by Matt Coleman
Sameer nodded. “Please.”
They blinked at him some more before shrugging and all three pointing at him.
Sameer nodded a thanks and took a deep breath. “Good morning. My name is Sameer Zardari and I hate to bother you. I was wondering if I could ask you a couple of questions about a missing person you may have seen.”
They all three clapped in soft applause, and the Lanky Hipster pulled a chair over to offer him. Sameer sat and thanked them. He reached into his pocket for his photo of Seamus, but before he could present it Lanky Hipster blurted out, “So you’re looking for Do Right?”
Sameer paused with the photo held to his chest. “I’m sorry? Do Right?”
Lanky Hipster nodded. “Yeah. You said missing person. And you’re looking for us. I figure you must mean Do Right.”
Sameer shook his head and frowned.
White Guilt leaned forward. “We have a friend—Do Right is what he goes by. He hasn’t been seen in a few days. His brother has been asking about him. Are you a private investigator or something?”
Sameer couldn’t help but beam with pride a little at being confused for a private investigator. He laughed. “No, I’m not. At all.” He slid the picture across the table. “And I’m afraid I don’t know your friend. I’m sorry. I’m actually looking for my husband, who has also been missing for a few days. I was told someone in your group knew him.” He tapped Seamus’ face on the photograph.
All three of the men leaned over the picture and sat up, nodding. Hip-Hop Hipster pointed back at Seamus. “Yeah, yeah. The reporter. Irish name.”
Sameer grew wide-eyed and nodded. “Seamus Fitzgerald, yes.”
They all nodded. Hip Hop Hipster continued, “Yep. Seamus. He worked with Do Right. He ran into me and Do Right shooting some footage over in Dollar Hill. We got to talking about politicians and corruption and conspiracy theories and shit. He asked if either of us would be interested in working with him on a documentary. I was working on a thing at the time, but Do Right jumped on it. They been working on it for about a month since then.”
Sameer scribbled notes in a leather journal he had remembered to bring with him this time. “Do you know what it was about?”
They all shook their heads. Lanky Hipster chimed in, “He never said. I guess we figured it had something to do with crooked politicians, based on our first conversation. And they spent a lot of time over in Dollar Hill. They went down there looking for Booker one time.” The other two nodded and agreed.
Sameer’s head shot up. “Yes. Booker. I’ve heard his name before. Do you know why? Or where I can find him?”
Lanky Hipster cocked his head. “We’ve been knowing Booker for a long time. Used him in shots from time to time. He’s a guy with a lot of stories. He told one about saving a girl from being choked out by a judge or a senator or some kind of crazy shit. Your husband came and had coffee with us one day. Booker came up, and he got super interested in his story. He asked Do Right to help him find Booker.”
White Guilt nodded in remembrance. “Last time I saw him, Booker had moved into a homeless camp in Old Town. The old Parker Building down there. It’s run down and boarded up. Homeless kind of took it over as a squatter camp. Booker is supposed to be there.”
Chapter 15
Cary fought with the stick shift, grinding her way out of the parking lot as Marlowe laughed at her in the rearview. Remembering how to drive a standard kept her distracted from the suspicion eating her insides like a cancer. She hadn’t wondered why Marlowe showed up at the Dollar General at four in the morning. Running for her life left little room for ponderance. But driving gave her time. And she spent the luxury of time wondering if she could trust anyone left alive.
Of course, passing two cops pushed all of her ponderings out of her head. Even if the farmer didn’t report the truck stolen yet, the decrepit clunker likely boasted expired tags and a broken taillight. She would be pulled over within the hour.
The roads were getting more familiar. Cary drove with muscle memory, taking the path she took a hundred times—before dates and after Sunday brunches and at the end of long workdays—toward Johnna’s house. She got within a block before waking up from road hypnosis and comprehending what a bad idea it was. Johnna lived with her grandmother, who knew Cary, but who knows how the old lady would react to all this. Cary wheeled the truck into a car wash and parked in one of the stables, concealed from view.
Whether he could be trusted or not, Marlowe wasn’t wrong. They ran out of options somewhere between the diner and the woods. If he really went to look for the “other” Cary Trubody, then she needed to do her part.
She pulled out the old man’s iPhone and scrolled through his handful of apps looking for Google. “Of course,” she muttered to herself. “Why do all old people use Safari?” She opened it up and searched for the chief of police.
The first result showed a fifty-ish, salt-and-pepper-headed white guy named Ken Webster. He sported a mustache and looked a little like a Tom Selleck body double. Cary stared at his picture for several minutes, trying to get a read. Maybe the episode of Blue Bloods her mom made her sit through influenced her thinking, but her gut told her he wasn’t a bad guy. His eyes looked trustworthy.
She next searched Ken Webster AND address. Unsurprisingly, the chief of police kept his home address hard to find. Fair enough. Ken Webster AND appearances.
Yahtzee. Ken Webster would be attending some gala that night.
The gala would be hosted by a local high school—a celebration of some partnership between the school and the police force. Cary looked down at her filthy, tattered jeans and T-shirt. Her “I’m a lesbian” army-green field jacket. She talked into her lap, “Betting this is not what they mean by semi-formal.” But “open to the public” buoyed her spirits. One step at a time. She could spend the next few hours figuring out the next one. For now, she needed sleep. A quick nap under the cover of the car wash cubicle. Cary laid her head back and drifted off in seconds.
When she woke up, the disorienting feeling of regaining consciousness in unfamiliar surroundings made her jump alert. The cab of the truck turned into a disco. Red and blue lights oscillated on both sides of her. Confusion beat out reason, and the lights were an annoyance—a mystery. The stickiness of sleep peeled off of her and Cary saw in a convex mirror above the car wash stalls what caused the lights. Two cop cars had pulled over a motorcycle. They were questioning the guy. One of the cop cars was pulled up next to the front of her truck.
Cary instinctively grabbed at the keys but stopped. The cop’s front bumper jutted out in front of her enough to keep her pinned in. So she opened her door and stalled again, looking behind her. The cubicle opened to an alley leading to a main road. Cary held her door open and listened. She could hear the cops asking the man if he had been drinking, telling him to have a seat. Radio static crackled as one of them called in to check something about the motorcycle driver. A raspy female voice interrupted the cop by calling out in a bored tone, “Be on the lookout for a 70s model Chevrolet flatbed truck, green with white stripe. Driver is a black male, possibly accompanied by a white female. Driver is armed.”
Cary sighed, “Well, balls.” She eased out of the door and crept backwards toward the alley. She put on Marlowe’s Dodgers cap and popped her jacket collar. When she hit the alley, she broke into what felt like a stroll—hands in pockets, head down, casual. Other than the car wash, this was a residential area for the most part. She stifled all tact and restraint on her walk toward Johnna’s grandmother’s house.
Johnna and her grandmother lived in a baby blue two-story in the curve of a quiet street. Ms. Langley always hung an elaborate wreath—one for any season—on the navy blue door. Nanna Langley was sweet lady. She baked and wore house coats she sewed herself and did all the things grandmothers are supposed to do. At any given moment, she would be in her recliner watching some screaming preacher on television. However, she was also about the biggest liberal anyone ever met. She supporte
d Johnna’s relationship with Cary when no one else knew about it.
Cary pulled off her cap, shoving it in a pocket, and tapped on the door loud enough to be heard over a TV. It took three times, but Ms. Langley finally came to the door. She flipped a deadbolt and opened it right up—a trusting habit for which Johnna always scolded her. Ms. Langley squinted through her little, round grandmother glasses. Cary waved. “Hey, Ms. Langley. It’s me. Cary.”
Ms. Langley flapped her hands out. “Oh, Cary, honey. Come in here.” She pulled Cary through the door in a half-hug. “I haven’t been able to reach Johnna, sweetie. Is she with you?”
Cary swallowed. “Can we go sit down, Ms. Langley?”
The old woman offered her a cup of coffee, which Cary accepted. Even with an hour nap, Cary was frazzled and bucking up her eyelids with a finger every few minutes.
As Ms. Langley left for the coffee, Cary thought about what she planned to do. How could any of this be explained? When the coffee came, they sat and sipped at it for a moment, Ms. Langley blathering about her morning. Cary interrupted her. “Ms. Langley, I need to talk to you about Johnna.”
Ms. Langley wrinkled her face into a worry like Cary had never seen. “Do you think she’s okay, honey?”
Cary opened her mouth and stopped. She looked down at her coffee. “Yeah. Yes, ma’am. I’m,” she rubbed at an eye, “I’m sure she is.”
Ms. Langley let herself smile. “Have you talked to her?”
Cary nodded. “Yes. I have. It’s why I’m here. She, um, she needed me to pick up a dress for her. Do you mind if I,” she motioned upstairs.
“Of course. Of course, dear. Go right ahead.”
Cary thanked her and started up, trying not to think about Ms. Langley’s parting plea of “Please have her call me.”
Johnna’s room was small. A child’s room. Johnna grew up in the room and changed few things over the span of two decades. Before they started dating, Johnna spent a couple of years in a relationship with a guy. The sexy, hip aspiring filmmaker, in the end, panned out to be more interested in his YouTube following than in Johnna.
They had been friends, all three of them. Cary liked the guy fine. They would text back and forth about movies every now and then. But when Cary and Johnna admitted to him they were in love, everything sort of fell apart.
He took it harder than expected. Kicked Johnna out, which left her no choice but to move back to her grandmother’s. Nanna Langley kept her room as a shrine to her sweet Johnna. When she moved back, Johnna left most of the band posters up for nostalgia.
Cary walked over to the bed and picked up a framed photo of the two of them. The ex-boyfriend took it at a film festival. Cary smiled thinking about how they ditched him at some art house screening to go catch a James Bond movie. He got so pissed. Called them tasteless. Johnna leaned into Cary’s ear and whispered, “I think you taste wonderful.” Cary turned bright red from a mixture of embarrassment and fear at being discovered. Everything felt so dangerous and exciting during that time. Dangerous had such a different meaning to her then.
She went to Johnna’s closet and flipped through dresses. She recalled one being too big for Johnna. She kept meaning to get her grandmother to take it in, but Cary bet on her not following through. She found it shoved to the back. Simple. Black. She held it up against her and found her theory to be correct. It might be a touch tight, but it would work.
As she turned, she noticed, for the first time, the drawers. Johnna’s drawers were all open, with clothing spilling out. She walked gently around the room and took it in. Things were moved around—strewn about. The laptop lay open and left on. Johnna might be free-spirited, but no one would ever accuse her of being sloppy. In fact, she obsessed about it at times. She could be a neat freak. She assigned everything a place, and things belonged in their place. Someone searched this room.
Cary draped the dress over her arm and hurried down the stairs. She started, “Ms. Langley, has anyone—”
She came upon Ms. Langley standing by an old-fashioned phone table, watching out a window. Their eyes met, and they both looked down at the phone. A little white card sat next to it. They locked eyes again as Cary walked over and picked up the card—a business card for a police detective named Mark Thompson. Cary held it up in front of Ms. Langley. “Did you call him? Does he know I’m here?”
Ms. Langley looked flustered. She stuttered out, “I—I—I…honey they…he wants to find her like we do.”
Cary dropped the card and swore. She ran for the door, but a car already pulled up and parked at the curb. Cary spun and looked pleadingly at Ms. Langley. The old woman looked from Cary to the car and back. Tears welled up in her eyes. She shook her head subtly in a form of silent apology and shot a glance to the back door. Cary followed the look and sprinted.
She burst through the door in a dead run. She scanned wildly for an escape route. A gate in the corner of the yard led to a neighbor’s yard. Cary followed the path into the next yard, continuing to search. A door opened to an attached garage. She clambered through it and slid down next to a car. Cary panted and clutched the dress against her. She breathed it in, hoping for a scent of Johnna to calm her.
Cary reached up for a door handle. The backseat driver’s side door was unlocked. Cary climbed in, lying in the floorboard and pulling at the door until the stifled click told her the latch had caught. On the far side of the car, giggling voices bounced out a door from the house. Two teenage girls talked in likes and reallys about something nonsensical. They flitted into the car on either side of the front seat. As the passenger reached to buckle her seatbelt, she caught sight of Cary and jumped. Both girls swiveled and stared at her with shocked fear.
Cary pulled out several hundred dollar bills. “Please. I’m not a bad person. I’m not going to hurt you. Please.” She held the money up to confused glares. “There’s a man. He wants to hurt me. Please.” She waved the money again. “Please.”
The two girls shared a look commemorating a hundred moments. Moments of men who wanted to hurt them. The passenger snatched the money and nodded to the driver, who started the car.
A beat later, Detective Mark Thompson in his cheap suit stood at the driver’s side window tapping on it with a large ringed finger. The girl jumped again and rolled down her window. The detective sulked at her. “Has a woman come through here?”
The driver froze, but the passenger, once again, leaned across her. “Yes, sir. She scared the shit out of us.” She pointed. “She ran through here and headed out onto the road.”
Chapter 16
Jonathan Epstein loved few things in this world. He loved zippered pullovers. They felt like wearing a hug, and they were not too unflattering to his rather large belly. He loved steak sandwiches from a diner around the block from his office, and street tacos out of a truck across from the diner. Thus the big belly. And he loved to golf. More than anything, he loved to golf.
Bright Hudson claimed few friends. And Jonathan Epstein most certainly did not make the cut. They barely liked each other. But in her divorce, Bright demanded her ex-husband give her the membership to the most exclusive country club in the city. Among other amenities, the club boasted a world-class golf course, for which Bright found absolutely zero use. So her membership went straight to Jonathan, and he relished it, playing at least twice a week. In exchange, anytime she wanted, Bright got to demand a meeting for a cup of coffee. They would always meet in the same spot: the Starbucks across from the coroner’s office, where Jonathan worked.
Bright sat at a table in the back in a quiet spot close to the bathroom. When Jonathan came in, two coffees sat waiting. She took a sip from hers as he sat down. “Who’s doing the autopsy?”
Jonathan sighed into the chair across from her. “Not me. I listened in, but it’s early. I’m not sure how much I can tell you.”
Bright shrugged. “Anything will help.”
Jonathan took a pull from his coffee. “Well, cause of death is a weird one. Looks like she got c
hoked by hand. The killer might have thought it did the trick. But some time later, she got roughed up a bit—punched in the face, at least. Then stabbed in the chest with, most likely, the screwdriver you found in her shoe. And for a final death blow, she got her throat crushed. Maybe by foot…brick? Something heavy.”
“In that order?”
Jonathan scrunched his face up. “Probably.”
Bright nodded. “Anything else?”
“She’s missing a fingernail. Defensive. The whole nail—ripped completely off.”
Bright shook her head. “Nobody found a fingernail. Was she moved?”
Jonathan cocked his head. “Could be. The trunk seemed too clean. Struck me as odd. She did not bleed in it, scratch it up, kick out a light. Nothing. But she wasn’t bound. And she left enough blood at the scene to suggest the stabbing happened there.”
“Guy or girl?”
“Hands that strangled her are male. They’re big. Strong.”
Bright chewed at her coffee cup, in thought.
Jonathan leaned across the table to get her attention. “That’s all I got.”
Bright waved him off, dismissing him. Jonathan stood and gladly started away, leaving Bright to sit and contemplate. He stopped at the counter to drop a dollar in the tip jar and looked back at Bright. “Oh yeah. The screwdriver.”
Bright looked up and raised her eyebrows.
Jonathan took a step back toward the table. “Yeah. Very weird.”
“How so?”
“Well, it comes from a set, but a tool kit makes no sense in that trunk. There were no other tools, no clutter, no road kit or anything. The screwdriver doesn’t fit.”
Bright nodded. “Yeah. But it could’ve come from anywhere, right?”
Jonathan shrugged. “It could. Yes. The thing is…I know it came from a set. The kind you keep in the trunk with road flares and shit. I own one just like it.”
Bright frowned. “You own a screwdriver exactly like the one we found in the creek?”