I Have a Secret (A Sloane Monroe Novel, Book Three)

by Cheryl Bradshaw

  After it seemed everything was out of my system, I dialed 9-1-1. The operator answered and I said, “There’s been a homicide.”

  I gave her the information and she gave me her usual spiel about how she wanted me to stay on the phone, but I’d done what I needed to, and I wasn’t going anywhere until police got there. I hung up and dialed again.

  “I know, I know. You’re mad at me for sending him down there,” a voice said on the other end. “But before you say anything, you need to understand, I thought it was in your best interest.”

  “Maddie, I’m at a…there’s a dead body, and…”

  “Whoa, whoa, whoa. Slow down. You’re with a dead body? Did you kill someone?”

  “No. I stopped by to see an old friend and I think he’s the dead guy. I mean, from the five seconds I was in there I could tell the body had started to decompose, and I haven’t seen him in a long time, but who else could it be? Once a detective gets here—assuming the town has a homicide unit—I’m sure I won’t be able to find out anything, so I was hoping you could…”

  “How long has the guy been dead do you think?”

  “I don’t know,” I said.

  “All right, you’ve seen the body up close, right?”

  “Yeah…”

  “Describe it to me. What did it look like?”

  “Bloated,” I said. “Kind of a greenish color.”

  “Does his skin look like marble?”

  I thought about it for a moment, and actually, it did. “Yeah.”

  “Have you upchucked yet?”

  “Multiple times.”

  “All right, then I need you to go back into the house and send me some photos of the body—get as close as you can, okay?”

  “I don’t think my stomach can handle round two,” I said.

  “You can do this,” she said. “Get to the bathroom as quick as you can. Open the medicine cabinet if he has one or whatever he keeps stuff like that in and look for some Vicks VapoRub. Stick a good chunk of it under your nose. I mean a big one—plop it on there. It’ll help with the smell. Then go back into the bedroom, snap whatever photos you can and send them to me.”

  I returned to the hotel, discarded the clothes I’d worn that day outside in the dumpster and showered for what felt like several hours. But it didn’t matter. The smell was in my nostrils and clung to my body like a wet bikini. No matter how much soap I used, I couldn’t get the stench of rotting flesh to go away—not completely.

  After my shower, I slumped down on the bed and allowed the past few hours to settle in around me. I wished I could have stomached Nate’s house long enough to get a good look at everything, but that chance came and went when the wheels of the first police car squealed to a stop in Nate’s front yard followed by another vehicle that contained the police chief and one of his sergeants. It was my queue to leave. The few photos I took I forwarded to Maddie. But since they were all surface shots, she could only estimate his death which she agreed could have occurred on poker night. The question was: Why hadn’t anyone discovered him until now?

  I regained all five senses, got dressed and texted Trista. I had one final stop to make before heading over for dinner: Nate’s Automotive. When I arrived, I fully expected my car to be swarmed with salesman like a bunch of peppy cheerleaders at a car wash, but when the wheels touched the inside perimeter of the lot, nothing happened. I parked and searched for signs of life, but the area was more deserted than the town of Tombstone in the thirties.

  I entered the dealership and looked around until I spotted a warm body. A boy with long black cornrows and a slender frame weighing in at about a buck fifty, approached me.

  “Hey,” he said. “What can we do for you today?”

  “Why isn’t anyone out on the lot?”

  He laughed. “You’ve never been here before, have you?”

  I shook my head. “Why?”

  “We don’t do that here.”

  “What?”

  “Pester customers. We let you to come to us. No pressure. It’s better that way.”

  “Nate teach you that?”

  He nodded. “Do you know him?”

  “We went to school together.”

  From his chipper attitude I deduced he hadn’t heard the news about Nate’s untimely demise, but it hadn’t been long since I’d made the discovery.

  “When was the last time you saw Nate?” I said.

  “He’s in Fiji, and he doesn’t take kindly to phone calls when he’s on vacation unless it’s an emergency.”

  It explained why his body went unnoticed for days.

  “How long has he been gone?”

  He shrugged. “A few days I guess.”

  It added to my suspicion that the last time anyone saw him alive was poker night. I swallowed and realized if I wanted to get the details on Nate’s final hours, I’d have to talk to Jesse—yet again.

  “Did Nate vacation alone?”

  He swiped his hand through the air like he was swatting a fly. “Naw, he took someone with him.”

  “Do you know who?” I said.

  Cornrow Boy yelled over his shoulder to another guy who stood several feet away. “Hey, you know the name of the girl Nate took to Fiji?”

  The other boy scratched his head. “Ahhh, I think her name was Janice?”

  Cornrow Boy shook his head. “Naw man, that’s not right. It started with a C.” He slapped the thigh of his pants with his hand and laughed. “I actually heard Nate call her Candy once, cuz she smelled so sweet, but Candy wasn’t her real name or nothin’.”

  It couldn’t have been. Could it?

  “Was her name Candice?” I said.

  In unison both boys nodded. “Yeah, that’s right.”

  The other guy winked at Cornrow Boy. “For an older woman, she is F-I-N-E fine, mmm mmmh!”

  “How long had Nate been dating Candice?”

  Cornrow Boy threw his head back and thundered with laughter. “You may have known Nate back in the day, but you obviously don’t know nothin’ about him now. Nate’s never with anyone. He dates two, three girls at a time.”

  The two boys glanced at each other and nodded like they wanted to smack hands together in a high five.

  “Did the girls Nate dated know he was with more than one woman at the same time?”

  Cornrow Boy looked at me. “Uh, I dunno. That Candice chick didn’t.”

  “How do you know?” I said.

  “Cuz she found out he was dating some other girl and drove her car into his brand new beamer—get this— while my man was driving it.”

  The other guy nodded and said, “That chick’s got balls, yo.”

  I couldn’t believe it. “And he still wanted to take Candice on vacation?”

  By this time the other kid had walked over and was eager to join the conversation. “Nate likes the feisty ones.”

  “Yeah,” Cornrow Boy said. “The crazier the better.”

  It made me uncomfortable to be even a minute late for any event no matter how simple, but when I arrived at Trista’s house carrying a pie in each hand from one of the local bakeries, no one seemed to mind my tardiness. One look at Trista’s smiling face revealed she hadn’t heard the news about Nate either. And with all three kids around, it wasn’t the right time to tell her.

  “C’mon in. I was just showing Alexa a picture of us from senior year,” she said.

  “I don’t remember us ever being in a picture together.”

  We walked into the living room. A plastic bin the size of a shoebox rested on the coffee table. It was filled with photos of Trista at different stages in her life. She shuffled through a few of them and said, “Ah, here it is,” and then handed it to me.

  The photo had been taken on the homecoming float in 1991. The two of us were arm in arm in our black, white, and green Warrior paint that covered both our faces. The paint masked a lot, but couldn’t hide my bright blue eye shadow or my spiral-permed hair.

  Trista pointed at the photo. “I put th
at spirit paint on your face. Do you remember now?”

  I didn’t, but it was one of those situations where I rationalized how much better a white lie was than hurting her feelings.

  “Good times,” I said.

  A girl with blond crimped hair stepped into the kitchen. She looked over at me and said, “Hey.”

  Trista held her hand out like she was giving a formal presentation. “This is my daughter, Alexa.”

  “I hear you want to be a doctor,” I said.

  Her cheeks flushed and she teetered back on the heels of her Mary Jane shoes. “Yeah, one day.”

  “I’ll go check on dinner,” Trista said.

  I glanced at Alexa. “Are you an intern?”

  She nodded. “I work a couple hours here and there at Guardian.”

  “Never heard of it,” I said.

  “It’s a children’s hospital.”

  “Is that what you want to go into—pediatrics?”

  She nodded. “I love working with kids.”

  Trista emerged from the kitchen donning hot pads on both hands and carrying several pieces of silverware. “Who’s ready for dinner?”

  Dinner came and went, and while Trista whisked the twins off to bed, I sat on the sofa with Alexa. She smoothed her hand over the cloth couch cushion and glanced in my direction several times but didn’t say anything.

  “Is there something you want to ask me?” I said.

  She shrugged. “I don’t know.”

  “Because if you do, it’s okay. You can ask me anything you like.”

  She bit the corner of her lip. “Do you umm…think you’ll find the person who hurt my dad?”

  I tilted my head and leaned closer. “Did your mom tell you what happened?”

  “She said my dad was in a fight with someone and he fell overboard. My brothers think it was an accident, but I know better, and I heard the neighbors say you were some kind of a detective. Are you?”

  I nodded.

  Her eyes widened. “Then you’ll find who did it, right?”

  “I hope so,” I said. “How are you doing with all this?”

  “It’s weird, I guess. I’m sad he’s gone, but it wasn’t like I was his favorite.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Alexa rose, walked to the pantry, took out a bag of cookies and plopped back down on the sofa. She tugged at the bag with her hands, and when it didn’t open at the seam, she tossed it on the coffee table in front of her, bent over and rested her face in her hands. “I know my dad loved me, but he loved my brothers more.”

  I snatched the cookie bag, opened it, and slid it next to her. “I’m sure that’s not true. What makes you think that?”

  She raised her head up and wiped her moistened eyes on the sleeve of her shirt. “I dunno. I can’t explain it. I mean, I know he loved me. I was his kid, so he had to, but the way he looked at me was different. When my brothers were born I felt like I didn’t fit in.”

  It was hard for me to believe Doug would ever shun one of his own children, and yet, she seemed certain about his feelings for her. I thought about my own insecurities as a child and my feelings of abandonment from a father whose only favorite was himself and a bottle he called Jack D.

  Alexa removed her hands from her face and looked at me. “I keep thinking I should come home so I can be here for my mom. It’s not like it would be forever. I can go back to college next semester.”

  “Your mom is so proud of what you’ve accomplished already. I’m sure she’d want you to stay in school.”

  She shrugged. “Maybe.”

  “Does your mom know how you feel?”

  “Yeah. She said she wouldn’t allow it, but I think she would. She can’t force—”

  Trista entered the room with plates of pie in each hand and glanced at Alexa. “Can’t force you to do what?”

  Alexa stood up. “Nothing, I’m going to my room.”

  Once she was out of sight, Trista handed me a slice of pie and sat the other’s down. “What was that all about?”

  “Nothing, really.”

  Trista rubbed her hands together. “Alexa hasn’t talked much since she got here. I have no idea what she’s going through—and I’m probably not doing a good job of being there for her right now—I can’t even take care of myself.”

  “You remember what it was like at her age,” I said. “Alexa is processing a lot of her emotions internally. I’m sure she’ll talk to you when she’s ready.”

  I knew precious little about the world of teenagers except what it felt like when I was one, but it seemed like sound advice.

  Trista grabbed a plate of pie, scooped up a piece on a fork and took a bite. “Have you found out anything new since I last saw you?”

  The time had come for me to make a decision about whether it would be better for her to hear about Nate from me or from everyone else in town.

  “Did Doug and Nate ever spend any time together?” I said.

  Trista blinked a few times. “Nate Vargas?”

  I nodded.

  “We bought our cars from him.”

  “Yeah,” I said, “but, did Doug ever see him for anything other than business?”

  “Uh, no. Nate’s lifestyle is umm—how can I put this—a lot different than ours. We were all about family, and he was, well, about being eighteen years old forever. Why?”

  There wasn’t an easy way to say it, so I grabbed her hand and blurted it out.

  “I hate to be the one to tell you this, but I think it would be better coming from me.”

  A look of concern spread across her face. “What’s happened?”

  “I went to Nate’s house earlier today.”

  “So you saw him?”

  “Yeah, except when I found him, it wasn’t what I expected.”

  She rolled her eyes. “Was he with a woman? Wouldn’t surprise me. He’s been with about every girl in town.”

  “He wasn’t with anyone,” I said. “He was dead.”

  After a few hours of Trista going from very frazzled to a little less frazzled, she took something to help her sleep. I waited for it to kick in and then stopped by Alexa’s room and let her know her mom was having a rough night. Alexa promised she would stay with her. I waited for things to quiet down and then took my leave.

  When I returned to my own home-away-from-home I sent a text to Jesse.

  WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT POKER NIGHT.

  YOU MAY HAVE BEEN THE LAST ONE TO SEE NATE ALIVE.

  I KNOW WHAT I SAID, BUT CALL ME—PLEASE.

  Then I called Giovanni.

  “I was just thinking of you luce mia,” he said.

  The phrase luce mia was one among many phrases he used that I didn’t understand. He said it often, and after I’d heard it several times and guessed it meant everything from me being loose—which couldn’t have been his intention—to my love or my lover, I gave in and googled. Its meaning: My light.

  “Did you attack Jesse?” I said.

  “Is that what he told you?”

  “His face said it more than anything.”

  Giovanni’s voice never wavered. “I was with you all night.”

  “After you made a phone call outside the room first.”

  He sighed. “I made one business call, yes.”

  “And did it have anything to do with Jesse?”

  A brief pause and then, “It did.”

  “So where is he?” I said.

  “Who?”

  “Your sidekick, bodyguard, whatever you call him—Lucio.”

  “Around.”

  Around in Giovanni speak meant he’d left Lucio at the hotel to keep an eye on me while he was away. Giovanni respected my independence and never stood in the way of my investigations, but he also looked out for my safety. He both respected and protected me at the same time. It was something I hadn’t gotten used to yet.

  “And did he—”

  “Give Jesse a reminder about how not to treat women?” Giovanni said. “He did.”

 
If there was one thing I appreciated, it was his honesty.

  “I believe his face got the message,” I said. “Can you tell Lucio to back off?”

  “If your police friend doesn’t touch you again, that can be managed.”

  We talked for a while longer about things that didn’t have to do with Jesse, the town, or the murders, and then ended the call. It was strange. Although we’d known each other a short time, when he wasn’t around, I missed him. It didn’t matter whether I hadn’t seen him for five minutes or five hours. I found myself thinking of when we’d be together again. It was a feeling I hadn’t felt for any other man before.

  I grabbed a blanket, reclined on the loveseat and went over what I knew about the case so far. Doug had been stabbed by, I assumed, the same person who killed Rusty and Nate. To an outsider, it probably looked like the work of a serial killer who could even be tied to some random cases in neighboring counties. Doug had been stabbed multiple times, which led me to believe one thing: He was the practice round. With Rusty and Nate, the killer was more methodical and precise, managing to deliver death by a single stab wound to the chest and then the knife was left as a representation of their crime, as if to say look at me, look what I did.

  The knife in Nate’s chest was long and thin, unlike the short, thick blade used on Rusty. Had the killer hand selected specific knives for each of them? And if so, why? That alone made it personal, it bound them together, and yet all three men were so different.

  And then there were the suspects. Heather was tied to both Doug and Nate, and if I dug deeper, chances were I’d find a connection to Rusty. Public enemy number two was Candice who probably still had ties to every guy in town and could have befriended Heather as an alibi to cover her ass if suspicion rose against her. On the night Doug was killed, she made sure everyone knew she was in the ballroom. Had it all been an elaborate scheme to make it appear she’d been there the entire time?

  On my list of less likely suspects was Rosalind, Doug’s mother. She was hiding something, but was a bit up in years to deliver death by knife in one blow to grown men. I didn’t put it past her to hire an accomplice to do her bidding for her, but to kill her own son? I didn’t think so.