by Joan Rylen
“It wasn’t buried, Jason.”
He stared at Kate, not blinking, then he looked at Vivian. His face was no longer just pale, it had gone white. “Was it Daisy?”
Before anyone could answer, he threw his hand over his mouth, ran to the bathroom and slammed the door.
“We don’t know!” Vivian jumped off the bed and yelled through the door. “We never saw who it was.” She heard him retching on the other side, so she sat back down on the bed.
A few minutes later he emerged, shirtless, covered in sweat, eyes bloodshot. He sat in a chair next to the window and stared out.
“I’m sorry we upset you,” Vivian said.
Wendy went into the bathroom and came back with a cold washcloth. “We don’t know who that was, it could have been any — ” She was interrupted by a loud knock on the door.
Jason put the washcloth on his head and showed no sign of getting up, so Lucy answered it.
Antonio scowled as he walked into the room.
Chapter 29
Antonio stopped in front of Vivian, who still sat on the bed in Jason’s hotel room. “What have you told him?”
“I didn’t mean to, I just couldn’t keep anything from him.”
Jason stood, a little uneasy. He grabbed the chair for support. “Was that Daisy? Tell me the truth.”
Antonio turned to face him and kept a professional demeanor. “The ME needs to do a complete autopsy, but initial findings are that the victim has been dead at least a week, maybe longer. It’s not Daisy.”
Jason started crying and sat back down, rocking back and forth, covering his face with the washcloth.
“Thank god!” Lucy said.
Vivian went to Jason, looking at the Wizard of Oz characters tattoo across his back. “This gives me hope we can still find her.”
Jason nodded and sighed, using the washcloth to wipe away tears.
“I need to talk to him alone, so if you don’t mind.” Antonio waved his arm toward the door.
“Jason, call us if you need anything. We’re here for you no matter what.” Vivian hugged him as he sat almost in a trance.
The girls left the room and walked outside. The streetlights on Canal flickered, then blinked on.
“I feel so bad we upset him,” Kate said.
“I didn’t mean to go there,” Vivian said. “I just couldn’t keep it in.”
“Let’s go find Vikki’s brothers’ house,” Lucy said. “We need to keep up the hunt.”
“I agree,” Wendy said. “I’m just so relieved it wasn’t Daisy. I feel bad for whoever it is, though.”
Kate held her hands up. “Are we sure this is the best plan? These guys could be murderers.”
“We’re just going to look around,” Vivian said. “You can be our lookout. And I’ll let Adrienne know where we’re going to be, just in case.”
Kate shifted from foot to foot and hesitantly agreed. “Fine, I’ll keep watch, but I may be half a block down.”
Lucy pulled up the map to the brothers’ house. “We need to hop on the Canal streetcar. Who’s got ones? We need six bucks.”
“Me,” Wendy said.
They walked a few blocks down Canal, just in time to meet the oncoming streetcar. Wendy fed the meter while the others crowded in with commuters on their way home from work and a few touristy folks.
The streetcar made several stops along Canal. Since the weather was nice, most of the windows were down. As it passed a two-story pink house that had been converted into a restaurant, Vivian got a big whiff of something good. “Holy crap, something smells delicious.” She tugged on the chime cable. The streetcar stopped two blocks down and they got off at Carrollton.
“This was our stop anyway,” Lucy said, putting her phone into her purse.
Vivian was already walking back the direction they’d come toward the Pepto pink house.
Lucy caught up to her. “Guess we’re checking out the brothers’ house after you satisfy your taste buds.”
“Yes we are,” Vivian responded, tummy rumbling. “All this emotional stress is driving me to eat.”
A red neon sign that read Mandina’s lit up the front windows and made the pink house glow a little red. A hostess greeted them and led them past a long wooden bar to the upstairs dining area.
A waitress went over the specials, then mentioned the bottle of Sangiovese as a pairing.
“I may need a whole bottle to myself,” Vivian said, and they ordered one.
After perusing the menu and tasting the wine, Wendy ordered the house special, Trout Meuniere, Kate got the Grilled Shrimp Pasta Bordelaise, Lucy ordered Miss Hilda’s salad, and Vivian got the fried chicken with two sides of mashed potatoes, hold the vegetables.
“They have green beans,” Lucy pointed out.
“It says ‘string beans’ and in my mind, it ain’t the same. I’m not risking it.”
Kate offered a toast. “The cemetery mirrors didn’t quite work out the way I was hoping, but at least it wasn’t Daisy.”
They touched glasses and polished off the first bottle before dinner was served and ordered a second. The meal was remarkable, Vivian shared her mashed potatoes, and even Lucy was glad she’d gotten two scoops. Wendy insisted everyone try the Meuniere sauce, including Vivian, who didn’t like fish but had a bite anyway.
“Mmmm. That sauce could make anything taste good.” Vivian winked.
They finished dinner and their second bottle of wine but passed on dessert.
“I may be feelin’ beignets later,” Kate said and tugged on her expandy pants. “I’ve got room.”
They paid the bill and Vivian pushed her chair back. “Can we take a cab? I had too many mashed potatoes.”
“It’s only three blocks,” Lucy said. “You can work off 20 calories of fried chicken.” She led the way and they slowly walked by Kevin and Devin’s. They stopped a few houses down and Vivian texted Adrienne where they were, then put the phone in her pocket. The girls watched the street and the house for a few minutes.
A dog barked and Vivian jumped, then she started giggling.
“Shhhh!” Wendy said.
“I’m sorry, it’s nerves, and maybe the wine. And now I need to pee!”
“You’re gonna have to hold it,” Lucy said.
“Screw that, I’m going to knock on the door.” Vivian said, then marched toward the house. The overgrown grass brushed against her legs and the screen door hung loosely on one hinge. The girls waited on the driveway while she walked onto the porch and rang the doorbell. No answer, no sounds coming from the house.
She carefully moved the screen door and jiggled the door handle but it was locked. Hopping off the porch, she waved for the girls to follow and went around back. She bypassed the dilapidated detached garage and walked up the back stoop.
“What are you doing?” Kate asked as Vivian tried the back door.
It, too, was locked. “I’ve gotta go and we might as well check out the inside.” She leaned over and tried the window. Locked.
“You’re probably better off in the weeds back here,” Lucy said. “I bet these boys are disgusting.”
“Are you insane?” Kate said, “these guys could be killers. No way, you’re not going in there.”
Vivian walked to another window on the back of the house and tried it. Locked. “They’re not home and we’ll be quick.”
“What if they’re not answering for a reason? Like they have Daisy?”
“Then we need to get her.”
Wendy started walking to the detached garage. “I’m going to see if there’s a gray Mustang in here before we go into this house. If there is, we’re calling the cops and they can go in.”
She peered through a dirty window on the garage door. “Nothing but a bunch of junk. We’re clear.”
Lucy looked at Kate. “Aren’t you supposed to be the lookout?”
“Oh yeah,” Kate snapped her fingers. “The wine made me forget.” She walked to the corner of the house. “I’ll call if there’s any movement.”
Vivian tried the knob again, then kicked at the doggie door. The plastic flap swayed back and forth, and she suddenly really regretted those mashed potatoes. “We need Kate.”
Lucy hustled around the house and came back with a reluctant Kate. Vivian pointed to the doggie door.
“No way, not happening, not in a million years. Never.”
“Oh come on, it’s for Daisy.”
Vivian looked to Lucy.
“Screw you, my boobs would never fit in there.”
Vivian nodded in agreement, then looked at Wendy.
“Have you seen these hips?”
Kate sighed and dropped her shoulders. “Dammit, you girls need to lose some weight or boobs or hips or something. This is total crap. I’m supposed to keep watch in case they come home. If I get abducted, killed or eaten by a dog or some other animal, you totally owe me.”
With that she dropped on all fours and lifted the flap, then turned to Vivian. “It’s dark, I can’t see anything.”
“See if you can reach the door handle.”
Kate reached her arm in and frowned. She sighed again. “Fuck it.” Then she disappeared through the doggie door.
Chapter 30
The lock clicked on Kevin and Devin’s back door and Kate swung the door open. “Let’s get this over with.”
Lucy stepped inside. “It’s dark in here. Where’s the light?”
Vivian hit a button to wake up her phone. “We snuck in here, we can’t turn on any lights.”
Just as she finished saying that, Lucy hit the wall switch and a dim light over the kitchen sink flickered. A roach skittered across the floor and they all screamed.
“Turn off the light!” Wendy yelled. “I have a flashlight app on my phone, but I don’t know how much of this nasty-ass house we want to see.”
Lucy flipped the light off and Wendy pulled up her app. They let their eyes adjust to the darkness before they moved into the living room.
“What are we looking for?” Kate asked, clinging onto Vivian’s shirt.
“Any sign that Daisy’s been here or that they have anything to do with her disappearance.”
Beer cans and a pizza box sat on a coffee table in front of an orange, yellow and green plaid couch. A gaming console and two controllers sat on the floor beside it. The smell of stale beer, musty carpet and body odor drove the girls upstairs, to the bedrooms, which didn’t smell any better, though one had a faint scent of weed.
Vivian opened the lid to a cigar box on the dresser. “What do we have here?” Inside the wooden box sat a package of Zig Zag rolling papers, a lighter, a glass pipe and a baggie of pot. Vivian pulled the seal apart and sniffed. “This could be Maui Wowie.”
Wendy snatched the bag and took a whiff. “What? How can you tell?”
“I can’t. I just like to say Maui Wowie.”
“Y’all put that back,” Kate said, taking the baggie and returning it to the cigar box. “We get into enough trouble as it is. Don’t need to get busted with pot, too.”
Wendy shone the phone light around the room. A guitar sat propped in a corner and pornographic magazines were strewn next to the bed. Dirty clothes lay all around.
“Check out this monster flashlight,” Lucy said. She picked it up from the nightstand and tried to turn it on. “I think it’s broken, I can’t even get the switch to move.”
Vivian saw a bottle of lubricant on the nightstand and gasped. “Oh my gosh, Lucy, put it down! Put it down!”
Lucy dropped it and the end popped off. “What the —”
A skin-toned blob was exposed.
“Eeeew! Gross! It’s a Fleshlight!” Vivian hopped up and down, shaking her hands. “Go disinfect yourself, Lucy! Hurry!”
Lucy ran into the bathroom, flipped on the light and reached for the hot water knob. “This place is disgusting!”
“I suddenly don’t need to pee anymore,” Vivian said and turned off the light, using her phone to search for the soap.
An orange and blue container sat on the back of the toilet, “GoJo pumice hand cleaner.” While Lucy lathered up, Vivian looked around, searching for any sort of feminine products. Not seeing anything, she waited for Lucy to finish up. After a few minutes of intense scrubbing, she declared her hands as clean as they could be under the circumstances, and wiped them on her shirt.
Wendy hovered over the Fleshlight with her flashlight. “This thing freaks me out. I’ve never seen anything like it.”
“Is that for what I think it’s for?” Kate asked.
“Uh, yes,” Vivian said and nodded toward the bottle on the nightstand. “That’s some quality lube he’s got there. He doesn’t skimp.”
Wendy moved to the door. “We need to wrap this up. Let’s not touch anything — nothing, nada — in the other bedroom.”
The girls agreed and moved to the second bedroom, looking for anything that indicated Daisy had been there.
A shrill ring pierced the quiet. All the girls jumped and Lucy knocked over a glass bong that sat on the dresser. Dark, stale water poured out of it. The stench was overwhelming.
Vivian looked at her cell phone screen and answered the call. “Hey, Adrienne, I can only talk for a second. We’re in the house looking for clues.”
“Get out of there now!” Adrienne yelled.
Vivian had to hold her phone away from her ear. “We’re going, we’re going.”
“I’m serious. Right now.”
“Okay, okay.” She moved to the stairs. The other girls followed.
“Antonio said those guys are known to shoot first, ask questions later. Get out.”
Vivian hit the bottom stair as headlights glared through the front window. An old truck pulled into the driveway and continued to the back of the house.
“Shit, gotta go. We’ve got brother trouble.” Click.
“Out the front!” Wendy whispered and led the way with her phone light.
The engine turned off and the hinges of the door squeaked.
It was hard to see, and Vivian kicked a beer can across the room. The crash reverberated, sounding much louder than it actually was.
Wendy fumbled with the front door lock as a key was inserted into the back door.
“Open it! Open it!” Kate squealed.
Wendy yanked the door and the four ran out, leaving it open behind them. Lucy took the lead, hauling ass down the street, then turned on the corner and ducked behind a parked car. The other girls caught up, gasping for breath, listening.
One of the brothers yelled into the darkness. “Stay the fuck outta my house, mothafuckers!” He ratcheted a shotgun. “Sonsabitches!”
Chapter 31
Vivian, Kate, Wendy and Lucy took off again, back toward Canal. They came to a place called Venezia’s, decided they needed a drink, and took a small table in the bar.
“Geezus hell, that was close!” Vivian’s heart raced and she wiped at her forehead with a napkin. “That’s the most running I’ve done since I thought I was going to be bear kibble in Colorado.”
Kate shook her head. “I can’t believe I crawled on that floor and had to look at some nasty guy’s sex toy.” She stood. “I’m going to go wash my hands. Get me a water, please. That wine earlier messed with my head. I went through a doggie door.”
Wendy laughed. “It got a little hairy, but we made it. Way to go, girls!”
Lucy hopped up. “Thanks for reminding me. I’ve got to go wash again, too. Order me a vodka tonic. Double.”
The bartender was on his way over when he was stopped by a man with silver-white hair and wearing a navy blue suit. He scribbled in the air, then reached for a napkin.
The bartender handed him a pen and walked over to the girls. “What can I get for y’all?”
Vivian was about to order when she heard the man at the bar repeat the address they had just fled from.
The man said, “I’ll go check it out. I’m leaving right now. Call you back.” He walked out the door.
Vivian turned her attention b
ack to the bartender and ordered a Dos Equis and Lucy’s double.
After the bartender walked off, Vivian looked at Wendy. “Did you just hear what that man said?” Wendy looked around. “What man?”
“The older guy who was just at the bar. He was talking to someone on the phone and repeated Kevin and Devin’s address, then said he’d go check on it.”
Lucy and Kate came back to the table.
“What’s up with those freaks’ address?” Lucy asked. Vivian caught them up.
“Hmmm,” Kate said. “What’s he going to check on? Did we miss something to do with Daisy?”
“We’re not going back,” Lucy said. “He had a gun.”
The drinks were delivered and the girls began to relax a little. The first drinks went down smooth so they ordered another round. Lucy only got a single this time.
Midway through drink two, the silver-haired man came back into the restaurant. He glanced at Vivian as he walked by. He then got out his phone and said to someone, “What did you say they looked like?” He listened for a minute, then said, “What’s her name?” Then he looked back at Vivian and said, “You Vivian?”
She nodded.
“You need to call Adrienne.”
“Oh shit, okay. Thanks.” She pulled out her phone, which said she’d missed seven calls, all from Adrienne. “Oops.” She dialed and Adrienne answered on the first ring.
“You scared me to death,” Adrienne yelled.
“Sorry, sorry. I had put my phone on silent after your earlier call scared the hell out of us! We’re even.”
“What happened?”
“We ran out the front as they came in the back. Then one of the brothers came out with a gun. Needless to say we won’t be going back.”
“Hell no, you aren’t going back,” Adrienne said. “That was too close, but I’m glad you’re okay.”
“Did Detective Leffall get Hairy Harry at Harrah’s?”
“Sure did and promptly interviewed him. He says he paid $15,000 for a boat and gambled away the rest of the 20 large at the casino.”
“Have the cops been able to find the boat?”