Knickers in a Twist

by Kim Hunt Harris

  “He is charming, handsome, and sophisticated. And British.”

  “You mentioned that.”

  “I mean, he could be a lord or something.”

  “You don't say.”

  “You should hear him speak. Last week at poetry night he read “Meeting at Night,” by Robert Browning. It was like being inside a scene from Downton Abbey.” She sighed.

  I nodded. Yep. Every last one of those widows up there were sniffing after him.

  Viv took the tall flyover about half a mile from Channel 11, and I looked out over the east side of town. Something a couple of miles east of the station caught my eye.

  Red flashing lights. A lot of them.

  “Viv, I think that might be what Tony was talking about. Don't look!” I said when she shifted her gaze—and the car—in the direction I was looking. “Just get off the flyover and head west.”

  We headed out of town in the general direction of the lights, and immediately got turned around on the surface roads. We drove down dark dirt roads for a while, until I finally spotted the lights again.

  Pulling up behind a long line of cars parked at the side of the road, Viv killed the motor and hopped out. Nothing got her jazzed up more than a possible crime scene. I slid out of the bench seat beside her, since my side of the car was hovering over high grass in a bar ditch. I figured all the rattlesnakes were probably hibernating by now, but why take that chance?

  Viv and I joined the crowd behind the yellow caution tape.

  “What's going on?” Viv asked a guy standing beside her.

  He shrugged. “I really don't know. I was just driving by and saw all the lights.” Although he wore jeans and an Eagle Construction t-shirt, something about him said “military” – close- cropped hair, hard body, poker posture.

  “They found a body,” a woman with a smoker's voice said.

  “Dead body,” someone else said, as if that level of specificity was called for.

  “Murder?” I asked.

  “Yeah,” “Of course,” and “Haven't said,” were the immediate replies. I figured the last one was the truth. People tended to immediately jump to the conclusion of murder when a body was found, but it could just as easily have been an accident, suicide, or even natural causes.

  A small stand of mesquite trees about fifty yards down the road seemed to be where most of the activity was concentrated. The entire squadron of first responders was there—police, ambulances, fire trucks—and they had the vehicles parked and personnel standing in a way that made it difficult to see anything.

  After Viv and I had been there about ten minutes and learned nothing useful from the crowd, except for a rumor that the deceased probably was Peter Browning (but nobody knew for sure,) a group of EMTs emerged from the trees carrying a body bag on a stretcher. They brought it to the back of the ambulance, which faced the other direction, and in the ensuing silence we heard the sound of the doors being shut.

  The crowd remained silent and stepped out of the way so the police cars and ambulance could pass. In the stillness, the whir and pop of the news cameras and soft crunch of the tires on the dirt road was magnified. With headlights on, but flashing lights dark, they drove slowly through the somber crowd and toward town.

  As they left, several of the reporters were setting up shots to report back to their respective stations.

  “Vultures,” the military guy said.

  I started to point out that he, like the reporters, had been attracted to the sight of flashing red lights and yellow police tape, but unlike him, it was their job to be there. I didn't point that out because, frankly, he looked a bit scary.

  So instead I nodded and said, “Tell me about it.” Like a complete hypocrite.

  His jaw clenched and he shook his head. “I don't know how they sleep at night. Love nothing better than to see someone's misery.”

  “No doubt,” Viv said. “People treat them like they're bloody celebrities or something just because they're on TV. Hey, look! There's Misty Monahan!” She pointed to the young reporter that Tri-Patrice had hired last year. “Let's go talk to her. Maybe she'll interview us!”

  “Why would she interview us? We don't know anything.”

  Viv shrugged. “That never matters. All we have to do is be colorful, and we'll be a viral sensation before our heads hit the pillow tonight. I'll say something like, ‘Guuuurrrrl! My friend and me were driving down the loop and she was like, ‘Look at those lights!’ and I was like, ‘Whuuuut?’ and she was like, ‘Let's go check it out,' and I was all, 'I gotta go home and drink my prune juice, on account of my insides get locked down if I don't drink at least two glasses of prune juice a day, I mean it's like an abandoned factory in there, no output at all if you get my meanin’...”

  I put a hand up to stop her. It was unseemly to be giggling immediately after a body bag had just passed us, and, besides, if I ever went viral, I didn't want it to be as Viv's prune juice-carrying sidekick. “What would Nigel think of that performance? Is he attracted to that kind of thing?”

  “Oh, you're right,” she said, which surprised me. Viv must have it really bad if she considered altering her behavior in any way for the guy. “Let's see if we can get the scoop, though.”

  The cameraman was setting up the shot, and Misty fluffed her hair and rolled her lips together, doing this thing with her hand that made me think she must be very keyed up. She held her hand at her side, about breast level, and shook it. Then she raised the other hand and shook her wrists out together, kind of the way a gymnast might do before tackling the uneven parallel bars. She blew through her lips, puffing them out over and over, and paced back in front in the small bit of dirt road she and the cameraman had staked out.

  Except the cameraman wasn't a man, I realized as I got closer to them. A short, compactly-built girl with short, spiky hair was fiddling with the camera.

  She hoisted it to her shoulder, put it to her eye, then pulled it away and looked at Misty. “Are you going to be able to do this?”

  Misty took a deep breath. “No choice. Come on. Let's just get it done.”

  The camera girl squared up and nodded slightly.

  “Patrice and Tom, we are on the scene of a somber discovery in east Lubbock, where Lubbock police have recovered the body of—of –” She stopped, swallowed almost imperceptibly, then went on—” of an unidentified male. Now, two teenagers were riding around this area on dirt bikes this afternoon and discovered the body. As you just saw from that video, an ambulance just drove away –” She stopped and blinked a few times, looking blank, then she pulled it together. “Unfortunately, we don't have any other information at this time, but police will hold a news conference tonight at nine pm. Patrice and Tom, back to you.”

  She continued to stare into the camera for five more seconds, her face somber and her eyes wan. The camera light flashed off.

  Then Misty Monahan burst into tears.

  Viv and I looked at each other and decided simultaneously to give Misty a pass. Viv was at least as awkward as I was in dealing with emotional people, if not more so.

  “Let's go back to the station and talk to Trisha,” I suggested. “We probably have time to chat with her for a little while before we head over to the press conference.”

  “You don't need to get home to the hubby?” Viv asked.

  I didn't care for her tone. “You don't have to get back to Belle Court and make sure none of those floozies are taking off with Nigel the Brit?”

  “I wonder what was going on with Misty Monahan,” Viv said, by way of changing the subject.

  I shrugged. “Dead body is a bit upsetting. And Peter Browning was a co-worker, maybe even a friend, if it really was him.”

  “Did her reaction seem weird to you?”

  “Ummm, no. For the general public, a co-worker turning up dead would warrant a few tears.”

  “Yes, but she was working so hard to hide it.”

  “She was trying to be professional.”

  Viv shook her h
ead. “Maybe. But I have an inkling it was something more than that.”

  “What's an inkling? Do they hurt?”

  Ignoring me, she said, “Let's go back to the station and see if we can get some inside information from Patrice.”

  Things were crazy at the station, so nobody paid Viv and me any mind as we wound our way through the bustle. Besides, we'd been up there enough times that everyone knew we were there to see Tri-Patrice, and they left us alone.

  I expected to find her in the big middle of things like she always was, but she was in her office with her feet propped on a stool made from a couple of stacked boxes.

  “Look at you taking it easy,” Viv said as we barged in.

  “Doctor's orders,” Trisha said. She leaned back in her chair, her hands folded over her stomach.

  “You look pale,” I said. “I didn't realize you were sick.”

  “I'm not.” She smiled this big smile and said, “I'm pregnant.”

  “Oooh!” Viv clapped her hands. “A baby! That's jolly good news! Brilliant!”

  “Seriously? That's fantastic!” I jumped up and maneuvered the box stool to lean over her and give her a one-armed hug.

  She remained seated and one-arm hugged me back. “Thanks. We're very excited.”

  She didn't look very excited, though. I put together the entire picture then. The stool, her absence from the bustle of the newsroom. “Are you doing okay?”

  “I feel pretty good, actually. But the doctors are concerned about my blood pressure. I'm only ten weeks along, and I wouldn't have told anyone except I've been ordered to light duty.”

  “I wondered why that other guy was doing the ten o'clock broadcast,” Viv said.

  “Yeah,” I said faintly. I didn't want Trisha to know I was a complete lightweight and rarely stayed up until ten. When I did, it wasn't to watch the news.

  “I'm down to six o'clock only, and when I'm not on the air I'm in here with my feet propped up.”

  Someone came in and said something in news-ese to Trisha, who answered in the same unintelligible language. He left.

  “Anyway. Did you go out to the scene?”

  “We did,” Viv said. “They didn't say much. Just a male body.”

  Trisha frowned. “They're still notifying next of kin.”

  A look passed between us. “It's him, though?” I asked.

  “I can't say. But...yeah.”

  “We won't say anything,” Viv said.

  “I know. I just...” She shook her head and turned a pen over and over in her hand. She tapped it on her desk and set it aside, then picked it up again. “Poor Bitsy. I feel so awful for her. She's pregnant too, you know.”

  Of course we knew. Browning had been missing for the past three days, and Bitsy Browning was all over the news, her tearful face pleading for information, for help. Her little basketball belly was a media darling in its own right.

  I assumed Trisha got her news directly from someone in the police department. She had a reputation for being professional and circumspect when it was appropriate.

  “Did you get any other information? What happened to him?”

  She shook her head. “No, my source just gave me the heads up because he knew Peter worked here.”

  “We saw Misty Monahan out at the scene. She was a bloody mess.”

  Trisha jerked. “What?!”

  “She means she was upset,” I clarified. “Viv, careful how you wield your newfound Britishness.”

  “I simply meant that she looked horrible,” Viv said with an eye roll. “You Yanks misinterpret everything.”

  “Well, it is horrible,” Trisha said. “I'm proud of her for being able to make it through the report.”

  The door opened and a different guy said something to Trisha, equally as mysterious as the last guy. Trisha gave a few orders and the guy left.

  “Everyone is tiptoeing around me like I'm a live grenade,” she said.

  “I would take advantage of it if I were you. Maybe use it as an opportunity to tell people what you've always wanted to say and were too polite to,” Viv said.

  Trisha laughed. “That could be fun, but no. I want a career to come back to. And no matter what anyone says about respect and accommodation for professional women, this at-risk pregnancy business is not helping my career one bit. Not that I care, at this point, but I know I will eventually.”

  The door opened again, and another guy stuck his head in. “You ready?”

  “Just about,” Trisha said. She nodded in our direction. “You remember Salem.”

  Oh, jeez. It was Scott, Trisha's husband.

  I saw him stiffen just as I did. He turned slowly to face me.

  “Salem,” he said with a reserved nod.

  “Hello, Scott,” I answered, equally reserved. Scott and I had a history that neither of us wanted to revisit, even for a second. “This is Viv,” I said as soon as I could, to deflect attention.

  Viv jumped up and shook his hand. “Congratulations on the pregnancy. Jolly good show!”

  “Ummm...thanks.” He turned back to Trisha. “You need to go.”

  Trisha smiled and stood with a groan. “I'm fine. I've had my feet up the entire time.” She put her feet down and stood slowly. “I am guarded like the Hope diamond these days,” she said with a warm smile at Scott. “Normally I'd be home on the sofa by now being waited on hand and foot, but I needed to stay for a while tonight, considering everything going on.”

  “We'll get out of your hair.” I popped out of my chair, relieved when Scott backed out of the doorway and let me pass.

  As we crossed through the newsroom, Viv said—entirely too loudly— “Is he the one you didn't sleep with?”

  “Shhh!” I hissed. Viv being my best friend and all, I had told her of the time I had been drunk and thought I'd spent the night in my best friend's fiance's bed. Well, I actually had spent the night in his bed, but nothing of a...conjugal nature...had happened.

  Still, Trisha had thought it had, and I still felt guilty about it. This was the first time I'd seen Scott since then, and it felt tremendously awkward. “As a matter of fact,” I said, “there are quite a few guys I didn't sleep with.”

  I didn't even bother with the pretense of offering Viv the chance to drive. I climbed into the passenger seat and pulled out my phone. “Windy, call Tony.”

  The command app on my phone was called Windy, and she was voiced by the phone developer's aunt from Sundown, Texas. Windy with an “I” from Sundown. If you ever wondered what West Texas was like, that sums it up right there.

  “Gettin' him now, honey,” Windy said. The icon was a little cloud with wavy trails that stirred in a digital breeze while she worked. The phone rang.

  “Is Stump doing okay?” I asked Tony.

  “She's great,” he said. “She's parked beside me in the recliner and hasn't budged since you left.”

  “Good.” Thankfully, Stump seemed to have taken to Tony. When she was comfortable, Stump was basically a slug covered with fur. She rarely moved unless it was to get her belly into better position for rubbing. When she was uncomfortable, she screamed a loud unholy-sounding cry and destroyed things. And she was highly uncomfortable whenever I left her home alone, which was why I had to find babysitters for her. There was precious little in my trailer house in Trailertopia, and I couldn't afford to replace what I did have. It was an immense relief that Stump was comfortable with Tony, as long as he was comfortable with her. “Do you mind if I stay out a while longer and go to the press conference with Viv?”

  “Daddy, can I play with my friend?” Viv mocked as she pulled out of the Channel 11 parking lot.

  I swatted the seat beside her. “It's common courtesy,” I insisted.

  “No problem,” Tony said. “Like I said, she hasn't moved all night. Just stay out of trouble.”

  “You keep saying that.”

  “Because you keep getting shot at.”

  “At being the operative word,” I said. “We will be the very image of
carefulness,” I promised.

  Bobby Sloan, one of Lubbock PD's homicide detectives, was in the press conference room talking to some other cop-looking people when Viv and I came in. I nodded to him as we took our seats.

  He rolled his eyes.

  After he'd wrapped up his conversation, he strolled over to us. “Since when did you two become media? Oh wait, I know. You've started your own YouTube channel.”

  Viv pointed at him. “That's a smashing idea, actually. I know because I had it myself earlier today.”

  “No, it's not,” I said. “Don't encourage her.”

  Bobby put one booted foot on the chair in front of me, leaning on his knee. “You're going to be disappointed this time. Nothing to see here but a guy who apparently wanted out.”

  “Out? Of what?”

  Bobby shrugged.

  So, suicide? “Why are they holding a press conference for that?”

  “Maybe this isn't such a sad day for the PD, considering all the grief Peter Browning had given you guys this year.” Viv arched an eyebrow.

  “Come on.” Bobby frowned. “He wasn't a favorite, but nobody around is happy to have him dead.”

  “No?” Viv motioned with her head toward the back of the room where a group of uniformed officers were gathered, talking and grinning.

  Bobby's frown deepened. “We decided to make the statement because a few thousand people have been looking for the guy, and we thought it best that they know they can stop.” He straightened and dropped his foot. “Stay out of trouble, Salem.” He clapped a hand down on my shoulder as he walked away.

  I tried very hard to be unaffected by that hand on my shoulder. I was a somewhat-married woman, after all, and I was most definitely in love with my husband. But Bobby Sloan...well, I'd had a crush on him since the fourth grade, and he was still ridiculously handsome. Old habits die hard.

  He joined the group at the back of the room and said something low. All the smiles immediately vanished, and the officers—all of them looking suddenly like middle schoolers playing dress up—became a silent, respectful group.