies in the water to let the fish have them, but then the cops started poking around and he was afraid someone would see him. And it probably hadn’t been the best idea to put their heads in Troy’s lobster cage…but it would’ve been hilarious to see that asshole’s face when he pulled them up. And he was pretty sure the cops would eventually pin the crime on the dude. He was a drifter at best and was messin’ up Barry’s good gig at Austin’s. It was just after Troy came on the scene that they reduced his hours and he’d had to start cleaning fish down at the pier.
A rattling knock on his RV door, insistent and loud, shook him out of his thoughts.
“I’m coming, Riley. Hang on a sec.”
He hopped over to the door and jerked it open. It was not Riley and he was instantly pissed off.
“What the hell do you want?”
It was his closest neighbor, a short, stubby little old guy with white hair and splotchy skin.
“I know it’s coming from your place, ya little bastard.” The old man pointed a crooked, knobby finger at Barry. “It’s getting worse and I’m telling you, ya better do something about it or I’ll sick the old bat on you.”
“Screw off, old man. I don’t know what it is.”
“It’s comin’ from that heap of junk you call a freezer out back of your rig.”
“Shut the hell up. And get off my property.”
Technically speaking, there weren’t real lots, but there were imaginary lines of ownership that kept the residents separated…to a degree.
“One day. Ya got one day to get the rotten shit in the cooler gone. Or I’m goin’ to—.”
Barry slammed the door in the old man’s face. Damn Geezer, he thought. But the man was right. He’d have to do something about it soon, or it would get worse. And then people would start poking around and someone would find out what was in the freezer.
He plopped d
own on the couch. Riley should’ve gotten here by now. He pulled out his phone and texted her.
-Where u at?
He waited, but she didn’t reply. With the power out, he had no TV, no internet, no game, no light, no nothing.
“This blows,” he muttered to the darkness of his trailer.
He tapped out another message to Riley.
-Bitch you better be close.
But he deleted it and never sent it. Didn’t want to scare her off. He got up and poked around in the kitchen for a cigarette and found a half-smoked Winston. Might’ve been left over from when his mom lived here. Bitch. He opened a drawer and found a lighter.
The rain was heavier now as he stood by the screen door, blowing smoke out into the night. He didn’t much care about smoking inside, but he didn’t want Riley to be put off by the smell. Luckily, it seemed like the stronger rain was dampening the foul odor coming from the freezer.
His phone buzzed in his pocket and he tapped the screen. He expected to see a message from Riley, but it wasn’t. It was a call from his boss at the Austin Seafood Company. He let it go to voicemail. After it dinged to let him know the message was complete, he dialed in and listened.
“Hey, Barry-boy, this is Oscar just checking to make sure you turned the backup generator on before you left. Power’s out over at our place, I’m sure the restaurant is dark too.”
Oh, shit, Barry thought, forgot to do that.
“Yeah. Anyway,” the message continued, “just wanted to make sure because we got in that shipment of crab meat for the big order due on Tuesday.”
Barry’s mind raced. The meat would be spoiled for sure if he didn’t get that generator on. Shit, shit, shit. Gotta run over there and turn it on or they’ll fire me for sure.
He opened the text he sent to Riley and added a new message.
-Going to work for something real quick. If you get here before I’m back, just come on in, door’s open.
He tucked his phone into his pocket and ran out the door into the rain. A few minutes later, he was unlocking the front door of the restaurant and running into the back. He jerked the cooler open and was hit by warm air…too warm.
“Dammit, no!”
The massive tubs of crabmeat reeked. They had definitely spoiled. He dug his hand down into the tub and felt that the center was still frozen. He scooped out the bad meat and tossed it into a nearby trashcan. When he was satisfied that he had saved as much as he could, he weighed it. Four pounds.
“Aw hell,” he smacked his hand on the stainless steel counter.
The order due this weekend called for thirty pounds of meat and he had managed to save four. There was no way to stretch the leftovers into a decent chowder. It would be all sauce with no meat. He slid down onto the floor and propped his back up against the table. This was bad.
With his head in his hands, he tried to figure out who he could call to get twenty-five pounds of crabmeat at this time of night…on a Sunday. And he doubted he could get enough in tomorrow either.
“Nobody,” he decided.
Well, this is it, he thought. I’m going to be fired. Troy will get all my hours, that shithead. Ugh, I hate that guy.
He stood slowly and went back out into the rain to fire up the generator dragging the trashcan of rotten meat as he went. At least he would save what he could of the remaining frozen stuff. The generator fired up easily and the lights came on inside the store. If only he’d remembered to turn it on, none of this would’ve happened.
Of all the crazy things going on, the two freezers in town that he cared about had lost power leaving everything around him going bad. He hoisted the trashcan up and poured the spoiled meat into the dumpster behind the store. A horde of hungry rats dove in on it and began to devour it. Apparently, they’d come in out of the rain too. Gross, he thought as he slammed the lid shut.
“Enjoy, ya filthy mongrels,” he called to the furry frenzy.
He sloshed back into the store, dripping wet from the sheets of rain coming down now. Time to let the boss know. He tapped out a message and read it three times.
-Oscar. Generator failed. Meat is bad. Saved four pounds. Maybe we can use something else to make the chowder.
He looked at the message again. Can’t send that. I’d be fired before tomorrow, he sighed. Use something else…but what else was there. Need meat. Probably should’ve just made the chowder with the spoiled meat. Hell, it smelled pretty fishy as it was…nobody would’ve figured it out anyway. But it was too late for that now; the rats had probably finished it off. Shit, another mistake.
He resigned himself to letting the boss know tomorrow. He’d bring his keys in and take his medicine. He figured with his new knife, he could probably pick up more side work at the docks to make ends meet. He clicked the lock and walked away.
The street leading into the trailer park was flooded with the heavy rain coming down and he splashed through as best he could…trying to avoid deeper puddles. He was soaked by the time he bounded up his steps.
“It’s gotta go!” A voice he recognized as old lady Witherington’s called from behind him.
He turned to see her standing in the deluge under a bent and broken umbrella.
“What?”
“The meat you’ve got rotting away in that freezer back there,” she pointed a finger at the rear side of his trailer. “Too many complaints. It’s gotta go tonight.”
“Are you shittin’ me?” Barry raised his hand and let the heavy rain splash off it. “Tonight?”
“Tonight. Get the meat gone or your gone.”
She turned away from him. He opened his mouth to say something and then inspiration hit. Meat. He needed meat. Surely between the two girls, he could come up with enough meat that hadn’t rotted too much. It was gruesome, but it just might work. Just like cleaning a fish down at the dock, he thought as he jerked his trailer door open.
He jogged back to his bedroom. The cardboard box his new sword had shipped in lay on his bed. He smiled as he gently lifted the top off. Even in it’s very used condition, leather grip tattered and torn, it gleamed brightly. He wrapped a hand around the hilt and lifted it up. The weight was good, precisely balanced to make wielding it a breeze. The blade was marked with a few dings and a little corrosion, but he’d have that fixed up in no time.
He decided it was time to test this baby out. He walked out the door to his RV in a light sprinkle of rain. No one was around and the trailer park was pitch black. No sneaking necessary tonight. He walked to the back of his trailer and the smell from the freezer hit him. The seals must’ve been bad for it to have this much odor coming out of it. He couldn’t get closer to it without pulling out a red bandana and tying it around his face to cover his nose and mouth. The awning of his trailer barely shielded him from the rain, but he figured he’d be sweating anyway.
Inside, the bloated, puffy, bodies of the girls were scrunched together in pretzel-like twists. Their arms and legs intertwined in odd angles. The bottom of the cooler had a standing pool of dark, black blood that had drained from their necks. He grabbed one of the girls —he though it might be Dana’s — legs and pulled it up toward him. He laid it across the top of the freezer. Looking around to be sure no one was watching, he raised his new sword high in the air an slammed it down on the hip joint. It bit into the skin and a squirt of pus and gore oozed out, but it wasn’t a good cut. He swung the sword again and it had much the same effect. He rubbed his thumb across the blade’s edge.
“Dull as shit,” he muttered. “It’s gonna be a long night.”
Riley Carr shivered in the dark sheets of rain and ran into the lane where Barry had said he lived. It was pitch black. No lights of any kind shown in any of the trailers or RV’s and it looked like a ghost town. She jogged down the lane and realized she couldn’t see the numbers on the sides of the trailers, so she had no way of knowing which one belonged to Barry. To make matters worse, in the dark, she couldn’t even peek inside and catch a glimpse of him. She slowed and duc
ked under an umbrella poked up from the middle of a picnic table.
She pulled her phone out and jabbed out a text asking him to come meet her outside. After a few minutes, she decided that he wasn’t texting back and made a plan to knock on a door and simply ask a neighbor. She ran to the RV that seemed to belong to this picnic table and banged on the door. Rain pelted her and slicked her hair down to her head. She imagined that she looked like a vagrant, but at this point, she didn’t care. All she cared about was getting indoors.
An old man, short and stocky came to the door. He had on a wife-beater tank top with stains of red and yellow on his melon-sized belly. Tufts of silver and black hair sprouted from the neck of the shirt. His boxer shorts were pale blue and thin...they looked to be about as old as the man was. And the flap didn’t quite close all the—Oh God, thought Riley as she caught a glimpse of the opening and what lay beyond. She snapped her eyes up at the man and realized he was holding a half eaten chicken leg in one hand and had a paper towel in the other.
“What the hell is it now?” the old guy grunted and grease from the chicken dripped down his bottom lip onto his stubbled chin.
Riley froze. She tried desperately not to look down, but it was like a train wreck and his boxers somehow magnetically drew her eyes. Gah, no! She made herself stare at the man’s forehead, which apparently he noticed.
“Are you blind or somethin’?” he demanded.
“Uh, no, um…sorry. I’m looking for Barry. Do you know where he lives?”
“Ha, do I?” He said sarcastically. “Basically, all ya gotta do is follow the smell.”
Riley held out a hand and the rain pooled in her palm.
“All I can really smell right now is rain.” She matched his sarcastic tone.
“Next trailer.” The man hooked his thumb toward the RV next to his. “Good luck. And tell him if that freezer ain’t empty by tomorrow, rain or shine, I’m callin’ the cops.”
Riley shrugged. “Okay.”
She had no idea what the man was talking about, but she didn’t wait around to find out. She jogged the ten feet to the next trailer and knocked on the screen door. It rattled against the brown aluminum door inside it, but didn’t make much noise. She waited. Nothing.
The Complete Troy Bodean Tropical Thriller Collection Page 98