You'll Miss Me When I'm Gone (26 page)

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

 

T
he bus from Harborview was crammed with rush hour commuters and hospital employees. Despite Tanya's protests that she didn't want to sit next to some stranger, Spencer gave up his seat to an old, frail-looking Asian woman.

As he stood in the aisle, holding on to a bar, he had a few minutes to think about Tanya. He couldn't quite picture her killing anyone, but he could definitely see her working with the killer—or killers. She was the only one alive with an axe to grind for Damon's tormentors. Maybe she'd convinced herself that she was on a noble mission to rid the school of bullies. Or perhaps she had a crush on someone who was manipulating her. Spencer certainly knew what that was like. There wasn't much difference between hero worship and a crush.

Someone like Troy Slattery could easily have her under his thumb—if he just pretended to like her. She'd probably do just about anything for a guy like that as long as he paid attention to her. Maybe Slattery wasn't telling her everything about what he was doing. If he'd plowed into Luke with that stolen car, he didn't necessarily have to tell Tanya about it.

Spencer tried to put out of his mind that image of Luke in the hospital bed, so battered and broken. It hurt just to look at him.

Tanya had repeatedly contradicted herself when he and Aunt Dee had questioned her in the ICU waiting room. Spencer wondered if she knew about the baseball cap he'd found in his locker. She often came up and talked with him while he was at his locker. She could have seen him working the combination at any time. If she hadn't planted the cap herself, she might have furnished his locker combination to someone who did plant it. And she was the only one who knew about that broken window lock in Bonnie's house.

Spencer hadn't talked with Bonnie much today. It was sort of intentional. She was still sitting at the cool table at lunch. So he'd decided to heed Diane's warning about her and give her a wide berth. Bonnie had approached him in the hallway after chemistry class to tell him how sorry she was to hear about Luke.

“I guess my timing kind of sucks here,” she'd added. “But I'm wondering if you want to come with me to a Halloween party at Amanda Brooks's house on Friday night.”

“Um, I'm not sure I can get away,” Spencer had replied. “Could I let you know later?”

“Sure. Listen, are you mad at me or something?”

“No, I'm just—I need to get to history class.”

Spencer had felt bad giving her the brush-off. But for now he'd follow Diane's advice.

He'd realized he must have left his copy of
The Grapes of Wrath
at Diane's office. He'd left her two more messages, but still hadn't heard back from her. He was pretty disappointed in Diane, especially since she'd acted as if he could really count on her.

The bus passed his stop. He got off with Tanya at the top of Queen Anne Hill and offered to walk her home. He wanted to see where she lived. And he wanted to ask her something that had been bothering him for a couple of days now.

It was dark and chilly. The wind kicked up, scattering fallen leaves in their path as they walked through an older neighborhood—with some new construction amid the homes that probably went up long before World War II. Tanya's shoulder occasionally brushed against his. Spencer wasn't sure if it was flirtatious or not. But he used the opportunity to nudge her. “So how come you haven't asked me about my time in the institution?”

“What?” she asked, stopping in her tracks. “You were in an institution? You mean, like a nuthouse? Are you kidding me?”

“You were right there when Reed threw it in my face last week,” Spencer reminded her. “I've been wondering why you haven't asked me about it.”

She shrugged and started walking again. “I—I don't know what you're talking about.”

“You were standing, like, six feet away when he said it.”

“Well, I stopped listening to whatever Reed said ages ago. Is it really true?”

“Yes, it is. Before I came here, I was in an institution—or like you said,
a nuthouse
. It was in Milwaukee.”

“I thought it was in Virginia,” she said. She had barely gotten the words out when she seemed to realize she'd been tricked. She rolled her eyes. “Okay, so I knew—so I heard him. I didn't ask you about it, because I didn't want to be rude.”

There she was, caught in another lie. Spencer wondered if he could believe anything that came out of her mouth. “That was a whole week ago,” he said. “Weren't you at all curious? Didn't you want to find out whether or not it was true?”

“I figured you'd tell me if you wanted me to know.”

“And so you just put it out of your head, is that it? Tanya, no one does that. If you find out someone was institutionalized—someone you see practically every day—you'll want to know why they were institutionalized and how long, stuff like that.”

Tanya sighed. “God, what is with you and your aunt this afternoon? All these questions, trying to trip me up, you're
badgering
me.”

“It's because you're not being honest with us,” Spencer said. “I think you know who's responsible for Reed's murder. That same person was harassing Bonnie Middleton and may have even tried to kill Luke—only they're not telling you about it—”

“That's crazy,” Tanya said, walking faster. “Maybe it's not a nice word to use, considering your background, but it's true.”

“Tanya, you act like you care about me,” Spencer continued. “Well, did you know this same person tried to frame me for Reed's murder? Is it this Troy guy? Are you trying to protect him?”

She stopped and turned toward him. “I told you, I hardly know him! Goddamn it, stop picking on me!”

She hurried ahead of him and then turned up a walkway to a dilapidated bungalow with ugly purple shutters. The lawn was neglected. Spencer's dad used to complain about a house like this one on their block in Silver Spring. He said it was an
eyesore
, and it brought down property values. Spencer couldn't help feeling a little sorry for Tanya, living in a dump like this. It was just her and her divorced mother. People on the block probably hated them.

Tanya paused halfway to her front door and called back to him. “Thanks a lot for walking me home!” Her tone dripped with sarcasm.

“Tanya?” he said, reaching the end of the walkway.

“What?” she answered impatiently.

“It's out there now,” he said. “And I'm the one who brought it up. So you aren't being rude. I mean, it just proves my point. You haven't even asked. Aren't you at all curious why I was in an institution?”

Ignoring him, she moved on to her front door, unlocked it, and opened it. She turned back to glare at him. “I already know!” she yelled. “It's because you murdered your parents, you sick bastard! And here I was, trying to be nice to you . . .”

She ducked inside her house and slammed the door.

Spencer felt like someone had just hit him in the gut. He'd heard that before—several times in the hospital and the juvenile detention facility. But hearing Tanya say it—and with such venom—caught him by surprise.

He wondered if she'd known all along—if she'd been the one sending those texts to Luke and Reed. Or had she found out the same way Bonnie had, by looking it up on the Internet after overhearing Reed taunt him about it last week?

The front of the sad, ramshackle house was unlit. Spencer couldn't see anything in the windows. But he noticed a construction site next door. He wasn't sure if Tanya was there in the dark, watching him from one of the windows.

He pretended to continue down the block. Passing the construction site, he spotted a gap in the chain-link fence and slipped through it. The house was just an unfinished shell right now, but there were stairs going up to a second floor. It looked like he would have a view into the windows of that side of Tanya's house, and most of them were lit, too. He made his way across the muddy ground and onto some gravel. Then he hoisted himself up through the opening for a front window. He guessed this dark and creepy area would be someone's living room someday. Right now it smelled like mud and sawdust.

Spencer moved to the stairs, which didn't have a railing. He carefully crept up to the second floor. There was no actual floor, just boards and planks laid out over beams. He precariously made his way to a window across from the McCallums' bungalow. He peered down into their living room.

Tanya had told him that two years ago, her mother had fallen off a small stepladder at work. Ever since, she'd been milking the minor injury and living on disability, spending most of her day on the couch in front of the Game Show Network on TV. It looked like Tanya had at least been honest about that. Spencer could see the back of a woman with brassy red hair, lying on the sofa with a bed pillow behind her. She was wearing a robe. A TV table near her was covered with a couple of dirty cereal bowls, a bag of Hershey's miniatures, three glasses, and some candy wrappers. He could see the flickering light from an old-model TV set, and he heard muffled chatter. From the tone, it sounded like a game show announcer.

Suddenly a light went on in a room directly across from him. Spencer ducked to one side of the window opening. He realized he was right across from Tanya's bedroom. She had Broadway posters on her wall:
Rent, A Chorus Line,
and
Dreamgirls.
The place was a mess—with an unmade single bed and clothes scattered everywhere.

Spencer watched as Tanya took her cell phone out of her coat pocket. Then she shucked off the coat and threw it on her bed. She looked nervous and agitated. Pacing back and forth, she punched some numbers on the phone. Tanya started talking, but her words were muffled and indistinguishable.

Spencer wondered if she was talking to Troy Slattery.

He knew it couldn't be anyone from school. Her only friend at school had been Damon.

He had no idea who she could be talking to. But he was pretty certain she was talking about him.

* * *

“It's not fair,” Tanya said into the phone. “I'm helping you. I'm protecting you. And I'm the one getting grilled by the police—not to mention Spencer and his aunt. You should have heard them ganging up on me at the hospital. I'm tired of being your decoy.”

“But I need you. This is for you, too, Tanya. And everything is falling into place perfectly. I want you to do me a favor. Tell Spencer tomorrow that you planned to take him out to dinner to make up for tonight's little misunderstanding—but you have to meet someone instead. Then make a date for Saturday night.”

“I don't understand,” Tanya said, pacing around her messy bedroom. “Who am I meeting? Is it you? Am I finally going to see you again?”

“You aren't meeting anybody, but we want your boyfriend to think you are. We want him tailing you. And I know you like the attention. I know you have a little crush on him. So wear something pretty for him tomorrow night. Stay home, or maybe take a walk . . .”

“I don't get it,” Tanya said.

“You don't have to. We just need you to go on being a decoy a little while longer.”

“What are you talking about,
we
?”

“I mean you and me,” the person on the other end explained.

Tanya suspected he was working with someone else—besides her. She'd been feeling that way for a while now—even before everyone saw the webcast of Damon and his mother in that fiery car explosion. The news reports about the Logan family said the murders had the earmarks of a two-person job. So she wasn't the only one thinking he had a secret partner.

If only she could look him in the eye and ask him. Then she'd be able to tell if he was lying. But she hadn't seen him in three weeks. It had just been texts and phone calls.

“Are you sure by
we,
you don't mean you and somebody else—some secret partner?” she pressed.

“You're my partner, my only partner. And you're essential.”

“I'm your decoy, that's all,” she said, frowning at her reflection in the dresser mirror. She could hear the TV downstairs—too loud, as usual. “What makes you so sure Spencer will follow me around tomorrow night? This story about meeting someone, what makes you so sure he'll swallow the bait?”

“Because he didn't even have any bait tonight, and he's on your tail.” The person on the other end of the line chuckled. “Don't look, but he's spying on you right now from that unfinished house next door.”

Tanya automatically glanced out her window at the skeleton of a house less than twenty feet away. But all she could see past the window openings was blackness. She shuddered.

“I'm watching him watch you,” he said on the other end of the line. “You probably thought you were all alone. But the two men in your life are both very close to you right now, Tanya. You just can't see us in the dark.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

 

A
ndrea sat at the wheel of her VW, staring at the big, cedar-shingle house across the street. It needed a fresh coat of paint. The front porch light was on, and she could see three separate entrances—green doors, each with a letter on it:
A
,
B,
and
C
. Andrea counted four mailboxes by the porch steps. Troy Slattery lived in Apartment
D
. Andrea wondered where it was.

She'd left Luke midway through
On the Waterfront
. He'd kept nodding off, and had finally insisted she go home. She didn't tell him she intended to pay a visit to the man she thought may have tried to kill him.

She probably should have called the police—or Detective Talwar. But she didn't have any proof that Troy had driven the Mazda in the hit-and-run. She just knew he hated Luke, and she had some theories. So far, Detective Talwar didn't take much stock in any of her theories. In fact, Andrea was pretty certain the only reason Talwar had paid any attention to her at all was because the police considered Spencer a suspect in the Logan family murders. They didn't want to hear about the possibility of an elaborate conspiracy that involved someone who knew Evelyn Shuler. They were dealing with all sorts of false alarms, threats, and high school pranks. How could she have expected them to follow up on everything she'd told them when most of it was conjecture?

At least Detective Talwar had reviewed Evelyn's bank account. There were no checks written to Reed Logan. Nor were there any check or credit card payments to a private detective agency. That might have debunked Andrea's assumption that Evelyn had hired that private investigator to look into her past. However, Evelyn's bank record showed several large withdrawals over the summer. So she could have paid the detective, Reed, and this other person—the one who broke into their Ballard apartment—with cash or money orders.

Andrea was convinced the other person was Evelyn's onetime lover, Troy.

She wasn't sure if Troy knew what she looked like. And she still hadn't quite figured out how to approach him.

She spotted a stout, sixty-something woman with glasses emerging from apartment A. The woman held a plastic trash bag that seemed about to burst at the seams. She waddled down the porch steps and hauled the bag to a Dumpster on the side of the apartment house.

Andrea climbed out of the car and hurried across the street. She caught up with the woman just as she closed the Dumpster lid. “Hi, I'm sorry to bother you,” she said. “I'm looking for Troy Slattery in Apartment
D
.”

“You missed him,” the woman answered. “I saw him leave about a half hour ago. But I'm sure one of his roommates is down there . . .”

“Down where?” Andrea asked.

“The basement apartment,” the woman explained. “It's around back.”

“Do you know if Troy was home last night?”

The woman shrugged. “Beats me. Why don't you ask one of his roommates? And while you're at it, maybe you can ask them to turn down that damn heavy metal music. I can't hear myself think some of the time.” She wandered back toward the front porch.

“I'll do that. Thank you!”

Andrea followed a narrow sidewalk to the back of the apartment house. Down four steps was another green door, this one with a
D
on it. Andrea didn't hear any heavy metal music as she rang the doorbell.

There was no answer. She rang the bell again.

“Yeah, come in, it's not locked!” she heard a woman yell.

Biting her lip, Andrea opened the door and stepped into the apartment, which smelled of stale marijuana smoke. She found herself in a hallway across from an untidy living room. It was a strange mix of banged-up furniture and expensive-looking toys—like the big flat-screen TV, which played the news on mute to the unoccupied room. The sofa in front of it was losing its stuffing and looked as if it might have been picked up off a curb somewhere. She wondered if the TV—along with the stereo equipment—had been stolen off a truck or from someone's house. She scanned the room for her mother's silver frame.

“Who's there?” the woman called—from the other end of the long hallway.

“I'm here to see Troy!” Andrea replied, raising her voice. “I'm a friend of Evelyn Shuler's!”

“I can't hear you! Come down to the end of the hall!”

Starting down the long, narrow corridor, Andrea got a peek into the other rooms. The place was a pigsty. In the bedroom at the end of the hallway, she found a half-dressed, goth-looking young woman sitting at a dressing table. The place was a shambles and stank of cigarette smoke. The girl was on her smart phone. She nodded at Andrea in the mirror. “Yeah, okay, I gotta go,” she muttered. “I have some friend of Troy's here . . .” She cackled. “No kidding. Okay, later . . .” She still seemed focused on her phone, but sort of turned in Andrea's direction. “So, Troy's not home. I'm not sure when he's going to be back . . .”

“Well, I was hoping to track him down,” Andrea said. “I'm a friend of Evelyn Shuler's . . .”

“Isn't that the lady who got blown up?” the girl asked, finally looking up from her phone.

“That's right,” Andrea said, still standing in the doorway. “Evelyn owed Troy some money. A while back, she asked me to make sure he got it—and, well, I got sidetracked. Anyway, it's not much money, but it's the principle of the thing. I was supposed to meet Troy Tuesday night, but somehow I missed him.”

“Are you the one Troy was meeting at the airport?” the young woman asked. She put down her phone and lit a cigarette.

Andrea nodded. The Mazda CX-9 had been stolen from an airport parking lot on Tuesday. “So he mentioned it to you?”

“Yeah, he said something about running an errand and that he'd finally have some rent money—which he owes me.” She exhaled a cloud of smoke. “Anyway, he was gone until two in the morning and didn't come back any richer.”

“Maybe we got our times mixed up,” Andrea said. “I was supposed to meet him around eight-fifteen.” She figured that was about a half hour before Luke was hit. She wondered if Troy had an alibi.

The girl shrugged. “Well, he left here sometime in the afternoon. How much money are you giving him?”

“Like I say, it's not much,” Andrea replied. “It's for a favor he did. Evelyn wanted him to break into this apartment in Ballard. It was part of a prank she was pulling on a friend of hers. Do you know anything about that?”

The girl shook her head and puffed on her cigarette. “No, but it sounds like something Troy would do . . .”

Another door in the bedroom, which Andrea thought led to a bathroom, suddenly swung open. She realized the door was to a connecting bedroom. A sinewy, twenty-something man with a shaved-to-stubble head stood in the doorway. He wore a dingy, yellowing T-shirt and gray sweat shorts. His muscular arms were covered with tattoos. “Who's this bitch?” he grumbled.

“A friend of Troy's,” the girl said. “She has money for him.”

“Yeah?” He stared at Andrea. “How much?”

She tried to think of how much cash she had on her—and how much she could spare. She gave a nervous shrug. “Just fifty dollars.”

He turned to glare at the girl. “Where's my fucking omelet? You said you were going to make me an omelet, like, a half hour ago.”

She stubbed out her cigarette and got to her feet. “Okay, okay, don't have a cow,” she muttered. She plucked a kimono from a pile of clothes on her bed. Throwing it on, she brushed past Andrea as she headed out the door.

“It just so happens Troy owes me fifty bucks,” the man said, scratching his chest.

“That's quite a coincidence,” Andrea said, backing out of the doorway. She didn't want to be alone in the room with this guy. He looked dangerous, like someone who had done time in a maximum-security penitentiary. What with the haircut, those tattoos, and his build, she could almost picture him pumping up in the prison gym.

He chuckled. “You're a hell of a lot better-looking than most of the skanks he brings through here.”

“Well, thanks,” she said, trying to work up a smile. Her back was against the wall in the corridor. “Ah, I was asking your friend if Troy ever pulled a break-in job for Evelyn Shuler. It was a joke on a friend of hers in Ballard. This would have been in August, around—”

“You said you got fifty bucks on you?” he interrupted.

“Yes, but I'm supposed to give it directly to Troy.” She glanced down the long hallway—to the door outside.

“Why don't you come in here?” He nodded toward his bedroom.

“No thanks. Listen, I should go. I have someone outside, waiting for me. I don't want to keep him . . .”

“I don't give a shit about that,” the man said, slowly moving toward her. He looked her up and down. “Troy owes me. And if you're a friend of his, I'm going to collect—one way or another.”

Andrea started to back down the hallway. “Actually, it's my brother who's waiting for me,” she said. Her heart was pounding. “He gets real impatient. I don't want to make him mad. He's a—parole officer, and you probably know what hotheads some of them can be . . .”

He abruptly stopped outside the girl's bedroom door.

“Thanks for your time,” Andrea said, short of breath.

His eyes narrowed at her. Andrea couldn't tell if he believed her or not.

She turned and hurried to the door, careful not to break into a sprint. She didn't want him running after her. She ducked outside and closed the door behind her.

Scurrying up the steps, she ran toward her car and fumbled for the key. But then she realized if he followed her, she'd lead him directly to her VW. He'd get to her before she even managed to pull away from the curb.

Andrea raced past her VW and several more cars. Then she crossed the street and ducked behind an SUV. Catching her breath, she peeked over the vehicle's roof at the apartment house down the block. No one had come out after her—at least, she didn't see anybody. She really couldn't tell whether or not anyone was in the shadows, behind the shrubs or that Dumpster.

She decided to stay there for another few minutes until she knew she was safe—or at least, until she stopped shaking.

* * *

Sitting in the parked VW with the key in the ignition, Andrea squinted at the headlights of a passing car. She knew she was pushing her luck a little, but she'd decided to stick around just a while longer to see if Troy showed up. But her windshield kept fogging. Every few minutes, she wiped off the condensation with a Kleenex.

Her venture hadn't been totally in vain. She had Troy going to the airport, where the Mazda was stolen on Tuesday. He'd returned home at two in the morning, which meant he could have been the one who broke into the town house. His roommate had said that breaking and entering “sounds like something Troy would do.” He'd also returned home without money he thought he'd have. Was that because he'd been interrupted at the town house before he'd been able to steal anything?

It still wasn't enough to prove that Troy had run down Luke with the stolen car Tuesday night. She didn't know where to take it from here—outside of questioning Troy directly. She needed a professional investigator, someone who could determine exactly where Troy Slattery was Tuesday night, and whether he had a criminal record, or a history of breaking and entering. But she couldn't afford a private investigator. She didn't have money like Evelyn.

“The private investigator . . .” Andrea murmured.

The man who had questioned her friend Sylvia Goethals in Washington, DC, back in August knew about Spencer, the trial, and everything. How long had he known? And if he had been working for Evelyn, when did he share that information with her? Was she still seeing Troy at the time?

The VW's windows were starting to fog again. Andrea was still a bit shaky from her experience with Troy's roommate. She took out her smart phone, and looked up Sylvia's number. As she clicked on it and listened to the ringtones, she prayed her friend was back from India.

Sylvia answered on the third ring. “Hey, Andrea.”

“You're back!”

“Yes, I got in night before last. I'm still jet-lagged. In fact, I was just about to turn in.”

“Well, I don't want to keep you, but I was wondering if you still have that private detective's business card . . .”

It took Sylvia only a minute to find the card in her desk drawer. The detective's name was Hugh Badger Lyman. He had a Web site—and a phone number with a Seattle area code.

Andrea switched on the VW's interior light and jotted everything down on the back of an envelope that had been in her purse.

She thanked her friend, clicked off the line, and tried the number for Hugh Badger Lyman.

It rang once. Then a recording came on:
“We're sorry, you've reached a number that has been disconnected or is no longer in service. If you feel you've reached this recording in error, please check the number and try your call again.”

Andrea clicked off and punched in the number once more. She got the recording again. She figured she must have copied the number down wrong. She didn't want to bother Sylvia again, so she switched to the Internet and tried the Web site,
www.hblymaninvestigations.com
.

The site came up—with a rather unimaginative illustration of an eye looking through a magnifying glass: