Dying to Remember

by Judy Fitzwater

  “Danny and Al, of course. Seth Yarborough and Mick Farmer. They were the main ones.”

  Sheena flipped the pages until she found Carpenter’s senior picture. He had the same shaggy brown hair and football shoulders Jennifer remembered from prom night. In the photo he seemed uncomfortable, confined by his black jacket, white shirt and tie. When she’d seen him last night, his hair had been closely cropped and the football muscle had gone soft to become an early version of middle-aged spread.

  “He was football captain,” Sheena added.

  “He didn’t go to the prom that year,” Jennifer said, more to herself than to Sheena.

  “He and Candy were having problems,” Sheena said.

  “What kind of problems?”

  “Who cares? Obviously they worked it out.”

  Sheena shuffled through to the last page of the senior pictures and tapped her finger at Seth Yarborough. “Senior class president. Math club. Honor society. He went on to Tulane to study law. He currently works as an assistant D.A.”

  “He makes the newspaper periodically.”

  “Talk is he may go into politics,” Sheena added.

  Sheena started to close the book, but Jennifer took it from her and flipped to the Fs. “You’re forgetting Mick Farmer.”

  “Danny and Mick are in business together.”

  She noted Sheena’s use of the present tense.

  “I thought Danny had gone into his Dad’s business.”

  “The paint store?” Sheena shook her head. “Only for a year, until he could get enough money together to go out on his own. They do video postproduction work.”

  “Define that for me.”

  “How should I know what they do? I think it has something to do with fiddling around with video that companies make. They edit them, maybe work on the sound, the titles, credits. Heck, I don’t know.”

  “Who had the idea for the business?” Jennifer asked.

  “Mick. He got a degree in graphic design from Georgia Tech.”

  In high school Mick had been part of the group because of Danny. He’d seemed more of the loner type. Seth and Al accepted him only because he and Danny were a package deal.

  And Mick always had a thing for Sheena. He took her to the prom that year.

  “He had an edge to him,” Jennifer observed. She remembered his dark, brooding, tortured-artist allure. Smart. Misunderstood. The perfect project for some girl looking for someone to save, he’d been the one guy all the girls wanted but nobody could get. Even better, he seemed entirely oblivious to his attractiveness.

  During the brief time Jennifer and Danny had dated, Sheena used Mick to make Danny jealous. Only it didn’t work, and she’d dropped him flat when Danny came back to her.

  Jennifer let her finger trace his features and wondered if Sheena had ever been an issue between the two friends.

  “This is all fine and good,” she said, shutting the yearbook, “but I don’t see that it’s getting us anywhere. Something must have happened recently to bring Danny’s problems to a head, whether he killed himself or, as you seem to think, someone murdered him. What was it?”

  Sheena shook her head. “You’re not listening to me, Jenny. I don’t know why he’s been so upset—”

  “Think,” Jennifer ordered. “Were he and Mick having problems with the business?”

  “I don’t believe so, but Danny never talked to me about it.”

  “Not at all?”

  “Hardly. I wasn’t all that interested.” Sheena stacked the yearbooks into a pile and shoved them over to the end of the couch. “I’ll leave those here. Maybe if you go through them again...”

  How could she get through to the woman? “Sure, whatever,” Jennifer agreed. Why argue? “I still think we need to talk with Al.”

  “You and me both. I’ll meet you at his and Candy’s house tomorrow morning. Surely he’ll be back from wherever he went by then.” She jotted down an address on a slip of paper and handed it to Jennifer.

  “Okay, I guess I can manage that.” She didn’t have to have anything ready for Dee Dee until late Monday afternoon. “But I still think we have to focus on Danny. Do you remember anything different that happened, anything unusual, an out-of-the-ordinary reaction?”

  Sheena paused for a moment and then stared at her. “Maybe. I’ve been working nonstop on the reunion for the past several months. I got a demo CD in the mail, from that guy Seth said something about Saturday night. I don’t know what he expected me to do with it. Maybe play it that night if he didn’t show up.”

  “You mean Gavin Lawless.”

  “Right. Lawless, Lawson, something like that. Danny walked in while I had it on. He asked me where I got it. Then he turned it off, took it out of the CD player, and put it in his pocket.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know. The song was a ballad about some kid everybody thought had run away. Sort of like what happened to—”

  “Jimmy Mitchell,” Jennifer finished.

  Chapter 12

  Some days refused to end, and it looked as though this was going to be one of them. At least Sheena was gone, and Jennifer had a chance to get out of her pantyhose, into a shower, and then into clean shorts and a knit top.

  Her headache was back, and so was the cold cloth, along with another dose of aspirin. She couldn’t relax, no matter how deep she snuggled in the padding of her couch. She lay there, pretending to herself that she was resting, but actually listening with one ear for another assault on her door. In his note, Sam said he’d stop by later, and Teague McAfee had made her a promise.

  McAfee was the kind of reporter that any scandal rag would love to have on staff. He was tenacious and unscrupulous. Indeed, to him, conscience was a mere theoretical concept. What made it worse, he was always hitting on her. He was five years her junior, clean-cut and as all-American looking as a four-letter athlete, only without the body. He tended to the skinny side. True, he had helped her once before, when Mrs. Walker was charged with murdering her ex-husband, but associating with Teague was like making a pact with the devil: whatever she might get out of it, he always expected a payback.

  Sure enough, before another twenty minutes had passed, a knock sounded, setting Muffy off on an excited round of barking.

  When she reluctantly dragged herself up off the sofa to peer through the peephole, she saw Teague McAfee. He stood grinning back at her, one eyebrow raised as if he was sure she was looking at him.

  “Go away. I’m not home,” she told him.

  “Sure you are. Your car’s in the parking lot.”

  “I took a cab.”

  “Come on, Marsh, open up. It’s your old friend Teague.”

  Maybe if she didn’t make any more noise, he’d get frustrated and go away. She watched him purse his lips, grossly distorted through the warp of the peephole.

  He took a note pad out of his pocket and seemed to be reading. “Former girlfriend Jennifer Marsh was extensively questioned by the police in the recent death of Daniel Buckner. Unable to reach her at home, this reporter spoke at some length with her neighbors who—”

  Jennifer threw back the New York-style bar that she’d had installed after the break-in in her apartment several months ago and jerked open the door.

  “How did you find out I dated Danny?” she demanded.

  “So, these are your digs,” he remarked, walking past her, totally ignoring what she’d said. He gave Muffy a good rub under her chin, and she danced in front of him.

  “Bad dog!” Jennifer chastised, and Muffy slunk away.

  Maybe if she simply reasoned with him... “No one in Atlanta is going to be interested in the death of anyone in Macon.”

  He turned and looked her in the face. “Of course they will. Some joker goes to his high school reunion and kills himself, maybe because of some unrequited long lost love.” He winked at her. “It doesn’t get any better than that. Besides, I got some great photos of the new widow defending her crown against a usurper. My readers w
ill eat it up. Which reminds me, you hungry?”

  If she’d disliked him before, she hated him now. “That joker—”

  “Right. He was a friend of yours. My condolences.” He whipped out the pad. “So why’d he kill himself?”

  “Why are you here, Teague?”

  “I couldn’t endure another moment without the pleasure of your company.”

  “Right. but why, really?”

  He shrugged. “I had an interview in town this morning. You know I couldn’t come to Macon without stopping by.”

  “And why were you at the reunion last night?” She thought for a moment. “It’s Ben Underwood, isn’t it? You must have gotten a tip that he’d show up. You’re not going to drag all that back up about Jimmy Mitchell’s disappearance, are you? Can’t you give the guy a break? He was only sixteen...”

  Teague was squinting at her with a little too much interest. The scoundrel was making mental notes. Drat! He must have gotten to the reunion after Underwood’s little scene, and she’d be darned if she was going to tip Teague McAfee to a story.

  “Did you say Ben or Len?” He scribbled something on the note pad.

  She grabbed for it, but he jerked it back. “Uh-uh. That’s a fourth- or fifth-degree assault, I forget which. Hands off, baby cakes. No one touches Teague’s notes.”

  Just in case she didn’t have enough reasons to despise Teague McAfee, she hated it when people referred to themselves in the third person.

  “If it wasn’t Underwood...”

  “That’s right. Gavin Lawless, up-and-coming music star. The next Bob Dylan.”

  “You would know this because...”

  “Got a letter saying he was coming in for the reunion. With it was a promo CD with some very interesting lyrics.”

  “You, too?” Was she the only one south of the Mason-Dixon Line who hadn’t received one?

  Teague looked around. He had that foraging look. His gaze lit on her energy stash sitting next to the computer. Helping himself, he peeled off the wrapper, popped the candy into his mouth, and savored the chocolate on his tongue. “The guy ain’t half bad. Real smooth, kind of mellow.”

  “So you like his voice. Macon and Atlanta are full of musicians, good ones. If you wrote a story about every guitar player who came out of—”

  “I didn’t drive down here because the guy can sing.”

  She waited for him to go on. He chewed up the candy and swallowed, suddenly more serious than she’d ever seen him. “The song...it’s...well, it’s hard to describe. I guess you might say it’s disturbing. The words...they seem to have an air of truth about them. Want to hear it?”

  Oh yeah. It was high on her list of things to do after no sleep last night and an afternoon with Sheena and now Teague.

  “How about later?” she suggested.

  “After supper? Out? My treat.”

  “No supper,” she assured him.

  “Okay, now then.” His gazed darted about the room before landing on the stereo on her desk.

  Before she could protest, he pulled the disc out of his pocket, slipped it into the machine, and pressed Play.

  Gavin’s voice, low, full, and sincere, sang above the notes of a lone acoustic guitar.

  “The rains came after midnight,

  They washed the humid air,

  Brought with them dreams of new day,

  but he no longer cared.

  Red clay was his companion,

  Abandoned to the dust,

  He’d sleep like that forever,

  A victim of their trust.

  The dawn broke cold on mornin’,

  They said he ran away,

  Perhaps off west to Natchez,

  But that’s just what they say.

  Someday I’ll be back for ya’,

  Someday I will return,

  Waiting’s not forever,

  Then it will be your turn.

  Hey, hey, hey.

  I’ll be back for you.

  On that you can rely,”

  For just a moment, the music stopped and Gavin spoke the words:

  “I promise.

  Then he strummed the guitar and sang:”

  “I’ll be back for you.

  On that you can rely.”

  Jennifer stared at Teague, stunned. It was a threat. Plain and simple. Gavin Lawless had come back to Macon to seek revenge. But why? And against whom?

  Chapter 13

  Without a word, Jennifer went straight past Teague to the phone, punching in numbers as quickly as she could. Three rings. Would it be so difficult for Leigh Ann to simply pick up her phone?

  The answering machine clicked on.

  “Are you there, Leigh Ann? If you’re screening your calls, I really, really need to talk to you,” Jennifer sputtered into the receiver.

  “You worried about your friend?” Teague asked.

  “Why are you still here?”

  For the first time since she’d met him, Teague seemed to have dropped the shield of arrogance he wrapped around himself. Then his eyes returned to normal, and Jennifer reminded herself not to be pulled into a false belief that he might actually be human.

  She wasn’t about to tell him anything, certainly not about Leigh Ann and her relation to one Gavin Lawless.

  “The song got me rattled,” she confessed, dropping the receiver into its cradle.

  Teague nodded. “Why, I asked myself, would some dude write a song about a murder? I mean love seems to be the usual topic, don’t you think?”

  Not where Teague was concerned. Murder seemed far more appropriate. “Did you come up with an answer?” she asked.

  “Maybe. I looked at the guy’s bio, the one he sent with the disc,” he explained. “A native of Macon, twenty-eight years old, graduated ten years ago from his local high school, left home shortly thereafter, yadda yadda yadda. So I go back into the Eye’s archives, figuring this guy wants something from me, and I’m prepared to give it. Assuming I get something in return. I didn’t find anything the last two years this dude was in Macon, but one more year back and voila! One Jimmy Mitchell steps off the face of the earth, the night of the senior prom at Riverside High School, which just happens to be ol’ Gavin’s alma mater. Interesting coincidence considering the song lyrics, don’t you think?”

  Teague dropped his briefcase on her dining table and pulled out a stack of yellowing newsprint. Muffy snuffled at the corners, and paper dust puffed into the air.

  Jennifer flipped through the stack, marveling at the creativity.

  Macon Boy Abducted by Alien Ship. Area Boy Steps Through Time Warp. Disappearance Linked to Psycho Killer. Teenaged Maconite Suspected in Cult Disappearance.

  “Are they all like this?” Jennifer asked, coming up for air. She flipped through the remaining stack.

  Teague grinned at her. “No. I left the more outlandish ones back at the office.”

  “Could there be a kernel of truth buried deep down in one of these articles somewhere?”

  “Not that I could tell. But you have to admire the journalist who can take a story with no facts, no witnesses, no body, and get a good month’s worth of copy out of it.”

  No, she didn’t.

  “The paper protected the boy who was brought in for questioning. Underwood? Was that his name? It never appeared in any of the articles.”

  She nodded.

  “You say he’s in town?”

  She rolled her eyes at him.

  “I did find something interesting.” He tapped his pen on the newspapers. “Look on page two of the one on top.”

  “The abduction account?”

  “Right.”

  She folded back the page. There it was, two paragraphs down. “‘Mitchell’s aunt and uncle,’” Jennifer read aloud, “‘Mr. and Mrs. West Lawson, confirm that the family is putting together a reward for any information that leads to the discovery of the whereabouts of their nephew.’”

  She let the paper slide back down onto the table and stared at Teague. “Th
at means—”

  “Right. Looks to me like Gavin Lawson and Jimmy Mitchell were first cousins.”

  “Family,” Jennifer said to herself.

  “Right. Family’s supposed to look after family.”

  “What do you mean, look after?”

  “Some people call it justice, Marsh. Other people call it murder. I call it a motive.”

  “What the heck are you talking about?” she demanded. “A motive for what?”

  “Maybe nothing. Yet.” He put the yellowed newsprint back in his briefcase, grabbed it up, and blew her a kiss as he moved toward the door. “Gotta go. Thanks for the tip about Underwood. Give me a call when you’re ready to talk about Buckner. Remember, whatever you tell me—it doesn’t have to be true.”

  “But—”

  With that he closed the door in her face.

  Chapter 14

  It had to be there somewhere. Jennifer shoved a stack of manuscripts to one side on the top shelf of her closet, and, standing on tiptoe, fished behind them. She knew she hadn’t thrown it out. She couldn’t have. It’d be like throwing out a piece of herself.

  Her hand hit cardboard and closed around a flimsy shoe box that she dragged forward and then caught in both arms as it dove off the shelf. The contents rattled like old bones.

  She carried it to the sofa and sat down on the floor Indian style, cradling the box. She hadn’t looked inside in twelve years.

  Opening it, she found the crushed corsage of red rosebuds, dried to a gray powder and nesting amidst lace, baby’s breath, and faded white satin ribbon. Gently, she set the corsage aside. Beneath it was her dance card from the Prom. Danny had filled his name in on every line. She traced her hand over his illegible scrawl, the memory bringing an involuntary smile to her lips.

  Farther down was her ticket stub from Nightmare on Elm Street: the Dream Master, the one and only film Danny had ever taken her to see. It had scared her so badly she’d practically climbed over the armrest at the theater and into his lap. Danny had loved every minute of it, and so had she.