Black Water Tales: The Secret Keepers (17 page)

U
nder the cover of thick sweaters, people bustled up and down Main Street. Regina scrutinized the storefronts, observing the mannequins inside, their dull eyes helplessly watching the lively movements of the people just on the other side of the glass. Regina looked at the unending darkness that lurked just behind the life-size dolls and she wondered. That wonder turned quickly to thought, and it turned again until she was in a trancelike state of contemplation fixated on what was just beyond the threshold of darkness.

The Coffee House was only a couple of blocks from the police station in an area of Black Water that everyone referred to as Middleton. It was the perfect hideaway for Barron and her to shelter themselves against the stinging gusts of cool wind with a blazing fireplace. The brick building had sat in this spot for as long as Regina could remember, but during her childhood, coffee was just a routine part of any restaurant menu and had not carried enough importance to have its own trendy building. The place that was now the Coffee House in simpler times had been a gas station. The aroma of burnt coffee and an obnoxious sense of intellectual superiority greeted them as they entered.

“Grab a seat and I will get us something. Let me guess. Large coffee, three creams, four sweeteners, whipped cream on top?” Barron asked her.

“Hmm …” Regina pondered, the description of her high school coffee order, barely able to tame her excitement at the fact that he remembered.

“… And a coffee cake. I left the house without eating breakfast.” She now remembered since her stomach was emitting a sonorous growl. Regina found a small table near the fireplace and allowed herself to relish in the momentary peace that she felt. She looked around at all of the smiling, chattering faces and wished
that her life could be as charmed as theirs appeared, but her life likely appeared the same to them. People always assume that the grass is greener on the other side, and sometimes it is, but who cares about the grass when it’s the house that is important? It’s the house one should be looking at because no matter how green the grass is on the outside and no matter how shiny and clean the panels on the house, it’s what lies beneath that is determinant. What people should have considered was what happened when dusk settled over the lawns and everyone went inside and closed the doors behind them. Despite the ivory paint that disguised the outside of the house, what happened inside of those four walls was not greener, not brighter, not better, just bad.

After her talk with Sheriff Handow, deleterious memories of that night kept trying to creep into her head and she made a conscious effort to chase them out every time. She wondered with whom else Sheriff Handow had spoken and if he had uncovered any new evidence. They would probably never figure out what happened to Lola, and Regina would probably never know the whole story herself.

“Coffee and coffee cake,” Barron announced as he set the plate and mug down in front of her. He jogged back to the counter to grab another porcelain black mug and plate, which he then sat down on the table in front of himself. Regina looked into his smoldering brown eyes and was glad that he had come back.

“I would offer up a toast, but in light of everything I guess we don’t have that much to be happy about right now,” he said, his eyes dulling a bit.

“I don’t know about that.” Regina smiled. “I’m glad that you came back. You’re probably the only thing that is making me feel sane right now.” She placed her hand on top of his and sipped her drink. Barron grinned and made a motion with his finger letting her know that she had a dollop of whipped cream on her nose. Regina rubbed her nose and they both laughed.

“I never stopped thinking about you after we all went off to college. I called your parents a few times and they always said that
they would have you call me, but I never got the call.” He sounded disappointed.

“I’m sorry, Barron. I just couldn’t figure out a way to deal with my grief and I ended up hurting a lot of people in the process. I never meant to hurt you or anyone else for that matter.” Regina shrugged helplessly. “Can you forgive me?” she asked, her mood suddenly as shy as her manner flirty.

“Of course,” he said, leaning into the wooden table, lacing his fingers into hers. Regina’s heart jumped, jolting her brain and she begin to feel guilty about the fact that her first priority should have been her friend’s murder, but here she was initiating some Harlequin romance in a coffee shop. In only a couple of days Black Water and everything in it would be a distant memory once again; she struggled to understand her motivation for even hinting at an attachment and she could not understand his either. Regina settled on the idea that she was just a lonely woman in an awful situation and needed someone to be there for her and he probably needed the same. Quickly, she dismissed any thoughts of a long-term affair and her mind found Lola once again buried far down under her thoughts of this romantic interlude and the distraction must have been written all over her face.

“Go ahead.” He sighed playfully, almost reading her mind.

“I apologize, Barron, it’s just so hard to get her out of my head.”

“It’s OK. What’s on your mind?” He grinned lovingly.

“I just feel like I have to know what happened. I have to know and if Sheriff Handow can’t figure it out, maybe I can.” She insisted. Barron’s face twisted with anxiety as he regained memory of his ex-girlfriend’s insistent personality.

“How are you going to do that?” he asked. He seemed excited to see what kind of plan she had cooked up.

“Well, I will just do my own investigation!” She told him with a false confidence. “I will start by going to Glen DeFrank’s house myself and taking a look around.”

“… And what exactly are you hoping to find?” he asked, still unconvinced about the merit of her proposed emprise.

Regina took a deep involuntary inhale and her eyes widened as if his question had filled her with more problems than she could possibly solve until she finally spit, “I don’t know. Something, anything, nothing, I have no idea. I will just be looking.”

Barron’s eyes sat heavily on her, unmoved by her unimaginative, but truthful answer.

“You going to the burial site too?” Barron asked.

Regina reeled back in disgust. “I don’t think that I can quite handle that just yet, but if he did do it maybe he left something behind…in the house.”

“Don’t you think that the police have already looked into that?” Barron asked.

“Maybe, but they don’t know Lola, I do. And they don’t know Glen DeFrank either.” Regina reasoned.

“… And you know Glen DeFrank?” Barron asked with a hint of incredulity.

Regina sighed hopelessly, she wanted to get angry and yell and scream in frustration, but she couldn’t because Barron was right, she was hardly a detective.

“I am not saying that I
know
him, know him. I am just saying that I have been around him and I probably know more about him than the police.”

“All I’m saying is it’s possible that they could have missed something, right?” Regina pleaded.

“It’s possible, but this just sounds crazy, Regina. You don’t need to be poking around up there, just let Sheriff Handow do his job.” Barron said. Regina sat back in her chair and contemplated Barron’s words while rapping her fingertips on the small round table. He smiled, sure that he had done little to curb Regina’s urge to take on this investigative mission. Countless years before she had given him the same look, right before freshman year in high school when he told her that there was no way that she would make the varsity swim team as a high school freshman. A grueling summer followed as the determined girl practiced for hours every day and made him eat his words come fall; her fire was one of the things he adored most about her, but there were times that it frustrated
him to no end. He laughed to himself remembering how she had declined the offer to join the varsity swim team citing the fact that she had only set out to prove a point and had no interest in swimming competitively.

“You ready to get outta here?” he asked with a grin. “I told my grandmother that I would drive her over to Edgarton today to shop at the mall. You wanna come?”

“Nah!” she replied. “I told my parents I would spend some time with them today too.” She finished as she put her arms back into the sleeves of her sweater and prepared for the frigid fall weather that awaited her just outside the thick glass door.

“Do we have time to stop by Nikki’s house before you drop me off?” she asked as she approached Barron at the door.

He studied her carefully, trying to figure out what she had up her sleeve.

“Sure.”

Nikki’s was one of just a few houses that sat high upon Black Water Hill. On the way up the hill, they passed the home of Grayson Clements, where Grayson’s father was working in his yard. Regina and Barron waved in passing. They had gone to high school with Grayson, but he was an athlete and not exactly in their circle of friends.

Regina was glad, at that moment, that Barron’s mother still drove her oversized truck; Weeping Willow Road was fairly nice but once you turned off onto Nikki’s property the ride instantly became rough on the gravelly drive that extended farther up the hill. Her home was as beautiful as Regina remembered it, a massive country-style home, constructed of stone and rock with a wide wraparound porch that featured colorful potted plants hanging down every couple of feet. The grand plantation shutters that framed the windows across the front of the house were painted a fresh garden green.

“God, I almost forgot how beautiful it is up here,” Regina said as she admired the landscape.

Barron looked around, but did not respond as he parked in front of the home. As Regina jumped out of the truck, she saw
Nikki sitting on the front porch in one of the four rocking chairs that were spread out along the porch.

“Hey,” Regina greeted as she hopped up the stairs. Nikki was wearing a pair of oversized boyfriend jeans that were cuffed at the bottom with a dark blue university sweatshirt, reminding Regina that even when Nikki dressed down she seemed to be at the height of a fashion trend.

“Hey,” Nikki sang in what seemed an alcohol-induced euphoric daze. “I called your house,” she told Regina.

“I went to breakfast with Barron,” Regina told her as Barron stepped up onto the porch.

“What’s up, Nikki?” he asked, although he could see for himself.

“Nothing much. What’s up with you two lovebirds?” She laughed lightly. Regina could feel her chest begin to warm in reaction to Nikki’s words.

Considering her current state, Regina wondered if this was an appropriate time to be talking to Nikki. She flashed a concerned look at Barron and he nodded anxiously in a go-ahead for her to do what she had come to do. Nikki appeared somewhat lucid and who knew what she would be like the next time Regina saw her.

Regina looked nervously through the storm door to make sure that no one would hear the conversation. Nikki noticed.

“My dad went out of town on business, but he’ll be back for the wake,” Nikki assured her.

“Nikki, I want to find out what happened to Lola,” Regina said.

“Don’t we all?” Nikki said as she looked down in order to flick something off her shirt.

“Yes, we do,” Regina agreed. Nikki shifted in her chair seeming slightly more serious.

“What do you mean what happened to her? We know what happened? Glen DeFrank chopped her up and buried her under one of his trees! Mystery solved!” Nikki had become upset within seconds. Not only did Regina want to talk about this sickening event, she was also blowing Nikki’s high at the same time.

“How do we know?” Regina asked.

“How do we know?” Nikki mocked Regina with a look of repulsion.

In response, Regina sighed. “All I am saying is that we don’t know for sure that he was a murderer and I think that we owe it to her to finally figure everything out.”

Nikki turned away and wiped her hand over her face as if she was wiping something away.

“What is your suggestion?” Nikki relented all too easily, as she usually did.

Regina sneered at Barron when she saw his face light up, she knew that Barron was sure that Nikki would think that her idea was as crazy as he did. He put up his hands in playful defeat as Nikki watched the exchange.

“What?” she said, looking back and forth between Regina and Barron waiting for the bomb, that she sensed, to drop.

“I …” Regina spoke trying to build up her confidence to be struck down again. “I was thinking that maybe we should go up and take a look around the DeFrank estate ourselves.”

“What?” Nikki’s eyes widened larger than Regina had ever seen before and in the next breath, Nikki was out of her seat with a stumble.

“NO WAY! NO WAY! NO WAY! I am not going out to that old place.” She spoke loudly, using hand and arm action to solidify her stand against the idea.

“I am not going there. My skin is crawling just thinking about it! Everything that happened there…DeFrank died there, now Lola. No, No, No!” Nikki finally stood still facing Barron and Regina with her arms crossed in front of her with a face that expressed an unchanging mind. Right away Regina saw that there would be no convincing Nikki.

“Why can’t we just let Sheriff figure it out?” Nikki wondered aloud. Regina knew that wasn’t the best idea, but didn’t feel like trying to explain it to her friend right now.

“I just feel like we should be doing something. Don’t you?” Regina stated.

“No! I don’t. I feel like we should be grieving, eating, drinking, and doing our best to be freaking merry with any free time we have between those things.” She spoke directly as if she needed no validation that this was the correct attitude.

Regina’s emotions were twisted tightly, secured in ways that were hopeless when it came to the idea of ever being free of the tie that bound her and it showed on her face. Nikki regretted the way that she had overreacted to Regina’s proposed plan of action and she found her seat again in a gesture to reduce the tension, her head fell into her palm.

“I’m so tired of this whole thing. I know that sounds messed up, but it’s the truth,” Nikki admitted with calm, almost cruel honesty.