by Jeff Abbott
“All right, I will.” Her tears were gone, wiped away on the back of her hand. “I suppose you don’t want me around here no more. Like I said, I’ll send my resignation to Mr. Goertz.”
Sister’d kill me if I let Clo go. But what was I supposed to do? This woman was caring for my mother, yet she’d stayed quiet for money, knowing that I or my family might be in danger from Greg Callahan. The trust I’d felt for her lay shattered.
“I think that would be best, Clo. I’m sorry.”
“I’m sorry, too, Jordy. More than you will ever know.” She glanced up at Mark. “Tell your Mamaw goodbye for me, sugar pie.” She turned to Lorna. “You be glad that man’s dead, miss. He was nothing but trash through and through.” Lorna didn’t answer. I didn’t look up as the front door closed behind her. I was still staring at the thousand dollars at my feet. Lorna had more presence of mind than I did; she picked it up using a towel and dropped it in a paper bag. “Junebug’ll probably want it,” she said. I nodded, hating Greg, hating myself, and wondering if I should let Lorna keep a hold on that money. I took the bag from her and said, “I’ll keep it for him.” She nodded and went back into the kitchen.
Mark had vanished upstairs. I went to go lie down on my bed.
I closed my eyes. Try not to think about Clo. The sharp sting of betrayal still hurt. Was I being unfair? Could I forgive her? I rubbed my eyes through closed lids. If Candace was right, Lorna was betraying me in a way possibly worse than Clo—yet I’d given Clo, who had confessed, a tongue-lashing, and I’d given Lorna, who hadn’t, a peanut-butter cookie. I wasn’t being entirely fair by being understanding toward one and damning toward the other.
I rolled over and called the police station. According to Junebug, the Boston police had found an address for a Doreen Miller, but she apparently was no longer in residence. They were still looking for her. He had not offered an opinion about the passworded and destroyed Intraglobal computer files. I could only imagine what he would make of Clo’s tale.
I tried to be analytical. Greg wanted me to look like the bomber. Why? What was his connection to the bomber? I drew two quick blanks, discarding the notion that he considered me a serious rival for Lorna’s affections. Unless he’d been madly in love with her and we hadn’t known it. Had he planned on blackmailing me into selling my land? That wouldn’t have worked, him using some manufactured secret against me. It made no sense.
My black eye hurt and I resisted the urge to rub it. Greg asking Clo to plant phony evidence against me had nearly eclipsed my misadventures with Parker, Dee, and Jenny (I’d never seen a whole family of suspects before, but then I’m not a cop) and Candace’s accusation against Lorna. Not to mention that Tiny Parmalee, with all things considered, was the only person vicious enough to do these crimes anyway and could not be eliminated from the running; and neither could his probable puppet master, Nina Hernandez. And how did poor Freddy Jacksill, getting blown to smithereens in Greg’s room, tie in? He must’ve known something about Greg and gotten killed for it. Something Greg did here in town and no one wanted known—was there a reason not only that Freddy got killed, but that he was murdered in Greg’s room?
My headache was not ebbing with all this arduous speculation. I kept thinking about Lorna and those files. A rap at the door interrupted my completely chaotic train of theories.
“Uncle Jordy?” Mark stuck his head in. “Lorna wants to know if you want some dinner.”
“Yeah, I guess. I’ll come down in a minute and fix something.”
“You better. She’s talking about cooking something called bread dressing, but it doesn’t have cornbread in it Sounds real gross.”
“It is, trust me. It’s not like dressing you’re used to. I’ll be down in a minute.” A stray notion, hovering on the edge of my speculations, crowded to the front of my brain for attention. The odd phone number in Greg’s room that I’d traced to the Johnson family. “Hey, Mark, do you know two kids at the high school named Brice and Becca Johnson? A little older than you?”
Mark nodded. “Brice is a geek. He’s going off to major in chemistry at A & M this fall.” Chemistry. Interesting major. You could blow up a lab if you’re not careful. I shook my head, chastising myself for chasing at shadows.
“What about Becca Johnson?”
Mark shrugged. “She’s real pretty, usually nice. She can be a little stuck-up.”
I bit my lip. “You ever see either of them with Jenny Loudermilk?” It might make sense; she was the only other teenager in the stew.
“Oh, yeah. She and Jenny Loudermilk are best friends. They’re always hanging out together.”
I rolled over and reached for the phone. I drummed my fingers against my cheek and then decided. I dialed the Johnsons’ number.
It barely rang before it was answered. A young man’s voice, slightly nasal: “Becca? Is she okay?”
I was taken aback. “Um, no, this isn’t Becca. I take it she’s not there.”
“No, she’s not.” The boy hesitated. “Who’s calling?” “Um, Brice?”
“Yeah?”
“This is Jordy Poteet. I was calling for Becca because I’m a friend of Jenny Loudermilk’s and—”
“They’re all at the hospital. I’m manning the phone here in case folks call.”
“The hospital?”
“Yeah. Hey, sorry to be the one to tell you. Jenny took an overdose—they think it’s Valium and booze. She’s in the hospital.”
“Oh, my God! Is she okay?” I gripped the phone harder. Mark stared at me, his dark eyes wide.
“I don’t know. I don’t know if she’s going to make it or not. Becca’s down there now.”
“Thanks, Brice. Thanks very much.” I hung up without further ado. In the middle of this sweltering evening, I felt cold down to my bones.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
THE CROWD TO WATCH OVER JENNY Loudermilk’s life had gathered in front of the malfunctioning television in Mirabeau Hospital’s second-floor waiting room. Mostly teenagers, with a scattering of parents, sat watching the distorted colors on the screen. You could see the shameful thought in the adults’ faces: Thank God it’s not my child. The kids themselves looked numbed, as though shocked at the thought of their own mortality. Parker and Dee were not there.
I wavered in the doorway that led into the waiting room, hesitant to intrude on their grief. I felt terrible. That girl—her drinking, her attitude, it was all a cry for attention, a cry for help. I could have tried harder to talk to her. Instead, I taunted her, watched her mother slap her, and left.
I didn’t know a soul in the room; believe it or not, I don’t know every person in Mirabeau. Gingerly, I approached one of the parents, a portly woman who kept wringing her hands, as if wanting to rub the flesh off her fingers. She watched me walk toward her; no doubt I looked a sight with my slinged arm and my black eye.
“Excuse me, is there any news on Jenny?” I asked softly.
The woman shook her head, the corners of her lips tugging downward. “I’m afraid not. Dee is in with the doctor now. We’re just hoping that Dee found her in time.”
“Could you tell me which of the girls is Becca Johnson?”
She nodded and pointed at a girl sitting on the dingy plaid sofa, a People magazine open and unread in her lap. The girl rested her chin on her hand, staring off into space, ignoring the other kids around her. She was strikingly pretty, with a thick mane of black hair and wideset green eyes that penetrated like light shining through an emerald. Her skin was flawless, the kind that most teenagers only dream of, and her lips were full without being comic. She was already beautiful and had the promise of even greater, deeper loveliness as she aged. I could almost wish to be sixteen again, looking at her.
I thanked the woman and knelt by Becca. She nearly jerked, startled out of her reverie by me, who looked more like a patient than a visitor. On closer inspection, I saw she looked exhausted.
“Becca? My name is Jordan Poteet. I wondered if I could talk to you private
ly for a minute. It’s about Jenny.”
“You’re not a doctor, are you?” she asked.
“No, I’m not. But I need to speak with you about Jenny. Please, it’s important.”
She watched me with those spectacular eyes. I guess I wasn’t found wanting; she tossed the magazine to one side and got up, telling one of the other girls that she’d be back in a few minutes.
We went silently to the cafeteria, where I offered her a cup of coffee. She opted for a Diet Pepsi instead and we sat down at a glaringly orange plastic table. I don’t know why hospitals, filled with the injured and the worried, buy furniture in colors designed to shock and nauseate. Becca sat across from me. Folding her hands rather primly, she left her soda untasted and watched me. There wasn’t just beauty there; a keen intelligence gleamed from her. There would be no kidding around with this girl.
“I understand that you’re Jenny’s best friend,” I said.
“Yeah. We’ve been close since the second grade.”
“Good. Then I’m sure you’re very concerned about her.”
“Yeah. So what did you want to talk about, Mr. Poteet?”
I plunged ahead, telling her in detail my adventures at the Loudermilks. At no point did she interrupt or ask for clarification; but I could see that she was shocked. When I finished, she tapped a fingernail against the garish tabletop before answering.
“Wow, Mr. Loudermilk gave you the shiner? He’s—he’s got a temper.”
“I believe Parker’s got a violent temper.”
“And you think Jenny was hiding something about him?” Becca watched her polished fingernails instead of my face.
“I don’t think. I know. And I think you know, too.”
Green ice looked into my face. “What do you mean?”
“I was there right after Greg Callahan’s body was found at the Mirabeau B. Your phone number was written on the notepad by his phone. I’ve also heard tell that Greg might have been romancing both Jenny and her mother. That could have given Parker or Dee a potent motive to kill Greg.” I wasn’t about to suggest to Jenny’s best pal that Jenny might be a murderer as well. “Now Jenny’s turned to drinking and taking Valium. There are some connections here, Becca, and I want to know what they are.”
She didn’t look at me.
“Haven’t the police already talked to you? They must’ve contacted your family.”
She kept her eyes glued to the table. “I told them I didn’t know any reason why Greg Callahan would have our number.”
“There is a reason. Now, for Jenny’s sake, can’t you tell me?”
Becca Johnson slid back into the hard orange plastic of the cafeteria chair. She popped the top on her warming can of soda and sipped, taking her time to answer me. Finally she said: “I don’t want Jenny to get into trouble.”
“Hon, Jenny’s already in trouble. Big trouble. I think you know that. If you’re a friend, you’ll help her get out of this mess.”
“Why should I tell you anything, Mr. Poteet?” Her right eyebrow arched.
“Because the truth has to come out now, Becca.” I softened my voice. “Jenny said to her mother she couldn’t keep protecting him—whoever him is, and I think it’s her father. I’m going to wager the pressure of that secret is why she poured those Valiums into her palm and washed them down with a bottle of gin. If the secret’s out, the pressure’s gone. There’s nothing to hide.”
“Nothing to hide,” Becca echoed. She ran a finger up and down the condensation of the can, in eerie imitation of Jenny and her glass of gin earlier in the day.
“Well?” I asked.
Her tongue covered her top lip for a moment, and she glanced around quickly to assure herself no one could hear us. The only other people in the cafeteria were two older black ladies, laughing quietly in conversation by the cash register.
The words came slowly, like paste squeezed out of a tube. “Greg was seeing Jenny. He had been since he got here. They met when he came out to talk to Mrs. Loudermilk. Jenny’s impulsive about men. She has a bad thing for older men—she’s dated a guy in his late twenties over in Bavary. No one else knows about that but me.” She shot me a look that said: And you better damn well not tell either. Or get any ideas in your head about her.
“There’s no reason to discuss her past relationships, Becca. I’m not going to judge Jenny.”
“Anyhow, she ended up going to his room at the. Mirabeau B., and well—” She blanched. “They got intimate.”
“And her parents didn’t know?” I asked.
She shook her head. “She wouldn’t let him call her at home. So he’d call me and leave messages for her. He used the name Don Miller. So I just told them Don was a friend from over in Bavary I met through school. Just a friend, not a boyfriend. So they didn’t ask about him, except my mom teased me about how much this boy Don was calling me. He’d call and tell me where and when Jenny could meet him, and then I’d call her and give her the details.” She stared into space above my shoulder. “I told her this was stupid, really stupid, falling for a much older guy who wasn’t staying in town. But he kept telling Jenny he would be coming back to Mirabeau a lot, what with the condo resort getting built.”
Don Miller. Not too far off from Doreen Miller. I leaned forward. “There is no condo resort, Becca,” and I told her of Greg’s fraudulent plan to resell the land to the Houston chemical waste company. Her face hardened.
“That son of a bitch. I was right about him.”
“Then why did you help her?”
She smiled, ever so slightly. “Because it mattered to her, and she’s my friend. And there was something terribly silly and romantic about them. I mean, you knew it wasn’t going to work, but they had all this passion.” She paused. “But her parents found out.”
“How?”
“I don’t know. Jenny’s not a good liar, so they probably caught her in a contradiction. Or they got careless around town and someone ratted to Mr. and Mrs. Loudermilk.”
“What about the possibility of Dee having an affair with Greg? How does that strike you?”
Her eyes met mine. “It strikes me as possible. Isn’t that awful, Mr. Poteet? I guess I should think better of my best friend’s mother, and Mrs. Loudermilk’s always been good to me, but yeah, I could see her doing it. She does what she wants, I think. That whole family does. After all, they’re Loudermilks. And she’s a very”—Becca paused, searching for the right word—“touching person. I don’t mean emotionally touching, but physically. I could see her having an affair just for the sheer pleasure. But if she did fool around, I think she’d make sure no one ever caught on. She’s tough.”
I thought of the look of ecstasy on Dee Loudermilk’s face as the wet clay spun into texture and shape beneath her smeared fingers. I nodded.
“Jenny never mentioned anything about her mother and Greg, and if she had known, I’m sure she would have said something to me. We don’t have many secrets from each other.”
“So do you know anything more about the Loudermilks?”
“Yes,” she said, staring down at her soda can. She finally looked up at me again. “When her folks found out, her father was furious. He’s scary. I don’t know how Mrs. Loudermilk took it—Jenny said she didn’t seem upset at all. She was trying to defend Jenny against her dad. Mr. Loudermilk—” She broke off for a moment, then surged on, bolstered by some inner courage: “He’s one of those men everyone says nice stuff about, but I don’t think many people like him. And he’s never made me feel entirely comfortable. There’s something a little bent about him.”
I thought again of the odd joy in Parker’s eyes watching the Mirabeau B. burn and of Jenny’s snide comment about her father getting excited by fire. Not to mention the hair-trigger temper and the violent streak. I had to agree with Becca that Parker’s bathroom didn’t appear to be fully tiled.
“This will sound really strange, Becca, but did Jenny every say anything about her father and the bomber?”
Becca
blinked. “No, not that I remember. I mean, the bomber’s been all anyone’s been talking about.” She narrowed her eyes at me. “Why, you don’t think that Mr. Loudermilk… “
“He could be. He owns a construction company. He’s worked with explosives. And he really seems to enjoy watching fire. I noticed it when the Mirabeau B. burned and Jenny commented on it to me.” I paused. “And the room of the man who was having an affair with his daughter gets blown up. Is that supposed to be coincidence?”
Becca took a long, studied breath. “God, I never thought of that. When Mr. Loudermilk found out, it was late Thursday night, after they’d had that meeting at the library about the land development.”
“I was there,” I said.
“Whoever ratted on Jenny did it after the Loudermilks got home, but I guess that they’d seen her arrive at the meeting with Greg and that just added fuel to the fire. No puns intended. Jenny and her dad had a big fight and then he stormed out. Jenny said her mom didn’t fight with her—she was stone-cold icy to her. Jenny called me and I said I hoped that her dad had gone for a drive to cool off and not to go confront Greg. She was supposed to have met Greg around midnight, but she was arguing with her parents and there was no way they were letting her out of the house.”
Lorna had heard a door slam down the hall around midnight—an irate Greg returning from a lonely rendezvous or angry that his young lover hadn’t shown up?
“I mean,” Becca continued, “Greg was guilty of statutory rape. Well, when I said statutory rape, Jenny just had a cow. She said she was going over to the Mirabeau B. and make sure her father hadn’t hurt Greg. She hung up on me. I got worried that Jenny would go over there, find her father and Greg fighting, and there’d be a big scene.” She stopped to rub her eyes. “God, this was only a couple of days ago and now it seems like years and years. I’ve hardly slept since.”
“What happened?”
“I don’t live far from the Mirabeau B., so I snuck out and walked over. I thought if there was trouble, I could at least be there for Jenny. If her parents knew how I helped her, I’d be in deep shit with them, but I wasn’t really too worried about that. I thought Jen needed me. I got there and saw Mr. Loudermilk barreling out of the side door of the bed-and-breakfast—”