by Sherri Smith
“I knew it. I knew I hadn’t been dumped.” Tone-deaf, Zoey sounded too pleased with herself, as if Lucas was better dead than having dumped her. She gave a triumphant nod.
“He didn’t text that. Or else someone made him do it.”
“We have to find him.” She grabbed my hand. I squeezed hers back. Gratefulness that I finally had an ally shuddered behind my breastbone; I almost wept. Instead I took in a steadying mouthful of air so that I wouldn’t.
“OK. OK, let’s go back to before he went missing. Did Lucas talk about anything that seemed strange or off to you?”
“Not that I can think of. He certainly never mentioned having sex with one of his students.”
“Anything at all, however small.”
“Not really. I mean, sometimes we didn’t do a whole lot of talking.” A wistful giggle.
I rolled my eyes. Grilled her a little, got specific. “Anything about coaching? His hockey players? Cell phones? Gambling? Owing money? Ben or Kathy Wilkes?”
“No, nothing that was weird or out of the ordinary. Well, just before everything went down, he was talking about you a lot.”
“Me?”
“Yeah, he said he worried about you. Things like that. Alone, in the big city. He said you thought you didn’t deserve someone special.”
“He said that?” I felt the sharp cut of betrayal as I pictured Lucas with his head in her lap, casually psychoanalyzing me as she stroked his hair. Why hadn’t he ever brought this up to me?
She offered up a sympathetic pout and nodded.
I made my face go steely so I wouldn’t show I was stinging. Put it aside. “Anything else?”
Zoey looked up, as if really trying to peer inside her own head. “Well, he also kept bringing up wanting to know who his father was.”
“What did he say about it?” That surprised me. He hadn’t brought that up for years. The last thing I remembered him saying about it was that if our father was worth finding, he’d have found us.
“Just that he wanted to know. It bothered him. It was a gap in his history, y’know?”
“Yes, I know.” We shared the same anonymous father, and therefore the same gap-toothed history.
“He was working on it.”
“Working on what?”
“Finding him. He said he was getting close.”
“Getting close, how?” What the hell did that mean? Getting close? If he knew who our father was, why didn’t he tell me any of this?
Zoey shrugged. “I don’t know. He didn’t get into details. It was kind of depressing to talk about anyway.” The bartender refilled my coffee with the remaining dregs of the carafe, though I motioned for him not to. “Funny. Lucas hated coffee.”
“Yeah, I know.” Something tugged at me. “Or, well, he did. Supposedly he likes coffee now. He gets his students to bring him one if they’re late.”
“Uh, no, I don’t think so. He can’t stand the stuff. I always tease him about it. He doesn’t even have a coffeemaker at his place.”
So Bailey lied about that, a stupid lie, the kind teenagers tell that have no other purpose than to get attention in the moment they’re telling it.
Zoey elbowed me. “There’s Carl.” She bounced over to Carl, put her elbows on the table. It looked like she was sweet-talking him into meeting me. Just like she sweet-talked the bartender into letting me stay. This girl had skills. She waved me over. We both sat down.
Carl had a wild look to him. It was the combination of a lazy eye, a full-out old West mustache worn in earnest, and a permanent look of sexual frustration, a sort of half wince. “I want to shake your hand.” He extended a palm, with a thumb and three stumps. His index finger was intact, so I mostly held that as he pumped my arm up and down. “Wish I coulda’ punched that woman in the face myself. Though, y’know, under different circumstances—not right after her daughter died, that’s for sure.” He eyed me like I was a psychopath, then lingered on my breasts.
Zoey snapped her fingers twice. “Over here, Carl. She wants to know what happened between you and the Wilkeses.” I was glad Zoey had stayed. No need for small talk, just straight to the point.
“Here’s how my saga all started. Lost my fingers on the job last spring. All three were sliced while I was feeding plastic film into the equipment that seals food into packaging. Everyone wants their food to come in nice little packages.” He sneered, like this was completely unreasonable. “Thing was, the guard was broken. I’d brought it up the week before to the foreman, and he said it’d be fixed. It wasn’t.” He wiggled his stumps. “So, after getting offered a shitty workers’ comp package, I decided to sue. Well, that Ian Wilkes wasn’t having any of that.” He took a gulp of his beer, the foam washing up on the shore of his ’stache. Then slammed the mug down on the table. “They fucking burned my house down.” His voice went up, loud. I startled. Zoey cast me a told-you-so look, pretended someone had called her into the kitchen, and left. Carl watched her go with a creepy intensity.
“So the Wilkeses burned your house down?”
“Yup. Without a doubt.”
“And what happened?”
Carl leaned in close. “Nothing at all. Firefighters said it was caused by a short in a heater I was using, but I know it was them. I didn’t have no house insurance, so I had to take the damn compensation package. I couldn’t afford to hire a lawyer and wait years for a payout.” He paused for dramatic effect, and I knew I was supposed to say something sympathetic.
“Oh, that’s terrible.”
“Now I’m living at the Tall Pines Motel.” He waved his hand around like a foam finger at a ball game.
“Have they followed you at all? Tried to intimidate you?” These details were what I needed to really flesh out my profile of Ben and Kathy and apparently even Ian Wilkes. There was always a trail of near victims before actual victims.
He started nodding, whispered, “How do you know?” A kind of paranoid look swept over his face. “They’re watching me. Kathy and Ian Wilkes. Watching to make sure I don’t make trouble.”
“Ben’s been following me too. Running me off the road in his black truck.” I leaned in closer. I was really getting somewhere.
“Well, I don’t know nothing ’bout no truck. I do know they’ve been tapping my phone and peeping in my window. Those bank fees I get on my statements, that’s them stealing from me, and they get a doctor to take my blood when I’m asleep. I don’t know why—do you know why they take my blood?”
I got it then. Carl really was schizoid. This was how I sounded to Garrett, to Vanessa Lee. It wasn’t long before he started getting into government conspiracies, why supermarket meat didn’t rot (carbon-monoxide-laced packaging!), and what the fluoride in water really did to the human body. Eventually I was able to get away, but not before Carl asked me to pay for his drinks. “It’s only fair, considering how much confidential information I’ve given you.”
* * *
I sat outside in Casey’s parking lot. Someone had tossed a half-finished Big Gulp through the broken window into my backseat, and the whole car had a not entirely unpleasant scent of grapes baking in the sun.
I didn’t go back to the apartment but drove to Eric’s instead. During the night of too much bourbon, he had revealed where he lived with what I’d thought was a charming amount of embarrassment (a boxy condo complex not far from Westfield). I’d ignored the two texts he sent me, both asking how I was doing in a slightly different way. Before Kathy nearly wrung the life out of me, I might have been able to muster up some sympathy for Eric. Yes, it was a loathsome, jerky thing to sell off a student’s confidentiality (again a tremor of relief I’d never seen him again after pushing Mimi—what would he have done with that info?), but the Wilkeses had a lot of money, and maybe Kathy had made an offer too sweet for someone on a teacher’s salary to resist.
* * *
A glance in the rearview mirror. I had a ghostly, hollowed-out look. My neck had a collar of bright-red splotches that looked like I h
ad tried to hang myself but then changed my mind. Eric opened the door, looking sleepy and smelling like a hangover. His hair was tufty. It was just after 4 P.M., and he was still in boxer shorts. He started to apologize for his appearance; he’d played at Detours until close last night—then he noticed what I looked like.
“What happened to you?” More asleep than awake, he reached out to touch my neck, his eyes hooded like he was going to kiss me better, but I brushed him off.
“Kathy, again. That’s what happened to me. We need to talk.” Good. He’d slept in and hadn’t read the news yet, and being hungover, he was probably not at his sharpest. He invited me in, slipped on some track pants and a faded T-shirt, and poured me a strong coffee. Eric’s place was exactly as I’d thought it would be, decorated like the Hard Rock Cafe. Band posters and two neon signs. A mounted guitar rack with three gleaming guitars.
He sat across from me on a barstool at a tall rustic table. Afternoon sunlight was streaming in through a window and hitting his face, hard. He looked tired, even starting to show signs of the next ten years. He had the creasy, blanched look that precedes haggard. I wondered if he did the occasional bump of cocaine to get him through those late nights (he’d been pretty eager for an upper!) or for the sweet rush of closing his eyes and trading in the crowd of depressed dart-tossing drunks for a packed stadium. I got that cheated feeling. Like I’d gone to bed with a ten and woken up to a five.
* * *
“I know that you were selling your sessions with Joanna to Kathy.”
“What? I don’t know what you’re talking—” He had just the right amount of outrage in his voice. I might’ve believed him.
“Just don’t, OK? I don’t need to hear you deny it.”
“There’s nothing to deny, Mia.” His lips twisted into an angry smile. He cocked his head, furrowed his brow in what was probably his best mirror-face, a face that made the ladies at Detours a sure thing. That had made me a sure thing. I’d have bet his stockpile of Los Angeles anecdotes and interesting music trivia were just finite party favors, and once they ran dry, Eric had to move on to other conquests before his hollowness was exposed. His hand traveled across the table and rested on mine. “I offered Kathy some extra counseling, if that’s what you mean?”
“OK, whatever you want to call it.” I moved my hand away. Eric made a face, like he was sucking on something sour.
“I’m calling it what it was.”
“Except you were telling Kathy everything Joanna confided for a fee.”
Eric sighed. “I’m a good person, Mia. I was only trying to help a concerned mother.
Why, oh why, had Eric not called himself a good person earlier? I never would have slept with him. The worst people I’d ever met started their sentences with I’m a good person, y’know.
“I’m not interested in getting you in trouble. That’s not why I’m here. I want to know about Kathy.”
Eric sniffed. His eyes narrowed like he was trying to think up a lie but was too hungover to think creatively. Resignation glided over his face. “What about Kathy? I told you that she was overbearing. What else is there to say?”
“Was Joanna afraid of her?”
“Afraid of her? No. I don’t think so. I mean, if she was genuinely afraid of her mother, she probably wouldn’t have acted out so much.” He took a sip of coffee.
“Didn’t you wonder why Joanna had all those injuries? Didn’t you question it?”
“Injuries? No, why would I? She had some dance injuries. It happens.”
“How did Kathy approach you? What exactly was she after?”
This made Eric start to fidget. “She just dropped by and told me she was worried about her daughter. That’s it. She didn’t want Joanna to repeat her mistakes. I didn’t think she had nefarious intentions, if that’s what you’re asking. Yes, maybe she was one of those dance moms living vicariously through her daughter, but that doesn’t mean she didn’t want the best for her.”
“By the best for her, you mean exactly what Kathy wanted her to be.”
Eric rubbed his face. Held his hands on his cheeks, pulling down all his features, his eyes red-rimmed and distorted. I got the feeling that just the sound of my voice was annoying the hell out of him. Too bad. He looked at me from under those bowed eyelids, before he let go of his face and dropped his hands onto the table. His lips twitched. He sighed. “Fuuuuck. Fine! Whatever, Mia, OK? I don’t know why you’re so intent on trying to make me feel bad. But you know what? Joanna was a spoiled brat. OK? She had everything. Everything. I would have killed for the opportunities she squandered.” Eric was practically shouting, his voice dripping with bitterness. He kept shaking his head, like I’d driven him past some point of no return.
“So you sold her out, because—why? You hated that she was still so young and had so much talent and an easy means out of here. While you’re still—”
“Yes, I know I’m a failed musician. I don’t need you to tell me that,” he snapped. “I didn’t hate her. That’s ridiculous. She was just … like they all are. These kids. They’re generic little copies of the kids I had last year and the year before, and the year before. They like the same music, shop at the same stores, and take the same selfies.”
In my defense, both times I’d been around Eric, I hadn’t been sober. Not that I was totally sober now. But even with a Percocet running thin in my veins, I could now see that when Eric wasn’t set to music and soft lighting, he was an angry, resentful man.
“Did Joanna tell you she was pregnant?”
Something dark passed over his face. “No.”
“What? It looks like you want to say something. Tell me.”
He hesitated. Stood up, stretched his back, and grabbed a bottle of whiskey from a cupboard, then poured a shot into his coffee. Took a sip. Grimaced. “Hey, do you have any more of those pills?”
“I do.”
“Could I … this hangover. I’m just feeling like shit here.”
“I told you, only the first pill was free. You need to start talking to me, and I’ll give something that’ll fix you right up. So, again, tell me, did Joanna say she was pregnant?”
Eric sat back down. “Well, this one time— Let me think. I don’t know how it came up, but she started talking about how adoption was one of the most selfless things someone could do for someone else. It led me to saying something about my ex-wife’s fertility issues, and so on, and she wanted to know if my ex-wife—who’s now remarried, by the way—would still want a baby and how amazing it would be for her if someone just gave her one. And so and so on.” Eric started to make a yakky hand gesture then caught himself. “Anyway, I didn’t think much about it, because that’s what these kids do. They feign this grand capacity for selflessness and kindness without ever having to follow through. At their core, they’re just attention-seeking statements. There’s nothing to them.”
“When did she talk about adoption?” Like all good Wayoatan girls, Joanna didn’t think abortion was an option.
“I don’t know? I don’t remember exactly. Earlier in the year. Maybe January?” Could this have been Joanna’s second pregnancy? Or had she been planning on getting pregnant since January? Was that her ultimate ticket out of dancing? Just like Mom. But then Joanna would have to keep it to make that work, wouldn’t she?
“Did she talk to your ex-wife?”
“What? No. I doubt it. I don’t talk to my ex anymore, but I’m sure she would have been in touch if a student had contacted her about adopting her baby. That’s sort of a conflict of interest.” And taking cash from Joanna’s mother wasn’t?
“Did you tell Kathy that Joanna was talking about adoption?”
“No. Why would I? I thought it was nothing.” Eric shrugged a little too forcefully. It made me think he wasn’t being totally honest. Or did Joanna really get in touch with his ex, and Eric couldn’t stand the thought of his ex going on with some neat, tidy family?
Especially if it was his.
My throat ti
ghtened. During my sessions with Eric, the door had always been closed. No other staff members ever popped in. Not that I could remember. There was opportunity. I mean, there was even a couch! Was it so outlandish that Joanna could have been sleeping with Eric too? Maybe she was the school faculty Lolita. Maybe she knew how much it would piss off her mom to be sleeping with multiple men. And what a great cover for Eric to do recon on Joanna when he was the one sleeping with her. Then when he found out Joanna was with Lucas too, he fed Kathy stories, and that was why Lucas was dead right now and not Eric.
“Mia?”
I shook myself out of this line of thinking. I mean, I’d just slept with this guy! Twice! And now I thought he was the one who’d started it all? Clearly, my judgment was too skittish and couldn’t be trusted. Besides, wild finger-pointing would not help my cause. And whatever Eric might have done was beside the point; it still boiled down to Kathy and Ben.
“You said Joanna mentioned she was seeing an older man. Did you tell Kathy that?”
“Well, like I said, I thought she meant Dylan, so yeah, I told Kathy.”
“Did Kathy ever suspect Joanna was involved with Lucas, before Joanna went missing?”
“If she did, she didn’t hear that from me.” Eric said this so forcefully, I almost believed him. “What is this all about, anyway?”
I took a deep breath. “I think Kathy murdered her daughter and could have possibly murdered Lucas.”
Eric just looked at me. Took another gulp of his coffee. “Huh.”
“Huh? That’s it?” I noted that Eric didn’t once ask me how I knew what I did. I wasn’t sure if that could be chalked up to a foggy hangover or something else.
“Well, you’re allowed to think whatever you want to think.”
My thoughts shuffled. “The other day at the Terrace, what did you say to Madison Wilkes?”
“Madison?”
“She was at the pool, at my brother’s building. I saw you talking to her.”
He blinked. “Nothing. She just looked like she needed someone to talk to.”