Next of Kin, page 6
A sedan reversed out of the line of cars. Maybe I should move onto the shoulder of the highway while there was an opening. I walked toward the bullet, and was about to fish my keys from my purse when I saw a shiny piece of foil tucked under my wiper blade. A matchbook. Red, and in silver cursive script on the front was Yesterday Once More, along with the VFW’s address in smaller type below. I recognized it from the fishbowl by the door where the guy took your cover. A single match had been torn out and an x written on the inner flap. The foil in my palm glinted. Closer, the truck that had blocked me in looked familiar. Was that the same one that nearly plowed into me and Clint outside the café? I tucked the matchbook in my pocket, swiveling my head around. No one was watching me. The matchbook was probably just a weird thing some drunk person had done, but my skin felt tight and prickly, like maybe blocking the bullet had been a setup. I hurried back toward the bar to get Wyatt, feeling a sudden, strong desire to leave.
More people were milling about outside, and somewhere in the thick of it, I caught sight of a familiar figure. It was Cody Mott, standing next to a pack of guys. At first glance, you might think they were all together, but Cody wasn’t part of their conversation. He watched the show through the open doors, face red, eyes locked on his brother, Clint. His mouth parted and his eyes narrowed to slits. Like a jealous lover, an expression that alternated between raw pain and longing.
I was maybe twenty feet away, and decided to talk to him. “Hey,” I called out, pushing forward through the crowd, and louder, “Hey, Cody!”
He appeared to not see or hear, or was simply ignoring me. Spun on his heels when I waved, like he was in a hurry. He took one last look over his shoulder, back toward the stage, leaving as quietly as he came.
Chapter Seven
For the next two weeks, I did my best to banish Clint’s psychic wound from my mind. And failed. I couldn’t have articulated it then, but his story was too tangled with mine. There was Leroy the sheriff and Ronnie the getaway driver, legends both. The stories Leroy told had always felt to me like gospel—and him, he was so much bigger than any other person in the room. I felt both drawn to and snuffed out by this bigness, wanted to be part of his bright, buzzing light, but I also was afraid of the full story, of questioning too hard the narrative for what it might reveal. That was the other part that tangled me and Clint—fear. Resenting the sticky feeling under our heels, both obsessed and repulsed by the need to keep dwelling. Clint had mailed me a check, as promised, but hadn’t texted or called me back. I never did tell him about his mother’s loose connection to Ronnie Mott, and wondered how he felt, or if he knew.
I had another case to keep me busy, though. Nothing too complicated, but a paperwork-heavy job running background checks for a recruiting firm up in Austin. And of course, Nikki’s wedding. Sleepovers and a bachelorette party that ended in tears, vomit, and our cousin Candice being permanently banned from two establishments. Afternoons were spent at my aunt’s house assembling favors, handwriting place cards, arranging tea lights in votives Momma had found on sale at Walmart. I’ve always had the willpower to compartmentalize my anxieties, and besides, I really was happy for Nikki. But then all the tensions within our families that had been on simmer—my aunt’s insistence on corsages the size of dinner plates, and Sonny’s uncle appointing himself videographer and demanding payment, for example—came to a boil Friday at the rehearsal dinner.
We were all done setting up at the venue—the county’s rodeo fairgrounds—and the rehearsal was supposed to have started twenty minutes ago. I’d gotten tired of sitting on the hot metal bleachers, so I headed toward the shade of the pavilion, adjusting the pink sundress I wore. The clingy, synthetic fabric continued to ride up my thighs as I clomped through the grass in heels. A jagged edge to Nikki’s voice made me stop and look up.
“Where the hell is he, then?”
“That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you,” Sonny said, waving his hands over his head in frustration, sweat darkening the arms of his blue dress shirt. “I’ve called him like fifty fucking times!”
“What’s wrong?” I asked, lifting my hair off my neck. Another casualty of the bachelorette party: my nearly waist-length hair. We were drinking and getting ready at the salon where Nikki worked, and she’d talked me into going shorter. I’d even let her talk me into layers, which backfired—my hair was too uneven now to pull up.
Nikki glared at me. “Clint’s MIA and not answering his phone. But Sonny hasn’t even talked to him since his bachelor party last weekend!”
“Did y’all have a fight or something?” A bead of sweat rolled down my back. I wanted to ask if he’d said anything about his birth family, but stopped myself—not my place, certainly not the time.
Sonny let out a long sigh, and I couldn’t quite read his expression. “Clint just does this shit sometimes. Lots of times. Hell, we didn’t speak for like two years while he was on tour. Maybe I should go find him—”
“No, you ought to be enjoying yourselves,” I said, inserting myself between him and Nikki. “If someone’s leaving, let me go. Worst case, I know what to do tomorrow and all he has to do is follow my lead.”
Nikki frowned. “What, do you know where he is?”
“No, but the groom can’t leave. Sonny, has your mom tried him?”
“Mom’s not here yet, either,” he said, staring down at the stiff, pointed toes of his loafers. He looked like a kid playing dress-up. “She’s on her way, at least. Said she was driving fast as she could, and no, he wasn’t with her, then hung up on me.”
“I’ll also try and get ahold of Amanda,” I said, remembering I’d added her to the text thread for Nikki’s bachelorette. “She was supposed to come down today.”
Nikki fiddled with her ring, giving me a look like can you believe this crap. “Just promise you’ll hurry back,” she said, and pulled me in for a hug. Her arms were taut as a springboard. The makeup she’d spent so much time on was starting to melt, her sweat mixed with a lilac-heavy perfume. She’d been taking out her pre-wedding jitters on me, on Sonny, on anyone who dared come close. I thought her anger now was less about his family, more that he was a convenient place to direct her frustration. I knew how well telling her to calm down would go, so I did what I’d been doing all week, which was to keep us on schedule. Part of me really worried about Clint—what kind of a best man, the groom’s brother, at that, flakes on the rehearsal dinner?
“Thanks, Annie,” Sonny said as I looked in my bag for keys. “Sorry.”
* * *
By the time I’d driven to Clint’s house it was after six. The way the shadows fell across the little white bungalow made it look dirty, sad, and without any of the charming quality that a quirky old house had in the clear light of morning or lit up with string lights at night. No illusion of it being a place one reminisced about, recalling the years when he sat strumming on the porch as a young, struggling artist destined for greatness. His truck was gone out of the short driveway. Blinds closed, no light emitted from within. I didn’t even put the bullet in park, just turned left, headed toward his mother’s place in Parr City. Maybe he’d driven by sometime after Sonny had talked to her? But I found a similarly empty house, no cars in the driveway. Calling Amanda had been as fruitless. I tried Clint a third time, and now his phone went straight to voicemail. Worried that he might’ve been in an accident, I called the hospital—my mind couldn’t help but rush to worst-case scenario—and found that no one by his name had been admitted. Dread gnawed at my insides, thinking of the various kinds of trouble he might’ve gotten himself into.
I thought of Cody slinking through the crowd at the VFW. The look of both desire and disgust as he gazed upon his brother. Eyes narrowing as he took in Clint’s voice like it were a ray of white-hot sun. I got on the interstate, headed to Price County. Clint said he didn’t want me as intermediary, but another part of me knew I’d let my fear of how he’d react get in the way, not pressing. The unsettled feeling I’d had since delivering my report was tinged with guilt the closer that I looked. Sharing his full name with Cody, for one. I’d spent only a couple hours with the man and I’d had a run-in with a dealer and gotten swung at in a fistfight. Seeing him at Clint’s show didn’t exactly warrant an interrogation, but I didn’t know what else to do now. I couldn’t go back to the rehearsal without Clint. And even if Clint didn’t want anything more than to know his family’s name, it wasn’t entirely up to him. Cody’s life was changed now, too. I hadn’t asked Lorena or Ronnie if they consented to me sharing their names, either—exactly why you’d hire someone like me instead of going through the courts, I knew, but I didn’t feel good about what I’d done. Cody handily confirmed all my theories, sure, but I didn’t have the full picture. I still had his number, and nearly threw the phone out the window when he didn’t pick up.
The parking lot at Shady Grove Place was dimly lit. Sunset haze mixed with the greenish hue of a single lamppost by the stairwell, and I parked as close to the light as I could. Moths had gotten trapped in the bulb, snapping against the glass as they expired, and more flitted around my head as I approached Cody’s door. I couldn’t hear anyone, but the blue glow of a television screen bled through the poorly-fitted blinds. I squinted through them and saw it was a video game that had been paused. I knocked, waited, knocked harder, and that’s when I realized the latch wasn’t quite clicked into place. I turned the janky, burnished knob slightly and it swung open.
“Cody? Anyone home?”
Standing at the threshold, I peered into the shadowy living room. I was somewhat surprised to see it was spartan in appearance, only one black Ikea bookshelf and matching coffee table, and a dismal, brown velour couch. He was a young, single guy, of course, but speaking with him the other night—maybe because he said he’d stuck around Lorena despite their dysfunction—I’d taken him for the sentimental type. Like he might hold onto birthday cards and ticket stubs, keep knickknacks on his shelf. There was some junk on the coffee table: game controllers, a bottle of Coke, cigarettes, and a shopping bag. A bedroom pillow and a faded, handsewn quilt were draped over the couch cushion like he’d been napping there, which touched me for whatever reason. I had a sudden, strong urge to leave, that this was getting too personal, but felt rooted to the spot. I called out for him again. My pulse quickened and I looked behind me, scanning the parking lot for a black Corolla. I didn’t see his car, and before I could think better of it, stepped inside his apartment and closed the door behind me.
Seconds later, the air now sealed, I smelled it—the iron-rich scent of blood. A gamey, animal scent. Acid rose in my throat as I walked toward a postage stamp–size kitchen, a cell sectioned off from the living room by a half-wall cut-out. I flipped the wall switch and a fluorescent bulb hummed overhead, casting a greenish, store-like glow that flooded the entire room. The beige linoleum was recently mopped, still damp, and the chipped counters smelled faintly of Clorox. Only a highball glass in the sink, no food left out that might cause the other smell. Nothing was obviously amiss, but the lid of the kitchen trash can had been left on the floor. The can was empty, the bag not yet replaced. Legs shaking, I turned down the hallway—I didn’t know what I was doing here anymore, but didn’t stop. What if Cody had hurt himself, I worried, had been dropped off drunk again and had banged his head, or was wounded in another barfight? As I walked down the hallway, the smell grew stronger, more bodily. A whiff of smoke and something more metallic hung in the air, like gunpowder. The bathroom to my left was dark. A bedroom door across the hall was cracked, lamplight glowing from within. A ceiling fan clicked, circulating the dank air outward.
“Cody?”
Pushing the door, I was met with resistance. Dull weight with a little give. I stopped and stuck my head around, peering down to examine the blockage. Blood spattered wildly and had pooled, settling into the carpet like a bucket of paint that had tipped.
“No—God, please, no,” I begged, though Cody couldn’t hear me now.
Chapter Eight
An officer tied yellow tape to the staircase railing, cordoning off the apartment. I turned my back when the stretcher came into view. I’d seen enough. The image of Cody curled on his side, blood and pieces of him on the carpet, the wall—that was burned into my brain forever. I didn’t need to see him taken away to make it real. And yet, the whole time I’d been here—alternating between pacing the sidewalk and sitting on the crumbling asphalt ledge—waiting forever for the Price County sheriff to arrive, I’d had the surreal, underwater sensation of being trapped in a lucid dream.
“Ma’am?” A woman wearing dark slacks and a white button-down strode toward me. She was small but sturdy, hair in a tight bun, mouth set in a frown. As she drew nearer, I could see she was maybe in her mid-fifties, with a single white skunk streak in her jet-black hair. “Sheriff Kate Krause. Let’s you and me go over what happened.”
“Annie McIntyre,” I said, heart thumping. Finally, I’d get to talk and get all that I’d been storing up—rehearsing the how, the why of it—off my chest. “You might know my grandfather, Leroy McIntyre,” I said, shaking her hand. “He was law enforcement in Garnett County for many years.”
“Old Leroy is your grandfather?” Her eyes drew down, betraying her polite smile. She led me toward the second stairwell on the opposite side of the complex, away from the small group of onlookers who’d gathered after the sirens came pealing and whining, carrying over the din of the interstate. “Need water? Might could scrounge up a coffee—”
“No, thank you,” I said, stuck on her reaction to Leroy’s name. He’d retired decades ago, but they’d likely worked together at some point if she’d risen in the ranks locally. My chest pinched, instinct telling me I might need to be careful. Whatever had actually happened, breaking into the apartment of a man who’d been shot dead didn’t look great. I’d interacted with several criminal defense lawyers over the past year, and their advice to never speak to cops without representation clanged like a bell in my ears. “I only mentioned my grandfather because I thought it might come up,” I said quickly. “See, I work for his private investigation firm over in Garnett, and a case of mine is how I know—knew—Cody Mott. I had spoken to him about a biological relative that had wanted to make contact and I was following up, seeing if they’d spoken.”
“I see.” She had her legs in a wide stance and rocked on her boot heels. A good two or three inches shorter than me, even in the boots, yet I felt like she was looking down at me such was her intensity. “So, I hear you told the dispatcher he was dead when you found him. Why’d you go into the apartment if he didn’t come to the door when you knocked?” My eyes must have gotten big, because she interjected before I could answer, “You’re not in trouble, Annie,” and softer, “I know this must be really upsetting for you.”
My eyes welled unexpectedly. The façade cracking with that tiniest note of tenderness. All that I’d seen—the brutality of it—kept hitting. This man that I’d spoken with, so alive just the other day now stiffening, cold. It wasn’t his face—or lack of a face, only mangled remnants—that I kept picturing, but his hands. Fingers curled, his skin waxy and pale, dirty, purpling at the cuticles. Those same fingers I’d seen twist around a beer bottle, drum the bar top. Words in sun-faded ink snaking around his wrist. A pistol had been lying on the carpet beside him. I swallowed hard, shaking the image from my head. “I don’t have a good answer,” I said. “Other than I was curious and eager to talk to him. The front door was open and I just went for it. I walked inside and something felt off, and then I found him on the floor in the bedroom. I called 911 right away.”
The sheriff studied me for a moment. Maybe she did find my being in the apartment questionable but didn’t want me spooked. She looked off, toward the crime scene worker on the opposite staircase. “To take one’s life is terribly sad, isn’t it? Had you known him well?”
My mouth went dry. “Oh, you’re sure it was suicide?”
“Well, we found a note. The medical examiner will make the final determination, but yep, looks that way,” she said. “’Course, that’s not the only reason why I think it was suicide,” she added, crudely miming putting a gun in her mouth.
“How long had he been there do you think?”
“Probably not long before you said you arrived.”
My mind was racing. I couldn’t articulate a solid reason why suicide didn’t sit right—hell, I barely knew Cody. Maybe I just didn’t want to believe it. You never really know what someone’s going through, people always said when this kind of thing happened. Yet that didn’t settle my unease. “Why was the door open?” I asked. “You don’t think it’s possible there’d been a robbery or—”
“I suppose I don’t know one thousand percent,” she said, and huffed as though saying so made her look bad. My shoulders tensed; an inability to sit with ignorance for a moment, to not rush to be the first one with an answer, had always bothered me in a person. Not all, but a lot of the cops I’d encountered around here had acted like this. “But robbery? No. Nothing big missing, his wallet and television were still there, and I simply don’t see any signs of a break-in. No signs of a struggle, either. Gun was right there next to him, and this is not always the case, but I could visibly see residue on his right hand. Could see signs he’d been intoxicated. Now, you said the door was wide open?”
