23 Miles

by Renee Mackenzie

  “That’s my girl.”

  Talia turned to look again when Brian’s attention drifted back to the table behind her. The man caught them looking and turned abruptly away. When Talia turned back to face her brother, she couldn’t help but notice the I’m-up-to-something smirk on his face.

  Usually on her way out she tried hard not to look at the others, but couldn’t help herself. She always just wanted to see how scary they really were. A few looked like trouble, but mostly they looked like the normal people they were. Normal people who, for whatever reason, had broken the law. She knew Brian was there because of greed, but imagined some of the men were there because of crimes they committed out of desperation. Sometimes people did bad things when they were hungry or had lost hope.

  This time, Brian insisted on walking her to the door leading out of the large visiting area. He stopped at the table with the young couple. “Hey, Rob, I see your bride came again to see you.”

  Rob seemed to tense, and his wife looked confused.

  He said to Rob, “This is my sister, Talia,” and to Talia he said, “this is Rob, my neighbor.” Brian used his ‘plotting’ voice.

  “Hi,” Talia said, feeling uncomfortable. She looked into Rob’s eyes for a long moment, imagining how cool it would be if she could telepathically send him a message to watch out for Brian. She turned toward the woman and said hello to her as well, even though no attempt was made to introduce her.

  When they moved again toward the door, Talia made small talk. “They look like a sweet couple.” She wondered if Brian would tell her what he was up to.

  “Sweet couple, huh?” He shot them a glance. “That’s his sister-in-law. Rob’s in here for insurance fraud related to his wife’s death. They couldn’t pin the murder on him, so they went for the easy win with fraud.”

  So, she thought, the bride comment was a taunt.

  “When Rob and I get out of this dump, we’re going into business together.”

  “Oh,” she took the bait. “What kind of business.”

  “Life insurance, of course.”

  At the door, Talia gave her brother a hug. He said, way too loud, “God bless you, Tali.”

  She hurried past the guard he was trying to impress. When she got to the car, she opened the door and the smell of BBQ sauce assaulted her. She glanced down at the ribs wrapped in plastic wrap. She hadn’t been sure if she’d leave them behind or not until she got to the prison. She’d thought about Shay then, and how Talia was pretty sure they’d be over before they even got started if she’d been caught breaking the law.

  Leaving the prison grounds, Talia forced herself to drive the speed limit until she got to more familiar territory. Once on Route 17, she pulled into the Texaco gas station and threw away the ribs, then drove with the window down, trying to get the smell out.

  Several miles later, she looked into her rearview mirror in time to see a dark blue van cut across two lanes of traffic to get in the right turn lane behind her. She rolled up the window and floored it, pulling out in front of a Ford Maverick, the driver let her know his displeasure with a horn blast and hand gesture that involved one finger.

  Talia sped down Ft. Eustis Boulevard until she realized she was leading her pursuer to her place. That was the last thing she wanted. Instead of turning left on Jefferson Avenue, she went through the light and got on I-64 heading toward Norfolk.

  Glancing in the mirror, Talia noted the driver of the van had a ball cap pulled down low on his head so she couldn’t make out his face. He stayed right with her as she weaved through cars. What her Honda didn’t have in power it made up for in heart, and she was in flight mode. Each time the van managed to maneuver around cars with her, she was shocked and more afraid.

  When she saw the sea of taillights ahead of her she didn’t have enough time to get in the right lane to jump off the interstate at LaSalle Avenue. Now she was stuck. Crap, crap, crap. There was a cop in traffic about four cars ahead of her. She vowed that if she saw the van’s door open she would get out and make a run for the police cruiser. She undid her seat belt just in case. When she remembered the open bottle of schnapps under her seat and the weed in her glove box, she decided the cop would be the very last resort.

  Traffic started to creep again and her heart sank as the cop got off the interstate. But, the cars were moving again. They got up to about forty mph through the tunnel, then it all opened up and Talia was able to go sixty on the other side.

  The van stayed right with her. She drove like a maniac, occasionally getting some distance between them, but then inevitably some pokey jerk would get in her way. By the time she exited at Chesapeake Boulevard, she didn’t see the van. She floored it to the intersection at Five Points and made a hard right onto Sewell’s Point without waiting her turn. She ignored the honking horns and jerked the wheel left into the bar’s parking lot. She slammed on her brakes and skidded up to the door, blocking in several cars where she stopped.

  Cindy was checking IDs at the door and Talia ignored her pleas to move her car. There was no way in hell she was going back out there.

  “Is Shay working?” Talia shouted.

  “Day off.” Cindy pointed toward her car. “Move your car, please.”

  “It’s an emergency. May I use the phone please?”

  Cindy rolled her eyes and nodded toward the office door. Talia was pretty sure she thought it was just some more garden-variety dyke drama and not a life-and-death situation.

  Talia dialed Shay’s number from memory. “Shay, I’m sorry, but I didn’t know where else to go or what else to do—I didn’t tell you or anyone, else but one night on the parkway I was chased by a van and today it followed me to Norfolk, and maybe even to the bar.”

  “Are you sure it’s the same van?”

  “Positive. Shay, I’m scared. What should I do?”

  “Stay inside the bar until I get there.”

  “I’m blocking people in.”

  “Find Dee and put her on the phone.”

  Talia did as Shay asked. When Dee hung up and came out of the office, she looked serious. “Want a drink, Talia?”

  “No thanks.”

  “Well, that’s a first,” she said.

  Talia shrugged.

  Shay came into the bar fifteen minutes later. On her way to the phone in the office, she muttered, “I miss my police radio.” She picked up the receiver from the office phone and punched in a number. “Parker, I need something, buddy.” She paused as he spoke, then added, “Because you’re the only cop in town still speaking to me.” She laughed. “And because I’m so charming. I need you to run a tag for me. It’s for a blue Chevy G20 van.” She read it off. “This is extremely urgent.” She gave him the number she was calling from, said thanks, and hung up.

  “He’ll call me right back,” Shay said to Talia.

  “You got the tag on the way in?”

  “Yes.”

  “So he is out there,” Talia said.

  Shay nodded.

  Dee brought Shay a soda, and then turned to Talia. “Tina needs to leave. May I move your car?”

  Shay held out her hand and Talia handed her the keys. When Shay came back in several minutes later, she said, “The van is gone.”

  The office phone rang. Shay answered it, obviously comfortable taking charge. “Hey Parker, thanks.” She jotted down some information. “If it turns out to be anything, I’ll give you a call first.” She hung up.

  Shay turned to Talia. “Jeffrey Gardner. Sound familiar?”

  She shook her head.

  “He has a Yorktown address and a record for possession.”

  “I think I’ll take that drink now,” Talia said.

  “How about you hold that thought. Let’s go to my place and you can tell me the whole story.”

  Talia nodded.

  “We’ll take your car and leave my truck here. I can come back for it later.”

  Talia followed her out and realized Shay had put her T-shirt on inside out when she’d rus
hed to Talia’s rescue. Her breath came faster and she felt a little woozy. No wonder she had fallen hard for this woman.

  Shay turned and looked at her. “You okay?”

  “Your shirt is on inside out.”

  She looked down and laughed. “It sure is. Now you see me for the bum I really am.”

  Oh, I see you, all right. “Thanks for coming to my rescue.”

  Talia drove toward Shay’s house. They both kept looking around. “Do me a favor—pass the house, go around the block, and then come back.”

  She did. Shay seemed to think it was okay. She got out, opened a gate in the fence, and had Talia pull into her backyard. “Your lawn—” she protested.

  “It’s fine. It’s safer this way. Just don’t go doing any doughnuts back here,” she teased.

  She shut the gate and they entered the house through the patio door.

  “Now for that drink,” Shay said as she went into the kitchen. “Your usual okay?”

  At the word usual, Talia smiled. “Yes, thank you.”

  Talia’s smile disappeared when Shay came into the living room with a serious expression. “You need to tell me everything and with total honesty.”

  She bristled, even though she knew she deserved that. Talia told her about the van chasing her on the parkway, and about how she wasn’t sure of the color. And about seeing the black van at the scene when the bodies were found and how that had freaked her out.

  “You should have come forward with that.”

  “I was scared to death. And with all the talk that it might have been a cop that killed Allie and Diane, I didn’t want to tell the wrong cop.” Talia gulped her drink. “This van was obviously blue. I’m pretty sure the van at the scene was black. And I know the body bags were white.” She shuddered.

  Shay took her hand. “Why didn’t you tell me about seeing all of that?”

  “I didn’t want to come across as wanting attention. Not after all that had happened.”

  Talia jumped at a noise at the patio doors. Shay got up and went to the door. After looking out, she slid the glass open. A scrappy, skinny tabby cat came waltzing in. “This is Poke,” Shay said. The cat came over, sniffed Talia’s shoe, and then went into the kitchen. “I found him a few years ago on the road into Poquoson, on my way to the seafood festival. He was so small and scared, I said screw the festival and came home with him instead.”

  Talia should have known Shay was a cat person. Talia loved cats but didn’t trust herself to have that much control over another life.

  “I wanted him to be a housecat but we couldn’t make that work. So he comes home most nights and I don’t lecture him too much about running around.”

  “He’s handsome,” Talia said.

  Shay finished her drink before setting the glass on the coffee table. “We need to talk about sleeping arrangements.”

  Talia almost spit her drink across the room.

  Shay laughed. “Don’t worry, I won’t hold you here against your will but I do think it’s a good idea for you to stay here. You can have the guest bedroom and I will have peace of mind that you aren’t out getting yourself in trouble with men in dark vans.”

  She’d always dreamt of spending the night with Shay Eliot, but this was not how it went in her fantasies. “Okay,” she agreed.

  †

  Shay is running down cobblestone streets lined with trees, stopping every few yards to look in car windows. All along the side of the road cars, trucks, vans all sit idle, waiting for her. She takes deep breaths before peering in each window, afraid of what she might find. In every vehicle, the seats are bloodied, but no one is there. Finally, she gets to the last car. She doesn’t want to look in, but she does. Talia’s bloodied body is in the driver’s seat, and someone is on the floor of the passenger seat. The glove box is opened and its contents are scattered about, some papers stuck in the blood covering the woman. She is convinced the person is Allie, until she turns and faces her. Shay sees herself staring back, her throat slit, her mouth half-open, trying to say something.

  Shay jerked awake from the nightmare and sat up in bed, panting, thrashing her way out of the binding of the sheets around her ankles. Tears came. She thought about getting up to get a drink of water, or a beer, but then remembered Talia in the bedroom next door and decided to stay in bed. She didn’t want Talia to see her like this. She glanced at the clock. Five a.m. She would lie there and wait for a more normal hour.

  At eight o’clock, Shay was in the kitchen scrambling eggs when Talia came out of the spare room. Talia gestured toward the phone on the wall. “Mind if I use the phone to call into work? It’s long distance.”

  “Go ahead. You going in late or taking the whole day off?”

  “Think I’ll take the whole day.” She dialed the number and left a message. As soon as she hung up the receiver, the phone rang.

  Shay reached for it. “No,” she said into the receiver. “I don’t get the paper anymore since I’m, ah, self-employed.” She gave Talia a little grin. “What?” The grin disappeared. “Wow. No, I hadn’t heard anything.” She started spooning eggs onto two plates then added some bacon from a plate lined with paper towels. “Sure, come over. Bring the paper with you.”

  “Sorry about that,” Shay said to Talia. “First, you do eat bacon and eggs, right?”

  “Yes,” Talia responded, “and second?”

  “That was Lana. We’re having company in about twenty minutes. A woman’s body was found in the York River last night. I’m not sure if they’ve been searching the river all this time looking for evidence in Allie and Diane’s mur—” She stopped short, fighting to tamp down the image from her nightmares. “I don’t know why they were looking in the river, but the newspaper said the body had been there a long time.”

  “What does that have to do with…oh crap,” Talia said.

  “Lana said Kate immediately went to a dark place and is sure the body is her mom’s. Apparently after studying about postpartum depression, she’s convinced not only that her mom had it all those years ago, but that April has it now too.”

  “April?”

  “Yeah, she had a baby about six months ago. You didn’t know? I thought all you Seaford kids knew everything about each other.”

  “Yes, but so few of us live in Seaford anymore.” She took a bite of eggs and groaned her satisfaction. “So Kate thinks her mom is dead?”

  “Yeah, she thinks she committed suicide back when they were younger, after she left them.”

  “Huh.”

  “Huh, what? You look deep in thought.”

  “It’s just that my mom told me once—granted it’s been a while—but she told me she ran into Mrs. Hunter in Pungo once or twice.”

  “Pungo?”

  “Yeah, you know, near Virginia Beach. They have the strawberry festival there every year.”

  “I know where Pungo is, but would Kate’s mom be that close and not be in touch with her family?”

  The doorbell interrupted them.

  Kate’s eyes narrowed when she saw Talia. Lana raised her eyebrows and smiled.

  “Talia had a situation last night and we decided it was safer for her to stay here,” Shay said.

  “I can go get cleaned up in the other room while you talk,” Talia muttered.

  “Actually, Talia, can you stay here a few minutes?” Shay looked at Kate, then Lana. “Talia was telling me something pretty interesting.”

  Talia shrugged.

  Kate handed Shay the newspaper. Shay read the article, and then handed it to Talia.

  “Sometimes, you just know things.” Kate stood with her arms crossed over her chest, daring them to say otherwise. “The paper says the body has been there for a long time and that it looks like a probable suicide. My mom was depressed for a long time before she disappeared.”

  “Tell her what you told me,” Shay said to Talia.

  “My mom told me she saw your mom in Pungo years after she left. She was at the strawberry festival. Your mom was w
orking it, not visiting.”

  “Pungo? You can’t be serious.”

  Shay gave Kate the look she usually saved for people sitting in the backseat of her squad car. There was no way she was going to let Kate start in on Talia about the liar stuff.

  “Well,” Talia said. “My mom is a Liarhead Lizard, so…”

  Shay laughed.

  Kate looked sheepish. “I sounded so disbelieving because when I think of Pungo I think of rednecks or druggies, and well, my mom was neither.”

  “I can’t even say for sure my mom was telling the truth, but it could be worth looking into.”

  “I could ask around,” Shay said. “I have some friends in Pungo. Friends who are neither redneck nor druggie,” she teased.

  “There is something else,” Talia said to Kate.

  “What?”

  Talia hesitated.

  “Seriously…it’s okay…tell me,” Kate said.

  Shay studied Kate, and Kate’s expression softened, looking more like Shay imagined Talia would remember her from high school.

  “When April had that issue with drugs, well, my mom said something about the acorn not falling too far from the tree. I figured she meant something about your mom and drugs,” Talia said.

  After some discussion about Talia’s revelations, Kate said she and Lana needed to leave. Before they did, Shay agreed to take a trip to Pungo in the next day or two.

  As soon as Shay and Talia were alone, the phone rang. Shay listened intently, then said a few okays and yeses before hanging up. When she got off the phone, she told Talia that Parker had made some inquiries based on what she’d told him the night before, and the van at the scene on the parkway was black and belonged to the funeral home. They had been called to remove the bodies and transport them to the crime lab.

  “Now at least we know the vans aren’t connected,” Shay said.

  “I can’t wait for this whole thing to be figured out and for someone to pay for these murders.”