Raveled (23 page)

“I forgot to bring this in for your mother
,” she said. “Would you give it to her? It’s a lovely cabernet.”

“I’m sure she’
ll appreciate the gesture,” I said coldly, “but she’s allergic to wine. Salicylates or sulfites or something.”

I was surprised Mrs. Kettrick
didn’t remember that. She used to tease my mother for the endless supply of Mountain Dews she’d bring to book clubs, garden meetings, even church socials—wherever she thought the other ladies might break out the wine.

“
It’s all yours, then,” she said as if we were tennis buddies. “It’s quite good and I do feel terrible leaving things so tense between us. It’s from a tiny vineyard the mayor and I bought in Virginia a few years back.”

She
pressed it into my hands so I took it with a feeble smile. She placed her fingers on the driver’s door, a vulnerable tremble in them trying to hide itself beneath her calm façade. “You’re free to do whatever you want, Allison. You know that. It’s just that… I don’t want the mayor taking your good intentions the wrong way. I truly don’t want harm to come to anyone.”

“
Harm?” I noticed she’d waited until there were no witnesses around to use that particular word.

“
Well, that’s not quite what I mean. But look at poor Jasper.” She shook her head in despair, her golden bob shimmering like a 1920’s flapper dress. “My goodness, one never knows, does one?”

Was she warning me or threatening me?

“Mrs. Kettrick,” I said abruptly as she melted into her car’s soft, leather interior that butter could use to soften itself, “why was the mayor paying for Jasper Shifflett’s medical care?”

Her smile of
disapproval over my crass intrusion meant that her answer would coat the entire situation in a warm, silky layer of cream. “It was no secret,” she said. “Bobby adored Jasper, more than people realized. Some sort of opposites-attract type thing. We had the means, and we couldn’t help our own son anymore, so the mayor suggested we give to Jasper’s family. I thought it a wonderful idea to put a little goodness back into the world after experiencing so much… negativity. But it’s rude to discuss personal charity, Allison. Your mother would be disappointed, don’t you think?”

Did she really think playing the parental disappointment card would work on me?

She placed a tiny hand on my arm and we locked eyes. A look of worry diminished her pretty features. “You really should go back to New York, Allison, where you can be one of the anonymous millions. There’s safety in numbers, you know.”

Before I could respond, she
withdrew her arm and pulled the car door shut, making the softest of thuds. Such were the benefits of spending three years of a mayor’s reported salary on a single automobile. The cream-colored vehicle looked beautiful against the distant, hilly backdrop as she departed, but she really needed to check under the hood. An ugly, black stream of exhaust trailed along after her, like a shadow determined not to be left behind.

Chapter
31

Allison… present

The wedding reception of Enzo’s cousin ended at three. At least that’s what the restaurant hostess told me when I called pretending to be a tardy guest. Maybe catching Enzo in a slightly inebriated state would help me get the favor I needed.

Guests stream
ed out from the tent at a steady rate. The bar had clearly stopped serving. Finally, Enzo emerged, a pretty woman on his arm. Great. Hadn’t planned on him having a date. He walked her to her car, gave her a chaste kiss on the cheek, and waved as she drove away. Good, just a cousin or something. Now was my window of opportunity. I’d remembered Enzo’s silver Honda Accord rental from when we met at Kitty’s Diner and I was parked right next to it. As he approached, I looked around the parking lot one last time for signs of Mayor Kettrick, Officer Ervin Johnston or any of their assorted cohorts. Nobody. But it wasn’t as if they’d be parked behind me with a flashing red light and a loudspeaker blaring,
We’re following you, Bitch
.

Enzo
’s remote unlocked the doors with a ka-click. I slipped out of my car, opened his passenger side door, and slinked in, feeling far more melodramatic than I deemed acceptable in others.

“Allison?”
Enzo said as he opened his door and leaned down to see an uninvited passenger slumped in his front seat. “What a pleasant and abrupt surprise.”

“
Enzo, please. Get in. I need a favor and let’s be honest, I don’t have a lot of friends in this town.”

He got in
, laid his jacket in the back seat, and straightened the wrinkles from his trousers. His casual demeanor made me think that mysterious meetings in parking lots might not be as foreign to him as they were to me. Perhaps the oil-changing business rocked a dark side.

“
Go ahead,” I said. “Just drive like I’m not here.”

“
I usually do,” he said, already backing out and waving to a few relatives.

H
alf a mile down the road, I said, “Anyone following us?”

He glanced in his mirror. “Not that I’ve noticed, and due to your unusual entrance, I
’ve been checking.”

I sat up. “I’m so sorry about this.”

“I’m sure you have a good reason.”

“I can’t go into all the details, but I think I’m being followed and I need to slip away to get something. Plus, I might need a bodyguard and you’re
a big guy now.”

Enzo
smiled. The joy of being a
big guy
probably never wore off for someone considered small in high school. “At your service. But does this have to do with your father’s case?”

“It does.”

I watched him wince just a bit. “I know, I know. Bad topic for everyone. But even if you haven’t been completely honest with me, Enzo—and I suspect you haven’t—my gut tells me I can trust you.”

He sighed. “You can.” I noticed he didn’t deny the lack of honesty. “Where are we headed?”

“The Willows.”

The ends of his brows shot in four different directions as he
gave me a look reserved for the insane or masochistic. “What? You need me as a translator, or you planning to score some crack? You have any idea what that part of town is like now?”

“
Actually, I do. I was there this morning.”

“Armed?”

“The guy following me was. Officer Ervin Johnston. You know him?”

“Not directly, but he’s from that big family of Johnstons
, right? Cousins with Smitty’s family and ugly as all hell?”

“That’s my Ervin
,” I said.

“What were you doing in The Willows with him? Wait! Don’t tell me. I just ate three burritos and I don’t want to
taste them again.”

I laughed.
Enzo was always easy. “The less you know, the better. But I have to get back behind Jasper’s old place. Could you drive me there and stand guard while I find what I need?”

Enzo
put the pedal to the metal. “To Jasper’s we go.”

Five minutes later, including a two-minute stretch through
the heart of town where I crouched to the car floor, The Willows came into sight. Flashing red lights caught my eye before the smell of the smoke made its way through the car vents. An emergency vehicle rode Enzo’s bumper for a few yards before pulling into the opposing lane and whipping past.

“Looks like somebody’s meth house went up,”
Enzo said.

I didn’t even need him to drive the rest of the way to know what had happened. “It was no meth house,” I said.

“How do you know?”

“That’s Jasper’s
trailer. At least it was.” Flames shot two stories high, fighting for survival against the thick streams of water rushing to destroy them. The rippled edges of the torrent made the water look like clear strands of licorice reaching out to get a taste of the hot stuff. I pictured the sad face of the old wall clock inside the trailer, melting reluctantly as it knew its time was up yet again, and the bag of life-giving fluid finally freed from its captive I.V. bag, only to be evaporated and rejoined anonymously with the atmosphere.

I gestured for
Enzo to keep going. He knew enough not to ask. As we passed, I saw Detective Barkley stand up out of nowhere, looking clean and bright amongst all the detritus. He’d been crouched on the ground twenty yards from the trailer, clearly in control of the situation as he pointed down, shouted some orders to underlings, and strode closer to the fire with no sign of fear.

Enzo
and I rode in silence for several minutes, looping through the back roads to return to my car. I stared out the window absently as we passed the old Hester property. An aluminum shed stood where the three-story barn used to be. Suddenly, the rumors about its fiery demise took on a whole new meaning.

“Can I get a
rain check on that trip to Jasper’s?” I said.

Enzo
looked surprised. “I guess.” He glanced at me, concerned. “But there is no Jasper’s anymore. Is what you’re looking for still going to be there?”

“I hope so,
Enzo. I hope so.”

Chapter
32

Allison… present

“Allison,” my mother yelled up the stairs while I got changed, “where did this bottle of wine come from?”

“Mrs. Kettrick brought it for you,” I shouted while removing the mascara I’d smudged on my left
eyelid. “Real thoughtful, right? Like she forgot all the Mountain Dew insults she used to hurl at you.”

“That was a long time ago. Some of us aren’t as sharp as we used to be.”

My mother didn’t often reference her own bouts with dementia so I didn’t know if her statement was lighthearted or awkward. I kept the focus on Mrs. Kettrick.

“
She just wanted to brag that she and
the mayor
own a vineyard now.” I went to the top of the stairs, still in my bra and underwear, so we could stop shouting. “I can drink it for you.”

“No need. Selena got me drinking
wine again.”

That one surprised me.
“Great. Maybe I should hire Selena for Puccio’s. How does she do it, the old funnel to the throat?”

My mom laughed, and its rarity startled me. “
Maybe I built up a tolerance. Who knows? We all change.”

“Well, bottoms up, then
,” I said.

“Maybe another night,” she said.
“You almost ready?”

“Getting there.”

Charlie Loughney, Lavitte’s designated visiting gay, knocked on the kitchen door ten minutes later.

My mother, having begged me not to go to the reunion
and stir up trouble, had now resigned herself to my attendance. She answered the door as I came down to the kitchen.

“Charlie,” she said, “it’s been a long time. You’re looking well.” By
well
, she must have meant outlandish. Charlie wore a dark purple blazer over a lavender shirt and bright yellow tie, all atop black leather pants and vintage, snakeskin shoes that came to a threatening point. His thick hair was slicked back and forced into some sort of upright do, allowing plenty of clearance to show off his diamond stud earring.

Charlie leaned down and gave my mother a kiss on each cheek. “Mrs. Fennimore. A pleasure to see you again.
You haven’t changed a bit. The skin of a porcelain doll and the beauty of a goddess.”

My mother almost crumpled in upon herself and I wondered how long it had been since a man
had complimented her.

Charlie continued
, “I’ve missed you and those incredible oatmeal raisin cookies you used to make us every Friday after school.”

My mother smiled brightly, possibly
imagining how normal and lovely life could have been in a small town where people remembered the little things and were polite enough to comment on them. She had no doubt also envisioned occasions where she and my father would greet my high school dates at that door. It had never happened. I wondered what she was thinking now, when the first guy to appear at the door turned out to be a wholly uncloseted homosexual.

“I can’t believe you remember those cookies,” she said. “A little milk and an extra egg yolk
in the batter, that was the secret.”

“E-mail me the recipe,” he said. “I need an excuse to go back to the gym.
Although a dang hot excuse joined a few weeks ago, if you know what I’m saying. He can squat 250 like nobody’s business.”

“Hey Charlie,” I s
aid, sparing my mother further details, “I’m ready to go.” My mother was the type to disapprove of a girl appearing too eager for a date but I was no longer a girl and this was hardly a normal date.

Charlie flicked his plucked brows at me. “Well don’t you look pretty as a picture?” he said. I figured it depended on the picture, but I had gone out of my way to look decent in a pink and black halter-top cocktail dress, a black shrug, and strappy, 3
-inch heels. It was difficult enough overcoming my last name; I didn’t need people thinking I dressed from a dumpster.

Charlie and I arrived twenty minutes later at the new country club that had sprung up outside town five years ago. I often wondered who would join a country club near Lavitte, but Charlie filled me in on the way over. It was a joint venture between the wealthy Westerling
s and a few others in town—probably the mayor—who used it to launder money for illicit operations. I didn’t even ask how Charlie knew all this, but I’d put freshly laundered money on it being true.

The place gave off the air of trying too hard. Tacky pillars painted in a faux marble glaze
, a tiled entryway that had been poorly sealed and showed mildew through the grout, along with a gaudy fountain that smelled mildly of sewage. The valet service consisted of two scrawny teens who reeked of smoke and wore green blazers too wide and short for their bony bods. I smiled to myself because the place now seemed perfect for a Lavitte High reunion—kind of crooked and cockeyed.

We entered
behind a party of four, two of whom were girls from my year. I glanced at their husbands and recognized them vaguely as classmates of Bobby’s. One of the girls did a double-take in my direction, gasped, almost spoke, and then allowed herself to be dragged into the building by her Neanderthal-looking husband. She stole one more glance, then grabbed the other classmate’s arm and pulled her in close. As Charlie and I entered, I imagined the words being whispered.
Oh my God, that was Allison Fennimore. Can you believe she would show her face here? The nerve!

I reflexively checked the ceiling
rafters for buckets of blood.

Charlie, oblivious to the impact his date might have on his networking abilities, entered the ballroom like a king waiting to be adored. He knew that most people here would know he wasn’t in their class. What he counted on, he
’d told me, was them bending over backwards to appear politically correct and cool with the gay guy. I wasn’t sure Lavitte had evolved that far.

Almost immediately, a bald man
with half his left ear lobe missing, came up and slapped Charlie on the back, spilling some of the beer from his cup. “Hey! Charlie Loughney! I remember you. You were the funniest guy in school.”

Charlie managed a
glance at the guy’s nametag while reaching down to shake his hand, a gesture so smooth it would make a baby’s bottom jealous. “Thanks, Stuart. You were pretty funny yourself. Tell me, what are you doing these days?”

He winked at me
. He had no idea who Stuart was. I took it as my cue to find the bar and then to find Smitty. This would be the only place I could confront him without Mommy Dearest coming at me with wire hangers. Ignoring the whispers that followed my path as subtly as a hurricane, I ordered a rum and coke from the slick-haired bartender. His drink proportions were completely wrong, but since they favored me getting a buzz sooner rather than later, I tipped him a dollar and turned around, surprised to see a line forming already.

A bone-thin
woman immediately behind me caught sight of my face and gasped. Her hands flew to her face in shock or horror and she managed to spill the beginning of my buzz onto my dress.

Best to get it over with, I supposed, if people were going to throw drinks at me all night.

“Oh geez, I am so sorry,” she said, grabbing cheap cocktail napkins from the bar. As she swiped at my dress, the napkins shredded, leaving a paper trail up and down my chest. I cupped my hand over her birdlike one to stop her and got a chance to take her in. Dark brown hair, long face, a body with less shape than a straw, and horse teeth to match her coltish shape. She wore a flowered dress, loosely tied at the waist. A gangly, suited guy next to her rolled his protruding eyes at her spastic reaction and tried to pretend he was with anyone else. In truth, he looked like he didn’t want to be here at all—or anywhere south of the Mason-Dixon Line. She was Olive Oyl in the flesh but he was no Popeye.

“Leave it, Amber,” he said. “You’re making it worse. Why don’t we get out of people’s way?”
I recognized his North Jersey accent immediately.

The three of us convened in a vacant area at the side of the bar. Between apologies and offers to pay for dry cleaning,
I assured them it wasn’t the first drink to soak my clothing. The woman repeatedly glanced at my face, then lowered her eyes and bit her thin lower lip. Finally, she clutched Jersey’s arm, spoke closely into his ear and nodded in my direction. An emotional but muted conversation followed, during which Jersey checked his Rolex twice. I noticed their matching wedding bands.

A fed-up
Jersey finally dismissed his wife by shaking her from his arm like a pesky insect. He pointed at me and shouted. “Just tell her! What could it possibly matter now?” He huffed to the bar, grabbed two pre-poured white wines, shoved one in her hand, and proceeded to a dark corner where he could use his smart phone in peace.

“Sorry about that
,” Amber said. “He didn’t want to come tonight.”

“
Really?” I said. “He’s hiding it so well.”

She smiled but
a tense undercurrent still flowed between us. After watching her take several nervous sips of wine, I threw her a lifeline.

“
I’m Allison Fennimore, by the way. Did you graduate with this class?”

Instead of answering, she bit down on a long, painted thumbnail. She went at it like a dog with a bone until I feared all the purple polish
would transfer to her teeth.

“Did you have something to tell me?
It’s Amber, right? I couldn’t help but—”

My arm suddenly
found itself between her wet thumb and dry fingers as she led me to an empty table. We sat down, the lighting not flattering to her pale, gaunt face.

“I have something to tell you
,” she said. “It’s bothered me for a long time.”

“Let me guess. Sixteen years?”

Our eyes met, but mine must have scared her because she returned her gaze to her wine. “I, uh, I did something kind of horrible.”

My stomach tightened but still, I couldn’t imagine
that a waif like Amber could even conceive of something horrible to do.

“I didn’t tell the whole truth about the day Bobby got killed.”

“Join the club.”

“He came into W
esterling General Store that same evening he died.”

“I know about that,” I said. “It was a
fter he dropped his car off at my dad’s shop. The store was the last place he was officially seen, aside from a few people who may or may not have seen him walking through town a few minutes later.”

“Right, well I was working that
night. At the store. Bobby was real nice to me.”

The pride she took in the revelation made me
nauseous and I now remembered reading her gushing statement about Bobby. “You sold him a Styrofoam cooler, right?”

Amber inhaled and sighed, but it barely raised or lowered her boyish chest. “Yes.
He actually listened to me. Asked my advice, I mean.”

“About the cooler?”

“That’s right.” She sucked down the rest of her wine and glanced at Jersey for a refill, but he was deep in a shouting match with someone on the other end of his phone. She settled for rubbing her fingers up and down the stem of the empty goblet. “But, um, I didn’t tell anybody, not even my parents, ‘cuz I didn’t want to get in trouble or lose my job or anything. And I sure didn’t think Bobby was gonna get killed that night.”

Amber
bit her lower lip again. A hint of outliner pencil remained on the upper one, but the lipstick itself had long ago hitched a ride on her chawed thumb and wine glass.

“None of us did, I’m sure.” I tried t
o project easygoing nonchalance to keep her talking.

“I let him steal beer
from the store.” The words sprinted from her mouth now that they’d finally found an exit. “When he left with that cooler, it was full of beer.”

That was the big secret
? That Bobby, along with half the teenage population of Lavitte, had sucked down a few beers on a hot August night?

Amber looked over
in fear to see if I planned to lunge at her and wrap my hands around her neck. I felt no such compulsion.

“It’s okay, Amber. If he hadn’t gotten beer there, he’d have gotten it someplace else.”

“Thing is, it was at least two six-packs. Maybe three or four. He couldn’t have been planning to drink alone that night.”

She
had a point. “Did he say where he was going?” I asked. “Or if he was meeting anyone?”

“Nope. Not a hint. I wasn’t brave enough to ask.” She giggled
nervously. “I was kinda thrilled he talked to me at all. The thing is, I never told anyone that he’d bought beer that night and when I got older, I started thinking about all the weirdness of that night, and what if they’d done an autopsy on Shelby Anderson, and what if they’d figured out her and Bobby were drinking the same beer that night? Maybe it would have helped to know that. Or maybe there would have been beer cans as evidence somewhere to help track the events of the evening.”

As much as I liked her theory, and certainly h
adn’t thought of it myself, I didn’t think the local forensics team would have been able to differentiate between Bud Light and Pabst Blue Ribbon in Shelby’s two-week-old, decomposed body. But it was an interesting thought. If Bobby wasn’t drinking with Smitty and Jasper that night, who the hell was he drinking with? And what had happened to that cooler?