Out for Blond

by V. J. Chambers

  “Please stop saying that,” I whispered.

  He didn’t say anything for several seconds. Then: “Did I do it right?”

  “Yes,” I breathed. “Oh, yes.”

  * * *

  When I woke up the next morning, Miles wasn’t there. I was alone in his bed, with the sunlight streaming in through the windows. I figured he was out in the kitchen or the living room. After all, I typically slept later than he did, and even though I was awake early for me, he’d probably gotten out of bed long ago.

  So, I stretched, got out of bed, found myself one of Miles’s bigger t-shirts, and shrugged that on to go looking for him.

  I wanted to see him. I didn’t like that we’d had this separation, even though it was short. I missed him already. I smiled to myself at the feeling. It was odd, because I could tell that I sounded vaguely pathetic, but I really liked the way it felt, so I didn’t care.

  But Miles wasn’t there.

  I checked every room in the house, even the bathroom. Every room was empty. And when I peered out the window into the driveway, his car wasn’t there.

  I got out my phone and called him. When he answered, I said, “Where the hell are you?”

  “Calm down, Stern,” he said. “I’m at work.”

  Work. Right. Of course, he would have to go to work. “Oh.”

  He didn’t say anything right away, waiting for me, I suppose. When I didn’t come up with anything else right away, he said, “Is that all? Because if so, I should go. I’ve got things to do.”

  I bit my lip. Did he sound cold? Why was he being like that after what had happened between us last night? “I, um, I just… I was expecting to see you when I woke up, that’s all.”

  “You know I have to work.” And his voice seemed a little gentler to me. At least I thought so.

  “Can we… Will I see you later?”

  “Sure,” he said. “But after work, please. Don’t come by the office again.”

  “Oh, I wasn’t going to—”

  “I’ll call you when I’m off, Stern.” He hung up.

  I slowly lowered the phone from my ear and looked at it. What was I supposed to make of that? Here, I’d had the most amazing sex of my life. It was earth shattering how close I had felt to this man. And now, he seemed distant.

  I shook myself. “He’s not distant,” I said to myself aloud. “He’s at work. He’s probably preoccupied. He said he’d see you tonight.”

  I wasn’t going to think about this anymore. If Miles was preoccupied, then I was going to be too. I had things that I needed to take care of today anyway. I had to go and tell Gunner Bray that I wasn’t on the case anymore, because I knew he was a murderer.

  Yesterday, I hadn’t wanted to do that at all. I hadn’t liked the idea of having to face him. But today, with all the Miles stuff, well, it seemed like a meaty enough distraction, something that actually could drive all thoughts of my night with Miles and what it meant to us out of my head.

  Which was what I wanted.

  I took off Miles’s shirt, put on my own clothes from last night, and drove back to my apartment. Then, I got ready and went into town for my usual breakfast. They were surprised to see me so early. Everyone commented on it. Sometimes, living in a place where everyone knows you is kind of a drag, because people always notice everything about you. And that can be annoying. Sometimes, you want anonymity. I was beginning to think that the next time I needed breakfast when my routine had changed at all, I should find someplace else to get it.

  Finally, with a full belly, I headed out to the farm.

  I was planning on heading straight for Gunner, so I let myself into the main house. I’d never been out to the farm so early, so I was surprised to find the kitchen full of women who were washing up the breakfast dishes. I tried to avoid them. After all, I wanted Gunner, not any of them, but Stella saw me, and came over, trying her hands on her apron.

  “Hey,” she said. “Did what I said to you help? About Jagger?”

  “Stella, I’m looking for Gunner,” I said. “Maybe we can talk later.” I wasn’t going to talk to her later, but she didn’t need to know that.

  “Because I remembered something else about Jagger. That night? The night that Tess was murdered, he asked to borrow my car.”

  “You have a car?” I said, raising my eyebrows. Wasn’t she a teenage runaway?

  “Well, sort of. It’s my mom’s, but she lets me use it sometimes.”

  Oh, no, that was right. Stella’s friend at the shelter said that Stella had family close by. She just chose to live on the farm instead of with her mother. What kind of mother allowed that, I wasn’t sure. Probably the kind who deserved to be left.

  “Anyway,” Stella continued, “I thought maybe that would be useful information for you. Where’s Brigit?”

  I seriously didn’t have time for this. Maybe if I hadn’t been so dead set on getting to Gunner, maybe if it had been yesterday, when I was dreading my confrontation with him, maybe then I would have enjoyed standing around and shooting the shit with Stella. “Brigit didn’t come with me today.”

  “Oh, that’s too bad. You know, I really like Brigit,” she said. “I used to have a close friend, Adeline, but she left, and now I don’t have anyone to spend time with. I was really hoping Brigit would come back and that we could spend time together. I really, really was.”

  “Look, even if Brigit did come back, we would have been working, not socializing,” I said. “Have you seen Gunner?”

  “No, I don’t know where Gunner is,” she said. “It’s only that I really hate being alone. Don’t you hate being alone?”

  “Stella, I don’t have time for this.” She seemed like a lonely kid, and I felt bad for her, but this really wasn’t my problem. After I talked to Gunner, and maybe Laura, I’d be done with this place forever. I wouldn’t ever have to come back here.

  What I’d do to take up my time I wasn’t sure, of course. Maybe Miles would kick me a juicy missing persons case.

  Miles.

  I flashed on our bodies moving together in the same rhythm and I went hot and cold all over. I shut my eyes.

  “I’m just trying to help.” Stella sounded offended. “You always wanted to talk to me before.”

  “Sorry,” I said, opening my eyes. “It’s only that it’s important for me to find Gunner. That’s all.”

  Stella shrugged. “Yeah, okay. Whatever.” She was hurt.

  Damn it, I seriously didn’t have time for this. “I’m really sorry, Stella,” I said. “Really, I am.”

  She shook her head.

  But I pushed past her and went further into the house.

  I went to the room where Gunner and I had sex. Maybe that was his bedroom. There wasn’t anyone in there, and it didn’t look like his bedroom. It looked completely nondescript, like it wasn’t anyone’s bedroom.

  I looked through some other bedrooms on that wing, but all of them were empty. So, I circled back to find Laura’s office. I’d tell her, and then I’d tell Gunner. Or maybe I’d just tell her and avoid talking to Gunner at all. There weren’t any rules that I had to confront him, were there? It wasn’t as if this was some climactic showdown between the two of us—me on the side of good and him on the side of evil.

  It was going to be very anti-climactic in fact. I was going to stand aside, and Gunner was going to go to trial. That might not be for years, of course. It took a long time for the wheels of justice to turn. But he’d probably be convicted. And then all of this would be over.

  So, like I said. Anti-climactic.

  But Laura wasn’t in her office. It was locked, and she was nowhere to be found.

  Annoyed, I headed back to the kitchen. I needed to find somebody.

  That was when I ran into Gunner. He was coming down the hallway, and his hair was wet, like he’d recently gotten out of the shower. As he approached, he even smelled like soap.

  “Ivy,” he said. “I didn’t expect to see you here so early.”

  Geez.
Did everyone on earth have to comment on the fact that I was out and about before noon? Was it really that shocking? But I decided to let that slide. “I need to talk to you.”

  He raised his eyebrows. “Okay. Is it about the murder?”

  “Yes, what else would it be about?”

  “Well, there is the fact that the two of us had a bit of a, um…” He mused over how to put it. “Connection.”

  “Get over yourself,” I said. “Do you want to talk in the hallway or…?”

  “Follow me,” he said.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  “You’re what?” Gunner had taken me to a study off the dining room, where he’d closed the door on my advice. He’d settled into tapestry-covered easy chair, but upon my declaration that I was off the case, he stood up.

  Since I’d remained standing, I stared him down. “You heard me. I’m not doing this anymore. You may have fooled me in the beginning, but I see through you now. I won’t do your dirty work anymore.”

  “Dirty work? What are you talking about?” His eyebrows made a V in the middle of his forehead.

  “You and your son Jagger killed Tess Carver. I know that he’s lying about the alibi that he gave you, and I know that he’s someone close enough to you that you’d trust him to help with something like that. After all my searching and investigating, it comes down to this. So, I’m done working for you.”

  Gunner opened his mouth, but no sound came out.

  “That’s all I had to say.” I turned to go.

  “Wait,” he said, his voice hoarse.

  I turned. “I don’t think I should. There is something about you, Gunner Bray. You talk to me, and you get me all confused and tangled up. Later, when I try to think if whatever it was you said made any sense, I only feel confused. But at the time, it always seems as if you know what you’re talking about.”

  He gestured at a chair opposite him. “Please, sit down.”

  “No.” I turned again.

  “Did Jagger confess to you?” His voice was agonized.

  I looked back at him. “He didn’t. But I put it together.”

  Gunner was studying his hands. “I worried it was him. I worried it was, and that was why I made sure he had an alibi. He was so angry with Tess.”

  “Oh,” I said. “No, you don’t. You can’t trick me into thinking that you weren’t involved. Not this time. I’m not listening to any of this.”

  “Ivy, please,” he said. “Look, you’re right that he’s lying. Jagger and I weren’t together that night. I don’t know where he was. But I wasn’t with him. And I didn’t kill Tess. I swear to you that I didn’t.”

  “Gunner, I don’t have time for this.” I turned back to the door. This time, I got it open a few inches.

  “I told him to lie for me,” he blurted. “I knew he’d do it. He’s a good kid, and I knew he would do it.”

  I didn’t turn around. “Yeah, I put this together already.”

  “Not the way you’re thinking,” he said. “I told him to lie for me, because my real alibi isn’t something I want getting out.”

  What? His real alibi? I had to admit, this was too ludicrous to take. I wanted to hear what he had to say, just for the fun of watching him dig himself a deeper hole. I turned back to him, eyebrows raised. “So, what’s your ‘real alibi,’ Gunner?”

  He bowed over, clutching the back of his head. “Man, this is really hard to talk about.”

  “Gunner?”

  “I have this… problem.”

  I rolled my eyes. He was really going to drag this all out for dramatic effect, wasn’t he? Did he think that would make it more believable? The hell of it was, it was kind of working. I sat down in the chair and glared at him. “Gunner, spit it out. You either have an alibi or you don’t.”

  He looked up at me. “I, uh, was at a casino.”

  “A casino? Why are you making a big deal about that?”

  “We don’t gamble here at the Clayton Society. We don’t go to places that serve alcoholic beverages, much less…” His voice dropped several octaves in shame. “Drink them.”

  “Seriously?” I didn’t believe this.

  “I couldn’t have anyone know, not when they all look up to me here,” he said. “And then, once they were using all this money to pay for my defense, I thought that if they did find out where I really was when Tess was being killed, they’d never look at me the same. It would almost be as bad as if I really was a murderer.”

  “Come on,” I said. “Gambling isn’t murder. I don’t care how strict you are about your life.”

  “Maybe not,” he said. “But it’s bad. It’s really, really bad.”

  I cocked my head to one side. Was this the truth, then? It was strange for Gunner to be making himself vulnerable to me. But then maybe that was part of his ingenious strategy to get me to believe him.

  “Look,” he said, “I can prove I was there. I have receipts with the date. I keep all of that stuff.”

  “You keep casino receipts?”

  “I, um, keep everything that I get there when I go. I’ve snuck out some poker chips, a shot glass… some other stuff. I like to be able to take it out and look at it when I can’t get away to actually go to the casino. It’s kind of a consolation prize.”

  He looked so pathetic at that moment.

  I shook my head at him. “So, you were at the casino, and you didn’t want anyone to know, so you asked Jagger to lie for you.”

  He nodded. “That’s right.”

  I sighed. “Show me the receipts, all right?”

  * * *

  Gunner did indeed have receipts. They were dated and time stamped, and they showed him in various bars in the casino between the hours of ten and two. There was no way he would have had time to leave, drive off, kill Tess, and then get back in time to have his next drink.

  “You know, you could have saved me a lot of headache if you’d just shown me these in the first place,” I told him.

  He stared at his feet and didn’t say anything.

  “So, what about Jagger?” I said. “What the hell was Jagger doing that night?”

  “I have no idea,” said Gunner.

  I went looking for Jagger, but I didn’t find him. He wasn’t out in the fields, where he’d always been in the past. I even had someone direct me out to his place. He lived in a little house that was really not much more than a two-room shack. It was nicer than a typical shack in that it wasn’t run down, but it wasn’t the kind of place most people would want to live—no running water, no kitchen, no bathroom. Anyway, Jagger wasn’t there.

  What the hell?

  Did he know I was onto him? Maybe he’d gone and looked up the phase of the moon that night and realized he was wrong. Maybe he was hiding from me.

  There was probably no reason to suspect Jagger. Well, except for the fact that he’d argued with Tess, that he’d been all to happy to lie about his whereabouts and give a cover for his dad, and that he was hiding from me now.

  But what was Jagger’s motive, if he’d done it? Perhaps he’d thought that it would mean Joey would come to live on the farm, just like he had. Maybe he’d killed Tess out of spite for keeping his half-brother away from him his whole life.

  Or maybe he’d done the ritual—trying to protect the farm from outside sources or trying to impress his father. If Gunner was always going on about that ritual, maybe it wasn’t far off to think that Jagger would get it into his head to try it out.

  Yes, it was possible that Jagger had done it. Quite possible.

  So, what was my next move?

  Suddenly, I remembered something that Stella had said when I ran into her earlier, that Jagger had borrowed her car the night of Tess’s murder.

  I took off back for the kitchen, looking for Stella.

  But Stella wasn’t there. Instead, I found Natalie, the woman who’d given us the notebook with the ritual.

  “Have you seen Stella?” I asked her.

  “Not this morning,” said Natalie. �
�Why?”

  “I’m looking for her so she can take me to her car,” I said. “I want to look at it.”

  “Well, I don’t know where she is,” said Natalie. “But I know that her car is parked with all the other cars. Out by the big barn at the end of the driveway.”

  “Really?” I said. “Do you think you could show me where that is?”

  * * *

  “This is Stella’s car,” said Natalie. “At least, I’ve seen her driving it sometimes. It’s not always here, I have to admit. Sometimes someone drops her off here. Someone in a green pick-up truck.”

  Stella’s car was a blue Chevy Cobalt. It looked like it had seen better days. It could use a touch-up paint job and a wash.

  “That doesn’t matter,” I said, tugging on a pair of rubber gloves, so as not to contaminate the scene. “I’m just interested in the car for now.” I tried the driver side door. It was unlocked. Nice. Now, if I had borrowed a car in order to do a murder, where would I put the body? The trunk?

  I found the catch to the trunk and popped it open. Then I got out of the car and went around back to look inside.

  “Do you need me for anything else?” asked Natalie.

  I’d forgotten she was even there. “Oh, no, Natalie, you’re fine. Thanks.”

  “I’m going to go, then.”

  “Sure.” I gave her a big smile and a wave.

  She started back towards the main house.

  I gave my attention to the trunk. It was empty except for a few straggling plastic bags that seemed to be from 7-11. I pushed them out of the way. I wasn’t sure what I was looking for, not really.

  But there wasn’t anything to see here.

  I glared into the trunk for a few seconds, and then I shut it again.

  Anyway, maybe Jagger hadn’t put Tess in the trunk. Maybe he’d tricked her instead. Her boyfriend had said she’d gotten a call to come to the farm, so maybe that had been Jagger. Maybe he’d just picked her up in the car…

  I yanked open the passenger side door, scanning the floor and the seat. I saw two or three old plastic soda containers on the floor, and an empty French fry carton. The seat was empty.

  The back seat? I opened that door and climbed back there.