23 Miles

by Renee Mackenzie

  Part of Talia was still shaken up over being chased the other night, but another part refused to let it alter her routine too much. She had her window down, enjoying the cool mid-fifties temperature, but also knew if she saw a dark-colored van she would roll up the window as fast as possible and floor it out of there.

  She loved the parkway. She loved the scenery and the way you didn’t see billboards or restaurants, or any other businesses along the way. She loved how her car tires sounded on the rounded river gravel that was set in concrete, the look of the brick of the overpasses, the rich, centuries-long history of the road and surrounding areas. She felt lucky to have grown up in such a cool place.

  It was Columbus Day. Or had been. Now it was nearly two in the morning of the Tuesday after. Luckily Talia was off through Wednesday because Dr. Bennett had gone away for a very long weekend, and when he took off, the entire office also had to.

  She sang along to Sam Harris as he belted out “Over the Rainbow.” She loved his first album and had already worn out one other copy of the cassette. In between songs, a yawn snuck up on her. She was about to turn around and head home when she saw the flash of police lights.

  A parade of law enforcement vehicles filled a pull-off. There were York County deputies, Park Service rangers, and state troopers—some had their lights on, strobes of color lighting up the trees, and some didn’t. Parked to the side was a black van. The hair on the back of Talia’s neck stood on end. Was that the van? Or was the van that had chased her dark blue? Her stomach twisted.

  She turned off the music and drove by at a crawl. She could hear a cacophony of broken radio chatter from the different law enforcement officers. She noticed the back end of a car protruding from the heavy brush to the right of the pull-off. A park ranger walked in her direction. He was big and scary and when he motioned for her to move on, she did. She glanced back at the black van one last time and saw a white bundle being loaded into it. She had always thought that body bags were black. She shivered—and got the hell out of there.

  Chapter Three

  Talia walked into the bar and was struck by how off it felt. There was no music, no clinking and clanking from the pool tables, and everyone spoke in hushed tones. Talia didn’t think about her shyness and insecurities when she sat two stools down from Shay.

  “Can I get you a drink?” the bartender, Dee, asked.

  She ordered a vodka and tonic. Once Dee had placed her change on the bar in front of her, Dee’s attention went back to Shay. Talia turned slightly to listen in on their conversation.

  “The newspapers called them friends,” Dee said to Shay.

  Talia thought about the article detailing the grisly death of two women on the parkway. She’d read it so many times she’d almost memorized it. And all around York County no one spoke about anything but the murders. It was a big deal. Nothing like that had ever happened here before.

  “Friends,” Dee repeated.

  “Of course they did.”

  “Are they clueless?”

  Shay shrugged. “Or maybe they wanted to make it more palatable for the public so they’d give a shit.”

  “It just feels so…so…”

  “Dismissive?” Shay asked.

  “Yes. That. Exactly.”

  “Yeah,” Shay whispered. She took a sip of her drink.

  Talia thought Shay looked tired.

  “What have you heard about it?” Dee asked.

  “What do you mean?” Shay asked.

  “What are your cop buddies saying?”

  “They aren’t saying anything to me.” Shay turned Talia’s way but seemed to look right through her. Talia’s feelings would have been hurt if the expression on Shay’s face hadn’t been one of such utter defeat.

  Talia’s attention was drawn to the far corner of the bar where a group of four women were huddled, sobbing in each other’s arms. She knew instinctively that they were friends of the murdered women. Talia pushed her drink aside. She couldn’t take it. As much as she wanted to numb herself, she didn’t think she could keep it down.

  The image of the mystery van’s headlights flashing in the rearview mirror…the pungent scent of pot lingering in her car…the flashing lights of the police cars…the stark finality of a white body bag being loaded into the back of a black van…the sound of broken radio chatter mixing with the pounding of her heart…the way the images of two different nights mixed in Talia’s head and gut transfixed her in the middle of this horrific, sad, and maddening tragedy. But sitting on the stool at the bar she wasn’t in the middle of anything. She was once again on the outside. She didn’t think she knew either of the women, and wouldn’t lie, wouldn’t embellish, wouldn’t dirty this moment with a sick need to claim some attention for herself.

  When Talia looked back, Dee gave her a sad, connecting wink after noticing her largely untouched drink. Kate nodded at Talia when their eyes met, a movement that included Talia in this place with this pain. Yes, everyone in the bar hurt. Everyone felt the pain of having members of their community savagely ripped away. Whether they knew them personally or not, someone had murdered two of their own.

  The lack of music finally sank in. Talia realized the DJ was in the huddle of crying women. The quiet must have registered with others then because there were murmurs of turning on some tunes. “And please,” she heard someone say, “don’t let it be sad.”

  Shay got off her barstool and walked over to the DJ. She whispered something in her ear and the DJ nodded. Shay went into the DJ booth and fiddled around a bit.

  “Does she know what she’s doing?” Kate asked.

  “She dated a DJ once. Just long enough to learn her way around the booth,” Dee said.

  Several women laughed. Talia wasn’t amused. She hated the prospect of Shay dating anyone who wasn’t her.

  Madonna’s voice came out of the speakers.

  There was a collective sigh of relief. Talia wondered if the others expected to hear Patsy Cline.

  †

  The next night Talia thought about staying at home, but she couldn’t make herself stay away from the bar. Something had happened that would change every one of their lives in some way and she wouldn’t, couldn’t look away from it.

  She sat down on the stool next to Shay. Talia didn’t look at her as she asked in a low voice, “Did you know them?”

  Shay stared forward. “I knew Allie,” she said.

  “I’m sorry.” Talia turned to her.

  Shay turned to look at her and her steel-blue eyes almost stole the breath right out of Talia. “Did you know them?”

  Words raced through her head. Do not lie. Do not lie. Do not be a Liarhead Lizard. The memory of her and Brian getting caught in a lie by his girlfriend, Nancy, came into Talia’s head in mega-color and full-stereo sound. Nancy was screaming, “Liar! Liarhead! You’re Liarhead Lishers!” Her words had started roaring out of her faster and faster until they morphed into Liarhead Lizards. It took no time at all for the moniker to make it to school—it ended up whispered, muttered, shouted through the hallways, scribbled on their lockers—and it was totally believable because the Lisher family had indeed gotten quite the reputation for making things up.

  Talia shook her head. “No, I don’t think I knew them.” Relief washed over her. She’d gotten the words out without lying, without embellishing. Her relief, though, was immediately eclipsed by the enormity of the situation, the heinous brutality of it.

  They sat in silence. Talia was trying to form words to continue the conversation when they were interrupted. A woman she’d seen around the bar sat on the other side of Shay. Holding her beer bottle with a white-knuckled grip, she turned to Shay and said, “Why aren’t they going after that bastard ex-husband? You know that redneck either did it himself or had them killed. We all know they were slaughtered because he couldn’t deal with being dumped for a dyke. But no”—her voice rose higher— “no, instead they go after the ex-girlfriend because of course the lesbo is the killer, right? This is
bullshit. Regina introduced them, for crying out loud. She wanted them to be happy together. The fucking FBI needs to leave her alone and go after the redneck!”

  Talia stared at the bar, afraid to make eye contact with the woman who was so full of anger.

  “That’s enough,” Shay said. Then she was interrupted by someone else who’d leaned between them.

  “It was a cop,” the new woman said. “It looked just like a traffic stop. Besides, the husband has an iron-clad alibi. And we all know it wasn’t anyone who knew Allie and Diane. Everyone who knew them loved them. It had to be random. Or because they were lesbians.”

  “Of course it was because they were lesbians,” Dee chimed in.

  For so long Talia had wanted to be at the center of things at the bar, especially with Shay, but she was feeling overwhelmed. Everyone was too close, too loud, too angry. Talia grew dizzy.

  Talia turned to Shay and felt immediate relief when their eyes met.

  “Excuse us,” Shay said to no one and everyone. “Coming?” she asked Talia.

  Talia nodded, and they squeezed their way out of the small group of women who had formed around them. The mix of voices continued as they walked away. “It was the fucking redneck!”

  “No, it was a park ranger!”

  “Or the CIA!”

  “You okay?” Shay asked as they increased the distance from the others. “You look a little pale.”

  “It was all just too much,” Talia said.

  “Yeah, I know.” Shay squeezed her shoulder and smiled. “I have to get out of here. Don’t let those women get to you, okay?”

  Talia nodded, then watched as Shay walked out of the bar.

  Talia thought about going after her, but Lana followed Shay out. Talia knew she couldn’t compete with Lana for Shay’s attention, just like she knew she couldn’t compete with Kate for Shay’s attention either.

  †

  Shay squatted by the flower garden in her backyard, pulling a weed here and there, but her heart wasn’t in it. She wandered around the yard, knowing there was plenty of work she could do, but unable to commit to any one task.

  She’d been thinking about the murders. She didn’t know much about Diane, just that Allie was the first woman she’d been with. Every time Shay asked Allie when she would get to meet her new girlfriend, Allie would promise her soon. She’d said that Diane was nervous about anyone knowing about their relationship.

  Shay had been thrilled for Allie. She was happier than Shay had seen her in a long time. Things were looking good, not just in her new relationship, but also in her job. Allie had gotten a promotion at the financial services company she’d been working for ever since graduating from Old Dominion University three years earlier.

  Shay plopped down on the grass that was in need of a good mowing. She plucked at a few straggly blades as tears coursed down her face. She couldn’t believe what had happened to Allie and Diane. She couldn’t make sense of it.

  She sprawled on her back and let the sun burn her eyes. Just as she was about to shut them, she saw movement in her peripheral vision. She rolled onto her side and let Poke do a kitty head-butt against her forehead. She pulled him to her and he didn’t resist as she snuggled against him, letting her tears come freely against his skinny side.

  Shay thought about Allie at their softball games. She packed a lot of power into her five-foot-three frame. She could hit to any field and nothing got past her at third. She was so fair-skinned that she reapplied sunscreen after every inning or two. And the more she was in the sun, the lighter and lighter her hair got until it was almost white by the end of each summer.

  She drifted off. Sometime later, Poke got restless so Shay let him up. The sun had sunk low in the sky and Shay felt a slight coolness in the air. She got up and followed Poke to the back door. She knew he’d be looking for food. And she wanted a drink.

  She put kibble in Poke’s bowl and added a spoon of canned tuna. She opened the fridge to grab a beer but just couldn’t do it. If she drank alone she would cry all night long. She didn’t think her eyes could handle any more tears, so she grabbed her car keys and headed out.

  Shay was at the bar in only a few minutes. She plopped down on a barstool and hoped she looked better than she felt after her crying jag. “Amstel Light,” she told Dee.

  After setting the beer on the bar, Dee nodded to the right. “Your fan club is here again.” Shay looked over by the jukebox and caught the young woman with the big hair and purple eye shadow watching her. Well, she assumed the eye shadow was purple since that’s what it usually was. The young woman looked away quickly.

  Dee had teased Shay before about the ‘strays’ she tended to attract. After spending a few moments with the young woman right after the murders, Shay now thought of her as a little lost, but not a stray. She was always uncomfortable when Dee talked about people like that.

  She thought about going over to where the young woman leaned against the jukebox, but before she could another equally young woman dragged her out onto the dance floor. Shay watched them dance. It was probably for the best. Shay didn’t want to encourage her since she was way too young.

  Shay stared at the mirrored wall and focused on two palm prints. They were in locations that told her someone had most likely stood with a hand on each side of a lover’s head, maybe even leaned in for a kiss. She mentally went through the motion of lifting the prints from the mirror. She hated that the image had immediately shifted in her head to resemble a crime scene needing evidence collection so she quickly turned away.

  “Considering all that has happened,” Shay said to Dee, “maybe I will do some parking lot security for the bar. If the offer is still there.”

  Dee smiled. “Of course the offer is still there. The pay isn’t great, but it is something. And I know every woman in here will feel better knowing you’re out there.”

  †

  Over the next couple of weeks Talia heard a lot of conflicting information, mostly a blur of conspiracy theories. One rumor was the ex-husband’s family owned the auto shop that worked on all the area law enforcement vehicles, and the cops weren’t looking close enough at the man because of those ties. Another story was that a rogue CIA agent was out hunting people and that there had been others, but they had been covered up. The one thing that was consistent, though, was the anxiety over how Allie’s ex-girlfriend was being mistreated by the investigators.

  And there was plenty of anxiety—over the deaths of the women, the investigation, and the absence of answers.

  Halloween came and Talia looked forward to the distraction of a good party. And, she’d heard the bar always threw a great one. What to be, what to be? was the question that provided some relief from the constant buzz about the murders.

  When she finally decided to go as a mummy, she drove to the drugstore to buy some gauze wrap. As a five-foot-five cashier dressed as Bat-girl rang up her purchase at the register, she felt like she was being watched. She looked up to see April Hunter, Kate’s younger sister. Talia nodded an acknowledgment and was surprised when April walked out with her.

  “Hi,” Talia said.

  “Hey. I wasn’t sure if you were still in the area. How’ve you been?”

  “Good,” Talia said, looking her over. April had gained quite a bit of weight, which wasn’t necessarily a bad thing, considering how thin she was the last few times Talia had seen her. “What have you been up to?”

  “You know, same old,” April mumbled. She looked around and leaned a little closer. “Do you by chance have anything for—for ah, energy?”

  “I don’t have much but I could spot you a few black beauties.”

  “I don’t need much,” she said as she seemed to brighten. “I don’t really use the stuff anymore but I just need a little something.”

  Talia remembered then that she didn’t have any with her, it was all at home. And since she was also trying to impress a certain ex-cop, who was good friends with April’s sister, did she really want to be the on
e who gave April some illegal drugs? And if April was trying to get her life together, did she want to be the one who screwed that up?

  “Oh, wow,” Talia said, patting her pockets. “You know, I just remembered I took the last bit yesterday. I’m sorry.”

  It was hard to watch April almost crumble under her news, but Talia wasn’t risking anything about drugs getting back to Shay. She thought then how she was going to quit with the beauties and hearts and robin eggs, and stick to the legal caffeine of Jolt Cola. She apologized again to April, then got in her car and left the drugstore parking lot.

  †

  Knowing she would need some help with her costume, Talia had enlisted the assistance of her fellow dental office peon, Lacey. They were going in opposite directions for their parties—Talia to Norfolk and Lacey to Richmond—so they met at Talia’s apartment. She helped Lacey with her white face paint for her vampire costume and Lacey wrapped Talia. They were running behind because they’d taken a break or two to hit the pipe and weed Lacey had brought over with her.

  As they ran out the door to their cars, Talia’s neighbor was walking up the steps to her apartment and stopped short. “Hi, Talia. Wow. Look at you two.”

  Lacey bared her fangs and hissed. Talia lifted her arm in a stiff half wave. Talia was hoping she wouldn’t have to introduce Lacey because she only knew her neighbor as the Maybe Lesbian from across the way. Since the woman knew her name, Talia assumed they’d introduced themselves at some point when Talia was either too drunk or too stoned to remember. Now she was too embarrassed to admit she didn’t remember it or to take the time to ask.