Descend, page 4
When my friendship with Warren turned into more, I thought he’d be mine forever. That I’d be his. That the dreams we talked about and the plans we made would one day come true. But he betrayed me, and while I was busy pulling that knife out of my back, he slept with my sister.
Beth’s a lightweight when it comes to alcohol and she was drunk when Warren took advantage of her. She bumped into him at a speakeasy over in Sprague, a place far away from here where she could drink without being near the Leidolf. Not one to ever garner much male attention, she was flattered when Warren started chatting her up and buying her drinks. As much as I hate him, I can’t deny how sexy he is. He hit puberty early and it did his body good. Corded muscle over long, sunbaked arms. Big rough hands. Legs sculpted as if he’s one of those Greek statues come to life. And as he aged from boy to man, he only got better. Beth never had a chance. Once his mouth started working over her neck and he whispered in her ear how much he'd always wanted her, she had no other option than to cave.
I know what it feels like to have Warren’s hands on you. His mouth. It’s why I gathered all the little envelopes of money Gary had sent me over the years and gave them to Warren when he turned sixteen. His birthday is two months before mine and we had our eye on a van, something that would be ours and give us a place to be together. The van was put in his name only, and the back of it is where he took Beth all these years later. He slept with her right on top of all my memories.
I press a palm to my stomach, never failing to feel ill when forced to recall Beth's tearful confession. She hates herself for what she did with Warren that night and has shot down all the passes he’s made at her since. And that’s one story of hers that I believe because several people have mentioned how she practically runs in the opposite direction whenever Warren shows up in her vicinity. They mean it to be a compliment, one sister scorned equaling two, but they don’t know the real reason she avoids him. The very fact she’s managed to keep such juicy details to herself is a testament to how bad she feels for being a part of that particular betrayal. There are plenty of others, both things gossiped about that I’ve actually done and ones she’s just made up, but the whole of them combined isn’t as bad as Warren telling her he was only with me because I was as close as he could get to her.
I find my nearly empty bottle of Ricard and drain what’s left of it. “You’re right, Beth. Warren is dirtbag suspect number two.”
She takes the empty bottle from me. “I don’t think Bobby or Warren are likely suspects, but I hope Chief figures out who is before you drink yourself to death.”
I pat her cheek. “I can always count on you to exaggerate. Just remember what kind of company your overreacting got you last night.”
She glances toward our now empty living room. “Do you think Samantha died before… I mean, it would be a blessing, right? To be gone before you get cut open like that?”
Samantha’s smiling face pops into my mind. Even at her worst, she always managed to have that smile. “I’m going to go talk to Chief, see what his plan is for warning people.”
“You think he’s going to announce there’s a serial killer on the loose?”
I shrug. “People already seem to know how Samantha was killed, so even if Chief keeps the other murders quiet for a while, people are going to be scared. And they have a right to know that they should be afraid.”
She nods. “Especially the female people.”
I’m struck with another fear when Beth moves to the sink, leans back and runs her fingers through her coarse blonde hair––such a stark contrast to my own dark locks. Of all the women in this town, I’d wager I’m the safest. Beth is the complete opposite of me. “You should go stay with Arnold for a while.”
Her eyes narrow. “Living in this one-horse town when I’m twenty-six and unmarried is hard enough without you joining the witch hunt trying to force me into marrying a man I can’t stand half the time.”
I cup my hands over her shoulders. “No one is erecting gallows in the town square and I’m not telling you to marry Arnold, though he’d love for you to, and you know he’d treat you like his queen. But unless you want a club member camping in the living room every night, you need to go someplace safe. I don’t want you staying here alone.”
“I won’t be alone if you come home at night.” Her eyes dart to the floor and back up. “You know people talk. You’re at the bar every night, staying there with…well, no one really knows who you’re waking up with, so they talk.”
I drop my hands from her shoulders. I have no doubt people around here think I’m sleeping with every single member of the Leidolf. I wouldn’t put it past some of the finger-pointing gossipmongers to include Gary in their tallies. “First off, I work several jobs in the bar so of course I’m always there. Second, even if I was home in my own bed every night, people would still talk. That’s what bored little rumor spreaders do, they flap their jaws for no good reason instead of getting busy with their own lives.” I pull a to-go cup from the cabinet and pour some of her coffee into it. “I’m going to go get busy with my life, which doesn’t include standing here giving gossip a breath of my time.”
She sighs. “I’m only telling you what your behavior looks like to outsiders. I know you wouldn’t sleep with any of those…men.” I roll my eyes at her and she smiles. “I could rip out all your hair and even slick as an eight ball, every man in this town would still fall all over themselves just to get you to look at them. So why do you think insurance boy isn’t on his knees yet?”
I put the lid on my coffee. “According to you, it’s because I’m banging all the members of the Leidolf.” I head toward my bedroom, anger pressing against the walls of my being. If Beth didn’t start this particular rumor, she certainly encouraged it. I can hear her now, waltzing into the post office and just happening to mention how she hasn’t seen me because I didn’t come home again last night. “Go to Arnold’s, Beth. And marry him!”
~9~
Our police department has been operating out of the same building for longer than I’ve been alive. They’ve made updates over the years and have twice relocated into a row of trailers after floodwaters rose high enough to breach this old brick building that’s cut from the same era as the bar. But they always return to the plaster walls and narrow halls.
There’s a lot of community support for our law enforcement and it shows when it comes time for budgets to be written. But somehow, that money never seems to manifest. Not according to the officers who frequent the bar. They rarely get pay increases and any new influx of budget dollars gets spent well before it can trickle down to make a difference in the way they do their jobs. The new vests they all own were gained by an apple butter fundraiser put on by the Pentecostal Church. The Baptists, not wanting to be outdone, sold hotdogs to purchase two new uniforms for each officer in the department. These sales always take place over holiday weekends when we’re likely to have out-of-towners rolling through to fish or float along the two rivers that join at the mouth of town. One river is slow and lazy, the other is rough and whitecapped––the water a metaphor for the people who live along the shores. We’re easygoing, until we’re not.
Waiting in a room by myself, separated from Gary to give the statement Chief wants, I feel the change in my temperament coming on. In contrast to the seeming insignificance of Layla’s death, her murder causing little more than a rustling of lips, Samantha’s death is rousing wolf and law alike, and it’s a shame it took four other murders to shine a spotlight on the ripple that began with Layla. It’s a shame that Chief never confirmed that the beheaded body was even Layla’s. Someone in town might have had information about her last known whereabouts and stopped a killer long before he got his hands on Samantha.
“Sorry to keep you waiting.” Chief sits down across from me.
I fold my arms. “Let’s just hope no other women were murdered while you did.” The frown lines in the corner of his mouth deepen. I sigh. “I assume you’ve been interrogating Gary?”
He flips open the folder of papers he brought in with him. “I’m not interrogating anyone. Yet.” He slides a blank sheet of paper across the table to me. “I need you to write down your activities from the morning Samantha was found, specifically who you saw, when you saw them, and where you saw them.”
I shake my head. “I see a lot of people, can’t keep it all straight.”
He rests his hands atop the folder, lacing his fingers together. “Tessa, don’t make this harder than it needs to be. Just tell me where you were that morning and who was with you so I can get on with finding who murdered Samantha. That girl was a lot of things, but she didn’t deserve what was done to her.”
“Obviously.” I roll my eyes.
He leans back in his chair, unclasping his hands and shuffling to the next page in his folder. “Here’s what I know. Warren stayed at the bar the night before. He got drunk downstairs, so Gary let him sleep it off upstairs.”
Lie. I’m not going to say it out loud, but Gary would never let Warren inside the bar, let alone upstairs. Even if the two of them are suddenly close enough to be handing out alibis.
Chief continues. “Though I don’t care much for your old boyfriend, Warren is vouching for Gary’s whereabouts the next morning and Gary is confirming Warren was in an apartment upstairs.” He slides another paper across the desk. “Here’s Gary’s statement. Go on. Read it.” He taps Gary’s signature at the bottom. “Your ex and your cousin have matching stories. Warren was in the hallway when Samantha slipped out of Gary’s apartment. After she left, he knocked on Gary’s door to thank him, and Gary invited Warren in for breakfast. Seems they had themselves a nice little meal while Samantha was being cut open.”
The room spins. I suck air through my nose. Chief circles the table and kneels beside me, bringing a trashcan with him. “Tessa, honey, I don’t know if Warren and Gary are full of it or if they’re telling the truth. What I do know is there’s a killer in our town. He may or may not be someone you care about, but I know you loved Samantha. Help me find who hurt her by not lying to me about what you saw that morning.”
My head is reeling. I shouldn’t be surprised that Gary and Warren have matching statements, Gary would have made sure they did. But I could have been his alibi. We don’t need Warren. “I was with Chopper––”
“No, you weren’t!” Chief cuts me off. “And you’ve never been a liar so don’t start now. Don’t break every faith I’ve ever had in you by trying to protect someone who doesn’t need your help.”
I look down to where he’s still kneeling beside me, resolve strengthening. “Chopper was with me.”
He gets up and leaves the room. I sit with my eyes on Gary’s paper, his chicken scratch spelling out what he ate with Warren that morning. Brown sugar cinnamon oatmeal and bacon. A typical breakfast for Gary.
The door swings open and Gary strolls in, dropping his frame into the seat Chief had first sat in. “Do what I told you to do, Tessa. Write down the truth, and then go wait for me in the Highlander.”
I shove his statement at him. “You want truth? How about the truth of you betraying me? You let Warren into the bar, didn’t you? Had him upstairs where I could have stumbled into the same apartment as him.” He stares at me. My heart pounds, bile rising into the back of my throat. “Of all the people who would betray me, I never thought it would be you.”
His eyes cut deep. His words even further. “Write down your statement, and then wait outside.” He gets up and opens the door, Chief standing on the other side waiting.
“What about Chopper?” I ask Gary’s back. “Is this what we’re doing now? Abandoning each other?”
“Do as you’re told, Tessa. And do it now!” Gary slams the door.
I sit perfectly still until Chief walks back in, the same solemn look on his face that he’s had all day. “The state medical examiner is going to have Samantha’s body for a while. But once it’s released and she’s buried, things will get a little easier for your cousin.”
“Unless you frame him for murder.” I grab the blank sheet of paper he gave me earlier. “Oh, wait, it’s Chopper you’re trying to frame.” In big letters, I fill the page, writing: Chopper did not kill Samantha.
Leaving the paper on the table, I get up. “I’m going to go wait in my vehicle before I get yelled at again by your co-conspirator. You have yourself a real nice day now, Chief.”
~10~
Chopper, Rick, Zeno, and Randy were waiting outside the police station. I didn’t speak to any of them, though Gary did briefly before getting behind the wheel of my Highlander. From the police station to the bar, we remained silent.
Gary took hold of my arm in the parking lot, fingers tightening around my bicep to force me through the door and up the stairs to his apartment. He’s never put his hands on me like this before, but today I’m guaranteed to have a bruising memento of his grip.
Chopper follows us into the apartment and shuts the door. Gary sits on the couch and pulls me down beside him, his grip loosening. “I’m not throwing Chopper under a bus, and I’m sure as heck not abandoning you.” His arm slips around me. “Warren wasn’t here.”
I let out a breath of tension. He does the same. “Warren got the call to come tow a vehicle to the impound lot. When he arrived at the Wiggly Pig, he saw it was Samantha’s car and overheard some of the officers talking. He heard enough to know her body was…freshly killed, and that I was the prime suspect. Then he heard the part about her heart being missing and he panicked. He spoke to Chief in a daze, saying he’d just left my place when the tow call came in.”
I stare at the floor. “Warren is who you were on the phone with when Chief got here?”
Gary’s hand tightens on my shoulder. “He was trying to warn me, let me get ahead of the news.”
I slide to the far end of the couch, away from his reach. “Warren gave you an alibi that won’t hold water if anyone checks into his actual whereabouts, which is God knows where with that run-around dirtbag. And he also threw Chopper straight under the wheels of the bus. Warren is not your friend, Gary. He’s not helping you, and I highly doubt he panicked. Warren sat on the wall eavesdropping like the dirty little rat he is and made a plan. There’s something in this for him, and apparently that something has to do with getting rid of Chopper.”
Chopper looks up, a smile on his face. I throw an empty beer can at him. He laughs, catching the can and giving me a look that sets my belly on fire. Gary puts a phone in the center of the coffee table. “Chopper was with Alice the night Samantha stayed with me. Alice came here with Sam, but she didn’t leave with her. Chops took her home a little earlier so she could get ready for work, and…” He glances at me. “He was at her place long enough for a few neighbors to see his bike leave. He came straight here and the camera out front shows him coming in seven minutes after Sam left. He’s clear. So next time I tell you to do something, you do it. Don’t question me ever again, especially in front of others.”
Chopper’s eyes are now down, the smile wiped off his face. We’re not a couple and I’m not jealous, but it’s still awkward that I’ve been trying to defend him when the whole time he had a different woman to alibi him. A great big busty one with more curves than a West Virginia backroad.
I face Gary. “If you would have just told me from the start that Chopper had an alibi instead of telling me not to worry about someone I love, then I wouldn’t have bucked you. I would have backed you, just like I always do. But you’re not telling me anything. You’re keeping me in the dark while you whisper on the phone with Warren. I may not be a member of the club but I’d take a bullet for every one of you and I guarantee you that’s something your new little buddy wouldn’t do.”
His jaw ticks. “I share blood with you, but even without that, we’re family. My brothers all know it, and you being willing to take a bullet for us is part of the problem, Tessa.”
I stab a finger into my chest. “Oh, so it’s my fault a serial killer is on the loose? Because I’m too loyal? Thanks for clearing that up.”
He rolls his eyes right back at me and looks at Chopper, who nods. Gary runs a hand down his face. “Despite the connections Chief is making, I’m not convinced Samantha was murdered by a serial killer. I think her death is an attack against the club.”
I shake my head. “Who would attack the club?”
He snorts. “Plenty of people. And that’s why I don’t want you in the middle of this. I want you to help me plan Samantha’s service, and I might have some other errands for you, but unless I ask, you stay away from everything that has anything to do with these murders.” He pins me with a look. “And you do as I say. Got it?”
I lean my elbows on my knees, processing his speculation. “She was mutilated, Gary. Just like the other women.”
“Chief let me look at the files he’s been putting together on the others. None of them were missing a heart.”
I swallow. “So you think the person took her heart because you loved her with all of yours?”
His eyes brim red. “I think whoever hurt her knows I love you, too.”
Chopper lifts his eyes. “Sam was just easier for them to get to.”
My blood runs cold. I could be dead right now, my heart cut out and what’s left of my body being combed over by the medical examiner. Instead of Samantha’s funeral, Gary could be planning mine. His warm hand stretches to rest on my back. “I’ve got to go out to where Sam’s car was found and search for surveillance cameras. Stay here in the bar until I get back.”
Fear presses against my lungs. “I want to go with you.” His mouth twists up into what’s sure to be a no and I slide close to his side. “Please? I can help get people to open up without you having to ignite your short fuse.”
