by Neliza Drew
Her face pinched at the sound of Lane’s name. “They all met at some party over on the beach. Nothing too rowdy. Just kids being kids, you know. Not much to do around here. They used to go listen to music on the dunes, hang out at houses. He and Lane used to be so close. Like best friends back when he was in high school.”
She headed for the stairs and motioned for me to follow her.
The upper floor consisted of a long narrow hallway with four doors. Two of the doors were closed. I guessed the one next to the open door of the bathroom was a closet.
The closest room had spilled the detritus of life through the open door. The bed, a simple mattress and box spring, had ended up tossed and sat lopsided, the sheets ripped and bunched.
She bent and picked up a photo album, still coated in remnants of black powder and handed it over.
“They left a mess, huh?” I fingered the lettering, wiped some of the black dust off and smeared it on my pants. “The locals did all this?”
She nodded nudged the piles with her foot until she unearthed a broken picture frame. She bent to pick up the photo. “They said it looked like someone was searching and he interrupted them.” She handed me the picture. “Most of his friends had keys.”
“Lane have a key?” I looked at the three boys in the photo. The one in the middle had to be Billy. I couldn’t place the bookends.
“Her, the boys, probably Amber. He said he was gonna marry her. Don’t know if he should’ve, but you can’t talk sense into boys that age. Especially not when it comes to girls.” She pointed at the picture. “Amber’s brother, Brad.”
He was slightly taller than Billy, with blond hair and a surfer’s tan. His Wright’s tee shirt hung loose like it had been well-worn. “They worked together?”
She nodded. “Off and on through high school, Brad’s first year or two at the community college, before he went to Wilmington.” Her face grew wistful. “Maybe Billy should’ve joined him. They were always so close in school. Thought he’d maybe go to school after the baby was older.”
“Baby?”
“Amber. She wanted one.”
“Amber’s pregnant?” I asked.
She looked sadder, if that was possible. “Miscarriage. Billy was devastated.”
I pointed at the other boy. “What happened to him?”
“Rex? Still works at Wright’s from what I know.” She took the album and flipped toward the back.
Rex had longish hair that wasn’t quite red and wasn’t quite brown. His face was dotted with freckles that bled into each other. The expression on his face, behind the smile of the moment, said he knew he was the dork of the group, the guy who caught the leftovers. He was pudgier than his buddies, in a doughy kind of way, and his posture exaggerated it. “What does Rex do?”
“Don’t really know.” She showed me a series of pictures. “This is him with Amber and Lane. They went out on the ferry to Cape Lookout that summer. Were gonna camp, but a storm came up. They borrowed a boat from his friend later that summer and went back.”
Lane and Amber looked pretty happy. Neither looked terribly strung out or murderous. Amber’s hair was wet and stringy, hanging past her shoulders as she gave a lopsided grin to the camera. Lane looked mischievous with her bad-girl spiky haircut, dyed hot pink.
“This was when?” I fingered the close-up of Lane. She looked connected, like she’d found the family she’d been looking for.
Sally scratched her neck and squinted at the photos. “I guess about two-three years ago. It was before Billy graduated. Right before his senior year, I guess.” She touched the one of him and Amber hugging. “They’d just started dating. Brad hadn’t been a huge fan of his baby sister going out with Billy at first. Billy took such good care of her.” She looked up at me, pain raw on her face. “Don’t let nobody tell you different either. He was there for her when her parents died.”
“Their parents died?”
“Around the holidays. Car accident out in Newport, near Mill Creek. Roads were wet. It gets so dark.”
I looked at the photos and flipped the page. Amber and Billy were celebrating a birthday with Brad, Rex, and Lane. They all looked happy and young and innocent.
I flipped again and it was Christmas. Billy looked concerned, even though he was by himself in front of a fine-looking tree. The picture under it was of a shy-looking Amber, eyes puffy, holding a narrow jewelry box.
“He gave her a real nice bracelet that year.” Sally pointed at the box. “He picked it out months in advance, paid it off each week. It just wasn’t the same after what happened.” Her fingers drifted from the box to Amber’s unkempt hair.
“I’m very sorry.” I turned the page. “I don’t suppose you’d have a number for Brad or Rex.”
She shook her head. “The cops took his phone. Might be in the book.”
I gave her the photos and shook her free hand. “Again, I’m so sorry for your loss. If there’s anything…”
She nodded and looked on the verge of tears again.
Chapter fifteen
Rex Whittman was indeed in the phone book. He lived in a small house down a street off Lenoxville Road in Beaufort, about three miles away from Sally Guthrie.
I had to pass an abandoned fish factory and the toxin-spewing veneer plant before coming to the turnoff leading to Rex’s one-story clapboard. The first street was paved, but the second was mostly mud. My car slid and squished and threatened to get stuck before finally skidding to a stop on the Whittman front yard.
Rex stepped out onto the porch as I cut the engine, a cigarette dangling from his lips, shoeless feet on the bare wood. He took a drag and stared at me.
My phone buzzed another text from Matt. I still didn’t know what to tell the guy, so I continued to ignore him. Part of me assumed he’d eventually give up, disappear.
I got out, left my purse behind and locked the door. “You Rex Whittman?”
He nodded and exhaled. He’d put on a few more pounds since the pictures at Guthrie’s. He wore a Wright’s tee shirt with stains and holes over a pair of dirty gray sweatpants.
“You used to be friends with William Guthrie, right?”
“Still would be if he weren’t dead.” He tossed the butt on the porch and ground it in with his bare foot. “Should I know you?”
I stood at the base of the porch steps and held out a hand. “I’m Davis Groves, Lane’s sister.”
“She didn’t do it.”
I didn’t get my hopes up. Hope was for people who hadn’t lived with Charley. “Who did?”
“Don’t know.” He ambled over and took my hand. “Comin’ in?”
I followed him up the creaky wooden steps and through the screen door. The house smelled like cigarettes, cheap beer and mildew.
He fell into an orange-flowered couch and a cloud rose up around him in the late afternoon sun. “What ’choo want to know?” He shook a fresh cigarette out of the pack and stuck it in his mouth.
I looked around and perched on the edge of a recliner. “I wanted to know a little more about my sister. And about the guy they say she killed.”
He lit the cigarette and took a deep drag. He waited and exhaled forcefully. “She hates you. Says she’d be better off with you dead.”
I decided not to take an angry teenager personally, even if she was my little sister. “I get that a lot. But you’re the first one who seems to know I’m not.”
“Guess I’ve known her longer.” His voice held resentment.
“You’re an old friend of Lane’s or an old friend of Billy’s, then?”
“Billy and I went back to grade school.” Rex sucked up smoke and snarled. “I think they went out a few times back before.”
I watched his eyes. “You liked her?”
He made a face like he’d licked dog poop. “She was a prude and then she was a slut.”
“She didn’t like you back.”
“Why would I want to date a slut?”
I raised an eyebrow. “Based on exper
ience, I’d say for sex.”
His eyes said even “slutty” Lane had rejected him. “That mean you’re a slut, too?”
I smiled, coy. “If they were friends, why would she kill him?”
“She didn’t.” He stabbed the ashtray with the smoldering filter.
“Then who did?”
He lit another cigarette. “Don’t know.”
“Would you tell me if you did?”
He shrugged and exhaled.
I tried a different track. “You work for Wright long?”
“Few years. Pay’s okay. Why?”
“Used to know him is all.”
“He’s got some fancy place over on the beach. Don’t ask how he paid for that thing. Used to be hoity-toity types bought there back when I was a kid. Ain’t no fucking locals be caught dead over there now. All dingbatters and ditdots; don’t know not to build in the storm-tide line.”
Colorful. “How do you fit into this? Or do you?”
He shook his head. “I don’t get to play their reindeer games. I’m just the grunt they take with them when they trawl for ladies. Somebody’s gotta look innocent, right?” He got up and went to the next room. I heard the fridge open. “You want a Bud Light?”
“If you’re willing to give one up.”
He rounded the corner with a couple of cans and tossed one my way.
I caught it. “How much did you want in on the reindeer games?”
He smiled and cracked open the beer. “Not enough to kill anyone.”
I tapped the top of the can with my keys, opened my beer. “Billy into drugs?”
“You know your mother uses, right?” He drained his beer and set the empty on the scarred coffee table.
I sipped. “That’s not really new. Lane using the same stuff Charley is?”
“Couldn’t say about that. Lane didn’t really talk about mommy dearest too much. Seemed a sore subject. She’s smoked the whole time I’ve known her. Says it chills her out. She used to take it to school, smoke it in the bathroom between classes.” He lit up. “Wasn’t like she was the only one.”
“Charley does more than smoke a little weed.”
“So I heard.”
I took a stab at an idea forming in the back of my head. “Wright imports more than fish, doesn’t he?”
“Wright?” He snorted and stood. “Think I’ll get myself another beer.”
I followed him down the musty hallway.
He opened the fridge, took out another can. A shotgun sat on the counter. He made no move for it, just opened the beer and drank.
“You always keep shotguns in the kitchen?”
He glanced at the gun. “Can get dangerous around these parts.”
“Uh huh.” I sipped my beer. “Come on, you’ve worked at Wright’s for years. You telling me they never let you in on the big secret?”
He reached for the gun. “Who’d you say you were again?”
I moved in close, much too close for him to use a long-barreled gun, and angled up so his belly touched mine. “I don’t give two shits about your stupid dope sales. What I do give two shits about is figuring out why my little sister might have shot your friend in the head.” I put my hand on the barrel of the gun, which he’d left sitting on the counter.
He glared at me. “I could kill you.”
“Look, you and I both know they’re up to no good. You said, yourself, they aren’t letting you in on it. All I’m saying is if you change your mind about spilling some beans, give me a call.” I winked at him and drained my beer.
“You’re just playing me.”
“Maybe.”
“I been played by better.”
I ran the index finger I’d had on the beer down the curve of his jaw. It was cold and left his stubble damp. I purred in his ear. “Oh, I doubt that.”
He stiffened below. “I could be wrong.”
I lowered my lids and kissed him on his scratchy cheek. “I’ll slip a business card in the screen on my way out.”
Driving away, I wondered if I still had it, that magic touch that had once parted men so easily from their money, and if it would work on secrets, too.
Chapter sixteen
Driving back toward Newport, across the high-rise bridge separating Beaufort and Morehead City, I realized how exhausted I was. My shoulder hurt. My back hurt. My hand ached in the cold. And I hadn’t eaten since I’d scared the hell out of Scooter, which explained why my brain felt like it was eating itself.
I looked down at my outfit when I stopped at a traffic light downtown. It was probably the most acceptable thing I’d brought with me and, despite the bruise on my cheekbone, I looked presentable enough. A pub-like restaurant sat across the railroad tracks, so I did a U-turn and parked at the curb.
Wednesday night, it was quiet inside. A few families at tables by the windows, a couple of guys drinking beer at the bar. The hostess looked around me, almost hopeful. “Just one?”
I nodded and followed her to a booth near the bar. Basketball on the big screen, the sound turned low. The guys added their own commentary, peppered by occasional shouts or boos. I slipped in on the side facing the door and pushed myself back against the wall, one foot propped on the bench. A neon ad for Fat Tire beer caught my eye so I ordered one, along with a water.
The menu featured an assortment of fried meats and seafood, burgers and fries. The sort of stuff people ate while drinking beer and watching basketball. I wasn’t sure what kind of food went with mulling over thoughts of murder and suicide, so I ordered a side of mixed vegetables and some fries.
I wanted to call Tom, listen to a reassuring voice tell me things would be okay and nothing was as bad as I suspected. I wanted to go back to the days when Nik and I could fix anything together. I wanted to believe there was no way Lane had shot William Guthrie in his mother’s apartment. I wanted to be the kind of woman who didn’t sit with her back to the wall, eyeballing the place to make sure no one jumped her.
Instead, I nibbled garlicky broccoli and wondered what to do next.
It seemed somewhat obvious that I needed to find Brad and Amber, but I had a nagging feeling Eric Wright — and by extension Vince Zellner — were involved and old fears made me want to get them before they could get me.
Jackie had fallen for Eric hard, as hard as Charley had ever fallen for a man, and the results had been as disastrous.
“I think Eric’s selling drugs,” she told me one night, standing in front of a muted TV and holding a bowl of ice cream.
I was studying on the coffee table in the apartment we shared and looked up at her, not sure whether to take her seriously or not.
She sensed my hesitation. “You don’t believe me.”
I put down my highlighter. “What makes you think he sells drugs?”
“He buys me things. Nice things. We argue sometimes and I guess he wants to make sure I forgive him, but sometimes he just buys things to be nice.” She put the bowl on the top of the TV, shoving the rabbit ears to the edge to make room. The picture turned fuzzy, but she didn’t seem to notice. “I saw one of the purses at the mall today.”
“You hate the mall.”
“My mom hates the mall. Thinks the devil can get me through cheap sweaters that show too much.”
“Don’t forget how she feels about jewelry without crosses.”
“I was thinking of getting a part-time job. Something a few days a week while he’s at practice, you know. He doesn’t really think it’s a good idea, says he can buy me anything I want, but, I don’t know. You have a job.”
“You don’t want my kind of job.”
“No, I could never do that.” She turned pink, then downright red. “I don’t know how you do that.” She shivered and made a face. “I have a hard time just taking my clothes off around Eric. He says it’s okay, but I always think of my mom. Oh, gosh, that sounds wrong.” She found a way to turn redder.
“He doesn’t make you do things you don’t want to, does he?”
She shoo
k her head a little too vehemently. “No, nothing like that. And I mean, we don’t do it. Just, it feels wrong. I don’t know. I’m not like you. Maybe he’s right, though. Maybe I don’t need a job. Most of them wanted me to work more hours than I wanted. I wouldn’t be around when he needed me.”
“You said you saw a purse?” I still had three hours worth of studying to do in the two hours before work. I didn’t have time for her insecurities.
“Oh, yeah. It was in one of the stores that offered to hire me. She was nice. You know the green one, with the funny letters on it?”
“Gucci?”
She wrinkled her nose. “Doesn’t look like much to me, but the lady at the store said it was real nice. Cost four hundred dollars.”
“Is it real?”
She looked puzzled.
“Real. Is the one Eric gave you real or counterfeit?”
“I don’t know. Why would someone counterfeit purses?”
“Oh, honey, sometimes you’re adorable.”
She smiled. “Eric says the same thing. He says he’s gonna show me the world.”
“Uh huh. Look, a lot of the strippers I work with like designer bags. Makes them feel like they’re getting something for the money. I don’t know. Guess they don’t have surgeries to pay off. At any rate, some of them buy fake bags downtown. They come in on ships at the port and look pretty much like the ones you saw today, except maybe the G looks like a C or the lining’s the wrong color. From a distance they look okay.”
“I don’t get it. Why would you pay for a fake purse?”
“Honey, if you aren’t the kind of person to want the real one, you aren’t going to understand the fake ones.”
• • • • •
I picked up my beer and stared at the excess butter congealing around my limp asparagus spears. I remembered seeing several handbags in Lane’s room when I was looking for towels to clean up Charley’s mess. At the time, I’d thought nothing of it, but suddenly the patterns and clasps stood out in my mind. Lane shouldn’t have been able to afford Fendi and Coach. And she certainly shouldn’t have been able to have several of them scattered around like dime store castoffs.