You'll Miss Me When I'm Gone (28 page)

“I don't think I'll have another visitor for at least a few weeks,” he said. “I'm kind of a loner. Could you do me a big favor? There are a couple of boxes up there marked “Christmas Shit.” Can you bring them down? Hugh used to help me out every year, hauling them down and taking them back up for me. Do you mind?”

“Of course not,” she called back. Andrea felt herself tearing up, but she fought it. She spotted the two big brown boxes with “Xmas Shit” scrawled across them.

She stuck the flashlight handle in her armpit and then picked up the Macy's box. It wasn't exactly lightweight. She imagined Dana carrying it up here with the bag handles in his teeth. Carefully, she made her way down the ladder.

Lowering his ferret to the floor, Dana took the box from her midway down. “You know, Hugh was right about you. After all the snooping and research he did, he came to the conclusion—in fact, we both did—that you're a pretty nice lady.”

Andrea smiled at him. “Thanks.” She was about to start up the ladder again for his “Christmas Shit,” but she hesitated. “Did Evelyn ever say what she was hoping to find in this investigation?”

Clutching the box, he looked up at her and winced. “She wanted us to find out how promiscuous you were,” he muttered, obviously embarrassed. He cleared his throat. “But then after we found out about your nephew and the murders, Mrs. Shuler wanted to know more about that. She wanted details. She thought we could come up with something that would make you look bad. And when we couldn't, she paid Hugh off. But on his own, he kept looking into what happened with your nephew and the other kid—the one who died in the fire.”

“Why would he do that?” Andrea asked.

“Because—Hugh said—after the murders, the trial, and the fire, something just didn't feel right to him about it.”

Andrea gazed down at him—and then at the box marked “Work Shit” in his hands.

“I don't think Hugh ever found out,” he said. “He met up with that freight train before he finished the investigation.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

 

“I
texted Ron after his practice, and he agreed to come to Amanda's party tonight,” Bonnie told him over the phone. “Maybe before he gets too drunk, I can pull him aside and get through to him just how serious all this is.”

“You've got to,” Spencer urged her. He stood in the doorway alcove of a closed gift shop. A Halloween display was in the store window, and fake cobwebs draped the doorway. He was across the street from a Thai restaurant where Tanya and her fellow cast members were eating dinner. A few of them had dressed up for Halloween. The restaurant was in an old craftsman-style house, with empty tables on the front patio.

“I don't think anything's going to happen to Ron's family while he's out,” Bonnie said. “At least, I've been assuming that's the case with me, too. I just can't see them going after my folks and my brothers when I'm not even here.” She paused. “What's Tanya doing?”

“She's been with the
Pajama Game
cast ever since three-thirty,” he said. “She hasn't called anyone—unless it was during one of her two trips to the bathroom. They're all having Thai food now.”

After they'd gone into the restaurant, Spencer had grabbed a slice of pizza at a spot next door, and used their restroom. He knew it was going to be a long night ahead. He should have asked Tanya when exactly she was meeting this mystery person, but he'd had to act like he wasn't interested. He wondered if they were having this rendezvous to finalize plans for Ron's murder. Were they carrying it out tonight?

“The last thing I feel like doing tonight is going to a party,” Bonnie said.

“When is it?” he asked.

“I'm getting together with Emily Goodwin, and we're heading over there at eight o'clock. We're zombie nurses. If I can't convince Ron just how serious this is, I'll talk to one of the guys on the team and see if they can't get him to spend the night at their house.”

“Good, that's smart,” Spencer said. “Listen, you might not think it's any of my business, but if Ron tries to get you alone somewhere away from the party, don't go with him. Okay?”

“Spencer, I'm not getting back together with him.”

“I know, but you don't want to be caught somewhere alone with him. I mean, they might try killing the two of you at once. It would be just too good to resist. . .”

“I really wish you hadn't said that,” Bonnie replied with a nervous laugh. “You think they'd pass up the chance to bury me in pencil shavings or whatever—just so they could get two of us at once?”

“Maybe,” Spencer said into the phone. “Either way, why take a chance?”

“What do you suppose they've cooked up for Ron?”

“I don't know—maybe the same thing they did to Reed. Or maybe they'll kill him in a bathroom. Ron and some of his buddies attacked Damon in a restroom at school earlier this year.”

“Ron didn't tell me about that,” she said.

“I wouldn't have known myself if I hadn't gotten a look at Damon's journal.”

“You have his diary?”

“No, the first week I stayed at Luke's, I found Damon's journal,” Spencer explained. “It was there right under the mattress I was sleeping on. I know it's a creepy thing to do, reading someone else's private journal, but I was bored. I couldn't resist checking it out.”

“Oh, please, I would have done the same thing,” Bonnie said. “So what happened to this journal?”

“I have no idea. It wasn't in his room at his mother's house. I looked. And it wasn't on the list of stuff the police took as evidence. I'm thinking Damon must have destroyed it before he killed himself.”

“That's weird,” she murmured.

“What do you mean?”

“Well, covering your tracks like that before committing suicide. It's almost as if he knew there was going to be something else.”

“I still don't understand,” Spencer said.

“It's as if Damon knew killing himself wasn't going to be the end of it. Maybe he knew there'd be something to follow it up—like these murders. Maybe he even arranged them. Was there a hint of anything like that in his journal?”

“I don't know for sure,” Spencer admitted. “I read some chunks and skimmed over the rest. But I didn't see anything in there where he was planning to kill himself—or anyone else.”

“Did he mention having another friend besides Tanya?”

“No,” Spencer answered, staring at the Thai restaurant across the street. “But if there was someone else, I might just get a chance to see him tonight.”

* * *

The clock on the old, avocado-colored range still worked, and read six-thirty. Andrea had promised Luke she'd be back to see him at the hospital by now. Instead she was sitting at Dana's fifties dinette table with Hugh Badger Lyman's file in front of her. It was in a folder among a stack of other “Work Shit” in the Macy's box.

Andrea sipped a Coke, which Dana had opened for her. He sat across from her with a glass of ginger ale and a box of Ritz crackers. Andrea was a little more relaxed now—except every so often when Boris, the ferret, brushed against her ankles.

It was far more unsettling to see how Evelyn's private detective had collected and composed a profile on a dozen different men she'd dated in the last five years. “I can't believe you have Bob Gold in here, Dana,” she said. “We only had three dates—the third one at a restaurant in Dupont Circle, where he told me he still wasn't over his ex-girlfriend.”

“They're married now,” Dana said, munching on a Ritz cracker. “He spoke very highly of you.”

“That's nice.” She leaned toward him. “Listen, speaking of boyfriends, did you ever meet Evelyn's boyfriend, Troy Slattery? Did Hugh mention him?”

“I never met him—or her. I just faxed things to her and talked to her on the phone a couple of times. But I remember Hugh was over there at the house on Garfield once and he said she was hanging around with this ‘good-looking, actor-type creep.' ”

“That sounds like him,” Andrea said, nodding pensively. It confirmed that Troy certainly had access to the private detective's information about her and Spencer. And if Evelyn wasn't very discreet, Damon might have had access to some of Hugh's findings, too.

She studied three yellow sheets from a legal pad—full of notes Hugh had jotted down while interviewing a paralegal at the firm that had defended Garrett Beale six years ago. Apparently, they'd hired their own private detective to dig up dirt on her—without much luck. They'd hoped to use something from her past to persuade her to back off so Garrett wouldn't be prosecuted for Vivian's and Larry's murders. They'd even procured records of the two speeding tickets she'd gotten, her Forest Hills apartment rental contract, and her college transcripts. God only knew how they got their hands on all the information.

“The fact that these attorneys were so thorough saved Hugh a lot of time researching you,” Dana explained.

Andrea found rap sheets—with mug shots—for two teenage boys she didn't recognize. “Who are these two?” she asked.

“Hugh talked to some surviving members of the Beale family for any inside information they might have about the murders or the fire that killed Garrett and his parents. He also talked to some of the boys who knew Garrett at the juvenile detention facilities—those two in particular. They were Garrett's best buddies. ‘The Three Musketeers,' one of the other kids called them.”

Andrea studied the rap sheets. Kirk Mowery was fair-haired and baby-faced. The other boy, Richard Phelps, had long dark hair that fell into his eyes and a mole on his cheek. From their birthdates, both boys would be nineteen now. Between the two of them, they'd been charged with breaking and entering, arson, destruction of private property, automobile theft, and a number of other crimes. On Richard's rap sheet, the detective had a Post-it:

“Both Kirk and Richard were released months before Garrett,” she heard Dana explain. “They managed to stay out of trouble and kept in touch with their pal behind bars. About two months before Garrett was sprung, his parents' house was robbed while the parents were away on vacation. They never caught the thieves. But Hugh always wondered if Kirk and Richard had anything to do with it.”

“What's this Post-it note about?” Andrea asked.

“Well, Garrett was paroled in January of this year, and three months later, he died in the house fire with his parents.” Dana was holding a half-eaten Ritz cracker and got some crumbs on Richard's rap sheet as he pointed to the Post-it. “April 2015, that's when the fire happened, and that's also when Richard Phelps disappeared without a trace. Richard's history is there on another page. It explains his fascination with fire—starting when he torched a neighbor's garage at the age of ten. He also set fire to a car, a Christmas nativity display outside his local church, and a greenhouse. The greenhouse incident was the only charge they made stick. He was thirteen at the time and got off with community service work. He wound up in juvie for breaking into a teacher's house, trashing the place, and attacking her. The teacher called nine-one-one, and the cops arrived before Richard could make his escape. It didn't come up at the hearing, but Hugh said the cops found a box of strike-anywhere matches and a can of lighter fluid in the pocket of Richard's jacket . . .”

“So Hugh figured Richard must have had something to do with the fire that killed Garrett and his parents?” Andrea asked.

Dana nodded over his ginger ale. “Like maybe he came back to rob them again and ended up torching the house. The police looked into it, too, but they didn't have much hard evidence. There was hardly anything left of the place—or the three corpses in it. They had to identify them all from dental records. The police knew about the Three Musketeers business, and when Richard went missing around the time of the fire, they questioned Kirk Mowery. But apparently he didn't know a damn thing and had a solid alibi for the night of the fire. Hugh questioned him, too. In fact, it was his last interview on the case . . .”

Andrea looked at Kirk's rap sheet again. He had sort of an angelic face, which belied the fact that he'd been arrested at age fourteen for stealing a car.

“Hugh got Kirk to admit that he was pretty sure his pal Richard was responsible for the fire,” Dana said. “He swore up and down that he never heard from Richard after that.”

With a sigh, Andrea set the two boys' rap sheets on top of the file folder. “I'm sorry, but what does this have to do with me—or Spencer? He didn't know these boys. He was at a different facility—and he wasn't released until
after
the fire.”

Dana shrugged and his mouth twisted into a frown. “Well, Evelyn Shuler was curious about the fire and wondered if it could be pinned on you somehow. I hate to say this, but she was really out to get you . . .”

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

 

“T
he Monster Mash” blared over the sound system in Amanda's parents' family room. It was the fourth time someone had played the song since Bonnie had arrived at the party. The place was packed. Amanda's parents were out of town, and word must have gotten around, because a lot of people Bonnie didn't know had shown up. She was pretty sure Amanda didn't know them either. But they'd knocked off a keg of beer, and so far, nothing had gotten broken and no one had thrown up.

Some of the party had spilled outside to the backyard. Bonnie wandered out there to get some air and look for Ron. He'd arrived about a half hour ago—already buzzed. His Groucho Marx look had obviously been thrown together at the last minute: burnt-cork blackened eyebrows and a mustache—along with his own glasses and a suit jacket and tie. He carried around a big cigar in one hand and a beer in the other. He looked pretty cute—and knew it. For a while now, some girl from another school dressed like Princess Leia had been all over him. Bonnie had wanted to catch him alone—before he got too drunk.

Leia must have gone inside for another wine cooler, because Bonnie spotted Ron standing near the fire pit on the patio. And he was by himself.

Rubbing her bare arms from the chill, Bonnie approached him. “Hey, Ron, I've been hoping to talk to you . . .”

“You look pretty sexy in your zombie flight-attendant outfit,” he smiled.

“Thanks, but I'm supposed to be a zombie nurse, and I'm freezing.” She moved close to the fire pit.

Ron took off his suit jacket and put it over her shoulders. It felt so warm and big—and it smelled like him. She'd forgotten that he could be pretty nice sometimes. “Thank you,” she said. “Listen, those calls and texts you've gotten—”

“Hey, no sweat,” he interrupted. “I hear everybody's been getting them. It's all a big joke. Anyway, I got a tip from somebody about who's been calling me, and I took care of it.”

“It's not Spencer Murray,” she said. “That's what I've been trying to tell you. Somebody was doing the same thing to Reed before he and his parents were killed. And it wasn't Spencer then either.”

“You have the hots for him, don't you?” he asked. He took a swig of beer.

“That's not the point. Ron, please listen to me. Reed, KC, Mr. McAfee, you, me—we were all mentioned in Damon's speech before he killed himself. Someone started to threaten me, too. Remember when I asked if it was you? Well, I took it seriously, and I think the police patrols on my block have kept this killer away. Reed wasn't as lucky. You have to take these threats seriously. You and your family could be in danger . . .”

“My folks talked to the police,” he said. A bit of his burnt-cork mustache had rubbed off of his upper lip. “The cops are the ones who told us that everybody was getting punked with texts and calls like this. It's just people blowing off steam after what happened to Reed. Throw Halloween into the mix and everything's up for grabs. The thing is, I don't mind somebody having a little fun with me—just so long as it's a buddy. But I don't take that shit from creeps I don't like. So be sure to tell that to your new boyfriend.”

“What's this?” someone asked. “Who are you?”

Bonnie turned to see the girl had returned with her wine cooler.

“I'm the ex-girlfriend,” Bonnie said. “And could you please give us just another couple of minutes, Princess?”

The girl frowned at her, then turned and walked away.

With a sigh, Bonnie took off Ron's jacket and handed it back to him. “Do me a favor. Spend the night at someone else's house tonight, one of the guys on the team. And call your parents and make sure they set the alarm before going to bed . . .”

“Maybe I'll spend the night with Princess Leia—in a galaxy far, far away,” Ron said with a smirk. He took another gulp of beer, draining the bottle.

“That's fine with me,” Bonnie said. “Just be careful. I'm worried about you . . .”

“Well, worry about your new boyfriend,” Ron growled, suddenly turning ugly. “CUZ I'M GONNA KICK HIS ASS!” At least twenty people at the party must have heard him. And if that wasn't enough, he hurled his empty beer bottle at a tree. It made a loud pop as it smashed to bits. A few girls screamed, and there was some snickering, too. “TELL SPENCER MURRAY HE'S A DEAD MAN!”

Bonnie turned and started toward the house. She brushed past Princess Leia. “He's all yours,” she muttered. “May the Force be with you . . .”

She retreated inside the house to search for one of Ron's teammates to make sure he didn't try to drive home later tonight.

Bonnie hoped Ron's parents and kid sister would be okay. She clung to her theory that whoever was behind these killings had no interest in harming anyone's family. She'd convinced herself that Reed's parents hadn't been targeted in the murders. They'd just been in the house at the time, innocent bystanders.

She thought her family was safe so long as she wasn't home. But what if she was wrong? What if she came home from this party and found them all dead?

She wondered how much longer those extra police patrols might be covering her block.

Bonnie threaded her way through the noisy, sweaty crowd jammed in Amanda's family room.

Once she found someone to make sure Ron would be okay, she'd start looking for somebody else to take her home—just as soon as possible.

* * *

“Anyway, we're all at this movie now—at the Uptown,” Spencer said into his cell phone. “I should be back by eleven.”

“Why are you whispering?” Andrea asked.

“Oh, I'm in the restroom—in a stall,” he said. “I just don't want to be one of those d-bags who come into a public restroom on his cell phone, talking while other guys are there trying to pee.”

There was a silence on the other end of the line.

Spencer wondered if she knew he was lying.

He was actually on the second floor of the half-finished house next door to Tanya's place. He could hear the TV blaring in the McCallums' living room downstairs. Tanya was upstairs in her bedroom. She'd taken off the
Where's Waldo?
beanie and glasses, and was now reading a
People
magazine on her bed.

After leaving the Thai restaurant, the cast members had split up into twos or threes and gone their separate ways. Tanya was the only one who had wandered off by herself. She'd gone across the street to the Queen Anne Book Company. Spencer had figured this might be her rendezvous spot. He'd remained outside the bookshop, occasionally peeking through the window to see if Tanya was with anyone. At one point, he'd thought she'd spotted him, but it had been a false alarm. She'd left the bookshop when it closed at eight. From there, he'd followed her home.

Tanya still had her shoes on—and hadn't yet changed into her usual at-home sweats. So it was possible she still planned on going out. Spencer decided to hang around for at least another hour.

He'd just bought himself some more time with the lie to his aunt about going to a movie.

“What movie are you seeing?” she finally asked.

He hesitated. “Um, I'm not sure. It hasn't started yet. Tanya just sort of dragged me in.”

More silence.

“Aunt Dee?” he said.

“Well, when's the movie over? I'll come pick you up. I don't like you being out alone at eleven o'clock—not with everything that's happened.”

“I'll be okay, Aunt Dee,” he whispered. “There'll be a lot of people out late tonight because of Halloween tomorrow.”

Across the way, Tanya suddenly looked up from her magazine—almost directly out her window at him. He stepped back from the window opening. He wondered if somehow, past the TV noise downstairs, she'd heard him.

“How much money do you have on you?” his aunt asked.

“I—I think I have about ten left,” he murmured, hiding on one side of the opening. “Why do you ask?” It was chilly, and he could see his breath as he talked. He wondered if Tanya had noticed it across the way—the white vapor in the black window opening.

“Well, when the movie ends, call a cab and have them pick you up at the theater. Okay?”

“Okay, I'll do that. Take care,” he whispered quickly. Then he clicked off.

Spencer shoved the phone into his jacket pocket. He waited another minute and inched toward the window again. The board beneath his feet groaned. He peeked past the edge of the opening.

Just then, Tanya pulled down her shade.

* * *

Andrea didn't want to think that Spencer was lying to her.

But he was certainly spending a lot of time with someone he obviously didn't like very much. Was he really with Tanya—or was he with someone else?

She sat in a bar stool chair at the tall glass-top table in Luke's kitchen. She'd changed into jeans and a “Virginia is for Lovers” sweatshirt Spencer had given her. Andrea could see herself in the darkened sliding-glass door. She contemplated closing the drapes, but wanted to see outside in case someone came up to the town house. She had her smart phone on the table—along with a Lean Cuisine meatloaf dinner she hadn't finished, a half-drained glass of pinot noir, and Hugh Badger Lyman's file on her.

One page was full of facts—everything anybody would want to know about her: her current address and phone number, her driver's license number, and her VW Beetle's plate number, among other statistics. She'd wondered how Troy Slattery had known her phone number last night—and her car. It was obvious now. He'd seen her file.

So much of what was inside the folder had to do with Spencer—and the murders. Once again, she remembered what Luke had said just a few days ago when she'd insisted that Spencer couldn't have killed Reed Logan and his parents:
How can you say that when up until six months ago he'd been in an institution? You don't really know him, Andrea . . .

She glanced at some of the photocopies of the news clippings about the murders. She felt a pang of sadness looking at the newspaper photos of Viv and Larry. But she felt terrible for Spencer, too. His life was ruined, and his parents were dead—all because he'd made friends with the wrong person.

For all she knew, Spencer could be out there doing something horrible right now. Maybe he'd made friends with the wrong person again.

She'd have a talk with him when he got home tonight. Until then, she couldn't do anything—except try to convince herself that he'd be at the movies for the next two hours.

She studied the rap sheets for Garrett's friends, Kirk Mowery and Richard Phelps. Spencer wasn't like either of these boys. The friends he made in the hospital and the detention center were all scared, screwed-up younger kids he tried to help. Until Garrett had come along, Spencer had never been in trouble before. These friends of Garrett's at the Richmond facility were almost hardened criminals by the time they were fifteen.

On the back of Richard's rap sheet, Hugh Badger Lyman had stuck a Post-it:

Sifting through the file, she searched for a document, another Post-it, or a piece of notebook paper with that name on it again—anything that might explain Doreen Carter's significance in all this. But there was nothing else about her.

Andrea figured Hugh's assistant might know who this woman was. She'd written Dana's home phone number on the file folder. She called him.

He picked up after two rings. “Hello?”

“Hi, Dana, this is Andrea. I hope I didn't wake you . . .”

“No, I was just going through my Christmas stuff—thanks to you. What's up?”

“Well, I found a note Hugh wrote to himself—or maybe to you,” Andrea explained. “It says, ‘Check on Doreen Carter'—and then, ‘Girlfriend' with a question mark after it. Does that name sound familiar to you?”

“No, not at all,” Dana replied. “Where did you find this?”

“It was in the file, on a Post-it on the back of Richard Phelps's rap sheet. Did Richard have a girlfriend named Doreen? Or was this someone who was supposed to know me?”

“Beats me,” he answered. “Like I said, that name doesn't ring a bell. Hugh was looking at the file a couple of days before he died. He must have scribbled the note to himself then, otherwise I'd have noticed. Sorry I can't be more help.”

“That's okay,” Andrea said. “Sorry to bother you. Thanks again for everything you did for me today . . .”

After she hung up, Andrea went into Luke's study and sat down in front of his computer. She connected to Google and typed in the name: Doreen Carter.

The search results came up. “Oh, crap,” she muttered.

It was a common name, and the entire first page of results focused on a member of the House of Representatives in Georgia. She tried: “Doreen Carter, Richard Phelps,” and got obituaries for people with those name combinations—along with stories about President Jimmy Carter, and more articles about Georgia state politics. She found the same results when she paired “Doreen Carter” with Garrett Beale, Kirk Mowery, and Spencer Rowe.

She was on page three of the search results for “Doreen Carter, Virginia,” when she heard her phone ring. She ran back into the kitchen, snatched up the phone and looked at the caller ID: CALLER UNKNOWN.

Andrea immediately put the phone back down. She watched as it rang and vibrated a little on the glass-top table. It was just after ten o'clock—too late for a telemarketer. She had a pretty good idea who the caller was.