Tracey nearly ran right into me because I’d stopped short. Then she saw what had halted me.
“Oh my God!” Tracey shrieked.
The deluge of icy rain came sideways and thoroughly soaked me as I stood staring at my Jeep. Someone had taken red spray paint and vandalized the entire side of my vehicle with dripping red paint that read LEAVE ALICE ALONE OR YOU’RE NEXT!
Chapter Nine
The spray-painted lettering took up the entire driver side of the Jeep. The passenger side was no better with STOP LOOKING OR DIE!
“Holy smokes, you’ve obviously hit a sore spot with someone!” Tracey gasped.
“Definitely.”
My voice was surprisingly calm, but my heart thudded painfully as we turned around and walked back into the care home to call the police. When officers arrived, they took pictures of my vehicle and asked a lot of questions. They asked the manager of the care home to take a look at the footage from their security cameras. Sadly, the security cameras in the parking lot hadn’t worked in some time and there was really nothing else they could do.
“My insurance company already hates me,” I moaned.
“I guess we’re heading home,” Tracey said. “You can’t be driving around like this.” She waved a hand at the Jeep.
“I’ll call the insurance company and drop it off at a body shop later, but since we’re almost there already, I want to go visit Kim.”
“Roscoe’s sister? Why?”
“She was the first person to say that Alice was cheating on Roscoe. I swear she knows more than what she’s been saying.”
And I wanted to see the look on her face when I shared what Roscoe told me about the arrangement he had with Alice.
I waited until I was pulling off the highway near her trailer to call Kim. “I’m close by and have a couple questions,” I told her.
“I’m just on my way home from the store,” Kim’s voice came through the speakers of the Jeep. “Give me ten minutes.”
We were at her place in five. I put the Jeep in park and we sat listening to the rain pound the Jeep.
“Jesus, how could anyone live like that? Depressing or what?” Tracey said with wonder as she stared at Kim’s singlewide trailer.
I saw it through her eyes: the wooden steps leading to the door sitting askew and ready to collapse, the siding of the trailer almost completely covered in blackened streaks of West Coast algae. A power washer and a hammer would’ve done a lot to make it look like someone cared, but nobody did.
“It’s pretty much like mine was,” I murmured. “Mine was better maintained, but otherwise it could’ve been identical.”
“I’m sorry.” Tracey cringed. “I didn’t mean—”
“Yes, you did, and that’s okay.” I looked at her and smiled. “Sometimes you can’t see the awful when you’re mired in it. Not that living in a trailer is bad. I loved mine. It was cozy. No annoying neighbors or street traffic...” My voice grew wistful as I looked at the mobile home. “I never let mine get covered in algae like that though. Gramps and I...” I swallowed against his name, and conflicting emotions roared in my head. “We, um, power washed every spring so...” My voice trailed off and my thumb reached to play with the platinum band on my ring finger that wasn’t there.
Finally, Kim rolled up in her car and I flung the door to the Jeep open, happy to stand in the downpour rather than deal with the raging memories in my head. Tracey followed.
“What the hell happened?” Kim held a hand up to shield her eyes from the rain and nodded a chin toward my vandalized Jeep.
We jogged toward the trailer and Kim fumbled with her bright keychain before we got inside.
“I see somebody did a number on your car.” Kim shook her head. “When did that happen?”
“Just now,” Tracey said. “When we were at the care home.”
“This is my friend Tracey,” I told Kim.
Kim nodded hello as we all stood in the cramped entrance and toed off our shoes.
“Come in,” she said. “Sorry about the mess.”
The living room area looked the same as it had last time I was here, and Kim made no attempt to clear laundry off the sofa so we could sit. I shoved everything to one corner and Tracey and I sat hip to hip.
“So you went to the care home?” Kim asked, looking confused. “What did you expect to find out from a woman who can’t talk?”
“It wasn’t helpful,” I admitted with a forced laugh. “I wanted to ask your mom if she knew that Roscoe and Alice had an arrangement.”
“An arrangement?” Kim tilted her head and then leaned back to release the footrest of her recliner. “What are you talking about? What kind of arrangement?”
“The kind where she would sleep with somebody else in order to get knocked up and then they’d raise the baby as both of theirs.”
Kim drummed her fingers on the armrest and guffawed. “That’s the stupidest thing I ever heard. Who the hell told you that?” she scoffed.
“Roscoe. I drove up to visit him yesterday and he confirmed it.” I watched her face. The shock looked genuine and was quickly replaced by anger.
“Sounds like he’s just messing with your head.” She snorted. “If they’d really had an arrangement like that, Roscoe would’ve told me. Hell, he would’ve told his lawyer too! The lawyer would’ve been able to say whoever Alice was banging was responsible for her death.”
“He didn’t want people to know he couldn’t get Alice pregnant and that he’d given her permission to have sex with other men. It was a stupid pride thing.”
“You’re saying my brother went to prison to save his friggin’ pride?” She rolled her eyes. “I always knew that boy’s elevator didn’t go to the top floor.” She sat up and slammed the footrest of her chair closed as she got to her feet. “Still, that doesn’t make sense.”
Kim went to the kitchen counter and retrieved an electric heating pad. She moved a couple troll dolls carefully aside so that she could drape the cord over the end table and plug the heating pad in next to her chair, then placed it at her lower back. “I think he sold you a line of bullshit.”
“Men can be pretty egotistic about that kind of thing,” Tracey remarked.
Kim looked startled as if she’d completely forgotten Tracey was there. She ignored the comment.
“Plus, also,” I added, “Roscoe was positive whoever she was sleeping with wasn’t responsible.”
“How could he possibly know that?” Kim scoffed.
“He said they had a deal it would happen out of town, with someone neither of them knew, and she’d use a fake name.”
Kim pinched her lips together into a thin line and scratched at the angry, scaly rash on her neck.
“Look, you were the first to tell me Alice was messing around. You said she was humping everyone in town, remember?”
Kim closed her eyes and nodded.
“I need to know who told you that so that I can follow the thread of rumors to the source. It might be nothing, but it could be someone who knows more about who Alice slept with and possibly her killer.”
“I have no idea.” Kim sighed and shook her head. “I honestly can’t remember if her cheating was something I just kind of latched on to myself, or if someone actually told me. I didn’t like Alice—not that I want to speak ill of the dead, but she acted like she was better than me. Always sucking up to me and my stepdad like we were her new family. Worked on him, he treated her like his daughter but I wasn’t buying it. Anyway maybe I just made that shit up. The way Roscoe was so head over heels for her and then suddenly just kicked her out, I guess I might’ve assumed there was somebody else.”
“Okay.” I got to my feet then. “Give it some thought and let me know if a name comes to mind.”
“I will,” Kim promised.
“Mind if I use your washroom?” I asked.<
br />
Kim nodded to the door down the short hall. The tiny bathroom was eerily identical to the one I’d had in my trailer except it was in poor shape. The cupboard door under the sink hung off-kilter because the top hinge was broken. My view from the toilet allowed me to see right inside the cabinet, and the dim bathroom light danced off something with sequins inside. I didn’t want to even know what kind of sparkly objects Kim kept under her bathroom sink. I washed up using perfumed hand soap and dried my fingers on a threadbare towel.
“Thanks,” I said as I left the bathroom. “I’ll be in touch.”
Tracey and I ran through the rain to the car and I steered back to the road. After a while the rain slowed to a drizzle and Tracey and I were silent as we drove the Jeep down the water-filled ruts on the long drive. It wasn’t until we were on the highway that we spoke.
“What in the world is with those creepy troll dolls?” Tracey shuddered.
“They sure wouldn’t be my choice for a collection,” I admitted. “More importantly, why is she lying?”
“You think she knew Alice was stepping out on Roscoe?”
“Yeah.”
“How can you tell?”
“I just feel it.” I drummed my fingers on the steering wheel. “But what’s in my gut isn’t going to help. I need to know who Alice was sleeping with.” I spoke to the voice dial feature in the Jeep and told it to call Ray. My call went to voice mail.
“Hey, I want to talk to you about what information you got from Barb. I need a name of who she thinks Alice was screwing. Failing that, I need to at least know who spread that rumor.” I disconnected the call and looked over at Tracey. “Hungry? We’re going to the diner.”
As it happened, Barb wasn’t working. According to Dana, she’d called in sick because of a migraine.
“I’m not buying it though,” she leaned in to the table and whispered to us. “I heard her messed-up son is in town and she’s meeting with him to try to save his soul.”
“How is he messed up?” Tracey asked on a whisper. “Is it crack? Heroin?”
“I think it’s a mental thing.” Dana tapped her temple with her fingertip.
I really didn’t care about Barb’s son but I was disappointed not to get a chance to ask her about Alice. Although chances were good that she wouldn’t have answered me anyway.
“Did Barb ever tell you that Alice was cheating on Roscoe?” I asked Dana.
She tapped the menus on the table and looked thoughtful.
“She’s always going around blabbing about someone who’s breaking one of the commandments. I usually just tune her out. Sorry.” Dana handed us the menus and told us she’d be back in a minute to take our order.
“People like that really piss me off,” Tracey harrumphed as she opened the menu. “That Barb should focus more on her own life and get her nose out of other people’s business.”
“I agree but in this particular case all we have to go on is gossip, so we’re going to rake in as much of it as possible.”
When Dana came back, we put in our order. I had my usual grilled cheese and Tracey ordered a burger.
“I went to visit Roscoe’s mother in her care home.”
“I heard she’s mute since her stroke,” Dana said.
“That’s true but she can communicate using a board with pictures and words. As a matter of fact, when I asked her about Alice sleeping with someone she kept hitting the square for food. Was Alice hanging out with any men from here?”
“Not that I know of,” Dana replied.
We ate mostly in silence. I was famished, and by the way Tracey devoured her burger, she was hungry too. Afterward when Dana brought the bill, I asked if she knew where Barb lived.
“Not exactly.” She tapped a pen on the table. “I know her house is behind the mailbox place.”
“Which one?” Since Blaine was a border city, there were a whole lot of these mailbox centers where Canadians came to pick up and mail packages.
“The one near Cost Cutters. Just look for an old blue minivan with Jesus fishes on it.”
When we returned to my Jeep, we found the graffiti on the vehicle had attracted an audience. I pressed the key fob, and the gathering parted like the Red Sea and the clutch of a dozen onlookers wordlessly stared at us as we climbed into the car.
“That’s kind of creepy.” Tracey looked over her shoulder at the gathering, who were now knotted together and talking animatedly.
“Yeah, I’m giving this town a whole lot of mileage for things to talk about.” I glanced at my gas gauge. “Damn. Need gas.”
“There’s a place right over—”
“Not that one,” I stated emphatically.
My heart pounded at the very thought of pulling into the gas station where I used to work. I remembered Garrett picking me up from work there and driving me to go look for bodies long before he believed in me or I believed I could love a man of the law who was more than twenty years older.
“I couldn’t walk in there even if you paid me.” I avoided the closest station and drove a couple blocks to a different one, Tracey once again balancing the dowsing rods on her lap.
“Seems like this entire town is one bad memory.” Tracey tsked. “You don’t have to take this case. I mean, you’ve gotta have dozens of people wanting you to find their loved ones, right?”
“It’s Alice...”
She could’ve been me, killed in this town and body dumped somewhere after an abusive upbringing.
“I owe her,” I added.
“But—”
“I’m giving it just a few more days, okay?” My tone was sharper than I intended so I softened my words. “If I can’t find her within the week, I’m packing it in.”
“I hope Ray can help you. He’s really talented, you know? When we were out for dinner, he shook hands with the waiter and told me later that the guy didn’t know it yet, but he had a serious liver disease.” She looked at me sadly. “It must be a real challenge to try and stay out of it when you get vibrations giving you info on just about everyone.”
“Yeah. That must be a tough gig.” I was suddenly grateful for my own talent, which I could stuff in a backpack when I didn’t want the dead calling to me.
We arrived near the strip mall that contained the mailbox place as well as the Cost Cutters grocery store. Up the hill and across the way was a cul-de-sac. I pulled on to the road. There were four small houses on the street but two were boarded up and looked ready for demolition. I drove slowly around to look for the blue van but didn’t spot it.
“Hang on, that’s Ray’s car!”
Tracey pointed down one driveway to a white car parked in front of a tidy yellow house. I turned into the drive, and just as I was pulling up behind his car, Ray was walking down the sidewalk from the house. He approached my Jeep with his mouth open, and I rolled down my window when he got close.
“Oh my God, what happened to your Jeep?”
“Someone attacked Julie’s car while we were interviewing Roscoe’s mom at the care home,” Tracey exclaimed excitedly.
“That’s horrible.” Ray took a step back, looked down the length of the car and whistled. “I can’t believe someone would do that!”
“It sucks,” I agreed.
“Did you call the police? The care home must have cameras in their lot, right?”
“Tried that but apparently the cameras at the care home were out of order so we’re out of luck.” I nodded my chin to the house ahead. “Did you talk to Barb?”
“No.” Ray leaned his elbows on the edge of my open window. “She’s not home. Left a note in her mailbox for her to call me once she’s back. Do you want me to let you know once I hear from her?”
I told him yes and he smiled around me to Tracey and gave her a wink. She replied with a giggle.
“Honestly, I think you should leave Barb
to me,” Ray added seriously. “She really doesn’t like you.” He cleared his throat. “Not that it’s you, she’s just, you know, is really against what she considers to be voodoo shit. You’re not going to get anything out of her.”
“Okay. Surprised she’ll talk to you,” I remarked.
“Only because she doesn’t know I’m reading her, remember?” He wagged a finger at me and then pushed his glasses up his nose. “She just thinks she’s holding my hands to pray over me.”
“Yeah, I know.” I nodded but it irked me.
“Sorry,” Ray told me with a wave of his hand. “You’ve blocked me in and I really need to get going.” He leaned to the side and said to Tracey, “I’ll call you later.”
We said our goodbyes and I backed out of the driveway and watched Ray hurriedly drive off in a different direction.
I turned around in the cul-de-sac and got back on the main road.
“Could you pull into a store?” Tracey nodded to the strip mall across the way. “I need to use the washroom.”
I turned the corner and entered the parking lot, finding a spot beside the shopping cart return area in front of the large grocery store. The Jeep was quite the sight with the red graffiti all over it, and people turned and openly stared.
“While I’m in there I might as well pick up a few things. Need anything?”
“No, I’m good. I’ll just stay here feeding the gossip mill and letting the locals find some entertainment to discuss over dinner.”
I offered a tight smile and wave to a nearby shopper, who’d paused to take a picture of the Jeep with her cell phone.
“Oh brother.” Tracey rolled her eyes and went off to the store.
The rain had let up and the sun warmed the interior of the vehicle. I rolled down the windows, leaned back in my seat and closed my eyes, trying to think of what to do next to find Alice. The slam of a shopping cart being thrust into another next to me startled me. I glanced over, surprised that it was Barb. I hopped out of the Jeep and followed her to her van.
A Grave End Page 15
