A Grave End

by Wendy Roberts

  “So she didn’t tell you that Alice was cheating?”

  “She’d griped about that to a few people and, yup, even to me, but you know what? We checked it out and didn’t find any evidence of her cheating. Even Roscoe himself didn’t believe it and said that his sister just liked to bad-mouth Alice because she may have been jealous that her own mom and dad liked Alice better.”

  “So you didn’t find anyone else saying Alice was sleeping around?”

  “Nah.”

  “Okay.” I blew out a long breath. “Thanks again for calling me back”

  “No problem. You find her, you know what to do.”

  “I won’t touch a damn thing and I’ll call you.”

  I ended the call and Tracey and I headed inside the diner where she gushed about the kitschy decor and begged to sit on the stools at the counter.

  “We’re taking a booth,” I told her.

  The restaurant was filled with Canadians that day and the cross-border shoppers paid me no notice as Tracey and I found an empty booth in the back.

  As I’d hoped, it was Dana who came to take our order. She looked surprised to see me.

  “You’re back soon,” she remarked. “I heard that you went and searched the community garden without any luck. Sorry for wasting your time.”

  “It wasn’t a waste of time,” I assured her. “It’s just one more place where Alice isn’t.” I told her briefly about taking a boat out and then introduced her to Tracey.

  “Are you her assistant?” Dana asked.

  “Yes, I am,” Tracey said with a wide grin.

  “I’ve got a lot of tables waiting so I can’t be chatting long, or I’ll get in trouble.” Dana glanced over her shoulder.

  “We’ll take coffee to start,” I told her.

  When Dana hurried back with our coffees Tracey ordered a tuna sandwich and I ordered my usual grilled cheese. After we were done eating and Dana returned with the bill, I asked her if she had a break coming up.

  “In about half an hour it’s my lunch break,” she said.

  “Perfect. My Jeep is parked around back so if you’d come out and give me a few minutes of your time, that would be great.”

  She said she would and as we got up to pay at the cash register, we walked by Barb, who managed to pour coffee for a customer and scowl at me at the same time.

  “Jesus, that woman just totally gave you the stink eye,” Tracey whispered.

  “She thinks I’m a witch or the devil.” I shrugged.

  “You should tell her you’ll turn her into a toad.”

  We both left the restaurant giggling. The back parking area for the restaurant was next to parking for the motel next door. A knot of clouds clustered overhead, but for now the rain held. We stood around waiting for Dana to get her break and come talk to us.

  “So this is where you grew up, huh?” Tracey was looking around.

  “Yup.”

  “I think it’s kind of cute.”

  I snorted and tried to look at the place through her eyes. Cute was the last word that came to mind but I knew I was coloring the town with the experience of my own past.

  “Most people are very happy here,” I said.

  “For you, it’s just hard coming back.”

  “Yes,” I admitted. “That’s why I asked you to come along.”

  “D’awww.” She gave me a one-arm hug and I playfully pushed her away as I pointed down the block.

  “That gas station was where I was working when I met Garrett.”

  “Wow. Can’t imagine you working there.” She shook her head.

  I liked working there. The simple routine was what I had needed at the time.

  “Do you think this waitress will really be able to give you some helpful information on where to find Alice?”

  “I don’t know,” I admitted. “But I’m sure someone in this town knows something.”

  A group of young men walked out of the restaurant and headed toward a pickup truck across the lot. I recognized them as being locals and told Tracey I’d be back in a second. I asked them the same questions I’d been asking everyone and got the same answers. Alice was quiet and kept to herself. They had no idea if she was seeing someone, and if she was, they’d never seen her with a man outside of Roscoe when they were married. I handed out my business card to each of them and made my way back over to Tracey.

  “Any luck?” she asked.

  I heard the question but movement across the way in the motel parking lot caught my eye. It was Blossom, leaning against her car and watching us intently.

  “Wait here,” I told Tracey. “If Dana comes out, give me a shout.”

  “But where are you—”

  “I’ll just be a sec.”

  As I walked in the direction of Blossom she saw me coming and straightened. When I was within a couple yards of her she struck a cocky pose, leaning one hip against her car and lighting a cigarette.

  “Jesus, you just can’t get enough of this town, huh, Beanster?” The nickname seemed to be without bite and she smiled as if glad to see me.

  “I’m a sucker for punishment,” I joked.

  “You talk to Barb like I told you?”

  “Yeah, but she wasn’t much help. Apparently I’m the devil, so...” I gave a shrug.

  “Ha!” She drew a hard drag on her cigarette. “Everyone’s the devil to Barb.”

  “I just realized I forgot to ask you something last time I saw you.”

  “Shoot.” She nodded her chin at me.

  “Well, after Roscoe left that night you said you stayed at the bar and then got a ride home from some friends, right? Do you mind telling me which friends those were?”

  “Nat and Jim.” She blew a stream of smoke in my direction and I took a step back as the smell reached me and curdled in my stomach. “Remember them?”

  “Natalie and Jim. Sure, I remember. Wow. Are they still together since high school?”

  “Yup.” Blossom smirked. “Nat was already knocked up by prom. They married right after school and now they’ve got four rug rats. She was preggers with the third that night and so she was my designated driver. If you’re going to talk to them, they’re living across from the middle school in that gray two-story.”

  “Thanks.”

  She blew out smoke rings, and I suddenly remembered her being so proud of perfecting that talent in high school.

  “What do you remember about Alice from school?” I asked.

  She flicked ashes from her cigarette on the ground between us and screwed her face up in concentration. “She was like a stray cat that you feed once and then can’t get rid of. We let her hang with us a couple times and then couldn’t shake her.”

  By “us” Blossom was referring to the cool kids and mean girls who ruled the school. I’d avoided the group like the poison they were.

  “And you didn’t want her hanging with you?”

  “I don’t remember caring that much except that she was a bit of a drag. A chickenshit.”

  “How’s that?”

  “One night we were all down at the beach and, you know, having a few beers, right? It was hot as hell that summer and I had the idea to go skinny dipping. Everyone was into it except Alice. She got all scared looking and just refused to go in the water. While the rest of us jumped into the waves, she just turned around and walked home.”

  I thought about myself at that age, covered in fresh wounds from Grandma’s vicious temper, and then I remembered Alice’s tendency to always wear long sleeves even in summer. Yeah, I couldn’t see either one of us willing to expose our bodies for scrutiny at that age.

  “Your green-haired friend is waving at you,” Blossom remarked with another deep draw on her smoke.

  I looked over my shoulder and saw Dana standing with Tracey.

  “Okay,
thanks. If you think of anything else, just—”

  “Yeah, I’ll send you a message but no more freebies.”

  “Freebies?”

  “Yeah, next time it’ll cost you coffee.”

  I laughed. She looked tired and worn down by life but her smile to me in that moment appeared genuinely friendly. Maybe scratching out an adult life had changed that inner bitch from high school.

  “Coffee is on me next time,” I agreed.

  As I started to walk away Blossom said to my back, “Watch out for that one.”

  “Dana?” I asked over my shoulder.

  “Yeah.” She dropped her cigarette on the pavement and crushed it with the toe of her shoe. “She acts like an excited puppy, but she’s an airhead and everyone says she loves to exaggerate but I just call her a liar. Just don’t take anything she says as gospel.”

  I thanked Blossom for the warning and then joined Dana and Tracey in the neighboring parking lot.

  “I don’t have long for my break,” Dana said, looking at the time on her phone. “And I want to grab something to eat.”

  “This’ll be quick,” I promised. “Do you know whether or not Barb still goes to see Roscoe in prison?”

  She squeezed her eyes shut as if trying to remember and then slowly nodded. “Yeah, I think so. Not just Roscoe though. She’s part of some church group and they all take turns visiting prisoners, you know, trying to make them right with God.” She snorted, then added, “I think she goes every second Monday ’cuz I remember her saying she can’t take no shifts on those days.”

  “The next time it comes up, could you find a way to ask her if Roscoe ever confessed to killing Alice?”

  “Oh sure.” Dana got all bright-eyed and eager then. “I could totally do that and I’d be super casual like and she’d never even know I was asking for you.”

  “I’d appreciate that,” I told her.

  “I’m all over it.” Dana gave me two thumbs-up. “I’m going back now before she sees me talking to you both and gets suspicious.”

  She all but skipped back to the restaurant.

  “She’s pretty excited to help,” Tracey remarked.

  “Like an excited puppy,” I said, repeating Blossom’s words.

  We climbed in the car and as I started it up I asked Tracey again to hold my dowsing rods. “Do you think Dana’s the type to lie for attention?”

  “I dunno.” Tracey shrugged. “Why do you ask?”

  “Blossom mentioned people say she exaggerates and that she lies a lot.”

  “She did ask me an awful lot of questions about us looking for Alice’s body and her eyes were all big like that poor girl being dead was the best thing that ever happened in this city.” She reached over and put a hand on my arm. “You okay? You’re looking a little green.”

  The sandwich I’d had for lunch was suddenly not sitting well in my gut.

  “Being in this town turns my stomach.” I drove out of the parking lot and took a left on D Street. “We’ve got one more stop to make before we can head back, okay?”

  “You’re the boss.” Tracey gave me a mock salute.

  Only three minutes later I was parking on the street in front of a gray two-story house a couple doors down and across from the middle school.

  “I’m just going to go talk to the woman who drove Blossom home the night Alice was killed. Shouldn’t take long so you’re welcome to stay in the car.”

  “Yeah, I’ll just hang here and see what’s up on Facebook.” She held up her phone.

  I walked to the front door of the house and knocked. A woman in sweatpants, her hair in a messy ponytail, eventually answered the door with her T-shirt hiked up and a newborn latched on to her breast.

  “Julie Hall.” She smiled. “I was wondering when you’d get around to talking to me. C’mon in and don’t mind the mess.”

  “Hi, Natalie. So you know why I’m here?” I kicked off my shoes and followed her into a cramped but tidy family room.

  “Sure. Everyone knows why you’re around.” She laughed. “Don’t put that in your mouth!” she shouted at a toddler.

  I took a seat in an armchair and she sank slowly into the sofa.

  “You look the same. You haven’t aged a bit.”

  It was true. She had one of those faces that seemed to maintain the same look for decades. Her hair had fewer highlights and she wore more makeup in school, but I would’ve recognized her anywhere.

  “I look the same except for this leech, right?” She patted the bottom of the baby happily suckling. “Number four.” She sighed and pointed at the toddler. “I was about to burst with that one the night Alice died and swore I was done with babies, but Jim wanted one more.”

  I watched the baby latched to her breast and smiled as he began to nod off and then struggled to wake up and frantically started sucking again. I realized I was staring and looked away from Nat’s breasts, feeling myself blush.

  “You want something to drink? Wine was always your thing, right? I got red, white, rosé.”

  “I’m fine. Thanks.” I thought about the wine and swallowed thickly.

  “Damn. I was hoping to live vicariously through you.” She pointed at her chest. “Can’t drink until the baby’s off the boob.”

  “Oh.” I rubbed the crease between my eyes and gathered my thoughts. “I guess you know I want to ask about Alice. Were you close with her?”

  “Not really but then I haven’t been close to anyone since I’ve been pumping out kids. Once a week we get a sitter and go to the pub. Pathetic as it may seem, that’s the highlight of my life. Not everyone can live in the big city with an FBI boyfriend and have as glamorous a job as you.”

  “Ha! My life is far from glam.” I laughed at the thought.

  Nat took the sleeping baby off her breast and got up to place him gently into a playpen. When she straightened and walked back to the couch, her breast still hung naked from her T-shirt but eventually she readjusted herself.

  “So tell me about that night.”

  “Not much to say that you probably don’t already know. We were at the pub and met up with the usual people. Blossom and Roscoe came over and joined our table. Blossom went outside for a smoke and when she came back in she just casually as anything tells Roscoe that Jet was inside Alice’s car across the street.”

  “And how did Roscoe react?”

  “He lost his shit.” Nat tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. “Everyone knew Roscoe and Alice had been fighting over the damn mutt, so I don’t know why Blossom had to throw it in Roscoe’s face and get him all worked up about it.” She rolled her eyes. “But you know what she’s like. If she can add fuel to a fire she’ll do that. That girl has always been about the drama.”

  “I remember that,” I admitted.

  “I bet you do.” She laughed a little and then tilted her head. “Didn’t she have some kind of nickname for you in school?”

  “Beanster,” I said.

  “Oh, yeah.” She smirked. “That never caught on except with her, right?”

  “No. Thank God.”

  “Someone had started calling her beanpole on account of her being so freakishly tall and it pissed her off to no end. Pretty sure that’s why she started calling you Beanster. To take the name away from her.”

  That actually made a strange kind of sense, but I didn’t want to think about those high school days. The toddler waddled over to me on unsteady legs and handed me a wet cookie he’d been chewing on.

  “Oh. Thanks.” I awkwardly held the cookie in my palm and wondered what to do with it until Nat told me I could give it to her. She popped it into her mouth like eating a slobbery baby cookie was no big deal.

  “So after Blossom came into the pub and told Roscoe about the dog, he got really angry and then what?”

  She told the same story as everyone e
lse. Roscoe had gone outside, broken into Alice’s car, taken the dog and then a public argument had ensued.

  “How much did he have to drink that night?”

  “Oh God, I don’t know. He was already drunk when we got there.” She shrugged. “I was pregnant and sipping pop while Jim slammed a few back to catch up with Roscoe.”

  “And nobody tried to convince Roscoe not to drive home?”

  “Blossom said she’d drive but he told her to screw off because nobody drives his truck but him.”

  “Probably Blossom was just as drunk as he was though,” I surmised.

  “Oh no, she was perfectly sober.”

  “Really?” That was new information. “So she was supposed to be the designated driver?”

  “Nah, she never really cared about that. You know Blossom, she usually could drink the guys under the table, shut the place down and still look like she just stepped out of the salon but that night she was just getting over the flu and said her stomach was off.”

  “Who was Alice with at the coffee shop?”

  “Nobody. She just liked to go there to read by herself.”

  This was what Roscoe said too. “When did you hear about Alice?”

  “Oh gosh, I have no idea.” She scrunched up her face. “My phone just started ringing later the next morning and everyone was saying Roscoe killed Alice and he’d been arrested.”

  “Do you think he did it?”

  “Who else?” She shrugged. “Not like Alice had a lot of enemies. I think she mostly just kept to herself after they split. I always got the impression their separation was temporary, you know? Like any minute they’d be back together like nothing happened. It’s such a shame...” Her voice trailed off.

  “Did you see Alice at all later that night?”

  “No, her car was still across the street when we left the pub, so I figured she was still at the coffee shop. As far as I know, nobody saw her after her fight in the street with Roscoe over Jet.” Suddenly she looked like an idea sprang to her mind. “Oh, hey, do you still see Katie?”

  The mention of my ex best friend startled me. “No.” I shook my head. “Not in a long time.”

  “That woman was a class A bitch.” Natalie giggled. “Never in a million years did I understand why you hung out with her.”