Dead Wrong

by Janice Kay Johnson

  "Is Billy still in Elk Springs?"

  "Hm." Someone had just mentioned Billy. But who? Frowning, he said, "I just heard someone say he was back. I haven't seen him."

  "What about six years ago?"

  "I think he went to Oregon State. I don't know if he did graduate school or what. I don't remember him being around, but, honestly, I'm not sure I would."

  "Who was Jimmy McCartin? I don't remember him."

  "Who does? Oh, shit." He shook his head. "That's the eighteen-year-old me talking. What the hell difference does it make if the guy was short and scrawny? But in those days, that left him below the radar, as far as I was concerned."

  Trina had turned her head to look at him. "I take it he wanted to be a blip on it."

  He talked about Jimmy, but was suddenly very conscious of how close she was. If he turned his head, too, their mouths would damn near brush. Will felt an uncomfortable stirring at the idea.

  "Ronald Lee," he said, a little too loudly. "He had a thing for Amy. He trailed her around like a puppy with its tail going nonstop. I think she kinda liked having an admirer who worshipped her whether she had a boyfriend or not."

  "He might have become enraged when he realized one day she was never going to turn to him."

  "But what about Gillian?"

  "She reminded him of Amy?" She was testing a new theory. "He was angry, but not angry enough yet to hurt her?"

  "I haven't seen Ronnie since high school. He's probably married and has kids. Young love does die."

  Amy's picture hit Will hard. She'd been one of those people you wanted to hate but couldn't. Amy was always in a good mood, always able to see the best in everyone and every situation. She seemed to have been born with a sunny, optimistic outlook on life. You always knew Amy was sincere. Of all the girls he'd grown up with, Amy should have been the last to inspire hatred so vicious.

  A couple of hours passed with him talking until his voice got scratchy. Finally, he groaned and leaned back.

  "I need a break." He saw the clock. "It's after six. I need dinner."

  Sounding equally tired, Trina closed her notebook. "We can start again tomorrow."

  He saw her move her shoulders surreptitiously and realized she'd hunched over the damn desk for hours, scarcely moving. His own ached, and tension squeezed his neck.

  "No, let's get it over with," he said. "Unless you have plans this evening?"

  "No."

  "I can whip up a stir-fry. Then we can sit down at the kitchen table where it's more comfortable and finish." He rolled his chair back and stretched. "What do you say?"

  "You're offering me dinner?"

  "Yeah, why not?"

  "You don't have to feed me."

  "You're not hungry?" He started throwing files in his briefcase, although he doubted he'd open it tonight. He watched her out of the corner of his eye, intrigued by her obvious skittishness.

  "Um…I could get something at home."

  "Your choice." He paused. "But my ginger beef stir-fry is Mom's favorite dinner."

  "Over your spaghetti?"

  He grinned at her.

  She made a soft sound in her throat to indicate surrender. Did she make the same one when a man suckled on her breast? Will had an image of her arching, her skin golden, her nipple dusky.

  Damn. There he went again. He snapped the briefcase shut. "Well?"

  Despite his testiness—or because of it—she nodded. "Thank you. That would be very nice."

  His mood swung 180 degrees again. He wanted her to come home with him, to kick off her shoes and tuck a foot under her, to loosen her hair and unbutton the prim neck of her shirt.

  This wasn't a date. What in hell was he thinking?

  He let her precede him from the office. "You can find my place again?"

  "Sure. See you in a bit." As he locked up, she walked away, her heels clicking on the glossy vinyl floor, not once looking back.

  She didn't show up at his apartment for almost an hour, and when she did she'd changed clothes. Her cheeks and nose were bright from the cold, her hair was in a ponytail instead of a bun, and when she struggled out of her parka and gloves, beneath she wore jeans and a green turtleneck.

  "I'm sorry to be so slow." She let him take the parka. "I just had to change. And then I made the mistake of checking my voice mail, and that took a while."

  "Mistake? Did you get bad news?"

  He hung up her parka, noticing as he did that it carried a faint spicy fragrance. He resisted the urge to bend closer to inhale it more deeply.

  "No-o." Her tone was doubtful. "Just my sister. I sent her a check to get her through a week or two, but then she didn't get the job she thought she would, so now she's in trouble again. Story of her life."

  "You said she's an alcoholic?"

  "Unfortunately." She followed him to the kitchen. "For that matter, so is my dad. I suppose my brother is, too. I don't see him that often, but he always seems to have a beer can in hand."

  He turned on the wok. "You've never been tempted?"

  "Not for a second." Steel underlay every word. "I grew up knowing I didn't want to be like my father. I think I sort of…cast around for a role model, until your mother came to speak that day. I really wasn't kidding when I said I'd always wanted to be like her."

  "Have you told her that?" He took oil out of the cupboard.

  "Are you kidding? She's my boss!"

  "Yeah, I guess it could come across as ass-kissing."

  "You think?" She wrinkled her nose at him, then nodded toward the food he'd set out in bowls. "What can I do?"

  He gave her an easy grin. "Absolutely nothing. I'd just finished cutting everything up when the doorbell rang."

  Trina narrowed her eyes. "You could have waited."

  "I was hungry."

  "Uh-huh. I have a suspicion you never let anyone help in your kitchen. I wouldn't slice or dice to your specs. You'd be so filled with anxiety watching me mangle the green onions, you wouldn't be able to bear it."

  Will threw back his head and laughed. "You've got me. I do, uh, have my standards."

  "Well, then," Trina retreated from the entrance to the kitchen and reappeared on the other side of the breakfast bar, "I'll just sit and watch the master at work."

  "I wish I could oblige with a show, but stirring things around in hot oil isn't that exciting." Boiling water sizzled on the stove top behind him and he swung around. "Damn! I forgot I'd put on water for the rice!"

  "I distracted the master." A smile quivered on her mouth. "So sorry!"

  He let his gaze travel to the swell of breasts beneath her turtleneck. "Yeah, you did," he said, voice deepening. Satisfied by her blush, he turned down the heat and added the rice.

  The oil in the wok sizzled, and he dumped the strips of beef in, deftly stirring. He'd changed, too, when he got home. His mother had been right; the tomato stains were permanent on one of his favorite white shirts. He didn't need to ruin another one with grease spots. He now wore jeans and an old blue sweatshirt.

  "Actually," he said, "if you'd grab silverware and napkins, that would be great. Oh, and wine if you want it."

  She slid off the stool with such alacrity, he knew she was relieved to have something to do. "I think maybe tonight I'd better keep my head clear."

  "Then why don't you pour us both some milk. Or there's juice or pop if you'd rather."

  This time he brought the rice and stir-fry to the table in big bowls so they could dish up there. While they ate he tried to set her at ease. He was an idiot to have introduced even the idea that he was sexually attracted to her! Life was way too complicated right now, for him if not for her.

  She told him about her mom, who'd died when she was eight, and about having her dad, brother and sister over for Thanksgiving dinner this year. "It was actually kind of nice. My sister was obviously stoned and my dad and brother watched football all day, but hey! It still felt…" Her brow creased as she considered what she had felt. "Like family," she said with a shrug
. "What about you? Did you come home for Thanksgiving?"

  "I do every year." He almost stopped there. Should have stopped, in the interests of keeping conversation light, but heard himself go on, "I sat there this year and realized I felt like a stranger who'd been kindly invited. No. Worse than that. An acquaintance nobody much liked but who'd been invited out of a sense of obligation."

  He saw exactly what he'd feared in her eyes: pity.

  "Surely you're imagining things."

  "My aunt Abby makes a point of avoiding me. I enter a room, she leaves. She gave me hell six years ago and told me no amount of grief excuses the things I said. Until I apologize to her satisfaction, she makes it plain she doesn't have anything else to say to me. Mom bustles around trying to act as if everything is fine. Aunt Renee makes forced conversation, which is almost worse than Aunt Abby's route. Most years, I wish I could go sit at the kids' table."

  Trina contemplated him for a moment with an expression that made him want to squirm. "You know, I wonder if you aren't imagining most of this. Maybe Thanksgiving is just like it always was, and you're the one who feels like you don't belong. Other people probably don't waste as much time thinking about you as you seem to believe they do."

  After delivering this bit of devastating insight, she continued eating without apparently noticing its effect on him.

  He sat frozen, staring at his plate. It seemed everybody was all too happy these days to point out how self-centered he'd become. Or, hell, had always been. Once he would have brushed them off. Now…

  Now he felt his inner core of certainty crumbling like a clay bluff battered by rainstorms. Because she was absolutely right. At Thanksgiving, like at every other holiday where he'd felt like the odd man out, probably everyone else had laughed and talked and celebrated and given him no more than a passing thought. Even hard words lost their power as the years passed. He had pictured every one of them conscious at all times of Will's loss, Will's anger, Will, Will, Will. And the truth was, their lives had gone on. Aunt Abby had had two children since Gillian's murder, Mom and Aunt Renee were busy raising his younger half siblings and his cousins. They'd gotten promotions at work, tough cases, dealt with emotional blows.

  They'd probably all been less than delighted to hear that Will, still carrying his hurt and rage, was rejoining the family circle. Boy, they'd done enough tolerating him at the occasional holiday. Now they were going to have to see him all the time? Yee-haw.

  Crap, he thought, dazed. There he went again. Feeling sorry for himself. His specialty.

  "Will?"

  He yanked himself back to the present. "Yeah?"

  "You seemed, um, absent for a minute."

  "Sorry." He forced a smile. "Just wool-gathering. Nothing like thoughts of home and family to set me off."

  She helped him clear the table and loaded the dishwasher while he poured coffee. With his mood piss-poor, he was grateful to have her here, even if he wasn't looking forward to the rest of the evening.

  Trina got out the damn yearbook again, opening it to where they'd left off. He took a chair beside her instead of across the table, again feeling a tug of awareness just because she was close.

  Ignoring it, he concentrated on the photos of the senior class, these in color and slightly larger than the ones for the other classes. As if he'd never left off, the muscles across his shoulders tightened.

  "Vince Baker," Will began. "He was at J.R.'s the other night. He dated Amy. I can't remember if it was the sophomore or junior year. She ditched him, although—Amy being Amy—I think she did it really nicely. He never seemed to have a problem with staying friends. Anyway, he started to go with Maria Rodriguez not that much later, and they got married once he graduated from college. She was there the other night, too. She's pregnant."

  Softly, Trina said, "It was their baby that Karin was making the blanket for."

  "Right. Uh. I don't know what there is to say. Vince was a good guy. He's a CPA here in town."

  She nodded.

  He kept talking. Ted Bettinger, wide receiver, vegetarian, political activist. Katie Rose Bickham, teacher's pet and determined to keep her virginity until her wedding night.

  Trina actually touched the photo of Katie Rose, with her red hair curled like a Southern belle. "I wonder if she succeeded."

  "My guess is…yeah." He grinned wickedly. "We all did our damnedest to change her mind, and to the best of my knowledge, nobody got below the waistband."

  "Will!" Laughing, but also looking shocked, Trina shook her head. "You guys all tried to get in her pants just because she said you couldn't?"

  "Hey, a challenge is a challenge." Laughing himself, he evaded her punch. "Come on. We were teenage boys. I have grown up."

  "Sure you have," she muttered.

  Ignoring that, he said, "Travis. You know him."

  "Right. Your mother says he was definitely away when Gillian was murdered."

  "Half a world away. He's not your kind of guy anyway."

  To his surprise, she agreed. "No. His self-confidence is too ingrained."

  Will felt a flicker of jealousy. Because Travis was so together and he wasn't? Or because Trina sounded as if she admired him. Maybe more. Damn it, Will thought, had Travis appeared interested in her?

  He kept going. Teammates, friends, distant acquaintances. He dredged for memories of who dated whom, who had one-nights with whom, who'd been spurned by whom. The mini-dramas of high school seemed too long ago and silly to matter, but Trina kept urging him on. He knew she was right. Gillian had been murdered during their first year of graduate school—not that many years after these photos had been taken for the high school yearbook.

  Bronwen Fessler, always sharp-tongued. He liked her better now than he had then.

  "You know," Trina commented, when he fell silent. "It occurs to me that your male friends turned out to be more successful than the girls did. Look how many of them still live here in Elk Springs. A lot of them didn't even go to college. I mean, Amy was a hairstylist, Jody Cox is a dental technician, Marcie Whittaker a stay-at-home mother."

  "Christine Nylander went to Lewis & Clark and is a teacher." He sought for another example and couldn't think of one. "Bronwen is doing okay…"

  "But I hear her father set her up in business."

  "I heard that, too." He scratched his jaw. "You know, you're right. I hadn't thought about it. I don't even know why that is."

  Tone tart, Trina gave him a look that he couldn't entirely read. "Gee, could it be because the girls made the cut because of looks, not brains?" She tapped another photo with her forefinger. "Amber Greer, for example. Didn't I hear she went to Sarah Lawrence and is now a New York editor?"

  They both gazed at the picture of an earnest, freckle-faced girl with too high a forehead and too big a nose.

  Embarrassed, Will said, "She was in most of my classes. She was really funny." Another person he hadn't thought of in ten years. He hadn't heard that she was an editor.

  "But not one of your friends," Trina pointed out, with an edge he couldn't mistake.

  "You're right." It galled him to admit it, but hadn't he come home to Elk Springs to remember who he'd been and figure out who he wanted to be? "I really liked Amber, but it never occurred to me to ask her out. She was homely." Anger gathered in his voice. "But what's your point? What in hell does this have to do with anything?"

  "Let's find the guys who were like Amber but maybe didn't find success after high school," Trina said simply.

  So they returned to the search.

  Justin Hill. Eliminated, Trina told him, because he'd been in Europe when Amy was murdered.

  He didn't fit the profile anyway.

  Gavin Husby. What to say about Gavin? Will was ashamed to have had that moment of surprise when he saw him with Karin.

  Trina caught his hesitation, because she turned her head. "Will?"

  "Oh, crap." He leaned his head back and squeezed his eyes shut, shoving both hands in his hair. "Gavin Husby. You talked to
him, didn't you?"

  "Yes."

  Some restraint in her voice told him that she hadn't liked Gavin. The truth was, he didn't much like Gavin. But they had a history. That counted for something.

  He began reluctantly. "Like I said before, he didn't quite fit in our group. I wouldn't have said he was in our group, except he always hung out with us. He had a hell of a temper. His real dad was out of the picture—just took off. His mother remarried, and the stepfather beat Gavin. He sometimes had a black eye, or missed a couple of days of school and came back hurt. You could see it. He'd make excuses. I don't think he wanted us to know how bad it was." Disquieted, Will found it all coming back to him. "Maybe that's why we let him stick with us. That, and he was gutsy on the field. Not a real talented athlete, and he tended to tangle with coaches, but I think his best came out when he played sports."

  "Smart?"

  Oh, he had her attention, Will could tell. Suddenly he hated this whole thing. Hated himself. These were friends, and here he was, trying to remember the worst about them to deliver them up to be suspects in a ghastly crime.

  "This sucks."

  If he expected sympathy, he didn't get it.

  "Remember the dead women. You didn't see their bodies. I did."

  "I saw pictures of Gillian's." His throat closed. After a minute, he swore under his breath. "Okay. Yeah. Gavin's smart. His grades were all over the place, because he didn't want to do the work, and because he also tangled with teachers. He could be pretty abrasive."

  "What about girls? Did he have girlfriends?"

  He sighed. "Yeah. Off and on. But never the really hot girls. I don't think it was looks. I mean, Dirk Whittaker had muscles but not much else going for him. And look at him. Marcie married him." The fact still surprised him. She wasn't any genius, either, but she could think circles around Dirk.

  "Then what was it?"

  "Personality. He could be really crude, angry, just plain unlikable."

  "Nice friends you had," Trina commented.

  "He could be funny." Excuses, excuses. "Gavin liked pranks. Putting wet paint on coach's bullhorn, so he had a black circle around his mouth and didn't know it. Dumb things, but…creative."