“It’s okay.” He passed her a packet of Kleenex from his pocket.
Blowing her nose, she managed a watery smile. “I don’t usually do this.”
He leaned back and rubbed his broad nose. “What? You don’t do human? Crying is the natural human response to grief and loss. It’s part of how we cope. The people who don’t cry—now, they’re the ones who worry me. Do they keep all that emotion bottled up? Not good. They’re likely to explode. Or, worse, do they not feel sorrow when someone they’re close to is injured or dies? I’ll tell you,” he said as she blew her nose again, “the worst part about being a man is the way our culture views a man who cries—he’s a wimpy loser. Women get a pass, but a man who cries, especially on the job or in public—look out, he’s a total write-off. Nothing is more toxic to a fella’s manly image than a few tears.”
“Nothing?” she asked, trying to lighten the mood. She appreciated what he was trying to do, and it was working; she felt better and the tears had dried up.
“Well, man purses and talking about ‘window treatments,’ maybe.”
She gave a gurgle of laughter and his mouth crooked up on one side.
“Thank you,” she said.
“You’re welcome.”
He was attractive, Laurel realized with some surprise. Not her usual type, but funny and warmly human—when he wasn’t treating her like a murder suspect. Or, maybe this was how he treated all murder suspects, with a degree of humanity that put them off-guard. She scrambled to fill a suddenly awkward silence. “Are we done—” she started, just as he chipped in with, “We’re done for now. I’ll have more questions after talking to the others.”
His voice was brisker, almost brusque. Did he regret letting down his guard? Scooping up the pile of damp tissues, Laurel left the room without looking back. She bumped into Mrs. Abbott coming out of her bedroom with an armful of towels. “Where’s Mindy?” Laurel asked. The younger woman usually took care of their rooms.
“Now that’s the sixty-four-thousand-dollar question, isn’t it?” Mrs. Abbott asked sourly, nudging her glasses up her nose with the back of her wrist. A washcloth dropped and she squatted to retrieve it. “She hasn’t come in today, no, nor called either.”
“I hope Braden isn’t sick,” Laurel said.
“More like she’s decided that since this job is gone anyway, showing up late won’t make any difference. Come to think of it, she’s probably correct. It’s not like she can be fired when she’s already been ‘laid off.’” She gave the final words an emphasis that said the distinction between “fired” and “laid off” didn’t mean much to working people with bills to pay.
“Have the police talked to you?” Laurel asked on impulse.
“Of course.” Mrs. Abbott’s eyes narrowed behind her glasses. “That man is not walking away without a suspect in handcuffs this time. You know,” she said, her pale blue eyes meeting Laurel’s gaze squarely, “he asked us who we thought did it, not just this time, but last time, too.”
Laurel didn’t want to gratify her by asking, but her curiosity got the better of her. “What did you say?”
“The first time, I said I thought it was Ellie Ordahl,” Mrs. Abbott said matter-of-factly, “because there was something about the way she used to look at Miss Paul. It wasn’t hate in her eyes, exactly, but something wounded. I can’t describe it. Stephen, though, he put his money on Dawn Infanti. He’s of the opinion that anyone who sees ghosts is a loony. It’s his finance background,” she said excusingly.
Laurel made to move past her, sorry she’d asked the question, but Mrs. Abbott shifted to block her. “When that sheriff asked us the same question yesterday, I told him I thought it was you.” Light streaked her lenses, making it hard for Laurel to see her eyes. “For this one, anyway, because it took brains. I say more power to you. I’m sure the sheriff won’t be able to pin it on you,” she added. “You’re smart enough to dance circles around him. I told him so.”
Laurel stood stunned as the older woman moved off. She wasn’t sure what bothered her most—that Mrs. Abbott, a woman she’d known off and on through her twenties, thought she was capable of murder, or that she’d applauded her for supposedly killing Evangeline.
It was after eight by now and Laurel figured classes would be in session at the local high school. Suddenly desperate to escape from Cygne and the miasma of doubt and suspicion that pervaded the place, she brushed her teeth, grabbed her purse, and half-jogged down the hall to the main door. As she passed the roughed-in elevator housing, she wrinkled her nose at the thought that the workmen would be back today, too, with their pounding and shouting. In the parking lot, she noted Mindy’s dew-covered car parked beside her equally wet rental and hoped that she didn’t get docked for coming in late. Mindy undoubtedly needed to hoard every penny she could earn until she found a new job.
At New Aberdeen High School, a friendly secretary in the main office gave her a bright smile, directions to the library, and a yellow pin-on button that said “Visitor!” The halls were hushed, with only the hum of voices behind closed doors and an occasional laugh punctuating the silence. A bright, airy space, the library looked to have more computers than books. The flooring consisted of red and orange carpet tiles laid in a checkerboard pattern and Laurel blinked. She crossed the objectionable carpet to the counter, resisting the urge to only step on the orange squares. A slight man looked up when Laurel stopped at the counter where he was using a scanning device to record books from the “Returns” bin. Fiftyish, he wore his graying brown hair in a short ponytail that brushed the collar of his button-down shirt.
“Hi.” She gave him a winning smile and explained that she was interested in perusing old copies of the yearbook, without telling him why.
He listened with a gravely courteous air and then shepherded her to a section of metal bookshelves that held yearbooks. “All the way back to the first graduating class in 1961,” he said. “You’re welcome to look at them here, but I can’t let you take them if you’re not a student or faculty member. I’m Kyle, if you need anything else.”
She thanked him and, as he returned to his tasks, dropped to her knees to pull five books off the lowest shelf. Lugging them to the nearest table, she settled down to the tedious task of scanning all the faces in each graduating class. What she wouldn’t give to be able to turn this task over to the firm’s team of investigators. Her gaze snagged on at least one young man every other page, and she despaired of ever being able to identify Ray from a twenty-year-old photo. Even if he was here, which he probably wasn’t, she thought glumly, turning a page in the 1996 yearbook. A bell rang, and the clatter of students changing classes momentarily interrupted her. Lockers clanged, hundreds of feet shuffled past, and teens called to each other, adding to the hubbub. Only two kids came into the library, though, and she returned to studying the seniors’ photos when another bell rang and quiet fell once again.
She found him in the 1997 book. She had already turned the page when some instinct made her flip back. She studied the photo of one Raimondo Hernan. The teen in the photo was slimmer than Ray, and his hair was longer and fuller, so she couldn’t see his ears or face shape too well, but something about the way he held his head, the way he looked into the camera … she was ninety-five percent certain he was Evangeline’s fiancé. She flipped ahead a few pages and found a young Evangeline Paul smiling from the middle of a row of photos, easily recognizable. She and Ray had been classmates. Why hadn’t either of them mentioned that? Laurel distinctly remembered Ray giving her a vague answer when she’d asked how they’d met.
Tucking the yearbook under her arm, she carried it to Kyle and asked if she could make a copy of the page. He laid the book on the copier, handing her the warm page when the machine spit it out. She had piqued his curiosity, she could tell, and she gave him a considering look. He was old enough to have been here in 1997. When she asked, he confirmed that he had started at
the high school in 1995 after getting his Masters in Library Science. “There’ve been a lot of changes in the library world in the last twenty years,” he said in a voice that led her to infer he didn’t think all the changes were for the better. He continued to work while they talked, stacking the returned books onto a cart. “I need to shelve these.”
She followed him as he pushed the cart across the dreadful carpet to the racks. “You don’t seem to get too much student interaction,” she said, gesturing to the near-empty library.
“No, that’s one thing that’s dwindled, and I hate it.” He slotted a book into its space with more force than necessary. A blue stone glowed from a silver ring on his right pinky. “Now when the kids come in, they’re glued to a computer screen, not asking me about books or for help finding another series they might like if they enjoyed Harry Potter.” Moving an out-of-place book, he returned two more to a shelf and trundled the cart to another row.
“Did you by any chance know Raimondo Hernan?” Laurel asked.
“I wondered who you were interested in.” He gave her a sidelong glance. “What’s Ray to you?”
She bit her lip and decided on a partial truth. “A friend’s fiancé. She doesn’t have the best history with men, and well, I thought I’d do a little background check. I don’t want her to get hurt again. I’m a lawyer.”
He nodded and looked almost approving of her snooping on a friend’s behalf. “She can do better.”
“Oh?”
Kyle swiveled his head, as if making sure no one was in earshot, and said, “That young man was trouble. He didn’t graduate. He was expelled three weeks before graduation. The rumor was a random drug search with dogs turned up drugs in his locker. More than for personal use—at least, that’s what I heard.”
“And you believed it?”
“Oh, yeah. I caught him once myself, handing a packet to another kid right over there.” He raised his chin to indicate the far corner of the library, a reading area with tall potted plants. “Back then, it was the biography section. By the time security got here, he’d managed to get rid of the evidence. That kid had a smirk on him when he walked out of here that made me want five minutes alone with him in a dojo.” Remembered anger added grit to his voice. “I’m a third degree black belt,” he explained. “I got into it when I was a Marine.”
“You were a Marine?” Laurel couldn’t help the exclamation. He looked so mild and average.
He smiled, apparently not offended, and deep creases appeared in his cheeks. “Semper Fi. I enlisted out of high school. Did my four years and let them pay for my college. I talk to the kids here all the time about the benefits of enlisting in the military for a tour, especially if they don’t have a focus yet.”
“Have you seen him since he left school? Ray?”
“Not to talk to, but he’s still in the area. I bumped into him in the Harris Teeter, oh, two or three years back. I remember all he had in his cart was a case of Red Bull and three watermelons. He got that same smirk on his face when he saw me and said, ‘Hey, Kyle, how’s it going?’ like we’d been buddies rather than staff and student.” His nostrils flared.
A girl came toward them and hovered nearby, clearly wanting to ask Kyle a question, so Laurel thanked him and left, mulling over what she’d learned. Hope and relief fizzed within her. Ray was looking more and more like a viable suspect. She would give the copied yearbook page to Sheriff Boone and enjoy the look on his face. He could take it from there; no way could he afford to ignore Ray Hernan as a suspect now that he’d been identified and a long-term connection between him and Evangeline established. She was feeling damn proud of her detective work when her phone rang. Geneva. She’d call her back from outside the school. She silenced the phone, returned her visitor button to the secretary, and left.
Eighteen
Hands shaking, Geneva left a message for Laurel to please meet her at the sheriff’s station and tucked the phone into her purse. She lifted a strained face to Sheriff Boone, who was ready to escort her to his car. “I don’t understand why we have to go to the station,” she said, finding it hard to talk around the lump in her throat.
“As I explained,” he said, “new evidence has come to light and it would be better to discuss it at the station. Please.” He gestured with a large hand for her to precede him out the door. His demeanor was polite but reserved, and it unsettled her.
At least there weren’t handcuffs this time, Geneva thought, giving in to the inevitable. The sun was bright as they descended the steps, and the lawn a glorious green. A pick-up truck pulled up as she and Boone came down the steps and stopped with a puff of dust. Three construction workers scrambled out of it and began to unload tools from the lockbox in the back. “Can I drive myself?” she asked.
“If you like,” he said.
She breathed more easily. She wasn’t under arrest. When they rounded the corner of the castle, she crossed to her rental, trying to keep her pace measured so it wouldn’t look like she was running away.
“You can follow me,” Sheriff Boone said, getting into his sedan with the discreet lights in the grille, “in case you don’t remember the way.”
Geneva got into the car, fighting the feeling of hopelessness that sluiced over her like a cold wave. How could she ever forget?
She’d been twenty-six that weekend, giddy with the excitement of landing a job as an on-air reporter at Chicago’s CBS affiliate. She’d parlayed her communications and English majors and her beauty queen title into her dream job. Mama Gran had beamed with pride when Geneva shared the good news, saying, “Oh, lordy. Watch out, City Hall, my baby girl’s comin’ for you.”
She arrived in North Carolina for their annual weekend three days later, gleeful at the thought of springing her news on the others. She waited till cocktail hour, when they were all gathered together, and then had the Abbotts bring in the pink champagne she’d brought for the celebration because it seemed fun and classy. Her friends overwhelmed her with congratulations and hugs and an impromptu dance-off to Aretha Franklin’s “Respect,” which Geneva belted at the top of her lungs. They killed all four bottles of champagne and never got around to eating dinner.
The others set up outrageous news scenarios and made Geneva deliver fake reports on the “events of the day,” ranging from a politician caught in flagrante delicto with a trio of Swedish gymnasts—Ellie did a hysterical Swedish accent as one of the “interviewees”—to an alien invasion and a tidal wave rolling in off Lake Michigan and washing away half the city. Geneva wanted to celebrate all night long, and when they ran out of champagne and Vangie said she knew where they could score some coke, she hesitated only briefly.
“You’ll love it,” Vangie promised. “It’s a great high—like someone set off a sparkler inside you and filled you with energy. Only this once because we need to keep celebrating. What can it hurt?” She dangled her keys and said she’d drive.
Laurel demurred, saying she was exhausted and needed to go to bed. Geneva and Evangeline exchanged a look that said Laurel was a prude. Dawn backed out, too, saying she’d tried coke once and it made her manic. “It interrupts my creative process,” she said in what Geneva couldn’t help but think was a pretentious way. Really, no one could say the words “my creative process” without sounding pretentious. Ellie muttered, “I’m a mother—I can’t,” making Geneva wonder who switched your fun button to “off” when you had a baby.
“Just you and me, then,” Vangie said gaily, sweeping Geneva out of the house and into her car before she could change her mind. Dance music at high volume kept the doubts at bay as they sang their way to the rendezvous Vangie had arranged via a quick phone call. They pulled into an alley behind a small convenience store and that’s when it began to feel furtive and real. The odor of rotting food from the nearby Dumpster drifted in the open windows and roiled Geneva’s stomach. Despite the champagne haze, she knew this was a very, very
bad idea. Vangie flashed the headlights three times in quick succession. A car parked at the alley’s far end flashed its lights twice briefly in response. It was too late to back out, and Geneva hunched in the passenger seat, hands gripped tightly, staring into her lap, trying hard to avoid looking at the man who sauntered toward their car. He was only a dark shadow, glimpsed for a moment when he leaned in to hand Vangie a packet and take rolled-up bills from her. They exchanged a few words, Vangie laughed, and he returned to his car.
“Here.” Vangie tossed the packet at her and Geneva caught it automatically.
It was when Vangie put the car in gear and started to back out that the blue and red lights striated the night behind them, and a siren whooped once. The other car tore out of the alley’s far end, but Vangie, after one convulsive movement, cut the engine and put her hands on the steering wheel to await the officers’ arrival.
“I’ll tell them it was all my idea, that you were just along for the ride,” Vangie said in a fierce, tight voice. A dim security light from the rear of the convenience store limned her profile, making her straight nose and sharp chin look as flat and chiseled as an image cut into a coin. “It was my money. I made the buy. You tell them that, too. It’ll be okay.”
It wasn’t, of course. Nothing was okay for a very long time after that. They were both arrested and processed and spent what was left of the night in a jail cell together. Reporters from the local rag got wind of the story somehow and took photos of them leaving the jail the next morning. Geneva looked like an addict in the photo that got published, dark circles under her eyes, hair sticking out, eyes blank with misery that the newsprint’s pixels made look like the emptiness of a habitual offender. As first-time offenders, she and Vangie received a conditional discharge with community service and probation, but the network fired her before she ever started her reporting job and her grandmother was ashamed of her. Hortense Frost didn’t tear into Geneva or read her the riot act. No, it was worse than that. She leveled a sad look at her over the wire rims of her glasses and said softly, “We reap what we sow, baby girl. We reap what we sow.” Geneva had turned away, unable to bear the tears trickling down the seamed cheeks.
That Last Weekend Page 16
