by Cesare, Adam
She didn’t even know what Tobin did with his days, where he spent most of his time.
Davey’s camp was an option, but also somewhere she wasn’t able to get on her own. She’d only seen it a handful of times in the daylight, and all of those times she’d been too hung over to get more than a hazy impression of the place.
There was also the question of how she was supposed to work around prepping all the food for dinner, all the food that was now locked back in the fridge with Bert’s remains.
It came to her then, the one person at The Brant she could trust most, the one who’d already watched her back, not to mention the one person too vapid and dull to be involved in any sort of dog-murder conspiracy.
Claire needed to find Daisy.
*
Daisy sobbed for five solid minutes after Claire showed her Bert’s flayed corpse. Maybe showing her hadn’t been the best idea.
“I know it’s hard, but what do we do?” Claire said as the rolling sobs slowed to a trickle.
It was like she’d said the magic words, Daisy’s face sobered and she wiped her eyes on the corner of her apron.
“We should put him somewhere safe and prepare dinner,” Daisy said, rolling up her sleeves. Claire had always thought of that as an expression, but Daisy was actually doing it.
“If this gets out, Ms. Brant will be ruined. The hotel will be closed. It would devastate the town. Bert seemed like a good dog, but we can’t let his death destroy Mission,” Daisy said.
Stunned by not only the melodrama but the change in Daisy’s attitude, Claire could only nod and offer a solemn “Yes, of course.” Sometimes the only way weird situations could go was further into the surreal.
Daisy riffled through a cabinet that Claire had never used and came back with a thick black Hefty bag. In a few quick whips of her arms, she had the bag open and was sliding Bert, cutting board and all, into the bag.
Bert’s body pressed against the outside of the bag, his four legs poking an outline in the bag as Daisy twisted up and knotted the end.
The impression Bert’s body left in the plastic caused a flash in Claire’s brain.
It was a dream image, or what she’d been telling herself was a dream image: the five fingers of a human hand pressing up against a black garbage bag, a dismembered arm trying to push its way out of the trash.
Claire shivered.
“Put this down in that cupboard,” Daisy said, and pointed. “Don’t worry. It’s sealed.” She then handed her the bag o’ Bert, Claire having no choice but to take it.
For someone who had just been weeping over a dog she’d only met once, Daisy had regained composure very quickly. That was the attitude she took when her patron was threatened. The dedication Daisy showed to Brant and the hotel was fanatical. Claire only just now realized this, even though it had been staring her in the face since the first day.
Claire shoved Bert into the cupboard, touching him through the bag and wincing at the cold of his exposed flesh.
As she pulled her hand back, the chill still on it, she had to ask, “What do you think he did with the fur?”
Chapter Twenty-Four
Daisy turned out to be an even more demanding chef than Roy. By the time the last half-collapsing turkey club sandwich and fries had been delivered to the final table in the dining room, it was fifteen minutes past when Claire was supposed to meet Tobin.
Instead of rushing out to the truck, she took her time and washed her hands. The sensation of pressing burger patties and then touching cold Bert through the thick plastic bag mingled in her mind as she lathered up her hands for a fourth time.
She glanced at her phone and saw that she was a half hour late by the time she crossed the street and let herself into Tobin’s truck.
He’d been dozing in the driver’s seat and woke with a start when she slammed the door shut behind her.
“Planning on cleaning up the shack?” Tobin asked as he turned the key in the ignition.
“Huh?” Claire said.
Tobin pointed down at her chest. Claire looked to see that she was still wearing her uniform and apron.
“Want to go back and change? I don’t mind waiting.”
“No, just get us out of here. I need to rest,” Claire said.
“Is everything okay?” he asked.
“Not really, but I want to get moving before we start talking about it. I can’t look at that building anymore,” Claire said, her eyes on the rearview mirror, as if Roy were going to burst from the front door of The Brant and hop into the truck bed, a chainsaw in tow.
It wasn’t fear, really, just exhaustion, mental and physical exhaustion. Even though it hadn’t been in the dozens, it felt as though she’d helped prepare a hundred meals and cleaned half as many rooms since waking up this morning, and that was before becoming party to the cover-up of a dog murder.
The cheap mattress in the shack was going to feel like a silken cloud. She wanted to fall asleep while being held by Tobin.
The pickup pulled out of the driveway, its wheels peeling out as Tobin jammed the accelerator.
“Fast enough?” he asked with a slight smile. He was still unsure how upset she was, and it looked like he was taking care not to make anything worse by saying something too jokey.
She reached over and squeezed his shoulder, the scarred skin underneath his shirt taut with tension, hands cinched over the wheel.
Her stomach dropped, like the sensation of remembering that you left the front door unlocked. She’d left the hotel without saying anything to Christine. But what was there to say?
“Your wife’s dog is dead and the guy who killed it has gone missing. I think you ought to leave. No, don’t bother with checking out. Just get in your car and go.”
Claire groaned. She had no real reason to tell Christine any of that, only a deep feeling that she should.
“What do you know about Roy? The cook at the hotel?” Claire said. Her speaking after such a long silence had caused Tobin to jump out of his stupor. The car jerked suddenly to the median and then reset itself.
“He’s not as bad as the rest of them, that’s one thing,” Tobin said. Over the last month, when they were driving and talking, he’d usually take his eyes off the road and look at her while he spoke. It was dangerous and it annoyed her, but he didn’t do it now. He kept his stare on the pavement.
Either he was learning what made her happy or he wasn’t telling her something. One option made her feel a schoolgirl flutter for him. The other frightened her. She could barely feel anything over the elastic pull of her eyelids trying to shut themselves.
“Why do you say that?” she asked.
“I don’t know. It’s not like we are close,” Tobin said. “I just know that he’s a roughneck, and he hasn’t changed that to suit the hotel. Everyone else that has or has had a job there has changed in order to do their job.”
“I’m pretty sure that he killed one of our guest’s pets and was planning on serving it up as a meal.” She’d just realized that last part as she spoke it. Then she thought about all the Roy-cooked meals that she’d eaten over the last month. If she weren’t so tired, she would have vomited.
“What?” He sounded appropriately surprised.
“I found it in the fridge, skinned and cleaned. I showed it to Daisy and she didn’t want to tell anyone about it. We moved it out of the fridge and prepared the rest of the meals like nothing had happened. I don’t know what she’s going to do with the body.”
They reached the turnoff for the shack and blew past it. With Tobin’s eyes on the road, it was unlikely that he missed the turn by accident.
“Where are we going?” Claire said, a fear rising up, a fear of Tobin for the first time ever. Her rational mind tried to calm the scared animal inside her.
“I’m sorry, but you’ve got to tell Davey about this.”
“I’m so tired. I can’t deal with all that right now. Let’s go home please.”
“Don’t worry. There’s no par
ty tonight. You just have to tell him everything you saw and heard. Then you can come back to the shack with me. You shouldn’t be sleeping at the hotel tonight.”
“I wasn’t planning on it. We’re in agreement on that.”
“As I said, there’s no party, just you, me and Davey having a talk.”
She wanted to ask why they were going to the woods, why it was so vital that Davey collect her statement for his little investigation, why there was no party tonight when it seemed like there was a party every night, but she couldn’t muster the energy. She just frowned.
“As long as you don’t mind hiking through the woods while giving me a piggyback ride. I’m not walking.”
“That sounds like a deal to me.”
*
Tobin wasn’t kidding. He carried Claire on his back for most of the trip. They both giggled at the absurdity of it, but it had been a relief. Not only was it nice not to walk, but the closeness helped to calm her. The muscles of his back pressed up against her breasts and belly and she could smell the earth on him. His scent was more comforting and rustic than the forest surrounding them.
As they approached the camp, she became self-conscious of the situation. She’d forgotten that she was wearing her uniform until she’d climbed up onto his back, hiking up the dress so he could grab on to her stockinged thighs. She was going to look lame enough. Riding in on someone’s back could only make it worse.
He set her down and she patted the fabric of her uniform back into order.
There was no party tonight, but there was still a gathering of sorts. A campfire burned in the fire pit, but it wasn’t the large, billowing bonfires that accompanied their nightly ragers. It was the soft, homey crackling fireplace of a suburban living room.
Jeb sat closest to the flames, staring into them, calculating when the best time to toss another log on would be. Tending the fire seemed to be Jeb’s only job.
The big boy spent most of the parties cracking logs with his ax and tossing them into the pit. Those were the only things that Claire had ever seen him do beyond molest Eden.
Eden sat next to him, her back pressed up against his side, leaning into him like you would a comfortable easy chair. Covering her legs was a white sheet. She snipped at the sheet with scissors, then placed the scissors on the ground beneath her and swapped them for a needle and thread.
There was a red-and-white plastic bag next to her, a stack of still-packaged sheets inside the bag. The red circles on the bag were instantly recognizable. Jeb and Eden must have driven into civilization and made a Target run.
Claire tried to picture Jeb’s dirty overalls and Eden’s soiled white dress anywhere but the forest and couldn’t. Seeing the pair standing on the antiseptic white tile of a department store seemed even more impossible. The thought of Eden perusing the Martha Stewart Home Collection or Jeb trying on a pair of Levi’s bordered on the surreal. They were forest people, not Target people. Walmart, maybe, but not Target.
Eden seemed to be making her own dress out of plain white bed sheets. Going to a fabric store or buying ready-made clothes seemed more cost effective, but Claire wasn’t going to say anything to the girl about it.
Claire didn’t talk to Eden much. It wasn’t just the girl’s shyness, her pulsing scar or her intimidating boyfriend, though those also helped to keep Claire away. It was the waves of concentrated hate and jealousy that seemed to roll off Eden every time Claire tried to make polite conversation.
Despite her cherub size and mousy voice, Eden was probably the second oldest member of the group. Her age seemed to give her seniority, but it also gave her a severe distrust of all the younger girls in the group. Tobin had told Claire on numerous occasions not to mind her, that she wasn’t that bad, but that didn’t help Claire like her any better.
Beyond the pair of Jeb and Eden was a group of kids. Two boys and a girl sat chatting and drinking beers at a flimsy card table. Claire recognized them but couldn’t remember their names. Every time she tried to learn names, it seemed like there was a new group of people to meet. She’d stopped trying.
The group at the card table drank, but not in celebration. One of them caught Claire’s eye, but quickly looked away. They appeared preoccupied and dialed down the decibel level of their conversation until it was whispers.
Barrel up, leaning against one side of the card table, was a bolt-action rifle. Claire told herself that maybe the group was tired after a long day of hunting, but that didn’t do much to assuage the chill she got from looking at the gun.
“Wait here. I’ll go get him,” Tobin said, giving her hand a quick squeeze before leaving her by the fire.
She watched him bound up the steps to Davey’s trailer. Shady as he was being, his ass still looked great in a pair of boot-cut jeans.
The inside of the trailer was the only place in camp she hadn’t seen. Some nights would see her invited into Jeb and Eden’s tent for bong hits. She’d taken a shower using the outdoor stall and used the outhouse on the edge of the camp. However, she’d never gotten one single look inside that trailer.
Tobin knocked and then entered. She couldn’t see anything of note behind the open door before he closed it behind him.
It was possible that he’d be in there for a few minutes. Time had to get killed.
“How’re you?” Claire asked, looking over at Eden. Having to choose between her or her gorilla of a boyfriend, she made the attempt at small talk with Eden.
“I’m hanging in there,” Eden said, not looking up from her sewing. Her lines didn’t look particularly straight, but Claire couldn’t fault her. She’d never sewn anything in her life.
“Whatcha making?” Claire asked, only later realizing that she had lapsed into baby talk again with Eden. The girl was just too small, too precious looking to be addressed in any normal way.
“A dress,” the girl replied, her voice full of disdain. Eden looked up then, gave Claire a once-over, her eyes lingering on the embroidered name over Claire’s breast.
“I’m making one for everyone. If I have enough sheets when I’m done with all our girls’, I could make one for you too. Do you want a new dress?” The last question seemed to hold meaning beyond the obvious.
Eden said she was making a dress for our girls. That was it. It was Claire’s job at the hotel that made her different, distanced her from Eden and the rest of the camp. She was the other. “That sounds nice. Thanks.”
The stilted conversation didn’t have to last much longer. A few moments after he entered the trailer Tobin was walking across camp towards her, Davey in front of him. The people of the camp watched Davey as he passed, all except for Jeb who kept on staring into the flames.
Tobin was carrying an electric lamp that he hadn’t had before.
“It’s nice to see you, Claire,” Davey said. Before she knew what was happening, his arms were around her in a hug. There was such a calculated Mr. Mayor-vibe to most of Davey’s interactions, but that didn’t stop him from remaining charming.
Post-hug, Davey was all business. He put a big hand on her shoulder. “I hear that you’ve got some disturbing news for me. We need to talk but not here. Do you mind if we take a walk to my office? The trailer’s a mess right now. I can’t invite you in.”
“That’s fine,” Claire said.
Davey’s “office” was just a clearing in the woods. It was a five-minute walk from camp, far enough that the glow of the fire was no longer visible. Once they’d walked beyond the corona of campfire light, Tobin flicked on the electric lantern and bathed the forest around them in its eerie blue glow.
Claire found herself completely turned off when Tobin became Davey’s stoic lackey. His personality changed and he went bodyguard-silent whenever Davey was around.
“I know that it’s late and everyone’s tired, you especially so, but please begin your story. Rewind to the start of the day, if you don’t mind,” Davey said.
Tobin set down the lantern on the ground, its light becoming striped by the t
all grass surrounding the bulb. He took off his jacket and laid it over Claire’s shoulders. It was a nice gesture, but she wasn’t cold.
“By the time I’d come downstairs to help Roy with prep, Ms. Brant had already noticed he hadn’t come into work,” Claire said, then added, “Roy is the house chef.”
“I’m aware of Roy Parsons’ position. I’m also aware that he’s not the type to miss work because of a hangover. Roy’s been clean for five years, doesn’t seem likely that he’d fall off the wagon, but it’s still,” Davey paused, not to choose a word but to emphasize a word, “possible.”
“How did Ms. Brant seem to be acting?” Tobin said. She wasn’t aware that there were going to be two interviewers or that her boyfriend was going to turn interrogator.
Davey gave Tobin a look that could have meant anything, but Claire guessed that he was just as surprised as she was to hear Tobin asking his own line of questions.
“She was upset, more so than she usually is about setbacks. Which I found odd, because at that time, Roy couldn’t have been more than an hour late. It was still possible that he’d show up before breakfast.”
“Upset how?” Davey said. “And, again, I apologize for asking questions that may seem mundane. I trust that Tobin has told you about my investigation. It probably sounds crazy to you, and maybe it is, but I’m too far into it now.”
“Ms. Brant seemed different. She’s usually so in control, but there were tears in her eyes. She wasn’t just sad, though. She seemed overwhelmed, stressed.” Claire looked from Tobin and then back to Davey, who had the fingers of one hand wrapped up in his beard. “I thought your investigation was of Ms. Brant, what does Roy have to do with that?”
“You don’t just investigate powerful people. You investigate their network.”
“I’m in her network,” Claire said, trying and failing to smile.
“Just barely,” Davey said, his own smile wolfish but genuine.
This was a turning point, the first time she’d been around Davey and not been drawn into his act. It was the only time she’d been around him and wished that she wasn’t.