Midnight Crossroad (Midnight, Texas #1) (10 page)

B
obo looked over to see that Fiji was staring at Sheriff Smith as though he’d informed her the earth was made of pie crust. He could just hear her speak. “How can you say that?” she asked, and Olivia joined her. The sheriff looked at Olivia, like every man did, but Olivia stood in front of him with her arms crossed over her middle, her face intent. “Let’s hear about this,” Olivia said.

“Mr. Winthrop,” the sheriff called, and Bobo walked over, his feet reluctant to go in the direction he had to. He could tell this was going to be a bad conversation, as if anything could make this day worse.

“Fiji?” he said, when he’d gotten to her. “What’s the matter?” Fiji didn’t speak, but she didn’t leave, and neither did Olivia. Bobo thought the sheriff looked as though he’d like to ask them to.

“I just heard from one of my deputies,” Smith said, looking directly at Bobo. “What did Aubrey Hamilton tell you about her background?”

Whatever Bobo had expected, it wasn’t this. “What do you mean?” he said, floundering around in his thoughts to make sense of Smith’s question. His head felt thick as cotton wool, his grief making him slow and stupid. “She was working in Davy when I met her. She was a waitress at the Lone Star Steakhouse.”

“What did she tell you about her background?”

That was definitely an ominous turn of phrase, but Bobo said, “She told me her parents were dead and that her sister had thrown Aubrey out of the house when she’d turned eighteen . . . and she’d been fending for herself since then.”

“That’s what she had told her coworkers at the steakhouse, too. We talked to them briefly when you reported her missing. However, one of my deputies looked a little deeper after we got the call to come out here, since she’s the only missing person on our books. None of that is true.”

Bobo felt the shock clear down to his bones. “What are you saying?” Bobo asked. He looked at Fiji, whose face was locked down tight, for some enlightenment.

Fiji said, “Sheriff, are you saying that Aubrey kind of made herself up?”

“That’s right. Her name was Aubrey Hamilton, right enough,” Arthur Smith said. “But she’s got living parents. She’s got no sister. She does have a brother. And she’s been married before.”

“But I
knew
her,” Bobo said, feeling that if he said it often enough, it would erase what the sheriff was saying. “I saw her driver’s license. I met her by chance . . .” And then he remembered the two men who’d come into the pawnshop. He began to let a new idea sink into his brain. “I thought I knew her.”

“How did you make her acquaintance?” the sheriff asked.

“I love the Lone Star Steakhouse,” Bobo said. “I go there at least once every two, three weeks to have steak. I met her there.”

Olivia’s face flushed red with anger. “Son of a
fucking
bitch,” she snarled, and stomped away.

Bobo watched as the other townspeople gathered around her, and Olivia began to talk, her hands flying upward from time to time in outrage.

“Olivia has no problem at all believing that Aubrey was a liar,” Bobo murmured, the enormity of this revelation about the woman he’d loved beginning to sink in.

“I don’t, either,” said Fiji, almost in a whisper. She put her arm around him, awkwardly, and he could see the unhappiness in her, the unhappiness she felt on his behalf.

The rest of the Midnighters had clustered around Olivia. Even Madonna, who’d been glowering at the crowd while she sat in the pickup with the door open, came closer with Grady in her arms.

Smith gave a loud, exasperated sigh. Bobo figured he hadn’t planned on telling the whole community at once, or this early. But the sheriff must have decided to make the best of the situation, since he raised his voice to a public announcement level. “I might as well tell all of you at the same time. Aubrey Hamilton was not the woman she said she was. More accurately, she was Aubrey Hamilton Lowry.”

The people of Midnight moved closer to Smith, Bobo, and Fiji. Bobo saw that they were all tense and angry, and if he’d had room for any other emotion, he would have felt touched.

“Married?” The Rev looked as though the word had been torn from his throat. He looked even sterner than usual.

“Formerly married,” the sheriff said. “Though she told them at the steakhouse that she’d gotten divorced and was in the process of changing all her legal papers back over to her maiden name. In fact, her husband, Chad Lowry, was shot and killed by police officers in Phoenix, Arizona.”

“Shot? Doing what?” Teacher asked.

“Robbing a bank.”

“He was a career criminal?” Bobo said. He almost hoped that would be the case.

“Not exactly,” the sheriff said. “He was a member of a white supremacist group, Men of Liberty. MOL is based in Arizona, but it has branches in all the southwestern states, including Texas.”

“No,” said Bobo. He turned to face Olivia Charity. “It’s all part of the same thing,” he said.

“What is?” Olivia said. But she narrowed her eyes at Bobo, who caught that warning a second later.

“It’s all part of her pattern of deceiving me,” Bobo said, making a good recovery. “I was a fool to think she loved me.”

That made everyone acutely uncomfortable, and they all looked away. All but Fiji. He looked down into her eyes and saw nothing but steadfastness. “I was a fool,” he repeated softly.

“Never,” Fiji replied. “She was the fool.”

There was a shout from down the slope, and they all turned to look in that direction. A deputy came up, a woman, her black hair pulled back into a tight bun. She was carrying a plastic bag. In it was an old gun. Smith went over to her and held it up to have a good look.

They all stood silent. Bobo didn’t know what anyone else was thinking, but he was back in that land where unpleasant revelations were the norm. He hadn’t lived there in a while, and he hadn’t wanted to return, ever.

Olivia was standing right behind him, he could see from the corner of his eye. She was looking at the gun. “I know that piece,” she said, making sure her voice was low, but of course, Fiji heard her.

“From where?” she asked, equally quietly.

Bobo wanted to tell the truth, if only to Fiji. “It was in the shop,” he said. “It’s been there for years.”

The sheriff told them they could go home. “We’ll come to talk to you individually later,” he said. “Don’t leave town until one of us has interviewed you.”

The trek back to Midnight seemed twice as long as the hike to the river. In silence, they straggled back to town, not talking, lost in their own thoughts. Bobo walked alone, not able to bear the company of anyone else, not even his closest friend, Fiji. When they got to the pawnshop, Bobo had already gotten the keys from his pocket, and he went in the side door and up to his apartment without a word.

C
reek and Connor went directly to Gas N Go. Creek had begun crying on the way back to Midnight, and her brother had put his arm around her. He had looked almost proud, Fiji thought, at being the one who was standing up to adversity. She hadn’t known Creek had ever talked to Aubrey, but maybe it was the sudden face-to-face encounter with death that had shaken the normally serene Creek.

“The rest of you, come to the diner,” Madonna said from the window of her truck. “We got to eat this food, might as well do it there.” Fiji went over to Home Cookin with the rest of them, since she couldn’t think of anything better to do. She wasn’t ready to be alone yet. The sight of the horrible remains of Aubrey Hamilton—Aubrey Lowry—were still too much in the forefront of her mind.

Functioning on autopilot, Fiji helped unload the truck and spread out the food on the diner counter as it had been on the table at the riverside. Everyone filled a plate and found a place at the round table, including the Rev. The need to huddle together for comfort affected even the minister. He hadn’t spoken since Fiji had made her discovery, but now, as the last person sat down, he raised his right hand. They all fell silent.

“In the name of the God who made all of us, man and beast, bless this food and those who prepared it. Bless the soul of our departed sister, Aubrey. Despite her shortcomings, may she rest in peace. May we see her at the last rising and greet her with joy. Amen.”

“Amen.” The response was ragged, but it seemed to satisfy the Rev.

For all of half a minute, Fiji felt ashamed of her earlier rage against the dead woman. But when she recalled the look on Bobo’s face as he’d discovered Aubrey’s true identity, the rage surged back. She looked down at her plate, suddenly realizing she was hungry. Everyone at the table seemed to experience the same appetite. There wasn’t much conversation, but there was some serious food consumption.

After all of them had finished, they divided the remaining food. Fiji, walking home with a take-out container, found her thoughts scurrying around in her head like hamsters in a cage. She wondered if she could use witchcraft to help Bobo. She wondered how long Aubrey’s body had lain down by the river. She wondered who had killed her and how it had been done. She imagined, somewhat vaguely, a séance conducted by Manfred, the ghost of Aubrey appearing in the darkened room. What would Aubrey say from beyond the grave? Fiji tried to remember a single memorable thing Aubrey had said when she was alive . . . and couldn’t come up with an instance. And the gun . . . how had it found its way to the river from Midnight Pawn? Fiji knew that if Bobo had used it to kill Aubrey, he would not have left it for anyone to find. Bobo was dumb about people, but he was smart about things.

Mr. Snuggly was waiting for her, curled up picturesquely at the foot of the birdbath. He rose and stretched in the sunlight as she approached.

“Oh, for goodness’ sake,” she snapped. “Stop being so damn cute.”

The cat looked up at her with golden eyes, his brushy tail adorably wrapped around his pristine paws.

“Yeah, right, it’s your second nature,” she said, and the cat walked beside her to the front door. As she unlocked it, she said, “Wait till you find out what you missed today, Mr. Snuggly. And Rasta was there for it.” Mr. Snuggly gave her a contemptuous cat look and went to sit in front of his food bowl.

Fiji got some kibble and dumped it in.

M
ost of the Midnighters were wakeful during the dark hours that night.

Bobo sat in his apartment over the pawnshop, all the lights off, looking north out the rear windows at the moon glowing over the land leading to the Río Roca Fría, where Aubrey had lain decomposing for two months. He hadn’t eaten anything, though Manfred had dropped off some food. He hadn’t had anything to drink, either, though he’d thought about having a traditional drinking bout.

Bobo was alternating between feeling some kind of comfort and a lot of grief. At least Aubrey hadn’t left him voluntarily. That knowledge relieved some ache deep inside him. However, he was sure that Aubrey had met with a fate more lurid than a snakebite or an accidental fall, especially since he’d seen the gun. Whether or not she’d been shot, something terrible had happened to Aubrey, and someone else had had a hand in that terrible something.

When Bobo could think of anything besides his horror that a woman he’d loved had died by violence and lain in the open for weeks, and his grief over her permanent loss, he brooded over the revelation that Aubrey had ties to Men of Liberty. He wondered if Aubrey had truly cared for him. Ever.

After a while, he moved to look out the front window, looking over the crossroads that had established Midnight. He saw lights come off and on all night as the residents of the town got up, sat for a while, returned to their beds.

Bobo felt lonelier than he’d ever been in his life. He hadn’t talked to his parents in a year, maybe longer, but he thought of calling his sister or his brother. In the end, he didn’t pick up his phone.

T
he next day everything in Midnight should have resumed its pace.

Granted, that wasn’t a very brisk pace, but everyone’s business should have been open. Fiji opened the Inquiring Mind right on time, but she watched out her front window anxiously to see if the Midnight Pawn C
LOSED
sign would flip over to O
PEN
.

The pawnshop never opened that Tuesday, though. The C
LOSED
sign stayed up all day.

When she walked down to Gas N Go to get some milk, Fiji discovered Shawn Lovell was having a banner day. Some of the law enforcement officers were stopping in to top up their vehicles with gas and to get cold water and snacks. When Fiji went to the counter with her purchase, Creek was working the cash register while Shawn ran the credit cards and stocked the shelves.

“Connor at school?” Fiji asked Creek.

“Yeah, he needs to be busy, and he doesn’t need to miss any classes,” the girl said. “For once, we could use him here.”

“Hey, Fiji,” called Shawn. “You doing okay after yesterday?”

“Yeah. At least you’re doing good, huh?”

Shawn shrugged as he tucked some more bags of peanuts into a clip-type dispenser. “I guess so.” He didn’t seem happy about this rush of business. He seemed exhausted and worried. “Be better when Connor gets here. It’s almost time for the bus.”

Fiji glanced over at the desk in the corner that Shawn had put there. It was a place for Connor to do his homework. Shawn didn’t even trust the fourteen-year-old to do his homework in his own home, a small house to the north of the gas station, on the Davy highway. Shawn Lovell was not a man long on trust, Fiji thought, not for the first time. The Lovells kept their history to themselves, and everyone in Midnight respected that.

Carrying her bag of milk, Fiji decided to walk a little farther, down to the Antique Gallery and Nail Salon. It was open. To her surprise, there was a woman she didn’t know sitting in Chuy’s special chair getting a mani-pedi.

Fiji had planned to have an idle conversation with Joe, whom she knew a little better than Chuy, who was more reserved. But just as she came in and Chuy told her where Joe was, another customer came in, a rancher’s wife from Marthasville way, and she was there to buy a picture frame she’d admired the previous week.

Next, Fiji crossed the road to Home Cookin. Madonna was sitting at the counter working a crossword puzzle while Grady napped.

“Hey,” said Madonna, without much enthusiasm. “Too late for lunch, but I got some leftovers I can sell you.”

“I just wanted to see how you all were doing,” Fiji said, knowing as she said it that she sounded weak. She had never dropped into Home Cookin between mealtimes before, and she’d never set foot in the double-wide trailer set up behind the restaurant. “Teacher working today?”

“Yeah, he’s working about six miles east. Helping a retired postal worker rebuild his front steps. That means Teacher’s doing it while the old man sits watching and talking.” Madonna looked longingly at her crossword, and Fiji took the hint and left.

The Rev was not in the chapel. Fiji found him behind the fence in the pet cemetery. It was a place that fascinated her, partly because it was one of the few concealed places in Midnight. The wooden fence, the planks pointed at the top, was at least six and a half feet tall and painted an immaculate white.

The Rev had left the trees in place, so it was peaceful inside. Fiji didn’t know how long it had been since the Rev had established the cemetery, but she estimated it was about half full of graves.

Some were marked with crosses, some with Stars of David, others with pentagrams. There was a cat statue on one little rectangle, a dog’s leash mounted on a forked stick on another, and an actual small headstone carved with “Tonks.” There were pictures on frames sticking up out of the dirt marking some graves. Some were marked only by mounds.

“What are you doing today?” she asked. The old man was standing at an especially large monument in the middle of the “occupied” area.

“It’s bless the graves day,” he said.

“Oh . . . appropriate,” she said. “I’ll leave you to it.”

But she watched for a few minutes, the plastic bag with the milk hanging from her hand, while the Rev moved slowly from grave to grave, praying for each departed soul. This ritual, which he performed monthly, often took him two days. Seeing he was absorbed in his task, she eased out of the gate without further comment.

She looked across the street at Midnight Pawn. She glimpsed Bobo’s face at the window of his apartment. But he did not raise his hand or acknowledge her in any way, so she trudged back to her house, the milk banging against her leg.

After dark that night, Fiji saw that the pawnshop lights were on, and she walked over to the store. She needed some company. She was too wired up to read or to watch television.

Lemuel was at his post. Fiji was not at all surprised to find that Olivia had come up from her apartment to keep him company. There was a customer, too. Lemuel appeared to be striking a bargain with a strange, hunched man.

The most interesting people come in at night,
Fiji thought. She stepped past the men to sit by Olivia in the two chairs that matched a breakfast table.

“I could kick myself now that I know about Aubrey,” Olivia muttered to Fiji, as Lemuel and the hunched man agreed on terms. “I should have investigated her, when it became obvious that she didn’t fit in.”

Fiji didn’t ask any questions about what qualified Olivia to investigate or how she would have gone about such a thing. If you were going to live in Midnight, there were some subjects you didn’t delve into. “When were you sure you didn’t like her?” she asked, trying not to sound too eager to know the answer.

“After she’d been here a couple of weeks,” Olivia replied without hesitation.

Fiji suppressed a triumphant smile. Her spell had been effective, maybe! Though if it had
really
worked, if Olivia had understood Aubrey’s true nature as Fiji had hoped everyone would do, Aubrey’s true nature hadn’t seemed quite as repulsive to Olivia (or anyone else) as Fiji had hoped. For a moment, Fiji didn’t think well of herself. If it required a spell for Aubrey’s true nature to become apparent . . . didn’t that mean her false one was pretty damn good? In fact, close to being true? Was Fiji’s spell-casting only an exhibition of sour grapes? What if her
own
true character was open to everyone’s interpretation? Thinking of her many failings and weaknesses, Fiji shrank from the idea.

“What can we do to help Bobo?” she said.

“Aside from saying we saw her after he left? I didn’t know you could lie so convincingly,” Olivia said. “I think that’s a pretty damn good thing, that we did that.”

“If he did it, I don’t care,” Fiji said. “Especially in view of what we’ve learned about Aubrey.”

“I wouldn’t have cared even if she’d been a saint,” Olivia said calmly. “I’m sure our focus should be on who
else
could have killed Aubrey, and if we find another viable suspect . . .”

The hunched man had left, and now Lemuel spun around on the stool behind the counter. “Yes,” he said. “That’s what we must do. The gun is worrying me. From Olivia’s description, I remember it. It was here in the shop for years.” Lemuel’s icy eyes glinted with excitement.

Fiji wasn’t surprised at Lemuel’s being on topic. He’d always had amazing hearing and the equally interesting ability to listen to two conversations at one time. She respected Lemuel, and she wasn’t afraid of him . . . much. Once, when Olivia’s return from one of her mysterious trips had been delayed, Fiji had offered Lemuel some blood. She’d been glad when he’d taken some energy instead, standing silently in her kitchen holding her hand for five minutes that felt like an eternity. Afterward, he’d thanked her briskly and then left with as much haste as if they’d done something much more intimate and embarrassing.

Olivia had come over to thank her, perhaps a bit cautiously, a bit warily, when she’d returned. But after a sharp look at Fiji’s face, she’d given her a hug, and they’d been almost-friends ever since.

Now Olivia said, “Not only was the gun from here, Bobo took it out to shoot targets a couple of times.”

Fiji’s heart sank at this piece of information. Surely the sheriff would consider that damning evidence. “I can think of twenty explanations for the gun being out there,” she said, though that wasn’t literally true. Two or three, maybe, and none of those particularly convincing.

“Sure, so can I. I’m leaving on a short trip tomorrow, but I’ll be back soon, and we’ll talk about how to get this done.” Olivia nodded to them both. “I’ll be thinking on the plane.”

“Where you going this time?” Fiji asked. She didn’t know if she’d like to travel as much as Olivia did, but it would be nice to find out someday.

“San Francisco,” Olivia said, and from the corner of her eye, Fiji saw Lemuel’s head jerk. Obviously, this was new information to him. He began to speak but snapped his pale lips shut on his comment.

Olivia looked at him directly. “I’ll be fine,” she said. “Don’t worry. Quick in and out.”

What the hell is this about?
Fiji asked herself.

“All right.” There was no expression on Lemuel’s face whatsoever.

“I’ll be fine,” Olivia repeated.

Lemuel nodded reluctantly, and silence fell. The three sat in an uneasy companionship (Fiji trying to think of a graceful way to leave without being obvious) until a ragged woman came in to pawn a very old gold wedding ring.

The ragged woman reeked. There was no other word for it. Fiji had never smelled anything like the odor that surrounded the woman like a cloud. She held her breath as long as she could, which wasn’t long enough.

Quickly and wordlessly, Lemuel gave the woman forty dollars and took the ring. The ragged woman, whose sticklike figure and huge dark eyes made her look like something out of a cartoon, hurried out into the night, her movements both furtive and jerky.

Lemuel turned the ring in his fingers, holding it close to the desk lamp. “N.E.S. to his Leticia,” he read. “It’s engraved on the inside of the ring.”

“Where’d she get that, I wonder?” Fiji asked.

“I suspect she dug up a grave and stole it off a corpse’s finger,” Lemuel said.

“Oh, my God,” Olivia said, her nose puckering with disgust.

“That’s just rank,” Fiji agreed.

“Has the sheriff come by to talk to you?” Lemuel said suddenly.

“No. He spent this morning with Bobo, though,” Fiji said. “I saw his car.” She didn’t try to sound disinterested. They’d know it was a lie.

“He didn’t talk to me,” Olivia volunteered. “But I did notice he drove over to the Reeds’ place.”

“From the most involved to the least involved,” Lemuel said thoughtfully. “I must think on that some.”

And maybe there’s something about the Reeds we don’t know,
Fiji thought.