Die Job (26 page)

When I walked out the door, the wind flung a plastic grocery bag at me. I noticed Rachel waiting for me near the slot where her pink scooter was parked. “I thought you were, like, never coming out,” she said.

“I’m glad you waited.” I hugged her. “Want to get some ice cream?”

“Mom wants me to pick up some ice and fill our coolers. You know, in case we lose power tomorrow.”

“I’ll drive you.”

“I was hoping you’d say that. I didn’t know how I was going to balance, like, forty pounds of ice on my scooter.”

I laughed and drove her to a convenience store. Only one soggy bag of ice lay in the bottom of the silver insulated hut outside the store. We bought it and moved on to the Winn-Dixie, where they were completely out of ice.

“People buy up ice before a hurricane,” the helpful clerk explained the obvious, “for if the power goes out. Otherwise, you’ve got to throw out a lot of spoilt food if Georgia Power don’t get the electricity back up quick enough. I lost a shitload of venison steaks last time.”

Barely pausing to commiserate with the clerk, who seemed inclined to list every food item he’d lost after the last hurricane, we hustled back to the parking lot. “I’ve got an idea,” I told Rachel, and pointed the car toward Magnolia House, Vonda’s B&B. They had a commercial ice making machine and I was sure she’d give us enough ice to fill Rachel’s cooler.

“Have you found anything out?” Rachel asked diffidently as we waited at a red light. “About Braden’s murderer, I mean?”

Keeping my eyes on the traffic even though it was abnormally light, I told her about some of the conversations I’d had.

“I’ve met Braden’s cousin,” Rachel volunteered when I told her about finding Catelyn at the McCullerses’ house. “She’s really nice. She’s majoring in psychology because she wants to help teens with depression and addiction problems. She got all interested in that when she visited Braden at Sandy Point.”

“Sandy Point? Is that—?”

“It’s the place he went to for depression counseling and stuff when he was, like, thirteen. He said it saved his life. He met with doctors and therapists and had ‘group’ and did a lot of stuff outdoors like hiking and fishing in the lake. I guess he was there for three or four months.”

I hit the brakes and the car behind me honked before swerving around the Fiesta. I stared at Rachel. “Sandy Point is a hospital sort of place? It’s not a summer camp?”

She shook her head. “No. Sandy Point Residential Intervention Center. It’s a place for kids and teens with depression or addictions or eating disorders and stuff. Braden told me it cost his folks over a hundred thousand a month to keep him there.”

The unbelievable number startled me, but I let it go. I was more interested in figuring out why Mark Crenshaw had been wearing a Sandy Point tee shirt and looking very much at home on what had to be the Sandy Point campus in the photo on the McCullerses’ refrigerator.

MY BRAIN BUZZING, I DROPPED RACHEL OFF AT HER scooter after we heisted some ice from Vonda and loaded it into coolers at Rachel’s house. Still parked in the high school lot, I dialed Agent Dillon’s number and told him that Mark Crenshaw had been in a mental health facility with Braden McCullers.

“That’s potentially interesting,” he said when I finished. “How do you know this?”

I explained, and asked, “Can you find out if Mark was really there? And what he went there for?”

“Maybe,” Dillon said. “Health records—especially mental health records—are notoriously hard to get. And I don’t know that we have probable cause to persuade a judge to issue a subpoena for the records. We don’t know, after all, that there’s any tie between the Crenshaw kid’s stay at Sandy Point and Braden McCullers’ murder.”

“That’s true,” I admitted, feeling a bit deflated, “but it seems strange he wouldn’t have mentioned it.”

“No, it doesn’t. It may be cool for adults to talk about being in therapy and paying their therapists a hundred bucks an hour to ‘analyze’ them, but I’m darned sure a high schooler would think it was as uncool as a pocket protector and a Barbie lunchbox.”

“I had one of those.” I’d taken the lunchbox to school every day in first and second grade, gazing at Barbie in her pink ruffled evening gown as I ate my PB&J and drank the milk Mom always put in the little thermos that came with the lunchbox.

“Mine was Batman.”

“Of course it was.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Dillon’s voice was half suspicious, half amused.

“You just seem like a superhero kind of guy,” I said.

“Just as long as you don’t think I hang by my heels from the ceiling and go hunting at nightfall.”

I laughed and hung up after he thanked me for the information and told me he’d follow up. Feeling pretty darn good about having discovered something that might actually help the police, I headed for home. My good feeling evaporated on the way as I realized that the information might implicate Mark in Braden’s death.

I noticed a pickup truck in Mrs. Jones’s driveway as I pulled to the curb, but I didn’t pay it much attention. My landlady had more relatives than your average rabbit—nieces and nephews and great-nieces and great-nephews and first- and second-removed whatevers—and I couldn’t possibly keep track of their vehicles. Probably just someone helping her batten down the hatches before Horatio hit. Someone
moved on her veranda and I waved as I swung the car door shut.

As I started toward my carriage house, heavy footsteps sounded on the stairs leading down from Mrs. Jones’s veranda. I turned, ready to smile and exchange greetings, to see Lonnie Farber hurrying toward me, leather jacket open over a black tee shirt and distressed blue jeans. I stood still, unable to decide if it would be smarter to try and make it into my apartment or confront him out here. I doubted I could unlock the apartment, get inside, and rebolt it before he caught me up, so I stood my ground, looking around to see if any neighbors were working in their yards or pushing strollers down the walk. I couldn’t spot a single soul on the entire block.

“Miss Terhune. I’ve been waiting for you. Don’t you live there?” He nodded at Mrs. Jones’s house, puzzlement creasing his smooth brow. He stopped about a yard from me, feet planted a bit more than hip width, big receiver’s hands hanging at his sides. I didn’t see a gun. “You don’t gotta worry about me,” he said, correctly interpreting my look. “I’m not carrying.”

“What do you want?”

I couldn’t read his face as he stared down at the foot he was scuffing in a dry patch on the lawn. The black and silver training shoes he wore probably cost more than my monthly groceries. “My aunt Retta says I need to apologize to you and Miss Althea, for scaring you the other day. Even though you scared the crap outta me.”

His version of an apology sounded like my four-year-old nephew’s: “I’m sorry, but it was your fault.” Still, he didn’t look threatening and I felt the tension ease out of my shoulders.

“We didn’t mean to scare you,” I said. “We just wanted to talk to you about Braden and that night at Rothmere. Why did you take off like that?”

“I thought you were someone else,” he mumbled. “Someone I been doin’ some business with.”

“Hm. I guess you haven’t been out selling Girl Scout cookies.”

“I haven’t been selling anything,” Lonnie said swiftly.

Ye gods. Did he think I’d just accused him of dealing drugs? Once the thought lodged in my brain, it refused to go away. I hoped for Loretta’s sake, and Lonnie’s, that he wasn’t mixed up with drug dealers. “So, that night at Rothmere, what was the bit with the ghost costume all about?”

Lonnie flashed a grin. “It wasn’t
about
nothing. It was just for kicks. You’re pretty fast for an old chick. You almost caught me before I went out the window.”

His praise left me underwhelmed. “And the fireworks? Were those meant as a distraction so that someone could push Braden McCullers down the stairs?”

“Shit, no!” Lonnie’s wide nostrils flared with alarm. “Braden was my man. I wouldn’t set him up.”

“Really? I heard you were pissed at him for testifying against your brother.”

“We worked that out,” Lonnie said, but his eyes didn’t meet mine.

“You beat him up, you mean.”

“Shit, lady, he gave as good as he got.” Lonnie scowled. “We were cool.”

“So you’re okay with Braden getting your brother thrown in prison.”

“Juvie. Look, Randall’s got his issues, you know?”

I didn’t want to hear about Randall’s issues and Lonnie’s insistence
that he wasn’t mad at Braden rang true. “So what about the fireworks?”

“The fireworks were just for fun, for livening up the party. Sittin’ around all night waiting for a ghost to show up didn’t sound like much of a party, you know? So me and some of the others made plans, if you know what I mean.”

“Who else? What kind of plans?”

Lonnie shrugged. “Well, someone mighta brought some beer, and maybe there was some weed—but I don’t touch that shit—and a coupla other kids brought sheets, although they chickened out of doing their Cyril impressions, I guess.”

My heartbeat quickened and I took half a step toward him. “Who did, Lonnie? Who else had a ghost costume?”

He shrugged. “Ari Solomon and Crenshaw did, for sure, and maybe some others. It was s’posed to be a contest—see who could get the biggest reaction, scare the most
people. But the way we was all split up, it was hard to get an audience together, you know? But Tyler and me, we got you all going, didn’t we?” He smiled, clearly pleased with himself.

I bit down on my lip to keep from gasping at the news that Mark had taken a sheet with him to Rothmere. “How did you smuggle in all this beer and stuff?” I asked.

“Backpacks,” Lonnie said, looking at me like I was a moron. A black sedan cruised past and Lonnie shot it a glance. He shuffled his big feet. “Look, I gotta be hitting the road.”

“Are you evacuating?”

A funny look came over his face. “You could say that. I’m evacuating permanently.”

“You’re leaving town?”

“Yeah. Aunt Retta thinks it’s smarter for me to move on, to get
away from my . . . associates.” Fear flickered across his face at the mere thought of his business partners. “I’m going to live with my Aunt Cora. She’s a parole officer in Portland. Aunt Retta says that the path I’m taking, I’m gonna have me a parole officer before long, so I might as well live with one.”

“What about football?” I asked. “Your scholarship chances?”

He shrugged strongly muscled shoulders. “Aunt Retta says it wouldn’t hurt me none to repeat my junior year, so I’ll have two years to play in Portland. The scouts’ll find me. Maybe I’ll play for Oregon, instead of Georgia.” His faith in his football prowess was so complete that he took it as a given he’d get recruited by an NCAA Division I program. I didn’t think I’d ever had that much confidence in any of my abilities.

“I hope it works out for you,” I said, offering my hand.

After a moment’s hesitation, he shook it, swallowing it in his callused hand. “Can you tell Miss Althea I’m sorry?” The hint of nervousness in his eyes told me he found Althea almost as intimidating as the people he was leaving town to avoid.

“Sure thing.”

“And your neighbor, for the pumpkin?” He nodded toward Mrs. Jones’s veranda. “I thought you lived there.”

“And you thought I’d enjoy pumpkin guts exploded all over?”

A shadow of the cocky smile appeared on his face. “My homeys thought you were too nosy, you know? Talkin’ ‘bout the cops, an’ all. And that trick with the toilet bowl cleaner and tinfoil is
bitchin’
.”

“You almost gave her a heart attack.”

Lonnie had apparently exhausted his supply of apologies. “You’ll let Aunt Retta know I came by?”

I nodded. “Good luck, Lonnie.”

His long, athletic stride carried him to the red pickup in just a few steps. Gunning the engine, he reversed down the driveway and sped west toward I-95. He had a long road in front of him, and I wasn’t just thinking about the interstate.

Even before the pickup was out of sight, my mind was sorting out what Lonnie had told me. Mark Crenshaw had taken a ghost costume to Rothmere. On the face of it, it looked like Braden’s best friend had pushed him down the stairs. But why? And how? Lindsay said she and Mark had been together the entire evening. It took only a nanosecond for me to realize that Lindsay would lie for Mark. Okay, so that left why. Of course, Ari Solomon had a sheet with her, too, and there might’ve been others Lonnie didn’t know about. I hadn’t come across any hint of motive for Ari to want to kill Braden. Her mother, however . . . Could Tasha have taken Ari’s ghost costume, snuck from the kitchen to the main house, and pushed Braden? Would Ari lie to the police for her mom? Very possibly. Teen girls would either lie for their moms or try to frame them, depending on how their hormones were acting up. I’d felt both ways about my mom at various times between twelve and sixteen. But how would Dr. Solomon have worked the timing, showing up on the landing just as Rachel left Braden alone? I growled with frustration.

The wind rattled the trash cans behind Mrs. Jones’s house and I walked in that direction as I thought, planning to stow them in the garage before Horatio hit. Hurricane winds could fling garbage cans around like pebbles, hurling them through windows or bowling them down streets to damage cars. Grabbing their handles, I dragged them toward the garage. Mrs. Jones didn’t have a car anymore—she’d quit driving a couple of years back, much to the relief of pedestrians
who’d thought they’d be safe on the sidewalk—and the garage housed only a mower, some tools, and plastic tubs full of stuff Mrs. Jones couldn’t bring herself to give away or trash. Stowing the cans, I wondered if Braden had suspected Mark’s dad was abusing him and his mother. Maybe he’d even witnessed a punch or a beating.