Splintered Silence

by Susan Furlong

  Twenty minutes later, I pulled into the Sleep Easy parking lot and whipped into one of the empty spots outside the row of rooms and a couple doors from the office. I’d barely put the car in park when a motel door farther down the row from me swung open and a woman stepped out, dramatically struck a match against the door frame, and held it to the tip of her cigarette. After a long draw between full, crimson painted lips, she tilted her chin high and blew a silver stream into the air. Captivated by her flamboyant mannerisms, I sank back into my seat and watched as she crossed her muscular legs and leaned against the door frame, smoking like a fifties film star. She looked like one too. Maybe a cross between Marilyn Monroe and . . . and, I didn’t quite know. She was unusual-looking: long platinum curls, strong features, model-tall with broad shoulders. And the short, silk robe she wore left little to the imagination.

  Just as I realized what was so different about this Marilyn look-alike woman—she wasn’t a woman, but a man—another male emerged from the shadows of the room, zipping his fly. He snatched the cig from the she-man’s hand, took a long drag, then handed it back, along with a couple of folded bills, and walked away with a stupid grin on his face. No sooner had he driven away when my old buddy, Al, stepped out of the motel office, and—dear, God!—he was wearing a Sleep Easy shirt. He works here? Then I recalled Zee warning me about the new night manager. Al was the night manager. Talk about bad luck.

  Shrinking even farther into my seat, I watched as Al sauntered along the walk in front of my car, swagger on, chest puffed out, like a cock in a henhouse. His slicked-back hair gleamed with a greasy sheen every time he walked under one of the room lights. He headed straight for the woman—I mean man—who quickly stomped out the cig. The two of them exchanged a couple of words, then the she-man handed over the money and watched, wide-eyed, as Al flipped through each bill. Al must not have liked the way it added up, because he waved the money in the she-man’s face. She-man backed away. Al was working himself into a rage. With a swoop of his hand, he snatched a handful of she-man’s platinum curls—which must’ve been real, not a wig—and jerked her back into the room. The door slammed shut. I shuddered. I felt sorry for that person. Really sorry.

  And for me. Because two things were evident: Al was the night manager Zee warned me about, the one who meant trouble for my clan. And he was a pimp. My eyes slid down the line of peeled-paint doors, wondering how many more were full of Al’s workers. Oh, great! Like I needed to know where the multiple stains on the sheets I’d be laundering came from. A slither of repulsion inched down my spine. He was making a nice sideline profit at Drake’s expense. Another chill hit me. Maybe Drake was in on it? I had no idea.

  I groaned. As if learning about my mother’s “many boyfriends” wasn’t enough, potentially my father’s brother was now running a brothel! I pushed away that line of thinking. Way too many facts still had to be uncovered. I couldn’t afford to have my personal angst color the findings. I needed some answers, and fast.

  Either way, there’d be no getting Drake’s number from Al. I shot another glance at the closed door and made a break for the motel’s office.

  Al hadn’t bothered to lock the motel office door. My heart pounded as I slid inside. How much time did I have? How long did it take to . . . well, I didn’t want to think about what Al was doing to, or with, the wannabe woman.

  Finding Drake’s personal number was fairly easy; it was listed on a sheet of emergency numbers posted by the desk phone. I glanced through the window. My car was closer to the office than to the motel door, but only barely. I refocused and turned my attention to the computer. I wanted to see if someone under my mother’s name had stayed at the motel, but the computer was passcode protected. Seconds later, I was back in my car, slumped down, cell phone in hand.

  Drake picked up on the third ring. “Mr. Drake. Brynn. I need to speak to you.”

  “If this is about yesterday, it’s fine. Zee was able to handle the rooms.”

  A low din of tinkling glass, country music, and rambunctious voices filled the background. His words were slightly slurred. Guess I knew where Johnny spent his off hours. “No, this isn’t about missing work yesterday. This is important. Can I meet with you?”

  “I’m busy. It’ll have to wait until—”

  “It’s about your brother. Billy.”

  He fell silent. I waited, listening to the muted tones of a Toby Keith song, while Drake’s drunken mind churned out a way to handle the little twist I’d thrown his way. “What about Billy?” he asked.

  “It’s about his murder.”

  There was another long pause. I jumped back in before he could ask any more questions. “I’m at the motel. I’ll wait for you.”

  * * *

  Twenty minutes later, Drake pulled up next to me and got out of his car. He looked ticked.

  I stepped out of my vehicle. “Thanks for coming.” I tried to keep my tone light.

  He frowned and took a sip from the foam cup in his hand. The bitter aroma of coffee floated in the air along with the stale smell of beer. “Just cut to the chase, will ya? What’s so important that it couldn’t wait until tomorrow?”

  I hesitated, trying to figure out how best to approach things.

  He shifted his stance. “You said you had information about my brother’s murder.”

  “At the time, the police were looking to question a woman. A Bone Gap woman. They thought she was involved with your brother.”

  “Could be. I don’t know for sure. Billy was a few years younger than me. I was already deployed when it happened. I have no idea who he was involved with.”

  “But there were rumors.”

  “It’s a small town. There are always rumors.” He chuckled and took another sip of coffee. “What are you getting at?”

  “I believe the woman they wanted to question was my mother, Mary Callahan. If he was involved with her, then your brother could have been my father. Which would make you my uncle.”

  I saw him flinch, but he recovered quickly enough. “Maybe. Maybe not.”

  “Did you know I was Mary’s daughter when you hired me?”

  He met my gaze. “Meg told me who you were. I have no idea who my brother was hanging out with back then. Or your mother. Like I said, I was gone at the time.”

  I studied his features. His eyes were round like mine, and we both had a bump on the bridge of our nose. But eye shape and nose bumps didn’t necessarily make us kin. “Do you have a picture of Billy?”

  “Not on me.” He pushed his glasses up. “All this could have waited until tomorrow.”

  “Did you know my mother had returned to the area?”

  “No. Not until after they found her body out in those woods.”

  “Did she stay at your motel?”

  A small nerve twitched along his jawline. Was I making him nervous? “Hell if I know. Like I said, I didn’t know your mother. Never met her. I wouldn’t know her if she was standing right here with us.”

  Standing right here . . . I envisioned the picture Doogan had shown me of his sister. She’d been standing in one of the motel doorways. Just like the hooker I’d seen earlier. Maybe I’d overlooked something. Maybe this wasn’t about an old crime, or drugs, but about a prostitution ring run right out of this motel.

  “How about Sheila Costello. Did you know her?”

  His brows shot up his forehead. “Sheila . . . ?”

  “Sheila Costello. The other woman they found out in the woods.”

  “What are you getting at, Callahan? If you think I’m somehow involved with all this, then you’re barking up the wrong tree. I’m a pillar of this community. A good Christian man—”

  “I saw an old picture of Sheila. She was here, at your motel.” That cut off his pious assertions, and fast. I looked over to the motel office. Al was staring out the window, watching us. I turned back to Drake.

  Anger flashed over his features. “A lot of people have stayed at my motel. I don’t know all of them. What’s your pr
oblem anyway? I’ve been good to you. Hired you even though you’re one of them people from Bone Gap.”

  So we were “them people” to him. No wonder he’d flinched at the idea that one of us might be a blood relation to him. I avoided rolling my eyes at his hypocrisy, but just barely.

  Then he leaned in for what he must have considered the kill. “Don’t you value your job?” It was surprising how quickly he’d changed from a good Christian man to the big boss man, lording it over his underling.

  No matter. I was about to wipe that smug look right off his face.

  “Maybe she worked for you.”

  “No. I’m familiar with all my employees, and no one named Sheila Doogan has ever worked for me.”

  “Maybe not legitimately, but in some other . . . capacity?”

  He squinted. “What are you talking about?” He reached for his car door. “You know, I’m tired of this little game you’re playing. I’m heading home.”

  Al was still watching us. I was taking a chance that Johnny, the good Christian man, didn’t know anything about the prostitutes operating out of his motel. I put a hand on his car door before he could open it. “This is no game, Johnny. Two women are dead. One of them is my mother. The other was a young Pavee girl, desperately trying to escape an abusive marriage. She needed money. Maybe you helped her earn a little money on the side.” Our faces were only inches apart—no jawline twitch in the motel’s neon light this time, no blink, only a blank stare of incomprehension. Either he was a good actor, or he had no idea what I was talking about.

  He pulled open his car door. “I don’t know what you’re getting at.”

  I leaned down as he slid into the driver’s seat. “Your night manager is running prostitutes out of your motel.”

  His head snapped my way. “What?”

  I waved my hand toward the motel rooms. “Check it out. Not more than five minutes ago, the brunette in fifteen greeted the second john I’ve seen her with tonight. So you might want to give them a few more minutes. But room ten? You’ll find that one particularly interesting. Al’s pimping them right out of your rooms. If the cops find out, you’ll be shut down.”

  The smug look melted from his face. His eyes snapped toward the office, where Al quickly stepped away from the window. Drake squirmed, his jaw clenching over what that sleazeball’s sideline business might do to his motel.

  I took advantage of his distress and showed him the newspaper clipping. “I found this.”

  He grabbed it from my fingers, held it in the glow of his car’s dome light. “Were you in my office?”

  I looked toward room 13 and blinked. “No. I found this when I was doing laundry. It was mixed in with the sheets. Why?”

  “I have a bunch of clippings from Billy’s case.” He skimmed it. “I’m pretty sure I have this one too.” The way he fingered the edges and frowned, it didn’t appear that he thought this was the same clipping he had in his keeping. He looked as perplexed as I felt.

  “Your office is in room thirteen?”

  “Yup.”

  “Does everyone have access to the room key?”

  “No. Just me. I had a special lock installed a while back.”

  I considered what he’d said. If this wasn’t his clipping, then maybe my mother had kept a copy of that article too. Then if she’d stayed at his motel, she might have left this article behind by mistake when she checked out.

  “Can you get that file for me?”

  “Sure.” He looked over at the motel office. “Then I’m going to take care of this other issue.”

  * * *

  A little after eight the next morning, I slid into a chair across from Pusser’s desk. Wilco settled in at my feet. There was no offer of coffee and doughnuts this time, which disappointed me. I’d been conditioned already, like one of Pavlov’s dogs, to associate Pusser with doughnuts.

  “What are you doing here, Callahan? Aren’t you supposed to be at work or something?” He pushed aside a stack of papers and looked at me over the rim of his glasses. He didn’t seem happy to see me.

  “I have Mondays and Tuesdays off. Not many people in on those days.” Unless we counted Al and his entourage, but I figured that Drake had cleaned house by now. I didn’t mention the prostitutes to Pusser. Better to keep Drake on my good side for a while. Besides, I did need my job.

  Pusser’s toothpick dangled in shreds from between his lips. “Bad day already?” I asked.

  “What do you think? I’m up to my eyebrows in complaints about you people. City council’s breathing down my neck, wanting me to make an arrest.”

  “A Pavee arrest, you mean.”

  He grumbled and shot me a look.

  “How’s Doogan?” I asked.

  “He was released earlier this morning.”

  “No charges?”

  “He cooperated. Told me what he knew about the drug runners and whereabouts you were when you saw them. I’ve got a call into the DEA. I should hear from them soon. We’ll organize some manpower and search that area of the woods.” He stood and came around the front of his desk, leaning against the edge with his arms folded over his chest. He stared down at me. “The ME identified a slug found in our victim’s brain. It was a .380.”

  “The same as they found in my mother.”

  “The complete ballistics report won’t be available for a while. But preliminary results show a likelihood that they were fired from the same gun. I’m having one of my officers run a random stats check through TIBRS.” I didn’t know what those letters stood for exactly, but probably some sort of database of crime statistics. He continued, “If there’s been another recent crime using a .380 in this area, we should know about it soon.” He paused. “What do you know about Eamon Rooney?”

  “He’s dating my cousin, Meg.”

  “Costello thinks Sheila and Eamon were having an affair.”

  “I gathered that.” I shifted in my chair. “If it’s true, I don’t think Meg knew about it.” I’d planned to stop by the diner and talk to her later that day.

  He raised a brow. “You sure about that?”

  I didn’t like where this was headed. “I’m sure. We’re close. If she thought Eamon was cheating on her, she would have told me.” I glared at him. “She’s not involved in this.”

  “She had motive.”

  “So do a lot of people. Costello, for starts. Don’t you always look at the spouse first? And maybe Eamon, if they really were involved. And how about all those protesters? You were there yesterday. You saw how they hate us.” Then it hit me. “But you’re not looking at any settled folks for this, are you?”

  He shot me a look. “I’m sick of you accusing me of improprieties. I go where the evidence points, and that’s it.”

  “Is the evidence up your ass? Because that seems to be where your head is.”

  I braced myself, waiting for an outburst. Instead, he smirked. The tension in the room dispersed, and I found myself once again trying to figure Pusser out. He was a hard one to read. “Look, Sheriff. Even if you thought Meg was involved in Sheila’s death, what connection would Meg have to my mother’s murder? None, I’m telling you. She’s family. Clan.” Dublin and Eamon were clan too. Pavees rarely killed their own, but there had been stories . . . past crimes, incidents when a clan member had fallen at the hand of another. We’d always handled those things ourselves. The cops were never involved. “You just don’t get it,” I added.

  He trudged back to his chair. “You’re right. I don’t. I can’t get anywhere with you people out there. But you could help, you know.”

  “I have helped you. What do you think yesterday was?”

  He pulled back and lowered his voice. “Tell me more about your mother.”

  I bit the inside of my lip. I’d come in prepared to discuss my mother’s past with him, yet I still wrestled with how much to reveal about what Pusser called “you people.” Still, I had information for him. After my little talk with Drake the night before, we had met at his office
in room 13, where he handed over a small file of newspaper clippings, which included his own copy of the article I’d found. Most of them, I could’ve likely found myself in the archives of the newspaper or library the next day. But he also gave me a key piece of information: a photograph that he’d found mixed in with his brother’s belongings. It was young Billy, black-haired, with bright blue eyes, strong features, and a carefree smile. Much like mine. The photo was taken down by the river. He had his arm around a young girl. My mother. And she was definitely pregnant.

  Billy Drake was my father. He was murdered. And so was my mother. And I needed Pusser to connect the dots for me.

  “Your mother?” Pusser asked again. “Where had she been all this time? Do you know?”

  “Memphis.” I reached into the knapsack I was carrying and pulled out Drake’s file. It shook in my trembling hands. Guilt chewed at my conscience; still, I handed it to him. “This belongs to Johnny Drake. His brother was—”

  “Billy Drake.” Pusser opened the file and pushed up his glasses. “I know the name. I worked his murder case years ago.” His eyes skimmed the articles. “Billy’s killer was never found.”

  “No leads?”

  He closed the file and discarded his toothpick. “We suspected his murder was tied to a local drugstore robbery. The owner was killed, some money stolen, drugs missing. The way things went down, it seemed there had to be more than one perp. But not much evidence was left at the scene. Whoever did it was smart enough to clean up and remove the security tapes. We tried to locate Billy’s girlfriend, but . . .”

  “My grandmother told me that my mother left because someone was threatening her. She was scared, so she packed and left.” And left me behind.

  “Why didn’t they go to the police?”

  I met his gaze but didn’t answer.

  He cleared his throat. “She never contacted them again?”

  “I don’t believe so. My grandparents somehow tracked her down, though. They found her in Memphis. She was working as a prostitute, supporting a drug habit. That’s what Gran told me anyway.”

  “When did your grandmother tell you all this?”

  “Last night.”