Ultraviolet (11 page)

I suspected claiming I was working undercover wouldn’t cut it.

The answer, then, was to not get caught. To that end I searched the faces of the knots of kids, hoping to find the driver of the Taurus. She didn’t seem to be in the “house.” I thought she might be on the grounds, maybe down by the lakeshore. There was a stairway leading to the basement, which was an OSHA nightmare—no rails, rickety boards slammed up by a carpenter to gain basic access, no lighting—but my bigger problem was how to extract myself from Brett. Because he’d introduced me to the group I was apparently now officially his.

To underscore this, Brett slipped an arm over my left shoulder, his hand and arm hanging over loosely. Golly, gee whiz, it looked like we were on the verge of being a couple, at least for the evening.

“So, you go to Lake Chinook High,” I said, feeling the need for conversation. “What grade are you in?”

“I’m a junior,” he said, belching loudly. He really threw himself into it, in fact, and as soon as it was heard, it started a volley of belching from all the strutting roosters.

“Shut the fuck up,” Keegan said without heat, and the immediate silence was deafening.

“So, you’re seventeen?” I asked. Great. Just great. He wasn’t even an adult.

“Just about. Next February. How about you?”

Sixteen. My heart sank. “A senior,” I murmured.

“You eighteen?” he asked.

“Yep.”

“I thought you looked older.”

“Yeah?”

“Just something about you,” he said. He tilted his head and gazed at me thoughtfully. “You seem…wise.”

“Huh.” I inclined my head toward the stairs. “Wanna go down to the lake?”

“Brrrr. No. Much better here.”

“I’m kind of ready to take a walk,” I said, easing from beneath his arm. The damn thing was like a lead weight.

“Oh, come on,” he said grouchily, trying to struggle to his feet.

“I’ll be right back,” I promised, easing away.

He let me go but he didn’t look happy. It didn’t seem like many of the girls argued with these guys. I couldn’t get it. What did they see in them? Most of them were the kind of guy I’ve avoided my entire life: self-important, narcissistic, nefarious and self-serving. I sensed it in that age-old way men and women have possessed since the beginning of time. I wasn’t safe here. Brett might not be one of the true baddies, but if mob mentality prevailed, he would side with Keegan. I had no doubt.

I felt my way down the stairs and through the hazards of the lower level of construction. Chunks of wood had been tossed around. Lots of nail heads showed on the subfloor, dark spots visible in the uncertain red light that glowed through cracks from the upper floor. The only other illumination was from a three-quarter moon fighting off fast-moving clouds.

As I stepped onto the back grounds I listened to the low moaning of wind through nearby trees, the soft lap of water against the shore and the metallic clang of a flagpole’s tethering chain. I glanced over to the Pilarmos’ yard. They not only possessed a wolf dog and a menagerie of plastic lawn ornaments, they proudly displayed the Italian flag, now fluttering madly in the stiff night breeze. Either the flag was a new addition, or, more likely, I hadn’t paid near enough attention while looking through Dwayne’s binoculars. It occurred to me I’d focused way too much attention on Tab A and Slot B, but then, there was a lot to see there.

Three figures stood at the water’s edge. The three friends from the Taurus, I determined, as I walked toward them. I kept about thirty feet between us; didn’t want them to think I was horning in. But the girlfriend and guy were still all over each other. She of the giggles, he of the roving hands. Both hands were beneath her sweatshirt as he gave her a series of kisses on her mouth, cheeks and neck. She just kept right on giggling.

The other girl kept moving away from them. She was about as far as she could go, nearly pressed up against Social Security’s chain-link fence. I gave a glance over to their house. A yellow outdoor light was the only sign of human habitation. The place could have been abandoned for all the life it showed.

I was still trying to figure out how to start a conversation when the kissing couple bumped into their friend, nearly knocking her off her feet. She caught herself before she slipped, said, “God, you guys. Stop it,” then huffed around to my side.

Giggler singsonged, “Sorreee…”

The boy was too busy rubbing himself against her as best he could to bother with a response. He was going to get as much body contact as he could before she shut him down, though she didn’t seem even close to that yet.

Now the Taurus driver was only about five feet from me. I looked from her to the struggling couple. “They could fall right into the lake,” I observed.

“I wish to God they would,” she said with feeling. “Judd is such a horndog.”

“She doesn’t seem to mind.”

“Glory? Oh, she’s just being stupid. She never goes all the way, though. I mean, she’s not in love or anything,” she added quickly.

“I’m Ronnie,” I introduced.

“Hi.” She’d been studying Glory and Judd, but now she shot me a quick look. “I’m Dawn.”

“You go to Lake Chinook?”

“Yeah. Oh yeah.” She gazed at my Lake Chinook sweatshirt. “You don’t, though, do you?”

“Sunset,” I said. “A senior.”

“Oh. I’m a sophomore.” She shivered and pressed her chin into her neck, hunching her shoulders. “Where’d you get the sweatshirt?”

“A guy named Glen.” I told her about my Lakeshore one in the trees and how it had gotten there.

“Glen’s a big dummy, but he’s okay.” She sniffed. “God, it’s cold.”

“I know. I gotta go home and get warm.”

“Me, too, but I’ll never get my car out.”

“You need a ride?”

“No, I live just down the street. I shoulda parked at the house, but my parents get all weird when I come home just to leave again. So I’m stuck. Unless I get a chance to talk to Keegan.” She glanced over her shoulder to the partially finished structure. I couldn’t read whether talking to Keegan might be a good thing or a bad.

“What’ll Keegan do?”

“Get ’em to move their cars. But it’s kinda early. I don’t know. I gotta be home by midnight, though.”

“It’s after eleven,” I pointed out.

“Yeah, well…”

Glory and Judd stumbled and fell, not into the water, into the mud. Glory started shrieking for all she was worth and Judd shushed her loudly. “You’ll wake the fucking neighbors!” he yelled.

Dawn ran over to them and motioned them both to be quiet. Glory was good and steamed about ruining her coat. Judd wanted to pick up where they’d left off, but Glory was over it. She came whining and swearing to Dawn, who immediately went into girl-protection mode.

My chance to really talk to Dawn was over. It had been unlikely she would confide her problems to me on first meeting anyway. I’d made contact and that was as far as it was going to go.

They headed for the stairs and I trooped up behind them. As I reentered the main room I saw that Brett had lopped his arm over another girl’s shoulder. She’d leaned her head into his chest. Some of the other kids were coupled up as well. There was a tight group of young women near one wall. To a girl they’d either taken off their sweatshirts or unbuttoned their black coats. Their backs were arched, their breasts projecting like arrows. All they needed was a “Touch me here” sign. Their collective attention rested on Keegan Lendenhal, who tortured them with the way he alternately sent them knowing looks, or ignored them completely. I felt his intense gaze skim over my body as if he were an MRI machine. I was mapped out and catalogued so fast it almost gave me a rush. Wow. This guy knew how to ratchet up the heat.

His teen magnetism was both scary and off-putting, but by God I
felt
it. I wondered who his parents were. If I were a religious person I might pray for them. This kid was serious trouble in a way I had yet to define, even to myself.

Judd, spurned, walked toward Keegan and said something in an aside. Keegan shot a look at Glory, who was still fighting tears over the ruination of her clothes. He reached inside his pocket and handed something to Judd. A packet? Drugs?

“Hey, you,” Keegan said suddenly.

He was looking right at me. My heart squeezed. Did he know I’d been watching?

I pretended not to know he was addressing me. Instead I smiled at Brett, waved and said, “Gotta go. Thanks.”

Brett gazed from me to Keegan, clearly unsure how to react. The girl he was with was now sprawled across his lap but his attention wasn’t on her.

I headed down the plank that led from the front door to the ground, glanced up at the sweatshirt in the tree, then hurried away. I didn’t look back until I was down the lane, nearly to the power pole. When I did, I saw that Keegan Lendenhal was standing in the open doorway, staring in my direction. Could he see me through the dark, from this distance? Impossible.

But I had the uncomfortable feeling he saw a whole lot more than I wanted to portray.

CHAPTER FIVE

T
he following day was Saturday and I slept in, The Binkster curled up beside me. It’s okay when her back’s facing me, but when she flips over she hits me with those doggy claws, pushing off me as if she’s heading for a springboard dive. Painful. I have to keep turning her around and adjusting her. It takes way too much energy for a bedmate. Sometimes I settle her back in her bed on the floor to which she gives me the dejected, unfurled tail. She can make me feel like a heel, but sleep is all important to me, so tough.

I’d had one of those nights where thoughts tumble and tumble around inside your skull, seemingly mega-important, yet fade away when true consciousness hits. What I recalled mostly was the impression that I needed to put Violet’s feet to the fire about her relationship with Roland. Her “I didn’t kill him” mantra was all fine and good, but wasn’t exactly helping me move forward. I needed background. Details. If she wanted me to believe in her, I needed some insight into Roland and who else might have killed him.

Which reminded me…what about the Wedding Bandits? Where did they fit in? And how could I get the police to share more information on them? During their previous burglaries the bandits had apparently never encountered anyone. There had been no physical harm. Their m.o. was get in and get out fast. It didn’t really jibe that they might stop and whack Roland with Violet’s gift. More likely, they’d found him already dead or dying and had run from the scene, dropping some of their loot. One report had mentioned one of the gifts dropped in the yard—the candy dish within the box in smithereens.

What are smithereens?
I asked myself as I brushed my teeth, staring at my image in the mirror. Straight wet hair, hazel eyes, my purple toothbrush stuck in my cheek. I pulled it out and looked at it. Maybe it was amethyst, I thought with an inward snort.

Binkster sat on the bath mat, staring up at me. “Doesn’t that hurt your neck?” I asked her. She cocked her head from side to side. She actually doesn’t have much of a neck. Pretty much her head connects with her shoulders, and her collar disappears beneath a thick, furry roll.

She’s on low-cal dog chow, but she can hang on to weight better than my aunt Ginger and that’s saying something.

In the kitchen I opened the refrigerator door. Sometimes I surprise myself, forgetting that I’ve actually taken a trip to the store and purchased groceries. Today there was no surprise. All I discovered was a bag of Coffee Nook Black Satin blend, freebie little buckets of cream I’d helped myself to at Mook’s, a local burger place that also serves breakfast, the heel of a loaf of wheat bread, carefully wrapped in its plastic packaging, a sprig of mint and a quart of lemonade from a powdered mix.

I could have a heel of bread, a cup of coffee with cream and a glass of pseudolemonade made pretty with mint leaves. Sounded like a feast, so I started up the coffeemaker. Binkster eyed me carefully, but when I didn’t immediately scoop dog chow into her bowl she toddled outside to do a perimeter check and her morning ablutions.

“That grocery shopping thing,” I said to her when she returned. “It’s way hard.”

Binkster looked in her bowl, then up at me. I filled up the bottom with kiblets. She inhaled them and licked the sides of the bowl with her tongue. Feeling guilty, I let her snuffle up the crumbs off the plate that had housed my piece of bread.

We finished breakfast, both slightly dissatisfied.

I decided to take Binkster over to Dwayne’s and let them keep each other company for the day. On my way I gave Violet a call on my cell, but I was forced to leave a message on hers, asking that we meet later in the day. She might or might not get back to me right away. She’s even worse than I am about answering cell calls in a timely manner. I’m normally pretty good, but if you’re not immediately important to me, I’m not so good. I get pissed off, however, when I’m treated the same way. Ergo, I was already a little pissed at Violet.

It was raining when we left, pouring actually, and my wipers were having a hell of a time keeping up. I’d thrown on my windbreaker and left the hood up, which was a little like wearing blinders. Plays hell with the peripheral vision.

I pulled up next to Dwayne’s truck. The cabana boasts a one-car garage and that’s where Dwayne stores his nondescript tan sedan, the one he uses for surveillance jobs and any time he wants to travel incognito. The truck, his usual mode of transportation, was therefore relegated to the parking pad and today it was getting drenched in rain.

I let myself in and Binkster tore through the cabana to the opening in the sliding glass door and out to the dock. I hadn’t expected Dwayne to be outside in the rain, but he’d pulled over the green canvas umbrella normally used for his four-person outdoor table and placed it over his chair. His cowboy boots were taking the brunt of the rain, but the rest of him was dry. And he had the binoculars pressed to his eyes.

“Hey,” he said in greeting, dragging squiggling Binkster onto his lap.

One house over from Dwayne a medium-sized black and white dog with a long snout started barking. It was standing beneath the back door overhang. Called to arms, Binks looked over at it and started barking and growling back. I couldn’t tell if they were saying “happy to meetcha” or “get the fuck outta here.” Coulda been either.