Again with Feeling, page 12
part #6 of The Last Picks Series
“What?” she said.
“Sorry about—”
“Oh, it’s okay. I get it, trust me. Big brothers are the worst.”
I almost—almost—descended into sputtering again. But I managed to keep my cool (on the outside, anyway—I mean was it the hair? He was seventeen, for heaven’s sake. Was it because of all the testosterone?). “Right. Well, I was hoping I could ask you a few more questions about Richard.”
She lowered turquoise-shadowed eyelids and squinted out at me. Slowly, she said, “Okay.”
“One of the things that I’m still trying to figure out is where you were the night Richard disappeared.” (I didn’t add that the reason I was still trying to figure it out was because the first time I’d asked, she’d avoided the question.) “I was hoping you could tell me what you were doing that night.”
Her silence lasted a beat. And then she said, “Excuse me?”
“This is part of making sure the case is airtight—”
“The case is airtight,” she said, and the words were starting to get pitchy. “Vivienne killed him. I already told you that.”
“I know, but you understand that to prove that, the police are going to need more than your word for it.”
“I told you about all of it. How they were all fighting. And the money. She hated Richard, and she killed him, and she took the money and left.”
“Yes, I remember you telling me. But you know that defense attorneys do background checks on everyone involved in a case like this—including witnesses. So, I need to nail down exactly where you were that night.”
“I was at home.” She said it so fast that nobody would have believed her.
“Uh huh. So, the thing is, another name came up in the investigation, and I’m afraid it’s…complicating the timeline.” (How about that for some grade-A BS?) “What can you tell me about Zane Potthof?”
Underneath the inches of makeup, her face went white. It was like someone ripped the stuffing out of her—her shoulders slumped, and she sagged inside her tube top (try not to visualize it). Then she rallied. She struggled to pull herself upright, crossed her arms under her, uh, bosom, and said, “Who told you about Zane?” And before I could say anything, she said, “It was her, wasn’t it?”
“Who?”
“Of course she’d bring him up. Because that’s how she is! She’s always been such a dried-up old stick-in-the-mud. She’s never made any mistakes. She’s never done anything wrong. What did she say? What did she tell you?” Again, I didn’t have a chance to speak before she barreled forward: “I don’t care. I don’t want to know!”
“Why don’t we start with who you think—”
“Vivienne!” It was a shriek, and Keme and Ricky looked up from the book of tattoo designs they were examining.
A moment later, that combative tap came at the window, and Fox asked through the glass, “What did she say about Vivienne?”
That was when I decided that this would be the first—and last—episode of family-style sleuthing.
Fortunately, Candy was on a real tear by then, and she just kept going. “She’s always hated us. She hates that we’re her family, that she came from us, that she can’t get rid of us. And she hated Richard. You said you wanted to know why she’d hurt him—that’s why. She hated him so much she—she was insane. She would have done anything to hurt him.”
“That doesn’t make any sense,” I said. “Everyone told us how close they were. Vivienne told us she loved Richard. Jane said—”
A nasty laugh ripped its way out of Candy, but she was crying too, wiping her cheeks and spreading mascara everywhere. “I saw them,” she said, and the words had a child’s outrage. “I walked in on them.” And then, as though I might be even denser than she’d thought: “Doing it.”
Maybe I was denser than she’d thought because the words that came out of my mouth were: “Vivienne and Richard?”
“No, you idiot. Vivienne and Jane! That’s why Vivienne killed him. She was jealous of him! She hated him because she was obsessed with Jane. I told you Richard and Jane were arguing. I told you Jane was having an affair. Jeez, how dumb are you? She killed Richard to get him out of the way, made it look like a robbery, and—and threw Richard away like he was a piece of garbage.” Candy let out that ugly laugh again, but now her eyes were dry. “Jane didn’t want anything to do with her after that, though. Because she finally saw Vivienne for exactly who she was—who we all knew she was: someone who would do whatever it took to get what she wanted.”
Chapter 13
Later that afternoon, surrounded by people on the beach, I was still trying to wrap my head around what Candy had told me.
After that revelation, I hadn’t been able to get anything more out of Candy—she’d started crying so hard I thought she was going to make herself sick, and Ricky had asked us to leave. The ride back to Hastings Rock had been quiet. Too quiet, really, because I’d had too much time with my thoughts. And it hadn’t gotten any better in the stillness of Hemlock House. I couldn’t bring myself to check Bobby’s room to see if he’d taken more of his stuff. I tried holing up in the den to work on my story with Hugo, but my brain seemed to have quit working. Hugo was understanding, of course. After an hour or two, he politely told me he needed to jump in the shower, and we’d work on it again tomorrow, and to have a great afternoon. Jump in the shower, I thought. On a Sunday afternoon. Which meant he was going out. Or maybe just hooking up with someone. And I was alone in a Class V haunted mansion while Bobby moved in with a baby gay fresh out of the packaging.
I heard how unkind that thought was and gave myself a stern talking to, but it didn’t help.
Maybe that was why, when Fox told me to get in the van, I obeyed. I didn’t even ask where we were going. And that was how I ended up at the beach, with so many other people that I thought I could actually feel my hair turning white, for the sandcastle competition.
It was still a beautiful day; maybe even more beautiful, in fact, on the water. The sky was the deep blue of a summer day winding to a close, with puffy white clouds marching along the horizon. Under the late afternoon sun, it was almost warm enough to feel hot, but the breeze and the swash of cold water kept it comfortable. When I looked out at the ocean, and the bright patches of reflected sunlight churning in the dark green water, I thought of silver-backed leaves turning over and over in the dark. I thought maybe I’d use that in a book one day. In a scene after someone died.
I tried to turn my brain toward the mystery I was supposed to be solving, but that didn’t get me anywhere either. The revelation that Vivienne and Jane had been sexually involved—if it was true—changed the relationship dynamics underpinning the entire investigation. I knew, rationally, the revelation was important. I knew I needed to confirm it. But I felt braindead and hollowed out. When I tried to force myself to think, I came up with details that seemed useless—in Agatha Christie’s Nemesis, the question of a same-sex desire underpins much of the story, but it’s presented as obsessive and twisted. And Josephine Tey’s biographers have long suggested that she was a closeted lesbian herself. Were those facts important? Or were they just my exhausted brain randomly firing in an attempt to make connections?
I had no idea, which was part of the problem.
A bigger part of the problem was that it was hard to focus on a mystery, or on feeling sorry for myself—or, frankly, on feeling melodramatic—with so much happening around me. People—tourists and locals alike—crowded the beach, and it seemed like they took up every inch of available space. Many of them had clearly been there all day, working on elaborate designs, and I realized with a hint of guilt that my friends probably would have been here too if they hadn’t been making sure I didn’t get myself killed. We finally found a spot a quarter mile down the beach and got ourselves set up. It wasn’t a hard walk, and everybody besides me seemed to be in decent spirits. Keme was clearly thrilled about the opportunity to demonstrate for Millie his capacity for carrying heavy things.
I turned down Indira and Fox’s invitation to help them with their sandcastle. (In case you’re wondering—no, Keme did not offer, and I was going to remember that because his birthday was coming up.) I set to work on my own design, using the little trowels and scoops and buckets to excavate my raw material and then start building.
Even here, at the edge of the crowd, it wasn’t exactly quiet. A little girl shouted with excitement as she sprinted toward the water. When the swash rolled up the beach, she came running back. It was, apparently, an endless game. Mr. Cheek, who had dressed in one of those full-body, old-timey bathing suits (the striped kind, you know?), was busy having an energetic discussion with an out-of-towner in an enormous sunhat. (He was telling her about his own, personal additions to the standard sandcastle design. I swear to God, I heard the word bathhouse about seven times.) Brad Newsum, of Newsum Decorative Rock, had marshaled what appeared to be an army of teenagers to create a sandcastle city. The teens—the boys, in particular—looked over at Keme a few times. They didn’t say anything, though. And Keme pretended not to notice.
He actually might not have noticed because he was thoroughly engaged in some hardcore (and, frankly, agonizing to watch) teenage boy flirting. He stole Millie’s hat, and she had to chase him to give it back. He knocked over the tower she was building, which turned into a splash war at the edge of the water. He had somehow (God bless that enterprising young man) managed to find a reason to take his shirt off, and he had apparently chosen as his latest act of, uh, courtship to bump into Millie as hard as he could every time she tried to add a detail to their design.
Fox and Indira, on the other hand, had what appeared to be a solid working relationship. Fox, who had worn a magenta caftan to the beach (the outfit was completed by foam beach slides that were designed to look like googly-eyed fish), was snoring softly as they napped. Indira’s sandcastle was—let’s face it—perfect. It had some strong Sleeping Beauty vibes, and there was something soothing about watching Indira at work: the concentration on her face, the steady, self-assured movements of her hands.
“Dash, your rock looks good,” Millie said.
I stared at her. And then I looked back at my lump of a sandcastle.
Keme whispered something in Millie’s ear, and Millie giggled before she clapped a hand over her mouth.
“It’s not a rock,” I said. “It’s—I’m just getting started!”
“Why don’t you help me, dear?” Indira asked. “You’re so good at adding the little scallops.”
Okay, I have to admit—that almost worked. Because I was very good at adding the little scallops. But I caught myself and said, “No, thanks. I’m going to keep working on my sandcastle.”
Keme whispered something else, and that really cracked Millie up. She at least had the good grace to look guilty about it, though.
I was about to respond to that when an excited laugh broke through my thoughts.
Immediately to my right, no more than twenty yards away, Bobby and Kiefer had just arrived. Kiefer was on his feet, holding his hands up as though warding Bobby off, and grinning. Bobby, for his part, sat crisscross on the ground, shaking sand out of his shirt. To judge from the look on Kiefer’s face, I knew who had put it there. And to judge by the look on Bobby’s face—well, he was smiling. But it was clear Kiefer wanted to do some of the playful chasing I’d seen from Keme and Millie not too long ago, and it was equally clear Bobby had no intention of getting to his feet.
“Maybe you should come work over here,” Indira said.
I shook my head and bent over my sandcastle—it was not a rock. And, just to prove my point, I shaved a bit off the sides to square it up. And then I added windows. And then because there was something soothing about poking my finger into the sand as hard as I could, over and over again, I got a little carried away, and the rock-castle crumbled.
“That’s okay, Dash,” Millie called brightly. “That happened to me all the time when I was little.”
I chose not to respond to that.
The problem, though, was that now that I knew Bobby and Kiefer were nearby, I couldn’t help but notice, well, everything.
“I just feel so bad for her, babe,” Kiefer was saying. “I mean, she’s so talented, and she’s such a good person, and she totally didn’t deserve that.”
Bobby made a noncommittal noise in response. I recognized that noise. I had once, memorably, heard that noise when Bobby had been resting with his eyes closed and I’d ranked all the Spider-Man movies by gayness.
“I just don’t know how she’s ever going to perform again,” Kiefer said.
Bobby’s response came a moment later—polite, but distracted. “Who?”
“Ariana Grande,” Kiefer said, with all the charmed vexation of someone who is deeply (and newly) in love. “The bombing. Remember?”
“Right,” Bobby said in that same tone. “I don’t know.”
Kiefer gave an exaggerated sigh. Then, without missing a beat, he said, “Oh, remember how I told you Uggs were going to come back? Well, get this: they’re totally coming back.”
Bobby said, “Uh huh.”
Okay, I’m a terrible person. I admit it. But at that moment, I couldn’t help it—I turned my head down and focused on my sandcastle as I smiled.
At a generous guess, I’d say Bobby got about five seconds of precious silence before Kiefer said, “Oh my God, did you watch the clip I sent you?”
It might have been my imagination, but it sounded like Bobby’s troweling was getting a little more…assertive. His voice sounded level, though, when he said, “I don’t know. Which one?”
“Bobby!” But the mock disappointment vanished in excitement as Kiefer continued, “The one from Watch What Happens Live. You’ve got to watch it—I saw it last night, and I couldn’t wait to show you.” With that same callow attempt at weariness, he added, “That’s why I sent it to you. It’ll be so nice to just watch all the same shows once we move in together so I don’t have to remind you to watch the clips I send you.”
And there was a mind-boggler of a sentence, I thought.
Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Kiefer showing Bobby something on his phone. (Fine, I admit it: I was watching them.) I knew when the video ended because Kiefer looked at Bobby, clearly waiting for a reaction. Whatever he wanted, though, he wasn’t getting, because finally he burst out, “Doesn’t he look terrible?”
“I think Andy Cohen always looks like that.”
“No, not Andy. Matthew Perry!”
For the first time, Kiefer’s frustration seemed real rather than manufactured. They lapsed into silence. And because I’m a terrible person, I couldn’t help but grin as I went back to work. I could even feel bad for Kiefer, a little. I mean, it was obvious he didn’t know Bobby at all. Celebrity news? Fashion trends? Bravo TV? Getting Bobby Mai to talk—to really talk, not just those polite, noncommittal responses—was no mean feat, but as someone who was a master at it, I could tell that Kiefer had zero idea what he was doing.
And then, in the tone of someone clearly out of his depths but trying—as always—so earnestly, Bobby said, “I’m sorry. I don’t know anything about that stuff. Matthew Perry was on Friends, right? Why does he look so bad?”
Between one heartbeat and the next, I couldn’t breathe. It was like a big, brass hand had closed around my chest. Tears flooded my eyes, and even though I blinked as fast as I could, they spilled down my cheeks. I staggered to my feet, knocking over the rest of my sandcastle in the process, and lurched into the throng of people.
“Dash?” Millie called after me.
Indira said something I couldn’t hear.
I was fairly sure Fox snorted themselves awake.
All of it registered at a distance, though. All I could focus on was that crushing sensation in my chest, and the sobs tearing through me, and the press of bodies, the hub of voices, the pounding beat of music—all that noise and heat and proximity, sharpening the edge of my anxiety until it was close to full-blown panic, and all I could do was run.
It turned out that, even on autopilot, my body knew what to do; somehow, I ended up sitting on a parking stop behind the food trucks. It wasn’t exactly quiet, or even pleasant—the trucks’ generators were loud, and the air was thick with exhaust—but it was blessedly free of people. The curb was pleasantly warm under me, and the sun was at my back. I put my head between my knees and cried.
More than anything, it was the surprise of it—that feeling of being caught off guard—that was the most terrifying. Until now, I’d been angry at Bobby. I’d been frustrated. Yes, I’d been hurt. But all those feelings had been, in their own way, buffers—safety mechanisms to cushion me from this. And this, now that it was here, was so huge and so awful and so painful, that for a few moments, I thought I was having a panic attack of my own: the tightness in my chest, the thickness of my throat, the animal part of my body screaming at me that I was dying.
But it passed. It always does. And then I just cried out of hurt and disappointment and loss.
I was still crying when the hinges squeaked. There was a step. Then a pause. And then a familiar voice said, “Who do this?”
Wiping my face, I shook my head, but I couldn’t quite summon up words.
A moment later, Sergey crouched in front of me. The short-order cook for Let’s Taco Bout Tacos had thinning blond hair cropped close to the scalp, pink cheeks, and the face shape (and muscles, and hairy forearms, etc.) of a villain out of Die Hard. He was also a very big Dashiell Dawson Dane fan, for reasons I didn’t understand, although I suspected it had something to do with the fact that I single-handedly bought enough tacos to keep them in business.
Sergey stared at me for a moment. Then he patted me on the head. Not once, mind you—he just kept patting. And in a quietly terrifying voice, he asked again, “Who do this?”
“Nobody,” I said—or tried to. There was a lot of sniffling. My eyes stung, and I was snotty from all the crying. “Nobody. Nothing happened.” And it’s probably hard to believe, but there was something weirdly comforting about having him pat my head, and I found myself struggling with tears again. “I’m so stupid. I’m such an idiot, and I ruined everything.”
