by Layton Green
“Fuck you, man.”
“Kind of hard to run your empire from jail.”
Brett gave him a defiant stare.
“You think this is hard?” Preach said. “You should try prison. Jail is for sissies.”
“I’m not going to prison,” he muttered. “I didn’t do anything.”
“No? Innocent people explain their actions. This won’t get you anywhere, you know. I’m sure your lawyer told you that as soon as we haul you before the judge, he’ll force you to comply. That or I guess you can stay down here forever, in contempt of court.”
Brett’s face reddened. “This is a civil rights violation!” he shouted. “You don’t have the right to intrude on my private life!”
“I do when you’re a suspect in a murder investigation. Tell her by Friday or I will,’” Preach said, quoting David’s text. “What did he want you to tell Claire?”
Brett hunched tighter on the cot.
“Brett.”
With a snarl, the businessman jumped and started pacing. “You can’t say anything.”
“What?”
“To Claire. You can’t tell Claire. If I come clean, you have to promise me she won’t find out.”
“I can’t promise that, unless it doesn’t involve the case.”
Brett’s arms flew up. “It doesn’t. I swear.”
“So it doesn’t involve a receipt in the back of your jeans for a BP gas station on the night David was murdered? The BP on the road to Barker’s Mill ?”
Brett looked confused for a moment, then put his hands to his head. “Oh God—what—how did you find that?”
“I didn’t. Claire did. She already knows, Brett. Whatever it is, she knows you were part of it.”
Brett moaned. “I’m so stupid.” He closed his eyes and roared in anger, then looked at Preach with stricken eyes. “I love her. I really do. I’m going to marry her.”
Preach folded his arms. “What happened, Brett?”
“Lisa Waverly happened, the little slut. I slept with Lisa Waverly.” “Once?”
He swallowed. “A lot.”
“And David knew?”
“Yeah. The little prick spied on me. Read my texts and followed me to Lisa’s house one night.”
“And he wanted you to tell Claire?”
Brett nodded, miserable. “He wanted me out of her life.”
“You must have been pretty happy when he couldn’t speak up for himself anymore.”
“What? No.” Brett’s face screwed up. “I didn’t want the kid dead.
“Then why were you pumping gas near Barker’s Mill that night?” “It was on the way to Lisa’s house. That’s it, I swear.”
“The timing is awful convenient.”
Brett raised his palms in a helpless gesture. “I didn’t kill David. Don’t be ridiculous.”
After a few moments, Preach uncrossed his arms and let his hands fall to his sides. Though he would verify every inch of Brett’s story, the man’s emotional reaction felt real.
“You gotta let me out of here,” Brett said. “Right now.”
“I’ll send someone down for a full statement. And let you call your lawyer.”
“Let me out right now!” he shouted, then lowered his voice and tried to sound humble. “You can’t tell Claire, okay? I’ll talk it out with her. The thing with Lisa is over now.”
Preach turned his back and walked away.
Back at his desk, Preach tapped his pen against his thigh and considered the new evidence. After the argument with his mother, David had gone to the restaurant, and then driven off again. Not long after that— had he gone somewhere in between?—he had returned home, where Sharon Tisdale had later seen him conversing with someone, most likely Claire.
That was a fact Preach couldn’t reconcile.
Maybe Claire had been bombed out of her mind that night and had forgotten her last few moments with her son. Maybe she was sleepwalking, maybe David had locked himself out—maybe maybe maybe. Or what if Sharon Tisdale had her timeline confused, or had been drinking herself ? The testimony was pretty weak.
Another thought hit him. What if David hadn’t threatened to tell his mother and Brett about the affair in order to break them up? That line of reasoning would explain the Facebook post, but there was another option.
What if David, too, was having an affair with Lisa?
An affair that could ruin her career and land her in jail?
What if, for some reason—maybe to hurt Brett—David had threatened to go public?
Now that was a motive.
After a quick records search on his computer, Preach grabbed his coat and rushed out of the office.
Fifteen minutes later, Preach was knocking loudly on the door to Lisa Waverly’s matchbox house wedged into a middle class neighborhood on the edge of downtown Creekville. The little cottage with blue siding and an uneven front yard was barely larger than a one-bedroom condo. The English teacher answered the door in a pair of Lycra workout tights and a white sports bra. Sweat dripped down her face and beaded on her bosom as she clutched a carton of coconut water.
“Hi, Detective.” She wiped her forehead. “I just got back from my run.”
“Didn’t school just let out?”
“I carpooled in and ran home today. I do that three days a week.”
“I see. Do you have a minute ?”
She raised her arms over her head, arching her back as she stretched, drawing his eyes to her lean torso. “I’m all yours. Would you like to come in?”
“Sure.”
She led him to a living room just to the left of the door, where a large bookshelf took up much of one wall. An array of potted plants accented the room and, while her house possessed a fresh floral scent, he mostly smelled the pungent aroma of Lisa’s sweat-soaked body.
After toweling off, she slipped into a pair of sweats and joined him on the couch. She sat a few feet away, crossed her legs, and leaned toward him. This woman has a strange sense of personal space, he thought. He decided to get to the point and get a gut reaction.
“At best,” he said, “you lied to me. At worst . . . well, we won’t go there. Not yet.”
She froze with the bottle of water halfway to her lips. “I don’t understand.”
“I think you do. I know David came here to see you. Trust me—it’s better if you tell me the truth. All of it.”
“Who told you that?”
“Doesn’t matter.”
Her eyes slid away. “Okay. Yes, he did. I’m sorry. I was scared.”
“Of what?”
“It was selfish. But he was already . . .” her eyes teared up, and she replaced the cap on the water with a shaky hand.
“You didn’t think you would get caught because he was already dead. Was it just the one time, or a longer affair?”
Her eyes flew up. “Wait—you don’t think I would—that Face- book post wasn’t about an affair with David. It was Brett Moreland. I thought that’s why you . . . ah, I see. You were testing me. I would never sleep with a student. Never.”
“So why didn’t you tell me about Brett? Or David’s visit?”
“For a long time, I didn’t know Brett was Claire’s boyfriend. I met him at a bar one night, and we started sleeping together. He never mentioned her. I have open relationships, so I never asked.”
“When did you find out ?”
“After David wrote slut on my Facebook page. That was the same night he came here to confront me. He hates Brett, but he also hated the idea of his mom’s boyfriend cheating on her with one of his teachers. I swore to David I had no idea. To this day, I don’t think he believed me. He took the post down and said all the right things to the principal, but he remained sullen with me.”
Preach spread his hands. “Maybe because you were still sleeping with Brett?”
“David didn’t know that. And it was none of his business.”
“It was his mom.”
“They weren’t married. We’re all cons
enting adults here, detective.” “Claire didn’t consent to an affair behind her back.”
“Maybe you should talk to Brett about that.”
Preach sighed and rubbed his chin. “If you’re so open to all this, then why not just tell me in the first place ?”
“Quite frankly, it’s none of your business. Or anyone else’s. Creekville prides itself on being so progressive, but the attitudes toward sexual behavior, especially with women, are just as repressive and hypocritical as everywhere else. It’s fine to be a lesbian or a militant feminist, but an openly sexual woman in her thirties, especially a teacher? God forbid. I kept it to myself because, whether I knew it at first or not, I had an affair with the boyfriend of a student’s mother. That’s all anyone would see, and I could get fired because of it.”
“Was Brett here on October 2? The night of David’s death?”
He was.
“Do you remember when he arrived, and when he left ?”
She unscrewed the water cap again. “He arrived around midnight and left in the morning.”
“Isn’t that pretty late for a date ?”
“It was more of a rendezvous.”
“He stayed the entire time?”
“As far as I know.”
“And it was the just the two of you?”
She nodded, her eyes defeated. “You can check with my neighbors. I’m sure someone noticed his car.”
“I will. How would you describe Brett’s relationship with David?” “He never talked about him or Claire.”
“I get the impression he was terrified David would tell his mom about the affair.”
“I’m sure he was, but he never told me. It was sex, Detective. Nothing more and nothing less.”
After thinking through her testimony, Preach stood to leave. He would try to confirm her story, but at the moment he needed to stop by the station before he met Ari, hopefully followed by an audience with Nate Wilkinson. “Ms. Waverly?”
She looked up at him with a somber expression, her arms now crossed over her chest, protective.
“It would be best if you didn’t leave town for a while,” he said. “How long?”
“I’ll let you know. One final question: Who fell asleep first that night, you or Brett?”
At first she looked confused by the question, but when she realized what he was getting at, a drop of sweat trickled slowly down her jawline, plopping onto her bare arm. “I did,” she said, almost in a whisper.
19
When Blue arrived in Greensboro, the first thing she did was go to the greasy spoon across from the bus station and order the eight-dollar breakfast platter. It was the biggest thing on the menu.
After stuffing herself with grits and bacon and pancakes and crispy hash browns, adding a country biscuit for good measure, she lingered over her coffee and thought about what to do next. The idea of running away to a big city had excited her, but now she felt alone and vulnerable. What if someone robbed her before she found a place to stay? Took her camera and all her money?
Blue paid her bill and left a quarter tip, then followed the waitress’s directions to the Piedmont Inn, the nearest cheap digs. She was in a gritty, commercial section of town in the shadow of the skyscrapers. Greensboro was no Charlotte, but it had a few hundred thousand people, and to Blue it felt like New York City.
The Piedmont Inn was a typical roach motel. Flinching at the stare of the greasy-haired clerk with a harelip, Blue paid cash for the night and lugged her bag to her room. She had to find work quickly, or she would end up in the homeless shelter. Not a good place for a teenage girl.
After a long nap, sleeping atop the bedspread for fear of bedbugs, she put on her best jeans and a conservative denim shirt her mom had given her for Christmas. Blue asked the new front desk clerk, an older woman with a hard but honest face she trusted much more than the first guy, where the restaurants were. Following her directions, Blue hit the streets and passed a large statue of a soldier, an old general or something, then walked down West McGee to a gentrified part of downtown. At the corner of Elm, she looked in both directions and saw clean sidewalks lined with green streetlamps, brick buildings painted a variety of colors, and enticing shops at every turn: pubs, restaurants, wine bars, bookstores, coffee shops.
Peering inside the storefronts, Blue saw well-heeled people of all ages that made her feel poor and hopelessly awkward. Attractive couples sipping wine in window seats, fancy strollers with babies dressed in designer clothes, teenagers sporting the latest fashions. Blue’s anxiety grew so pronounced that it paralyzed her, and she started to return to her motel.
No. That will get me nowhere.
As she always did when in distress, she thought of her father and the movies. She went even further and pretended she was in the eighties, and that she was Winona Ryder or Parker Posey, the coolest girl in town.
To her, the eighties were amazing. Not having lived through them, she could only judge the decade through the lens of its art. Apparently, everyone in the eighties ran around in bright spandex and had big coiffed hair, seemed to party all the time, and lived in new houses in the suburbs with sprawling green lawns. Even the cops were nice. What a time it must have been, she thought, wanting it to be true but knowing in her heart that it was all a farce, that there were people in the eighties and every other decade eking by in squalor just like her, that there had always been people on the margins and always would be. It was the way of the world, and unless one did something to change that fact, something radical . . .
Blue did not believe in fate or destiny. In fact, she despised those words. They implied a lack of choice. Such concepts might be good for a trust fund kid, or even someone born into the suburbs with a warm bed and loving parents. Someone who could afford to dream about an even better future that, if it came to pass, would be called fate. Or destiny.
Blue’s destiny was a trailer park and food stamps.
So she believed in hard work and determination.
Maybe it wouldn’t be enough, but it was better than rolling over and accepting the hand life had dealt her.
In the first restaurant she entered, a hibachi joint with shouting waiters and sizzling griddles of meat, she waited at the hostess stand with another teenage girl and her mother. Despite the chilly weather, the girl had on tights so taut Blue could see her butt crack. Both had long blond hair, and the mother had the bee sting kiss of collagen on her lips. After they flounced to a cocktail table, Blue gritted her teeth and asked the hostess for a job application.
20
When Preach returned home from work at 6 p.m. on Friday, he found Ari curled on the sofa in a long black skirt and a sweater, drinking a glass of wine and reading a book called Dreamland by Sam Quinones.
“Home by six?” he asked, as he took off his coat. “Was there a fire in the office ?”
“You said dinner at seven. Don’t you know a girl needs to wine down after work?”
He laughed at the pun. “New book?”
“I have an Amazon Prime addiction.”
“I think the whole world does.”
“Yeah, except for you. Is it time for a new coat yet? A pair of jeans ?” “It’s hard to brood in nice clothes.”
She curled a finger. “Come here, handsome.”
He set down the case file and joined her on the couch. She threw a leg over his, pulled him close, and kissed him long and deep. As his hand slid up her thigh, she eased it away, eyes dancing. “Let’s save it for later.”
“Sure,” he said, a little weakly.
She ran a nail down his cheek. “We have some catching up to do.” “I know.”
“It might take all night.”
He swallowed.
“So go take a shower,” she said.
Her skirt had slid all the way up to the edge of her silk underwear. Pulling his eyes away from her creamy skin and pouting lips took a superhuman act of will, and he felt a little unsteady as he climbed the stairs to the loft bedroom. He grabbed some comf
ortable clothes for the evening, jeans and a dark sweater, and returned downstairs to shower.
Scrubbing down in the hot water felt like washing the grime of the case away, at least for a few moments. He felt good about the prospects of the night with Ari. For the first time in a while, she had seemed truly at ease. He knew all too well that everyone harbored deep wells of sadness inside them. Not just criminals and victims and detectives and prosecutors—everyone. His time as a preacher, as a listener, had taught him that. In the quiet of the soul, everyone wonders about the meaning of it all, and shivers at the darkness inside them, and reels at the disorienting nature of consciousness.
Who are we ? What does it mean to be alive and aware ? Why does the world exist, as David wanted to know?
How deeply one felt that transcendental sadness, Preach had often thought, and how one dealt with it, had a huge impact on personality. Poets and painters and musicians were people who had found a way to channel those inner demons into something tangible, something we could all relate to. Others flinched at the very thought of probing life’s questions and appeared shallow, even though he saw it more as living in denial.
But the vast majority of people, like Ari, fell somewhere in the middle. They had bouts of depression and streaks of happiness and always the questions lingered, pinpricks of reflected starlight at the bottom of a dark well, crying out for answers, begging for purpose.
Love was the best tonic he knew. Our biological imperative told us to move from person to person, to propagate the earth. But that was a losing cycle. When we have found an equal, a friend or a partner to whom we can truly relate, someone to share the unanswerable questions with, then we can stop that hamster-wheel search for an escape or the next adventure.
Ari fulfilled him on a level he could only call spiritual. She was smart and poised and beautiful, but what drew him most of all was her. The edgy but still innocent persona. A woman hardened by a lonely childhood and life’s truths, yet able to be moved by the simplest of things. That was a rare quality.
He didn’t want to lose her.
After they cleaned up, he took her to a little Italian joint downtown with fresh flowers on the table and a waiter who shook their hands. Preach and Ari touched fingers as they sipped Chianti, decided to share an entrée and an appetizer, then rolled their eyes in pleasure at the house-made tiramisu. When the check came, he wiped a dollop of cream off her mouth, and they strolled arm in arm into the night.