by Claire Booth
Hank sat back and gazed out the windows at the falling snow.
“When did you find out that this Kelly was coming down with your son?”
Michelle Nelson thought for a moment. “It must have been when he called last week to confirm that he could make it to Mother’s party. He said he was bringing her. Yes, that was when.”
“And had he mentioned Kelly before that?”
Michelle pursed her lips. “No, actually. I don’t think so. He said he was bringing her, and that he and Mandy had broken up.”
“And how did you feel about that?”
“How did I—? I don’t understand.”
This woman was starting to make his head hurt.
“How did you feel about your son breaking up with his girlfriend?” Hank said slowly.
“Well, it really wasn’t any of my business, was it? He’s a big boy. He does what he thinks is best.”
Let’s try this from a different direction, he thought.
“Did you like Mandy?”
“Yes.” That was it. She stared at him some more. He needed an aspirin.
“How long had you known her?”
“Forever, I suppose. They’d always gone to school together.”
“When did they start dating?”
“Hmmm. I think at the beginning of senior year. I know they were going together by homecoming. She was up for homecoming queen. I remember that. She didn’t get it. Ryan was very disappointed.”
Hank suppressed a sigh.
“Did they see each other over Christmas break?”
Michelle pursed her lips again. It was not that long ago. How hard could it be to remember?
“Yes. I think he had dinner over at her parents’ house. He went somewhere all dressed up, too. Maybe that was New Year’s. Yes, yes, they did go out on New Year’s Eve.”
“Do you know where?”
She shrugged. “No. I don’t remember.”
Maybe her short-term memory was better.
“Today, ma’am, on the boat. Did your luncheon start off in the dining room?”
“Oh.” She blinked several times at the switch in topics. “Ah, yes. We were in the dining room until the ship ran aground. We had just finished the food.”
“Then what happened?”
“We all went out into the corridor to try to see better what was going on. What kind of idiot steers a ship into the rocks?”
Hank had to give her that one. He leaned forward and rested his elbows on the shiny table.
“What did you do then?”
“They were clearing the dining room, so we went into the observation lounge. We just stayed there. There was no point going anywhere else.”
“Did everyone stay in the lounge the whole time?”
“Well, yes, I just said that.”
Hank took a deep breath. “Did anyone leave the room at any point, ma’am? To go back to the dining room, perhaps? Or take a walk?”
“Oh. I see. I don’t know. People did leave, to use the restroom, I suppose.”
“Did you?”
She glared at him. “We were on that boat for more than eight hours. Yes, I used the restroom. No, I did not keep track of whether other people did. I am not a hall monitor.”
That was quite obvious.
“Was the restroom the only place you went?” Hank asked. “Did you go back into the dining room? Or to another deck?”
“No, I didn’t go back to the dining room. It looked like they shut it down. All the shades were drawn. And why would I want to go downstairs? The main room was packed with people.” She gave a little shudder. “At least the lounge was comfortable and only had us in it.”
“And did you at any point see Mandy?”
“No. I told you that.”
“Did you hear anyone talk about her?”
“No. Her name did not come up.”
Hank sighed. A conversation about Mandy could have occurred two feet away from this lady and she would not have noticed. He was forming his next question when he saw a car slowly grind through the snow on the street outside. The headlight beams sliced through the windows as it turned and pulled into the driveway, barely making it over the drifts before it came to a stop. Both he and Mrs. Nelson stared as a jacketed figure got out and plowed to the door.
“What the hell is he doing?” she said as she got to her feet. She strode to the front door and jerked it open. Fumbling for his keys on the other side stood Ryan the Boyfriend.
He jumped back and almost toppled into a snow-covered shrub.
“Mom! Jesus! What are you doing? Why are you up?”
“Why are you out there?” she snapped back. “I thought you were in bed.”
“I went for a drive,” Ryan said. “I couldn’t sleep.”
He stepped into the foyer and flung the door shut behind him. Then he saw Hank. His keys slipped from his hand and clattered across the tile floor. Hank didn’t say a word, just stood there in the shadows of the massive foyer with his arms folded across his chest.
Ryan swallowed. “New boyfriend, Mom?” he said with a weak grin.
“This is the sheriff, you idiot,” she said. Apparently, her brain only fully turned on when she was pissed. “He’s here because Mandy’s dead. And he wants to talk to you.”
Ryan froze in the act of bending toward his keys.
“Mandy? What? Mandy? Dead? Mandy’s dead?”
Hank watched very closely. He didn’t feel it necessary to jump into the conversation quite yet.
“Did you know she was on the boat? DID YOU?” Michelle Nelson’s demand rang through the foyer. Hank thought he heard the chandelier rattle. He didn’t look up, however, instead keeping his eyes on young Ryan’s face. The shock on it—just for an instant—changed to hostility as he stared at his mother. Then it was gone and the nice, Polo-shirted, hair-gelled college boy was back. He patted an errant strand back into place, picked up his keys, and straightened. It was just enough time to gather his thoughts.
“She … she was on the boat? Today? Was that where she was…” He trailed off.
“Did. You. Know.” Mrs. Nelson spat the words at him. The animosity flickered across his face again.
“No. No! Happy?” he shouted. “I didn’t know. Why the hell should I?”
“Because she was your girlfriend, for Chrissakes,” she shouted back.
The two glared at each other as the echoes subsided. Perhaps Mrs. Nelson was more fond of Mandy than she admitted earlier, Hank thought. The foyer fell into silence. He waited. Certainly, the young lady at the top of the stairs would have something to say about all this.
“Your girlfriend was on the boat?” she hissed.
Ryan and his mother jerked around, their heads swiveling up toward the second floor, where one of the pretty blond teenagers from the observation lounge was standing. She was wearing nothing but a St. Louis University T-shirt and a look of very angry surprise. Hank considered pulling a chair out of the dining room and making himself comfortable. That might disrupt the flow of things, though. He did not want to interrupt.
“You have a girlfriend?” she said from above.
Ryan spread his arms wide. “Baby, no. Of course not. We broke up. It was over. It—” He stopped himself and had the decency to wince at that. She seized on the silence.
“What’s she doing here? Are you going to see her? What does she mean to you?”
All very good questions, Hank thought. He was going to make sure Ryan answered them one way or another. But the blond replacement had obviously not emerged from her room in time to hear that Mandy was dead. He glanced at Mrs. Nelson. Her jaw clenched.
“Ryan’s ex-girlfriend is dead. She was murdered on the boat. Today,” Mrs. Nelson said as she craned her neck to look up at the blonde. The anger drained out of her face, leaving only surprise.
“My God. That’s … that’s horrible.” She stepped back from the railing and started to turn back into the upstairs hallway. “Now I’m really sorry I came,” she mu
ttered.
Hank had no intention of letting her go back to her room and her cell phone so she could start texting everyone she knew to complain about her terrible weekend. He cleared his throat. All three froze. Then they turned as one to stare at him, still standing in the shadows.
“Kelly?” he said. “Miss, if you would stay right where you are. I’m going to need to ask you some questions. You, too, Ryan.”
They all continued to stare at him. He stifled a sigh of exasperation and gestured up toward the blonde.
“Miss, if you would be so good as to get dressed. But first, I’m going to need for you to bring me your purse and your cell phone.”
Kelly snapped out of her stupor. “What? Why? Are you going to search me?”
Now Hank stifled a chuckle. No way would he be that stupid. “No, I’m not,” he said. “I also am not going to search your purse. But I am going to ask you to let me hold your cell phone. I need to ask you a few questions before you use it to call anyone and tell them about what has happened. You, too, Ryan.”
He held out his hand toward Ryan, who had not moved from the spot where he’d dropped his keys. This time, there was no attempt to disguise the hostility. He glared as he dug into the pocket of his khakis. He slapped the phone into Hank’s hand and moved back toward his mother. Hank turned to look up the stairs. Kelly was just starting to stomp down them, which was impressive considering that she now wore big fuzzy slippers that should have muffled her footsteps. She walked forward and dropped her purse on the table in the middle of the foyer. She set her phone next to it.
“We can just go back in there,” Mrs. Nelson said, pointing toward the dining room. Hank shook his head and turned to Kelly. “If you would be so good as to get dressed—and bring your coat,” he said. She stomped back up the stairs.
“Where are you taking her?” Ryan asked.
“She—and you—need to come down to the station with me,” Hank said. The farther this kid was away from his mother, the better his interview would be. And he certainly didn’t need Mrs. Nelson having a heart-to-heart with the replacement girlfriend while they were gone, so Kelly needed to come, too.
“The station,” Mrs. Nelson squawked. “Is he a suspect? What the hell? You can’t talk to him without me. I’m his mother. I have parental rights.”
“How old are you?” Hank said to Ryan.
“Nineteen.”
“Then, no, ma’am, you do not have the right to be present. You may certainly drive yourself and wait at the station for our talk to be over with, but that’s it.”
She started toward him with her fists clenched at her sides, before taking a breath and pulling herself back. “Then I want a lawyer. You can’t talk to him without a lawyer.”
“Why?” Hank hoped his face registered a look of innocent surprise. “I just need to find out as much about Mandy as I can.” Pause. “We just need to have a chat. Don’t we, son?”
Ryan glanced from Hank to his mother and then longingly out toward the car he’d just parked in the driveway. He looked back.
“Just a chat.” Hank smiled.
Ryan swallowed. “Okay,” he said. “I’ll go.”
“Ryan!”
He turned toward his mother and whispered furiously, “If I don’t go, he’s going to think I have something to hide.”
Oh, how Hank loved that line of reasoning. Now he had to hustle the kid out of here before Mrs. Nelson talked sense into him. More stomping from the direction of the stairs signaled that Replacement Kelly was ready.
“Everyone bundled up?” he said and swung the door open. Mrs. Nelson, a shaking pillar of fury in a bathrobe, lost no time slamming it shut behind them. The motion triggered the front walkway’s sensor light and flooded the entire yard with searing fluorescence that bounced off the swirling snowflakes, blinding him. Momentarily, he hoped.
CHAPTER
6
He and Ryan sat staring at each other. Hank had left Kelly with Sheila once they arrived at the substation on Shepherd of the Hills Expressway. It was a little outpost of a building that had a shoebox-sized lobby, two offices, and a holding cell. It came in handy when it wasn’t practical to make the long, twisty drive to the main office in Forsyth. Like tonight.
“Where were you this evening?” Hank asked. Ryan started; he obviously had not expected that to be the first question.
“Uh … uh. I went for a drive,” he stammered.
“In a snowstorm?”
“Yeah, well. Um. I went up to the high school and just, you know, sat and thought for a while.”
“Thought about what?”
Ryan shrugged. “Stuff.”
He was as forthcoming as his mother had been. Great.
“How long where you up there?”
“Hmm. An hour or two.”
“Your mom didn’t know you went out?”
Ryan looked at him like he was stupid. Good.
“Obviously not. You were there, right?”
Hank nodded. And waited. Ryan eventually filled the silence.
“I left after she and Kelly went to bed. Mom’s pretty old-fashioned, so we were in separate bedrooms. Kelly didn’t know I’d left, either.”
Maybe Mrs. Nelson is a better mother than I gave her credit for, Hank thought.
“What stuff?”
“Huh?”
“What stuff where you thinking about … up at the high school?”
“Oh, right. I don’t know. School. Kelly. It’s all pretty stressful. A lot more stressful than I thought it’d be.”
“How so?”
He shrugged again. “It’s so much work. And Mom’s calling all the time. Always telling me I’d better be getting her money’s worth up there. Having all kinds of experiences and taking all kinds of classes. But then she wants me to come home all the time, too. She can … well, she can be a pain.”
Hank could only imagine.
“When was the last time you were home—before this weekend?” Hank asked.
“Christmas break,” he said. “I knew I’d be coming back this weekend for Gran’s birthday. That’s not something you miss.”
“And this is your second semester at St. Louis University?”
“Yeah.”
“And is that where you met Kelly?”
“Yeah. We had our University 101 orientation together. She’s in a sorority.” He grinned.
“How long have you been seeing her?”
“Oh, about a month or two. Since right after—” He stopped. He’d figured out they were circling around to Mandy.
“Right after what?”
“Right after Christmas break,” he said slowly.
“And when, exactly, did you and Mandy break up?”
Ryan fidgeted in his seat. Hank waited.
“Right around then…” he said eventually.
Hank’s eyebrow went up. “Right around when, exactly?”
Ryan yanked at the lock of hair that kept falling into his eyes. He looked out the window. He chewed his lip. Then he pushed at the hair again.
“She … we … it’s complicated.”
Hank almost snorted. If this kid thought life with two living girlfriends was complicated, wait until he had to deal with the reality of one who had been murdered and one who knew she’d been two-timed. Add to that the fact that he was currently Hank’s top suspect, and Ryan the Boyfriend’s life was not looking simple.
Ryan got a grip on himself. He straightened in his chair and cleared his throat. “We broke up two weeks ago. It was a mutual decision.”
“Then can you explain to me why she was five hours away from her university, without her parents knowing, and in the same place where your family was having a large celebration?”
“No,” Ryan said flatly. “I can’t.”
Hank leaned forward and put his arms on the desk in front of him.
“Did you know she was on the boat?”
“No.”
“Did you know she was in Branson at all?”
“When was the last time you saw her?”
“Christmas break.”
“When was the last time you talked to her?”
“Two weeks ago.”
“Was that when you broke up?”
“Yes.”
“Who broke up with whom?”
“Whom? Really?” He paused and gritted his teeth. “I said it was mutual.”
“But you didn’t tell your mother.”
“Yes, I did.”
“Not when it happened.”
“Well, I guess not. I was … I was getting over it.”
“With Kelly?”
Ryan shoved his hair out of his face again.
“Why didn’t you tell your mother?”
“I didn’t want to, okay? You’ve met her. I didn’t want a lecture.”
“And she would have lectured you?”
“No. But she would have told Gran. And Gran would have lectured me.”
“But your gran was okay with you bringing someone else to her party?”
The shrug again. “I didn’t ask. I just figured if I showed up with Kelly, there was nothing anyone could do, and they’d all just have to be cool about it.”
“Is that why you brought her? To give you cover from your gran?”
“Pretty much, yeah.”
Hank did not see much of a future for the two of them after Kelly found all this out. And she was the lucky one. He suddenly felt very tired.
“I’m going to ask you this one more time, Ryan. Did you know that Mandy Bryson came up from the University of Oklahoma this weekend?”
“No.”
“Did you know she was on the Branson Beauty today?”
“No.”
“Did you see her on the Branson Beauty today?”
“No.”
“Did you kill her?”
“No.”
Hank leaned back, away from the desk. The kid had looked him right in the eye during every one of those answers. Except the last one. Just hiding the tears suddenly in his eyes, or hiding the lie? That was the question, wasn’t it?
A door slammed, and they heard Sheila talking to someone. Then Mrs. Nelson’s voice cut through everything. Ryan sagged in his chair and actually looked relieved. Hank was surprised it had taken her this long. He’d had more time with her son than he had expected he would. Maybe he should have been grateful for the snow after all.
