“I’m not writing a book,” I said. “No one will know what you say except me.”
“Still, I have no proof.”
“Neither did the cops. Didn’t stop them.”
The waitress brought our food, filled our teas, and we enjoyed a momentary reprieve. After a few solid bites, Enzo pushed his fork into his lunch, then laid it on the side of his plate with a clank. While he stalled, I pressed.
“Enzo, you were the only one there with any sort of intact memory, but you were pretty tight-lipped when they interrogated you, even—”
“I had to be. My whole family could have been deported or arrested.”
“Not anymore. You’ve gotta give me something. You worked there. You knew the flow of the place, the moods, the environment. Something like that night goes down, you must have a gut instinct about what happened.”
Every sinewy muscle of his body seemed to tighten and then release, allowing his words to spew forth. “I think Bobby’s friends, those two delinquents, were involved that night, and probably some other loser they’d picked up. I think Bobby broke in through the window with a plan to let the other guys in through the garage doors. I mean, normally, the garage would have been empty that time of night, and Bobby had done it before, so why not? But something must have gone wrong. Maybe they were all drunk or high or both, or the new guy went berserk, but either way, all hell broke loose. Smitty and Jasper probably took off like the babies they were but Bobby was too cocky, figured he could take the newcomer. He must have slipped on some oil or gotten knocked out and then the stranger tied him up. Wandered around, found Artie’s gun, shot Bobby and took off.”
“And my dad or brother wouldn’t have heard any of that?”
“You don’t understand what we were drinking that night,” he said. “Neither did I, until later. My Uncle Tito, he put some serious hallucinogens in there. I guess I’d built up some tolerance but your brother and father got hit hard. I never would have given it to them if I’d known. I swear, Allison, I feel responsible to this day. That’s why I send your mother the money.”
“What kind of hallucinogens?”
“Anything could have gotten in there. My uncle picked up work at a morgue once and ended up stealing formaldehyde.”
“To use in the liquor?”
“Why not? He’d use bleach, paint thinner, whatever was convenient from whatever cash-paying job he had at the time. One time, I went with him to one of his stills that had been fermenting in the woods. After he emptied the liquor into bottles, he found two dead chipmunks lying on the bottom.”
“Happy expressions on their faces, no doubt.”
“Wouldn’t know. Their faces and fur were melted off after stewing in that concoction for a month.”
“And you guys toasted each other with this stuff?”
“Worse. We got out loaded guns. It’s amazing any of us are alive.”
He realized too late what he’d said. Before he could utter a pathetic sorry, I stopped him with a flick of my hand, the standard for excusing someone with no ill intent when they accidentally spit on your father’s grave.
“So you’re going with a tall, dark stranger, despite no evidence of it?”
“As much evidence for my theory as the ones the prosecution spouted.”
“You testified that you never heard my dad threaten Bobby Kettrick. But there’s no way he didn’t spout off about Bobby.”
Enzo took a moment. “If there was a question in there, you answered it yourself.”
“So you lied when you told the police you never heard my dad or Kevin make threats against Bobby?”
A curtain rose over Enzo’s body and face, from the bottom up. Everything with him was controlled. Probably a hallmark of a successful businessman. The change rumbled through him, transforming his large frame from gentle to daunting. His voice remained quiet, demanding full attention. “First of all, there were never direct threats so I didn’t outright lie. Secondly, I was young and Hispanic—a perfect target for the police—but I wasn’t stupid. I wasn’t going to give them any extra ammo to use against anyone.”
“And the more information you did have, the deeper they’d have drawn you in.”
“Bad enough I was involved at all, putting my whole family at risk. I didn’t see the point in saying more than the bare minimum.”
“What about Shelby Anderson? Her body turning up two weeks later? Those hairs and that rope looked bad for my dad. Did he ever say anything about Shelby Anderson, or anything that might make you think he’d hurt a young girl? You can tell me, Enzo. It won’t offend me.”
Enzo sniffed and rubbed his nose, even wiped it with the thin napkin made moist by the sweat of his water. Apparently, curtains couldn’t hide everything going on behind them. “No. Nothing. I really don’t know anything about that case or any connection between Shelby and Bobby,” he said too insistently. “Seemed like serious lack of investigation. But they needed someone to pin it on so they used your dad.” He sniffed again.
Enzo was lying. Why? Which part of my question had bothered him?
“How well did you know Shelby?”
“Not at all, actually. Heard she was a bit of a wild child.”
“How do you think her body got in the creek?”
“Someone must have dumped her after she died, right? Couldn’t speculate about more if I wanted to. Maybe an accident. I hate to say it, but maybe a rape.”
“She was a mess,” I said. “Broken bones. Ligature marks on a snapped neck. Shirt buttoned all wrong. But she wasn’t raped. By my father or anyone else. They tested and there was no bruising or sperm down below.”
I’m not sure if Enzo’s look of repugnance was due to unwanted intimacy with the details of the case or to the callousness with which I was able to discuss my father’s sperm—or lack thereof.
“You never heard anything later on?” I said. “People talking at school? Your cousins picking up some gossip through the grapevine? Someone must have gotten the rumor mill going.”
Enzo looked relieved that I’d changed the subject a bit, like he’d reached steady ground after a bumpy ride. “I wasn’t exactly in the in crowd,” he said, “and my cousins hung out with their own kind.”
“What about that rope?” I said. “The rope found around Shelby’s waist was from the same length of rope used to tie up Bobby. That’s what did my father in, don’t you think?”
Enzo sipped the last of his water and wiped the condensation from his hands onto his pants. I wondered whether the moisture on his upper lip was water or sweat. His next words dribbled out from beneath a dry expression that hinted at bitterness. “I think it was the two dead bodies that did your father in.”
“You know, Enzo, I’m not trying to cause pain for anyone.”
“Sure, I understand. It’s just that talking about this is so…”
“Uncomfortable?”
“More than that,” he said. “It’s surreal. I’ve thought about it so much over the years that it’s started to take on this ethereal quality, like a horrible fairy tale from childhood. Maybe I’ve tried to convince myself it didn’t happen.”
“We all find a way to deal.”
He looked into my hard expression and knew I’d found mine. I gave it one last shot. “Is there anything you can tell me, anything at all, that might shed new light on that night?”
“I’m sorry, Allison. I really am. But maybe being back here this week, something will strike a chord. If I think of anything, I’ll let you know.”
An exit line if I ever heard one. More small talk followed about his cousin’s wedding and the demands of his business. Then came the empty promise to keep in touch. It wouldn’t happen. Not even via social media. Seriously, what could he tweet? Great fun tossing around murder theories with Allison Fennimore yesterday! He’d have enough characters left over to mention how ethereal it all was.
At least I’d learned something. Enzo felt guilty about getting my dad smashed that night; he had lied to th
e police; and, he’d most likely just lied to me—about something, even if only by omission.
After he paid and we headed out the door, I turned with one last thought. “Hey Enzo, you should invent some stickers that don’t curl up. You know, for windshields.”
“You mean to tell people when to get their oil changed again?”
“Exactly. You’d be amazed what people will do when they’re reminded of things.”
He nodded, then lowered his head and walked off.
Chapter 8
Allison… present
The phone rang at my mother’s house at 3:02 p.m., four minutes after I’d returned from my late lunch with Enzo. Had to give Drywaters credit for punctuality.
I answered the phone, knowing who it was. ”Hey Kevin, ‘sup?”
“Allison, how’s it going? Any updates? I don’t have long.”
“Here, chat with Mom first. I can always e-mail you.”
“Is she good today? She gonna know who I am?”
“She just woke up from a nap. I’m not sure.”
I handed the phone to my mother, who was standing next to me humming an indistinct melody during my chat. Her calm demeanor told me one thing: she wouldn’t know who Kevin was. Probably better for both of them. But she’d enjoy the ending, when he said, “I love you.” I’d taught him to leave off the mom at the end of that sentiment so she could turn him into whomever she wanted, maybe even her son.
“I love you, too,” she said after a brief conversation. She smiled from somewhere far away and handed the phone back to me before shuffling over to another corner of the kitchen.
“Guess who I talked to today?” I said into the phone.
“No time for guessing games, Alley Cat. Hit me with the 4-1-1.”
“Stay up to date, Kevin. No one says 4-1-1 anymore.”
He sighed, his tolerance filled with the weird love we had for each other.
“Enzo Rodriguez.”
“Excellent. You know, I still blame him for half the shit that went down that night. Breaking out that gut-eating, corrosive garbage that his squirrelly uncle brewed.”
“Might have been more squirrelly than you knew,” I said, picturing the faceless chipmunks. “Anyway, you were right. He’s in town for his cousin’s wedding. In fact, he’s staying all week to help get his aunt set up in a new business venture.”
“He have anything new to add? I really think he might be key since he’s the only one with any memory of that night.”
“He seemed guarded when we talked. The only lie I know of was in your favor. He didn’t tell the police that you and Dad joked about getting revenge on Bobby.”
“That’s good, I guess. He thought Bobby was a jerk, too. But you can be sure he lied for some reason of his own, like everyone else. What about Smitty or even Shelby’s family? Anything there?”
I almost laughed at Kevin’s enthusiasm. Quite a contrast to the guy who’d spent the last decade and a half living day to day on the road, never knowing where his next meal or paycheck would come from—though often, it’d be from the same person. After Dad got arrested and Kevin had realized the gravity of the situation, he’d written to East Carolina University and told them he needed to defer admission. I’d often wondered who was on the receiving end of that letter. They must have grabbed the official Student Deferral Form and scanned the preprinted choices under Reasons for Deferral. Had they taken the time to read through Can’t Afford Tuition, Prior Commitment, Attending Community College, and then been disappointed when they couldn’t find the box for Attending Father’s Murder Trial? They’d probably shrugged, checked Other, and shoved Kevin’s file into a long-forgotten drawer. That was the last attention anyone had paid to Kevin’s future.
After the trial ended, he’d taken one of the old fixer-uppers from the garage and hit the road with fewer coins in his pocket than plans in his head. Whereas I’d chosen to get lost in the city, he’d opted for the anonymity of the country, taking advantage of small-town America’s acceptance of the wandering layman. Folks knew to ask minimal questions, to hire on a weekly basis, and to always pay in cash. Never short on jobs or women, Kevin worked in construction, at factories, on farms, and of course, as a mechanic whenever he could. Chalked up over 300,000 miles on that car. He sent my mother money and called faithfully every two weeks. Checked in with me electronically as often as not and we gelled into a years-long, sarcastic back-and-forth, expertly playing the roles of normal siblings. Denial and indifference acted as the outer wrapping for our familial cord. If either of us deigned to whine about our circumstances, the other was required to respond with lighthearted derision. It had rarely happened.
To hear Kevin now, pestering me for leads on this dusty case so he could settle that rattling in his head, well, it was a foreign relationship I still didn’t know how to handle.
“Hey Kev,” I said, “it’s not some warped game. I can’t call all the suspects to the library and spout off a bunch of theories until one of them waves a candlestick and declares they did it in the parlor.”
“Yeah, sorry. Every day here feels like eternity. I forget you have the real world to navigate.”
“I plan to see Smitty, but I’m sure he’ll be well-guarded by his Mama Bear. And as for Shelby Anderson, I barely knew her or her family. That might be a tough one.”
“All right, Allison. Just do the best you can.”
We hung up. My mother stood next to me, sipping tea. I didn’t know if she’d just brewed it or if it was a reheated cup that had sat on the counter since this morning. Multiple mugs often dotted the kitchen as she seemed to draw more comfort from cradling the warm ceramic than from consuming the contents. Steam rose up and curled in front of the delicate worry lines permanently etched between her brows.
“Kevin was a good boy,” she said as if I’d suggested otherwise. “Never hurt anyone. But that Bobby. That Bobby was a rat.” Ah, the clear signal that she was in one of her spells. She never spoke negatively of Bobby Kettrick in lucid moments. If anything, she assigned him attributes he’d never possessed, like humility and kindness.
She negotiated the length of the kitchen to go join Selena in front of the TV while I went to my room to read Smitty’s statements and testimony. I needed to be ready for his lies. I’d never liked Smitty. Nothing substantive to him, not enough there to dig one’s teeth into. Like a mood ring, he’d turn whatever color necessary to reflect the people around him, none of it meaning anything real. Besides, I’d learned in science class that a mood ring just reflected the temperature of the person wearing it. I used to long for the one I wore as a child to turn violet or blue, meaning happy or relaxed, but it had always divulged an overcast black, the symbolic color for tense and harassed, because I never warmed up.
My goal tomorrow was to turn Smitty all sorts of red.
Chapter 9
Allison… present
Kevin was right. Smitty had indeed returned for the high school reunion. Needed to show all his former classmates that he’d made it—into the real world and out of Lavitte. His parents, Elise and Abel Smith, still lived in the big white house with the wraparound porch over on Marshall, so his presence in town wasn’t that unusual. Probably had requisite visits and ultimatums laid out on a schedule by Mrs. Smith. If he didn’t show, she’d threaten to fly to D.C. on her broomstick and cast balls of fire on his evil wretch of a boss.
Smitty’d brought the family along, too. Twin girls, about six years old, and a pregnant wife, all with wide faces and ringlets of chestnut hair. The wife wore flowery, oversized maternity clothes, as if she couldn’t wait any longer to declare her expectant status to the world. The girls donned matching green overalls with multicolored appliques of rainbows and suns. A perfect unit, as long as Wifey was knocked up with a Smitty, Jr., to complete the picture. I knew of this happy little scene because I was parked outside the Smiths’ house, watching one twin play Frisbee with Mom in the side yard while the other swirled herself in dizzying circles on a tire swing, he
r hair following behind. As I stepped from the air-conditioned car, the change in atmosphere slapped me like a heavy, slow-motion hand. Humid, compressive and unwelcoming. The girls watched me and waved, as if I were a friendly neighbor come a-calling who might set for a spell and sip some sweet tea. The weight of their perception pressed solidly against the impending reality. Don’t kid yourselves, girls. If there’s tea to be drunk, it’ll be offered begrudgingly and in a small glass so as to hasten the visit. They ran off to the back yard, followed by their watchful mom.
I walked up the wide driveway with barely a loose stone to be found for kicking. Smitty’s dad had laid out some big bucks for this stamped concrete job with the mark of hired labor etched into every inch of the intricate hexagonal design. It made me feel dizzy. Mounting the three steps of the wooden porch, I could practically feel my feet sinking into the thick accumulation of years of white paint. I rang the doorbell, its chime far too ornate for a colonial in Lavitte, even if it was the biggest house on the street. I stared at the bright green welcome mat and waited, uninvited, of course, because no one in town invited a Fennimore anywhere.
Mrs. Smith came to the door with a dismissive We gave at the church line at the ready, until her face coated over in surprise. At least I think it was surprise. It might have been horror. Hard to tell because Mrs. Smith had clearly jumped on the Botox train and was speeding fast towards the wax museum. Her eyebrows would soon be earbrows if she wasn’t careful.
Always well ahead on the gossip curve and several steps ahead of the Lavitte hoi polloi in fashion trends, Mrs. Smith had been faux-friendly with my mom before the murders. True to form, she was the first to turn on her after the arrest.
“Allison Fennimore?” she said. Her mouth moved only up and down as she spoke, as if she were incapable of a pucker. I’d seen it in New York a thousand times. A hint of Botox around the upper margins of the top lip that eventually turned into a full syringe of chemical filler per visit. Helped with wrinkles but was hell on a sip of water. “Why in the world—”
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