“Very well.” He nods stiffly, no doubt worried we’re too cheap to leave a decent tip. “Will you be having dinner? Or may I interest you in a starter while you decide?”
I glance at the menu, but the old-timey Western text is hard to read. “Do you have sweet potato tots?”
“I’m afraid not.” His fake frown would never fly at a Bouton funeral. “Perhaps I could interest you in our beer-battered Camp Fries.”
I recall the limp shoestring potatoes, their crust flaking like eczema.
“No, thanks.”
When Chet leaves, Danae’s expression shifts from giggly girl to serious morgue tech. All I can do is meet her frank stare and wonder what happens next.
In the time I’ve worked at Bouton, we’ve crossed paths maybe twice a month. What I know about her would fit on a business card. Medical-surgical nurse who floats to the morgue. Thinks I’m very professional, according to her sister. She looks younger than Danica, thirty maybe, but shares her black hair and long, oval face. Red-framed glasses with oversized frames magnify her brown eyes.
“You know, I don’t think we’ve ever really talked,” she says, breaking an uncomfortable silence. “You’ve always been polite, but I never got the sense you wanted to be friends. And Lord knows the look on your face outside wasn’t delight at running into your pal from the morgue.”
“Danica told me—” The words tangle in my throat.
“My sister’s a dear, but she’s too naive for her own good.” Danae leans forward, her hands clasped in front of her. “It must be one of two things. Either you want to know about the dead boy, or you’re hiding. Given how fast you hustled me in here, the second option seems most likely.” She cocks her head. “Am I your lookout?”
Somewhere deep inside me Fitz laughs.
“I’m sorry. I’ll go.”
I start to slide out of the booth, but she waves a dismissive hand. “Don’t be silly. You got twelve bucks worth of bourbon coming. Might as well enjoy it.”
“Twelve dollars. Jesus.”
She laughs, a deeper, more natural sound than the giggle she used on the bartender. “This ain’t the Whistle Pig, honey.”
After a glance to confirm no one can see me from the entrance, I slump back in my seat.
Chet arrives with our drinks—caramel liquid satisfyingly deep in crystal lowball glasses.
“We’ll need another round,” Danae says before he can make his escape. Then she raises her glass. “Rest in peace, later rather than sooner.”
She tosses back her whiskey like it’s tap water. I can’t taste my own. The bite is barely enough to let me know I’ve had something to drink, nothing like the alkali burn accompanying the solvent they serve at the Whistle Pig. I take another sip and, as a warm ball grows in my belly, surprise myself by finishing the glass.
“So I assume you’re ducking Jeremy Chapman?”
And just like that, the soft warmth twists into an icy knot.
“Heard you two broke up.” She laughs at the expression that must be on my face. “No secrets in Samuelton, sweetie.”
I know she’s right. Gossip is the local currency, more valuable than dollars or debit cards. In line at Cuppa Jo, at the Whistle Pig—when voices grow hushed, I have a pretty good idea they’re talking about me. Probably the same everywhere, but I’m still not used to anyone caring what, how, or who I’m doing. Even more troubling is the realization that if people are talking about me and Jeremy, it won’t be long before the chatter reaches Aunt Elodie and Uncle Rémy. To me, he was little more than a diversion, but they might not see it that way.
Chet returns with our second round. Dailie’s Doubles. I peer into my glass as if escape can be found in the refraction of light through whiskey. Others have begun to come in. Some at tables, some at the bar—all speaking in hushed tones. Tourists. Chet seems to be working alone, his cheeks glistening with sweat as he takes orders and mixes drinks, delivers those deadweight tumblers of water.
“What do”—I let out a breath—“people say about me?”
She sits back, considering. “You’re from back east. Bahs-ton, maybe. People think you’re on the run, like you killed someone. An abusive boyfriend or husband maybe—some kind of burning-bed thing.” Her eyes take on a laser focus. “But I don’t think that’s it. You’re so steady, I doubt a mere killing would fluster you.”
A sharp laugh pops out of me. Would she say that if she’d seen me the night I checked myself out of the hospital? My involuntary psych hold had expired, so I banged on the ward door and demanded to be set free. The graveyard-shift charge nurse made me sign a piece of paper with “AMA” in block letters in place of Discharge Instructions. Against medical advice. Outside, alone in the cold and dark, I collapsed, bawling, in the gutter until an old woman prodded me with her umbrella and threatened to call the police.
“If I’m so steady, why am I hiding in here?”
“Oh, the living are another matter.” Her fingers drum the table. “Remember that fire in Wilton last December?”
I nod, thinking back. “Those kids and their grandmother.” The mother and father had been out Christmas shopping. Near as could be determined, a spark from the open wood stove caught the Christmas tree. The first responders found the bodies in the front hall a few steps from the door.
“Fire and rescue guys blew chunks while you went in and collected the remains, coolheaded and respectful. You held your shit together.”
That’s not how I remember it. The only person who threw up was a boy from the fire science program at the community college, a first-year student. Everyone was outside when I lifted the grandmother’s body and saw how she’d shielded the two children, safe from the flames but not from the smoke. A boy and a girl.
Oh, but I held my shit together.
“I don’t remember seeing you there.”
“I wasn’t. But I heard all about it.”
“Because people talk.”
“They do indeed.”
“They probably think I’m a freak.”
She swirls her whiskey and sips, then looks over the rim of her glass. “Are you?”
I open my mouth but can’t seem to form words. What would I say anyway? That, sure, I am a freak? That my parents were right for locking me up, that Rémy and Elodie made a mistake bringing me here?
That I’m the one who should have died in that Vermont lake when I was eight years old, not Fitz.
Me.
I swallow bourbon and then cough—the second glass unexpectedly caustic.
Worry lines gather on Danae’s forehead. “You okay?”
I smile weakly. “Someone came for the boy today, didn’t they?” Before she can call me out on the clumsy deflection, I add, “I saw the body transport vehicle.” If she’s heard about my suspension and Bouton’s fleeing customers, she doesn’t admit it. “I’m surprised it took so long to move him.”
She taps her nails against the rim of her glass. “Well, we didn’t release the body until this morning.”
“Why not?”
“The sheriff ordered a complete forensic workup with labs, internal and external exams—the works.”
“For a car wreck?”
“Exactly my thought. The last time we went whole hog was winter before last—but that was for an actual case. Some entitled brat dosed his mom and dad with Xanax and turned the gas on in their chalet up at the lake.” She shakes her head. “The kid tried to claim abuse, but he stood to get a nice inheritance.”
It never occurred to me to murder Cricket and Stedman. Maybe if their treatment had risen to the level of physical abuse—but in some dim way they recognized a measure of responsibility for me, not as their child so much as items on a to-do list. A new toothbrush at intervals, meals in the fridge: protein, starch, vegetable—two minutes in the microwave. Once, Cricket gave me a half-dozen pairs of white socks and a six-pack each of briefs and T-shirts. Boys’.
Come to think of it, maybe I should have killed them.
�
��That man from Portland hung around the morgue during the autopsy, asking questions I couldn’t answer.”
“Mr. Pride?”
She nods. “But when the autopsy ended, the sheriff blew out of there with samples for the state crime lab in Bend. Mr. Pride went after Dr. Varney then, bugging him about the boy’s personal effects, when the autopsy report would be available, and so on. Got a little snippy, if you ask me.” Nails on the glass again, tink-tink-tink. “Doc referred him to the district attorney and left.”
I try to picture a snippy Kendrick Pride. Fail. “What do they think happened out there?”
“Wish I knew, but I didn’t get to assist.”
A quiet descends between us. In the lull, as if he was waiting for this moment, Chet slinks up and asks if we’d like the check.
“I think Chet wants rid of you, Mellie.”
Danae smiles as if she heard Fitz, and nods Chet off. Chin resting on her laced fingers, she scans the room. Every table is in use now, the dull rumble of conversation all but drowning out Kenny G.
Then she sits up, eyes on the front of the restaurant. I twist to see, but she grasps my forearm. “Keep your head down.”
“Jeremy?”
“You said it. Not me.” A smile flickers across her lips. “I’ll run interference so you can escape out the back. Okay?”
“You don’t have to—”
“We’re friends now, right?” I can’t tell if she’s being sarcastic. I shrink against the back of the booth. She pulls a twenty and a ten from her purse and drops them on the table.
She gestures toward the rear of the bar. “You know the way?” I nod, and with that she slips out of her seat and sashays off.
I match her cash, my last three tens, begrudging Chet the change. Later, I’ll mourn the jumbo order of sweet potato tots and six Whistle Pig sangrias this sidetrack with Danae cost me. Panic whispers about safety in stillness, as if a cocoon of polished walnut, soft jazz, and dread can hide me.
I peek around the edge of the booth. Danae’s at the host station, chatting up a bemused Jeremy. Though a head shorter, she manages to have greater presence. With a deft hand and a brash laugh, she turns him toward the saloon doors.
“Now!”
Shoulders hunched, I weave between tables to the wide passage leading past the restrooms. After a quick turn into an unlit corridor, I crash through the fire door to the parking lot.
Chief Deputy Omar Duniway is waiting.
SIXTEEN
Disturbing the Peace
“Why are you in a such hurry, Miss Dulac?”
Behind me, the door clicks shut. Duniway leans against his Tahoe, looking cool and relaxed in the evening swelter.
“Home?”
“Allow me to drive you.” He steps away from the SUV and opens the back door.
A bead of sweat runs down my neck. He knew right where to find me and used Jeremy to herd me like a steer into a cattle chute. The parking area is a rectangle of asphalt surrounded by buildings and accessed via a narrow alley. The windows looking out on the lot are closed, most home to wheezing air conditioners. I’m boxed in.
“I just have a few questions, Miss Dulac.” Duniway inspects me like I’m a crime scene. “But if you want to be difficult, I could place you under arrest.” He pointedly looks at the oversized watch on his wrist. “It’s after five. You won’t see a judge till Monday morning.”
“Jesus.” The door is hot against my back, and a dull ache is forming behind my right eye. “Quince doesn’t know what he’s talking about.”
One corner of his thin lips turns up. “If you’ve got something to say, get in. No need to make this unpleasant.”
“It’s already unpleasant.” Would he really put me in jail? It’s my word against Quince’s. We should cancel each other out, but I know it doesn’t work that way. After what Duniway found in the crematory, I have all the credibility of a coyote with a mouthful of chicken feathers.
“Could be worse. Per department policy, anyone we transport is supposed to be handcuffed, but I see no need to be a stickler.” He raps the window of the open door. “I could change my mind, though.”
Feet heavy with dread, I plod over and climb in. The interior smells of cigarettes and vomit. I leave one foot hanging out the door. His fingers drum the doorframe. His hands are thin, with knobby joints.
“You’re not a very trusting soul, are you?”
“Not if I can help it.”
He nudges the door against my knee. “Please.” It’s not a request.
Teeth clenched, I lift my leg, and he shuts me in. I reach for an arm rest that isn’t there. No interior door handle either. The mesh screen mounted between the front and back seats vibrates when he climbs behind the wheel. I press against the right side door.
He drives down the alley to Dryer Street and turns left, away from the jail—a fact that should reassure me. He continues past the hospital and a block later pulls into the driveway at the New Mortuary. The big Tahoe comes to a stop at the main entrance as if he’s a hearse awaiting the pallbearers. I glance through the glass doors. Dark. Past business hours, with nothing on the evening schedule. Even Wanda will be gone by now.
“See?” Duniway stares at my reflection in the rearview mirror. “Home.”
I can’t tell if he knows about the nap casket or he’s just being a dick. Home is thirteen fucking miles away. But I left the Stiff over by Cuppa Jo, so this is just as well. “Are you going to let me out?”
“You gonna answer some questions?”
I’m sure there’s only one real question: Why did you lie about where you were Tuesday night?
With the engine still running, the vents discharge cold, faintly mildewed air. Ahead, across Sixth Street, looms the football stadium. For the last couple of weeks, I’ve watched members of the football team come and go in the afternoons. Some kind of conditioning, I think. They arrive full of piss and come out an hour later sweaty and limp. To my right, across Dryer Street, children dash around a small neighborhood playground. Their wilted mothers and fathers look on from benches shaded by drooping linden trees.
Duniway watches the kids for a minute, then turns to face me through the mesh. “What did Quince tell you?”
I don’t want to answer, but even less do I want to stay in this puke-smelling truck. I meet Duniway’s gray eyes through the mesh. “That he’s a liar.”
Duniway’s face doesn’t change. “Was that the exact word he used?”
Goddamn Quince. “He claimed he saw the Sti—the van up at the Old Mortuary around when the bodies would have been burning. But that’s impossible. It was here in town. With me.”
“Did he say anything else?”
“That wasn’t enough?”
“Enough for what?”
I press my hands against the hard seat. “Jesus.”
“We have your signed statement. Would you like to amend it?”
“Obviously not.”
“He’s messing with you, little sister.”
I shiver, but whether from anxiety or because the goddamned air conditioning is set to liquid nitrogen I don’t know. I look out at the sky, craving the heat on the other side of the glass. “May I go now?”
“First tell me when you last spoke with Kendrick Pride.”
I don’t say anything. The question seems almost nonsensical.
“Miss Dulac?”
Helene always advised against talking to cops without a lawyer. But Helene isn’t sitting in the back of Duniway’s Tahoe.
“Not since”—we found the body, I won’t say—“Wednesday morning.” I don’t know why I can’t acknowledge the dead boy. Maybe I don’t want to remind Duniway of the bodies I lost—like he needs reminding.
“But you did speak to him then. Out at the crossroad?”
“I just said so, didn’t I?”
“Did he tell you why he was in Samuelton?”
“Sure.” I try to keep my tone neutral. I don’t understand where this is going. “He’s repre
senting the family of the boy who died in the crash.”
“Both boys’ families, so he claimed.” Duniway’s emphasis on claimed is subtle, but unmistakable. “Have you spoken to him since Wednesday morning?”
“What did I just say?”
He gives me a flat gaze. “We can sit here all night, you know.”
I count backward from ten, my eyes swinging from the stadium to the damned playground.
“Miss Dulac.”
“Ms.”
“Mizz.” He exhales. “I asked you a question.”
“What do you want exactly? I’ve only spoken to the man a few times.”
He pulls out a pack of cigarettes and shakes one into his mouth.
“Please, don’t.”
He gives me a look out of the corner of his eye. “You’re one of those.”
I don’t know what I am. Helene used to smoke after sex; that never bothered me. But there’s a lot of terrain between Omar Duniway and Helene Bouton. “Open the window at least.” His jaw clenches, and it’s almost like he’s counting down himself. But rather than open the window, he pulls the cigarette out of his mouth.
“How about you describe your conversations with Mr. Pride.”
“What’s this about?”
“It’s about my need to know what Mr. Pride said to you. Now answer the goddamn question.”
I’ve never heard Duniway snap. Sheriff Turnbull may bluster. Jeremy will wheedle. Most of the other deputies can be overbearing dicks, but Duniway has always been an ice sculpture.
What’s made him so fucking testy?
“There wasn’t a lot to it. He’s handling arrangements for the deceased.”
“That’s it?”
“He wondered why the boy—boys, I guess—drove here in the middle of the night.” I could say more. About Pride collecting brass, for instance. But Duniway’s manner keeps my mouth shut. I don’t understand the fixation on Pride rather than Quince. I guess I should be glad he’s not doing a bright lights and rubber hose routine on me. “Where were you the night of—?” But the fact he isn’t only makes me suspicious.
In the playground, the reedy sound of a kid crying reminds me of the baby in the desert. Jeremy thought the boys intended to abandon the infant, but I don’t buy that. In any event, Pride hasn’t mentioned the baby, so I don’t either.
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