Little Pretty Things (19 page)

“Never the right time,” he said. “Work or that thing we promised to do or that event we got tickets for. The opera, that show, a wine tasting, a—goddamned sailing lesson.” He scuffed the heel of his shoe against the curb. “You see what she did? She kept us so busy with events and lessons and seminars and ribbon cuttings that we never got around to getting married or coming down here for me to meet her family. This place ruled her, but she didn’t want to bring me here. What am I supposed to take from that?”

“Maybe she was protecting you from this place.”

Vincent turned on me. “What’s that mean?”

I’d said it without thinking. “I’m not sure. Only—well, she came back and ended up dead. Maybe she was protecting you.”

“You don’t think I did it, then.”

I didn’t know. So far I hadn’t met anyone in my life I thought might be capable of murder. Maybe no one I knew was. Maybe whatever Maddy had been mixed up in had nothing to do with Vincent or me or the motel or Midway. Maybe she’d chosen the area to conduct her business—what I wouldn’t give to go back and ask her for more details—because it was a place that was already ruined. A place that was already lost to her.

“What was she here for?” I said.

“No clue,” he said. “You know what they’re saying, right?”

His fists had clenched again. He radiated raw anger that anyone would say she’d had a lover in her room.

“She told me she was here for business,” I said. “What does she do for a living?”

He took long enough to answer that I began to wonder if her work had been scandalous or seedy in some way. Lu and I sometimes ran into people near the motel who weren’t guests, weren’t likely to be coming from the bar. Strays, we called them. They were women, mostly, often quite young-looking. But they were there on business, too, we figured. Where they came from, we had no idea.

“Nothing,” Vincent said at last, his rage gone. “I guess that’s the honest answer.”

“What do you mean?”

“She lost her job a couple of years ago. Two or three. Oh, man, longer ago than that, I guess. She didn’t bounce back from that.”

“She didn’t work.”

“She wanted to take some time, maybe go back to school.”

“Which school? To study what?”

He looked over at my eagerness, confused. “A master’s degree in something, but she never did,” he said. “She toyed with law school a lot. She had some causes that really fired her up.” He seemed to fade away. “When she got going about things—tough stuff, like child brides, abused kids—well, you know how she was.”

I didn’t want to argue the point, or think about where Maddy’s interest in abused kids came from. “So she finished college? The first time, I mean?”

“Of course she did.”

“What was her degree in? Did you ever see the diploma?”

“No, but who keeps their diplomas lying around?” he said. The black eyes landed heavily on me. “What’s going on? What is this about?”

If Mrs. Haggerty’s slip could be trusted, Maddy had never started college, let alone finished, but Beck had said she’d left for college early. What if, instead of arriving to college early and eager, she’d dropped out of high school and out of Midway and out of life, struck out on her own and not looked back?

She could have talked about going back to school every day of her life and not done it, knowing that she’d have to start way back at the beginning.

The important thing was that she hadn’t had a job. Whatever business she’d been in town to conduct couldn’t have been professional. It had to have been personal.

Beck.

I hated to think it, but there it was. If she’d not gone to see Gretchen and she’d only stopped by to talk to me on her way to another appointment, there was really only one person left. And only one kind of unfinished business I could think of.

“What’s this about?” Vincent said again.

“Truthfully, I’m not sure.” I felt sick, remembering my hand on Beck’s arm. Had I touched a murderer? Had I taken a murderer back to the scene of the crime? Had I taken pains to keep a
murderer
from leaving any damning evidence? “Did she mention anyone from here by name? Was she in touch with anyone?”

“Just you,” he said.

So many myths to dispel, I couldn’t begin. “Other than me.”

“There were some teachers she didn’t care for. She wouldn’t say why.”

I looked at him. Was it worth explaining that far more teachers had never cared for Maddy? “Wait,” I said. “You said Kristina. Who’s Kristina?”

“Some friend of hers. Her name came up once in a while.”

“From here?”

“I assumed. I mean, yeah, because she knew her from the track team.”

The rippled edge of that Indiana-shaped trophy came back to me. Kristina. In the end, she’d done what Maddy never had. She’d run state and come home with a prize. But how had Maddy even known her? “She never mentioned someone named Tom? Tommy? Beck?”

“Who’s that?” In a flash he was fired up again, spit flying and fists tight. “If he did this—”

“If he did this, then the police can deal with it,” I said. “But you’re a much better suspect. Running around after your investments was probably not the best way to spend the day. You’re supposed to be a man in mourning.”

“I’m a lawyer. We don’t mourn—” At this, his face started to crumple. He conquered it, composed himself. “We don’t mourn the same way as other people. Besides, it wasn’t just the ring I was after. They said her effects were here. I thought something in her pockets, or in her purse, her phone, would give me some idea how she spent her . . . last day.”

I didn’t remember her carrying a purse or a phone.

For a second, I was strangely protective of Maddy. No—of Maddy’s death. Maddy’s murder felt like something that had happened only to me. Vincent, shutting off his pain. Gretchen, her eyes lighting up at the idea of being next of kin. Lu, telling me to stay away from it all. Billy, flipping on the no-vacancy sign as though he couldn’t get out of there fast enough. Maddy’s death hadn’t just happened near me, but somewhere deep in my bones. Somewhere under my feet, and now I couldn’t stand on such uneven ground.

There was no point in keeping all the grief to myself. I was the one trying to save an eighteen-year-old girl who hadn’t been eighteen years old in a long time. If anyone had a right to this, it was Vincent. Gretchen. Even Billy, listening downstairs.

Billy.

Billy was the one who knew how Maddy had spent some of her last hours.

“I’m sorry, Vincent,” I said. “I need to go. Will you hold the funeral in Chicago? Or here?”

He stared through me. “Oh, God, I don’t think I can do this.”

I knew I couldn’t do it, either. But I knew who could. I felt eyes watching us up and down the street, felt the nods and exchanged looks as I led Vincent to my car for a scrap of paper. I couldn’t find anything but a brochure tossed on the floor of the backseat, something I’d picked up somewhere, and tore a big corner off the back. A pen, finally, in the glove compartment. Handing the phone number over, I hesitated, then reached for Vincent’s shoulder to squeeze, the least I could do, and so was in place to catch him as he fell toward me and landed upon me. I held on, straining under his bulk and the additional weight of the things he believed about my friendship with Maddy. It didn’t seem important at the moment to clear anything up. It didn’t seem important, petty really, to point out that it looked like we all grieved the same way, after all.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

At the entrance to the Mid-Night’s parking lot, I braked and let my car shudder and buck under me as I gazed over the dark, empty expanse. Billy’s rusted beater took up a space as always—except it wasn’t as always. This time of night, the bar should have been lit up and hopping. Either the police had come to put Yvonne’s side business on ice, or everyone who’d wanted a good look had already been to visit.

I took the spot next to Billy’s but couldn’t go around the alcove end of the building. I went around to the breezeway instead, past the vending machines. The courtyard was blacker than I’d ever seen it, all the rooms and overhead lights dark. I felt my way around the walk to his door and knocked hard. I rubbed at my cold arms, then pounded at the door again. Nothing.

The night was quiet except for the whir of cars racing past on the interstate. I stepped back and peered up at the door of Maddy’s room. It was still barricaded by crime-scene tape.

I folded my arms around myself and walked toward the office. I’d had to arrive at the Mid-Night early, in the dark of winter many times, and I’d had to leave late, but this was different. The empty lot and the shadowy courtyard gave me a sour-stomach feeling.

My foot hit a patch of something and slid. I fell on my butt, scraping my palms against the pavement. I held my hands aloft. In the dim light, they were slick and wet.

Not blood. Please. Anything but blood.

I smelled my hands, then wiped them gently on my pants, looking around until I traced the puddle under me to the underside of the ice machine.

Back around the corner, the office was dark except for the “No Vacancy” neon. No Billy, no sign of anyone.

I went back to my car, then instead of getting inside, kept going. I didn’t want to be there or to go where I was going, but I couldn’t stop myself.

I passed under the stairs and edged up to the corner of the building and the alcove. Here, the interstate roared with cars racing by. People had places to be, futures full of promise to get started. I braced myself and turned the corner to face the garbage bin and the railing above.

Some punishing part of my brain expected Maddy to be hanging there still. I let out the breath I’d been holding.

And then something whistled near my ear, flicking my ponytail. I swatted at it—June bugs were a terrible Indiana affliction—just as one arm then the other were nipped by mosquitos. But then the mosquitos weren’t mosquitos, but something rough against my skin and tightening across my chest.

I couldn’t think what was happening but then grabbed enough air to make some noise. I fell, tangled, my arms tight to my sides and only stopped screaming to gather more air. I couldn’t breathe. A rope. A pair of boots appeared next to my head. I clawed at the ground, my scream now hoarse. “Sure, sure, you scream your head off,” said a man’s voice.

A figure stood over me, backlit by the bare bulb over the garbage bin. I located a shadow on the ground, in time to catch the shadow raise his arm and run his fingers through his hair.

One, two, three times.

“Billy?” My voice was strange. I coughed. The rope. A thousand thoughts came at once. The rope. Maddy.
Billy
. “Jesus, Billy, please—”

“Jules? Is that you? What the hell are you doing tiptoeing around here?” In a split second, he wasn’t the murderer stringing up another victim, but just Billy, gazing stupidly at me. Even in the dark, I knew one of his eyes would be wink-wink-winking at me.

“Billy, untie me this second—” I coughed and hacked, struggling at the rope.

Billy loosened it and untangled me. I sat on my knees, choking until I caught my breath, then punched at Billy’s nearby knee. “What the hell, Billy? Who’s tiptoeing? I knocked on your door about fifty times.” My voice still wasn’t right. “What are you doing with that rope?”

“I’m on guard, like,” he said. “They’ve been after the railings, like I told you they would be.”

“Who? Who’s been after the—you mean suicides? Really? Did you catch anyone trying to do it?” My heart was still thudding. I pawed at a spot on my arm that the rope had burned. It had broken the skin. The blood was staining the sleeve of my shirt. After a minute, I stood up and dusted myself off, feeling like a fool, even if I was a slightly smaller fool than the one in front me. In the bare light, I could see a furtive look on his face.

“Well, no,” he said. “Not suicides, anyways. Some kids, probably, poking around. Some asshole came out and was taking flash pictures, if you can believe that.” He gestured at the highway. The cars zipping by serving as the insulted audience. “That’s not the kind of thing we need happening here.”

“A couple of photos surely won’t ruin this
murder
we have going on,” I said. “Look, Billy, I need to ask—what did you hear that night?”

“Well, I don’t know.” He turned his face into the shadows, where I couldn’t see his eye going crazy. Or any expression at all. “I don’t know if that’s something to talk about in polite company.”

What was with everyone being polite all of a sudden? It wasn’t polite to hang people from banisters, but here we were. “Go ahead and be rude, Billy. I want to hear the awful, messy, impolite truth.”

“They were giving each other what-for up there.” He looked embarrassed. “Real loud.”

“Like . . . passionate sounds?” I tried not to imagine any passionate sounds that Billy might know of—or make. I felt my neck and cheeks going hot and was glad of the dark. We worked side by side in a cheap motel, but we’d never talked this directly about what must go on in the occupied rooms. “Like, moaning and, um, stuff?”

“Well, no, not exactly. More like . . . rough stuff.” He turned away from me again. “I thought we had some more of them dominatrix types.”

A group of them had passed through on their way to a convention once, and Billy hadn’t been the same since. They’d actually been very neat, cleaning up after themselves, but apparently they’d made a great deal of noise.

“It sounded like rough stuff,” I repeated. “It sounded like someone was getting hurt?”

“I think that’s what they’re into—”

“Not the dominatrix night. The night Maddy was killed. It sounded like someone was slapping someone else around? Like someone was getting hurt?”

“That’s not what I thought—”

“Because you would have called for help, right?” I said. “You would have stopped him?”

“I’ve been running this place for a long time, Jules,” Billy said. “You hear a lot of things. You don’t know where the line is, sometimes.”

“Like, screaming?” Billy made sure his face was turned into the shadows again. I swallowed hard. “We didn’t check in any black leather that night. All you had to do was check the cards. One minivan of Bargains, the dead—the guy who stayed in all night, and Maddy. Nice car, single occupant. You could have checked. You could have knocked on the door and asked if everything was all right.”