by Gregory Ashe
“You think Donna May found out and decided to cut her off?”
“I think things were changing for Donna May. She was getting more serious with Josh. She was considering staying in town, starting up a life here. Money was an issue, because Josh depends on his parents. So maybe she went to check her little nest egg and found that it had been tapped. Maybe it’s gone completely. If it were me? I’d be pretty mad about that.”
After a long moment, Hazard said, “Maybe. She certainly sounds jealous of the relationship between Donna May and Josh. Or maybe Donna May and Daniel. It’s hard to tell without reading more of the diary, but maybe they had something going on for a long time.”
“I take your point about how convenient it all was,” Somers said. “I don’t disagree with you. But I also think we have to take into consideration that Courtney isn’t all that bright. Doing something like this, something flashy and melodramatic, that’s definitely her style. Doing it here, because she’s carrying a torch for Daniel, I can see that making some kind of sense to her.”
Hazard’s mouth twisted. “Or,” he said grudgingly, “Daniel did it to frame her. That hate porn is pretty nasty stuff. If Donna May was going to go public and file charges, Daniel’s life would go to hell. Maybe he took care of her before she could do that. He made a pretty rapid exit after we confronted him. Maybe he decided somebody else needed the spotlight. If he’s been stringing Courtney along, it wouldn’t be hard for him to learn about the money and decide Courtney made a good scapegoat.”
“So our options are: one, someone else is framing either Daniel or Courtney; two, Courtney is a moron and has just incriminated herself; or three, Daniel is framing Courtney.” Somers glanced at the trailer and the empty parking pad. “It doesn’t look good for Daniel, that’s for sure.”
“I’m going to make a few calls,” Hazard said.
“I’ll take another walk around the property,” Somers said.
But he was only halfway down the stairs from the deck when Norman and Gross came up the block, huffing and puffing like they’d run a marathon instead of taking a short walk on a spring day. Both men were waving their hands in big, dramatic gestures.
“Good Lord,” Somers muttered, changing course to meet them. “Do I need to get one of those emergency defibrillators?”
“Fuck,” Norman gasped.
“You,” Gross panted.
“Well?”
“No Courtney,” Norman managed. “Gone since yesterday.”
Somers frowned; he remembered Courtney exiting the trailer, the anger in her face, the bitterness as she talked about Donna May. “Where is she?”
“Parents don’t know.”
“How’d you figure this out? I thought the parents didn’t speak English.”
“They don’t,” Gross said, straightening a little, pride battling exhaustion. “I took care of it.”
“You speak Spanish?”
“No,” Norman said in disgust. “He just remembered that Carlson does. So he called her, put the parents on the phone, and she asked them.”
“Gone since yesterday?”
“They’re really upset,” Gross said. “Don’t have to speak Spanish to tell that.”
Somers nodded and headed back to find Hazard, but the big man was already coming down the steps.
“Divorce settlement,” Hazard said. “Plenge, the guy Donna May married young, he bought a house while they were married. When he sold it, she got some of the profit. Somebody’s been taking out weekly withdrawals. A hundred bucks. Two hundred. For a couple years now. And before you ask: all the withdrawals took place in Wahredua.”
“How’d you figure that out?” Norman asked, wiping his sweaty face. “How’d you even get a warrant?”
Hazard ignored the question. “I want to see Courtney’s room. Then I want to read the rest of that diary. Do you think the parents will let us look through her stuff, or do we need to get a warrant?”
Somers was about to answer when his phone rang.
“Detective Somerset?”
It took a moment for Somers to match the panicked voice with Josh Dobbs. “Yes?”
The breathing on the other end of the line was shallow and rapid, and when Josh spoke again, Somers recognized the mixture of anger and tears. “I think she’s been lying to me this whole time. I think she’s a . . . I think she’s a lying bitch.” His voice broke at the end.
“Slow down,” Somers said. “Start from the beginning.”
“Melissa,” Josh said. “She has my sweater. The sweater I loaned Donna May. She was wearing it the night she left. The night she . . . oh my God.”
“Josh, keep it together for a minute. What are you talking about? You loaned Donna May a sweater. The night you were at Maniacs?”
“Yeah. I just—I let her borrow it. And now Melissa has it. I saw it. When I asked her about it, she lied. Right to my face. And then I left, but I went back because I knew she was lying, only I saw her.”
“Saw her what?”
“Saw her throw it in the lake.” Josh’s voice broke again, and when he came back, the tremor in the words made them almost unintelligible. “I think she killed Donna May.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
MARCH 29
FRIDAY
11:28 AM
WHEN SOMERS PULLED UP at Melissa’s house, Josh was sitting in a boxy, luxury-trim Jeep. The poor kid was red eyed, his hat askew, the collar of his polo shirt half up and half down. He was wearing binoculars around his neck and somewhere he had acquired a folder and a stub of pencil.
“I’ve been making notes,” Josh said. He displayed the folder, which was empty; a few lines of writing marked the inside of the folder itself. Dates. Times. All from within the last hour. “She came to the window and looked out. Then she pulled the drapes.” He tapped the corresponding entries. “That definitely means something, right? We’re going to nail this bitch.”
“I need you to calm down,” Somers said. “Right now, the best thing for you to do would be to go home and wait for us.” Then Somers remembered the parents and the lawyer and said, “Actually, maybe you should head into town. Is there a coffee shop you like? A bookstore? Somewhere you can hang out until we can meet?”
“Dude,” Josh said. “I’m your eyewitness.”
“And I appreciate that. But we need to talk to Ms. Hall alone first. You being out here, it’s just going to escalate things.”
“I saw where she threw it.”
“The sweater?”
“Yeah. She tied it around a brick and threw it in the lake. I took a picture.”
Hazard was pulling up in the minivan, and Somers flagged him to block the driveway.
“Let’s see,” Somers said to Josh.
Josh produced his phone and displayed a picture. A blurry figure that looked like Melissa was in the corner of the frame, standing on the muddy shore of the lake. The rest of the picture was of the lake itself.
“There,” Josh said, stabbing at a spot on the screen.
Somers texted the picture to his phone and asked Josh to point it out again; he used the phone’s photo editing software to mark the spot as best he could, and when Josh was satisfied, Somers repeated his instructions and waited until Josh drove away.
“We need to talk to him,” Hazard said.
Somers fixed him with a look.
A hint of color crept into Hazard’s cheeks. “I was just saying.”
“Thank you.” Then Somers added, “God, what a shitty day for Dulac to be sick. He’d probably handle Josh better than either of us.”
They headed up to the house, and as they approached, Melissa opened the door. She looked in both directions, the spring air teasing the pixie cut, and then stepped out onto the porch. “Ms. Hall,” Somers began. “We’d like to talk—”
“Is he gone?” Melissa rubbed her eyes and looked up and down the street again. “He’s gone. Thank God you’re here. I didn’t know how lo
ng it was going to take for someone to respond; the dispatcher wasn’t very clear, and I—”
“You called 911?” Somers said.
“Yes. Josh was acting aggressively. Violently. He was saying things that didn’t make any sense, and when I finally got him to leave, he sat out in his car, watching me. He’s been different since you found . . . since you found Donna May. I thought maybe he was just grieving, but today . . .”
“Why don’t we talk inside?” Somers said.
Melissa led them through the house, and they emerged into the entryway at the back, where the abundance of ferns and tchotchkes made the space cramped and wild, and ceramic busts and masks peered out at Somers from between the fronds. They sat in her office, a pleasantly neutral room in contrast to the entryway, and Melissa hugged her knees to her chest and tucked her feet under a pillow.
“You said Josh has been acting erratically?” Somers said.
“Yes.” She was obviously trying for equilibrium, the kind of poise her profession demanded, but the effect was frayed today. “He’s been emotional. Very angry one minute, sobbing the next. He’s been talking about Donna May nonstop. He talks about finding who did this to her. He even blames himself sometimes. He’s said things, things that I don’t really understand. One time he started calling her a stupid bitch, saying this was all her fault.” Melissa shook her head. “It’s been getting worse.”
“What happened today?”
“Today, he accused me of killing Donna May.”
“Did you?”
Melissa’s mouth dropped open, and it took her a moment to respond. “I did not. I cannot believe you’d even ask me that. I loved Donna May. I did everything I could to help her. She was a troubled young woman who had suffered a great deal. Everyone in her life had taken advantage of her. I wanted the best for her.”
“You wanted her boyfriend,” Hazard said.
“Detective Somerset, Mr. Hazard has an axe to grind with me. He is not going to be a productive part of this conversation.”
“Mr. Hazard is a consultant for the Wahredua PD,” Somers said, “and a respected professional. Why did Josh think you killed Donna May?”
“I don’t know.”
“Bullshit,” Hazard said.
“Do you see?” Melissa said. “He’s antagonizing me. He hates me because he feels guilty and humiliated because of his past relationships, including the failed romantic entanglement with you, Detective Somerset, that led to his disgrace and—”
“Ms. Hall,” Somers said, smiling, “say one more word, and we’ll have this conversation down at the station. And we’ll make sure everything comes out. Every minute you’ve ever spent with Josh Dobbs. On the record. Do I make myself clear?”
“You’re both against me,” Melissa said, with a petulance that made her seem twelve. “You both have unresolved—ok, ok.” She waved Somers back into his seat. “I will refrain from offering professional insights into the reasons for your hostility.”
“There’s no hostility here, Ms. Hall. We just want to know what happened today.”
“Why did Josh think you killed Donna May?” Hazard asked. “And if you lie to me again, I’ll fuck your life so badly you won’t be able to give counseling to a scarecrow.”
“He said something about a sweater.” The words were brittle. “I don’t know.”
“You can do better than that,” Hazard said. “Spin me a story, like you did about me and John.”
“I don’t know. I don’t know. He came into the house. He saw me. This is what I was wearing.” She plucked at the cashmere sweater, another long, loose number over leggings. “He started yelling. He grabbed me. He tried to pull it off me. We . . . we fought. I pushed him, and he knocked one of my sculptures off its stand. It shattered. That startled him, and he calmed down enough for me to get him to leave. I cleaned up.” She gestured listlessly to a wastebasket next to her desk, where Somers spotted the ceramic shards. “I thought he was gone. Then I saw him. Out by the lake. He was right at the water’s edge, and he was doing something. I don’t know what. When he left, I was curious. I went down there; I know it was stupid, but I did. When I looked around . . .” Her voice took on a note of puzzlement, almost wonder. “He was taking pictures of me. That’s when I locked myself inside and called the police.”
As though on cue, a knock came at the front door.
Somers asked for permission to handle the officers, and Melissa waved him away. He retraced his steps to the front door, but instead of police he found a lump of a woman staring at him from under a flattened straw hat.
“Where’s Melissa?” the woman demanded. “I need to see her.”
“I’m sorry,” Somers said.
Before he could finish, Melissa’s voice came from behind him: “Gladys? Oh, thank God.” Then the lumpy woman was pushing past Somers, and she and Melissa were hugging in the entryway. Hazard stood farther back, watching.
On the street, a patrol car rolled up, and Officers Carlson and Nickels got out. Carlson was relatively new to the force; Nickels was so new you could still smell the plastic packaging. The Wahredua PD had seen substantial turnover in the last year, and if Somers were under oath, he probably would have said change had been good. Nickels was young but already hard faced; when she’d applied for the job, she’d still had locs, but she’d obviously decided a change was in order because now her hair was buzzed.
“Just hang out for a minute,” Somers said when they reached the house. “We’re checking a few things.”
Both women nodded. Melissa and Gladys were speaking in low tones, with Melissa relating everything that had happened with Josh and Gladys nodding and stroking her arm and peppering the words with hugs.
“Ms. Hall,” Somers said, “we’re going to check a few things. Please stay here with the officers, ok?”
Melissa nodded and resumed her story; Gladys shot Somers a furious look, as though this were all his fault somehow.
Motioning to Hazard, Somers went through the house again, exiting through the rear and following the slope down to the lake. He eyed the boathouse attached to Melissa’s property; that would be their next stop. A breeze picked up, carding his hair and snapping the legs of his trousers tight; it ran ahead of him, twisting the tips of the grass, blowing ripples across the lake. The smell of water and mud mixed with the cleanness of the spring day.
When they reached the edge of the water, Somers took out his phone and pulled up the picture that Josh had taken, with Melissa at the water’s edge and the additional, edited mark that Somers had placed. He held it up, trying to match it to the shore’s contour.
“There?” he said to Hazard.
Hazard, looking over his shoulder, grunted. And then he reached past Somers, his big hand wrapping gently around Somers’s, guiding and turning until Somers could see the picture and the shoreline slide together. Hazard’s breath was on his neck. Hazard’s hand, callused from barbells and dumbbells, from shovels and rakes, held his own like Somers were a bird that might startle and flutter and break if he held too tightly. Farther along the lake, a mallard quacked, and the breeze shifted, carrying the smell of coconut from Hazard’s hair product. Hazard bent, and the flush in Somers’s face was everywhere now, a rolling wall of fire as he waited for Hazard’s lips on his neck. This, right here, was a hundred times more intimate, a hundred times hotter than the furious fuck Somers had delivered last night. This was what Somers had been missing for days now and had tried to recapture last night. This was what had been cut out of him.
But Hazard didn’t kiss his neck; he was only adjusting his angle as he viewed the screen, and then he released Somers’s hand and pointed to the lake. “There. More or less.”
Somers grimaced. “All right. If Josh is telling the truth, that’s where she threw the sweater.”
“Or if Melissa’s telling the truth.”
“You think Josh had the sweater this whole time?”
“It’s his, isn’t i
t? Nobody would wonder about it. Besides, we don’t even know if there’s anything in the lake. They both might be lying. Or imagining things.”
Hazard stepped back, undid his trousers, and heeled off his shoes. He shucked the trousers and socks in two easy movements, and then he stood there in nothing but black compression shorts and the white button down and the skinny black tie. Somers couldn’t help himself: he stared. The corded muscle in Hazard’s legs, the bulge at the front of his shorts, that slab of an ass, practically a city block of it. Hazard bent, giving Somers an extra-good view, and pulled out a pair of disposable gloves.
“You’re drooling,” Hazard said quietly as he walked toward the lake.
“Asshole,” Somers said, but he did run his hand over his mouth, just in case. “Could you hold on for five seconds? I’ll grab a towel from the car.”
“Go grab a towel, then,” Hazard said, already stepping into the lake.
Somers didn’t go to the car, though; he watched. Hazard made a face as his feet sank into the muddy bottom, the water lapping at his ankles, and then he strode forward, the lake sloshing up against his calves, the water painting the dark, straight hairs onto pale muscle, then his knees, then his thighs. Somers was pretty sure that if Hazard went much farther, if he came back to shore with that dress shirt translucent and pasted to his chest, Somers was going to need Hazard to fuck him just about immediately. But Hazard stopped with the water low on his thighs, and then he rolled up a sleeve and bent, sweeping one arm through the lake’s murk.
After a couple minutes, Hazard cast a look back. “A little help?” he called. “If you can take a break from ogling.”
“I can’t,” Somers said. “But lucky for you, I can multitask.”
He aligned the picture of the phone, transposed Hazard’s magnificent ass, and said, “To your left.”
Hazard splashed left.
“I think a little bit closer to shore,” Somers called.