Pride v. Prejudice (25 page)

I'd given him limited time to rehearse. His story was credible, and the superfluous details were colorful, but he was unable to control the faint quaver in his voice. “You'll have to do better than that,” I said sternly. “Tricia was there when they were forced to take an oath on the Bible.”

He seemed to find his chair uncomfortable. “Maybe, but that's pretty much it. Tricia returned and heard us. She demanded to know what happened, and was appalled because it could get her fired, too. By this time, the girls were crying and the boys were slobbering. Tricia sent me back for her Bible, and then we formed a circle and passed it around. I kept waiting for the firmament to blaze while the celestial choir belted out a fierce hymn of salvation.”

I bought part of his story, but I had a feeling he had glossed over his involvement. He had twitched when I mentioned a criminal investigation. “What time was this?”

“Maybe eleven or so. We herded the kids back to their tents. Tricia wanted to seal the zippers with duct tape, but I talked her out of it. When you gotta go…”

“True. Did you ask Tricia why she'd taken a stroll in the blueberry field?”

“Everybody was really, really upset. If I'd seen her beamed up into an alien spaceship, I wouldn't have asked her if she enjoyed the ride. She was bitching and moaning worse than the kids. A couple of them had rashes on their hands and ankles and were carrying on like they had that flesh-eating bacteria. I was calculating whether I could pay the rent with a minimum-wage job.”

“And nobody heard a loud noise from across the field?”

“Did I just say that everybody was really, really upset? An explosion might have caught my attention, but we're talking nuclear. I may have heard a car backfire shortly after we got back. I was more worried about surviving on discarded hamburgers and cold fries from a fast food waste bin.”

“How well do you know Tricia?” I asked. “I gather the two of you hang out in here. Has she ever talked about her past?”

Grady put down the mug. “You wanted to know what happened at the campout, and I told you. This has nothing to do with Tricia. I don't know anything about her past beyond the basics. She doesn't have a college degree, and she never got married. She hates it here, but she can't move to a city until she can afford it. We are not friends; we are two survivors on a deserted island, forced to ferment the coconut milk to keep ourselves sane.” He wobbled to his feet and did his best to point his finger at me. I did not need to duck. “You just tell Bianca to keep her mouth shut and we'll be okay. Got that, Ms. Malloy?”

He stomped out of the room, huffing and puffing with indignation. When I heard an exterior door bang closed, I began a systematic search of the office for any paperwork concerning Tricia's employment. Methodists were methodical, I assured myself as I took files out of the cabinet. I found Grady's file, which contained a r
é
sum
é
(bachelor's degrees in musicology and religious studies from a private college) and an earnest letter. He'd been born and raised in Indiana and had volunteered every free hour to his beloved hometown church. He currently lived in a rental house on a side street near the campus.

Tricia's file was no more enlightening. From Ohio, community college, bookkeeping jobs in small companies, a reference letter from her last position at a nonprofit declaring her to be honest and proficient. The photocopy of her driver's license was blurry. I copied down her address at a notorious apartment complex across from the Farber College dorms, and her telephone number. At the last second, I removed the page with the photocopy. I did not lock the door on my way out.

Grady's car was gone. I pondered my next move as I got in my car and took out my keys. Tricia was definitely involved in whatever happened that night. She'd taken a walk, most likely to meet Tuck in the moonlight. She'd dutifully returned and found her charges in disarray and disgrace, and the consequences had drowned out any random noises.

I decided to call Evan to tell him that we had something resembling a lead. Nothing worthy of euphoria, I had to admit, but promising. When he answered, I said, “I just had a conversation with Grady, the choir director, and he told me that—”

“I can't talk,” the ingrate said curtly. “I'm on my way to a motel to follow up on an anonymous tip. I'm not at my office, so don't go there.” He ended the call.

I gazed at my cell phone, perplexed. He was on his way to a motel, he'd had a tip, and he didn't want to discuss it. If I'd had one of Tricia's breath mints, I would have popped it in my mouth on the off-chance he'd caught a whiff of bourbon via his cell phone. I have been known to underestimate the sophistication of twenty-first-century innovations. I used my forefinger to erase the tiny wrinkle between my eyebrows and called Peter.

“How's the party?” I asked when he answered with a grunt.

“You don't need to come home to chaperone,” he said. “I have everything under control. I'll talk to you later.”

“What's going on?”

After a pause, he said, “There are some people who would like to talk to you. I told them I have no idea where you are, and I don't want to know. Don't use a credit card.” He, like Evan, terminated the call without a cheery good-bye.

I dropped the cell phone as if it were melting. I seemed to be the Wicked Witch, however. There were no flying monkeys in the trees or storm troopers on the roof of the church. “Some people” sounded ominous. Wessell did not qualify, nor did Deputy Norton, leaving the FBI in the forefront. Peter and Evan were afraid their phones were tapped. I snatched up the cell phone and almost hurled it out the window before I caught myself. I squeezed buttons until it blinked and went black. It did not seem prudent to remain where I was, but I'd been warned to stay away from the office and my house.

It seemed like a good time to go fishing.

*   *   *

Larry Lippet and the unseen but vaguely ominous Marie were not outside among the menagerie. This was encouraging, since Deputy Norton was likely to be on my trail and might have asked them to watch for me. I parked by the trash bin, briefly considered piling branches on my car, noted there weren't any handy branches, and climbed over the stile. When I arrived at Flat Rock, I saw Billy on the far bank. Instead of fishing, he was flipping over stones and poking whatever he saw with a stick.

I waved. “Any luck?”

“Not yet. I'm looking for dragon eggs.”

“Mind if I join you?”

“You got to bring your own stick,” he said before hunkering down to tug at a large stone.

William appeared behind him as I waded across the water, my shoes in my hand. “Claire? Is everything okay?”

Not exactly, I thought as I beamed at him. “I have a few more questions, that's all. I remembered that you and Billy were coming here to fish.”

“And search for dragon eggs,” Billy called as he dropped the stone and moved down the gravel bar. “When I find one, I'm going to put it in a shoe box with a lightbulb to keep it warm. After it hatches, I'm going to take it to show-and-tell. Nobody's ever brought a baby dragon to school.”

“I believe that,” I said as I stepped onto the gravel bar and wobbled on each foot until my shoes were where they belonged. I joined Will. “I finally found out what happened the night the church choir was here. The night Tuck was killed.”

William scratched his head. “I didn't know anything happened. I mean, besides the…” He gestured at a fallen tree trunk. “Sit down and tell me. Is this going to help Sarah? I was convinced that she shot Tuck, but you've got me wondering. It seemed so straightforward. Now I don't know what to think.”

Billy put his fists on his hips. “You said you were gonna help me, lady.”

“I am, after you help me,” I said. “What's more, I can appoint you an honorary detective for the Farberville Police Department. You'll get a citation.”

“I'd rather have a dragon.”

So would I, especially one that could be trained to attack on my command. “A citation is pretty cool. No one at your school will have one. Can you take a break and tell me again what you saw that night? You weren't lying about seeing what you believed were zombies. I confirmed this with some of them.”

William frowned at me. “I wish you wouldn't encourage this. His imagination runs wild as it is. His mother and Junie are worried about him.”

“When my daughter was four, she decided she lived on a planet called Frittata. She demanded that we take all of the furniture out of her room, and wore nothing but pink thermal pajamas and red rubber boots for a month. She got bored and moved on. So will Billy.”

Said child threw his stick in the water and came across the gravel bar. “You talked to zombies? Cool!”

I leaned forward. “They were pretending to be zombies to fool everybody. You said you saw flashlights. Do you recall how many?”

I could tell he was not pleased. “You mean the zombies were pretending to be zombies. They didn't fool me. They had two or three flashlights. What's more, they were yelling and hitting at each other. That's how I knew they were for real zombies, not pretend zombies.”

William laughed. “Good luck with this.”

Billy was not going to make a good witness, I warned myself with a sigh. “The bang woke you up, right? You went to the window and saw one of them behind the barn.”

“Stealing vegetables,” Billy said adamantly. “Like carrots and squash.” He gave me a disgusted look and stalked back to the gravel bar to continue his search.

The timeline was getting increasingly muddled. Grady had told me that the confrontation with the wayward teenagers had taken place shortly after ten, which meant the Bible had gone from hand to hand no later than eleven. I looked at William. “Is there any way you could have been wrong about when you heard the shotgun? Maybe you forgot to set back your clocks for daylight savings time?”

“In August?” he said. “We would have noticed if we were off for six months.”

“What time did you see lights at the house?”

He sat down next to me. “This was over a year ago, you know. Before the movie came on at ten o'clock. I'd gone outside to have a cigarette. Junie goes to bed before nine every night and gets up at dawn. So do I, but I had a lot on my mind back then. A big company had offered a contract for my entire blueberry crop, but there were a lot of clauses written in legal jargon. Licensing, certification, government inspections, quantity and control, immigrant workers, and a bunch of crap. It took my lawyer three months to okay it.”

“Legalese can be daunting,” I said with engaging sympathy. “Tuck came home before ten, but he was not in the house when Sarah arrived. Is there any chance you went outside for another cigarette?”

William tugged on his chin as he gazed at the far bank. “Sorry, but no. I settled down on the sofa with a beer and a piece of Junie's peach cobbler. At one point I thought I heard Billy's voice, so I went upstairs to check on him. He was sound asleep. His windows look out on the backyard and the field.”

“You heard a voice?”

“What I most likely heard was an owl going after some critter, maybe a possum or a coon. Nature's noisy, Claire.”

Presuming nature included teenagers. “Do you remember what time?” I asked. He shook his head. “I learned earlier this afternoon that Tricia Yates abandoned her post as chaperone at Flat Rock and came over to this side of the river. I believe she was meeting Tuck.”

“That sly dog,” William murmured. “I don't really know Tricia, but she's pleasant. It's damn hard to imagine Tuck in … an intimate relationship with anyone. Did Sarah know?”

“If she did, she's not admitting it. From what I was told, Tricia crossed the river shortly after ten. You might have heard her voice.” I stopped as I considered a screeching inconsistency in Grady's story. In his version, the teenagers had snuck away a few minutes later, and he had followed them. Yet by the time he confronted them, they were stoned, drunk, and semiclad. Although I do not indulge in the first two frivolities, and in the last only in my bedroom, I doubted they could have achieved all of this in a manner of minutes. Furthermore, they were all there when Tricia appeared. Had Grady lectured them for the better part of an hour?

“Who told you this?” William asked.

“That doesn't matter. It does mean that Billy was telling the truth, with a minor embellishment. He did see figures in this area, lurching about, some with flashlights. It gives credence to his story about seeing someone by your barn, too.”

“I didn't see anyone. I'd like to think I would have noticed zombies, or even mere mortals, trespassing on my property. The sound of the shotgun blast alarmed me, as well as the livestock.”

“Did you go into your barn?”

“Yes,” he said, sounding a bit surly, “but only for a minute. The lights were off at Sarah and Tuck's house. That kind of surprised me. I didn't see or hear anything going on over here.”

“Billy could from the second story.” I looked at the neophyte archaeologist, who had taken a break to throw rocks at insolent squirrels in the trees. “The deputy who interviewed everybody said that Billy claimed to have evidence. Do you have any idea about that?”

“A chunk of rotting flesh? An eyeball? The kid has enough imagination to write scripts for action comic books or swindle millions of dollars. He could even grow up to be a politician. Today he's after dragon eggs. Last week he was digging a bunker in anticipation of a Martian invasion; the week before, he was building a raft to float from here to New Orleans. Any evidence he claimed to have found was in his mind.”

“Did the sheriff's men search the area?” I asked.

“For what? They had a solid case against Sarah, based on her own admission that she was home at eleven. They had witnesses who said that Sarah was angry at Tuck and had threatened to kill him. She'd been drinking. She lied about the nonexistent fishing trip.”