At Oak Avenue, David was three blocks away from Culpepper Mills. He checked his watch: 9:56. Perfect timing for an hour of work before his 11:00 meeting.
At Larch, he purposely stared straight ahead of himself, refusing to even glance toward Gâteaupia, that bastion of phenomenal desserts, and phenomenally difficult girlfriends.
At Willow, he turned left, and then crossed to the north side of the street at Fourth. It was going to be a better day. It was going to be an awesome day!
~*~*~*~*~
The meeting had gone well. The suits had been more than pleased, both with David’s progress, and with his concepts for how Culpepper Mills would be presenting itself to the world soon. David had returned to his desk buoyant, geared up for another hour or so of web page building before he returned to Johnson and an afternoon session spent at his apartment’s computer workstation.
He exited the Culpepper Mills offices at 12:45 and, as he had the day before, headed south on Fourth. And then he saw it.
“Son of a bitch. Son of a bitch!” He fished in his pocket for a pair of quarters, and thrust them into the vending machine.
The Shady Grove Courier’s front page was a stark, black-and-white scream: “SUSPECTED KILLERS FLEE!” Below this was a close-up shot of Detective Ormsby. “Detective Has No Doubts,” was the header for the accompanying story.
David leaned against the side of a building as he briskly skimmed the array of articles related to Deke and Thickman’s flight from not only Greenville, but also the state itself. Their guilt appeared more than evident: they had both been arrested before for assault and battery; unnamed witnesses had corroborated the information that Heck Vance was in hock to the pair for a serious chunk of change; Heck Vance had apparently decamped Greenville on Wednesday morning, fearful for his bodily safety if he didn’t make at least the vig on the alleged debt by that afternoon. On Monday morning, Detective Harvey Ormsby of the Shady Grove P.D. had laid out at a press conference the detailed trail of evidence that led in only one direction, that of John “Deke” Decatur and Lewis Allan Thickman being guilty of having murdered one Hector Vance the previous Wednesday, in the kitchen of Apartment 1D of the Rainbow Arms apartment building in Shady Grove.
“Unbelievable!” David groused to himself. The detective must have headed directly for the Rainbow Arms after his press conference, specifically to lie in wait for David. Talk about a single-minded determination to inflict harm! If David had gone online or talked with anybody who had known about the press conference, Ormsby would have appeared an even bigger fool than he already was.
He strode toward Larch Avenue, newspaper in hand. Ormsby’s duplicity aside, this was an ideal excuse to stop in at Gâteaupia and jumpstart yet again his relationship with Genevieve. Why wait around for a day or a week for her to call him, or for David to timidly contact her? This ridiculous rollercoaster ride needed to get moving again, no matter how hard they had gone flying off the rails.
He loved Genevieve, he knew that! And Genevieve loved him. It was obvious in the way she so frequently dumped him!
She always took him back. Just as she’d always taken Todd back, until he’d behaved so badly and flown so far away that nothing could have resuscitated their liaison.
David flew past the bookstore, and then flung open the door of his girlfriend’s incredible bakery.
And then his jaw dropped as he took in who was sitting across from Genevieve at one of the tables in the rear. How did… What the…
Was anything ever going to make sense anymore?
Chapter Twenty-Six
It was Janice. Seated in one of the scalloped back chairs, hands folded before her on the table, feet dangling about four inches off the floor. Her hair was bright, blond, and pulled back into a sassy ponytail. Neither she nor Genevieve had noticed his entrance; their heads were close together, and they were conversing quietly.
“Weird, isn’t it?” Lydia had strutted straight up to him from the counter. “That’s not at all how I imagined her.”
“Who? Janice?” David asked, his focus still riveted by the bizarre tête-à-tête.
“Yep. How exactly is it that G never gets jealous of anything I do or say to you, but she gets herself all worked up over that? I mean, seriously!”
David finally looked at her. “She’s nice, actually.”
Lydia performed an exaggerated goggle. “Nice is nice. She ain’t got nothin’ on G, in any department!”
And then David smiled. “I’m with ya. I have tried to explain that, but…”
“I know, I know. She won’t see reason.”
“Exactly.” He lifted the blazing newspaper headlines. “You guys see this?”
“Uh, huh. That’s the other thing I can’t figure about G and her: this girl’s significant other was obviously a total douche. Girlfriends in different towns, I should be so lucky! But clearly, she exists in an entirely different world from you. It’s just, you live in the same building is all. What’s the whole biggie about you talking to her every once in a while?”
David’s free hand came up, and he swiftly pulled Lydia toward him. Before he could even think about what he was doing, he’d planted a quick, firm kiss right onto her gleaming red lips. “I think I love you, Lydia,” he said, “I really do. If things ever completely go kerplooey with G, you and I are getting married and having tons of babies together.”
Lydia was exultant. She reached forward, and her thumb began to wipe around David’s mouth. “You go over there with my lipstick smeared all over ya, things’ll go kerplooey in about three seconds.” She struck a pose. “But don’t let it stop ya!”
And then she patted his cheek as her voice became sultry. “And by the way, Victorian sponge wine cake, with a mocha tres leches frosting and an olive oil garnish.”
David drew back, his countenance recoiling with disgust. “Sticky toffee banana brownie pudding cake,” he retorted, “with a pink lemonade glaze and candied lemon peel stuck in the edges.”
“Oh! That does have more than a touch of nasty to it.” Lydia stepped back with a smile. “I think we might just have our first tie! Now. Get on over there and see what it’s all about. I did my best to eavesdrop, but got shooed away within seconds. I suppose even I wouldn’t have believed that I truly wanted to tidy up the washrooms during my lunch break!”
David thought about kissing her again, but didn’t. Their mutual attraction had been one of those irradiant constants in his life since his arrival in Shady Grove, and he didn’t want to jeopardize that joy. While Lydia gazed on with uncloaked curiosity, he stepped toward the table where Janice and Genevieve sat.
“Hello.” Both women looked up at him. Janice appeared guilty. Genevieve’s face was a stony blank. “I just thought I’d stop in for a couple minutes.” He almost held up his newspaper, but realized that while Genevieve might find it interesting in light of what he’d told her the night before, Janice had undoubtedly had enough of the whole thing by now.
Genevieve pushed her chair back and stood. She was immaculate, the bun in her hair nothing less than perfectly rounded, her clothing impeccably neat and clean. A hint of her brown sugar and cinnamon scent reached David, but it was an ill match for what he saw in her eyes. They were cold, hard, and clearly ready for the first day of her workweek to be over, done, and gone.
“Thank you for coming by,” she said stiffly to Janice. “I do appreciate what you told me.”
Janice nodded to her. “No problem. Sorry to drop in on you like I did.” Her chin indicated the half-eaten piece of devil’s food cake glazed with a dark buttercream ganache that sat on a plate before her. “And thank you for the cake. I’ve only had one other as good as this in my whole life.”
David had to bury a smirk as his eyes shot to Genevieve’s face, anticipating exactly what occurred: slightly flared nostrils, and the most miniscule narrowing of her eyes. “No problem,” she mumbled to Janice. And then she pivoted and escaped to her kitchen. Not one word had she spoken to her boyfriend of over
eighteen months.
Janice cautiously met David’s eyes, and then her own sank. “I only meant to tell her that there was nothin’ between us the other day. When she drove up, when you were touchin’ my arm.”
David slid into the seat so hastily vacated by Genevieve. His newspaper was laid facedown on the table. “Thank you for trying,” he said lightly. “I told you on Sunday, you did nothing wrong. We did nothing wrong.”
She looked away from him, toward the washroom doors. “As my daddy used to say, she listened, but I don’t know if she heard nothin’.”
“She heard,” David shrugged. “But the truth of the matter is, she knows full well that there’s nothing to be mad about. It’s just her way of deflecting from what’s really eating at her. Which isn’t you. Did the other cake that was as good as this one happen to be inside that box I gave you last night?”
Janice’s head swiveled, and she met David’s gaze. “Yeah. How ’bout that? Who knew one town could have two dessert places this good in it?”
David grinned in reply, amused by the idea that Genevieve had actually provided Janice with two slices of heaven in a twenty-four hour period.
“Here ya go!” Lydia had swung by with a generous piece of the devil’s food cake for David. Her voice lowered to a stage whisper. “I wasn’t sure if it was cool with the boss, so I had her look this over before I brought it out. Extra icing on the house, if you catch my drift!”
David snorted. Janice’s face remained blank.
Lydia smiled warmly at Janice. “I just love your hair. Seriously. If I’d been born with a lucky shade like that, I’d never have to keep changing mine up, trying to find something that works as natural as yours. You work at The Hot Spot, don’t you?”
Janice nodded, her countenance doubtful as she obviously wondered where this was leading.
“I knew it!” Lydia beamed. “I come in there every few weeks with a bunch of girlfriends. We’re the ones who always go through buckets and buckets of Long Island Ice Teas, and then have to start chowing down so we don’t all get rolled home. You’ve waited on us several times. You’re good! You always get everything perfect, no matter how toasted we are.”
A real smile had broken out on Janice’s face. “Hummingbird,” she replied simply. “Right?”
Lydia nodded. “Yep!” She rolled up her sleeve a few inches to display it, and then winked at Janice. “I’ll probably see you there this weekend. You could always join us, ya know, after work, maybe. We usually hit The Roadhouse down on Oak for a bit, just to cap the evening off.”
Janice executed a careful nod. “Okay. I might like that.”
“Cool!” Lydia bounced her head back and forth, and then lightly slapped David’s arm. “Just don’t bring any men along. They ruin everything! This one’s all right, some of the time, but God, the rest of them?”
The smile on Janice’s face was upgrading to a beam. “Don’t I know it?” she rejoined easily. “Got it. No men.”
“Cool!” Lydia repeated. “All right! We’ll see ya, then.” And her hand squeezed David’s shoulder just before she sashayed away.
Janice picked up her fork. “What’s her name?” she asked David quietly. “I should remember, but…”
“Lydia,” grinned David. “She’s awesome. In every way. She’s never invited me to The Roadhouse or The Hot Spot. I feel like I’m missing out on all the fun stuff. Seriously, no men?”
Another smile. It was the happiest David had ever seen her. “Might not be such a bad thing for a while,” she replied. Her fork came down, and she upended the newspaper. Detective Ormsby’s smug visage eyeballed them from beneath the screaming headlines. “Ever see such a mess caused by women?” she asked.
David could think of a plethora of disasters that had been caused by women, historically as well as in the present day, but didn’t think it the right moment to say so. Instead, he said, “Are you glad it’s pretty much over? No more visits from this loser – ” His finger gave Ormsby’s manly chin a swift poke. “ – at the very least. And I’m guessing that those two guys aren’t ever coming back to Shady Grove.”
But Janice’s face had begun to cloud over. “I don’t know,” she said in a much lower voice. “I guess Deke and Lew mighta done it. But I’d hate for ’em to take the rap if it wasn’t them. From what I’ve been hearin’, they been claimin’ they didn’t do it. Even Bill’s not so sure, now that it’s all official and such.” She toyed with her fork. “But they did skip out and all. So maybe all of ’em are just a pack of liars.”
David shifted in his chair as he tried to follow all of this. “But it seems pretty clear,” he said. “I mean, they drove all the way over from Greenville that morning, supposedly to confront Heck about money. And Bill saw them at the building, pounding on your door around twelve. And then when you came back that night, Heck had been dead for almost the exact number of hours that had passed since they’d been there. What’s Bill not so sure about now, anyway? It was noon. He’s never all sauced up in the middle of the day.”
Janice’s ebullience had evaporated entirely. “He’s just… not sure. He said that something like this happened to someone he knew when he was a kid. That it was obvious who had done it, but then it turned out it was actually someone else. He said that the cops didn’t even go after any of the killers, they were just so happy they’d left town.”
David’s thoughts had begun to spin. His head was spiraling, his mind was abuzz with a swarm of facts and suppositions, and snippets of stories to which he wished he had paid more attention.
Jim Frisk. Big Jim Frisk. Some guys he owed money to, they came for him one day and gave him a touch of his own medicine.
David stood. One of Genevieve’s paintings, a delectable rendering of a layered cheesecake fronting a backdrop of falling rose petals, began to swim sideways on the wall. The table below him grew small and insignificant.
“David? You okay? David?”
He ignored Janice. The concern in her voice was touching but entirely useless. Did she know? Did she harbor any suspicions?
They went too far, though. His head was nothin’ but bloody pulp when they got through.
How could he not have noticed the similarities? How had he missed such glaringly obvious parallels?
Ya knew he beat on her, right? My Mum, she lived for a bit with a guy just like Heck.
“David?” Janice had risen as well. “Do you feel all right?”
NO, David didn’t feel all right! He felt ill, sick to his stomach. He wanted to vomit, he wanted to scream. Was everyone and everything around him completely screwed up beyond all redemption? Was this just what most people truly were underneath all of the brittle coatings of civilized behavior?
And what about David himself? How had his attempts to forge a cleaner, better life for himself failed so stupendously? Wasn’t he, to some extent, culpable for some of what had occurred? Didn’t he own a responsibility for not only his own life, but also for the lives of those by whom he was surrounded?
“I have to go,” he heard a robotic voice that sounded nothing like his own announce. “I have to go.”
The door to Larch Avenue beckoned. The outdoor light was intensely bright. And as he pushed out onto the street, not only was it the first time in over a year that David had departed Gâteaupia without an exchange of banter with Lydia, it was the first time ever that his plate of cake had remained untouched.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Left on Larch. Jaywalk across Larch. Right on Fifth Street.
Well, he got his. He got his.
Bill’s words taunted David, slapped at him as his feet slapped at the pavement. Bill’s drinking had definitely picked up as well over the past several days. He had been immersing himself in alcohol!
Run across Oak. Almost to Maple. Crossing Maple.
Whoever did it, I hope they get away.
How could THAT not have been a giant freaking clue?
I told ’em what I saw. They can follow it up and come u
p with their own conclusions.
Jesus, David was blind!
Crossing Gum. Almost to Birch. Sprinting to beat a minivan that was pulling up at the stop sign.
And how about that look on Bill’s face when Detective Ormsby had suggested poking into his background?
Clean as a whistle. Have at it.
But his expression! And when Ormsby had provoked him with that comment about cleaning the fountain for a living…
Passing the elementary school. Almost to Marion. Clair!
David pulled up abruptly, his heart freezing even as it pumped more strongly than it had ever done before.
Clair! Clair and Bill! Was it even possible? Had she said something to him as well?
That girl creeps me out.
David gasped for air, sucking in humongous quantities of oxygen as he stared at the façade of the school.
He doesn’t trust me.
Holy crap!
It’s okay. He has his reasons.
And as Clair’s words began to carom about his head as well, David was off and running again. He wanted to scream, he wanted to yell, he wanted to UNDERSTAND!
Crossing Marion. Approaching Smithfield.
Who was she? What was she? Or was David leaping to conclusions, tying everything together incorrectly just because the string was available to do so?
Flying across Dr. Longworth. One more long block south, and then it was Piston Avenue.
But he knew Clair was involved, he knew it! She had told Janice to visit her mother, she had provided her with an ironclad alibi! Why would she do so, unless she needed her out of the way for some reason?
But could Clair be involved with Heck’s murder?
Big business here yesterday. Big business, bad business.
A terrible business. But CLAIR WAS IN FIRST GRADE!
This was insane, it was all nuts. They had all been dipping into the squirrel stash!
Right on Piston. Three buildings down was the Rainbow Arms.
David collapsed onto the grass. He had never run so hard so fast. A mile and three-quarters done in less time than it normally took the Shady Grove trolley to traverse the same distance.
A Shiver of Wonder Page 14
