I almost kept going straight, but at the final moment turned to follow them. There were no more cars between us, so I had to go slowly, at one point pulling to the side and turning off my lights to let distance build between us.
We crept uptown for several more blocks before they slowed, then parked.
I also pulled over, a not-quite-legal space too close to a fire hydrant. But I wasn’t leaving my car.
Again I witnessed a slow dance of them getting out, taking the carefully packed dishes, juggling that with a gift bag that looked like a couple bottles of wine.
Lots of people drink wine, I reminded myself.
I found my binoculars and, with a glance around to make sure no one was walking the dog or taking any evening stroll to wonder why someone was sitting in a car watching, used them to get a closer look. I was just under a block away.
They walked to the house near the corner, a recently renovated Greek revival, a double with two doors and a neatly divided porch, work still being done on the landscaping, with the small front yard more dirt than plants. The solid wood doors both matched perfectly, with shiny brass clear even in the encroaching evening, too new to have had much time in New Orleans weather. A blue Subaru was parked in front.
The door opened.
Just the hand reaching out to help with their bundles answered my question.
It was her. Cordelia was in New Orleans again.
She came out on the porch to greet them, bobbling help with the packages to hug and kiss Andy and Torbin.
More gray in her hair? Or was I just noticing it, with so many memories of her when there was none? Slimmer, even skinny, in my opinion, but my opinion didn’t count. Nicely dressed in navy slacks and an off-white V-neck shirt.
Laughing, talking easily.
Another woman joined them.
Average height, short hair, but a stylish cut that would have passed muster in the suburbs. No gray and just enough highlights to make me suspect it was the result of time at the salon, not genes.
The gift bag was opened; two bottles of wine and a set of bar tools. A housewarming gift.
I put the binoculars down. They receded to a group of strangers caught in the warm glow of light on a balmy spring evening. No, I could still recognize them all, but the distance helped.
Joanne and Alex came from around the corner and joined the group on the porch.
“They’re your friends, too,” I said softly. I could only hope they were still mine.
I would have left, but the one-way street gave me no option but to drive by the house. I’d have to wait until they went inside.
Or back up about twenty feet.
Another car was coming down the street.
I pulled the cap lower and slunk down in the seat.
“Oh, darkness, you are such a friend of mine,” I muttered as it passed.
Danny and Elly. They didn’t spot me, otherwise Danny would have been tapping at my window asking what the hell did I think I was doing.
I felt a buzz from my phone but didn’t dare look at it. The light might show my face too clearly or be just enough of a pinpoint of new light to call attention to me sitting here.
The one advantage of the new arrivals was that the porch was becoming too crowded, so they moved inside.
Cordelia was the last one in, pausing for a moment, looking into the night. A wistful look on her face? Or was I just imagining it?
The door shut.
I gave it a full minute before starting my car and creeping down the block, still hunched low in my seat. I did not glance in the direction of the door or the soft porch light as I drove past.
After another two blocks, I pulled over again to check my phone. It was only a notice from my bank that they had automatically withdrawn my mortgage from my account.
A look at the time told me it was early to head out to the far ’burbs, but not enough time to go home. Or do much of anything else.
I considered stopping for coffee, but my bladder overruled that. Brandon didn’t seem like the kind of host who would take into account female bathroom needs. The last thing I needed was being a long way from relief with a full bladder.
With not much else to do, I headed back downtown to catch I-10 out to where we were to meet.
I tried to just focus on the driving, to wonder what the hell Brandon was up to.
But she was back in town. No one had told me. Or no one wanted to tell me.
It had been a bad breakup, messy and terrible. She was fighting cancer, had moved to Houston for treatment. I had stayed here, clinging to my life, afraid to let it go and find I had nothing, nothing there and nothing to return to. The distance and time apart, through all those important days, took a heavy toll, one I blinded myself to. I curse myself for my choices and wonder what I could have done better.
I run a small business, essentially just me. To put everything on hold for a few uncertain months would have destroyed it, all my clients going elsewhere. It was a stark choice, and I couldn’t help but think I’d made the wrong one.
She’d found someone who could be there when she needed them, not the dragging weekends I could manage.
They had left Houston, moved to the northeast where her sister lived—the one who had never approved of me—and I thought that was it. I would never see her again. Messy and terrible.
Maybe it was easier that way. Gone, just gone.
But she was here, seeing my friends.
Did they really think I wouldn’t find out?
I caught Louisiana Avenue and took it, through its name changes, to Carrollton.
I took a hard look at who I was—who I’d become since then. Drinking more than I should, living in a cocoon of work and alcohol. I told myself it was fine, I didn’t drink during the day, well, not much. I managed my affairs, kept up a busy work schedule for the most part, as if every hour needed to be filled. And the ones that didn’t have the daily necessities stuffed into them blurred away in an alcoholic shade. How much of a friend had I been to my friends?
Enough that Joanne could wonder if I’d fallen far enough into a pit of despair to murder someone.
I hadn’t exactly been putting out a welcome mat, claiming work or other obligations to hide my reluctance to go to places where it had so often been the two of us. I couldn’t quite face that single face in the mirror—and the failure it represented—not with my coupled friends.
Much as I didn’t like it—I wanted my anger clean and hot—there were good reasons no one had told me. I’d been too sarcastic, too distant, too…well, drunk to be easily approachable for even the common exchanges of friendship, a quiet meal where we talked about our days. In their shoes I would have avoided it until it was inevitable.
I turned left on Tulane, the only legal left turn in its entire length to get to the on-ramp for I-10. Traffic wasn’t rush-hour busy, a small mercy, just weekend crazy.
I should have told Douglas Townson to go fuck himself. Did I really need the money that badly? I could have used the time to work on myself, to sing the song that I was strong, I would survive.
Yeah, right, like I was ready to do that.
And I could use the money. The two of us had split the cost of things. Now it was just me. Carrying the mortgage of both the house and my office building meant I had a high overhead. While the rent I took in from the coffee shop and the grannies covered a lot of it, it didn’t cover it all, nor did it leave much of a surplus for things like painting the building or replacing the elderly heating / air system.
You can’t go back and change anything, I reminded myself. My only starting place was now and tomorrow and all the days after that.
Did I want her back?
Did it matter?
It would be harder with her here, the chance glance, seeing her in the grocery store, strolling on the levee. Wondering if that was her when I saw a tall woman in the distance. With our circle of friends, we’d either have to carefully avoid each other or learn how to be together with e
verything changed.
I didn’t like either of those options.
I didn’t like the direction I was going; this was a night I needed to be home alone with my thoughts, not heading out to cater to an adolescent boy’s whims.
But I was already cruising by the Causeway exit, closer to my destination than my home.
This was why I needed to take cases like Douglas Townson’s, I told myself, so I could indulge in helping a young boy get out of the mess he’d gotten himself into. He was just the kind of kid no one noticed and therefore the kind of kid who would see or learn something. If Eddie let him get into his computer, there was no way to know what else Brandon might have had access to, all the info on the drug ring, or how extensive Eddie’s sexual coercion went. Maybe Brandon’s other high school friends.
Could that be a motive for murder? Yes, but the question was for whom. Brandon didn’t seem to be carrying a torch for the other girls I’d met. Maybe his friend Kevin? What if Brandon had let Kevin know that someone he had a crush on—can you call it love at that age?—was being sexually blackmailed by Eddie? A dose of macho movies and misguided protective Southern gentleman could do it.
I kept driving.
This has to end it, I told myself. Whatever Brandon knows—or thinks he knows—all I’m going to do is help him take the next step, most likely going to the police. Let them sort it out.
As long as the sorting out didn’t include arresting me for Eddie’s murder.
Traffic thinned past the airport. I turned off at the last exit before the highway went over the swampy morass between the outer suburbs and the next town over.
I hesitated at Veterans Highway, unsure of which way to go.
I decided to stay close to the well-lit area until I had more information and pulled into the parking lot of one of those bargain dollar stores. It was still open, and I could look like I was waiting for someone.
Which I was.
I parked at the far end of the lot, away from the few late-night shoppers. I glanced at my watch. Not even eight thirty yet. To pass the time, I went into the store and bought a bottle of water and a packet of cashews.
I was hungry, I realized; the cheese sandwich was long ago. I was also thirsty but wanted to go easy on the water. Once this was over, it was a half-hour drive back to my house, and the last thing I would want to do on the way home was have to make a potty stop.
That took about ten minutes even with the slow line.
I was parked close enough to a streetlight to take out the file the grannies had given me. The sooner I read it, the sooner I could give it to Joanne. I started at the beginning to go through it thoroughly.
After about five minutes of scrolling through her text messages, I was glad I wasn’t a high school kid today. Or maybe I was just old enough to know it’s not as important as it feels at seventeen. Worrying about not getting a message quickly, worrying about responding too quickly, and most of these were about getting together after school or to work on homework.
“You’re not going to remember any of it,” I said softly, not when the years fly by and teach you what real loss and heartbreak are.
Texts from Eddie. Even the early “nice” ones sounded hollow, unctuous with an obvious undertone of what he really wanted. He had a slick cleverness, slowly building the demands into the flattery, making them seem like the same thing, he was so attracted to her because she was so beautiful, just the girl for him. Yeah, he called her girl the entire time, never woman; even that slight nod was too much for his misogynistic lizard brain.
His demands became more insistent, laced with blame, claiming she led him on, or if he was nice, that she was so attractive he couldn’t help himself—not in those terms, “U so hot, makes me need u, got to have u, plse help me, baby.”
He didn’t text her for two days after she finally gave in, only her string of texts, first happy that “U made me a woman. So happy,” to “R U OK? Plse answer. Lost ur phone?”
He finally replied, claimed he’d been busy, a quick sorry. And wanting to meet again.
The pattern repeated, like a tired old clichéd love song. He’d woo her, or at least make enough of an effort until she gave in, then blow her off for a day or two. Each time he’d go a little further, adding more threats to the flattery to get her to go along. Until it got to out-and-out blackmail.
Her last texts to him veered from beseeching to angry. “Hw could u do this to me?”
His were cruel: “Ur nothing but a nasty cunt. Leave me alone.” His last to her was “Sending out the pics now. Might as well spread ur legs for evy boy who don’t vomit at the site of u.”
“What a creep,” I muttered. If anyone needed murdering, it was him.
Her last text was, “I can’t do this. Only one way out. Ur next, he’ll do the same to u,” to three different phone numbers. She sent it the afternoon she died.
I scribbled down the three numbers. I could have the grannies trace them.
Or let the police do it. Her warning might mean one of them was also blackmailed and reacted differently.
I glanced at my watch. It was a minute past nine.
I shuffled the papers into a neat stack and put them back in the folder. Something nagged at me—maybe just the foul taste in my mouth.
The three phone numbers.
I scrolled through the numbers on my phone.
Bingo.
One of them was to the number Brandon had first called me on.
I flipped to his file. Same phone number. A text from Tiffany. Should have mentioned that to the police.
I sighed. I had been going to impose my fifteen-minute rule on him. If he didn’t contact me by 9:15, I was leaving. But this threw a new twist into things. I doubted Eddie was bi—and even if he was, he would probably go for someone less, shall we say, nerdy looking than Brandon. Eddie was physically attractive enough—for those who liked those sorts of rough looks—to easily pick up a gay boy on Bourbon Street.
He could’ve used Brandon’s computer work against him as blackmail. Let the school and his friends know that Brandon had been helping with getting the porn out. That would be totally in character for Eddie. Blackmail meant he could get the work without having to pay Brandon.
At 9:16, my phone buzzed.
A text from Brandon. “Meet me 22 st. far end. Come alone.”
I texted back, “Which end is the far one?” I almost added, “nice time to tell me to be alone. What do I do with the five other people with me?”
I pulled up the map on my phone. It was the last street before the airport. Maybe less than ten blocks long.
A drizzle started, just misty enough to cloud visibility.
A plane flew low overhead, coming in for a landing.
I looked back at my phone. No reply from Brandon.
Well, damn, I could check out both ends of the street.
I pulled out of the parking lot. Only three sips into my water bottle, so I should be good.
No one was about, not even a stray cat. This was a desolate area, large metal buildings with junked cars outside separated by empty lots, soggy with recent rain.
“Why the hell did you want to meet out here?” I muttered.
And kept driving.
I wondered if I could be walking into a trap.
Except that made no sense. Eddie was dead. Most of the rest of the drug gang were in custody. If any of them had escaped they should be in Mexico by now, not waiting near the scene of the crime to ambush me.
And they had no reason to ambush me. Yeah, I’d tipped off the cops, but they had no way to know that. I’d only talked to Joanne, and she wasn’t going to mention my name as the tipster. What other reason?
Douglas Townson might hate that I’d uncovered his forebearer’s hideous crimes, but he wasn’t going to call up Brandon and have him lure me out here. And he didn’t even know what I’d uncovered yet.
This felt like teenage melodrama. Maybe there was something to show me, a second hideout they used.
Maybe he was trying to impress me with how brave he was, meeting out here in the dark.
Twenty-second Street was easy to find, the last one before the high fence around the airport. Other than the occasional roar of planes landing or taking off, there was utter silence. No one was here, only empty buildings. No other cars around, only the quiet swish of the rain.
I was at one end of Twenty-second and paused, but no one seemed to be here, no lights, no cars.
Let me try the other end before I get pissed with the games he’s playing.
Desolate, the bright lights from the airfield making deep shadows on the far side of the street.
I followed the road until it dead-ended as the fence angled this way, taking the land for the green field around the runways.
Another plane roared overhead.
Also, dark. No cars. This wasn’t just industrial, it was the butt-end of industrial.
I pulled over, taking out my phone to text Brandon.
A pinprick of light appeared, flashing by a window in the hulking warehouse on the corner. A cell phone screen? A flashlight? Hard to tell through the distance and mist.
“I’m here,” I texted him.
I waited.
Looked at my watch. Two minutes had passed since I’d sent my text. Forever.
“You get five,” I muttered, “then I truly am out of here.”
I wondered what they were doing, at that dinner party. On to dessert by now or still lingering over the main course, content with a leisurely evening that made no demands on time. I didn’t even know what her name was.
My phone buzzed, bringing me harshly back to my swanky Saturday night, out in a hellhole in the rain under landing planes.
“B wt u in a sec,” a text read.
It wasn’t Brandon’s phone. Oh, wait, it was, the same number he’d used the last time. I hadn’t added his name to it.
A snake slithered up my spine.
I grabbed the file the grannies had given me, quickly scrolling through the texts, using the glow from my phone to read.
It was the same number. Brandon was texting me from Eddie’s phone, the one the police couldn’t find.
Maybe it was time for me to drive away and hand this over to the cops.
The Girl on the Edge of Summer Page 27
