“I’m just trying to help a friend,” she said.
“You can’t—” Nate started to lecture, but Tara let out a squeak and they both turned to see what had alarmed her.
Standing in the doorway to the bar was Jake. He looked devastated to see Tara, as if he couldn’t decide whether to hug her close or run for his life. Brenna realized that no matter what had happened that night, Jake was still very much in love with his bride to be.
He turned to leave, but she called out, “Jake!”
He stopped, waited for a second, and then slowly turned around. Brenna crossed the room in five strides. She wanted to catch him before he changed his mind.
“Jake, listen, we’re trying to figure out what happened that night,” she said. “Do you want to help us?”
She felt Nate step up behind her. She knew he didn’t agree with what she was doing, but she was grateful for his presence at her back.
“I can’t,” Jake said. “I don’t want to know if . . .”
“What? If your worst fears are true?” Nate asked from behind her. “Wouldn’t it be better to know?”
“I don’t think I could bear it,” Jake said.
“What if it goes the other way?” Brenna asked. “What if nothing happened between them and she is innocent?”
The young man sucked a breath through his teeth, as if he’d just suffered a body blow. Brenna suspected he desperately wanted that outcome but was afraid to hope for it.
“Please, Jake,” Tara said as she joined their group. “If you ever loved me, help me now. Help me find out what happened that night.”
A shudder rippled through his shoulders and he tossed back his head, a gladiator ready to fight to the death.
“All right,” he said. “I’m in.”
“Where do we start?” Matt asked as he and Tenley joined the group. Brenna noticed that he had his arm draped over her shoulders and she was beaming.
“You’re coming, too?” she asked.
“I just got off my shift,” he said. “I figure I can act as a stand-in.”
“Me, too,” Nate volunteered.
“Excellent,” Brenna said. “Okay, let’s start here. Everyone take your positions from when the bachelorette party started.”
“You were behind the bar, flirting with that buxom bridesmaid,” Tenley said to Matt. “I can’t remember her name.”
“Britney,” he said, and Tenley frowned. “I remember because she was so not my type. I’m more of a leg man.”
Tenley flushed a lovely shade of pink and shooed him back behind the bar.
“Nate, will you stand in for Clue?” Brenna asked. “Tara and Jake were hugging. Go ahead.”
Tara and Jake awkwardly stepped into each other’s arms. Jake didn’t seem to know where to put his hands and Tara kept trying to see his face to make sure he was okay. Finally, she just gave in and hugged him fiercely. Jake leaned his chin down into her hair and took a deep breath. Then he, too, wrapped his arms about her and held her close.
“Okay, now Nate, you look at Tara,” Brenna said. He did but she shook her head. “No, look at her as if you don’t like her.”
Jake and Tara both gave Brenna a questioning glance. Nate glowered at Tara, but it lacked any heat. Still, it made Brenna remember what happened next.
“Now, look at me,” she said. Nate did but his gray eyes were warm and she didn’t feel the scary shiver that she had when Clue looked at her.
“What are you remembering?” he asked.
“Jake, how did Clue feel about you getting married?” she asked.
“He was okay with it,” he said. He didn’t meet her gaze and Brenna stared at him with one eyebrow raised.
“How did he feel?” Tara asked, stepping back from Jake.
“Not happy,” Jake sighed. “He thought I was crazy to give up my freedom.”
“You never told me that,” Tara said.
“I didn’t want to hurt your feelings,” Jake said. “Besides, I knew I wanted to spend my life with you. I didn’t care what he thought.”
“I think Clue was more than a little angry about you marrying Tara,” Brenna said. “I saw it in his face when he looked at the two of you. It was scary.”
Jake blew out a breath as he took this in. “I didn’t know.”
They were all silent for a moment, and then Nate asked, “What happened next?”
“Clue insulted the bridesmaids,” Tenley said.
“Then he apologized,” Tara added.
“And we left,” Jake finished.
“Okay, then, where to next?” Matt asked.
“The Willow House,” all three women answered together.
The women took Brenna’s Jeep, while the men climbed into Jake’s vintage GTO. It was easy to see the lust in Nate’s and Matt’s eyes as they climbed into the classic muscle car.
Tenley rolled her eyes at Brenna, as if to say, “Men.”
The Willow House was the local college students’ hang-out and the best place in the area to listen to live music. Occasional bands from Boston passed through, but the majority of it was local talent.
On this night, just like the last time they were here, a live cover band was jamming and the place was packed. Tenley and Brenna made their way to the same table where they had stood that night.
Tenley nudged Brenna with her elbow. “I don’t think we really need to revisit the conversation where we discover we’re old, do you?”
Brenna glanced at Nate and Matt behind them. “Nope, I don’t see a need.”
Tara stood beside their table and studied the room in front of them. “Britney was dancing with a whole group of men, while Dana and Marissa watched. I got a phone call—from you.”
She pointed to Jake and he said, “Yeah, I remember.”
“We sat here drinking coffee, when Dom Cappicola came over and asked Brenna out,” Tenley said.
In spite of herself, Brenna felt her face get hot.
“So, that’s when it happened,” Nate said.
“Moving along,” Brenna said. She could feel Nate watching her, but she refused to meet his gaze.
“Then I joined Dana and Marissa,” Tara said. “And they said they wanted to go somewhere else, so we followed Britney back to the table.”
“And we all agreed to go home,” Tenley said.
“Yeah, but it didn’t work out that way,” Tara said. Her voice was full to the brim with what-ifs, and Brenna took her hand and squeezed it in sympathetic understanding. There was no time to get weepy about what couldn’t be changed, however.
“So, what happened next?” Jake asked. He reminded Brenna of a pointer dog, looking for a hunter’s fallen bird. He wasn’t going to relent until he knew what happened.
“The limo took us back to town,” Tara said. “And I went to get out with Brenna and Tenley, but Britney dragged me back into the car and told the driver to take us to the Brass Rail.”
Brenna looked at the group. “Next stop the Brass Rail.” They all nodded in agreement and trudged back out to their cars. Brenna watched Nate stroll toward the GTO, and she marveled that he was here with them.
Nate was friendly with Matt, but he didn’t know Jake at all. This was so against his reclusive nature that she had to wonder what was motivating him to help them.
Before he climbed into the car, their gazes met over the roof. A small smile lifted the corner of his mouth and he gave his head a small shake. Brenna realized he was here because of her. Out of friendship, or whatever it was that he felt for her.
A grin parted her lips, and he blinked as if temporarily blinded by the wattage before he grinned back.
Brenna climbed into the Jeep to find Tenley watching her.
“What’s making you so happy?” she asked.
“I think we might get some answers tonight,” Brenna said. “That’s all.”
“Uh-huh,” Tenley grunted, looking out the window at Nate and then back at Brenna. “Sure.”
“Do you think so?” Tara asked fro
m the backseat.
Brenna glanced at her in the rearview mirror. She had her fingers laced together almost as if she were praying.
Brenna sobered up immediately. This wasn’t about her and Nate. This was about Tara and finding out what happened to her on the night of Clue’s murder.
Her eyes met Tara’s in the mirror as she pulled out of the lot.
“Yes, I do,” she said, hoping for Tara’s sake that she was right.
Chapter 15
“I told you so,” Tenley said.
“Told me what?” Brenna asked.
The two women stared at the squat little brick building before them.
“That this place is a dump.”
Brenna remembered the night of the bachelorette party, when Tenley had called this place a dump; now that seemed overly flattering.
Off the beaten path, the Brass Rail was tucked behind the small industrial section of Morse Point, an area that was home to a self-storage facility, a propane gas distributor, and a trucking company.
The dirt lot was unlined and parking was willy-nilly. Brenna did the best she could and was relieved when Jake pulled up beside her. “You actually went in there?” she asked Tara.
“Yeah,” Tara said on a heavy sigh.
Motorcycles were parked in a row across the front of the building. A bouncer the size of a refrigerator stood by the front door, which was open, spilling out rowdy shouts and laughter and jukebox music that maintained a deafening beat mingled with grinding guitar solos.
Jake opened the back door for Tara, while Matt got Tenley’s door, leaving Nate to open Brenna’s. There was no turning back now.
“Talk us through what you remember, Tara,” Brenna said. “You were the only one of us here that night, so we can’t help you.”
“The limo pulled up here,” she said, and she walked over to the motorcycles. “We tumbled out. Dana actually fell into the dirt and Britney laughed at her. Clue was working the door.”
Her voice grew soft and she gave Jake a worried look.
“It’s okay,” he said with a nod of his head. “Keep going.”
Tara took a deep breath. “Clue helped Dana up and then walked us into the bar.”
“Let’s do it then,” Jake said. He took Tara by the elbow and led her up to the bouncer.
“Hey, man.” The bouncer recognized Jake and they traded a complicated handshake that started normally, included some backhand action, and ended with them pounding one fist atop another. “I’m sorry about Clue, man. That was messed up.”
“Yeah, thanks,” Jake said.
The bouncer squinted at Tara, but Jake hustled her past him before he could recognize her. The bouncer nodded as the rest of them passed through the door.
“I think I’m offended that we weren’t carded,” Tenley whispered to Brenna.
“It’s because we’re with Jake and he’s a regular,” Brenna said.
“That’s our story and we’re sticking to it,” Tenley whispered back.
Tara turned to face them. She raised her voice to a low yell to be heard over the twangy dance music coming out of the jukebox. “This is where Marissa took Dana to the ladies’ room to clean up, and Britney went to dance with some scary biker guy.”
“Do you see him here?” Brenna asked, hoping they could ask him some questions.
Tara scanned the room and shook her head.
“We’ll be them,” Matt volunteered.
Without waiting for an answer, he led Tenley out onto the dance floor, which was a small square of wooden-looking linoleum wedged between two pool tables.
“Does that mean we have to be the bridesmaids?” Nate asked her.
“Ick. No,” she said. “Let’s just follow Tara and see what she remembers.”
“I remember I stood here for a little while, feeling very out of place,” Tara said.
“Understatement of the year,” Nate whispered to Brenna, and she hushed him.
Tara studied the room around her, but Brenna could tell she wasn’t seeing the room as it was now, but rather as it had been that night.
“I decided I’d be safer by the bar,” she said. “It was crowded, so I sat at the end by the wall.”
The same seat was empty now, so they followed her as she made her way toward it. It was a rickety old stool and it tipped a bit as Tara sat down, the light from a neon beer sign above glowing blue on her blond hair.
The bartender, a gnarled old man who wore his long gray hair in a single braid down his back, leaned toward them. He didn’t speak but waited for their order. When Jake stepped around Tara, the old man’s eyes widened in recognition.
“How do, Jake?”
“I’ve been better,” he said. “How about you, Al?”
“Chief Barker has been making a real nuisance of himself,” he said. “He’s scaring off my regulars.”
“Sorry to hear that,” Jake said.
“Yeah, well, I just hope he nails that little rich bi—”
“Don’t!” Nate cut him off.
Al glared as if he would throw Nate out for being so disrespectful, but Jake cut in.
“She didn’t do it,” he said. He put an arm around Tara’s shoulders. “In fact, she’s here with me and we’re trying to figure out what happened that night.”
Al turned his head and studied Tara. It was hard to tell what he was thinking. His dark eyes darted around her face as if trying to see into her soul.
“I didn’t do it,” she said. Her voice was soft and sincere, and topped with the big puppy eyes she was giving him, it was virtually impossible for him not to believe her.
Al seemed to make up his mind with a nod. “All right, but if you’re lying, I hope you fry. Now, what can I do for you?”
“Do you remember me from that night?” Tara asked. “Did you see me talk to anyone or do anything strange?”
“Sorry,” he said. “I was off that night.”
His voice was genuinely regretful, and Brenna wondered if he was sad that he couldn’t help them or because he was burdened with wondering if everything would have turned out differently if he had been here that night.
They ordered a pitcher of beer and Tara resumed trying to remember what happened.
“It was a different bartender,” she said. “I remember now. It was a woman, large with a deep voice.”
“That’d be Della,” Al said. “She’s off tonight.”
“I remember, because I ordered an appletini from her and she laughed at me and called it a froufrou drink for silly girls,” Tara said, looking peeved.
“That’s sounds like Della,” Al confirmed.
“So what did you drink?” Jake asked, looking amused at the frown on Tara’s face.
“I believe she gave me a beer in a can,” she said. “Pabst, she called it.” Both men burst out laughing, and Tara looked sheepish and said, “It wasn’t terrible.”
Brenna glanced down the bar. A pale woman with dyed black hair cut in blunt bangs and a halter top over short-shorts and cowboy boots was watching them with a knowing stare.
Brenna stepped away from the group, planning to approach the woman, when her cell phone rang. She checked the number. It was the Bayview area; it had to be Dom.
“Excuse me,” she said and stepped away from the noisy bar to take the call outside.
“Hello.”
“Hi, gorgeous,” Dom said. His voice was warm as if he knew she had just blushed. “How are you?”
“Doing well, and you?” she asked. The bouncer was watching her through half-closed eyes, very creepy, so she moved down the side of the building. She could see Tara and the others through the grimy window. They all seemed oblivious of the dark-haired woman sitting at the bar, still watching then.
“Right now I am hoping I earn enough brownie points to get you to go to dinner with me again,” he said.
“Really?” she asked. He had her full attention now. “What do you know?”
“First agree to dinner,” he haggled.
“I
accept,” she said. “Now spill it.”
“Okay, okay, here’s what I got from the floor manager at the paper mill. Apparently, the week before he died, Clue spent a lot of time talking about a new Harley Fat Boy he was going to buy.”
Dom was silent and Brenna waited, but he said no more.
“That’s it?” she asked. “You bartered dinner for that? That’s not even worth a Hot Pocket on the T into Boston.”
“Such impatience,” he teased her. “I had to check my notes. Okay, a few days before he died, there was an incident in the break room at the mill, where one of the men, who lost his girl to Clue last year incidentally, called him out about the new Harley. There was a bit of a scuffle when the other guy said Clue was a liar, that he couldn’t afford that sort of machine, but Clue said he had taken on an odd job that would pay him enough to buy it outright. When pressed, he refused to divulge what the job was, but there was a lot of speculation.”
“Interesting,” Brenna said. “Do you think Clue got mixed up in something illegal?”
“I wouldn’t be surprised,” Dom said. “He wasn’t exactly squeaky-clean.”
“But this gives us a whole other avenue of suspects,” Brenna said. She was thrilled. “Dom, you’re wonderful.”
“I try,” he said. “I’m going to keep poking around the mill and see if I can get more information.”
“Thanks.”
“So, what are you doing on this fine evening?” he asked.
“I’m with Tara at the Brass Rail, it’s a dive bar on the edge of Morse Point. We’re trying to jog her memory about that fateful night.”
“I don’t think I like the idea of you ladies being alone at a place like that,” he said. “Why don’t I come and meet you?”
Brenna glanced back through the window and saw Nate watching her. She gave him a small finger wave. He waved back. She did not want to have Dom and Nate meet up again if she could avoid it. There was just too much testosterone in the room when they were both present.
“Where are you?” she asked. She scanned the parking lot as if expecting him to pull up.
“Bayview,” he said.
“Oh, we’ll be long gone by the time you get here,” she said. “Besides we’re not alone, Jake is with us.”
Cut to the Corpse Page 14