“May I come in?” I ask.
He says nothing. Just keeps giving me that narrow-eyed stare, the door staying almost closed.
I lift the watch. “Is this yours?”
The door opens as he reaches for it. I withdraw it.
“May I come in, Phil?”
Phil pushes the door and turns, leaving me to follow him inside. I note his luggage, still by the door.
“How long has that been there?” I ask.
He looks from me to the bag.
“Has it been in that same spot since you arrived?” I ask.
“Yes, and before you ask, that is also where I stored my firearm. I misspoke when you asked whether it was secured. I had it in that bag, and the door was locked, so I considered it secure.”
I lift the watch box. “This was also in there?”
“Yes, it seems our killer is a thief as well.”
“Perhaps.”
His brows shoot up. “Perhaps? It doesn’t take a detective to deduce that, Casey.”
“No, which is the problem. Not being a detective, the answer seems obvious to you. As a detective, I know that this watch is only a link that must be investigated. A defense attorney could point out a dozen alternate ways this watch could have gotten into his client’s house.”
“Which is why we don’t have defense attorneys. Logically, it must be the same culprit, and that is all the council requires to take the suspect off your hands. I’m presuming it’s Roy? I heard the commotion, which would have led to the searching of his apartment. I spoke to the council earlier today, and they provided a very short list of suspects. Roy was at the top. Therefore, if I am correct, I believe we can close this case. He stole my gun and watch and then killed Marshal Garcia before returning my gun. Guilt and anxiety drove him to that bizarre outburst this afternoon. I will alert the council—”
“No, you will not. I’m still investigating.”
“That is a waste of time.”
“Is it? Your gun was used, Phil. You told me it was secured. You still had it in your possession, and it seems to be the murder weapon. Would you have wanted me going to the council with that? Telling them I’ve solved the case then?”
He says nothing.
“Yes,” I say. “If you don’t want me jumping to conclusions when you’re the suspect, then you can’t expect me to do it when someone else is.”
“I was never a viable suspect, Casey. You and Eric were playing games with me.”
“No, I believe Eric and I were simply participating in the game you began when you waved a gun at us. As for you not being a viable suspect, had you ever met Val?”
“Yes, but—”
“Would you have considered her a viable suspect?”
He opens his mouth. Shuts it.
“Yep,” I say. “Lesson one of life in Rockton: no one is who they seem to be. You can’t look at anyone and be sure they aren’t capable of murder. And you can’t look at anyone and be sure they are. So, let’s talk about your suitcase.”
* * *
Jen intercepts me when I leave the station. I wave for her to follow as I return to Roy’s. Dalton is still there, and I don’t want him stuck on guard duty much longer, not when I only have a few more things to check.
“It’s about Roy,” Jen says as she catches up.
“So I heard. I know you’ve said he’s caused trouble before, and I’d like to talk to you about that.”
She shakes her head. “If you’re looking for evidence that he’s your killer, I don’t have it. I’d have said something if I did. What I was talking about was the kind of bullshit you saw with his lynch mob. He’s a loudmouth and a bully, and he gets others riled up, but if he’d actually pulled Brady from his cell, he wouldn’t know what to do with him. He’d have just hoped someone else took over. He’s a talker, not a doer.”
“You might want to tell Mindy that.”
Jen’s voice drops, uncharacteristically subdued. “Yeah, that was . . . Fuck him. Just fuck him. No one deserves that crap, but Mindy especially. She’s a helluva lot nicer about turning assholes down than I am. She’s polite but firm, and she doesn’t take any bullshit. What Roy did . . . I’d go see Mindy, but Isabel’s hovering, and you know how well I get along with that bitch.”
I give Jen a look.
She rolls her eyes. “Oh, come on. To Isabel, bitch is a compliment. But back to Mindy. What Roy did was fucking bullshit, and if you don’t kick him out, then put him in a locked room with me and Mindy, and we’ll settle this. But . . .”
She lowers her voice again. “It could have been worse. I hate saying that, because God knows, every woman has heard that crap. He grabbed your ass? Be thankful that’s all he did. I don’t mean it like that. I mean that what I saw was typical Roy. Well, it’s what I’d expect from Roy if he snorted coke and lost his damn mind. He hurt her, and he humiliated her, and there’s no denying that but . . .”
“It was intended as a show of force and public humiliation. The act of a bully coward who wouldn’t actually carry out his threats.”
“Exactly.”
We climb to Roy’s apartment. I tell Dalton that I’ve got this—I’m almost done, and Jen can take notes. He heads to the clinic to wait for Roy to wake.
As I look around the apartment, Jen says, “The stuff I was going to tell you is just more of that. Bullying. But it ties into what I wanted to speak to you about specifically. You can’t leave Roy in the clinic with Kenny.”
I stop looking through a drawer and glance over at her.
“It’s not fair to Kenny,” she says.
“Having Roy in the clinic will be a problem for Kenny?”
She plunks onto the bed. I wave for her to stand and retreat to the doorway. She grumbles but does it. Then she says, “You can’t leave them together overnight. You know how I mentioned Roy’s a bully? Kenny is his favorite chew toy.”
“Kenny?”
“I know, right? It’s like kicking a kitten.”
I’m crouched, looking under the bed, and I twist toward her. “True. However, there is one person who never fails to snipe at Kenny, snark at him, insult him . . .”
“It’s not the same.”
“Not the same when you do it?”
She waves that off. “Kenny gives as good as he gets with me. It’s sibling sniping. And, for the record, that’s exactly what it is like with me and Kenny—not romantic bickering.” She shivers. “He isn’t my type, and I’m not his, thank God. I might needle him, but Roy stabs him in the back, every chance he gets. He hates Kenny because everyone else likes Kenny. That’s the kind of person Roy is. Kenny’s head of the militia—which Roy wasn’t allowed to join. Kenny turns down freebies from Isabel’s girls, when Roy can’t even pay for it. You like Kenny. Eric and Will like him. Isabel does. Even Mathias tolerates him. All the cool kids like Kenny, and none of them like Roy.”
“He’s jealous.”
“Green-eyed with it. I can guarantee you that when Roy looks at Kenny, he doesn’t see the town carpenter who can bench press double his weight. He sees the kid Kenny was—the nerd who grew up to be a high-school math teacher. With Kenny, Roy smells a bully’s victim, and he treats him like shit. I don’t want him sleeping next to Kenny, who can’t get out of bed to defend himself. Even if Roy wouldn’t do anything, it’s the threat that counts. Kenny doesn’t deserve that.”
This certainly isn’t what I expected. While Jen may say her needling Kenny isn’t serious, I’m not sure he—or anyone else—would feel the same way. She’s the last person I’d expect to champion a victim over a bully.
A few months ago Mathias said that a lifetime of bullying had turned Jen into one. His theory is that she’d been the victim of it herself as a child. I suspect Kenny has, too. The difference is in how it affected them. Kenny is the bullied kid who never stops hoping it’ll just all go away. The boy who grows into a man who still wants to “hang with the cool kids” but has learned the difference between the assholes in the smoking
pit and the leaders of the student council.
Kenny came to Rockton determined to reinvent himself, and there’s something sad in the fact that he thought he had to—that maybe he believed everyone in his life who blamed him for the bullying. Whatever his motivation, though, he has worked his ass off for the town and become a valued and, yes, popular member of it.
Jen, on the other hand, is the bullied kid who says “fuck you” to the world. She fortifies her wall and defends herself and always hits first—with or without provocation—because that’s her way of protecting herself. It doesn’t make it right, and I don’t care how much I might sympathize with the girl she’d been, I won’t put up with her bullshit, because deep inside, there’s a girl who is a bully, who enjoys seeing me flinch or snap at a well-aimed barb.
Hearing Jen defend Kenny does surprise me, and as I search Roy’s bedroom, I also search my brain for Jen’s ulterior motive. I find none, and as I finish, I say, “You’re right,” and she seems to visibly relax.
“Don’t tell Kenny I mentioned it either,” she says. Her face hardens into a look I know well. “If you do, I’ll deny it. I’ll tell him you’re full of shit.”
“Yes, please threaten me, Jen, because that’s the only way I listen to you.”
“That’s not a threat. It’s a warning.”
I sigh and walk past her into the living room.
“I mean that,” she says. “Kenny wouldn’t want you knowing Roy’s being an asshole to him.”
I turn to her. “I realize that, and there’s no reason I need to explain anything. Roy flew into a psychotic rage this afternoon. No one will question why I’m separating them, okay?”
Footsteps sound on the porch. Dalton peeks in. “Roy’s awake. Still groggy, which might be the best time to question him.”
“It is. Give me two minutes, and I’m there.”
FORTY-ONE
Down south, I wouldn’t be allowed to interview Roy in this confused state. It risks unintentional self-incrimination. I understand why we have these laws, but the longer I’m up here, the more I’m happy for the chance to escape them. If Roy is in no condition to hold his tongue—and more likely to confess to his crime—I’ll use that to my full advantage.
I question him about Mark Garcia. He struggles to even remember who I’m talking about, and then he only recalls that he’s “that American law guy who died.” I ask about Phil, and it takes even more work to remind him who that is. When I show him the watch, he dismisses it as “some frou-frou girlie bling” and rouses himself just enough to sneer at people who waste their money on “that shit” when a fake Rolex is just as good. I show him the gun, and his eyes light up at that. He wants to hold it. Then he rants about Dalton not letting him into the militia, which turns into a rant about his mother not letting him hunt as a kid. This goes on for a while, the upshot being that Roy really likes guns . . . and has never actually handled one, though he’s sure he’d be good at it if that asshole sheriff would give him a chance.
As the questioning continues, the sedative wears off, and Roy remembers what he did. That’s when I expect him to go into full-on rant mode, blaming Mindy and everyone else and downplaying his actions. Instead, he freaks out—to the point where April needs to mildly sedate him again. After that she retreats to the front porch, where we’ve wheeled Kenny while we interview Roy.
“No,” Roy slurs as Anders lowers him to the bed. “Someone . . . That wasn’t . . .” He swallows and then pats his chin, feeling the half missing beard and wincing as he touches the cuts. “Nightmare. I had . . . I had . . .”
“You had a nightmare,” I say.
He nods, his gaze fixed and blank. “I had to . . . I don’t . . .” Another swallow. “I remember that in the nightmare. I needed to shave my beard, because that’s why Mindy said no to me.”
“Your beard?” Anders says.
Roy runs his hands over his face, wincing again as he touches the cuts. “It made sense in the nightmare, okay? I had to shave my beard and style my hair, and then she’d say yes.”
Anders lifts his brows.
Roy keeps going. “I didn’t have hair gel, so I used grease. I was shaving my beard, and then I forgot why. I was doing that, and I got mad. Really, really mad. I knew she’d never say yes, and I was sick of everyone treating me like shit. I deserve better, and I was going to show everyone who I was. Show that bit—that woman—that she can’t treat me like that.”
“Uh-huh,” I say. “Actually, if ‘treating you like that’ is refusing to have sex with you, she absolutely can.”
His jaw sets. “She’s a who—”
I cut him off. “She’s a sex worker. Not a sex robot. You don’t put your money in and get a blow job.”
Anders chuckles, and Roy glares at him. “Sure, you think it’s funny. You’ve probably never had a woman say no to you, even if you are . . .” He trails off and has the grace to look abashed.
“A cop?” Anders says. “That’s what you were going to say. I get sex even though I’m a cop. Totally true. Women are good about overlooking that. Doesn’t mean they never say no. Doesn’t mean I never say no. You’re digging yourself in deeper here. You realize that, right?”
“You and this detective don’t know what it’s like because you both hit the genetic jackpot.”
“Yep,” Anders says. “Totally did. We were both born to parents with brains, and they passed those on to us.”
I start to cut off Roy’s retort, but I don’t need to. He’s sedated enough that when he can’t think of a quick comeback, he just sits there, his mouth open.
“We’ll discuss what you did to Mindy later,” I say. “So you shaved and greased your hair to impress her. Then you undressed . . .”
“To impress her?” Anders says, and he chokes on a laugh that has me scowling and motioning that I’ll kick him out if he goes there.
“Let’s skip that part,” I say, and Roy looks relieved. “Back up. You got off work at four, according to your timesheet. You came home and did what?”
“Relaxed.”
“Be more specific. If you have any hope of getting out of serious trouble here, Roy, you need to take me through every step.”
“I came home. I poured a glass of wine. And, yeah, I like wine better than beer, okay?” He shoots a glare at Anders, who hadn’t reacted.
“You poured wine,” I say. “I saw the empty bottle. So you drank the whole—”
“No, it was already opened. There was about half left. I poured it, and I drank it in the living room while I worked on a puzzle. I had dinner plans, so I was relaxing with my puzzle and wine—”
His head spins my way. “The wine. It was in the wine, wasn’t it? Someone wanted to embarrass me and dosed my wine.”
“Any idea who’d do that?” Anders says. “Or should we just question the entire town?”
I give him a look. Then I say to Roy, “Yes, it’s possible that someone added your mushrooms to the wine.”
His face screws up. “My what?”
I show him the baggie, and I’m treated to Roy’s views on drugs, which boils down to Yeah, I’ve snorted coke for chicks, but I don’t smoke that hippy-dippy marijuana shit, and I sure as hell don’t smoke magic mushrooms. Then he peers at the bag and says, “You sure those are the smoking ones? They look like the kind I put in my risotto.” Then he again glares at Anders—who has again, said and done nothing—and says, “Yeah, I make risotto. I make a mean quiche, too. You got a problem with that?”
“I believe the only person who has a problem with that—or the wine—is you,” Anders says. “Also, you don’t smoke mushrooms.”
Roy sniffs. “You’d know, wouldn’t you? You’re like that asshole out there.” He hooks his thumb toward the porch where Kenny is. “You think if you spend enough time in the gym, no one will notice you’re a little soft. A little ‘sensitive.’”
“Yep, I am very sensitive,” Anders says. “And now I’ll go smoke mushrooms and pump iron until I feel better.”
He gets to his feet. “You done with this gem, Case?”
“I am.”
“Then come on, Macho Man. Let’s get you back home. You’re going to have the pleasure of my company tonight. The clinic is too small for you and Kenny, so you’re getting my home care.”
Roy looks down at his hospital gown. “I need my clothes.”
“Nah, you don’t. You can even leave the gown behind. It’s a warm night, and you won’t be showing off anything anyone hasn’t seen.”
* * *
I help April bring Kenny back in.
“You can’t keep him here,” she says as we reposition the bed.
Kenny clears his throat. “I have a name.”
“Which you know, and I know, and Casey knows, and since there is no one else here, everyone knows who I mean.”
“Yes,” Kenny says, his voice slow, patient. “But when you talk about someone who is present, you should use their name. Otherwise, it seems like I’m an object, like you’re saying: you can’t keep that pile of trash here.”
April actually flushes. “I didn’t say that.”
“I’m kidding. And I wouldn’t call you on it with anyone but Casey around.”
She frowns. “Why not?”
“Because it would be rude. Now, I understand that you need your workspace, April, so yes, I am in your way and need to be relocated.”
“I didn’t mean that. I meant that you won’t want to be here long-term.”
“Ah, then say that.”
“Am I supposed to analyze everything I say for how it could be interpreted?”
“Yes. Kind of. At least pause to consider it.”
She throws up her hands and walks into the next room. When the door shuts, I murmur. “I’m sorry. She’s difficult. I know that.”
“She’s not difficult on purpose. It’s just difficult for her. Everyone just accepts that it’s her way and written her off as difficult or rude or thoughtless.”
Now it’s my face heating. I nod. “You’re right. I never considered that it wasn’t a choice. That she might honestly not know how she sounds.”
Watcher in the Woods: A Rockton Novel Page 30
