Assignment Austin

by Lucey Phillips

  “What about her? Does she have a husband?”

  “Live-in boyfriend,” Quinn said. “I saw it on Facebook. That’s probably why she only talked to Harris on her work phone.”

  “What’s his name?” I asked.

  “Dylan Soto,” Quinn said. “He wasn’t anywhere in Kruger’s notes.”

  “Maybe he’s the killer? I mean, Bonnie has an alibi, but we don’t know anything about this Dylan guy. He’s got a good motive.”

  “Maybe,” Quinn said. “Want me to fax in an anonymous tip? Tell the cops to check him out?”

  “Yeah. But what are we going to do with that phone? It’s stolen evidence.”

  “Uh, it’s not exactly a phone anymore… just a pile of chips and a memory card.”

  “Okay, whatever,” I said. “Thanks, Quinn.”

  “You’re welcome,” she said. “So, what’s wrong with you?”

  “What? Nothing.”

  “Jae. Come on. You’re moping.”

  I sighed and wiped my eyes, unsure if I wanted to relive last night’s fight with Colin.

  Quinn let her end of the line stay silent.

  “Me and Colin—we had a, I don’t know, a disagreement, I guess,” I said. “He was drinking this margarita thing and then he tried to get me to drink. He was being pushy, then he said I need to, like, let loose, and drink instead of being crippled by my mom’s alcoholism. He called me crippled, Quinn.”

  “Well that’s just politically incorrect! The term is differently abled,” Quinn said with a laugh.

  “It’s not funny!” I whined.

  “No, I know,” she said through a giggle. “But come on, he’s a guy who drank too much and acted insensitive.”

  “So having testosterone and alcohol is an excuse to be a jerk?”

  “No, of course not,” she said. “It sounds like he owes you an apology, but it doesn’t sound like a federal case.”

  “He did apologize,” I said with a sigh. “I sort of ranted about how there’s nothing wrong with me because I have a successful career and then, ugh, then I cried. He fell asleep while I was crying. The whole thing was dumb—embarrassing.”

  “Aw, Jae, it’s okay. That stuff happens. You’ll make up, just give it a little time.”

  “I know we’ll be able to work together and things will be fine with that,” I said. “But, I don’t know, maybe us getting involved was a mistake. I’m starting to think Colin and I are just too different from each other.”

  “Who cares? You’re not getting married. Just enjoy it for what it is—you don’t have to be perfectly compatible for life,” Quinn said. “I think it’s romantic—you two being on the road together. It’s just like when movie stars are playing a couple and then they fall in love in real life.”

  “Pfft, yeah, those always turn into lasting relationships,” I said with a giggle.

  Quinn laughed, too. “But I bet they had fun while it lasted.”

  I forced an empty laugh. “I guess.”

  “So are you gonna check out Bonnie and her boyfriend? Or just let the cops follow the tip?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “I’ll probably look into it if I have time.”

  Quinn offered to send me whatever information she could find on Bonnie Key and Dylan Soto. Then we said goodbye.

  My headache came thundering back as soon as the call was over. The inertia of still being in bed and in pain felt impossible to break for a couple minutes. Finally though, I managed to get out of bed and make it into the bathroom to take some medicine.

  As I semi-staggered across the floor, stretching my hand across my forehead so I could press on both temples, I thought of my mom. She frequently looked the way I imagined I looked right now—exhausted and hurting.

  Even though the one-room cottage was small, I carried my phone with me into the bathroom, and then into the kitchen. I expected Colin to text me soon. If we didn’t have specific plans, Colin usually texted me early to see what we were working on or if I wanted to get coffee with him.

  Between the headache medicine and the aroma of coffee I’d started to brew, I began to feel a little better. Maybe Quinn was right: maybe what had happened between me and Colin last night really wasn’t a big deal.

  Without giving it any more thought, I texted him, writing, “Got an interesting tip from Quinn. Are you up for a little snooping?”

  When there wasn’t an immediate reply, my heart sank a little. Instead of explaining how I felt about last night or seeking an apology from Colin, I was approaching this uncomfortable situation the way my mom had taught me to handle all awkwardness, pain, and raw feelings—by pretending nothing had happened.

  Maybe it wasn’t the healthiest approach, but it got the job done.

  My phone buzzed with Colin’s reply. As I read it, I smiled to myself.

  He’d written, “Sounds good, but is there coffee?”

  I wrote back, “Just made a pot.”

  He texted, “On my way.”

  The residual uncomfortable feelings from the previous night seemed to be lurking in the shadows when Colin arrived at my door. But after we started planning our investigation, those feelings did fade—at least a little bit.

  “You’re saying you think Dylan Soto is our suspect?” Colin asked.

  “Maybe. He has a really good motive—his girlfriend was cheating on him with Harris.”

  Colin shook his head. “The more I learn about what a creep this guy was… It’s a wonder someone didn’t try to kill him sooner.”

  “And they say journalists have no compassion,” I teased him.

  Colin smiled and shrugged. It was the first time that morning I saw anything that reminded me of his genuine smile—the relaxed one, not the strained one.

  “Do you think we should tell Kara that we found a new suspect?” I asked.

  “I don’t know. You can’t really tell her how we found out about Dylan Soto, right? You don’t want her to know you took that phone.”

  I wrinkled my nose. “Do you think she’d tell on me?”

  “I don’t think she’d want to tell the police what you’ve been up to, but she’s kind of in a desperate situation. And you can never predict how desperate people will act.”

  I thought about what he said. Even though I empathized with Kara and what she was going through, I had to admit I really didn’t know her. This was getting messy.

  “You’re right,” I said. “I still want to snoop on Dylan Soto, though.”

  “Okay. Should we go by his house?”

  I shook my head and logged into my laptop.

  “Not home. Work,” I said, spinning the laptop around so he could see the website I’d pulled up.

  It was a car dealership north of the city.

  “What’s that? He’s a car salesman?” Colin asked, his expression changing from contemplation to disbelief. “Are you nuts? You want to spy on him selling cars?”

  I giggled. “Don’t think of it as spying—think of it as an opportunity to reprise our classic roles: the new-in-town lovebirds, Mike and Jennifer.”

  Colin breathed out a sigh and shook his head. “Okay, let’s get this over with.”

  I nudged him with my elbow. “Thanks,” I said. “You’re a good sport for putting up with my shenanigans.”

  Colin shoved his hands in his pockets. “You’re a good sport,” he said, “for putting up with my… um…”

  He made a half-second of eye contact.

  I nodded and smiled. “Okay,” I said. “Let’s go.”

  If that was his way of apologizing, I accepted.

  | Fourteen

  It was full-on Texas-summer hot by the time we arrived at the car lot. We walked around, pretending to shop for a sedan, and squinting against the sunshine that reflected off all the glass and metal.

  “Don’t look now, but I think we’ve got a live one,” Colin whispered over my shoulder.

  I glanced toward the building and saw a blond-haired man in a slim-fit suit walking toward us. I looke
d away, then giggled when Colin whispered, “It’s go time.”

  “You want to do the talking, or me?” I asked him.

  “I got it,” Colin whispered just before the salesman strode into earshot.

  The blond-haired man smiled and extended his hand to Colin first, then me. He introduced himself as Bruce Shuler.

  Colin made an apologetic, wincing expression. “I’m sorry. We were hoping to talk to Dylan Soto,” Colin said. “I’m sure you’re great, it’s just that Dylan comes highly recommended.”

  Bruce nodded, his gaze and posture both sinking in defeat. “Sure. No problem. I think he just got in. I’ll call him,” he said, taking his phone out of his pocket and beginning his walk back to the building—this time at a slower pace.

  Colin and I went back to wandering the lot, peering in windows, and pretending to be fascinated by the details printed on the stickers.

  After a few minutes, Dylan walked up and introduced himself. He wore a navy sweater vest over a white polo shirt with khaki pants. Sweat was beaded on his forehead. His hair was obviously dyed black.

  “So, I guess one of my happy customers sent you in?” he asked.

  “Um, yeah. Someone at the gym said their friend got a good deal from you,” I said.

  “Was it a Ram? We’ve been selling a lot of those lately,” Dylan said.

  “Yeah, maybe it was a truck,” I said. “I don’t know them very well—it was just someone I was talking to on the treadmills at SoCo Athletics,” I said, careful to watch Dylan’s reaction when I named Harris’ business.

  He didn’t seem to react at all. He just furrowed his brows thoughtfully and said, “Hmm, I haven’t had any customers from that neighborhood in a long time.”

  If he’d been paying attention to the news—or even local gossip—wouldn’t the name of that gym at least raise an eyebrow?

  Dylan asked what kind of car we were interested in. I explained that my boyfriend was looking for something fuel-efficient for his commute. Colin took over the conversation from there.

  I never liked dealing with salespeople anyway. The good ones made me want to buy more than I needed. And the bad ones seemed to have an odor of desperation that was tough to stomach.

  Dylan seemed nice enough. He had a chummy, fast-talking manner that was typical for a salesman. He definitely didn’t seem like a jealous murderer, but maybe I was being naive in thinking that this encounter would reveal anything about whether Dylan was a viable suspect. I needed to find out where he was the day Harris Myer was murdered.

  “When do we get to see the showroom, honey?” I asked in the most chipper tone I could manage while I curled my arm around Colin’s lower back.

  Colin turned away from Dylan and smirked at me, the “honey” amusing him.

  “Do you think we should?” he asked. “I don’t know if those are the kinds of cars that get good gas mileage.”

  “Oh!” Dylan said. “We just got our new hybrid in—it might be perfect for you guys.”

  Perfect. We agreed and followed him in. I needed to do some more snooping. And I was desperate to get out of the intense heat.

  When we got inside, Dylan led us to the ugly little silver hybrid hatchback. I glanced at the sticker, then fought to hold in an exaggerated eye roll.

  An anxious-looking man, who couldn’t have been older than nineteen, watched us from where he sat in a tiny office, bouncing one knee and fiddling with his keys. Finally, just as Dylan had coaxed Colin into the drivers’ seat, the young man walked up to Dylan and murmured something I couldn’t hear.

  Dylan put his arm around the younger man and nodded, his expression overly earnest.

  “Okay buddy,” Dylan said. “Sure thing.”

  He turned back to Colin. “We have some quick business to finish up,” he said. “After that, let’s get you going on a test drive.”

  Colin nodded. I resisted the urge to smile—this was too perfect.

  “Oh, Dylan, is there a Coke machine?” I called after him.

  “Refreshments are around the corner that way,” Dylan said.

  I thanked him and walked in the direction he’d indicated, Colin following close behind me as he dug in his pockets for coins.

  We found the small lounge area, where the odor of stale, scorched coffee hung in the air. A gray-haired man sat in one of the chairs and read a newspaper.

  Colin bought two bottles of soda. After he handed one to me, I walked out of the room, with him close behind me.

  “We got a strategy here, or what?”

  “I’m lost,” I said. “I’m looking for the bathroom and I’m hopelessly lost.”

  “That again?” Colin asked with a smile. “I think the old ‘got lost on the way to the bathroom’ routine is getting kind of stale.”

  “It’s not stale! It’s a classic,” I said.

  The first hallway we tried took us to a side entrance to the service department. I muttered “nope” when we were met with the shop’s whirring and grinding noises.

  We back-tracked, then found a different hallway. A man in a blue work jumpsuit passed us without saying anything. Finally, we found the sales department conference room.

  In my early days of reporting for a small newspaper, I had to write stories that were basically advertisements in disguise. And car dealerships were some of our biggest advertisers. I’d been in rooms like this before. They all had one thing in common—a prominently displayed sales leader board.

  “This is it,” I whispered to Colin. “Now we can find out if Dylan was at work the day Harris was killed.”

  “Don’t these guys usually work six or seven days a week though?”

  “Exactly. If he was off that day, then maybe he’s the murderer.”

  The white board was a simple list of names with tally marks beside them. Dylan looked like he was a front-of-the-pack salesman, but he wasn’t the best one at the dealership.

  “So he’s sold eight cars so far this month,” Colin said.

  “But there’s no dates on this list.”

  Maybe coming here was just a pointless exercise. I had the urge to apologize to Colin for dragging him into this, but I kept quiet.

  “There’s probably a schedule around here somewhere,” Colin said, sounding hopeful. He walked toward a row of clipboards hanging on hooks.

  “I think those are just stats about the cars and stuff,” I said. “The schedule is probably online. I should have just asked Quinn to find it.”

  Colin turned to me, looking like he was going to say something, but he abruptly turned and looked again at the door behind us. Voices and footsteps were in the hallway, getting louder. I looked around desperately, knowing my “lost on the way to the bathroom” story wouldn’t work this time.

  Colin grabbed my wrist and pulled me along, toward one corner of the room, where there was a door. He opened it and stepped quickly into the darkness on the other side, pulling me along behind him.

  The door fell closed with a soft click just as the voices from the hallway got louder.

  The two men were laughing—apparently about an argument another salesman had with a used car customer.

  Colin loosened his grip on my wrist then eventually allowed it to slip out of his hand. At first, all I could see was darkness around me, but after a minute, my eyes adjusted.

  A line of light from under the door allowed me to see a stack of office chairs behind Colin and metal shelving on either side of us. There was no room for us to move around.

  Soon, other men’s and women’s voices filled the room. After about five minutes, someone asked, “Where’s Dylan? He was supposed to bring the donuts.”

  A woman answered, “He’s still talking to that kid who wants the Avenger. Trying to get a co-signer, I guess.”

  “Yeah, but what about the donuts?” a man asked.

  The room erupted with laughter.

  “Does it lock from the inside?” Colin asked.

  His voice was barely a whisper. The smell of his cologne and the fe
eling of his breathing so close to my ear made me shiver. I touched the door knob and the jamb. I couldn’t feel a lock button or a latch.

  “No,” I whispered, knowing it would be impossible for anyone in the conference room to hear us through the metal door and over their own noisy conversations.

  Colin crouched down, slid a box out of the way, and sat on the floor. He tugged on the outer seam of my pants, indicating for me to sit beside him. With one hand on the shelving, I lowered myself until I was sitting beside Colin on the coarse Berber carpeting.

  “This was kind of a dumb idea,” I whispered. “Sorry. Sorry for wasting your time.”

  “It’s not dumb, believe me. I’ve spent most of my career at the mercy of reporters’ whims and I’ve never thought the way you investigate is a waste of time,” he said.

  Our shoulders were pressed tightly together in that tiny space we shared.

  “It actually makes me wonder,” Colin continued. “Why did you give up news? It seems like you really thrive on this stuff.”

  “News reporters get lied to and manipulated every day, you know? So your job is to figure out who’s lying, not get insulted by it, call them out on it, and then find the truth,” I said, still whispering. “It’s that one part—that confrontation part—that I never really had a stomach for.”

  Colin didn’t say anything in reply. I wondered if I’d talked too long—if he had zoned out or begun listening to the loud voices from the meeting on the other side of the door. I could feel him breathing beside me. I leaned my head uncomfortably against one of the shelves behind me.

  “I’ve never had to worry about that,” Colin said finally. “I guess I really take it for granted that the things I’m covering—the subjects of my photos—can’t really manipulate me, not in the way you’re talking about anyway.”

  “Do you miss news?” I asked. “I thought you might get bored with all the fluffy features we do.”

  “I’m never bored. As long as I have my camera, I’m good,” he whispered. “I guess I do get homesick sometimes though.”

  “Yeah?”

  Homesick was a concept that just never made sense to me—like people who think oysters are delicious.