Lie Still (30 page)

“You know him? He’s a friend?”

“No, not a friend. I can’t remember his name, but I’m sure I could find it. I interviewed him after the murder. He was in the house of assholes. One of Pierce Martin’s fraternity brothers. He stuck out. The rest of those preppy faces are a blur. But he was particularly helpful. And there was that puny nose. He gave me the names of several of the girls Pierce dated. Said he’d already given the names to the cops. What exactly did he say he wanted with you?”

“He demanded to know what I told the police. It was all in the guise of saving his—your—reputation as a journalist.”

Brad spoke thoughtfully. “I’m sure I gave him my card in case he remembered anything else. I do that with every interview.”

“So?”

“I’m obviously curious about his motive for impersonating me. I don’t mind giving you his name. I have to find it in my
notes, though. In the meantime …” He pulled out his BlackBerry. “Here it is. Renata Tadynski.” He picked up the reporter’s notebook and scribbled in it, then ripped off the sheet.

Renata
, I thought.
Renata. Rosary Girl
.

A crack of angry-God thunder resounded through the concrete ceiling and then hail, like a thousand tennis balls, pelted the roof. It was a little too much on cue.

“You’re giving me one of the names,” I said.

“Yep. And a phone number. She said it was OK. That at least gives you a start.”

“You talked to her? When?”

Sweat was rolling from my armpits down my sides. I notched the air conditioner up all the way. Even rain in this state didn’t bring relief from the heat. But, of course, that wasn’t why I was sweating.

“We still talk from time to time. She was the only one of you girls to return my phone call back then. She dropped out of school shortly afterward. Like you.”

“Why?” I asked. “I mean, why did she leave Windsor?”

“I presume for the same reason you did. She was … traumatized.”

“Still,” I said slowly, “I don’t understand why you’d keep in touch.”

“You don’t believe me. Even though I’m sitting in your damn car about to miss my plane.” He glanced at his watch. “You know, there’s still no good reason I should believe
you
. Did you kill Pierce Martin thirteen years ago? Shoot twice in the chest, five times in the balls, and run like hell?”

My left hand squeezed into a tight fist.

“Yeah, you should probably punch me. And since you were going to do that with your left hand, you’re officially eliminated.” Sarcastic. “The killer was right-handed. Everything I just told you—these weren’t details released to the press. I found out
with an FOI request three years ago. It made the crime look very personal to the cops.”

“Why were you filing FOI requests three years ago? Why didn’t you tell me that from the start? I don’t understand why you’re still close to this. You can find your old notes even though you probably live in a New York City apartment with storage the size of a cereal box. You have Rosary Gi—Renata’s number in your BlackBerry.”

He turned purposefully toward me. My hand groped again for the door handle.

“Emily, relax. I’m just reaching for my briefcase in the backseat. See? As for your questions … what can I say? It’s personal. I don’t like to let a story go until I’m sure.”

“Sure about what?”

“That it’s finished.”

T
he air-conditioning in my Volvo breathed such a deep sigh of relief when Brad took off through the parking lot to catch his plane that it stopped breathing entirely. I turned the keys in the ignition. Not a pretty sound.

I’d overheated the stupid car by sitting here with the air-conditioning on frigid for fifteen minutes. The garage was like a sauna set up inside a gas stove. I repeatedly punched the button to roll down the window. Nope.

I opened the door, got out, slammed it, and propped myself against the car. What was I going to do now? How would I explain this to Mike? My cell phone vibrated in my pocket. I looked at the screen.

Mike. Of course.

“Hey, babe, I hear Luke Cummings is a free man.” His voice sounded strained.

“Yes. In a week.”

“That’s a huge relief, right? A door closed.” He didn’t reprimand me for not calling and telling him right away, which was odd. I was busy manufacturing an excuse in my head about why not when he spoke again.

“We found Caroline.” It was like Mike to be abrupt, for so few words to say so much. “I hate telling you on the phone. But I wanted to hear your voice, to know you’re safe at home.”

Home. He thinks I’m home
.

A car’s brakes screeched on the ramp above me, and I jerked my neck around. I was grasping that the situation on the other end of the line wasn’t good. I reminded myself that I had to work harder in this stifling garage to breathe.

“Emily, she’s dead. It’s ugly. I’ve got every cop on this. Otherwise, I’d send a car over to the house right now.”

My gut clenched. Caroline, dead.
Ugly
. I didn’t want to know. Not now, not in this shadowy garage with hail pounding so violently on the roof that I could barely hear Mike, much less think.

“It’s OK. I understand.” It was a ridiculous thing to say. I fought off terror and every question banging in my head. I needed to get the hell out of there, on my own. To make sure that my husband never knew I was dumb enough to meet a stranger, to risk my life and our baby’s while a freak was roaming free. I yanked open the car door to grab my purse and was slapped in the face with the musky smell Brad left behind. It almost made me lose my breakfast. I stepped back out quickly, bending over to recover.

“You don’t sound right,” Mike said. “You’ve got the security system turned on, right? All the doors locked?”

“Yes.” The truth.

“Em, I want you to understand that this is serious. Caroline’s body was discovered buried at the far end of her property, around eleven this morning. The FBI is calling in a forensic specialist from Dallas. My guys had been back over that area yesterday and
swear they saw nothing. A neighbor found her when her Doberman broke away on their morning walk and set off across Caroline’s yard. She found the dog whining under a tree.” He hesitated. “So the guy might still be nearby.”

The baby kicked, hard. “Don’t worry,” I forced out. “I’ll keep the doors locked.”

I imagined my Facebook profile picture flashed across a TV screen. The one in the borderline tank top. Stupid choice, but a happy day.

He was here, somewhere in the angled shadows of this garage. My stalker. Caroline’s. It didn’t matter. I’d be another cliché. A pretty girl gone missing in a dark airport garage. I only say pretty because all missing girls are pretty, right? I started walking shakily toward a group of travelers who appeared as if summoned by my prayers, dragging bags and a few errant children.

I can handle this
.

Safety in numbers. Now, there was a cliché.

Mike wouldn’t stop talking.

“Emily, whoever did this … Caroline was pretty messed up. It was personal. The killer stuck a cross in the ground. Two sticks. The neighbor figured it was a bad job of burying a pet. She called animal control first. By the time they arrived, her dog had done a little digging.”

Elegant, bewitching Caroline, dug up by a dog
.

“Let me check the security system again to be sure,” I said. “I’ll call you back.”

Such a good little liar.

I walked out into the hail. It felt like God was shooting bullets from the sky.

L
eticia Abigail Lee Dunn whipped her monster black Escalade into Terminal B’s drop-off zone for the handicapped and slammed on the brakes.

It is a sign of how much God enjoys a good joke that Letty was the person I picked to come to the rescue. I had my reasons, of course, and number one was that I needed to get home before Mike found out I wasn’t.

I tried other alternatives. Misty didn’t pick up. Twelve out of twelve tow truck places said it would be ten to twenty-four hours before anyone could show up. The airport cabbies were reluctant to haul me all the way to Clairmont when they could make good dough with short hops in the rain. The rental car places in the terminal were booked solid unless I wanted to rent a red Ferrari for $900 a day.

Which reluctantly led me to Letty Dunn, now popping out of her vehicle in a lime velour tracksuit faster than the law of physics
would say is possible. The rain pelted her frizzy head until she darted under the awning and wrapped me tight in pillowy arms like I was a child who had come back to Jesus. When she finally pulled away, her eyes were bloodshot. She held a wad of wet tissues in her hand.

“I totally,
totally
accept your apology for the other night. I always told the pageant girls that it’s the crises that pull us together.” She honked into her Kleenex. “It’s terrible, about Caroline, isn’t it? I can’t believe she’s gone. She was my
friend
.” Her shoulders heaved, while passengers rerouted themselves around her on the wet sidewalk like she was just another part of the airport obstacle course.

Surely this wasn’t pretend. Letty appeared to be demonstrating genuine grief. “Letty, it’s OK.” I awkwardly rubbed her shoulder. “You knew her for a long time. It has to be an enormous shock. We should go, though. I think you’re about to get ticketed.” A security cop was determinedly wending his way toward the Escalade.

“I can’t drive this thing of Harry’s,” she wailed. “It nearly killed me. My car’s in the shop.”

“No problem.” I pried the keys out of her hand, which was slick with a substance that I hoped wasn’t born in her nose, and pushed her toward the passenger door.

She sniffed loudly. “It was a lot to ask me to come get you while I’m mourning the tragic murder of my best friend.”

“Yes, it certainly was. I owe you a big one.”

Letty seemed to be turning this idea over in her mind as I switched on the ignition. The car’s friendly glowing readout confirmed that it was 3:33 p.m. and 97 degrees. Letty had agreed to come, but only if I’d wait three hours for her to get her hair highlighted. I pulled out, pretending not to see the security guard stepping off the curb and shouting at us to roll down our window. That was before Letty agreeably rolled down the window
and shot him the finger. I stepped on the gas and took the first curve a little fast.

“Didn’t you notice I’ve lost weight?”

I barely nodded. I was back in the airport circle of hell, while the windshield wipers slashed violently at the rain. North or south exit?

Letty grabbed the wheel and wrenched us into the right lane. “North, honey, north.” I gasped, whipping the wheel back a little before we hopped a curb. Letty seemed not to notice.

“I’m trying this diet where you can eat all the bananas, hot dogs, and boiled eggs you want, but that’s it. Nothing else but water. I’ve lost seven pounds in four days. I’m getting a little sick of it. I gag if I eat more than six eggs and three or four hot dogs at a time. But throwing up wouldn’t be a bad deal, either. Maybe that’s the secret part of the diet.”

“Great.” I tried not to imagine those items working either way through her intestinal system. “Please don’t touch the wheel, OK?”

“You haven’t asked about Caroline,” she said accusatorily.

I sucked in a breath and pictured myself soaking in a hot bath in exactly one hour, protected by a house full of laser beams.

“It’s terrible,” I agreed. “I can barely think about it, much less talk about it.”

“The club’s gettin’ itchy. Some people are saying it was the midget man at the front gate, but I bet it was that tramp of a maid. She left town. After all Caroline has done for her. She’s right at the top of the suspect pool if you ask me. Or Jenny. Caroline’s had the goods on her since sixth grade. Jenny is not a role model for the Republican Party. But Jenny’d have to rent some muscle to get Caroline out of that window. Maybe the five volunteer firemen in town she’s screwed.”

“Maria’s gone?” I was getting better at pinpointing which of Letty’s rambling sentences to pay attention to.

“Yep, I heard from one of my friends who borrows her on Wednesdays that she and her family cleaned out their little Boon Hill shanty and took off. Suspicious, huh? Caroline’s house is neat as a pin, but Lord only knows what Maria took with her. I tried to get in to do an inventory but a cop your husband has parked at the door wouldn’t let me past the crime tape.”
So how does she know of its tidy condition?
I mentally high-fived Maria’s escape. One less needy, angry person with hidden motives for me to deal with.

“Toll-tag lane!” Letty’s voice sang out as her hand slung the wheel again, swerving us into the far right lane.

The driver behind us laid on his horn. My heart thumped, out of control.
Not good for Baby, not good for Baby
.

“See, Harry’s got this electronic doo-dah on his visor. We don’t have to pay.
Look
.”

I nodded without looking and breathed in deep from my toes. The air was suddenly infused with the smell of pineapple. Letty was digging a finger into a small pot designed in the shape of a coconut and animatedly smearing on lip gloss. This did not slow her down from talking in the slightest. “They won’t release her body until after the autopsy. She was
naked
. Did you know that? Somebody carved her up like a turkey. It makes me scared to go out and scared to stay in. Ever since she went missing, I’ve had my son Reggie’s baseball bat at the door and this gun in my purse at all times.”