Or at least, I once had been.
“You called nine one one,” Alec said, and I looked at him though I didn’t quite meet his eyes.
“Yeah.”
“You found her?” Alec asked.
“Yeah.”
“What were you doing in the alley?”
I stared at him not seeing, then said, “Darryl.”
“Fuck. Fuckin’ Darryl,” Morrie muttered, now he sounded pissed.
“Darryl?” Alec asked.
“He never takes out the trash at night. I tell him, every night. Guy’s got nothin’ between his ears,” Morrie explained, telling the God’s honest truth about Darryl and pulling a hand through his thick hank of blond hair. “Leaves it at the back door and forgets. First person in in the morning, usually me or Feb, take it out.”
This wasn’t exactly true. The first person in in the morning was usually me, not Morrie. Though, I had to admit, on occasion, namely my rare days off, it happened.
“You on last night?” Alec asked me, and I shook my head.
“Night off,” I told him.
“I was on,” Morrie put in.
Alec turned to Morrie. “Angie here?”
Morrie nodded. “Dude, she’s always here.”
This was true. Angie was a regular. She also regularly wore slut clothes and regularly got shitfaced and regularly picked up anyone who would fuck away whatever demons tortured her. Though obviously these efforts never lasted long because she was always back again, usually the next night. Angie wasn’t hard on the eyes if you didn’t look too close and see what her lifestyle was doing to her skin. There was no lack of choice for Angie.
“She go home with someone?” Alec asked Morrie.
Morrie moved his neck in that funny way he did when he was uncomfortable, like he was pulling at a too tight collar and tie, even though he was wearing a t-shirt with a zip-up hooded sweatshirt over it and his hand never moved.
Then he said, “Cory.”
“Fuckin’ hell,” Alec muttered and he could say that again.
Cory’s wife Bethany was pregnant with their third child. Bethany was also a screamer. And Bethany was going to have a shit fit. It wasn’t the first time Cory strayed. Hell, Cory came on to me practically any time he got hammered enough to pull up the courage. It wasn’t the first time he dipped his wick in Angie either. This also wasn’t going to be the first time Bethany found out about Angie. Though it would be the first time Angie showed up the next morning dead in an alley and Cory would be involved in a murder investigation.
“You see anyone last night? Unfamiliar? Give you a bad feeling?” Alec asked Morrie and I knew this was brother-speak.
Alec would lay his career down on Morrie telling him he had a bad feeling about someone. Both of them could read people like books, something they could do forever. I’d never been able to lie successfully to either of them, not once, and I’d tried. It wasn’t surprising Alec became a cop. It was natural-born even if on the face of it, considering his parents and, well, how he used to be, you wouldn’t know it. It also wasn’t surprising Morrie took over the bar. Even in our town—which wasn’t huge but also wasn’t small—the clientele was regular. Still, trouble could happen, especially when the races were on and anyone could wander in. You had to be able to weed the good from the bad so you could lock down the bad before shit happened.
“Nope, no one. Normal night at Jack and Jackie’s,” Morrie answered.
Alec looked at me. “Where’s the trash?”
I again stared and repeated, “The trash?”
“You said you went out to the alley to take out the trash. Crime scene, far’s I can see, is unaltered. Where’s—?”
Alec stopped talking because I started moving. I wasn’t thinking much of anything. I didn’t even know why I was moving.
I plunked my coffee cup down, walked past Alec and went to the bar. The heavy panel was already up and over on its hinges where I guessed I’d put it when I went in to make the 911 call. I walked behind the bar and stared at the two huge bags of garbage that were sitting on the floor by the phone.
I hadn’t even noticed I’d carried them back in and dropped them to make the call.
I turned around and saw Alec was standing close, his eyes on the trash.
“I just went to the door,” I told his throat, seeing his neck twist, his chin dipping down to look at me but my eyes didn’t move. “I just went to the door,” I repeated then my head jerked, my ear going toward my shoulder and I felt a weird pain in the back of my neck at the sudden movement. “I just went to the door,” I said again, for some stupid reason now whispering, “opened the door and saw her.”
That’s when I cried.
I didn’t feel anything, didn’t see anything, didn’t hear anything, didn’t taste the coffee in my mouth, just cried hard while my brain filled.
I saw her. I saw Angie and all her blood and all her exposed parts. Parts I should never see. Parts with skin, parts without, all of it, all of her, lying lifeless in the alley by the dumpster.
Then I heard Alec say, “I got her,” and I realized his arms were around me.
I pulled away and stepped away. Distance with Alec, hell with anyone, but especially with Alec, was good.
I swiped at my eyes, controlling the tears, not looking at him. “I’m okay.”
There was silence for a while but Morrie moved in close to me. I could feel his bulk filling the long space behind the bar.
“You gotta walk me through your morning,” Alec said and I didn’t want to but I lifted my eyes to his.
“What?”
“Walk me through your morning, Feb,” Alec repeated.
“I came in to get ready to open—” I started.
“Your full morning,” Alec interrupted.
I felt my mouth open, my lips parting. I could feel the sensation of skin separating from skin like it was the first time I’d ever done it when I knew I’d done it before. It just didn’t feel like it then. It felt like the first time and it felt like my lips parted in slow motion.
I wished I’d brought my coffee with me.
“I woke up—”
“What time?”
I shook my head. “Normal time. Seven o’clock, seven thirty.”
“You get up at seven thirty?” Morrie asked, like I had a screw loose.
“Yeah.”
“Shit, Feb, we own a bar,” Morrie stated. “How do you get up at seven thirty?”
“I don’t know, I just do.” And I did. Even if I lay my head down at three thirty in the morning, I woke up between seven and seven thirty. It was a curse.
“You woke up. What next?” Alec cut in giving Morrie a shut up look. I’d seen him do that a lot over the years. Usually Morrie didn’t shut up. This time he did.
“I fed the cat—”
“Did you do it alone?” Alec asked.
I stared at him then said, “Feed the cat?”
He shook his head but it was a rough motion, jerky. “Wake up.”
I sucked in breath, not wanting to answer the question, not wanting Alec to have that information, either answer I could give. But knowing I had to, I nodded.
He nodded his head, that motion was rough and jerky too. “What’d you do after you fed your cat?”
“I did yoga.”
Alec’s brows snapped together and now he was looking at me like I had a screw loose. “You do yoga?”
“Well…yeah.”
He looked away muttering, “Christ.”
I didn’t know what was wrong with yoga but I didn’t ask. I wanted this to be done. In fact, I wanted the day to be done, the year, I wanted it to be a year from now when all this would be faded and a whole lot less real.
“Like I was saying, I did yoga, took a shower and then walked to Meems’.”
“Anyone see you walk to Meems’?” Alec asked.
“What’s this about?” Morrie sounded like he was getting pissed.
“Just let me ask the questions. It
’ll be over and we can move on,” Alec answered.
“Jessie,” I cut in, still on a mission to get my story out so this could be over and we could move on. “I walked to her place and then Jessie walked with me to Meems’.”
Jessie Rourke and Mimi VanderWal were my best friends, had been since high school.
“You and Jessie went to Meems’, what next?” Alec asked.
“We hung out at Meems’, had coffee, a muffin, shot the shit, the same as every day,” I answered. And it was the same as every day, although sometimes Jessie didn’t come with and it was just me and my journals, or a book or the paper, and my cup of coffee and muffin at Meems’.
I preferred when Jessie was there. Meems owned the joint and by the time I got there it was a crush so she didn’t have time to gab. She had a plaque that said “reserved” that she put on my table, though everyone knew it was my table and no one ever sat there in the mornings but me. She didn’t need the plaque, one of her kids carved into the table, “Feb’s Spot, sit here and die.” Meems’ kids were a bit wild but they were funny.
“When’d you leave Meems’?” Alec asked.
I shrugged. “Ten o’clock, probably around there. Came straight here.” Coming straight to J&J’s wasn’t far. It was two doors down from Mimi’s Coffee House. “I opened up, started the coffee going and went to the back hall to take out the trash I knew was probably there. It was there. I opened the door, grabbed the bags and—”
I stopped and looked down at the garbage bags beside me. The rest didn’t need to be said.
Alec’s voice came at me. “You see anything else, Feb?”
I took in a breath because I needed it and I thought it was a big one but it felt shallow. My chest felt empty like I could breathe and breathe but there was not enough breath to fill it, never would be again and I looked at him.
“Anything else? Anyone in the alley when you went out?”
Morrie got closer to me, his arm sliding around my shoulders. “Jesus, Colt. What the fuck you sayin’?”
“She’s warm,” Alec answered, his words were clipped, short, bitten off like he didn’t want to say them but he had to and he wanted them out of his mouth as fast as he could do it.
“Warm?” I asked.
I watched his teeth sink into his bottom lip. I knew why he did this. I’d seen him do it a lot in my life. He did it when he was seriously, seriously hacked off.
“The body,” he said. “Angie.”
“What?” Morrie asked.
“She’s still warm,” Alec answered. “She’s not been dead long.”
“Oh my God,” I whispered. That empty feeling in my chest started burning. The vomit rolled back up my throat and I had to swallow it down.
“Are you fucking shitting me?” Morrie exploded.
“You see anything, Feb? Hear anything? Any movement? Anything?” Alec pushed. He wanted answers but he was going about it quiet, gentle.
“Jesus fucking Christ,” Morrie cursed.
“Morrie, you aren’t helping,” Alec told him.
“Fuck that, Colt. My sister opened the door to a fresh murder scene!” Morrie bellowed. “You’re sayin’ the guy coulda been out there?”
I felt my muscles seize.
Alec either saw it or sensed it and his voice went scary when he said, “Morrie, for fuck’s sake, you aren’t fucking helping.”
Morrie and Alec may have been best friends since kindergarten but they fought, a lot. It was never pretty and it could get physical. It hadn’t happened in a while but, then again, nothing this big had happened in a while.
“I didn’t see anything,” I said quickly and I didn’t. And, at that moment, I was glad I didn’t.
I didn’t want whoever did that to Angie to get away with it and, if I saw something, I wouldn’t lie even though it would scare the shit out of me. But I didn’t see anything and this was a relief.
I wasn’t a bad person. But I wasn’t a good person either. I didn’t do good things like Alec did. I was just a normal person, I kept myself to myself. I also had been a bartender my whole adult life and grew up in a bar, not to mention I now part-ran one. So I kept other things to myself too. It was a job hazard. Everyone told you everything when they were hammered. Shit you did not want to know.
But I’d have done the right thing for Angie.
I just hoped Alec knew that.
He looked me direct in the eye and I let him. This went on awhile and was very uncomfortable. Not that I had anything to hide, just that these days anytime Alec stared me direct in the eye, it made me very uncomfortable. I’d been able to avoid it mostly for years, but now there it was.
“You’re stayin’ with me until Colt finds this fucker,” Morrie told me and I broke eye contact with Alec to stare at my brother.
“I am not.”
“You stay with him or you stay with me.”
This came from Alec.
I transferred my stare to him, thrown for a moment because while I was perfecting the art of avoiding Alec, I pretty much figured he was returning the gesture.
“I’m not doing that either.”
“Two choices, Feb,” Morrie stated, his arm getting tight around my shoulders.
“I didn’t see anything!” My voice was getting higher.
“Not takin’ chances.” Morrie didn’t sound like he’d be easily swayed.
“This is ridiculous,” I muttered, getting pissed.
I was a normal person and kept myself to myself, meaning I liked to keep myself to myself. Not have myself living with my brother and definitely not Alec.
“Ridiculous?” Alec said, his voice weirdly soft and compelling, drawing my attention to him and his face was hard again. He was angry, at me.
And I knew why.
I’d seen it, all the gruesome, bloody evidence of it in the alley.
“I’ll stay with Morrie.”
Morrie’s arm gave my shoulders a squeeze.
Alec bit his lip again, still hacked off about something, what at that point I didn’t know, but he kept staring at me, making me think it was me. Then he let go of his lip and clenched his teeth, making both of his jaws flex and I wondered if he was biting back words.
He succeeded if that was what he was doing since without saying anything, he nodded to me then to Morrie and he walked away.
* * * * *
Before Colt walked into his house, he knew Susie was there.
“Fuck,” he muttered while entering.
He should have never given her his key. They’d been seeing each other off and on (mostly off) for three years and he’d managed to steer clear of doing it. He’d only done it because he needed someone to look after his dog when he went fishing with Morrie two weeks ago and Susie had begged him to do it. She’d never given the key back and he’d not had the time to ask for it or the patience to deal with the tantrum when he asked.
He ignored the fact that Susie was there and went directly to the kitchen, pulled a beer out of the fridge and used the edge of the counter to snap off the top.
He was halfway through downing it when Susie came in.
His chin came down as did his beer and he looked at her.
She’d been the town beauty since practically birth, homecoming queen, prom queen. Her father owned a variety of local stores and a shitload of property until he’d sold them all to big chains and land developers, making a mint and making his daughter, upon his death, the only multi-millionaire in town.
Susie Shepherd had been engaged twice, never married. Both men begged off, Colt knew, even though the story was spread that Susie had been the one to get cold feet.
After three years, Colt knew why they’d fled.
She was a beauty, she could be sweet when she had a mind to do it or she wanted something and she was a great lay, but she also could be a total bitch.
She was blonde, like February, but Susie’s blonde hair wasn’t thick and long and wild like February’s. Even when February did whatever she had to do to make
her hair almost sleek, it still flipped out at the ends, defying her, laying testimony to the deeper personality trait that February couldn’t hide even though she tried.
Susie was also tall, like February. She just didn’t have February’s great tits and abundant hips and sweet ass. And, even though Susie’s legs were long, they didn’t seem to go on forever, like February’s, like they could wrap around you twice to lock you close while you were fucking her.
And Susie just simply didn’t have that look about her. That look February started to get when she was fourteen. That look that matured as she did. That look that promised she’d suck your cock, and get off on it. That look that told you she’d sit on your face and fucking love it. That look that told you she’d let you do her doggie style, or any style, and she’d want more of it, beg you to do it harder. That look that said you could leave her on her belly in bed after you’d just fucked her, and she’d be totally okay with you going to meet the guys at the bar. Hell, she’d get up, clean up and come with you if she felt like it, but she’d have a mind to your space as long as you gave a mind to hers.
“You’re late,” Susie said, like she’d know what late was for him, which she fucking didn’t.
“Angie Maroni was murdered this morning.”
He heard her suck in breath and he wondered what world she lived in. Everyone else in town knew about Angie by noon.
Then again, Susie had never stepped foot over the threshold of J&J’s Saloon as everyone in town over drinking age, and some of them under it, had. Susie shopped in Indianapolis, had her hair done there, met her friends there. She just lived here so she could pretend to be queen even though no one really liked her.
“How’d that happen?” Susie asked, and Colt saw Angie again in that alley. But even though he wanted to stop it, for the life of him he couldn’t and he saw her with Feb’s eyes.
It was a small town but it was close to a big city and two racetracks. Shit spread and, as a cop for over twenty years, a detective for over sixteen, he’d seen his fill of crime and definitely his fill of death.
But Angie, Christ, he could pick hundreds of deaths, even murders he’d prefer Feb to see.
“Knife,” was all Colt would tell Susie.
He was close to ending it with her. He had been now for months; he’d just never got around to it. Still, he had no intention of telling her how Angie was murdered with a hatchet. She’d likely find out eventually if she started paying attention, but he wouldn’t be the one to tell her.
The Girl in the Mist: A Misted Pines Novel Page 38