All The Pretty Dead Girls (10 page)

Sue staggered away from the group, feeling light-headed and queasy.

One of my dreams last night was about a blond girl on a bicycle.

Lebanon started its day early, around five
A.M
. as alarms went off in darkened houses all over town. Lights flickered to life, and sleepy-eyed people staggered into their days. Coffeemakers perked, margarine melted in frying pans, teeth were brushed, showers got the blood pumping. School-age kids heard their parents’ alarms faintly through their dreams, and knew their turn to rise and shine would soon be here. In the big bus barn behind the high school, the yellow buses with
LEBANON SCHOOL DISTRICT
printed across their sides were fueled up. The
New York Times
truck rolled over the back roads to throw bundles of papers out in back of the
Lebanon Herald
office, where at around quarter to six, Jimmy Madsen, thirteen, and his mother would arrive in their SUV to pick them up. All the newspapers would be delivered in time for Jimmy to be at school when the first bell rang at eight.

In his apartment above the Yellow Bird, old Wally Bingham heard the
Times
truck rattle by.
Almost time to get a move on,
he told himself. Wally could set his clock by that truck, even though he didn’t need to. He woke every morning right at five on the dot. Even after being out of the Army for almost thirty years, it was a habit he couldn’t seem to break. No matter how late he stayed up, no matter how much he drank, no matter what kind of sleeping pill he took, every morning his eyes opened as the digital clock on his night-stand switched to 5:00.

The apartment was empty and silent, except for the sound of his coffeemaker brewing in the kitchen. Wally lay there in the bed for a few moments more, relishing the sound of the silence. After his wife Lena died ten years earlier, he’d thought about marrying again—but then he’d gotten used to the notion of being alone, for the first time in his life, and he
liked
it. He’d been the youngest of seven kids, had gone into the Army straight out of high school, and after he finally decided not to re-up and “retired,” there had been Lena. They’d never had kids—they tried when he was still in the Army, but Lena never could get pregnant. “God just doesn’t seem to want to bless us that way,” Lena said whenever someone brought up the subject of their childlessness. Wally admired her ability to publicly shrug off a question he knew caused her great pain. No one knew how many nights Lena had cried herself to sleep over her inability to conceive, his arms holding her until her body stopped shaking.

They had talked about adopting halfheartedly, but nothing ever came of it—and then came the illnesses, one right after another, until Lena finally just quit fighting and died. Wally thought he’d be lonely without her, but he wasn’t. Not really. It seemed almost disrespectful that he liked the quiet, liked being alone.
But it’s not,
he reminded himself as he stared at the ceiling,
Lena wasn’t much of a talker anyway, and neither am I. And if people think it’s strange I didn’t marry again, they can go to hell. It’s none of their goddamned business.

He got out of the bed and did his morning routine: two hundred push-ups and two hundred sit-ups, before getting a cup of coffee and heading into the bathroom to shave and shower. Now that he was past sixty, his body and joints ached more than they used to, and the mornings were getting harder for him. The winters and cold weather were getting rougher—some mornings when it was cold he woke up with his joints so stiff, he was afraid he wouldn’t be able to get up. He was dreading the onset of the coming winter—he didn’t look forward to shoveling the sidewalk in front of the café, or digging his car out of snowdrifts, and the apartment didn’t seem to warm up quite as much as it used to. The weather was going to start turning cold in another month or so—and as he shaved, Wally looked at himself in the mirror and thought the magic word that had gotten him through the last two winters:
Florida.

The thought brought a smile to his face. He was closing the café for two weeks at Christmas, flying down to Pensacola, renting a car, and driving all over the state until he found the place he was going to settle in when he’d had enough of the winters and the snow. He wasn’t sure where yet in Florida it would be, but this year he was going looking for it. He’d last in Lebanon maybe another year or two, and that was it. He wanted to head south while he could still get around and spend his mornings fishing and enjoying the sun.
I’m still in pretty good shape,
he thought as he got into the steaming-hot shower,
and as long as I can do my morning calisthenics, I’m doing okay. I’m in better shape than most men half my age.

He opened the café every Monday, and his morning routine hadn’t varied once in all the years he’d owned the place. The first thing he’d do was turn on the grill and the deep fryers, and while they were warming up, he’d get the coffeepots brewing. After the grill was warmed up, he seasoned it with a layer of lard, and brought out eggs and slabs of bacon and sausage from the big walk-in cooler. Monday mornings were always the busiest of the week, and this one promised to be no different. Might even be busier than usual, since it was the first day of school over at Wilbourne. As he picked up the crates of eggs, Wally looked around and made sure everything was where it was supposed to be. There was plenty of everything. There was nothing worse than having to send Marjorie over to the A&P to buy something at retail grocery prices.

The diner would open promptly at six thirty, and there were always a few people waiting outside the door when he unlocked it. Even with the competition from the damned fast-food joints out by the highway, Wally still had a good breakfast rush every morning.
Although Micky D’s
has
cut into some of my factory crowd with their rubbery food and fucking acid coffee,
he thought as he tossed an English muffin into the toaster,

At six thirty sharp, he opened the door. Waiting to come in were a couple of people he didn’t recognize—he suspected they were parents of a Wilbourne girl, heading back to wherever they called home—and just at that moment getting out of his car was Sheriff Miles Holland.

“Howdy, Sheriff,” Wally called. Miles waved back at him as he locked his car.

Sheriff Holland was well liked and respected by most people in Lebanon. Wally was always offering him a free cup of joe, but Miles always refused anything for free; he paid for every bit of food he put in his mouth.
Now that is one rare cop
, Wally thought. Miles was an honest man, and that he’d raised his son that way, too, had earned the respect of everyone in town. Like his son Perry and Perry’s regular standing order of chili-covered cheeseburger and fries, Miles always had the same thing for breakfast every morning—scrambled eggs, a couple of slices of bacon, buttered toast with apple jam, hash browns drowned in ketchup, and lots of black coffee.

Rosie, his morning waitress, had slipped in the back door. She was tying her apron around her waist as Wally headed to the kitchen to get Miles’s eggs scrambling. “One couple in the front booth,” he told her. Rosie nodded and hurried over to take their order.

Wally heard the tinkling of the bell as Miles came inside.

“Sure you don’t want to switch to sausage this morning, Miles?” Wally called through the opening.

“Can’t eat this morning, Wally,” the sheriff called back. “I just need to get the coffee to go, if you don’t mind.”

“No breakfast?” Wally asked, coming around to the doorway.

“No breakfast?” Rosie echoed.

Miles smiled. He was a few years younger than Wally, but was starting to spread out in the waist. He had thin legs and a barrel chest, and he shaved his head bald. Wally noticed that his blue eyes—usually so clear—were bloodshot and bleary. Since his wife died a few years back, Miles had aged what seemed like twenty years and seemed to put on weight. But this morning, Wally thought, he looked worse than usual.

“No breakfast,” Miles said, sitting down at the counter.

Rosie handed Wally the order from the couple in the front booth. He glanced down at it, then looked back over at Miles. “You look like hell,” Wally blurted out as Rosie filled a Styrofoam cup with coffee. “What’s going on?”

Miles sighed. “Got a call up to the college.” He accepted the coffee from Rosie and handed over two dollars. “Keep the change.”

“What happened up at the college?” Wally asked, his voice low, glancing over at the couple in the booth, wondering if they really did have a daughter there.

The sheriff took a sip of his coffee. “One of the girls went missing.” He raised his eyebrows at his friend. “Been a while since that’s happened.”

“And they need the sheriff for that?” Wally grinned. “She’s probably just off having a good time.”

“I don’t think so. Her bike was found by a delivery man this morning outside the front gate.” He lowered his voice. “Blood everywhere.”

“Jesus,” Wally said.

“You gonna get cooking the order?” Rosie said, sticking in her nose.

“Some girl got murdered up at Wilbourne,” Wally told her in a harsh whisper.

“Now we don’t know that, Wally.” Miles gave him a face. “I shouldn’t have said anything.” He looked over at Rosie, a thin woman in her late thirties who might have been pretty once, but now seemed dry and brittle. “But I want people to be on their guard if we’ve got some attacker running around out there.”

“No body?” Wally asked.

Miles shook his head.

“How they taking it at the college?”

“Well, you know how they get up there about them girls. They act like it’s a convent and every girl in there doesn’t have red blood flowing through her veins.” Miles sighed. “We’ve got the state forensics team heading up there, so I gotta be off.”

“Take a few minutes and eat something.” Wally coaxed. “Be easier to get through the morning with a full stomach, you know.”

“Nah, I’ve been dawdling as it is.” Miles shook his head. “I’ll be back in later before I go into the office. I’ll have my breakfast then.” He stood and picked up the coffee. “Just didn’t have the stomach for eating a lot of grease after seeing all that.”

“Given the circumstances,” Wally said, “I’ll forgive you for calling my food greasy.”

Miles grinned and gave him a thumb’s-up sign. Then he was off.

Wally watched as he drove off. Miles waved as he backed out of his spot, turned on his flashers, and headed off down the road at a steady clip in the direction of the college.

Somewhere in his mind, Wally seemed to recall another incident at Wilbourne a long time ago. He’d have to ask Marjorie later if she remembered what it was.

For some reason, his hands wouldn’t stop shaking all morning as he fried eggs and toasted bread.

“This is the last time I’m telling you to get up, Billy!” his mother shouted from the doorway. “You get out of that bed right now or you’re going to be sorry! I mean it!” The door slammed behind her hard enough to shake the house.

Sixteen-year-old Billy Honeycutt yawned and sat up in bed, stretching his long arms out overhead as the yawn deepened.
First day of school,
he thought, a smile starting to creep over his face.
First day of my senior year in high school!

His mouth tasted sour and his shoulder-length blond hair was standing up in every direction from his head. He kicked off the covers and stood up, stretching up to his full six-foot-three height, feeling his back crack just a little bit. That felt good. His muscles were a little sore, and there was a big bruise on his right shoulder from football practice. He grabbed a pair of underwear out of a dresser drawer and walked into the bathroom adjoining his room. Stepping out of his underwear, he stood naked in front of the mirror flexing his arms. Years of weight training for football and baseball had thickened and strengthened his body, and Billy was proud of it.

He smiled at himself. There was a patch of blond hair in the center of his chest, and a trail of blond down stretching to the thick patch at his pelvis. He brushed his teeth and washed his face and checked to see if he needed to shave. Nope. He’d shaved yesterday morning before church; every other day was usually enough. He also didn’t need to shower; he’d taken care of that last night before bed. His mother had made it a requirement before agreeing to let him work at the McDonald’s down near the highway.
“You aren’t getting into my nice sheets all covered in grease and smelling like onions,”
she’d said.
“You need to shower every night after you get home from work.”

Billy knew he was a good-looking guy—the way the girls at school fawned all over him, it’d be kind of hard not to notice. That had started back in grammar school, and he’d never once lacked a date or a “steady’ girl at any time—unless he chose not to have one. Every so often, he’d break up with whomever he was seeing just to be alone for a while—to see how many girls showed interest in him. He was rarely disappointed. He started humming to himself. He wasn’t thrilled about going back to school, but it was his senior year. Syracuse, Colgate, and Boston College had shown interest in him already. If he had his way, it would be Boston—even if it was a Catholic school. He liked the idea of being a college student in a big city like Boston—the other colleges were in towns he didn’t think were big enough. He’d only been to Boston once, but he loved everything about the city, even though his eighth-grade history class had been forced to spend the day at historic sites. Yes, if Boston College wanted him, that’s where he was going.

Billy smiled to himself. The first day of school also meant no more two-a-day practices, and he sure hated those.

He smudged some gel into his hair and pulled on a pair of boxer shorts, heading back into his bedroom. The sight of his mother sitting at his desk almost made him jump out of his skin.

“Mom!” Embarrassed, Billy grabbed a pair of jeans off the top of the pile of dirty clothes just outside his closet door and pulled them on. “What are you doing in here?” He buttoned the fly and shifted from foot to foot.

She was barely five feet tall and almost as round as she was tall, and her face was set in a hard-looking line. “I need to talk to you.”

Panicked, he started running through options in his mind.
Did she find the bag of pot in the wheel well in the trunk of my car? Did she find out Heidi and I have been doing it? Did she find my pack of condoms? She couldn’t know we went out drinking Saturday night…what is this about?

“Do you know a girl named Bonnie Warner?” She narrowed her eyes. “Tell me the truth.”

“Bonnie Warner?” That came out of left field. “No, I don’t think so—”

“Yes, you do. She was tutoring Heidi’s sister Amy. You told me a girl from Wilbourne was coming by to tutor her. You mentioned her to me.”

“Oh, yeah. Yeah, that’s right.” Billy remembered the name now. His girlfriend’s bratty little sister was flunking math class and so some Wilbournian chick was helping her out. He’d seen her last night at Heidi’s house, in fact. “So what’s up with asking me about her?”

“She was there last night when you were there, right?”

Billy nodded.

“Did you talk with her?”

For the first time, Billy noticed his mother was holding a pad of paper in her hands, and was jotting down notes as he talked.

“Yeah, maybe for a minute or so.” He gave her a cocky little grin. “She’s not really my type. Kind of dykey actually.”

“Don’t use words like that, Billy.”

“Sorry.”

“What time did you see her?”

“Mom, what is going on?”

“Just answer me, please.”

He sighed. “I guess it was about nine thirty. Yeah, I remember she wanted to get on the road because it was getting late.”

“And you didn’t offer her a ride? A girl on a bicycle on dark roads that late at night?”

Billy made a face. “Mom, I hardly know her. She always takes her bike.” He leaned in toward her and took hold of the pad in his mother’s hands. “Tell me what is going on, please!”

“Bonnie Warner never made it back to her dorm last night.” Billy’s mother stared at him. “You don’t know where she might have gone, do you?”

“No.” He pulled on an Eminem T-shirt he knew his mother hated, and started digging through his sock drawer. “I don’t really know her at all. You know how Wilbourne girls are—they think they’re too good to talk to any of us. Like they’ll catch something if they talk to us.” That wasn’t true about Bonnie—she had seemed nice enough—but he knew his mother hated the college and it was easy to score points with her by bashing Wilbourne.

She smiled faintly. “You don’t know if she had a boyfriend? If she was seeing anyone? I’ve asked Heidi’s mother, but she’s just too rattled by the whole thing to talk much. Did she ever mention who she hung out with?”

Billy smirked. “So you’re writing an article about her disappearance? Is that what this is?”

“Billy, please, just answer me. If you have any leads at all—”

“I told you, I hardly knew her, I never really spoke with her. She was always huddled with Amy talking about trigonometry or algebra or something obscene like that.”

“Oh, all right.” His mother flipped her notebook shut. “But see if you can get Heidi to call me sometime today. I’d like to ask her a few questions, see what she might know.”

“She’s not going to know much either,” Billy told her.

“Well, hurry up and finish getting dressed. I have to get to the office, so have some Cheerios for breakfast. And I can’t drop Meghan off at school, so you’ll have to do it for me.”

“Aw,
Mommmm—”

“I don’t want hear it.” She pointed her index finger at him. “It won’t kill you to help out a bit around here, now will it? I have to get to work at the newspaper so I can keep food on the table.” She glanced around the room and her face reddened a bit. “And pick up this room! How can you stand to live in a pigsty like this? It stinks in here. When I get home from work tonight, this room better be straightened up, or I’m throwing everything in the trash, do you understand me? Starting with your letter jacket.”

“Mommmmm—”

The door slammed behind her. Billy let out a long sigh, then pulled on his shoes and socks. He glanced around the room. Reluctantly, he picked up a few dirty clothes and tossed them into the hamper. The bed was still unmade. This would have to do for “straightening up.”

He was humming as he headed out of the room. Just to be safe, he grabbed his letter jacket and took it with him.