The Stories You Tell

by Kristen Lepionka

  You started this.

  The words hung in the air, the way only Catherine could make them.

  * * *

  I wanted back into Nightshade, but obviously Bo wasn’t going to let me in for a third time. Not after the conversation I’d had with his boss last night. Shane’s Jag was not in evidence at the motel, and when I banged on the door, I heard nothing in response. I was mad enough to kick it in—this was not the kind of place to have a reinforced door—but opted for a more nuanced approach instead: I went down to the office and hoped the green-haired woman was working again.

  She was.

  Her name was Kez, and she reported that Shane had only paid for a week in the room. He hadn’t come in to renew, so as far as she was concerned, he was no longer a guest.

  “Has his room been cleaned?”

  “Uh, yeah.” Her thin face wrinkled up in something like annoyance. “I already told him, gotta stay up on the trash situation here. Otherwise we get roaches the size of hamburger buns.”

  “You talked to him, afterwards.”

  She didn’t say anything.

  “Did he leave something behind?”

  “Like I told him, we put the trash in the Dumpster behind the building and he could look through it if he was so inclined, which he was.”

  “I’ll bet that was a sight.”

  “Oooh, I’ll tell you, it was. We got a good laugh.”

  “Did he find what he was looking for?”

  “I don’t think he did, no.”

  “Did he say what it was?”

  Her eyes made a split-second flick to something on the desk. “No?”

  “Is that a question?” I craned my neck to see what she had looked at—either a grubby desk phone or a box of blue nitrile gloves. I realized that when I asked if Shane had left anything behind, she was the one who mentioned the trash. “What are those for?”

  “Just a safety precaution. I know there’s hepatitis all through this shithole.”

  “Yeah, especially in their garbage. You go through it?”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Kez,” I said, “you know how the other day you told me you want to track down guys who screw over their girlfriends on bail money?”

  She gave a curt nod.

  “Well, this asshole borrowed a bunch of cash from his girl’s car accident settlement, bought a crappy nightclub, had to get a loan from a loan shark just to keep the lights on, and is currently screwing over both of them. So he’s not exactly worthy of your protection.”

  “I’m not protecting him.”

  “Did you go through the trash?”

  “Hey, people throw out so many cans—I’m thinking of Mother Earth here, and definitely not the cans-for-cash place over on Fulton.”

  “Look, I’m not judging. I just want to know what he was looking for.”

  She took her feet down off the desk and stood up, arms folded over her chest.

  I said, “I don’t do skip-tracing for bail bondsmen, but I know a couple guys who do. Maybe I can connect you. If you help me out here.”

  Kez sighed. “Some sneakers, nice ones. And a bunch of little webcams.”

  “Little webcams?”

  “Yeah, these cute little stick-on things.”

  “If they weren’t in the Dumpster, where are they?”

  “Ah, come on.”

  “Do you still have them?”

  She led me into a back room where it appeared the trash sorting happened. Two giant bins of crushed cans stood on one side, while the other side had a wide range of small electronics—smartphones, headphones, tablets, flatirons, handheld Nintendos, digital cameras, e-cigarettes, razors—and approximately one billion charging cables for everything thereof.

  “This is the lost and found, I take it?” I said.

  “Something like that. Um, let’s see…” Kez sifted through the stuff.

  “So is this all left behind in rooms, or do you steal it?”

  “Steal? No. Most of it’s just left after people check out. If they call later to ask about it, we’ll give it back. Unless they’re assholes. Then we might just say we didn’t find it and proceed with the plan.”

  “Which is?”

  “Here they are, this is them.”

  “And they were just in the trash in one-sixteen?”

  “Swear to goddess.”

  Kez held four white plastic items out to me. As far as security cameras went, these looked more like a novelty than something that would actually increase the security of a place; they each had an oval-shaped head attached with a ball joint onto a flat base, the back of which had a small pad of adhesive still attached from where it had been affixed to the wall of Nightshade. I probed one of them, looking for a way to connect it to a computer. Tucked up under its neck, I found a slot that looked about the right size for an SD card, but it was empty. I checked the others and found two that did contain cards.

  “You,” I said, “are amazing.”

  THIRTY

  I wasn’t normally a germaphobe, but given the fact that the cameras had been first at Nightshade and then at the grossest motel in the world, I didn’t want to take any chances. I wiped them down with Windex—better than nothing?—before I set about a full inspection. The cameras themselves were lightweight, probably inexpensive. They operated on a nickel-sized watch battery and featured an on/off switch and a button labeled “sync” below the memory card slot, along with a mini-USB port.

  I opened my nightmare cord drawer and teased a mini-USB out of the mess, along with a memory card reader. When I inserted one of the cards from the camera, my laptop thought about it for a while, clicking and whirring, but the little icon didn’t pop up anywhere.

  I took it out and switched them.

  Same deal.

  I tried hooking up the camera itself via the mini-USB, which worked—except there was nothing stored on the camera.

  I googled the model number and read about what it was meant to be used for: Wi-Fi indoor security camera helps you keep everything and everyone you love safe! This model is fully equipped with advanced features such as night vision and motion alerts. Using our proprietary app, you can receive mobile notifications whenever your camera detects motion, and can even link together with other cameras to create a security network around your home!

  The whole thing was ninety bucks out the door, which included a thirty-two-gig memory card. So it was definitely a piece of crap, designed to monitor a detached garage for break-ins, not to serve as the security system for a nightclub. But it obviously had, at least to some capacity.

  The footage was likely stored in Shane Resznik’s phone; it was a shame that the cards didn’t appear to work.

  But when I clicked back to my desktop, I saw that the second card had finally popped up. Maybe it just took a while? I opened it up and saw dozens of video files, all named with time stamps.

  I clicked on the most recent one: Thursday morning, 4:06 a.m.

  It showed the dirty floor in the hallway that ran from the dance floor to the restrooms, the office, and into the back area; the camera must have been mounted slightly crooked, because I also saw a section of baseboard on the opposite side of the wall.

  I clicked play and watched a top-down view of a door opening, then closing, then opening again.

  The top of a gelled blond head.

  Shane, dragging something—which turned out to be the same chair I’d used to inspect the sticky area on the wall.

  He set the chair directly below the camera, hopped up, and the last thing the video showed before he ripped the camera off the wall was his creepy goatee and scared eyes.

  It wasn’t a very good camera angle—all it would show was someone entering or exiting the office. Then again, if his main “security” concern was keeping people out of the room where he pulled his funny business with the books, cameras like these would do just fine.

  I clicked down the list and saw the door open again, then close.

 
Ditto for the third video.

  I examined the time stamps and saw that there were thirty-nine videos of the office door opening and closing on Wednesday night/Thursday morning, whereas on a regular night, there were no more than ten.

  I started at the earliest time stamp on Wednesday night and watched in order:

  Shane walks in.

  Shane walks out.

  Shane walks in talking on his phone.

  Shane walks out talking on his phone.

  I skipped ahead a few hours.

  Shane walks in with his hand clamped on the ass of a woman other than Lisette.

  The woman exits, the visible part of her expression one of annoyance.

  Then, Addison walks down the hall and into the back. I recognized her boots, the sopping-wet corduroy ones she’d left in her sunporch.

  Shane walks out of the office.

  A man walks down the hall toward the back.

  I replayed it once, then a second time. Leather jacket, thick-soled shoes, pattern baldness in a buzz cut, a stiff, unsteady gait. He kept his head down, face tucked into his collar.

  I couldn’t say for sure without the face, but I was willing to guess that this was Mickey Dillman.

  I moved onto the next clip: Dillman coming back the other way, being herded by an employee I didn’t know.

  Then: Addison coming back the other way. She ducked into the bathroom.

  Then: Dillman came back into view, jiggled the office doorknob but didn’t open it. He went back into the club.

  Addison came out of the bathroom and went back into the club too. The camera caught a flash of the tattoo on her back as she walked away.

  The next hour was nothing but increasingly drunk patrons accidentally bumping into the office door while feeling around in the semidarkness for the bathroom.

  Finally, though, at one-thirty, I found something: Addison’s corduroy boots and Dillman’s thick-soled shoes, approaching the office together.

  Addison punched the code into the keypad on the door and they both went inside, the door closing behind them.

  Six minutes later, the door flew open and Addison bolted down the hall toward the back of the club. The door slammed closed, then popped open again, and the man who might’ve been Dillman staggered out, looked around, and followed the same path Addison had taken to the back door.

  A short while after that, Shane entered the frame and pulled the office door shut, but didn’t go in.

  Neither Addison nor Mickey had reappeared.

  I was approaching the end of the video clips.

  In the third to last, Shane walked past the office door to the back room. Seconds later, same clip, he was backing slowly down the hall, toward the dance floor.

  Second to last clip: Shane and Wyatt—I recognized him from his shoes, too—walking quickly down the hallway, then briefly reentering the frame and unlocking the office door.

  Then I was back to the parting shot of him tearing the camera off the wall.

  What the hell did I just watch?

  I went through the section with Addison again. Her posture while walking with Dillman seemed more or less relaxed, but when she came running out of the office, her shoulders were around her ears, her hands balled into fists at her sides.

  * * *

  “That could literally be anyone,” Detective Blair said on Monday morning, frowning thoroughly despite the fact that I’d brought coffee and bagels. “I mean, you don’t see anybody’s faces except for this club owner, who’s exactly nobody to me.”

  “It could be anybody, but it’s not,” I said. “These are Addison’s shoes. I’m willing to bet that somewhere on social media, you can find a picture of her wearing them. That and the tattoo? It’s her. And this,” I added, pointing at my screen at the form of Mickey Dillman, “is the guy who chased her out into the street and had her scared enough to run to my brother’s place.”

  The rest of my audience—Mizuno, Tom, and the young Detective Clark—did not seem entirely convinced.

  “So what you’re telling us,” Mizuno said, “is that for some reason, a well-respected cop came to a nightclub to harass a deejay, frightening her so much she ran to your brother’s apartment for help, then left a terrified voice mail for her father, then shortly after, ran right back out into the street?”

  I tapped the screen again. “We already know from Addison’s roommate that he had come to their place, looking for her. We know he interacted with her second BusPass account. And this proves that he came to the club.”

  Blair blew a raspberry. “No, this proves that some guy came to the club. For all we know, this is your brother.”

  “Yeah, no,” Tom said. “Andrew Weary’s at least six inches taller than Mickey was, and he has a full head of hair.”

  “Do you want me to pass that compliment on to him?” I said, and Tom smirked. I nudged the bag of cameras that I’d brought. “I don’t know if there is anything on these, or on the card I couldn’t get to work. If only there was some bureaucracy around here that had access to digital forensics.”

  “She’s pretty pleased with herself,” Blair muttered.

  “Not really. I just know that my brother is telling the truth.”

  “Sweetheart, no one can know that.”

  “Sweetheart. Did you really just say that?”

  “Okay, let’s keep it friendly here,” Clark said, speaking for the first time since the meeting started; she’d been keeping busy taking notes. “So what are we supposed to think happened, after they went off the video here? How did Mickey—if this is him,” she amended as Blair started to interrupt. “What happened between the club and the river?”

  “These guys know something.” I clicked on the file that showed Shane and Wyatt. “Owner, bouncer. They were holed up in a motel room together, refusing to talk, until a few days ago. Then Wyatt has his run-in with the SWAT team, and Shane suddenly feels chatty and bares his soul to Vincent Pomp, to whom he owes more than a little bit of cash.”

  “Bares his soul about what?”

  “He claims that he was voiding transactions and skimming money.”

  “From himself?”

  “From his business, which is in hock to Pomp up to its grimy ceilings.”

  Blair took off his glasses and polished them with a napkin from the bagel box, which appeared to make them dirtier. He was still frowning at me but I could tell he was getting interested. “So what’s that have to do with Addison or Mickey?”

  “Well, Shane told Pomp that all of this—meaning me being nosy—is because Addison discovered what he was doing with the voided transactions. She confronted him, he yelled at her, she got upset and left.”

  All four cops looked at me like that was the stupidest thing they’d ever heard, which it was.

  “Maybe she told Mickey something about it?” Clark volunteered, a little hesitant. “And in the clip where she comes out of the office, she’s scared of Shane?”

  “Or,” Tom said, “she’s scared of Mickey because he’s threatening to bust Shane if she doesn’t, I don’t know, cooperate or something?”

  Clark shook her head. “But Mickey shouldn’t be working a case. Shouldn’t have been. He was on leave.”

  I said, “I have a whole list of bad theories that I can share if you want.”

  I played the video of Addison darting out of the office again and we all watched. It lasted twenty-five seconds, and it told us nothing.

  * * *

  “That should give them something to chew on for a while,” Tom said as we rode down to the lobby in the elevator. “Props to you for bringing it forward, not just going it alone this time.”

  “Hey. I’m a paragon of professionalism.”

  The elevator stopped on the second floor and a half-dozen people pushed in. Tom bumped into me while trying to make room for them. “Sorry—”

  “No, it’s fine—”

  He leaned close to my ear. “Are we back to things being awkward between us?”

  “Why, b
ecause you co-opted my bed in the middle of the night?” I whispered back. “No, why ever would that make things awkward?”

  He rolled his eyes, holding back a laugh until the elevator stopped on the ground level and the doors opened and our fellow passengers got out. Then he said, “I’m really sorry, about that. I keep thinking about it and cringing.”

  “I’m not sure if I should be offended by that.”

  “What—no, I’m saying I embarrassed myself.”

  We had paused just inside the doors to the street, which was the nothing color of the sky and vice versa. I looked at him. “Tom, we’re past the trying to impress each other stage. At least I seriously hope we are, because if we aren’t, I’ve really been fucking up.”

  * * *

  She’d called me three times that morning, Catherine had. I still didn’t want to talk to her. I knew I’d have to eventually, but now was not that time. Instead I went home and made tea and looked at Rose W’s BusPass account.

  Still no response from Rajit, but I had gotten a new message from Joseph last night:

  This is Joe’s wife, you slut. HIS WIFE HE HAS A WIFE don’t write him again.

  I was, once again, worried about straight people.

  I refrained from suggesting that she just delete his BusPass account rather than monitoring it and harassing the relatively innocent people who contacted him there, and instead sent her my phone number and said we need to talk.

  BD E, meanwhile, had fallen silent yesterday after saying brb. I reminded him that I existed.

  ROSE W: Tired of me already?

  BD E: No sorry, got caught up. How’s ur day going

  ROSE W: Not bad. Caffeine cures everything

  BD E: True dat. U at work

  ROSE W: Sort of

  ROSE W: I work from home

  BD E: Doing what?

  ROSE W: Social media

  BD E: Rly?

  ROSE W: Yeah

  BD E: For what

  ROSE W: A company that makes workout clothes

  BD E: For men or women?