Again with Feeling, page 2
part #6 of The Last Picks Series
“Actually, I think I just read too much Chandler at an impressionable age.”
She laughed, and it broke the unexpected tension of the moment. “Second, because my family will talk to you, Dashiell. In fact, they’ll tell you everything you want to know. Because you destroyed my life once, and they will assume—gleefully—that you’re trying to destroy it again. Hammer a few more nails in the coffin, that kind of thing.”
“Nice family.”
“You have no idea.”
“Also, I feel like I have to point out that you destroyed your own life. And you framed me. And you tried to kill me.”
“But that’s all in the past. I can’t hire a private investigator, Dashiell—Dash. If my family suspects that I’m trying to build a defense, they’ll clam up. And they certainly won’t reveal anything that will give away the truth. And if you’re going to find whoever killed my brother, you’ll need them to talk to you.”
“I haven’t said I was going to—”
“And the third reason is because I’m innocent, and I know you won’t let an innocent person go to prison while a murderer walks free.”
I opened my mouth to say something snarky, but I stopped myself. Instead, I said the only honest thing I could think of: “This feels like a trap.”
She laughed, but it was dark and short. “I imagine it does.”
“Why don’t you tell me what happened to your brother—what you know, I mean—and I’ll think about it? I’m not making any promises.”
“He disappeared in the summer of 1985,” Vivienne said. “June 21. The solstice.”
“He—that was over thirty years ago.”
“That’s right.”
“Why are they charging you with murder now?”
“Because his body was found in the slough behind his home.” She spoke with a chilling matter-of-factness that reminded me that Vivienne Carver was no stranger to gruesome death. “It had been weighted down and hidden in the water, but something must have given way, because some bones washed ashore a few weeks ago. They identified the body with dental records, and my family was quick to explain to the police that I must have killed him.”
“Why?”
“Because they’re hoping for a civil suit. They’ve always wanted to get their hands on my money.”
That was…a lot, but I said, “No, I meant why do they say you killed him?”
“Ask them yourself.”
The next gust of breeze carried a spray of water against my cheek, and it was cold and bracing. The sun glinted on the saw-toothed waves. When I glanced down the pier, Mr. Li waved and smiled, and somehow, I managed to wave back.
“Vivienne, I’m sorry—I really am. But I don’t think I should get involved.”
She made an understanding noise. “If you change your mind about letting a killer go unpunished, I’ll be happy for any assistance you can provide. I’ll have my attorney send you a photograph of Richard and anything else I can think of that might help.”
“Still not taking the case,” I said.
“Of course not.”
If Emily Post had written a chapter on “How to End a Collect Call with Your Attempted Murderess,” I hadn’t read it. So, I said, “Well, goodbye.”
For some reason, that made Vivienne laugh. “Goodbye, Dashiell.”
“Just—”
The call disconnected.
“—Dash,” I finished.
I leaned against the rail, looking out at the ocean and the hot white disc of the sun. Its light was warm on my face. A salt-damp eddy tickled the hairs on the back of my neck. Behind me, screams of excitement suggested the little girl had finally gotten her kite into the air.
Vivienne Carver was a cold-blooded murderer. She’d tried to kill me. I didn’t feel sorry for her. I didn’t think she deserved some sort of second chance. Another murder charge wouldn’t change the fact that she was going to spend the rest of her life in prison.
But if she was telling the truth, another killer would walk free.
Did it matter? The question had a kind of icy clarity that unbalanced me. Vivienne’s brother had been murdered over thirty years ago, and that was a long time. Longer than I’d been alive, as a matter of fact. After all that time, did it matter if the killer was found and brought to justice—assuming such a thing was even possible at this point?
The answer came immediately. Yes, it mattered. It mattered because no matter how that family felt about Vivienne, they were grieving their loss all over again—even if the discovery of his body provided some closure, it would also open old wounds. And it mattered because every death mattered. Every injustice mattered. And because no one should be allowed to take another’s life and get away with it.
And I realized, with a cold wave of horror rising in me, that I was going to do it.
Just like Vivienne had known I would.
The Last Picks would be thrilled, of course—for a variety of reasons. Bobby, on the other hand, would probably murder me—if he wasn’t too busy playing patty-cake with his latest flavor of the week.
That gave me an idea.
I placed a call on my phone, and Bobby answered on the second ring. A blow dryer cut off. He was getting ready for his date.
“You know how we had that big fight a few months ago?”
“Hi,” Bobby said. And then, voice dry, “You’ll have to be more specific.”
“Bobby!”
The sounds of movement came from the other side. His voice was muffled for the first few words, and I realized he was pulling on a shirt. Was he naked? Nope. I was not going to think about that. Scratch that from the record, uh, judge. “I’m in a hurry. What’s up?”
“When I, um, did some investigating—”
“Snooping.”
“—at the amusement park, and it turned out the killer was still there—”
“And they would have killed you if someone hadn’t saved your hide.” Bobby’s tone was treacherously deadpan.
“Actually, I was doing a great job on my own—”
“I’m hanging up in five seconds.”
“You told me that if I was going to do something stupid, I should have told you because you’re my friend.”
His silence had the quality of a lot of teeth-grinding.
“Well,” I said in a small voice, “I’m about to do something stupid.”
Chapter 3
The drive up the coast wasn’t exactly comfortable. The Jeep isn’t the smoothest of rides, plus it’s surprisingly noisy inside, and there was also the little issue of Bobby’s ferocious silence as he rode shotgun.
About every five miles, I said, “Thank you again for coming.”
And every five miles, Bobby said nothing.
That kind of thing can make a relatively easy drive feel a lot longer.
Vivienne’s attorney had provided addresses for the house where her brother had lived at the time of his disappearance, as well as for Vivienne’s father’s home. The numbers were only different by a digit, so I figured they were neighbors. The homes were located in a neighborhood outside Astoria. On a normal day—when I wasn’t stuck inside the time-warping effects of my best friend’s silent anger—the drive would have taken an hour, tops. Today, though, it felt like it took about a month to get halfway there, and trust me: no matter how beautiful the coast is, or the spruce and pine forests, or the restless prism of the ocean, nobody wants to spend a month with Bobby’s extremely loud silence.
So, it was a relief when Bobby picked up his phone, scrolled, tapped, scrolled, tapped, and held it to his ear. When he spoke, his voice had his usual crisp, no-nonsense tone. “This is Deputy Mai from the Ridge County Sheriff's Office. I’m calling because—yep, you got it. Thanks.” What followed was a one-sided conversation in which Bobby didn’t actually have to do a lot of talking. In fact, once he had identified himself again, he mostly listened.
When he put down the phone, he stared out the windshield and said, “A woman walking her dog found the body on June 3.”
Spend enough time at the dinner table with my parents, and fun conversation topics like decomp rates come up. I’d done plenty of research of my own, too, and I had an idea of the condition Richard Lundgren’s body would have been in. “Yikes.”
Bobby nodded. “They identified the body from dental records, like Vivienne told you. And, like she told you, Richard Lundgren went missing thirty-three years ago on June 21, 1985.”
“Was that the police department?”
“Yes.”
“And they just told you that stuff?”
“They gave me that information because the Ridge County Sheriff’s Office has a vested interest in any investigations related to Vivienne Carver.”
“Oh.”
“And because Sheriff Acosta called them earlier to tell them I’d be calling.”
“Uh. Oh.” Which meant Bobby had called the sheriff after I’d pitched this little outing to him. “Was she mad?”
“She wasn’t happy. For heaven’s sake, Dash, Vivienne killed two people. She almost killed you. She framed an innocent woman for murder and let her spend her life in prison. And that’s just the stuff we know about. How do you think the sheriff is going to feel when she finds out you’re on a mission to prove Vivienne’s innocence?”
“I wouldn’t say I’m on a mission—”
“The sheriff also told me,” Bobby said over me, “that I don’t have any legal authority in this investigation. And she told me if we get ourselves in a jam, we’re on our own because this isn’t my job, and it’s not part of the deal she worked out with you.”
“And just to be clear—” I braced myself. “—are you mad?”
“You’re the detective,” he said, still staring out the window. “Figure it out.”
That was a very un-Bobby-like thing to say.
“Bobby, it’s not about proving Vivienne’s innocence. It’s about the fact that if she didn’t kill her brother, someone else did—and that person shouldn’t be allowed to get away with it. And I know what you’re going to say—”
He turned in his seat abruptly and said, “Do you?”
I swallowed. “Uh—”
“What am I going to say, Dash?”
I couldn’t bring myself to meet his eyes, so I kept my attention on the road. “You’re going to say that the Astoria police can handle it, and if she’s innocent, they’ll sort it out, and it’s none of our business.”
“No, that’s not what I was going to say.”
“Okay. Were you going to say that you understand this kind of thing is important to me, and that justice matters, and this is our chance to do something good?”
“No.”
We passed a faded sign of painted plywood advertising a produce stand, but there was no indication where the stand might have once stood or where we were supposed to go. The state highway carried us inland until the ocean was no longer visible. The trees thinned out, and we started to drive between agricultural fields. In one, an aging outbuilding of corrugated metal, with rust-eaten skirting and paint peeling from its roof, stood alone on ground allowed to go fallow. In another, a woman had crawled under what I wanted to call a combine, and she appeared to be venting her frustration with a wrench. Brush grew in patches along the sides of the road—not the ferns I was accustomed to around Hemlock House, but desiccated tangles of blackberry and hawthorn. Startled by something I couldn’t see, a sparrow launched itself from one of the blackberry bushes and zipped away.
In what I thought was a moment of particular genius, I said, “Do you want to tell me what you were going to say?”
“Not particularly.”
I had to work some spit into my mouth before I could talk, and then—somehow—what came out of my mouth was “Okey-dokey.”
That should have been my cue, ladies and gentlemen. That, right there. I should have steered straight for the closest outbuilding, combine, or utility pole and put myself out of my misery. (I assume Bobby would have been thrown clear and escaped without a scratch.)
After a deep breath—or three—Bobby said, “The county medical examiner doesn’t have much to work with, but she didn’t see any signs of physical trauma.”
I wasn’t sure how much soft tissue would remain after thirty years in the water, but my guess was not much, which meant that the only place the medical examiner would be able to look for signs of whatever killed Richard Lundgren were his bones. And while bones could provide a lot of evidence—hey, they made a whole TV show about that—people could be killed in all sorts of ways.
“What you’re saying,” I said, trying to keep my voice light, “is we’re not going to luck into an obvious cause of death and an even more obvious and personally identifying weapon, and have everything wrapped up by dinner.”
“Interesting,” Bobby said. “You knew what I was going to say. Again.”
“No, that’s not what I—” But I stopped myself. “Maybe I should stop talking.”
Bobby didn’t say anything, but he did make a noise that sounded an awful lot like “Hmm.”
In my infinite wisdom, I decided driving the rest of the way in silence was the best course. The fields and pastures gave way to homes. Then neighborhoods began to appear. To my surprise, the GPS didn’t take us into Astoria itself but kept us south of the city. The homes here were small frame constructions. I put most of them somewhere between fifty and seventy years old, with slab foundations and—where it hadn’t been replaced by vinyl—aluminum siding. One house needed its roof replaced. Another had a gutter hanging like a dropped jaw. Green algae bloomed on the north side of one little box of a house. The lawns varied—most were cut short, with a kind of ruthless utilitarianism that exposed brown patches and crabgrass. Just to keep things interesting, though, others were overgrown. One homeowner had chosen to go with the “abandoned toys” theme, and their yard was littered with action figures, trikes, and a Batman bicycle. It had the Bat Signal in yellow against the black body and shiny black tassels on the handlebars. I wondered if they made the same model, but for an adult.
Bobby was looking at me. My brain snapped the realization at me, and my face flushed. Because I was still—perpetually—Dashiell Dawson Dane, I blurted the first thing that popped into my head: “I know you’re going to think I’m crazy, but those tassels would definitely make that bike go faster.”
To my surprise, Bobby let out a breath that was almost a laugh. He rubbed his face, and when he lowered his hands, he looked like Bobby again—as though, until this moment, he’d been wearing a mask that just looked like Bobby. It was disorienting because it hadn’t been until now that I’d realized the difference. When he spoke, his voice was Bobby’s voice. “There’s no way they’d make the bike go faster.”
“Oh, they totally would. They’re awesome.”
“How would that make the bike faster?”
“It’s science, Bobby. Try to keep up.”
For a heartbeat, that goofy smile flickered on his face. And then he said, “I’m sorry I’ve been short with you. Kiefer—”
But he stopped.
Kiefer what, I wanted to know. Kiefer yelled at you? Kiefer picked a fight? Kiefer got angry because you’re a deputy and sometimes your job comes first? (Echoes of West.) And then another option sent a dark little thrill through me: Kiefer was furious because you chose to spend time with me over the date you’d planned with him. I wasn’t sure I liked what that feeling said about me, but it was there, and I couldn’t deny it.
Bobby didn’t look like he was going to finish that thought, so I said, “Bobby, I’m sorry.”
He shook his head.
“No, I am. I shouldn’t have asked—it’s just, you told me you wanted me to tell you—”
“I do want you to tell me.” The words were firm. “I don’t want you doing anything risky without telling me.”
“But I should have thought about your date.”
“Yeah, well.” Bobby ran his hand along the seat belt, pulling it away from his chest and letting it fall back into place.
“I forgot.”
He nodded.
“Next time,” I said, “just remind me. We could have gone tomorrow.”
A smile tilted across his face. “Really? You would have waited until I got off work tomorrow evening?”
“Uh…yes?”
“That’s what I thought.”
“Okay, I’m not sorry anymore because that was super rude. I take back my sorry. If anything, I’m reverse sorry.”
“What does that mean?” Bobby asked drily. “You’re glad you ruined my date?”
I opened my mouth and nothing came out.
Would yes be such a terrible thing to say?
Instead, though, I gave Bobby a sheepish smile. And he smiled back. And we were both smiling. I think maybe we even laughed a little. Like we both knew it was a joke. Like we both knew we were supposed to pretend it was a joke.
Remember how earlier I had that stroke of genius about driving into a utility pole?
I should have stuck with the plan.
Maybe Bobby was trying to come up with a similar plan to get out of this mess because his voice took on its usual business-like briskness, and he said, “So, how does an amateur sleuth solve a thirty-year-old mystery?”
“That question feels like a trap.” But Bobby only looked at me, and after a moment, I said, “You mean in a book?”
The rumble of the Jeep’s engine filled the silence between us.
“Well,” I said, “in a book, a cold case—which I guess is what this is—usually isn’t all too different from a regular investigation. Unless you’re writing a police procedural or about a forensic scientist, your protagonist probably won’t have access to approaches that involve DNA evidence or gas chromatography-mass spectrometry or carbon dating. Or, heck, even an autopsy.”
“So, what do they do?”
“Well, they talk to people. They ask questions.”
“This is starting to sound familiar.”
