The Sixes

by Kate White

  Instinctively Phoebe sat up straighter, her curiosity fully engaged. She was sure the police wouldn’t want her getting involved in the investigation, but she wasn’t about to let that discourage her.

  “Go ahead,” she said. “I’m anxious to hear.”

  “Oh shoot, two people just walked into the store. Is there a chance we could meet after we close today? Then there won’t be any interruptions.”

  “Today’s complicated, unfortunately,” Phoebe said. She was eager to hear what he had to say, but she needed to leave the evening open for Hutch. “How about tomorrow morning—at around ten?”

  “Yeah, we’re closed on Sundays, so that should be fine. There’s a diner on Route 412 called Sammy’s. Ever hear of it?”

  “No, but I’ll look it up. I’ll see you there at ten then.”

  As soon as she hung up, Phoebe began to pace the living room. Hutch had something interesting to share, and now so did Wesley. Maybe, just maybe, the truth would begin to emerge this weekend.

  She stopped pacing and massaged her temples. She could feel a headache coming on, partly from hunger, but there was no way she was going to cook anything in her kitchen. It had been a week since she’d been to Tony’s, and she realized that the quiet back room and a glass of Montepulciano might help her take the edge off. Before she locked up, leaving several lights on, she tried Hutch again. No answer. She left another message saying that she was anxious to talk to him.

  She drove to Tony’s this time, and parked the car along Bridge Street. Stepping inside the restaurant, she wondered if she might see Duncan there, lingering again over a bowl of pasta. But the only people at the bar were two middle-aged guys watching a hockey game with the sound barely audible. Tony wasn’t even there tonight. The hostess led her to a table in the back room, past about a dozen diners. Phoebe started to order her usual chicken with rosemary, but then realized that she suddenly had little appetite. She asked instead for a Caprese salad and a glass of wine.

  She could feel a funk begin to descend, blending weirdly with her anxiety, as if she’d taken two medications that shouldn’t be mixed. She closed her eyes and thought of Lily once again. She pictured the pretty girl she’d met that day, her blond hair wet with rain. You wanted out of the Sixes, didn’t you? she thought. So what did Blair do to you when she found out?

  Later, when the waitress cleared away her unfinished salad, Phoebe started to order an espresso and then changed her mind. She suddenly felt as eager to hightail it out of Tony’s as she’d been to get down here. She paid the bill and stepped outside the restaurant. The air was crisp and clear, and Phoebe could hear the thump of rock music farther down Bridge Street. Cat Tails, she realized. And then an idea grabbed her. It’s time I finally check out this place, she thought.

  She left her car where she’d parked it and descended the hill, forced to bend her knees because of the steep incline. The music grew louder with each step she took, and was soon mixed with shouts and laughter. She’d planned to slip into the side entrance of Cat Tails, but there was a snarl of obnoxious-looking guys by the door there, so she continued down the street, turned right, and used the main door of the building. I’m going to feel like a fool in here, she thought as she entered, especially if I run into any students I know. But her curiosity was on fire now, and there was no turning back.

  Surprisingly, the place was only half full. She surveyed the crowd. It was a mix of townies, a pack of older women flashing their cleavage, and kids who were clearly Lyle College students. One, whose sex was unclear, was wearing a rubber werewolf mask. Another, a girl, had on an absurdly tall witch’s cap. Phoebe remembered it was Halloween weekend.

  The place itself was an utter dive. The only decor to speak of were lights boasting different beer brands and a huge, weathered print of a catfish over the jukebox—the one where Wesley had played the Stones songs. Phoebe crossed the sticky floor and ordered a glass of red wine at the bar, suffering a smirk from the bartender. Then she turned and almost gasped. Tom Stockton was standing two feet away at the bar, his face turned mostly away from her.

  Her gut instinct was to move, not to let him catch her, though she wasn’t sure why. It didn’t matter. Stockton seemed to sense her presence, turned and spotted her. He was clearly as surprised as she was.

  “Well, well,” he said. “Of all the gin joints in the world.”

  “Hello, Tom,” Phoebe said. “I could say the same to you. You’re the last person I expected to see here.”

  “Hardly surprising, really,” Stockton said over the music. He was wearing a cropped brown jacket; underneath was a dark blue button-down shirt, the color of which perfectly matched his eyes. No doubt intentional, Phoebe thought. “This bar just might be the epicenter of our problems, and it seemed critical to check it out—especially tonight.”

  He backed a few feet down the pockmarked wooden bar, making a place for her to stand next to him. He slid his drink with him—scotch on the rocks, it looked like. Not having a choice, Phoebe slipped into the spot next to him. “Living on a Prayer” had been pounding on the jukebox, but once it stopped, nothing else came on. It was like being in a room where someone uninvited has suddenly sashayed in, leaving the other guests speechless.

  “I know what you mean,” Phoebe said. “The name Cat Tails kept turning up when I spoke to people, too.”

  “In some ways, it’s just like every other college-town bar I’ve been in. But frankly, I don’t like the vibe here.”

  “I hear a rumor’s going around that something will happen this Halloween weekend. Do you think there’s any basis for that?”

  “No idea. What I do know, however, is that the students are hysterical. As an administration, we really need to get a handle on this thing.”

  Was that a dig at Glenda? she wondered.

  “I’m sure Glenda will bring things under control,” she said. “And I’m sure you’re an enormous help to her right now.”

  Phoebe had allowed her tone to be the teeniest bit sarcastic, which she knew she shouldn’t have, but he didn’t seem to notice anyway.

  The music started again, making it tough to talk. Phoebe followed the sound and let her eyes rest on the jukebox. Wesley had been approached by a slick-looking guy in his late thirties or early forties, but there was no one in here like that tonight—unless, Phoebe thought to her amusement, I count Tom. She noticed that the jukebox was right near the side door that opened onto Bridge Street. If someone had indeed drugged Wesley, it might have been easy to urge him out through that door without anyone really noticing.

  “Well, that’s it for me tonight,” Phoebe said, setting her wineglass down, still half full.

  “Why not stay a little longer, and we can grab a bite of dinner afterward? My treat.”

  “Thanks,” she said, taken aback, “but I just ate at Tony’s.” Based on Stockton’s previous attitude toward her, his invitation surprised her. He probably wanted to pump her for info.

  She said good night and climbed the hill to her car, nudged along by the river wind at her back. As soon as she was at the wheel, she knew what she was going to do. She was going to drive by Duncan’s. It seemed so high school, but if he was really home grading those papers he’d mentioned, she would at least know that he’d been honest with her.

  But the house was dark, except for a light over the front door, and there was no car in the driveway.

  Annoyed at how upset she felt, she tried to shake thoughts of Duncan as she pulled into her driveway. As she walked across the short expanse of lawn, she stopped in her tracks. The outside glass door was partially open. Someone had stuffed something white between that and the front door.

  20

  P HOEBE LOOKED QUICKLY left and right and then swung around to face the street behind her. There was absolutely no one in sight. With her heart starting to gallop, she turned back toward the house and stared at the package protruding from the space between the two doors. What have those little brats left me now? she wondered.
/>   She continued to the porch and mounted the front steps. As she inched toward the door, she saw that the pale thing was a manila envelope. Her name was on it, written in thick masculine scrawl with a black marker. Probably not the Sixes, then, she thought. After glancing once more behind her, she stooped down and plucked the package from between the doors. As soon as she had it in her hands, she could tell there was a sheaf of papers inside.

  She quickly unlocked the front door and hurried inside. After checking doors and windows, she brought the package to the small table in her living room and tore open the envelope. There were actually two separate batches of papers inside, each set held together with a paper clip. Attached to the first was a note, signed “Hutch.”

  “Prof Hall, sorry I missed you,” it read. “I was out with the dogs. Let’s talk as soon as possible on Sunday. I’ll be home most of the day. In the meantime, take a look and tell me what you see.”

  The papers felt charged in her hands. Is this where the truth lies? she thought. Am I about to finally figure something out? She plopped down at the table and tugged the note away from the two sets of papers.

  The first batch were the notes about Wesley she’d given to Hutch when she’d seen him down by the river. As she thumbed through the pages, she saw that he’d underscored a bunch of lines pertaining to Wesley’s time in Cat Tails—Wesley chatting briefly at the bar with the so-called cougars, the trip to the men’s room after shooting darts, how he’d played a few songs on the jukebox, and the comments from the man asking if the machine gave change and then complimenting Wesley on playing the Stones song. The only other part that was underlined related to Wesley kicking off his loafers and swimming to shore. There wasn’t a single comment in the margins explaining why these details mattered.

  Phoebe tossed those pages down and stared at the second batch. It took only a second to realize that these were the photocopies Mindy had given Hutch of the notes he’d made while interviewing Wesley a year ago. They were all in his big scrawl, and portions had been freshly underscored with pencil here, too. As Phoebe scanned the pages, she saw that Hutch had drawn attention to the same details he’d marked in her notes—the cougars, the jukebox, the man asking for change, etc. These were clearly the parts that had made the lightbulb go off in his head.

  Next Phoebe spread out both sets of notes, positioning the pages that corresponded to each other side by side. She began to study them, sweeping her eyes back and forth.

  Based on her earlier conversation with Hutch, it seemed as if he had figured out a clue about what had happened to Wesley that night. The clue was certainly within one or some of the underlined portions. And it probably registered with Hutch when he had both sets of notes in front of him. But what the hell is it? Phoebe wondered.

  She peered more closely at the pages. For the first time she noticed that the detail about the stranger at the jukebox had been underlined, on both sets of notes, more heavily than any other part. Obviously Hutch had found that piece significant. Did he think the man had drugged Wesley?

  But then why also underline the part about the cougars? Perhaps Hutch thought that the stranger by the jukebox had worked in tandem with one of the cougars. Maybe the women had slipped the drug in Wesley’s drink, and then a short time later, when Wesley’s thinking had become fuzzy, the stranger had lured him outside.

  Phoebe glanced at her watch. She would have liked to call Hutch right then, but it was after ten, and she knew there was a good chance he’d gone to bed. It would have to wait until morning, as he’d suggested. She made a copy of Hutch’s notes on her printer, tucking one set into her purse to study more later and the other into a book for safekeeping, along with the notes she’d taken.

  Before going up to bed, she stole into the kitchen and eyed the spoons the Sixes had left her. The card wrapped around them was totally dry now, and Phoebe wondered suddenly if it might contain some sort of message. Using a paper towel as a buffer, she tugged off the rubber band. Then she wiggled the cardboard from around the spoons.

  As disgusting as it was to hold the piece of cardboard, she brought it into her office to study under the desk lamp. Slowly she pried it open. There were patches of faded color on the inside, but no message. She left the cardboard there on the table she used as her desk.

  She climbed up the stairs to bed. But though she felt frayed from exhaustion, she soon saw that sleep wasn’t going to happen. Handling the spoons had spooked her all over again. She just lay there, listening, trying to guess whether the creaks and groans she heard were cause for alarm or just the old house settling. Finally she dragged her pillow and duvet downstairs and plopped down on the couch with them. At least there, she thought, she’d be more apt to hear anyone prowling outside the house. The last time she squinted at her watch, it was just after three. Finally she drifted off.

  She was awake by 5:45, feeling hungover with fatigue. She forced herself to wait until eight to call Hutch. When she reached him, however, his chipper voice suggested that he’d been up for hours.

  “I’m afraid I’m not much of a detective,” she told him.

  “And why is that, lovely lady?”

  “Because I studied your notes last night and again this morning, and I didn’t find a single clue hidden in there.”

  Hutch chuckled. “I should have been clearer. What I discovered is not hidden at all. It’s right in front of your eyes.”

  Phoebe conjured up the pages in her mind, trying to figure out what he meant.

  “You’ve got me,” she said after a moment.

  “Well, then, I guess I’ll have to give you a little lesson in detective work. Hold on a second. Ginger, get out of there. That’s not for you.” He returned his attention to Phoebe. “You up for that?”

  “Absolutely. How soon can instruction begin?”

  “I need to run up and see my nephew Dan in Allentown for a few hours. Ever since Becky died they’ve been good about having me over for Sunday lunch—or ‘brunch,’ as they call it. Why don’t we plan on getting together at my place around three this afternoon? But let me call first to let you know I’m home.”

  “That sounds good,” Phoebe said. “Two twenty-one B Baker Street, right?”

  Confused, Hutch started to ask what she meant and then got the joke. He chuckled again in his deep, husky voice.

  “Exactly.”

  She had a little time to kill before meeting Wesley, and she used it to review some of the notes she’d made for her classes on Monday. But she was anxious and ended up leaving earlier than she needed to. The day was raw and overcast, with a sky that looked like it had been smeared with soot. She found the diner that Wesley mentioned easily enough, its parking lot already jammed with cars. After locking up, she crossed the lot behind three beefy men dressed head-to-toe in camo, obviously planning to carbo-load for hunting down deer. In unison they flicked their cigarette butts to the ground before swinging open the door to the diner.

  Inside, the place was overripe with the smell of eggs, bacon, French toast, and pancakes. Rather than increase her appetite, the aroma made her queasy. After she’d been shown to a booth, Phoebe ordered coffee and waited.

  Wesley arrived fifteen minutes later, exactly on time. Despite the fact that it was Sunday, a day off for him, he looked as buttoned up as he had when she’d ambushed him after work: pressed khaki pants, an open-neck dress shirt in pale yellow, and a short, baseball-style wool jacket. His skin seemed freshly scrubbed, and his hair was spiked at the front of his massive scalp. Movie stars, she’d discovered over the years, often had heads slightly too big for their bodies, which worked brilliantly for them in films. But unfortunately she didn’t see this as a plus for poor Wesley.

  “Thanks for meeting with me, Professor Hall,” he said, sliding in across the booth seat from her. He unzipped his jacket and folded it next to him.

  “Please, call me Phoebe,” she said, smiling. “You’re not in school anymore, and I’m not even a real professor.”

  He coc
ked his head and smiled back. “Got it,” he said.

  “What would you like for breakfast?” Phoebe said. She wanted to quickly take care of ordering so they could get down to business. “I’m probably just going to stick with coffee myself.”

  “Actually, coffee’s good for me, too,” he said. “My dad’s getting ready to head to Florida, and I promised I’d go over a few things with him at the mill later this morning.”

  “I thought it was a feed business,” Phoebe said.

  “Yeah, but we operate out of an old gristmill. It’s a neat place, and my dad bought it cheap about thirty years ago when he outgrew his old building. They actually used to make feed there, too.”

  “Is there still water pumping through it?” Phoebe asked.

  “Nah. We keep the sluice gate closed. But you can see the old water paddle and the gears and the millstones. Sometimes people come in just to take a look.”

  Phoebe signaled for the waitress to bring another coffee.

  “You said on the phone that you had something else to share,” she said.

  “Yeah, it’s a detail I never thought to mention to anyone,” he said, “but something you said made me realize it might be important.”

  “It’s about the night in Cat Tails?”

  “Yeah. I think I mentioned to you that there were a few girls from Lyle College that night. At one point I could tell they were staring at me. And then it looked like they were saying something to each other about me—something kind of catty. I know it sounds stupid, but I felt so flustered I didn’t even hit the board one time.”

  Jeez, Phoebe thought, why didn’t he say anything about this earlier?

  “Was there a reason you didn’t mention this to the campus police?” she asked, her voice neutral.

  “Maybe I should have,” Wesley said. “But it didn’t seem to matter at the time. They were the kind of girls who always looked down their noses at me, and they never came that close to me in the bar—at least that I noticed. When I talked to the campus cops back then, I was concentrating on people who were right near me—like that man by the jukebox.