He lifted a surprised face to her. “You sure?”
“Yes, but just a quick one, if that’s okay with you.” She was meeting Zoe for dinner at seven, but she figured she had plenty of time. And she wasn’t agreeing just to make Archer feel better; a drink would hopefully make it easier for her to find out more about him and his bitterness toward Mervyn.
“Oh, yeah, of course,” he mumbled, slightly pink in the face.
For a moment she wondered if Archer harbored some kind of unrequited crush on her, but quickly dismissed the question. She had never been the kind of girl boys secretly mooned over. She wasn’t beautiful and remote and unattainable enough to inspire that sort of infatuation. No, Archer was just surprised that she’d said yes after the way he had behaved to her in the computer lab.
He squirmed in his seat. “Um, sorry I was rude to you earlier,” he said, his ears aflame. “I was having a bad day.”
“I understand.” The squat, gray building that housed JT’s came up on the right-hand side of the road. Slowing down, she swung the car into the parking lot and pulled up near the door. “Here we are.”
Inside, the bar was dimly lit and mostly empty. Archer led them to a table in the corner, away from the others. Emma sat down, trying not to think about the grubby chair. Everything around her felt slightly sticky, and the air was a stale mix of cheap beer and fried food. A bored-looking waitress took their order and deposited a basket of pretzels before sauntering away.
Archer took one of the pretzels and gnawed at it. “This place is a bit of a dive, but it’s the closest place to home, and sometimes I just need to get away from my dad.” He made a self-deprecating moue. “Yeah, it’s pathetic, isn’t it, still living with my dad at this age.”
“Well, if it’s any consolation, I’m still living with my dad, too.”
“Really?” A shower of crumbs fell onto his T-shirt, but he didn’t seem to notice.
“But I’m looking for my own place,” she felt compelled to add.
“Oh.” He chewed on his pretzel. “Don’t know when I’ll be moving out of home.”
The waitress arrived with their drinks, a white wine for her and a watery-looking beer for Archer.
“I try not to drink too much,” Archer said after his first swallow. “Alcohol’s no good for a guy like me. I had a breakdown about a year ago. Couldn’t do anything for a while.”
She sat back and stared at him. “Oh, Archer. I’m so sorry.”
He waved off her sympathy. “It’s okay. I’m much better now.”
Snippets of their earlier conversation in the computer lab came back to her, making her wince. “I-I called you a crazy person. I feel terrible about that.” How insensitive of her. That was why Archer had reacted so badly.
“I’m guessing you didn’t know about my breakdown, so don’t beat yourself up about it.” He took another pull of his beer. “There’re plenty of other people who do know and still like taking pot shots at me.”
“That’s too bad.” She sipped her wine and tried not to screw up her face at its vinegary taste. “But at least you’re working again.”
“Huh, if you can call that dead-end job working. I was on the dean’s honor list. I worked on cutting-edge technology. I was the best.” He punctuated each sentence by jabbing his finger at his chest. “And now I’m installing computers in a high school in a two-bit town.”Disgust rumbled in his throat. “And you know whose fault it is, don’t you? You were there at the party. You heard what I had to say.”
Resentment burned in his eyes.
Emma slid her wineglass in the little pool of condensation on the scarred table. “Yes, I heard you. You believe Mervyn lulled you into a false sense of security and then pulled the rug from under you. If you think he cheated you out of your share, why don’t you sue him? Wouldn’t that be better than gate-crashing his party and throwing wild accusations at him?”
“I did hire a lawyer,” Archer hissed. “But he said I didn’t have much to go on. Everything Mervyn and I agreed to was verbal. Nothing written down, no witnesses. It was all part of his plan. Still, I would’ve gone ahead with litigation if—if—” He stumbled to a halt, and a disconcerting dampness filled his eyes. “If I hadn’t felt so betrayed. Mervyn and I were friends for so long. We were tight. We were like this.” He held up a hand with two fingers entwined. “I thought we were closer than brothers, and then he stabbed me in the back, and I never saw it coming, not in a million years.” He hung his head, choked with emotion. “I think that’s what triggered the breakdown. I couldn’t cope with anything, couldn’t drag myself out of bed, couldn’t even lift my arm to feed myself. That’s when my dad stepped in and brought me back to Greenville.”
He let out a sigh of utter exhaustion. With his pallid complexion and those deep hollows beneath his eyes, he looked completely debilitated. “You know what made the whole thing even worse? Vera.”
“Vera?” Emma asked. “Mervyn’s mother?”
“Uh-huh. You see, after my mom left, my dad was always busy working and I was mostly left on my own. Then, when Mervyn and I became friends, Vera treated me like her son, and it was…it was great. It was like having my mom again. But as soon as Mervyn cut me off, Vera did too. She hates my guts now, and she tells me every chance she gets, which is plenty, since she still hangs around the school all the time.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.” How sad for Archer, she thought, to be rejected twice over. No wonder he had suffered a breakdown. However, she couldn’t let her sympathy blind her to the facts. Archer had a very strong motive for wanting to do away with Mervyn. Archer had been on the property that night. Archer had been furious and not in control of himself.
“She hit me with a cushion,” Archer said rather sadly.
With some effort Emma tried to ignore his mournful expression. She had to ask him the hard questions before it became too difficult. A quick glance around the premises verified that the other patrons were engrossed in their drinks, so she decided to take the risk.
“Um, Archer,” she began hesitantly, “so, after you were ejected from the party, did you go straight home or did you hang around for a while?”
“What? Why are you asking?” He gawked at her, and slowly his face turned purple. “What the hell?” His voice rose to a yell. The rest of the bar turned to see the commotion. “Are you accusing me of murder?”
Chapter Eight
Archer’s eyes looked like they were about to burst with rage, and a thick vein pulsed in his neck.
“Um, I wasn’t accusing you of anything,” Emma hastily replied. Why had she agreed to this drink? And in this dive bar where everyone looked a little on the shady side? “I was just wondering, that’s all.”
“Just wondering if I’m capable of killing someone?” Archer let out a half-crazed laugh. “Yeah, I guess I am, given the right circumstances. I mean, we all have that animal instinct to go for the jugular, no matter how much we try to hide it. And I’ve had more provocation than most.” He downed another gulp of beer.
Emma shifted her feet. “Look, maybe I should just leave—”
“No!” Archer bumped the table, causing it to press against her waist and trap her in her chair. “I haven’t finished talking yet.”
It seemed her calculated gamble hadn’t paid off, and in the heightened tension the seedy bar took on a more menacing air. Everyone must have heard Archer’s raised voice, but no one seemed willing to interfere, perhaps with good reason, given this bar’s reputation for brawls. Even the bartender, with his tattooed skull and permanent scowl, appeared willfully uninterested.
Her first instinct was to shove the table back and make a run for it, but then she remembered why she was here, and she tried to get a hold of her nerves. Archer’s behavior was a little scary, but she needed to find out more from him. Her best bet was to stay put and pretend he wasn’t freaking her out.
She moistened her lips. “Okay. So what did you want to talk about?”
For a few moments
he didn’t say anything, just sat there twisting his half-empty beer glass. “You ever wonder how two people can start out the same and then end up so differently?” His question was clearly rhetorical, so Emma remained silent. “I mean, Mervyn and I, we were both smart, both geeks, both socially awkward, to be brutally honest. I thought that’s the way we’d always be, but then, somewhere along the line, he began to change, and I didn’t even realize it until it was too late.”
It seemed Archer’s temper was cooling as quickly as it had heated up.
“Well, people do change as they get older,” Emma said tactfully.
“I suppose, but most people don’t change that much. Not as much as Mervyn has.” Archer guzzled some more beer and slammed down his glass. “It was that scheming bitch that started it. Once she got her claws in him, there was no turning back.”
While his voice was filled with bitterness, she was relieved it was no longer directed at her. “Who? You don’t mean Georgia?”
He gave an ugly laugh. “Who else? Damn, she’s a piece of work. I should’ve seen her coming, but I was so naive. We were both so naive. Neither Mervyn or I had much luck with women in college, so when she came in for the job interview, Mervyn was a sitting duck. She had him eating out of her hand in no time at all. Oh, she was very clever about it. Never flirted with him or led him on. Just friends, she told him. Yeah, right. But before I knew it, he was besotted with her, and she started calling the shots.”
Georgia. Hmm. It wouldn’t be the first time a beautiful young woman had enthralled a rich man, and Georgia stood to inherit a healthy slice of Mervyn’s estate should he die. Todd’s death had appeared to be a terrible blow to her, but maybe that was because the wrong man had died.
Archer leaned across the table, scowling. “The worst part about Georgia is that she introduced Todd to Mervyn.”
“Oh? I didn’t know that.”
“Apparently Georgia met Todd through one of his courses, and then persuaded Mervyn to go to one of his seminars. It’s all a big scam, this life coach rubbish, but Mervyn swallowed it hook, line, and sinker, helped along by Georgia, of course. I tried to tell him he was being duped, but he wouldn’t listen. And then Todd got in his ear about me, and the next thing I know I’m being kicked to the curb. Jeez, that makes me mad! It’s because of him that Mervyn sold me down the river. He changed Mervyn!” Archer’s angry, bulbous eyes focused on Emma. “So yeah, I did think about killing Todd. Plenty of times. I admit it. And I’m not sorry he’s dead.” Curling his hand into a fist, he hammered the table with each word as he intoned, “But. I. Didn’t. Kill. Him.”
She met his ornery eyes. “And you can prove that?”
His gaze shifted elsewhere. “I don’t have to prove anything to you. The police already talked to me today. That Owen Fletcher you used to date. If I’d done anything wrong, he would’ve arrested me.”
Well, yes and no. Owen wasn’t a cop who acted in haste. He would check Archer’s story first before hauling him in for more questioning, and he had only spoken to Archer this morning.
Her face must have shown her doubt because Archer flung up his arms in disgust. “Oh, what the hell? No one believes me! No one even sees me anymore! I may as well be a ghost.” With a heavy grunt of dissatisfaction, he hauled himself to his feet and stomped off to the restroom.
Emma lost no time in squeezing out from the table and grabbing her bag. She wasn’t going to wait for Archer to come back. So what if he had to walk home from here? True, she’d asked him difficult questions and touched on some raw nerves, but he had spooked her, and besides, his dad’s house was nearby, wasn’t it?
She was halfway toward the door when a gruff voice spoke up.
“Hey, lady.”
She paused and turned her head to see the bartender beckoning at her. “Um, yeah?”
“Come over here. It’s about Archer.”
She eyed the door one more time before deciding to risk it and walked up to the bar. “What about Archer?” she asked with more confidence than she felt.
Up close the bartender was even more intimidating. An angry-looking hawk tattoo snarled at her from his shiny skull, more tattoos decorated his fingers, while a chunky metal chain hung around his neck.
“I couldn’t help overhearing your conversation,” he said, busy polishing a glass with a rather grubby rag. “Some sheriff dude came in here earlier wanting to know if Archer was here last Saturday night, so I’ll tell you what I told him. Archer did come in here around about eleven that night. He looked like he’d been in a scuffle and come off second best. He stayed here and got hammered. I put him in a cab at around two am.”
“I see.” It sounded plausible, Archer coming here to drown his sorrows after the humiliation of being thrown out of Mervyn’s party.
“You don’t believe me?” The bartender slapped his rag over his shoulder and propped his hands against the counter. “Don’t let the shaven head and tattoos prejudice you. I’m a post grad at Tait University. People around here call me Bulldog.”
“Oh, um, nice to meet you, er, Bulldog. I’m Emma, and thanks for the information.” She glanced at the restroom, anxious to be gone before Archer returned.
“Archer is a little intense sometimes, but he’s all right.” Bulldog jerked his thumb toward the door. “You’d better get going, then.”
“Thanks.”
She nodded goodbye and scooted out the bar.
***
Emma arrived a little late at the Tex-Mex place where she was meeting Zoe. Her ‘drink’ with Archer at TJ’s had left her slightly rattled and distracted, and she’d half expected Archer to call her, irate that she’d run out on him and left him stranded at the bar. But no call came, and she’d finally concentrated on getting ready.
Ordinarily, a casual dinner with a friend wouldn’t warrant much dressing up, but tonight she’d made more of an effort because of who she was seeing. Zoe had always been into the latest fashions, and Emma didn’t want her friend thinking she had let herself slide over the years. After much deliberation, she’d chosen blue jeans, green silk top, Cuban-heeled boots, and suede jacket, an outfit perfect for the down-to-earth Tex-Mex restaurant, she thought.
When she arrived, Zoe was already sitting at a table.
“Emma!” Zoe sprang up, her black, shiny hair swinging around her shoulders as she embraced Emma.
“So good to see you!” Emma exclaimed. “You look great, as ever. Love your dress.”
“Oh, this old thing.” Shrugging, Zoe smoothed a hand over her clingy wrap dress that had ‘exclusive boutique’ written all over it. “I just threw on whatever I had. You look fantastic. Are those new boots?”
After they had exchanged compliments about their clothes, they ordered a couple of margaritas and settled down for a long chat. Zoe had plenty of news about her career as a software engineer in San Francisco.
“I’m being headhunted by another company. It’s all huh-hush at the moment, so I can’t tell you who it is, even though I’m dying to.” Her black eyes sparkled with enthusiasm as she tapped an exquisitely manicured fingernail against her margarita glass. “The salary is in the mid-six figures, and there’s a signing on bonus, too, plus the potential for promotion in the near future. If I don’t make VP within twelve months, I’ll only have myself to blame.”
“Your parents must be over the moon,” Emma said, remembering how Zoe’s parents had always pushed her in her studies. Instead of playing sports or hanging out with friends after school, Zoe had had to go to extra coaching, and despite winning numerous academic prizes, it seemed her parents were never satisfied.
Zoe glanced down as she examined her rose pink fingernails. “Oh, well, you know my mom and dad. Still holding out hope that I might enroll in medical school.”
“Really? But surely they must be proud of what you’ve achieved?”
“Yes, I’m sure they are.” With a shrug of her shoulders, Zoe changed the subject. “Anyway, when are you coming to visit me? I’ve just boug
ht the most fantastic little condo. It has the most ah-mazing views.”
As Zoe chattered on, Emma listened and asked the right questions, all the while trying not to compare herself with her friend, and failing. Zoe had built an impressive career, leaping from one height to the next. She had her own home, a gorgeous apartment in an exciting city. She was successful and independent. In contrast, Emma’s big city career had crashed and burned, her current business was still in its infancy, and she was living at home with her father. The differences in their circumstances couldn’t be starker, and the city girl in Emma had a fleeting moment of envy. When it passed though, she realized she was becoming very comfortable in her new way of life. She might not have it all, but she was more than content since returning to Greenville.
Still, it made her a little more empathetic toward Archer. She knew how he must feel seeing his best friend shoot ahead of him and achieve everything he hadn’t. Plus, in Archer’s mind, Mervyn’s success had come at Archer’s expense, an added insult to injury.
The conversation paused as the waitress came to take their orders. Afterward, Zoe set her elbows on the table and rested her chin in her hands. “Now,” she said, fixing her gaze on Emma. “It’s your turn. Tell me everything you’ve been up to.”
Emma filled her in on her event planning business and the parties she’d organized, and from there the conversation led to the two killers she’d helped to unmask. Zoe’s eyes widened in awe as she exclaimed over the close shaves Emma had encountered.
“Gosh, you lead an exciting life,” Zoe commented.
“I don’t mean to.”
The food arrived, and they tucked into steak fajitas, fried green tomatoes, and grilled corn.
“Leave room for the churros,” Zoe warned her.
Emma groaned. “Oh, yes, I can’t say no to a good churro.”
“Is Tex-Mex popular with the parties you organize?”
Murder Most Likely (an Emma Cassidy Mystery Book 3) Page 9