by Jill Orr
“I’m just glad you knew you could count on me,” Ryan said as we drove over to his family’s store.
“To give me a ride. Obviously not for anything more than that.”
“Damn, baby, that’s cold.”
“Get used to it.”
Ryan smiled like I had just said something nice. I had no idea why he was so thrilled to be driving me around to do my errands, but I wasn’t going to ask. With my parents out of town, and pretty much no other friends in the world, my choices of people to call in favors from were slim. Plus, Ryan owed me. I figured an afternoon of hauling me around was a small price to pay for breaking my heart and ruining the future I’d planned on since I was a girl.
We got to his father’s store, and after we chatted with him for a few minutes, Ryan loaded his truck with everything I’d need to take care of Coltrane. Ryan hooked me up with a large wire crate, raised food dishes, three fifty-pound bags of high-protein food, a doggie hairbrush, flea and tick shampoo, nail clippers, a retractable leash, and five kinds of chew toys. I protested, saying I couldn’t afford all of this, but Ryan’s father insisted I take it. “On the house, sweetie,” Hank said. He was a man of few words, but the look in his eyes said: Sorry my son is such a dumbass.
I thanked him profusely and promised to have my parents call when they got back in town. On the ride home, Ryan asked, “Do you want to tell me what’s really going on with you?”
“Not really, no.”
“C’mon, Riley,” he said. “Car bombings? 911 calls in the middle of the night? This isn’t like you.”
“Maybe it is like me,” I said, sounding like a petulant child. “Maybe you don’t know me as well as you think you do?” I crossed my arms across my chest.
“I know you better than anyone,” he said. I hated that he was right. “I don’t know what you’re mixed up in, but I wish you’d let me help.”
For a moment, I felt my hard shell of anger begin to crack. It would be so nice to tell him everything. He’d always been the person I’d confided in when things were tough, and he had a way of calming me and helping me gain perspective. I hesitated, trying to decide whether I should open up to him, and in that moment of hesitation, his phone vibrated. It was sitting on the console between us. I looked at the screen. Ridley’s name flashed on the display.
“Your baby mama’s calling,” I sniped, my hard shell re-forming.
Ryan sighed and pressed the silence button. “Riley—”
We had just pulled into my driveway, and before the truck even stopped, I had the door open. “Thanks for taking me today,” I said in clipped tones, “and thanks for all the stuff. That was really generous of your dad.”
“Ril—”
“Do you mind bringing it into the garage? Thanks!” I slammed the door and went inside.
When Ryan left, it was 2:30, and I still hadn’t heard from Holman. I texted him again, and yet again, I waited for the telltale ellipses to pop up, but they didn’t. I decided to call him instead. Maybe he was driving and couldn’t text. But my call went straight to voicemail. “Hello. You have reached the voice-recording device of William Holman. If you wish to receive a call back, please leave a message. If you do not leave a message, I will probably not call you back as I will assume you dialed me in error.”
I called the Times, but the receptionist said he hadn’t come in to work yet. I must have been worried because that’s the only explanation for what I did next. “Is Hal Flick around?”
“One moment please.”
“This is Flick.” His rough voice came across the line a few seconds later.
“It’s Riley,” I said without preamble. “I’m calling to see if you know where Holman is. It’s been a while since I’ve heard from him, and I’m getting worried.”
He paused before answering. “Haven’t seen him since yesterday. Did you try his cell phone?”
“Obviously.” I knew it was wrong to sound so irritated when I was asking for a favor, but I couldn’t help it. “No answer. He’s not returning my texts either.”
“He’s a big boy. I’m sure he’s fine.”
I sighed, annoyed he wasn’t being more helpful. But what had I expected?
“What are you two working on anyway?”
“Don’t ask questions you already know the answers to. It insults us both.”
“You should stay away from this story, Riley.”
“I’ll take it under advisement.”
“This is not something you want to get involved with.” Flick lowered his voice to a gruff but urgent whisper. “I’m serious. These people are not playing around.”
“I know that,” I said, “but I think finding out what happened to my friend is important enough to take a few risks. I guess that’s where we’re different.”
In the silence that followed, I felt the sting of my words. After a beat he said, “Listen, there are things you don’t know—”
“Yeah, like where Holman is. So I need to go and find out—bye!” I pressed end.
The encounter, like all my encounters with Flick, left me shaken. I couldn’t think of another person in the world who made me as angry as Hal Flick. Why did he think he had the right to tell me what to do? He wasn’t family. He wasn’t even a loyal friend to Granddaddy in the end. He could have pushed the sheriff to investigate more completely, or he could have done what Holman was doing for Jordan and investigated the death himself. But he chose to do nothing. It was like the moment Granddaddy died, he ceased to exist for Flick. I would never forgive him for that.
I felt restless about Holman and Flick, so I threw a leash on Coltrane and decided to take a walk. The sun was still scorching hot even though it was almost 5 p.m. But, despite Coltrane’s thick coat, he seemed happy to be sniffing his way along the sidewalks toward town. I didn’t really have an agenda when I left the house, but decided as I walked through the park to wander over toward the sheriff’s office. I thought if I just happened to see Ajay there, and just happened to have the opportunity to apologize to him, well, then that was purely a coincidence.
When I got there, it wasn’t Ajay that I saw. It was Joe Tackett standing against a tree outside, smoking a cigarette.
“Joe.”
“Riley.”
I was going to walk straight past, but Coltrane pulled so hard on the leash I nearly fell over. He started barking—and I mean really barking—about a foot from Tackett.
“Jesus!” he screamed and scrambled away from Coltrane. “What’s with your dog?”
“Coltrane!” I pulled hard on the leash to try to get him to stop, but he wouldn’t. He wasn’t trying to attack him, but there was definitely something about the Sheriff that he didn’t like.
“What the hell!” Tackett was clearly upset. I didn’t blame him. I could see what Mrs. James meant when she said Coltrane could be scary. With every bark his razor-sharp teeth flashed, and it didn’t take much imagination to think how they’d feel slicing through skin. He barked and snarled repeatedly, despite my pleas for him to stop. It wasn’t until Tackett climbed over the back edge of the bench and went back inside the building that he stopped barking. He was panting heavily and kept his eagle-gaze glued to the door.
“Shhhhh,” I cooed, bending down to stroke his head. “It’s okay. Joe is kind of a jerk, but he won’t hurt you.”
“Nicotine,” a voice from behind me said. My heart flew into my throat, and I stumbled a little trying to get up from my crouching position. It was Ajay. “He was reacting to the nicotine,” Ajay said, holding out the back of his hand for Coltrane to sniff. “Former police dog?”
I nodded, heart still pounding inside my chest. Ajay looked as handsome as ever; the only difference was this time he had no smile for me.
“Some dogs are trained to sniff for nicotine in addition to illegal drugs.”
“He was a rescue,” I said. “Given up for being gun shy. He belonged to Jordan, actually. I think he’s mine now.”
“Pretty dog.” Ajay smiled at C
oltrane and petted his head.
In the bright light of day, there was so much I wanted to say to Ajay, but I wasn’t sure where to start. The thick wall of stuff between us would take more than a simple “I’m sorry” to break through. But I supposed it was a good place to start. I took a deep breath and said, “Listen, I want to apologize.”
Ajay pulled his hand back from the dog and thrust both hands into the pockets of his pants. “For calling 911 on me?”
“Yes.”
“And for leading me on?”
“Yes.”
“And for thinking I was a criminal?”
“If I could just explain—”
“Why you thought I was capable of…what was it you thought I did, anyway?” he asked.
“I know it seems bad, and looking back I can see how maybe I jumped to a few conclusions, but Holman thought so too…and when he told me you were married, I just felt so stupid.…” My argument petered out. It sounded less like justifiable batshit and more like the regular variety.
“If you had questions, you should have asked me.”
“Fair enough,” I said. “But I just want you to know that it wasn’t all fake.”
He rolled his eyes and looked away.
“It’s true. I mean, I didn’t start to think you were, um, involved in anything bad until after that night we ate at the fish shack when we.…”
His eyes flicked toward me, and I wondered if he was thinking back to that moment of our first kiss, in his car. The heat, the passion, the promise of it. I thought maybe the smallest amount of tenderness was growing between us.
“But then you decided I was a criminal without having any proof whatsoever?”
“No—”
He put his hand up, stopping my protest. “Anyway. I came out here to let you know the ruling on your car explosion was catastrophic battery failure due to improper jump starting.” When I looked at him blankly, he added, “User error with jumper cables.”
“User error?” I asked, confused. “But it wasn’t being used at the time. I was sleeping off a monster hangover if you remember.”
“I remember.” Ajay furrowed his brow. “But the lab found evidence at the scene consistent with an explosion due to an external ignition source and poor battery connectivity. In layman’s terms, it looked like someone was jumping the car and hooked up the cables incorrectly, causing the battery to explode. The department is ruling it an accident.”
I was shocked and more confused than ever. “But I don’t understand—my car wasn’t being jumped at the time!”
“According to the investigators, it was.”
I didn’t know what to say. I stood there with my mouth hanging open for at least three solid seconds. “So that’s it? That’s what the official report is going to say?”
Ajay shrugged. “I guess so.”
My voice rose in protest and a shrill, “No!” escaped from the back of my throat.
Ajay flinched.
“Someone else must have jumped it and connected it wrong on purpose! I’m sure they wanted it to look like an accident! It was probably Romero or, or—”
Ajay looked at me, an unreadable expression on his face. I had clearly lost all credibility where my hunches were concerned. I let my voice trail off, feeling a little bit like the girl who cried gangster.
“I’m just the messenger here, Riley. If you have questions, I’d suggest asking Carl or Joe.”
I deserved his coldness, but it still stung. I knew he could have looked into this further for me—he was an explosives expert, after all. He just hadn’t wanted to. He was obviously still angry with me. I’d have to take it up with someone whose heart I hadn’t just stomped on.
I took a steadying breath and said, “Okay. Thanks.”
“Just doing my job.” He gave Coltrane one more pet on the head and walked inside.
“I tell my students to look for clues to the life story that’s left behind. Sometimes there are poems, emails, or journals that often, in a way, write the story for you, or at least give you a map.”
—JIM SHEELER, in an interview on Poynter.org
CHAPTER 33
I cut through Memorial Park again on my way back home, agitated by what I’d just learned. Whoever blew up my car had been savvy enough to make it look like an accident. And, it seemed like they were going to get away with it. Joe Tackett hated my guts, so he’d be no help, and I had already admitted to Carl that I’d been drinking that night. I wondered if I could convince Carl to look into it? That this was all an elaborate setup?
We had just reached the edge of the park when Coltrane started pulling at the leash, carrying me in his wake and nearly ripping my arm from its socket. He was headed straight for Mr. Monroe, who was standing almost in the same place I’d seen him earlier that morning outside the courthouse.
“Don’t worry, he won’t hurt you!” I said in case the sight of a German shepherd running toward him might make him nervous.
By the time I caught up with Coltrane’s leash, Mr. Monroe had already bent down and made nice with him. “Hey, puppy! Whose a good doggy?” he asked using a goofy dog-voice. Coltrane whined and wagged his tail and licked Kevin’s face.
I was still on edge about our conversation from earlier, but there was no getting around stopping to chat—not with Coltrane practically licking him to death. “He sure likes you.”
Mr. Monroe stood. “What can I say? I’m a dog person.”
Coltrane looked up at him like he was holding a T-bone steak. Mr. Monroe petted his head and patted his side, but after a few seconds, he snapped at Coltrane, who sat immediately.
“I’d say so,” I said, impressed. “You need to give me some tips. I just got him from Mrs. James. He was Jordan’s most recent rescue.”
“Ah,” Kevin nodded as he scratched behind Coltrane’s ear. “Seems like a good dog. Glad he found a new home.” He paused. “Listen, I have an update for you on that stuff we talked about.”
“Wow—that was fast!”
“I talked to a guy I know in the sheriff’s department, and he said Romero is one-hundred-percent clean. ‘A model citizen’ were his exact words. If Jordan got a tip about his taco trucks, maybe it was a complaint about food safety or something—but nothing sinister is going on there, I promise you.”
Kevin laughed, but I felt like I could cry. I’d been wrong. Again. I’d listened to Holman and allowed myself to be deluded into thinking there was some evil taco chef running around Tuttle Corner killing innocent young reporters. Even I had to admit how stupid it sounded when you really thought about it.
“Okay, thanks, Kevin,” I said, just wanting to get home and forget all about this day.
I worked on Jordan’s obituary for a couple of hours, mostly just writing and rewriting the same four sentences. The truth was I hadn’t had much luck coming up with anything fitting. What I had so far was a dry accounting of facts, the exact opposite of what I hoped to create. Every time I tried to write about her, the vision of how she died stopped me cold. I felt sure this was no cut-and-dried suicide, but other than Romero we had no suspects. If he was clean, like Kevin said, who could possibly have wanted to kill Jordan? It was like I had to know how she died in order to write about her life. I was completely blocked. Eventually, I gave up, telling myself I’d try again tomorrow.
Coltrane’s wet nose nudged me out of my dreamless sleep at 6:02 a.m. It was a bright, clear morning. The air was muggy and held the promise of the heat that was sure to come later in the day. The sun had just poked above the horizon, the birds swooped and chirped as they gathered breakfast, and I could hear the sounds of neighbors’ sprinkler systems rat-tat-tatting. I took a deep breath and drank in the morning. As early as it was, I felt completely refreshed. I’d slept better than I had in months. Coltrane’s presence, whether it was because I felt safe with him around or simply because I wasn’t alone for the first time in a long while, relaxed me enough to allow a glorious eight hours of sleep. And boy, was I going to need it.
The Friends of the Tuttle Corner Library book sale happened twice a year, in June and December. Citizens were encouraged to donate books for the sale throughout the year, and we’d sell them for fifty cents per hardcover and twenty-five cents for a paperback. Next to the Johnnycake Festival, the book sale was one of the biggest highlights of the year, and the June sale was today.
I was running from fiction to nonfiction to reshelf Sarah Palin’s America by Heart, and I ran into a pair of rather toned biceps. “I’m so sorry—” I started to say, but when I realized it was Ajay, my voice faded away.
“You’ve been saying that a lot lately,” he quipped, lowering the book he’d been looking through, Ben Mezrich’s Sex on the Moon.
“Hi,” I stammered once I could find my voice. “You’re here.…”
“Yeah. Just came over on a break between training sessions at the department. This book sale is the talk of the town.”
“Looks like you’ve got a winner there.” I pointed to the book in his hand.
“You’ve read it?”
“It’s pretty wild.”
“Sex on the moon would be.”
I blushed. “It’s not really about that. It’s about this college student who was interning at NASA. He promises his girlfriend that he’ll get her the moon—or moon rocks, in this case—and plans this crazy heist to steal them for her.”
Ajay cocked one eyebrow up. “And does he?”
“He does,” I said. “But then he goes to prison.”
“You spoiled the ending.”
I looked into his eyes and wanted to say something profound. Something about how I wish we could start over and maybe there could be another ending for us, but I lost my nerve. I was sure he didn’t want to hear it anyway.
“Nah, you can read as much on the jacket. You should get it. I think you’d like it.”
“Well, I never turn down a book recommendation by a librarian.”
