by Sonya Clark
I refused to explain. Let her look it up or just be clueless. Her perfume was choking my allergies and I wanted out of there. “Yeah, so I’m gonna get going. Need to check some stuff at the library.”
She nodded, tapping the folder on the open palm of her free hand. She made no move to approach me for a motherly hug and I followed her lead. With an awkward goodbye I left.
The library was two blocks away. I hustled through the blustery spring day, head down against the wind. Stepping into the library felt like greeting an old friend. As soon as I was able I’d started spending as much time as possible away from home, usually either Rozella’s house or the library. The building was in severe need of upgrading but there were better and more computers and a huge flat-screen television in the magazine reading corner turned to cable news. The TV felt incongruous but I ignored it and went to the circulation desk to ask about using my laptop, hoping for Wi-Fi.
Praise the Baby Elvis, the library did indeed have free Wi-Fi. I picked an out of the way desk and plugged in, first checking my email. Nothing but junk there so I found the website for the Blythe Ledger and attempted to search for articles about the death of Britney Parker. There was nothing in the past week which was as far as I could go without purchasing a subscription. That made the Baby Elvis sad and I cursed old media for not giving me what I wanted for free. Laughing at myself, I resorted to a general web search.
The generation after mine was comfortable showing their grief in public. I found social media mentions of Britney’s death and a website dedicated to her memory. The garish look of it brought back memories of the inside of high school lockers. Bless their plagiarist heart, the person who put up the site appeared to have copied Ledger articles word for word. Leaving in the byline was my first clue. I did a little copy and pasting of my own, saved the articles in a new folder on my desktop and clipped some of the pictures too. A few were school photos but most were candid shots and much more recent based on the changes in her face. She was a stunning girl, with all-American beauty queen looks.
Even crappy cellphone pictures couldn’t hide the intelligence in her eyes. This was a smart girl, a self-aware girl. A dead girl.
The Ledger articles didn’t tell me much. Frankly, I hadn’t expected them to. Not a lot of muckraking goes on in small town papers. I just wanted a place to start. Testimonials about what a great girl Britney had been were just as useless but I did copy down every name I found. Done with that, I found a few more generic articles from some other West Tennessee new sources and finally Daniel’s planted bit in a ghost-hunting forum.
Then I went back to the Ledger. The day’s edition had just hit the web, a nice big color picture of Ray standing by his patrol car as others suited up in hazmat gear to bust up a meth lab. He had his hands on his hips and he squinted against the bright lights set up for the drug task force to work by in the dark.
I had no trouble believing plenty of women routinely offered him pie.
I spent the rest of the day avoiding town, holed up in the lake house reading and napping. Mostly napping. Not wanting to discuss my evening plans with Daniel, I slipped out before he woke for the night.
Ray lived on the opposite side of the county, about fifteen minutes from downtown Blythe. He’d inherited his grandfather’s house and kept it in excellent condition. I parked next to his patrol car and climbed the steps to the porch. It took knocking three times for him to answer the door.
Soaking wet. Wearing only a towel. Yeah, Ray Travis could definitely still get all the pie he wanted.
Chapter 11
Ray had played football in high school, star quarterback. With him being a decade older I didn’t remember firsthand but he used to keep some trophies and pictures in one of the upstairs rooms of the house. He’d kept in good shape, his wet body rippling with muscle most guys over forty could only dream of. A light dusting of chest hair curled over fair skin. It was too early in the year for his fisherman’s tan. Even better than the muscle though was the grumpy teddy bear look on his face. I liked the sight of that more than I should have.
“So.” I smiled, hoping he remembered how charming he used to find me. “I’m a little early.”
His lips twitched. He remembered. “Yeah, you are. Come on in.” He gestured for me to come inside and closed the door behind me. “You know your way around. Make yourself to home. I’ll be back when I’ve got some clothes on.”
“Don’t go to any trouble on my account.”
Grabbing my wrist, he stepped close enough I could feel the heat rolling off his skin. “We’re gonna have to set some ground rules. For both our sakes.”
I’d stepped over a line. I always did with Ray. It was something I couldn’t seem to help, even now. “Okay.”
“You have a boyfriend, so no flirting.”
Thoroughly chastised, I nodded. “You’re right. No flirting.”
He rubbed the inside of my wrist with his thumb. It made me remember things I shouldn’t. “It’s hard enough to look at what I can’t have,” he said, voice husky with a longing that shocked me.
“Ray.”
Moving away, he said, “You and me are going to try something new. It’s called being friends. I hear it’s nice.”
I swallowed the lump in my throat. “Yeah, that’ll be nice.”
He held my gaze for a long moment then looked away. “Be right back.” He climbed the stairs quickly.
I whirled and stumbled into the living room then dropped onto the couch. Brushing away sudden tears, I focused on the job. Dead girl, ghost haunting the town. Boyfriend hundreds of miles away and wanting me to banish part of myself. Flirting with an ex like the slut my mother thought I was. Going back to the lake house and drowning in Daniel’s liquor supply sounded like a good idea.
Desperate to think about anything else, I surveyed the room. Most of the furniture had been updated, the main pieces being the plush microfiber couch on which I sat and the recliner facing the big flat screen TV. His grandmother’s old rocking chair still sat in one corner, flanked by family photos on the walls. A bookcase full of mystery novels dominated the wall opposite the windows. The case was new, as were many of the books, but there were titles I recognized him having years ago. Still a Tony Hillerman fan, as well as Michael Connelly and Robert Crais. Dennis Lehane had been added, and an author he had in common with Daniel, Alan Furst, who wrote World War Two spy novels set in Europe. Not the traditional mysteries and police procedurals Ray had always liked but I could see them being a good fit.
Feeling on somewhat firmer footing emotionally, I only stiffened a little when Ray returned. He wore jeans and an untucked red and black plaid flannel shirt, hair still damp and mussed from being towel-dried. His feet were bare and he was still buttoning the shirt as he entered the room.
“The files are in the office,” he said, jerking his head for me to follow.
I did. The rooms were small, it being an older house, but there were four bedrooms. The one on the ground floor had been converted into an office almost as soon as he moved in. Ray preferred dark paint to the paneling he’d removed himself, choosing blues and grays with white trim. A memory of teasing him about his good taste popped into my head. I pushed it away. The room had the same color scheme but a newer, bigger desk and desktop computer with a large monitor. Three wooden filing cabinets took up most of one wall. Where a map of the county used to be was a white board, Britney Parker’s name emblazoned at the top in Ray’s careful script. I would have read all the various notes on the board but the contents of the last wall drew my attention.
It was a bookcase, smaller than the one in the living room, nearly full. The books were all metaphysical titles. Not fiction, either. Books on witchcraft, hoodoo and voodoo, ghosts, tarot, various other supernatural subjects. I recognized almost all the titles. Some of them, if I wasn’t mistaken, used to belong to me.
Ray noticed what I was staring at. Scratching the stubble on his jaw, he said, “Yeah, that stack there.” He pointed at the
books I was eyeing. “Those are ones you left behind. Take ‘em back if you want.”
A couple of them were Wicca primers from when I thought that might be a place for me. Another pair were tarot books. The one on top, wrapped in a tied leather cord, was a journal. One of my ill-fated attempts to keep a diary, book of shadows, spell book, whatever. All of the above.
“I threw that stuff in the trash.”
“I got it out,” he said. “You were pretty upset that night. I thought you might want them back. That you might come back for them. But you left before.” He stopped abruptly. “Anyway, your letter made it clear you were never coming back and we were through. So I stuck them in a corner and left ‘em.”
I burned with shame thinking about that letter, for more reasons than one. Kneeling, I retrieved the books and shoved the journal in my messenger bag. Eyes on the carpet I said, “I always hated that I couldn’t be someone you’d be proud to be seen with. I know you were ashamed of me.”
Ray dropped to the floor beside me, taking my hands. “I was never ashamed of you. God, don’t ever think that, baby.”
“You never wanted anyone to know.”
“You were nineteen.” He brushed my hair from my face. “I was ashamed of myself for getting involved with a girl so much younger.”
“You aren’t that much older than me.”
“It feels that way now but I was an adult and you were barely out of high school. It makes a difference.” He sat with his back to the bookcase, drew his legs up and rested his hands on his knees. “You know what I hated? Being such a damn coward. Momma wouldn’t stop pushing women at me, wanting me to get married. My brother and his wife were the same. Friends, even. I had people setting me up with women from three counties. Know why?”
I sat next to him, clutching at the old books like a lifeline. “You’re a catch, Ray Travis.”
“I’m an idiot. I’m such a good cop, good investigator, I didn’t even realize people did know about us. That’s why my family was putting every available female they thought was suitable in my path. They were afraid I’d do something crazy and marry you.”
The looks his mother used to give me when I’d run across her were cold enough to burn. “Was it me being a witch they objected to or me being a slut?”
“Don’t do that,” he said, a granite forcefulness in his tone. “You’re no slut. You never were then and you aren’t now. Don’t let ignorant, judgmental assholes define who you are.” He shook his head, his expression bitter. “One of my biggest regrets is not calling people out for the way they talked about you. It disgusts me that I was such a coward and I’m sorry, Roxanne. I am truly sorry.”
The books slid from my hands as tears clouded my vision. Something cracked open deep inside, the bricks and mortar I’d used to build walls around my deepest self. The self I thought for so long wasn’t worth anyone’s love, anyone’s respect. Even with Blake, I knew I still held back, not able to feel secure in my feelings for him or his professed feelings for me. Crazy, freak, weirdo, slut, bitch, embarrassment, all the labels and words I gathered close and built into the foundation of those walls, still reverberated years later. I heard them all, shouted, whispered, directly to my face, in the next room when my parents thought I wasn’t listening. An echo reaching for me from the past, trying to drown out anything good. If I were honest with myself I’d have to admit I’d been hearing them a long time. But for the first time something else came through louder, stronger.
Ray pulled me into his arms, gently removing my glasses. I sank into his embrace, feeling something I didn’t want to name or think about. Instead of thinking about the past or the present, I cried out years’ worth of tears and regrets.
“I’m sorry, baby.” His lips brushed my hair as he rocked me in his arms. “I’m so sorry.” He was crying too.
Chapter 12
The house smelled pleasantly of sage. I packed away my supplies, satisfied at the work I’d done. The ghost of Britney Parker, or any other ghost for that matter, would not find Ray’s home agreeable to their presence. It wasn’t exactly a ward but close enough to it.
I found him in the kitchen, spooning food out of a crock pot. I said, “You sure that Wiccan lady can’t do stuff like this?”
“I’m sure she can wave sage around with the best of ‘em but there’d be nothing behind it. She practices a religion, not magic.”
It impressed me that he knew the difference. There was a time when he didn’t. “It’s your home, so you have a certain power within its boundaries. I’ll leave you the sage and the spell to recite as you wave it around.”
He stopped halfway to the table, bowls in each hand. “What, you think this won’t take?”
“Stuff like this has to be redone periodically. You don’t clean your house just once.”
Placing the bowls on the table, he retrieved silverware and two glasses of sweet tea. Bringing them to the table, he set everything down and rubbed his hands down his thighs. “That Haschall business makes me nervous. Last thing I need is that thing getting loose.”
“He won’t. I’ll go out there and give the old wards a boost.” The idea made my blood cold but Ray was right, it needed doing.
He pulled a chair out for me and said, “Hope you still like beef stew.”
“Smells delicious.” I sat. “You’re pretty good at this bachelor stuff. How come you never got married?”
He froze for a second halfway to his chair. “I almost did once.”
That bothered me more than it should have. “What happened?”
“Didn’t work out,” mumbled the grumpy teddy bear. He furrowed his brow, tapping the table near his fork. “You mind if I say grace?”
“Of course not.” I reached for his hand.
He took it, fingers dwarfing mine. Bowing his head, he said, “Thank you, Lord, for this food and fellowship. Watch over Roxanne as she guides one of your children home. And please help me to do the right thing.” He paused as if he wanted to add more. “Amen.”
“Amen.” I hadn’t done that in a long time and it was longer still that it meant as much to me.
As we ate he asked questions about my life in Nashville. Mostly about my work. He steered clear of questions about my love life. I told him some of my favorite ghost eviction stories and he told me of some of his favorite arrests. We had each other laughing in no time. The laughter was nearly as cathartic as the earlier tears. Eventually, though, we had to get down to the matter at hand.
Back in the office in front of the white board, Ray handed me a file. “That’s all there is on her death. A transcript of the 911 call from the person who found her. My initial report. The coroner’s report, not that there’s much to that. The investigation was over before it could even get started.”
I flipped through the pages, not yet reading carefully but getting an idea of the shape of things. “Are you supposed to have this?”
He cleared his throat. “I made copies.”
“Deputy Travis.” I couldn’t keep the tease out of my voice.
“Her ghost was in my kitchen! Just get to reading and tell me what you think.”
“Still bossy as ever.” I flipped back to the first page.
“As I recall there were times when you liked that.”
I lowered the pages and stuck out my index finger. “You said no flirting!”
He raised his hands in mock surrender, turning away to give me a chance to read. But not before I saw the mischief in his eyes.
The transcript of the 911 call was hard enough to read, it made me glad Ray didn’t have a copy of the audio. Britney was found by an early morning jogger, a woman who lived on the road behind the marina, an area full of big houses and lots of money. She knew Britney, or recognized her at least as she was old enough to be the dead girl’s mother. She kept repeating my daughter knows her, my daughter knows her, after identifying Britney to the operator. Britney had been dead for several hours by then.
Ray’s report was careful, meticulous,
thorough. And the epitome of professionalism, as I would expect from him. The things driving him to make unauthorized copies of this file and bring in a witch to help the dead girl’s ghost find justice were not in evidence. That I would have to get from him personally, though he’d already shared some of it.
The coroner’s report was equally professional and unpleasant. That this beautiful, seemingly vibrant young woman could be reduced to the weight of her organs and the amount of alcohol in her system was a cold slap in the face. There had been little residue of the ghost’s presence when I went through Ray’s house with the sage and protective blessing. The cheesiness of the website put up by her friends had been enough to keep the reality of the situation at bay. The coroner’s report allowed no such luxury.
I closed the file. “Other than the visitation of her ghost, is there anything else that makes you think she was murdered?”
Ray swiveled his chair around. “Amber Donahue was the only one of her friends willing to say much beyond the usual. She told me Britney had quit drinking, quit smoking pot. She’d been completely clean for over a month.”
“She could have fallen off the wagon.”
“That’s what I said to Amber but she didn’t think so. I asked why and she clammed up.”
“Who was Britney dating at the time?”
“Her last public boyfriend was a fella named Brian Sutcliff.”
“Sutcliff? Wasn’t that the Parker family attorney’s name?” And probably the most powerful lawyer in town, of course.
“Yeah, Roger Sutcliff. Brian is his youngest son. He’s away at law school, totally alibi’ed out. They had an on again, off again thing. Long distance too, he’s been going to law school in Mississippi.”
“What about her last private boyfriend?”
He reclined the chair, tapping his fingers on the arm rest. “No one would give me a name. My guess is older and married. That’s what she was rumored to like.”
“I get the older but why married?”
