Hometown Hero (Locust Point Mystery Book 4)

by Libby Howard

  “What happened to Mr. Locke?” I asked the whispering voices.

  There was shocked silence.

  “Mr. Locke,” I insisted. “What happened? Eli will want to know about his patient.”

  “Rescheduled…another doctor…possibly next Thursday…”

  I let out a relieved breath that Mr. Locke wasn’t still sitting in a room, waiting for my husband to arrive. Then it sunk in that it would be a long time before Eli could wield a scalpel again.

  What was I thinking? He was going to die. They’d cut most of his clothing off, but there was still blood dried on his skin, barely visible among the millions of cuts from a shattered windshield and huge red marks that would be purple and green bruises if he lived long enough. I looked past the damaged skin, past the hoses and monitors and saw the twisted angles of his body. I felt so helpless, so damned helpless. Why was this happening to us? We were good people. Why was this happening to us?

  Awareness swam to the surface. The whispers were in a child’s voice. Dreams slid away like fog in the morning sun and I blinked open my eyes to see Henry and Madison looking down at me in confusion.

  “Is my bed-head that horrible?” I tried to joke.

  “Couldn’t you sleep?” Henry asked. “Sometimes Mom sleeps on the couch when she can’t fall asleep in her bed.”

  “Coffee or cocoa?” Madison twisted her hands in front of her chest, as if she didn’t know what to make of my spending the night on the couch.

  I pushed the blanket aside and swung my feet off the couch, sitting up. Sometime in the night Taco had abandoned me. He was probably in the kitchen standing impatiently by his food dish. “Neither, but thank you for the offer, Madison. I think I’m just going to go upstairs to bed. I’m not going in to work today.”

  Henry frowned. “Are you sick? Can we get you something? Chicken soup?”

  Blech. Not at seven in the morning.

  “No thanks, Henry.” I left the kids without any further explanation and climbed up the stairs to my room. My steps quickened as I heard water splashing in the bathroom. I didn’t want to explain to the children, and I didn’t want to explain to Judge Beck either. It was all still so raw.

  I changed out of my crumpled clothing from the night before, sliding into soft pajamas and brushing my teeth before climbing into bed. I hoped Taco didn’t mind getting breakfast a few hours late this morning. Maybe the kids would feed him for me.

  I’d laid there, sleep elusive as I stared bleary-eyed at the ceiling for what felt like an hour when there was a soft knock at my door.

  “Kay? Are you all right? Can I come in?”

  It seemed there was no escaping Judge Beck. The kids must have told him. I didn’t have the heart to turn him away and have him worrying about me all day, so I told him to come in, realizing too late how strange it was to have him in my bedroom.

  He must have felt the same because he stopped three steps in with a weird, embarrassed expression on his face. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to…the kids said you were sick? That you slept downstairs last night?” He looked at a spot above my head. “I’m hoping you just had a bit too much fun with your friends last night and aren’t actually sick.”

  He thought I might be hungover. I smiled, remembering my one beer, then the smile faded as I remembered everything else.

  “I didn’t get home until four. There was an accident, and I needed to stay and wait for the ambulance and to file a police report.”

  His gaze dropped to my face and in three strides he was sitting on the edge of my bed. “My God, are you okay? Are you hurt? How’s your car? What happened?”

  “I’m fine. I witnessed the accident. A guy passed me and clipped an oncoming car.” I tried for a convincing smile. “I was too tired to go in today. I’ll be okay once I get some sleep.”

  His eyebrows went up. “If you’re here in bed and not guzzling a pot of coffee and heading in to work, then it must have been a pretty terrible accident.”

  I felt a knot loosen in my chest and the words spill from me as I told him about the injured man, about how I almost hadn’t seen the other vehicle that had gone off the road just at the sharpest point in the curve in the road.

  “I didn’t see the driver, but the girl was young.” I shuddered. “I think it might have been Violet Smith, one of Peony’s older sisters. It looked like her, but it was dark, and there was blood. Oh no. Madison. Her friend’s sister.”

  Judge Beck took a deep breath and let it out in a whoosh. “I won’t say anything to Madison until we know who the girl was. And the driver as well. A boy, you said?”

  “I’m sure the deputy referred to the driver as a ‘he’. They didn’t tell me names or anything. Probably because the one was unconscious and the other dead and they’d need to find ID and notify the next of kin.” A chill ran through me once more. The broken trees, the torn-up dirt on the shoulder. There would be bits of metal, shards of glass in the road that the police couldn’t sweep away. Love you. See you soon.

  The judge reached out to pat my shoulder, his hand warm and strong and reassuring. “What can I do for you? Do you want me to call and get the names of the accident victims? Find out how the girl is doing as well as the man from the other car? Can I get you some cocoa?”

  I immediately envisioned Madison, her brow creased with concern, offering me cocoa.

  “It’s not just the accident. It’s not just that someone died and that the girl didn’t look much older than Madison.” I took a breath, on the edge of revealing something excruciatingly personal to this man a hardly knew. He was in my bedroom, sitting on the edge of my bed. I guess maybe we knew each other better than expected for a landlady and her tenant. “Eli’s accident was on that same curve. I haven’t driven that road for ten years. The morning I got the call, when I was racing to the hospital because they said he was really bad off and I needed to hurry, that was the last time I drove that road. The car had been towed away, but it looked like someone had set a bomb off on the side of the road. Trees were broken…and there was glass….”

  This time his hand stayed on my shoulder. “And the first time in ten years that you work up the courage to drive down that road, you witness a fatal accident. Kay, I’m so sorry.”

  A tear, hot and wet, rolled down my cheek to splash onto the comforter. I blinked furiously, trying to get myself under control. “I’ll be okay. It’s just dredging up a lot of memories that I thought were dealt with and neatly packed away. Maybe cocoa, and some sleep. And yes, if you could find out about the victims, especially the girl.”

  He continued sitting for a few moments, his hand still on my shoulder as if he were in no hurry to run away from me and the emotional wound I’d just lanced right in front of him. Then he got up and closed my blinds against the morning sun, and left, promising me cocoa and answers.

  The cocoa helped, and so did another four hours of sleep. Feeling disoriented to be getting out of bed close to lunchtime, I got my shower and headed downstairs. Taco was napping in the window seat, so content that I knew the kids, or perhaps the judge, had fed him. The house was silent, but some faint sounds from outside had me peeking out my kitchen window where I saw Madison and Chelsea sunbathing while Henry was in the gazebo, his thumbs quick on his phone.

  The back door opened, and Judge Beck came in with a burst of warm summer air. “I kicked them out of the house so they wouldn’t disturb you. How are you doing?”

  “Much better. Thank you for the cocoa and for feeding Taco for me.” Then I realized something—it was Tuesday, the day after a holiday, and Judge Beck wasn’t at the courthouse. Had he taken the day off as well?

  “The kids took care of Taco. And you’re welcome for the cocoa. You’ll be glad to know that the girl who was in the accident is fine. They kept her overnight for observation on her head injury. Other than that, a fractured arm and some bruises, she’s okay. The man in the other car was treated and released with minor injuries. No heart attack—it was just a bruised rib from the seat
belt.”

  I notice he didn’t mention about the driver. Although there wasn’t much to say about someone who had died at the scene. I wondered if they even did autopsies on the victims of car accidents? I’m sure it was pretty evident that he died from internal bleeding, or a serious head injury.

  Eli, a crumpled mess of broken bones and cuts, monitors and tubes everywhere. “Love you. See you soon.”

  I clenched my teeth, forcing the vision back.

  “Here’s where it gets weird,” Judge Beck continued. “The girl isn’t Violet Smith, it’s her sister Peony.”

  I frowned. “But Peony was here with the other girls. We all went to see the fireworks together.”

  “And she left at eleven with the others, with Maria to be precise.”

  I thought about that for a moment. It was summer break, and Peony had the reputation of being a party girl, of having very little parental supervision. It was one of the reasons that Judge Beck wasn’t crazy about Madison being friends with her.

  “She must have gone out to party with some friends and been on her way home,” I said, thinking once again about Matt’s warning. Drunk driving had nearly claimed two lives last night.

  “And the driver? The one who died?” The judge hesitated. “You’re not going to believe this, but it was Holt Dupree.”

  My mouth dropped open. Holt Dupree, our hometown hero, was dead.

  Chapter 12

  I gripped the edge of the counter. “Holt Dupree is dead?” I thought of that young, strong man, that cocky grin and handsome face. He was talented, smart. He had his whole life ahead of him, a glorious future that promised fame and fortune. All of that was taken away early one morning on a sharp curve in a country road.

  Judge Beck nodded. “Holt Dupree. I haven’t told the kids yet. Chief Danson said they were trying to keep a lid on it until his family and the spokesperson for the Falcons could make a statement. It will probably hit the press this evening at the latest, and I’m sure rumors are already flying.”

  My brain didn’t want to make sense of this. “He was supposed to have left town after the fireworks. Why was he still here, and what was he doing with Peony Smith in his car?”

  I had a good idea what he was doing with Peony Smith in his truck at two in the morning and his team’s PR person would have had a fit. So much for Daisy’s intuition and her informant. It seems that Holt Dupree wasn’t as careful about random liaisons and ensuring his partners were of legal age after all. And it wasn’t like Peony could have lied to him when everyone in the town knew she was fifteen. Heck, Holt grew up here, in the same neighborhood as she had. He’d dated her older sister. He knew Peony was still in high school without needing to ask anyone.

  “As neither her mother or Peony are alleging any wrongdoing, we may never know what she was doing in his car.” The judge grimaced. “I can guess, and I’m a horrible person because I’m just glad it wasn’t Madison. Accident aside, he shouldn’t have been messing around with her. She’s still in high school, for God’s sake.”

  Seven years difference wasn’t that big of a deal at our age, but in the teen years it was a huge gap. And beyond that, it was illegal. Fifteen was under the age of consent unless the other individual was no more than four years older. In a few months, Peony would have been sixteen, and although that was still far too young to be fooling around with a twenty-two-year-old in my opinion, the relationship would have been legal then.

  A few months. It made all the difference in the world in the eyes of the law, but in my somewhat conservative eyes, it made no difference at all.

  “He passed me going really fast, and weaving, as if he’d lost control of the truck. He clipped that other car.” I thought again of Deputy Pickford’s comment. “Was he drunk? He grew up here, he had to have known that road was winding, and that curve dangerous.”

  It wasn’t any easier to excuse him fooling around with a fifteen-year-old girl than driving her around while drunk. What if he’d killed her as well? Or that other man?

  “They ran a tox screen since it’s a fatality. Chief Danson told me there was alcohol in the truck, but it was hard to tell if the smell was from Holt or Peony or the broken pint of Jack on the floor. We’ll have to wait and see.”

  How the mighty had fallen. And how very quickly Holt had fallen after his recent rise to fame. It was sad to think of what his life might have been, cut short so young. Twenty-two. I was just glad his soul didn’t have Peony’s death on it as well.

  “I can’t believe he’s dead.” Madison’s eyes were puffy, her nose red. “We had so much fun on the raft at the regatta. He carried me out of the water. I saw him yesterday at the parade on the float with the cheerleaders. How can he be dead?”

  Because sometimes death comes with the swiftness of a bolt of lightning, striking us while we are unprepared and far too young. Although I could hardly say that to Madison, who was young and scared and looking for some reason why this had happened. I remembered how invulnerable children felt, how death was something that happened to the old. Eventually that innocence was shattered by a schoolmate’s death from cancer, or drowning, or some accident. Even I was shaken, and I’d grown somewhat used to death stopping by to take someone I knew—my parents, a friend, my husband. But for a teenager who’d expected to not encounter that grim reaper for many years, this was terrifying.

  If Holt Dupree, who was almost a superhero, could die without warning, when his life was in the ascendancy, when everything was going his way, then what faith did Madison have that she would live to see tomorrow? Or that her brother or best friend would live to see tomorrow?

  “And Peony…she could have died too,” Madison continued. “She was in the car, and she might have died.”

  Madison’s friend. Not a best friend, but still someone who got included in parties and gatherings. That cut even more close to home for the girl. I reached out and smoothed my hand down her glossy dark hair, resting it on her shoulder.

  “I know. It’s scary, isn’t it? I’m glad Peony is okay. And I wish Holt had been okay, too.”

  “Was he drunk? I mean, he had to have been drunk, right? Chelsea said Holt wasn’t drinking at the party on Persimmon Bridge, but he couldn’t have had the accident if he wasn’t drunk.”

  I could barely stand that look of fear in her eyes, but I couldn’t lie to her. “The police think he might have been drinking but we don’t know yet why he had the accident.”

  “He was at a party, drinking, and missed the turn,” she announced confidently.

  I remembered the truck passing me, the driver skillfully and confidently cutting back into our lane to take that first curve. He hadn’t been weaving. He hadn’t been drifting around like I assumed that drunk drivers did. But he was going fast, and on that road, a split second of delayed response, and an overcorrection… There was a broken bottle of whisky in the car, but was Holt Dupree drunk? Had he been drinking, or was the whisky Peony’s?

  “Madison, many people have car accidents sober. A wet pavement, or a moment of inattention, or lack of sleep, sometimes an accident is an accident.” I didn’t want to scare her further, but I couldn’t confidently say this was alcohol related until the labs and the medical examiner told us so.

  “So if I don’t drive, and don’t drink, and…”

  I pulled her into my arms and hugged her tight. “No, you live your life, because worrying and living in fear does nothing to change whatever might be in your future. Don’t drink and drive, or take drugs. And when you do drive, drive carefully. Do all those other things smart people do to stay safe, but don’t waste your life, whether it’s thirty years or ninety years, by living in fear.”

  “I can’t believe he’s dead,” Madison sobbed into my shoulder.

  I rubbed her back, relishing the softness of her dark hair against my face, smelling the apricot-vanilla shampoo she used and for a brief second, imagining that she was my daughter—the child I’d always prayed for but never received.

  “I know
, sweetie. I know.”

  Heather came to pick the kids up that night. They filed out in somber silence, Madison’s face still tear-stained, her eyes red. I waved them off, then as Judge Beck spread his work out on the dining room table, I vanished into the basement with Taco and my knitting. There I finished my scarf and wrapped it around my shoulders as I snuggled my cat and watched old Will & Grace episodes. Eli’s ghost kept me company, hovering just off to the side of the television.

  He’d been fifty-two at the time of the accident, sixty-one when he’d died earlier this year. It had been too soon. He’d been too young.

  “At least you weren’t twenty-two,” I told the ghost. As usual, he didn’t reply, didn’t do more than shift a bit farther left of the TV. Twenty-two. Seven years older than Madison. Nobody should have their life cut off that young, even a cocky, ambitious football player. Nobody.

  I turned off the television and carried Taco up to bed, hoping that all the ghosts haunting me—both literally and figuratively—were at rest come morning.

  Chapter 13

  “You doing okay?”

  J.T. sat his briefcase on his desk and poured a cup of coffee before coming to hover over me. The news of Holt Dupree’s death had hit the town hard. It was all over the news by yesterday evening, shared throughout social media with expressions of shock and dismay. The town was in mourning, and I’d bet that section of Jones Road was covered with flowers, letters, and memorabilia. I wouldn’t know. I didn’t drive that way and didn’t plan on doing so ever again.

  “Thanks for asking, I’m fine.” I turned my chair to face my boss. “Please tell me you’re not going to make this into an episode of Gator, Private Eye.”

  He laughed obligingly at my attempt to keep things light. “Of course not. There’s no mystery to solve, no bad guy to catch. Poor kid had too much whisky and missed the turn. Almost took out that oncoming car. Could have killed his passenger. It’s a bad road to be driving drunk.”