by Neliza Drew
“Your son works for Wright, too. He just bought a nice house in Surf City. Ocean views, I’m told.” Chip the hacker was handy.
“My son is none of your business. Or Mr. MacQuayde’s, for that matter.” His tone made it clear he knew where I’d gotten that information.
“Who started the rumor about the hit?”
“Mr. Wright would never do that.”
“He’s missing. So, was it you? Tanner?”
“You know my client records are confidential.”
I raised an eyebrow.
“Mr. Wright is a smart, shrewd businessman. He offered jobs at a time when everyone was hearing about this great economy but not seeing the evidence. Between the flooding, the storms, and the pollution, the locals couldn’t afford to live here.”
“How noble.”
He looked at his caramel-colored coffee. “His father left when he was three. I understand you lost your father at a young age also. That must have been hard.”
“Didn’t make me a drug dealer or a murderer.” I thumbed over at Nik. “And she’s not even a prostitute.” The fact that he knew about our father wasn’t lost on me.
“Eric isn’t a strong person, never has been. Good at business, but, well, he’s most certainly not a drug dealer or a murderer.”
“Maybe, but he has been passing off cheap seafood as local.”
“Even if he were, that’s a matter for the FDA. And if his customers have no complaints, why would you?”
Nik made a face, but kept her soap boxes stored.
“His father was a good man. But he died. And Eric’s mother remarried. All of this you could probably find out from any waitress or hairdresser Downeast, so I’m breaking no confidence. His mother was not a strong person. Probably not so unlike yours.”
“Some of us don’t get that luxury. Being weak.”
Nik caught my eye, but I pretended not to see her.
“Her father owned the seafood business. When she remarried, she changed Eric’s last name to her father’s because her new husband wanted no children.”
“That’s awful,” Nik said.
“Again, all part of local lore. As is her father leaving her the business on the condition she let the general manager remain and that her new husband never touch it. When the manager retired, Eric took over. The gist of that is in the public records.”
I blinked at him. “And the part that isn’t?”
He sighed. “That would be the part protected by client privilege. But something tells me you can guess how well young Eric was treated by his stepfather.”
I watched his eyes grow sad with the weight of things he’d carried too many years.
“I did the best I could.” He got up without a word and walked down the hall.
I glanced at Nik. She mouthed for me to behave.
He shuffled back in, carrying a snapshot of a boy standing in a kitchen and clutching a small, stuffed rabbit. His face was purple and swollen, his chest bare.
Nik looked over my shoulder. “You never called social services? You never told the police?”
“I was not at liberty to interfere. There’s no guarantee he’d have been better off. At least I kept an eye on him.”
“What happened to the stepfather?”
“Eric killed him. Or had someone do it.”
I looked up. “You said he wasn’t a murderer.”
“I have no proof of it and I’d never testify in court. Three years ago, when he came back from school permanently, the man disappeared. A body was never found. I just know.”
Nik’s breathing changed next to me.
“Uh huh.”
He ignored me. “Most of the town thinks he’s nearly a saint.” Jackson rubbed at a liver spot on his wrist. “Eric bought a salon for an old girlfriend. When they broke up, he fired her. I never got the feeling they were…compatible.”
“Sweet guy. She still around?”
“Sort of. Her parents buried her in the family plot in Newport.”
I raised an eyebrow. “Car accident?”
“Boat. She drowned while on Shackelford Banks with her brother and his wife.”
“When?”
“Two weeks after the break-up.”
I thought of Jackie. Dead in the snow.
Nik looked incredulous.
I jerked my chin at the photo on the fridge. “They don’t look much alike, do they?”
He looked over his shoulder and back at his lap. “I may have been unfaithful once. It was a long time ago. The baby was little. We were stressed. I had to go to Raleigh on business. Things happened.”
I raised an eyebrow. “Vince Zellner?”
He looked at his thumb, stroking the handle of the mug. “He was a troubled kid from what I understand. Needed a father figure, perhaps. His mother got caught up in an accounting scheme, did some time. Tabby and I took him in when he was seven. He went back to his mother when she got out. Vince was,” he furrowed his brow, “thirteen.”
“He ever meet Eric?”
He gave me a weird look. “No.”
“Tanner threatened a family man near Newport.”
His jaw was stone. “I didn’t endorse that. I don’t condone it.”
I looked at the picture of a boy with a bunny and a black eye. “He really missing?”
His face sagged. “I just hope he’s not dead.”
In the car, Nik shuddered and flicked on the heater. “How much of that do you think is bullshit?”
I put the car in gear and turned on the windshield wipers to clear the icy mist. “Doesn’t matter. Matters who believes it.” I turned onto Turner Street.
“He has the money. If he wants you dead, Davis…”
“He won’t be the first.”
Chapter fifty-two
We pulled up in front of Charley’s without speaking. Nik hadn’t said a word since we’d left Beaufort, and while I could guess what she was thinking I wasn’t sure I wanted to hear it out loud.
The front door wasn’t locked, was barely pulled shut. I looked at her and pulled the Beretta out of my purse. She moved behind me like we’d done this dance before and both knew she wasn’t waiting in the car any more than I was.
We found Eric Wright sitting on the couch, wrapped in a clear plastic parka, holding a small-caliber pistol on his lap. He looked like a tired version of the college athlete Jackie had fallen for; a dejected form of the small-town politician who’d convinced voters he could be trusted. Sun-bleached hair flopped over his forehead, damp and greasy, and his lavender polo shirt showed signs of having been worn too many days.
I pointed the 9mm at him. “What the fuck are you doing here, Eric?”
“I need your help.” He didn’t bother embellishing. He barely looked up from his lap.
“Excuse me?”
He searched my face. “He hasn’t broken you yet, has he?” He looked at Nik. “You?”
“Where the hell have you been?”
“Hiding.”
“Clearly.” I picked up the gun off his lap. He didn’t even seem to notice. “Eric, I really don’t have the patience for this kind of crazy. And frankly, since you were armed I’m pretty sure the only reason I haven’t shot you is the mess.”
“My lawyer’s trying to kill me. My employees are ruining my reputation. My friends are… I don’t have any friends.” He sagged into the stained couch and looked at home under the dingy, spray-painted wall.
I stared at him. “What about Vince?”
A wave of fear and sadness and longing crossed his face and a dozen things clicked into place in my brain. “Vince is your lover.”
Nik’s head whiplashed in my peripheral vision.
Eric’s face twisted. “I’m not gay.”
I thought about the video and the man with the tiger tattoo. I thought about Jackie and Rebecca. I thought about denial and abuse. I thought about his stepfather. “It started with your stepdad, didn’t it?” My voice sounded calm, understanding, even to my jaded ears.
“I didn’t say you were.”
His lower lip, split from too much sun or cold wind, quivered. “I’m not.”
“Eric, let’s be clear when I say I’m quite certain there are things you’ve done that I don’t agree with—”
“I’m not.”
“Yes, but if someone did something to you as a child, that’s on them. Not you. It doesn’t make you one thing or another.”
He just shook his head. “I just wanted to be normal.”
I glanced at Nik. “Some of us don’t get to be.”
“I went out with the guys one night. After a game. We tried some bar downtown. Partied until late. A guy chatted me up. We talked baseball. The last of the team left and this guy asked if I wanted to get another beer or two at his place.
“I told him I wasn’t gay. I told him I wasn’t like that. He laughed. Said it was just a couple beers. The night was young.”
“But you liked him. You were attracted to him.”
“I’m not gay. I’m not like that.” He wouldn’t meet my eyes, “But he was so nice, so gentle.”
“Look, let me be real clear with you. I’m sorry for anything that happened to you that you didn’t want, but I’m about two minutes past my patience for the homophobia. Some of the most important people in my life have been gay and that didn’t make me love them less and it didn’t break my heart less when they were gone. You wanna hide your shit publicly? Fine. But drop the act with me. If you knew—”
“I was confused. And it’s the South. I had a reputation to protect. I have a business. People who depend on me.”
“You didn’t think a gay politician would get very far.”
“I do good, Davis. I’ve done good.”
“And Vince? He do any good?” I asked.
“Being with Vince was great, but scary. I tried to help him. I thought I could change him. He just had too much hate. Pain I couldn’t heal.”
“When did he make the video?”
He turned pink. “He loved me.”
“Blackmail isn’t love.”
“You don’t understand. I’ve tried so hard. I loved Jackie. I did. Just never like that. And she was okay with it. She wanted just enough sex to have kids. I figured I could do that. I could.”
“You hit her. You used her.”
He shook his head. “I never.”
“Vince?”
He nodded. “He took his anger with me out on her. Sometimes on me. Mostly on her.”
I pictured the “mistakes” and the dead women in the Wilmington newspapers. “He hate all women or just the ones with you?”
He shut his eyes. “He wasn’t always like this.”
“Like what?”
“Dangerous. Evil.”
“Melodrama much?” I asked.
He gave me his best earnest face, but the greasy hair messed up the look. “He’s got a streak. He likes to find people’s pain points. And push them. Their fears. Their nightmares.” He wiped a tear. “I don’t know what happened.”
I flexed my right hand, worked the ache out of it. “I don’t care what happened. His mommy went to prison. He didn’t get enough cupcakes. Whatever.”
Eric looked up, eyes full of fear. “He knows about that guy in college, in Boone. The one who drugged you. I don’t know how, but he does.”
Only one way. I’d only talked about it once before my conversation with Tom on Thursday. Ryan was dead, but when our apartment had gone up in flames my paperwork from the clinic had still been sitting on my desk.
“That’s gonna be his plan, you know…” He looked at me, earnest again, but also cagey. “He wants to break you.”
Nik’s breath caught next to me.
He lowered his eyes. “You’re the only one who can stop him.”
“I don’t have a fucking cape, Eric.”
Nik squeezed my arm “What is he talking about, Davis?”
“He’s saying Vince thinks roofies will push me over the edge, turn me into a quivering mess like Charley.”
Nik relaxed. “Well, that’s just stupid.”
He looked up at me. “I never meant to hurt her. Jackie. Our relationship, it made Vince so angry sometimes. He wanted us to be together, didn’t understand what I was doing with her.”
“You used her and you let him hit her.” I stared at him for a long time.
He picked lint or dust or stray pot off the couch cushion. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry for what he did to you. I know you were just trying to protect her. I know she didn’t understand.”
“Davis, what’re you thinking?” Nik asked.
I shook myself out of old memories. “You have a tattoo?
“Vince does. A tiger on his shoulder. It was his old high school mascot.” His eyes grew sad. “You saw what he did to Jackie.”
“Why?”
“I wanted to marry her. He seduced her. Said he’d ruin her for both of us. That she’d know how awful I was, how good he was. That she’d never be able to show her face in a white dress. He blackmailed her. Told her if she didn’t leave, he’d show the video to her mom.”
“Why? Marriage would solve your image problem, right?”
“He didn’t like sharing. He didn’t like that I loved her. Even as a friend. He wanted me to himself.”
I thought about the video, about Jackie’s attitude toward sex, about how she’d talked about Vince. “Seduced? Or raped?”
Eric wouldn’t look at me. He either didn’t know or couldn’t bring himself to say. Maybe it no longer mattered.
I waited for Eric to catch my eyes again. “Who killed that woman? In Wilmington.”
His jaw worked a little longer, then stopped. “How?”
“No, who?” My disgust was bubbling over.
“What woman?” Nik asked.
“I thought it was you. I thought it was you lashing out when you fought with Jackie. It was him.”
He looked at the ceiling, worked his mouth like he was hoping an answer would find its way in there on its own. “He started those fights. Then, when she ran off, I was upset. I didn’t want to even look at him. He was ruining it.”
“Your perfect image.” I said.
His face crumbled. “He said he had to blow off steam. I didn’t know, then. I mean, I knew he had his own issues with—”
“You’re as complicit as he is.”
“You don’t understand. I love him. Loved him. You don’t know what it’s like.”
I wanted to shoot him so badly I had to rub the side of the slide with my trigger finger to keep it outside the guard. “I know all about abusive relationships. I know all about power and control and excuses. That shit don’t change if you’re gay or straight or bi or trans or a fucking teen hooker. You don’t have to hurt yourself and you don’t have to hurt other people to be happy. You don’t.”
Nik put a hand on my shoulder. She didn’t pat or rub or speak. Just let me know she was still there. That my anger wasn’t the only thing in the room.
“What about Melissa Armstrong?”
“Who?” he asked.
“The first mistake.”
His eyes widened. “It wasn’t like that.”
“Did you fuck her? Try to marry her, too?”
Nik punched me in the back of the shoulder.
I flinched.
“I don’t know. I never met her. Rebecca, that investigator, said she was hanging out with Lane and Billy. I liked her. Rebecca. She was nice. Smart. Smart enough to know we weren’t going any further than dinner and drinks, but she was fun.”
“Why’d Vince kill Melissa? She was a kid.”
“Because I found out what he was doing and tried to help Rebecca get that girl home.”
“Allister Connolly?”
“Lane’s idea, which was really Vince’s. He used those girls. Getting them drugs, pimping them out. He’d get Lane and Amber to find him runaways, addicts, people he could exploit. He just likes pain. He wants to see other people h
urt.” He tried to suppress a sob. “I see it now.”
Nik hit me again. I wasn’t sure why but it sounded like she was trying not to cry.
“He hurt them, hooked them, turned them out.” I left just enough room for him to take it as a question, but it wasn’t. I knew too much about guys like that.
Nik hit me again and I felt the cut underneath start to bleed.
“I didn’t mean to do anything wrong.” Eric looked defeated.
“How’d all this start?”
Nik leaned her head on my shoulder and I heard her swallow. I wondered what was going on in her head, but was afraid to ask.
Eric looked at her and then his hands. “Purses. Vince got a line on some purses working at the port. Sold some, made a little money. Guy who had the purses asked if he wanted to make even more. Told him about a dealer. Vince thought it made him seem tough. Liked the idea. Liked the pain drugs caused even as they promised to make it all go away.”
“But you stayed with him.”
“I thought he’d stopped. After Jackie died, things settled for a while. I inherited the seafood company and I tried to—”
“You used his contacts to import cheap fish.”
“You make it sound petty.”
“It’s illegal. That doesn’t make it glamorous.”
“It was supposed to be a win-win. I could afford to pay my guys — well. I could afford to help out local fishermen. I could stay in business. It wasn’t just a campaign promise. I meant it.”
“You ran for office so you could pretend to be a big baller.”
He glared at me. “I meant well. I did. Brought it in on cargo ships under a shell company Jackson set up. Used the smaller charter and fishing boats I bought off the guys who needed help. Loaded the imported stuff in their hulls and brought it into Wright’s like they’d caught it.”
“And the money to buy the boats?”
“Jackson said we had it. I didn’t know he was padding my accounts laundering Vince’s dirty money. I never asked where it came from.”
Jackson. I had a feeling Zellner had targeted Wright all along, had known about him for years. And maybe been jealous.
“Why?” Nik asked. “Why not just use trucks?”