Blood Ties (8 page)

I disagreed. Murder, unlike suicide, was never a choice.

I closed my eyes and hoped Kevin had suffi cient information for today. I’d heard enough.

“Did Sam tell you where she’d been staying?” Kevin asked.

“No.”

“Didn’t it bother you that you didn’t know?”

Th

e chair creaked as Shelley shifted her weight. “I’m isolated out here. I go for days without visitors or phone calls, and Dick and I weren’t exactly talking.”

“Can you think of a reason why someone would kill 75

your daughter?”

My eyes fl ew open in time to see Shelley fl inch.

“No, the police asked the same question. I’ve had nothing but time to think about it.” She concentrated on manicuring a ragged hangnail to perfection with her teeth.

“Th

e answer hasn’t changed.”

Kevin glanced at his watch and pulled a business card from the inside pocket of his sport coat. “We’ve got to go, but if we need to, can we come back?”

Shelley nodded without enthusiasm.

“If you think of anything else, call. Day or night.”

I added my phone number on the back and slid it next to her cigarettes. “Same goes. You need anything, call.”

We moved toward the door and Shelley stayed motion-less.

“Julie?”

Th

e quaver in her voice chilled me. “Yes?”

“No matter how she’d been conceived . . . she was still mine, and I loved her.” She wiped a fallen tear and repeated, “I always loved her, even when I had a piss-poor way of showing it. No matter who killed her, I want them to pay.”

I didn’t respond. I turned away and reached for the warmth of Kevin’s hand, knowing I couldn’t console her, but at least I could comfort myself.

Kevin signed us out and I made a beeline for fresh air.

Standing in the slate courtyard, the hills behind the rehab building appeared darker, more ominous than when we’d entered. Th

e rain had stopped, but puddles clogged the sidewalk; clouds the color of wet cement hung low, obscuring the view.

It’d seemed months since I’d felt the warmth of sunlight on my skin. I fantasized about current temperatures in Jamaica or Cancun or Ixtapa, any place that required a full bottle of sun block. Anything bright to keep my mind off the shadowy corner of hell I’d just witnessed.

Rain is depressing. I’d never survive in Washington or Oregon. I’d pull a Kurt Cobain inside a year. Most people say the same thing about living in rural South Dakota, but at least the weather doesn’t require umbrellas twelve months out of twelve.

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Cold, damp and miserable, inside and out, I fought off a shiver.

I made it to my car before the shakes started. My keys dropped to the ground, I retrieved them only to hear the jangling clank when they hit the pavement again. Kevin picked them up without a word, led me to his car and bundled me inside.

When he fi red the motor, I closed my eyes, and like a coward, feigned sleep. Kevin was patient, but not stupid. I couldn’t avoid his questions forever.

Th

e fact I’d been raped had shocked him. But not as much as the fact I hadn’t told him.

Truthfully, the time I was raped hardly crossed my mind any more. I’d buried it where it belonged, in the past.

It hadn’t changed my attitude toward sex or men; it aff ected the way I view situations. I don’t hang out in unfamiliar bars, restaurants, or churches. I don’t take for granted anyone’s sage advice that so-and-so is a “good guy.” I don’t go on blind dates and I absolutely do not date men with beards. Or facial hair of any kind. Never. No exceptions.

“Julie?”

My eyes opened but I directed my gaze out the window. “Not now, Kev, okay?”

He mumbled as he hit the gas and pulled onto I-90.

Th

e wheels clicked over the grooves on the interstate and the clacking rhythm pacifi ed me as I watched the scenery change. Open fi elds and rolling hills stretched into 78

steeper, rocky embankments with patches of dirt the color of powdered Tang. Houses were springing up all over; a couple of ranches, a variety of businesses had popped up along this stretch of highway between Rapid City and Sturgis in the last fi ve years. Mostly manufactured home displays, RV and car lots, heavy equipment sales with an occasional restaurant and convenience store. Billboards were scattered every few hundred feet.

In such wide-open spaces with cheap advertising, every tourist business within three-hundred miles tries to lure vacationing families off the beaten path to Yellowstone and into their communities. Devil’s Tower, Me-dora, North Dakota, and Th

e Little Big Horn Battlefi eld

competed for vacationers’ dollars against the local draw of Mount Rushmore, Wind Cave, Custer State Park, Deadwood, and Crazy Horse Memorial. Before too long, the interstate would be jammed with out-of-state cars, motor homes, and tour buses. Th

at doesn’t include the hundreds

of thousands of motorcycles that descend on us during the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally and Races in August. South Dakota depends on tourism to survive, but few of us look forward to the increased traffi

c and gasoline prices.

Th

e tip of Bear Butte poked above the ridge to the right of my exit. Kevin slowed; the car bumped over the railroad tracks and headed up the hill. Once we were inside my house, he enveloped me in a bone-crushing hug that left me breathless.

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He didn’t say anything. If I thought about it too hard I might consider his instinctive behavior odd. So, I skipped the heavy contemplation and clutched him like the life-line he is. For a minute I secretly wished to be the type of woman to give in to a dramatic crying spell. Of course, I sucked it up, tough girl that I am.

When I fi nally squirmed, he stepped back. “Let me ask you something. What is your gut reaction to Shelley’s story?”

Th

ankful that he’d switched gears, I found it puzzling he’d refer to the diffi

cult parts of Shelley’s life as a story. Th e

whole ordeal seemed surreal. Still, her almost militant re-telling had bothered me. “She was lying about something.”

“What makes you say that?”

“She got into minor details, explicitly, but the major details escaped her.” I patted my pockets for a tissue. “I think we should talk to Meredith before we approach Dick Friel at Fat Bob’s. Or should we start with Nancy Rogers?”

“Nancy is a dead-end, especially if she didn’t stay friends with Shelley. I’ll call Meredith and see if she can meet with us Friday night.” Eyes soft, he asked, “Are you up for this?”

“What?”

“Th

is case.” He watched me wipe my nose on the back of my hand and scowled before tossing me a box of Kleenex. “And talking about your rape.”

Th

e tensed line of his back disappeared into my 80

kitchen. Guess the time for comfort was over.

Kevin returned a minute later with my half-empty bottle of Don Julio tequila and two shot glasses. We were taking comfort after all, just in a diff erent form. “Would you believe me if I said there wasn’t much to talk about?”

“No.”

“Really . . .”

He slammed the bottle on the coff ee table and knocked back a small shot. “Do you believe if you’d bothered to tell me this earlier that I would’ve asked you to help on this case?”

“Yes.” Our gazes locked. Surprised by his distress, I pressed on. “I’m the perfect choice. Not only was my brother murdered but I’ve dealt with being raped . . .”

“I didn’t know that. And stop being so goddamn blasé.”

“I’m not.” I reached for a shot glass and poured double the amount he’d given himself. Still clutching his empty glass, he moved to the window and back.

“No?

Th

is is some serious shit, Jules, and now there are issues I have to consider before I let you continue with this fucked up case.”

“
Let
me continue?” So, Kevin was upset. A barrage of swear words from Mr. Clean Mouth was my fi rst clue and the path he was beating in my shag carpet was the second.

He paces and I hate it, so normally he refrains from doing it in my presence.

But, why had he decided my help was now negligible?

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Had I done the unthinkable and morphed from Julie the invincible to Julie the victim? I’d kept the incident from him not because of embarrassment, but because I couldn’t stand to be pitied.

On Kevin’s next pass of the table he poured another shot. His face remained unreadable when he closed his eyes and slumped into the couch. “When?” he demanded.

Even though he wasn’t scrutinizing me, I fi dgeted. I patted my pocket for my cigarettes and remembered I’d left them in my purse. I took my time digging them out and lighting up, but the nicotine didn’t off er me its usual calm.

“Fine. I’ll tell you, but I’m not being blasé when I say it doesn’t matter.” As I inhaled, my thoughts drifted back. “It happened the August you were in basic training.

Susan Dagle and I stopped at the Corner Pocket for a beer after work.”

His eyes opened and he frowned. “Th

e Corner Pocket?

You always hated that place.”

“Yeah, well, it wasn’t my fi rst choice. Anyway, this table of guys kept begging to buy us pitchers. Susan decided if they wanted to pay we should let them, so they joined us.

One guy looked like Dusty from ZZ Top. He kept talking to me. I must’ve made a stunning impression,” I said dryly,

“because when I left, he followed me.”

Th

e smoke drifting from my cigarette brought to mind how the heat rose from the blacktop in the dark parking lot that summer night. Th

e stench of bar food rotting in

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the Dumpster. And the burst of fear when a sticky palm landed on my bare shoulder and spun me around. A rough shove against the car door, the bitter taste of secondhand beer gagging me as the man thrust his thick tongue into my mouth. His over-eager hands squeezing my breasts to the point of pain. But mostly, I remembered how I hated the rasp of his beard against my face and skin.

“Julie?”

I shook my head, scattering those thoughts.

“At that point it was apparent he wasn’t after my conversational skills. I didn’t panic even when he kept touching me, acting like it was a mutual attraction.” I crushed out the cigarette and withdrew another.

Kevin fl icked the lighter and I sank back into the plush cushions.

“He was drunk and bigger and determined. I didn’t put up much of a fi ght.”

Kevin’s insightful comments were slow in coming.

“Anyway, it was over pretty quick. I kept telling myself . . .” I remembered my back pressed into the stinky carpet in his van and I swallowed the thick blob of emotion threatening to suff ocate me. “I kept telling myself if he believed I was there willingly, he might not hurt me.”

“Did

he?”

“Hurt me? Physically? Not really. Like I said, it was fast.” I squeezed my eyes shut, recalling how even after he’d rolled off me his pungent smell had clung to my hair, 83

clothes, and skin. I’d tossed that outfi t in the burning barrel at home right after taking an hour-long shower. Th e

mental barrier I erected that night usually worked.

Except sometimes I wake at night and swear the overpowering weight on my body and the sticky whispers in my ear are real. His voice haunts me. I had survived. However, I never stepped foot in that bar again. Susan was shocked when I abruptly ended our friendship too.

Th

e digital clock beeped, and Kevin glanced at it, then at me. His eyes were dark and thoughtful.

Finally I couldn’t stand it any longer. “Say something.”

“Like what?” He stared at me,
through
me until I knew he recognized the torment I wouldn’t cop to. “Th at I feel

sorry for you?”

My eyes narrowed.

“See?” He pointed with his shot glass before setting it down. “You’re glaring at me. You don’t want my sympathy.” He grabbed my hand, brought my palm to his lips, and pressed a single kiss.

I resisted closing my eyes and wishing for something from him that I couldn’t have.

Kevin rubbed my hand over his jaw. “I am sorry that I brought you into this and if you’d rather back out, I’ll understand.”

“No.” Part of me hoped there’d be therapeutic benefi ts in simultaneously dealing with two traumatic events in my life. Part of me wanted to chug the remainder of tequila 84

until I passed out. I was saved from making the choice by a fi erce pounding on the door.

I pulled my palm from Kevin’s grasp and reluctantly answered the summons.

Ray didn’t bother to mask his fury when he jerked the screen door open.

“Hi,” I said brightly. “I didn’t know you were coming over.”

“Didn’t know I needed to make an appointment to see my own girlfriend.”

Th

e way Ray insisted on referring to me as his girlfriend made me think I’d outgrown the role.

He angled his head toward the SUV parked in my usual spot. “Th

at Wells’ car?”

“Yeah, it’s my car,” Kevin said over my shoulder.

“Why? Did you run into it?”

Ray ignored him and said to me, “What the hell is he doing here again?”

“Didn’t know I had to make an appointment to see your ‘girlfriend’,” Kevin mimicked.

“Very fucking funny.”

Might as well be raining testosterone. And me without my sharp-tipped umbrella to jab both of them in the ass.

What else could I have piled on today?

“Actually, it is pretty funny because Kevin was just leaving.”

Kevin frowned. “I thought we were going to get your car?”

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“Where is it?” Ray asked.

“Now that Ray is here, he can drive me to get it.” I added as a sweet afterthought, “Besides, don’t you have plans with Lilly?”

Kevin’s eyebrow lifted. I never gave a rip about his plans with Lilly. Hell, most of the time I tried to
ruin
their plans. He smiled, bent down, and kissed me squarely on the mouth.

“Nope. You wore me out today, hot stuff . I’ll call you tomorrow.” Sidestepping Ray, he climbed in his car and drove off .

I wiped Kevin’s sloppy kiss from my lips and smiled under the cover of my hand. No doubt he’d won that round, but unfortunately he didn’t get the spoils of war. Me.