“Actually, that’s not boring at all. I love books. And I’d love to hear more about what your dad does. I’m familiar with his store, actually. But that will have to wait for another time. Can we sit?”
There were two large leather chairs facing a cognac-colored sofa in the center of the room. Theo nodded, took a seat on the sofa. He hardly seemed like an eighteen-year-old whose best friend had just died. His presence was comforting her.
Marcus went to the bookcase, trailing his fingers along the spines, and Taylor arranged herself in one of the chairs with her notebook.
“So, Theo. Xander was your best friend. How many of the victims do you know personally?”
“From what I’ve heard about who was killed, all of them.”
“Who have you heard about?”
“Jerry King, Ashley Norton, Mandy and Xander. Chelsea Mott and Rachel Welch were together too, and Brandon. I also heard a rumor that another girl was taken to the hospital.”
“News travels fast. It’s not a rumor. Do you know Brittany Carson?”
“Is that her name? No, I don’t. Never heard of her.”
“She attends St. Cecilia’s. I was hoping she had some ties to your friends at Hillsboro.”
“Well, you know how it is. The kids who live on either side of us go to private school, Montgomery Bell and Ensworth, but we don’t hang out. It’s the neighborhood dynamic, I guess.”
“So how did you hear about the murders?”
He held up his cell. “Everyone’s been talking. I’ve gotten nearly two hundred texts this afternoon. I’m way over my limit—my parents are going to kill me.” He winced as soon as the words were out.
“Would you be willing to let me see your texts?” she asked.
He paused for the barest of moments. “They’ll look like gibberish to you. I know my father absolutely hates it when I abbreviate, the language we use. He thinks it represents the decline of modern society. But the smart keyboard makes it so much easier to talk quickly.”
“I can’t say I disagree with your father there. My computer expert is pretty handy with all things technical. He should be able to translate for us. Tell me how you heard about Xander.”
Theo squirmed in his seat. He’d paled when she mentioned Lincoln’s expertise, and she knew he was hiding something.
“Theo?”
His eyes filled with tears. “I think I talked to him right before he died.”
“You do? Why is that?”
Theo went from a prepossessed young man to a child in an instant, face screwed up in an attempt not to start weeping. She gave him a few breaths to get back under control.
“It’s okay, Theo. We’re just talking. You’re not in trouble, not unless you had something to do with the murders.”
“God, no. Of course I didn’t. You can’t actually think that.”
“Then relax. I just want to know what happened this afternoon.”
“Are you going to tell my parents what I say?”
“Are you eighteen?” He nodded. “Then so long as you haven’t broken any laws, I see no need to divulge the information. Just tell me the truth, okay? We’ll get along much better if you tell me the truth.”
Theo looked miserable for a moment. “Ah, jeez. Okay, I’ll tell you. But you have to swear not to tell anyone I did. Promise?”
“I’ll do my best,” she said.
“Okay. Xander…he and Mandy were partying this afternoon. So were Jerry and the girls. Of course, Chelsea and Rachel weren’t exactly known for their restraint,” he spit out.
“Partying?” Marcus asked.
“Drugs. Getting geared up for tonight, for the party.”
“What kind of drugs?”
Theo stood and went to his father’s desk. He flicked back the leather blotter and drew out another key. Taylor watched him, tense. She didn’t like people going into locked drawers in her presence. But Marcus sidled behind Theo, and she relaxed a fraction.
Theo slid open the top drawer, pulled out a Ziploc baggie. It was full of pastel-blue and yellow pills the size of aspirin. There had to be a hundred, maybe a hundred fifty pills in the bag. He handed it to her gingerly.
“Holy mother…what is all this?” She saw the stamps, hearts, on some of the outward facing pills. Just like the ones they’d seen in Amanda Vanderwood’s room. “Ecstasy?”
“Yeah.” Theo sat on the sofa again, his head in his hands.
“Were you dealing it? Is that why you have so much?”
“No. God, no. I’m no dealer. That’s everyone’s.”
“What do you mean, everyone’s?”
Taylor sank back into the chair opposite Theo. He looked at her, gave her a half smile.
“Jeez, I’m gonna get creamed for this.”
“Start talking, Mr. Howell.”
Now that he’d made up his mind to cooperate, the words flowed easily. “It’s all from Vi-Fri. Vicodin Fridays. Every Friday the kids who party get their drugs, usually on the bus on the way home or in our lockers after sixth period. We never know what it’s going to be, it’s kinda like a lottery. The first time it was Vicodin—that’s where the name came from. But it can be anything—mushrooms, X, oxy, Valium, meth, coke, even. Whatever he’s got to sell. You can’t tell our parents. They’ll never understand.”
Taylor couldn’t believe she was hearing this. Not that there was a bunch of high school idiots doing drugs—cocaine had been the drug of choice when she was in high school. With affluent parents and heavy allowances, it was always readily available. But the fact that a group was taking whatever they could get their hands on, that’s what surprised her.
“Who is the dealer?”
“This punk-ass underclassman. I don’t know his real name. He calls himself something stupid, like out of a comic book. Starts with a T. Thor, I think. He started at Hillsboro this year—word got out he was dealing his second week. He’s got good shit, clean and cheap. Everyone buys from him.”
“Who might know his real name?”
“Honestly? I have no idea. Some of the younger kids might. But they’re not here. We were just supposed to be juniors and seniors tonight, maybe the odd sophomore. This kid is a freshman, and I’ve tried to keep myself away from it. I’m not a big fan of Vi-Fri.”
Taylor shook the plastic bag. “Would you be able to identify him if we showed you pictures? Or would he be in the yearbook?”
“He wouldn’t be in it yet. I’m on the yearbook staff, and we haven’t gotten the class pictures yet. I won’t have any way to know if his was in it or not until next semester when the company that does the portraits sends us the proofs. Besides, half the people don’t show for their pictures. Yearbook is considered passé.”
“What’s he look like?”
“Short. Blond hair. He hangs with the Goth kids.”
“So let me get this straight. Did you take this bag off the dealer?”
“No. See, I was talking to Xander. He said he and Mandy were going to do a couple of hits early, fool around before the party. They’d be over after so we could all get ready. We got off the phone and I started getting things set up. Then my sister, Daisy, got a text from Letha King. Jerry’s sister.”
“We met her at the Kings’ house this afternoon.”
“Well, Letha said she’d come home and Jerry was passed out in his room, was blue. He had some sort of wound in his stomach. She didn’t know what to do. So we went over there—”
Marcus leaned forward in his chair, jumped in. “You were at the Kings’ house this afternoon?”
“Just for a few minutes.”
“Oh, Lord,” Taylor groaned. “Who else was there? And what did you touch?”
“Nothing. It was just me and Daisy and Letha, I swear. Letha was totally freaking out. I looked at Jerry, I didn’t touch him. He had that crazy star carved in his stomach, he looked totally dead. It looked like he’d OD’d. I told her to call 911 and we hightailed it out of there. I started calling around to everyone, told them not
to take their X.”
“What time was this?” Taylor asked.
“Probably around three. Let me look, I can tell you exactly when she sent the text.” He fiddled with his phone. “Two-fifty. I called Xander, but he didn’t answer. Letha let Daisy know the cops had shown up, and everyone started filing in over here. They brought their stash, and I put it all together.”
“You showed quite a clear head, Theo.”
“Yeah, well. I don’t know what the fuck—pardon, ma’am—what the hell happened. That carving in Jerry’s stomach freaked me out.”
Marcus took the Ziploc bag, turned it over and over in his hands. The pills inside clinked together softly. Still playing with the bag, he raised his eyebrow and spoke.
“Theo, there’s more, isn’t there? You can tell us. You’ve told us almost everything anyway. We understand what you were doing, and I have to tell you, man, I’m damn impressed. You showed a great deal of maturity and bravery here today. But there’s something you aren’t sharing with us.”
He shook his head, eyes miserable. “I don’t know what you mean. I’ve told you everything I know.”
“No, you haven’t. You automatically assumed the Ecstasy was the culprit, that the kids who were murdered had taken it. You said you thought Jerry had OD’d. Why would you draw that conclusion?”
Theo scuffed his foot into the deep burgundy Aubusson rug. He was wearing Doc Marten boots, which didn’t quite fit with his preppy exterior. They let him have a moment. There were answers to be found here.
Theo cleared his throat, but the words came out in a whisper.
“We might have heard that someone was planning to screw with us.”
“Screw with who?”
Theo rounded his hand in a circle. “Us. The jocks. The cool kids. The popular ones. Whatever ridiculous cliché you want to call us. We were the target, and whoever did this got us good.”
“Who made the threats?”
“I don’t know. But look around you. Whoever it was managed to take out two cheerleaders, the captain of the wrestling team and four members of the student council. I don’t know who this last chick was, but she probably had an in with us somewhere. If Daisy and I hadn’t gotten the word out, who knows how many more of us would have died?”
“You’re sure this wasn’t some sort of prearranged event?”
“You mean like Jonestown? Or Heaven’s Gate? I hardly imagine revolutionary suicide has found its way into Hillsboro.” At her incredulous look, he explained. “I did a paper on cults for history last year. My dad’s interested in that kind of stuff.”
“Okay. Yes, that’s exactly what I’m wondering about.”
“I can’t see it. No one from this crowd was into anything more than the occasional good time, if you know what I mean.”
“Do you think someone you went to school with would be capable of killing?” Marcus asked.
“I don’t know. Honestly, I don’t know.”
“Could it have been this dealer you’re talking about?”
The kid was getting frustrated now—small lines appeared in his forehead. “I swear to you, I don’t know who was behind it. It was one of those vague rumors that floats around. I don’t know where he gets his drugs, but he’s always got a ready supply. Whoever he buys from could be involved, too.”
“So why the pentacles carved into their stomachs? Do you know anything about that?”
He looked up, startled. “It was more than just Jerry?”
Taylor nodded. “Yes. All the victims had been cut perimortem. That means at the time of death.”
“I know. I watch Forensic Files,” he said with such disdain she nearly laughed aloud. The DNA generation. Taylor saw it more and more lately, people who watched CSI and Law & Order and thought they were experts on crime. It was damned inconvenient—the prosecutors had the worst of it. Every jury seemed to think that DNA was the magic bullet, the only way to acquit or convict and still sleep at night.
“Sorry,” Theo said. “I’m just a little stressed. I assume you’re going to arrest me now?”
“Because of the drugs?”
“Yes,” he said, squaring his shoulders. He stood up straight and put his hands together in front of him so she could cuff him.
Taylor looked him deep in the eye, and he bravely took her gaze. She could see his lower lip trembling just the tiniest bit.
“Right now, Theo, you’re more of a help than a threat. Would you be willing to come down and make a formal statement? Maybe look at some pictures, see if you can pick the dealer out for us?”
“You’re not going to arrest me?”
“Not at the moment, no.”
“Oh, thank God.” He dropped his hands to his side. “Yes, of course. I’ll do anything you need.”
“Okay, then. I can’t promise that you won’t have some sort of charges filed against you eventually, but I’ll do everything I can to make sure there are mitigating circumstances. What I really need is for you to get some information on who might have threatened your clique. Think you could do that for me?”
The proud man inside him finally deflated completely, and he looked young, vulnerable. She could see the child peeking out behind the face of the man he’d become today.
“Yes, ma’am. I’ll do whatever you need me to. Thank you, ma’am.”
*
Taylor sent Theo back out to the crowd, shut the door behind him. She sat back in the chair and sighed deeply.
“Do you believe him?” she asked Marcus.
“I want to say yes, but I’d have to talk with him some more. He’s scared, scared enough that he’s willing to face charges to get to the bottom of this. Of course, he also placed the blame squarely on an unidentified person, someone we can’t touch. We have to get the drugs tested—he might have saved a number of lives today.”
“Or he’s our dealer and he’s covering his ass. A prepossessed young man, Mr. Howell.” She took the plastic bag from Marcus. “I need to get these taken into evidence and to the lab. Tim Davis can do a workup for us pretty quickly, see if there’s anything in these pills that might have caused an OD in those kids. But who went behind and carved the pentacles in their stomachs? What the hell was that about?”
“That’s one question. But there’s another, I think. How would the killer know which kids had taken the drugs and which hadn’t?”
She stood up. “That’s what I was wondering. I’m getting more and more convinced that our suspect knows these kids very well. Let’s get these pills to Tim, then see where we stand.”
They found McKenzie and stepped out onto the front porch to compare notes.
“What did you hear from the kids? Anything that will help?” Taylor asked.
McKenzie nodded. “The girls, Chelsea and Rachel? Supposedly they were feuding—the general consensus was complete surprise that they’d been found together.”
“Teenage girls,” Taylor said, shaking her head. “They fight and make up, fight and make up. That’s why I always preferred being friends with boys. You always knew where you stood.”
McKenzie’s eyes twinkled at her. “Yeah, I know what you mean. Anyway, that’s what I’m hearing. They were best friends, did most everything together when they weren’t fighting. Other than the most recent spat, they were a close-knit group—Rachel, Chelsea and Ashley Norton. Tight as ticks. They all know Brandon Scott and Jerry King. Xander Norwood seems to have been the de facto leader of the cool kids, the one everyone wanted to be friends with. You can tell who was close to him and who wanted to be, but everyone loved him. I doubt our suspect felt the same, of course.”
“Theo Howell mentioned a threat against the group. Did anyone else mention that?” Taylor asked.
“Just Daisy Howell,” McKenzie answered. “She’s too upset to make much sense—she was friends with all the girls, as well. She said there’d been a rumor floating around that something was coming, just underground rumblings. No one really took it seriously. It’s high school. There’s a
lways some sort of drama going on. If it doesn’t affect them directly, they ignore it.”
“Good work, guys. We need to finish interviewing the victims’ families, see if we can piece together a timeline for these kids once they left school at noon today. See who they came into contact with, either on their way home or once they arrived. Crime Scene’s been taking evidence from all the scenes, and there’s plenty to keep us busy. Let’s get to it.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
Raven chased after Ember. She darted out the club doors onto Second Avenue, moving nimbly through the crowds. Fane rushed alongside him, cursing under her breath.
“Ember, wait. Wait, damn it. Quit being so damn wangsty!”
Ember glanced back over her shoulder, pure fury on her face, lips moving rapidly. Raven felt the spell she cast hit him like a wall of bricks. Damn, that girl was getting good at shielding. But he was better. He tuned out all the other surrounding noise, thoughts, emotions, fears and read her. Even on the go like this, he could drowse, listen to her thoughts. His extensive practice was paying off. After working and loving together for so long, they were attuned, like a stereophonic radio station. He could dial into her mind with ease now.
He felt her as they moved away from the crowds, down by the river. She was furious, he could sense that. And scared.
Riverfront Park was dark tonight, people milling about, the homeless reveling in the crowds. A row of mounted patrol, their horses’ flanks weary with inactivity, were on duty at the bridge to the Titans’ stadium, keeping people somewhat under control.
Ember scooted down to the log fort astride the Cumberland River—the first structure in Nashville, built back when the city was still called Nashboro and the insurgent Cherokee fought the newly arrived settlers for their land. The original structure dated to 1779; a perfect replica had been painstakingly built in 1962. It was supposed to be locked after hours, but Raven had found a way in, and assumed Ember was heading there. They’d practiced down here last month, when they needed the full moon’s glow off the river for a spell’s efficacy.
Lieutenant Taylor Jackson Collection, Volume 2 Page 41