Die Job

by Lila Dare

  His version of an apology sounded like my four-year-old nephew’s: “I’m sorry, but it was your fault.” Still, he didn’t look threatening and I felt the tension ease out of my shoulders.

  “We didn’t mean to scare you,” I said. “We just wanted to talk to you about Braden and that night at Rothmere. Why did you take off like that?”

  “I thought you were someone else,” he mumbled. “Someone I been doin’ some business with.”

  “Hm. I guess you haven’t been out selling Girl Scout cookies.”

  “I haven’t been selling anything,” Lonnie said swiftly.

  Ye gods. Did he think I’d just accused him of dealing drugs? Once the thought lodged in my brain, it refused to go away. I hoped for Loretta’s sake, and Lonnie’s, that he wasn’t mixed up with drug dealers. “So, that night at Rothmere, what was the bit with the ghost costume all about?”

  Lonnie flashed a grin. “It wasn’t about nothing. It was just for kicks. You’re pretty fast for an old chick. You almost caught me before I went out the window.”

  His praise left me underwhelmed. “And the fireworks? Were those meant as a distraction so that someone could push Braden McCullers down the stairs?”

  “Shit, no!” Lonnie’s wide nostrils flared with alarm. “Braden was my man. I wouldn’t set him up.”

  “Really? I heard you were pissed at him for testifying against your brother.”

  “We worked that out,” Lonnie said, but his eyes didn’t meet mine.

  “You beat him up, you mean.”

  “Shit, lady, he gave as good as he got.” Lonnie scowled. “We were cool.”

  “So you’re okay with Braden getting your brother thrown in prison.”

  “Juvie. Look, Randall’s got his issues, you know?”

  I didn’t want to hear about Randall’s issues and Lonnie’s insistence that he wasn’t mad at Braden rang true. “So what about the fireworks?”

  “The fireworks were just for fun, for livening up the party. Sittin’ around all night waiting for a ghost to show up didn’t sound like much of a party, you know? So me and some of the others made plans, if you know what I mean.”

  “Who else? What kind of plans?”

  Lonnie shrugged. “Well, someone mighta brought some beer, and maybe there was some weed—but I don’t touch that shit—and a coupla other kids brought sheets, although they chickened out of doing their Cyril impressions, I guess.”

  My heartbeat quickened and I took half a step toward him. “Who did, Lonnie? Who else had a ghost costume?”

  He shrugged. “Ari Solomon and Crenshaw did, for sure, and maybe some others. It was s’posed to be a contest—see who could get the biggest reaction, scare the most

  people. But the way we was all split up, it was hard to get an audience together, you know? But Tyler and me, we got you all going, didn’t we?” He smiled, clearly pleased with himself.

  I bit down on my lip to keep from gasping at the news that Mark had taken a sheet with him to Rothmere. “How did you smuggle in all this beer and stuff?” I asked.

  “Backpacks,” Lonnie said, looking at me like I was a moron. A black sedan cruised past and Lonnie shot it a glance. He shuffled his big feet. “Look, I gotta be hitting the road.”

  “Are you evacuating?”

  A funny look came over his face. “You could say that. I’m evacuating permanently.”

  “You’re leaving town?”

  “Yeah. Aunt Retta thinks it’s smarter for me to move on, to get away from my . . . associates.” Fear flickered across his face at the mere thought of his business partners. “I’m going to live with my Aunt Cora. She’s a parole officer in Portland. Aunt Retta says that the path I’m taking, I’m gonna have me a parole officer before long, so I might as well live with one.”

  “What about football?” I asked. “Your scholarship chances?”

  He shrugged strongly muscled shoulders. “Aunt Retta says it wouldn’t hurt me none to repeat my junior year, so I’ll have two years to play in Portland. The scouts’ll find me. Maybe I’ll play for Oregon, instead of Georgia.” His faith in his football prowess was so complete that he took it as a given he’d get recruited by an NCAA Division I program. I didn’t think I’d ever had that much confidence in any of my abilities.

  “I hope it works out for you,” I said, offering my hand.

  After a moment’s hesitation, he shook it, swallowing it in his callused hand. “Can you tell Miss Althea I’m sorry?” The hint of nervousness in his eyes told me he found Althea almost as intimidating as the people he was leaving town to avoid.

  “Sure thing.”

  “And your neighbor, for the pumpkin?” He nodded toward Mrs. Jones’s veranda. “I thought you lived there.”

  “And you thought I’d enjoy pumpkin guts exploded all over?”

  A shadow of the cocky smile appeared on his face. “My homeys thought you were too nosy, you know? Talkin’ ‘bout the cops, an’ all. And that trick with the toilet bowl cleaner and tinfoil is bitchin’.”

  “You almost gave her a heart attack.”

  Lonnie had apparently exhausted his supply of apologies. “You’ll let Aunt Retta know I came by?”

  I nodded. “Good luck, Lonnie.”

  His long, athletic stride carried him to the red pickup in just a few steps. Gunning the engine, he reversed down the driveway and sped west toward I-95. He had a long road in front of him, and I wasn’t just thinking about the interstate.

  Even before the pickup was out of sight, my mind was sorting out what Lonnie had told me. Mark Crenshaw had taken a ghost costume to Rothmere. On the face of it, it looked like Braden’s best friend had pushed him down the stairs. But why? And how? Lindsay said she and Mark had been together the entire evening. It took only a nanosecond for me to realize that Lindsay would lie for Mark. Okay, so that left why. Of course, Ari Solomon had a sheet with her, too, and there might’ve been others Lonnie didn’t know about. I hadn’t come across any hint of motive for Ari to want to kill Braden. Her mother, however . . . Could Tasha have taken Ari’s ghost costume, snuck from the kitchen to the main house, and pushed Braden? Would Ari lie to the police for her mom? Very possibly. Teen girls would either lie for their moms or try to frame them, depending on how their hormones were acting up. I’d felt both ways about my mom at various times between twelve and sixteen. But how would Dr. Solomon have worked the timing, showing up on the landing just as Rachel left Braden alone? I growled with frustration.

  The wind rattled the trash cans behind Mrs. Jones’s house and I walked in that direction as I thought, planning to stow them in the garage before Horatio hit. Hurricane winds could fling garbage cans around like pebbles, hurling them through windows or bowling them down streets to damage cars. Grabbing their handles, I dragged them toward the garage. Mrs. Jones didn’t have a car anymore—she’d quit driving a couple of years back, much to the relief of pedestrians who’d thought they’d be safe on the sidewalk—and the garage housed only a mower, some tools, and plastic tubs full of stuff Mrs. Jones couldn’t bring herself to give away or trash. Stowing the cans, I wondered if Braden had suspected Mark’s dad was abusing him and his mother. Maybe he’d even witnessed a punch or a beating.

  Excitement pounded through me. It made sense. Braden had told Rachel he was trying to figure out whether or not to intervene in some situation. Well, if he suspected abuse, he might have wrestled with whether or not to tell someone. I’d been mulling it over myself, and I didn’t know Mark or his family half as well as Braden did. Was Mark trying to protect his family by pushing Braden? Closing the garage door behind me, I hurried to my apartment. Whether my reasoning was right or wrong, I definitely had to let Agent Dillon know about Mark and the sheet.

  WHEN I PHONED HIM, AGENT DILLON SAID HE WAS AT Rothmere and I agreed to meet him there. I parked in the graveled lot fifteen minutes later, reflecting that I’d spent more time at Rothmere in the last few months than I had in the last twenty years. Until I attended
a fund-raising ball there in May, I hadn’t been near the place since I left elementary school. I found Dillon in the detached kitchen, staring at a roughly drawn map of some kind as he surveyed the brick walls and gaping mouth of the original fireplace. The wind huffed down the chimney, sending a whiff of grilled meat into the room, perhaps from some long-dead ox or pig.

  The door squealed when I closed it, and Dillon looked up. The marine blue of his eyes warmed as his gaze rested on me. His suit and tie looked ludicrously out of place in the rough kitchen with its scarred wooden table and iron pots stacked on shelves.

  “What’s that?” I asked, nodding at the page he held.

  “Spaatz’s version of where everyone was—or was supposed to be—on Saturday night,” he said. “I compared it with yours.”

  “Useful,” I commented, studying the page over his shoulder. Neatly labeled with last names, Xs showed where each pair of students had set up their ghost observation points. I could feel Dillon’s warmth through his jacket and see a tiny scar curving down from the corner of his mouth that I hadn’t noticed before. Discombobulated by his closeness, I stepped back a pace.

  “Not as useful as one would hope,” Dillon said, “since almost no one stayed put.”

  “Speaking of which . . .” I told him about my conversation with Lonnie and Lonnie’s assertion that Mark Crenshaw had come to Rothmere with a sheet stuffed in his backpack. “So did Ari Solomon and maybe some others.”

  “Interesting,” he said when I finished. Moving toward the door, he held it open for me. “I’m visiting each of these sites,” he said, shaking the paper, “to see what was or wasn’t visible from each room.”

  I followed him across the acorn-strewn lawn, through the front hall—with cables still stretched across the floor, but empty of people—and into the huge ballroom with its French doors looking out to the garden and the cemetery beyond. I remembered it as a peaceful view, but today the wind tore at the trees and angry clouds blocked the sky’s blue. “Those doors were open when I came in here Saturday night,” I said, gesturing to the French doors. “I felt a draft, but then the Lonnie and Tyler ghost show started and I forgot about them.”

  “So anyone could’ve gone in or out without cutting through the hall and being seen,” Dillon said, strolling from one end of the room to the other.

  I didn’t know what he was looking for, but I stayed silent while he made notes. Finally, he rattled one of the doorknobs and turned to me.

  “So you think Mark pushed his best friend,” he said. “Any thoughts on why?”

  “As a matter of fact, I do,” I said, nettled by his tone. As I gave him my theory about Mark’s father abusing him and Braden feeling he had to intervene, Dillon kept his gaze fixed on my face.

  His expression was grave by the time I finished, and he rubbed his forefinger against his slightly crooked nose. “That sounds almost plausible, Grace,” he said. “But I don’t know how we prove it. The Tandy girl has already said Mark was with her the whole evening, and I can’t see getting his mother to swear out an abuse complaint. She never has before, and if she does so now, she gives her son a motive for murder.”

  “No mother would do that,” I murmured.

  “Exactly.”

  “What about Sunday night when Braden was . . . Was Lindsay at Ari’s party?”

  “Supposedly. Only a couple of the kids who were here Saturday have solid alibis. Almost all of them were at the Solomon girl’s party, so no one really kept track of who was there or not, or for how long they stayed. Anyone could’ve ducked out, driven to the hospital, smothered McCullers, and slipped back into the party, all within an hour.” He crumpled the map in his fist. “It really gets my goat to think that a high schooler pulled this off and may get away with it.”

  As he spoke, he gave the ballroom a final glance and headed toward the door. We walked in silence down the hall, but he grabbed my arm to steady me when I tripped over a black cable left by the TV crew. “You know,” I said when I regained my balance, “I’ve got an idea for how to get some proof.” Dillon’s hand slid down my arm to my hand and squeezed it, generating tingles that made me stutter. “B-but we’re going to need some help.”

  Chapter Twenty

  “YOU WANT MY HELP? I’M FLATTERED,” AVALINE VAN Tassel said half an hour later when Dillon and I cornered her in the Magnolia House parlor. She lounged against the back of a rose-colored settee, her black hair and another white blouse striking against the rose velvet. A mischievous smile played at the corner of her lush mouth.

  Was it my imagination, or was Dillon focused too intently on her lips?

  Sitting near the window, I shifted uncomfortably on the upholstered chair with the brass studs that dug into the back of my thighs. My hand went to the fringed tassel on the drape tieback, and I let the silky strands sift through my fingers as Dillon talked. We’d agreed while still at Rothmere that Avaline would be more receptive to the idea if it were an official GBI request.

  “But I don’t know that I can use my gift to trick our viewing audience,” Avaline continued. She took a sip of the iced tea supplied by Vonda, Avaline’s throat working as she swallowed.

  “We’re not asking you to use your gift,” Dillon clarified.

  I gave him points for not stumbling over the word “gift,” since I strongly suspected he didn’t believe in Avaline’s—or anyone’s—ability to chat with ghosts.

  “We need you to pretend to contact Cyril and pretend that he’s revealing the name of the person who pushed Braden McCullers. You’d be helping to bring a murderer to justice,” he added when Avaline hesitated. “You’ll invite all the people who were present last Saturday to attend the filming—some of them have evacuated, but most of the main suspects are still in town—and tell them that Cyril has let you know he has something important to reveal. Curiosity should get them all there.”

  “And you won’t really air this episode,” I put in, “so you won’t be tricking anyone except the murderer.”

  Tapping a ruby red nail against her iced tea glass, Avaline looked from Dillon to me. “We were going to tape the program tonight,” she said. “I don’t see how we’d have time to put on a bogus production for you and get the show done. On top of which, spirits are sensitive. Cyril might not choose to communicate with me if there are hordes of people clomping around the house, disturbing the atmosphere. And then where would I be? I can’t risk disappointing my fans.”

  Dillon made a frustrated noise in the back of his throat and leaned toward Avaline. “Miss Van Tassel, I can’t compel you to cooperate—”

  “No,” she said sweetly, “you can’t. But you’ll have a better chance of persuading me if you call me Avaline.”

  The sultry glance she sent Dillon made me want to gag. With a quick “Excuse me,” I left the room, intending to track down Vonda in the kitchen. Dillon would have a better chance of talking the Spirit Whisperer into doing her civic duty if I wasn’t there. Crossing the wide entry hall with beveled glass on either side of the oak door and the grand staircase sweeping up to the second floor, I almost bumped into a man who blasted out of the dining room carrying a plate piled high with little meatballs, undoubtedly from the hors d’oeuvres spread Vonda and Ricky put out every afternoon for happy hour.

  Two meatballs fell and rolled toward the front door when the man jolted to a stop. “Sorry!” he said. “Damn.” He tried bending to retrieve the meatballs but wasn’t going to be able to do it without spilling his plate or the drink in his other hand. As he looked around for somewhere to set the plate, I tweaked a toothpick from his plate and speared the meatballs.

  “Thanks,” the man said, taking the toothpick from me with the fingers wrapped around the stem of his martini glass. “Ten-second rule.” He popped the meatballs into his mouth and chewed, his Vandyke beard bobbing up and down.

  Yuck.

  “Want one?” He held the plate out to me, and the diamond on his pinkie sparkled. His gelled hair had lost a bit of its
spikiness and the points drooped slightly. Georgia humidity will do that.

  “No, thanks,” I said. “Aren’t you the producer for The Spirit Whisperer?”

  “Guilty as charged. Les Spaulding,” he said. “I’d shake, but—” He indicated the glass in his left hand and the plate in his right. “Didn’t I see you at the mansion?” He studied me from behind his gold-rimmed glasses. “You had something to do with the kid dying.”

  “I wouldn’t put it that way,” I said, appalled.

  He waved the martini dismissively. “Whatever. We’re filming the show tonight. Would you like to come watch? I can make that happen.” He put his plate on a stair behind him and patted his jacket pocket for a card.

  “Actually,” I said, seizing the opening, “the police were hoping you’d help them catch a murderer.”

  “Really? A murderer?” His eyes sparked with interest.

  As succinctly as possible, I pitched him on the plan.

  “I like it,” he said, stabbing at me with the martini. A drop of gin splashed my blouse. “It’s got ‘big’ written all over it. I think we could see a ten-point jump in the ratings with the right promo. Ava!” He shouted up the stairs.

  “She’s in there,” I said, pointing to the parlor. I trailed him, standing back a couple of feet to avoid being christened with more martini.

  Avaline shot me a poisonous glance as Spaulding told Dillon he wanted in on trapping the murderer. I tried not to feel smug and triumphant but didn’t succeed too well.

  “I was just discussing that with John,” she said, an edge undercutting the sweetness of her voice.

  “Great!” Spaulding said. “It’s settled. Let’s—”

  “I think we ought to at least get John to agree to an interview in return for our help,” Avaline interrupted. She pushed to her feet, gaining a height advantage over Spaulding, who couldn’t have been taller than five-four. “Quid pro quo. Our show won’t be complete without the official Georgia Bureau of Investigation point of view.”