Clarity

by Kim Harrington

  Mom half smiled, but I knew it was forced. I wish I hadn’t said those words about Dad yesterday. She didn’t need that on top of her business worries.

  “Get your brother up for me, will you? He’s been so lazy this week.”

  If she only knew the half of it.

  I headed upstairs. Mom’s room was the master bedroom at the end of the hall. Perry’s room and mine were opposite each other.

  I was thinking up cruel and unusual ways to wake my brother when I heard the shower start. Damn, already up. I went into his room figuring I’d tool around until he was done. The place was a mess. Clothes strewn across the floor. A few crumb-littered plates stacked on his nightstand. An empty plastic water bottle on the floor. I had no intentions of snooping. I just wanted to clean up a bit. I picked up a stack of books from the floor, intending to line them up on the shelf above his desk. A sheet of paper fluttered from the bottom of the pile and slid under the bed. I got down on my hands and knees, pulled it out, and gasped.

  Victoria Happel smiled up at me.

  She seemed legitimately happy in the picture. A glass raised high as if in mid-toast, her dark eyes looking somewhere off to the left, her face bright. She was smiling radiantly, perhaps about to break into laughter. This moment in time snapped by someone’s camera made her more real to me than the grainy newspaper photo or the shadowy naked figure in my visions. My heart went out to her. Betrayed by her boyfriend and her best friend, she’d gone on vacation alone to forget her problems, and ended up dead.

  Above the photograph was a headline written in large script that read: Did you see this woman Saturday night? In smaller letters beneath the picture were instructions to contact the local police department if you had any information. But this didn’t seem like a flyer the police would put together. It wasn’t done on a computer, for one. It was handwritten, the picture plopped on top, and then photocopied. Someone had gone through the trouble to do this themselves.

  “What are you doing?”

  Startled, I fell from my kneeling position back on my butt and the flyer whisked away and landed on Perry’s bare feet. He had a towel wrapped around his waist, his hair dripping wet.

  “I was going to clean up and found —”

  “You were searching my room.”

  “No! I picked up the stack of books and that fell out.”

  “It doesn’t matter. Whatever. I have to get dressed.” He aimed a thumb at the door, a polite way of saying it was time for me to get out.

  I stood up and brushed myself off. “Did you make that flyer? ”

  “No. I found it tacked to a telephone pole near Yummy’s.”

  I cocked my head to the side. “Why did you pull it down?”

  “Someone might come forward claiming they saw me leave with her.”

  “Or someone might come forward with information leading to the real killer,” I said.

  He looked down at the floor. “I didn’t think of that.”

  “How come I haven’t seen these anywhere? Is this the only one you saw?”

  His eyes snapped up to mine, glowing with guilt.

  “Wait.” I thought for a moment. “The night of the fireworks, when you were missing all day. You went around town and took them all down.”

  He lumbered over to his bed and sat down on the edge. Confession time. “Yeah, I did.”

  “Do you realize how suspicious that would look if someone saw you doing that?”

  “I was careful.”

  I groaned. “Perry, I’m trying to help you here but you keep digging yourself in deeper.” I was frustrated at him. But I was also frustrated by the fact that every time I thought I’d banished any doubts about Perry’s innocence, something happened to make me doubt him again.

  He propped his elbows on his knees and rubbed his face with his hands. “I guess I wasn’t thinking straight. I’m sorry.”

  My cell rang. I glanced at the caller ID. “Fine. This is Gabriel anyway. I’ll see you later. Try not to make yourself an even more conspicuous suspect while I’m gone.”

  I closed his door behind me. I flipped open the phone, hoping all that ping talk had amounted to something and they’d tracked Billy down.

  At first I heard only static, then a few words. “Woods … need you here. Will come get you.”

  “What?” I pressed the phone harder to my ear as if that would help. “I didn’t get that.”

  “They found him,” Gabriel yelled.

  “Billy? What’s he saying?”

  “Not much. He’s dead.”

  FIFTEEN

  OF COURSE THE STORM CLOUDS CHOSE THE moment I left the house to open up and start spitting. I ran to Gabriel’s Jeep. Thankfully, he had the cover on. Rain began to sprinkle on the windshield. He turned on the wipers, and I winced at their initial squeaking.

  During the drive, Gabriel explained that the phone company tracked the pings from Billy Rawlinson’s cell to the state park. Considering the acres of woods and hiking trails, it could have taken days to comb through the entire area. But instead Billy was in the first place they looked — the dirt road that cut through the center of the park.

  Big fat raindrops plunked on the windshield. Moments later a flash of lightning lit up the sky, followed by distant thunder. By the time we reached the park, the rain was coming down so hard it was difficult to see out the window. Gabriel turned right at the entrance to the service road. He took the dirt road slowly and pulled over behind a single cruiser. The shadow of a man was in the driver’s seat.

  “Is that your father?” I asked.

  “Yeah. Everyone else is done and gone. Dad promised to look the other way for five minutes. He’ll call the coroner to the scene after you’re done.”

  “You mean … Billy’s still in the truck?”

  “Yeah,” he said, and grimaced.

  I’d never seen a dead body before. And despite the somewhat morbid nature of my family business, the idea of it freaked me out. I swallowed the fear rising in my throat and forced it down. I focused on the strength hidden beneath and coaxed it to the surface. After a few deep breaths, I straightened, full of resolution.

  Billy’s gray pickup was blocking the road. The heavy rain couldn’t have been good for the crime scene. My skills were needed even more now. I took a deep breath, grabbed my umbrella, and headed out into the storm.

  Gabriel took me by the elbow and led me through the mud. “We don’t have much to go on. The rain washed away any tracks or footprints. We don’t even know if there was another vehicle or not. No murder weapon. No signs of struggle. After the autopsy, they’ll compare the bullet to the one from the first victim. Other than that …” His voice trailed off.

  “I’ll see what I can do,” I said, stepping gingerly up to the truck.

  Billy was seated in the driver’s seat. I was no medical examiner, but I’d say the cause of death was that bullet hole in his forehead.

  Despite having never seen a real dead body, I’d seen plenty on TV, and surprisingly that’s what Billy looked like. An actor playing someone dead. Except I knew this was real. He was no actor. He was someone I’d known almost my whole life. Someone I’d hated. I was sure there were moments along the way when his taunting got so bad that I wished him dead. But looking at him now, I wasn’t happy. I was sad. Sad for his parents. Hell, even sad for Frankie.

  I turned and handed my umbrella to Gabriel, who stood solemnly behind me, watching with serious eyes.

  Slowly, I walked around to the passenger side of the car and got in. Concentrating was difficult. I had to force the thought that I was sitting beside a corpse out of my head. I put my hands in all the places a passenger would: seat belt, the cracked leather interior, the dash. Nothing.

  “I don’t believe he had a passenger,” I said out the open door to Gabriel.

  Increasingly frustrated, I returned to the driver’s side and explored there, doing my best to ignore Billy. Nothing relevant came until I leaned over the body and placed my hands at ten and two
on the steering wheel and then … whoosh.

  “I see Billy driving,” I whispered to Gabriel, who was standing behind me, peering over my shoulder.

  “On this road?” he asked.

  “I can’t tell. It’s hazy. But his thoughts are clear.”

  “What are they?”

  I squeezed my eyes tight, tried to hold on to the vision for as long as I could. “Anticipation and fear. He thinks he might be getting something good, but there’s an equal chance his plan could backfire.”

  I stayed silent while I focused.

  “What now?” Gabriel asked. “What’s he thinking?”

  “About his parents. How he’s let them down because he didn’t amount to anything.”

  The vision dissolved. I let go of the wheel and stepped back. My racing heartbeat started to slow. “What do you think this means? ”

  Gabriel rubbed his chin. “I think he was going to try to blackmail the killer. And the killer took the matter into his own hands and shut Billy up for good.”

  The rain lightened slightly, but a thick mist had settled in the woods, giving them an eerie glow. Anything or anyone could be hiding in the gray spaces between the trees.

  A twig snapped in the forest behind us. Gabriel spun around and squinted at the trees, then turned back to me and shrugged.

  “Our time’s up,” he said. “We should get going.”

  Then another snap came, not as loud this time, but was quickly followed by a shuffling sound. A chill seeped into my bones.

  “Someone’s out there,” Gabriel said, and he took off into the woods.

  I followed, blindly, my hands out in front of me to protect myself from running headfirst into a tree. The mist made it difficult to see too far ahead, and soon I’d lost Gabriel completely. I didn’t want to go deeper into the woods by myself, so I backtracked toward the dirt road where the truck was. Once the truck was in view, the rain picked up again, lashing at my face. I kept my eyes on the ground so I wouldn’t trip over a root or fallen branch.

  Then I stopped. A footprint was at the base of a tree, but it was quickly eroding in the rain.

  Had a person been there minutes ago? Hiding behind the tree? Peeking around it?

  I stretched out my fingers and pressed my hand on the trunk of the tree. The bark felt a bit slimy from all the rain. I closed my eyes and concentrated. A moment later, a vision floated to the surface. It shimmered as if I were watching it through a sheet of water. I focused harder, and it cleared a bit. Then I gasped.

  I was watching myself.

  I saw myself lean into the truck and put my hands on the steering wheel.

  I shuddered involuntarily, and the vision vanished. I yanked my hand from the tree as if it were something disgusting.

  Someone had been watching me. And whoever it was knew I was involved in the case now.

  I heard panting behind me and spun around. Gabriel skidded to a stop and leaned over to catch his breath. “I ran all around and couldn’t find anyone. Maybe it was my dad taking a smoke break.”

  “Your dad wouldn’t run from us.”

  I thought about relaying my vision to him, but didn’t see the point. The person was long gone. If Gabriel didn’t believe me and made some snarky remark, we’d fight again. If he did believe me, he might think it was unsafe for me to continue helping with the investigation. And I wasn’t giving this up. My brother’s life depended on it.

  “Or you know what?” Gabriel continued. “It was probably an animal. Yeah, a deer.”

  Or a hunter, I thought.

  The Eastport Chamber of Commerce Annual Banquet was mostly an excuse for local businessmen to pat each other on the backs and for their wives to dress up and gossip. Mom and I arrived fashionably late. I wore a simple black cocktail dress. Mom had on a white embroidered dress that wasn’t too bad considering what else lurked in her closet. She immediately began mingling, probably hoping to score some dirt on Madame Maslov. I took to my seat and hid behind a large glass of water with lemon.

  “Join you?”

  I glanced up nervously, then smiled at Nate. He looked all mature in his striped shirt and khaki pants. “Sure.”

  He sat next to me, placing his little notebook on the table next to his soda.

  “Ah, you’re the lucky one who got assigned to cover this delightful evening.”

  He grinned. “The real reporters get the big stories, the intern gets the Chamber of Commerce banquet. Why aren’t you out there being a socialite like Starla?”

  I peeked over his shoulder at the dance floor and saw Mom and Milly twisting to the music of the live band. “I’d rather keep my seat warm all night.”

  “What’s Perry up to tonight?”

  “I don’t know. I haven’t talked to him.”

  Nate paused, turning his Coke in his hands. “He seems distant lately.”

  “Something to drink?” an annoyingly familiar voice asked.

  Tiffany bent over and placed cocktail napkins on our table, her twins busting out of her low-cut scoop-neck shirt, leaving little to the imagination. Nate didn’t move his eyes from mine, causing Tiffany to frown. Her little display was all for naught.

  “What are you doing here?” I asked her.

  “I’m friends with the caterer. Helping him out.”

  “You? Doing a little something on the side? Nah.”

  She glared at me and moved on.

  “I hope you didn’t want another drink,” I said to Nate and smirked.

  Nate shrugged. “I can hoof it to the bar myself. So, about Perry.”

  I shook my head. “Who knows. Maybe he needs some of that,” I joked, motioning to Tiffany as she walked away.

  “He’s already had some of that.”

  I nearly spit out my water. “Perry hooked up with Tiffany?”

  “At a party a few months ago.”

  I felt sick. I didn’t know who I was more disgusted by — Tiffany or Perry. He never shared the names and details of his hookups with me, thankfully, because I didn’t want to hear it. But this is one I feel he could have given me the heads-up about. Maybe he was embarrassed. Maybe he figured I didn’t want to know. Or maybe he just enjoyed keeping secrets.

  Nate tipped his soda back and took a long chug. “Perry’s messed around with a lot of chicks he should be ashamed of, but she’s the worst of the bunch. She’s the one he wishes he could take back.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “Tiffany went a little cuckoo after Perry never called her again. Mild stalking, that sort of thing.”

  And then she purposefully went after Justin, I thought. This whole time I’d assumed she’d done it as the highlight of her lifelong plan to torment me. But maybe this action was different. Maybe she did what she did because hurting me was the best way to hurt my brother.

  Nate continued, “Perry stuck with tourists from that point on.”

  “They’re easier to hide from,” I said bitterly.

  Nate shrugged. “They know it’s just a temporary deal. They’re here on vacation with their family or maybe they’re college girls looking for a good time. But they’re only here for a little while. So that’s that, maybe see you next summer.”

  “Why don’t you ever join in on the fun?”

  “That’s not my idea of fun. I’m looking for the real thing.”

  I plucked at a lint ball on the tablecloth. “I think that’s what Perry needs, too. Someone stable to keep him out of trouble.”

  “He’s in trouble?” Nate leaned forward.

  I looked into his concerned eyes. If I could trust anyone with this information, it was Perry’s best friend.

  “The murdered girl,” I began slowly.

  “Victoria Happel?”

  “Yeah. Perry slept with her the night she died.”

  Nate rocked back in his chair. “No way.”

  I lowered my voice. “Obviously you can’t share this with anyone. Don’t even tell Perry I told you. No one can know he was there because then he’ll become t
he top suspect.”

  “Does he know anything about the murder?”

  “No. When he left the motel room, she was alive. But this is why he’s so depressed. He feels guilty. Like if he had stayed, he could have saved her.”

  “Or maybe he’d be dead, too,” Nate said, and I nodded.

  I nervously twisted and untwisted a strand of hair around my finger as I held back the other information. How Perry had taken down the posters all over town. How Victoria had said Perry was the one who killed her. How Perry’s erratic behavior had even me wondering.

  Milly plopped down into the open chair next to me. “Did you see me out there cuttin’ a rug on the dance floor? Ol’ Milly’s still got it.” She lifted her dress a few inches and kicked her skinny legs. “Like a Rockette, I am!”

  Nate laughed uneasily. “On that note, I’m heading to the bar for another soda. Need anything, ladies?”

  Milly asked for an ice water. I told him I was all set.

  Milly started babbling about the old days and all the dances she went to. I quickly realized I could be stuck in this conversation all night if I didn’t find a way out.

  “Hi, Clare,” Stephen Clayworth called out as he walked past. He wore a navy blazer with some kind of crest on the pocket.

  Jumping out of my seat, I said, “Stephen, I need to talk to you.”

  He stopped, looking surprised. “About what?”

  I took him by the elbow and led him a bit away from the table. “I needed to get out of a certain conversation.”

  “Ah, so you used me.”

  I smiled sheepishly. “Sorry.”

  “I don’t mind.” He glanced over at the table where his parents were seated. Dallas Clayworth shook a man’s hand while Cecile smiled Stepfordly. “It’s a welcome break from all the politics talk and brown-nosing for votes going on over there.”

  In all the chaos of the case and my worrying about Perry, I’d forgotten there was a campaign going on. Stephen couldn’t forget, though. That was his life. I was surprised to hear him speak negatively of it.