Cry Baby Hollow (17 page)

Beside her, Joe blanched. “Thank you for not letting me look,” he mumbled.

“You’re welcome,” she said, wanting to give his hand a squeeze but refusing to do so in front of the sheriff. She wished he hadn’t insisted on coming with her.

Sheriff Dunn leaned back in his chair and rested his laced his fingers against his impressive gut. “First, I’d like to reiterate that I’m not required to answer any of your questions. Having said that, and understanding that you are a voter and as an elected official it is my duty to serve you, let me say that I have men searching for the slicker you described and we fully expect to find he shed it after he realized you had seen him. The boy had a history of anti-social behavior, and evidence of his stalking of you was found on his home PC, along with an extensive collection of immoral material. As to the wounds, I can’t speak for the coroner, but from reading the file I understand them to be all the result of postmortem predation. That means the critters got to him after he was dead,” he added, helpfully.

“And left the best parts to rot?”

“This boy, as you pointed out, was a member of my family. If I thought there was any foul play, why wouldn’t I investigate it?”

“That’s an excellent question, Sheriff. I’ll get back to you with an answer as soon as I find out.” She stood and headed to the door. Joe hurried ahead and opened it for her. “Do give my best to Celestine when you see her,” she said as she left, and though she sorely wanted to, she didn’t look back to see his face.

The entire sheriff’s
department stopped what they were doing to watch them leave. In the parking lot, Joe handed Aubrey up into his truck and got in.

“Thank you for driving me.”

“Hell, you ain’t in any shape to drive,” Joe looked over at her tenderly.

“So what do you really think happened?” He asked as he started the car and pulled out onto Court Street.

“Probably just what he said,” Aubrey admitted reluctantly. “I just needed someone to yell at and didn’t want it to be you.”

He smiled.

“That’s kinda sweet,” he told her. “That may be the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me… With your clothes on,” he added after a moment’s thought. “But we gotta get you some sleep, because if you believed a word that man said you are clearly off your nut.”

Aubrey looked at him carefully.

“You didn’t believe him?”

“Hell no,” Joe assured her. “That was just so much smoke and bullshit to get rid of us. You know, I’ve been thinkin’.”

“That can’t be good,” Aubrey muttered, prompting Joe to reach over and poke her before continuing.

“The body was found in the forest. Seems like that shouldn’t be sheriff’s jurisdiction. Maybe we can call the parks department or state police or somebody.”

“We could try,” Aubrey agreed hesitantly. “But they’d probably just call the sheriff and ask to see the file. If it’s been doctored… Why don’t you believe him?”

“I heard somethin’ real strange at Broad’s the other day.”

“When were you at Broad’s?”

“Yesterday, when you were on your fiftieth lap around the lake. It was go somewhere and get a drink, or take one of Charlie’s guns and shoot you with a tranquilizer dart. And I was pretty sure if I did that you’d stop puttin’ out.”

“Good call,” Aubrey smiled for the first time in days.

“Hell,” Joe told her. “I ain’t dumb. Anyhow, one of the girls was talkin’ about how she knew somethin’ was up when Noah didn’t come in for a few days. Seems he was a real regular customer of hers.”

“I guess they don’t card you for hookers.”

“Hell, they don’t card for anything at Broad’s,” Joe said. “So the other girl tells her that she heard at church the last Sunday as how Noah’s Mom found his porn stash and was real ill at him, and Noah ran off and left a note sayin’ he’d gone to Los Angeles.”

“But that makes more sense than what the sheriff told us. If he’d moved out of his house, then that explains why he was in the hills north of the hollow when his house is south. Maybe he was staying with his Mosley relatives and the sheriff just didn’t want the whole porn thing to come out and make the family look bad. He does have to get reelected.”

“Then why let ‘em put in the paper that he was a peeping tom and why tell us about the immoral material?”

Aubrey shrugged.

“Maybe he wasn’t staying with the Mosleys. Maybe he was camping out in the caves.”

“Sure,” Joe agreed. “But where was his gear? And why stick around here anyway? He had a partial scholarship at UT in the fall, and his brother already moved into a two bedroom apartment so Noah could stay with him in the city. He even had a job lined up.”

“How do you know all that?”

“I had to special order most of the stuff for the cabin. I got to know Noah pretty good. He was a nice kid.”

“Yeah,” Aubrey agreed. “He was.”

“So why run to Los Angeles or stay with distant relations when he has a place waiting for him an hour away? And why do any of those things without his car? It’s still parked at his mama’s house,” Joe informed her.

“Maybe his mother was so mad about the porn that she took the keys and told his brother not to let him stay there,” Aubrey suggested.

Joe scoffed. “No older brother is siding with his mother in a porn argument,” he assured her. “He might
say
he won’t let the kid stay, but he would.”

“So what do you think happened?”

“You ever been to Mammoth Cave?” Joe asked out of nowhere.

“No,” Aubrey told him, perplexed.

“I been twice, and lemme tell you, you get to the entrance and the temperature drops thirty degrees. It’s like going into a movie theater in July. You just hit a wall of cold.”

“And?”

“And what if Noah was killed when he went missing? He could a been dead in there for days and nobody would have found him. The cave would have kept him cool enough to pass for only havin’ been dead a few hours, as long as the coroner was in on it.”

“Wouldn’t the animals have really been on him then?”

“That I don’t know,” Joe admitted. “They don’t cover that on Shark Week.”

Joe turned at Broad’s and drove into the hollow.

“Even if you’re right, that doesn’t help us figure out who killed him or why.”

“Maybe he really had taken a shine to you and the old lady wouldn’t stand for her kin mixing with the people of the hollow. The feud goes back a long time,” Joe informed her.

Joe pulled up to the cabin, helped Aubrey out of the truck and followed her inside without being asked. He sat down on one of the sofas heavily and watched her go to the kitchen and get him a beer and herself a bourbon.

“You and me need to have a talk,” he told her reluctantly.

She looked over at him, suddenly wary.

“About?”

“About you and me.”

Aubrey sat down beside him and handed him the beer. He set it down on the edge of the fire pit without so much as a sip.

“Are you leaving me?” She asked, utterly ashamed at the way the words caught in her throat.

Joe smiled.

“Kinda,” he admitted. He got up, shoved his hands deep in his pockets and paced.

“I gotta get back to the city. I been puttin’ it off, but I got work pilin’ up there and… I want you to come with me,” he blurted. “I been over all the reasons why you’ll say no, but the fact is somebody, maybe the person who was watching us the other night, killed a boy in these woods and…” He threw his hands up in the air. “Hell, I can’t just leave you here.”

It was not at all the conversation Aubrey had expected. She stared at him and realized that she needed a good night’s sleep before she was even marginally capable of having this discussion.

He took her silence as a sign that she was at least thinking about it and, taking her drink and putting it beside his, he sat beside her and took her hands.

“I got plenty of space. Vina can come too, so you don’t have to worry about her bein’ put in The Home. And as soon as this passes you can come back.”

There were a thousand reasons why she couldn’t, and looking in his eyes she knew he knew them all. He didn’t expect her to say yes. He didn’t even hold out much hope. So she didn’t bother saying anything, she just kissed him.

“I won’t run in the woods anymore,” she promised and he nodded, aware that that was as much of a concession as he was likely to get.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

Joe left the
next morning for Knoxville, and as soon as she saw him pull away Aubrey climbed up into the loft, lay down on the bed, and cried for two solid hours. She cried for Noah and because Joe was leaving right when she’d started to want him to stay, but mostly she cried for herself and the collection of circumstances that had conspired to strand her in the middle of a madman infested forest all alone. After she had cried herself out, she dozed off and slept for fourteen hours str
aight.

It was ten o’clock at night when she sat bolt upright in bed, cursing herself for a fool. She took a quick shower, slapped together a sandwich, and sat down at her computer. It was late, but it wasn’t too late to get something done. She looked up the number she wanted, but it was too much to hope that anyone would still be at their desk this time of night. Unable to bear the idea of waiting until morning, she picked up the phone and dialed Jason instead.

“Hello?” He answered on the second ring, sounding wide awake.

“Hi Jason, how are you doing?”

“I didn’t recognize your number on my caller ID,” he told her, as if he wouldn’t have answered if he knew it was her.

“I finally got it changed to a local number,” she told him, trying to keep her tone cool and even.

“Are you going to tell me where local is now, or is it still a secret?”

“It was never a secret, Jason. I’m down in Tennessee with Vina.”

“You’re getting her settled in an assisted living facility, I hope,” he told her. “It isn’t safe for someone that old to live out in the country alone.”

“I’m staying with her, actually,” Aubrey said. “So she doesn’t have to. That’s actually why I called. Her step-kids are giving her a hard time and I think we’ve exhausted the skill of her local lawyer. I’m heading into the city tomorrow to try to hire a shark and I was hoping you could give me Matt’s number. I’d completely forgotten he was down here until tonight, and surely he’ll be able to recommend someone.”

There was silence.

“Hello?”

“I’m here,” Jason said. “I just can’t believe you called me in the middle of the night to get another man’s phone number. What’s the matter, having trouble getting dates?”

“Actually,” she told him with more than a little satisfaction, “I’m seeing someone. I really just need to talk to Matt about a lawyer.”

“Sure,” Jason said petulantly, obviously not believing her, but he gave her Matt’s cell phone number, so Aubrey didn’t really care.

She dialed it as soon as he hung up. It was answered on the first ring.

“Heck.”

“Heck yes or Heck no?” She asked him.

“Aubrey!?!”

“Hi Matt, how have you been?”

“Oh my god, what was Jason thinking? I talked to him a month ago and told him what a moron he is.”

“Well, I talked to him two minutes ago and was on the verge of telling him the exact same thing. What a coincidence.”

“I wanted to get your number when I talked to him, but when a guy tells you he just got divorced, I think there’s a waiting period before you’re allowed to hit on his ex, no matter how hot she it.”

“And is the waiting period up now?” She asked with a grin.

“Oh, it doesn’t apply to the ex hitting on you, then she’s fair game,” he assured her.

“I’ll keep that in mind, but I’m afraid it’s not why I called.”

“Has someone already snapped you up? I thought we had agreed that if you and Jason ever called it quits, I had dibs.”

“
I
don’t remember agreeing to that.”

“Why don’t we discuss it over dinner? I get up to DC pretty often, you know.”

“I tell you what, if we can talk about the favor I need over dinner, I’m perfectly willing to talk about dibs over desert.”

“I forgot you called for a reason. You can tell me now, you don’t need to wait. You know I’m completely at your disposal.”

“It can wait until tomorrow night, if you’re free, that is.”

“I’m always free for you. I’ll need to check and see if I can hop a commuter flight…”

“Matt,” she interrupted him. “Look at your caller ID.”

“Holy shit! You’re local!”

“And everyone said you’d never make it as a spy. I’m actually about an hour away in Cocke County, if you can believe it. I moved here a couple of months ago.”

“And you’re just now calling me? That stings.”

“So dinner?”

“Definitely.”

Aubrey pulled into
Cozumel’s parking lot almost an hour early. It was a chain Mexican place, but Matt had assured her that the salsa was excellent and the Margaritas were huge. She had miss-guessed her drive time, and then made an unexpected series of correct turns. She thought about going to the bookstore across the street to kill the extra hour, but decided to get a drink at the bar instead.

She went in, took a seat at the bar, and ordered a margarita. A moment later, a man sat down beside her. He was wearing jeans and a light linen sports coat, and although he took a seat beside her when the entire bar was empty, he didn’t try to make small talk, which Aubrey appreciated. The bartender brought her drink in a ridiculously large glass and the man put his credit card on top of the check.

“Same for me,” he said.

Aubrey rolled her eyes and prepared to do battle.

“Look, I’m flattered, but I’m meeting someone so I think it’s better if I just buy my own.”

She slid his card off her check and replaced it with her own.

“Should I be jealous?” He asked.

She looked over at him. Button down shirt open at the neck, tortoise shell glasses, expensive watch, and loafers that must have cost a hundred dollars. His normally unruly hair was jelled back carefully, but his smile was exactly the same.

“Is it okay if we take our drinks to a table?” She asked the bartender.

“Sure,” he put down the second margarita and pointed to a booth by the bar.

Aubrey took her drink over and slid down onto the cold vinyl bench. She watched as the man sat down across from her, unable to decide whether she should laugh or cry. “So what’s your PhD in, Joe?”