by Alex Tully
Shirley gave Meredith a long stare, “Well, like—you’ll have to ask him about that.”
Zoe quickly grabbed Meredith by the arm, “Okay thanks, uh, do you think Parker could stop by my place when he gets up?”
“I’ll let him know you came by,” Shirley said, sounding exhausted herself, “Girls, my grandson’s had quite a shock and he’s still a little boy, so please keep that in mind.”
“We will,” Zoe said.
“I want to hear it from you,” Shirley pointed directly at Meredith’s face.
“Yes,” Meredith rolled her eyes, “I’ll be nice, I promise.”
As they walked over to Zoe’s trailer she sent a quick text to Ethan: Parker sleeping. Shirley wont wake him, said he lost the phone.
Debbie’s car was still parked outside, “Shit, let’s hang on the porch until she leaves.”
“Whatever,” Meredith plopped down into an old wicker chair, “I can’t believe that little twerp lost his phone. I mean it’s not like he goes anywhere, so he must have lost it around here somewhere.”
“Which also means someone around here must’ve found it.”
They weren’t on the porch for more than two minutes when Debbie made an appearance, a purple terry bathrobe wrapped around her skinny body, her hair still wet, “Zoe where’s that black top of yours, with the criss-cross thing in back?”
“Should be in my drawer, third one down.”
“Okay,” she turned to leave and then stopped, “Hey, have you guys heard anything else about Crawford?”
Zoe said, “No,” exactly as Meredith blurted out, “Yes!”
They looked at each other and then Meredith shrugged, “Well, we found out he got a text message from somebody last night and—.”
“But,” Zoe cut her off, “they don’t know who it’s from, or what it says.”
“Really?” Debbie was immediately intrigued, “Well, they’ll find out. They can track all of that stuff—who texted who, where from, they can even get transcripts of the messages,” she’d watched her share of CSI too.
“So, do you think he was murdered?” Meredith asked.
“Well shit,” Debbie said, “I could make a list as long as my arm of people who hated him.”
“Yeah, but enough to kill him?” Meredith prodded.
Zoe shot Meredith a look that said, Stop asking questions!
And then to Zoe’s dismay, Debbie sat down, “Well I know one thing—that man can swim like a fish—so I highly doubt he just up and drowned.” She paused, “Unless of course old Marty finally drank one too many, or popped a few too many, beforehand. He definitely likes his drugs. See, Crawford and me go way back.”
Of course they did. Why was Zoe not surprised?
Debbie went on, “You have to remember, before Crystal Waters was built, he spent all of his time up at the Outrigger. It isn’t as fancy, but they used to have cabanas by the pool too, just like over there,” she nodded towards Crystal Waters, “and Crawford would sit in his big cabana all day, like I’m sure he does now—or did, I guess I should say.”
She pulled out a pack of cigarettes from her robe pocket, “He had a yacht too—of course the biggest yacht—parked right outside in the marina. He would have all of us over after we closed up the bar—we’d party and go skinny-dipping,” she laughed.
Meredith made a gagging noise, “I’m sorry but I cannot imagine skinny dipping with Crawford! So nasty!”
Debbie lit up a cigarette, inhaled sharply, and blew out a thin line of smoke, “Hey, this was almost ten years ago,” she smiled like she was reminiscing with a bunch of old high school friends, not girls who actually were in high school, “And believe it or not, Crawford was not that bad to look at for an old guy.”
“Oh god,” Meredith’s face was filled with disgust.
Zoe wondered if this could’ve been the summer when she slept over at Shirley’s trailer all the time—like almost every night it seemed. The timing fit—Parker was just a baby then. Zoe remembered how Debbie and Lynn, Parker’s mom, would stay out all night, not coming home until after dawn. Zoe always pretended to be asleep but she could hear the fights between Shirley and her daughter, “You are a mother Lynn, now act like it!”
“Hey,” Debbie waved her cigarette back and forth, “having all that money didn’t hurt either. Believe it or not, Crawford could get pretty much anyone he wanted. Even—,” Debbie abruptly cut herself off as she looked over at the porch door.
Parker was standing there, “Hey.” His face looked tired, his hair all disheveled.
“Come on in little man! I don’t bite!” Debbie yelled in her creaky voice.
Parker tentatively stepped inside, and her mom finally decided to make her exit, “Well I’ve got to finish getting ready. Zoe, make sure you text me if you find out anything else.”
“Yeah, okay.”
Debbie got up to leave and on her way out, she smashed her cigarette into a little clay pot Zoe had made for Mother’s Day in second grade. “Mom” was painted on the side in blue, and it had once been home to a cluster of purple pansies.
But now it was home to a mound of cigarette butts. The little flowers never had a chance.
CHAPTER 33
PARKER
Parker stood outside Zoe’s trailer, frozen in place.
Inside the porch, Zoe was sitting with annoying Meredith, and even worse, Zoe’s crazy mom, Debbie-downer. Double-whammy.
He was just about to backtrack out of there, but he’d already been spotted.
“Come on in little man! I don’t bite!” Debbie yelled in her stupid voice that sounded like she swallowed a frog.
He stepped inside and Debbie got up to leave—thank god!
As soon as he sat down, Meredith was in his face, “What the hell Parker! Where is your phone?”
He wasn’t expecting that. He thought for sure they’d want to know about Crawford’s dead body, “Oh, well I sort of lost it,” he couldn’t even look at Zoe.
“No shit you lost it!” Meredith yelled, “We figured that out! Where did you have it last?”
“Well…” his mind started racing. He’d thought about it a million times already, he’d retraced his steps over and over.
“Come on twerp, this is important!”
“Meredith!” Zoe cut her off, “Chill out! Give him a chance to answer!”
Zoe looked at him, “Parker.” And when he looked at her face, he instantly felt better. She smiled, “It’s okay. Take your time.”
“I swear...,” he suddenly felt tears welling up behind his eyes. Oh no, he couldn’t cry in front of Meredith!
“It’s okay,” Zoe grabbed his hand.
He took a deep breath, “I keep it in my pocket all the time.”
“I know you do. It’s just really important we try to find it.”
He knew it was bad to lose the phone, but he honestly didn’t think they would freak out so much, “I had it in the morning for sure…”
“Yes,” Zoe agreed, “And the last text any of us got was around one o’clock, when you said you were going to the dock to fish.”
“Right,” he said quickly, “Yeah, I went fishing on the dock for a couple of hours…but I thought for sure I brought it back with me.”
“Great!” Meredith interjected, “You left it on the dock!”
“No, I didn’t!” Parker wished he could take the little pot of cigarettes sitting on the table, and pour them right over her head! “I always keep it in my pocket!”
Meredith rolled her eyes, “So you’re telling me while you are literally sitting there, doing absolutely nothing, waiting for a fish to bite, you never looked at your phone? Not even to play that dumb-ass game you always play?”
Zoe was looking at him, waiting for an answer. He couldn’t lie. He wanted to, but he couldn’t, “Well, sometimes I do, but I always put it back in my pocket!”
Meredith jumped out of her chair, “There you go!”
“It’s okay, ignore her,” Zoe waved off Mered
ith, “Then what did you do? After fishing?”
“I went home and ate a snack.”
“Do you remember playing your game after that, or doing anything on your phone?”
“No, I just played Xbox for a while.”
“How longs awhile?”
“Maybe until like five…or six, and then I helped Grams get the cooler packed up and everything ready for the picnic.”
Zoe nodded, encouraging him to keep going.
“And then I was going to text you to see if you were going to be at the fireworks later, after work. That’s when I realized my phone was gone,” he looked away.
“It’s okay Parker, did you retrace your steps?”
“Zoe, I swear I looked everywhere for it—first in the trailer, and then I went back to the dock…”
“And…” Meredith finished for him, “That’s when the entire community of Sunny Shores was already at the dock having their annual 4th of July picnic! Each and every one of who—I might add—secretly wanted to kill Crawford.” She stood up, raising her hands in the air, “Just great!”
“OMG Meredith,” Zoe laughed, “dramatic much?”
Parker was confused and obviously missing something. They cared waaay too much about his phone. It must’ve shown on his face, because Zoe finally began to explain, “See Parker, the police called Ethan down to the station.”
“Okay…”
“And the reason we’re asking so much about your phone is because the police said the last text message that Crawford got came from Ethan’s phone—your phone.”
What?! “You mean my phone, the one I lost?”
“Yes, that’s what they told Ethan’s dad.”
“That makes no sense…what did the message say?”
“We don’t know,” Zoe shrugged, “Ethan’s at the station right now.”
Parker’s head was starting to hurt. So, if he left his phone on the docks, anyone could have it, “Oh shit…do they think whoever texted him, might’ve killed him?!”
“Honestly, we don’t know any more than that…” Zoe paused, “But the police will probably want to talk to you again.”
Parker couldn’t believe it—how did he end up right in the middle of everything? “I mean, anybody on the docks could’ve found it. Everybody from the park was there.”
“Well, there’s always a chance the text message was just something random, I don’t know…” Zoe trailed off, “Maybe it had nothing to do with Crawford’s death. Maybe the whole thing really was an accident.” But he knew Zoe, and it didn’t seem like she believed that.
They all sat quietly until Meredith asked, “Okay, so what did he look like—Crawford?”
That was the first thing Parker thought they were gonna ask about—not the phone. And as much as he tried not to, he had replayed the morning in his head a hundred times. Walking on the sand, seeing what he thought at first was a log, getting closer, and realizing that it wasn’t. “What do you think he looked like, Meredith?”
She shrugged, “How would I know what a dead body looks like—especially one that’s been floating around in the lake all night?”
“Uh, maybe you should just go look in the mirror.”
“Oh my god!” Meredith yelled sarcastically, “You’re so funny, Parker!”
It was weak, but he still wasn’t feeling like himself. Zoe was laughing so at least she thought it was funny.
“I don’t remember every detail, it was just gross,” but Parker did remember every detail. He remembered exactly what Mr. Crawford’s face looked like. It was permanently etched into Parker’s brain—his bloated, blotchy, face, like some kind of alien version of himself. As much as Parker wanted to forget it, he couldn’t.
“Eyes open or closed?”
“Open, but like all cloudy white.”
“Ewww, that’s so creepy!” Meredith wanted more, “What else?”
“I don’t know, his face was all puffed out and like, red…and blotchy.”
Zoe looked genuinely grossed out, but Meredith just wouldn’t quit, “Did you notice any marks on him or anything?”
“Are you serious?” Parker asked, “Do you think I ran over there and examined him with a magnifying glass?”
Meredith shrugged, “Well, I might’ve.”
“No, you wouldn’t of,” and then Parker looked at her with that stupid smile on her face and he changed his mind, “Well maybe you would because you’re a sicko, but not me.”
“So how did you know it was definitely him—definitely Crawford?” Zoe asked.
“I just did, I mean his face wasn’t that different, and he had that white hair,” he shrugged, “I just knew.”
“But I mean,” Zoe said, “How did you know what Mr. Crawford looked like? Just from sneaking over to the Crystal Waters pool?”
“Oh, yeah,” Parker thought back to the brief time last summer when he was living the rich life, “Well, he’s the one who kicked me out.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, it was like the fourth or fifth time I snuck over there,” Parker never forgot that day, “he just walked right up to me and he’s like, ‘I’m Mr. Crawford and I own this pool, remind me who your parents are’. And I’m like, ‘Uh, Mr. and Mrs. Smith.’”
Zoe and Meredith started laughing, “Oh my God, could you have picked a more generic name?”
“I know, it was bad. It was the first thing that popped into my head,” Parker said, “He knew I was lying—told me to leave and to never go back there.”
“Jesus,” Meredith was shaking her head, “Does he have like poor-people radar? There have to be at least twenty kids running around there at all times.”
“Who knows…,” Zoe sighed, “All that man did was sit like a king on his throne, watching over his little kingdom, and making sure it was just the way he wanted it.”
“Well, he ain’t sitting and watching anymore,” Meredith said, “Nope, he’s more like laying…” she smiled, “and decaying.”
Yep, definitely a sicko.
CHAPTER 34
ETHAN
As soon as they walked through the police station doors, a tall bald guy in a suit approached them and shook their hands, “I’m Detective Zeller, thanks for coming. If you want to follow me.”
No, Ethan didn’t want to follow him, but did he have a choice? The Detective led them down a hallway to a small room with nothing but a table in the middle, just like in the movies.
Zeller sat across from them, took off his jacket and hung it over the chair next to him, “So Ethan, I just want to ask you a few questions,” then he looked at Dad, “Mr. Pierce, I understand you’re an attorney?”
“Yes.”
Lawyer rule number one: always give one-word answers when possible, no need to elaborate unless asked.
“Okay, can you please state, as Ethan’s guardian, that you are here voluntarily?”
“Yes, I am.”
Lawyer rule number two: Don’t piss off the police. Dad had told Ethan that they didn’t have to go to the station. They didn’t have to answer the Detective’s questions. They didn’t have to do any of it. Unless Ethan was formally charged with something, they couldn’t force him to do anything.
But, just because they didn’t have to, didn’t mean they wouldn’t. If they had nothing to hide, then the best course of action was to answer their questions, and not piss them off.
Zeller put his phone on the table, “And I’m going to record this interview, do you understand?”
“Yes.”
“So,” the Detective shifted his focus towards Ethan, “I have a witness who said you got into an altercation with Mr. Crawford last night. Can you tell me what happened?”
He immediately looked at his dad which was something his dad had specifically told him not to do. The instructions from Jeff Pierce, Esq. were to answer everything slowly—not to blurt it out. If there was something he shouldn’t answer, Dad would speak up and take over.
“Um,” shit, his voice was shaking, “H
e said some things that upset me and it got a little physical.”
Zeller simply stared at him, obviously waiting for more.
“Well, I…um…” Ethan felt hot shivers run up the back of his neck, “I hit him.”
The detective pulled out a notepad from his jacket and glanced at it, “You punched him in the face and knocked his tooth out, correct?”
“Yes.”
At least the detective showed no facial reaction, it was like he’d heard this kind of stuff a million times before, “Did he get physical with you in any way?”
Ethan hesitated, “No.”
“Did he touch you at all?”
“No.” This sounded bad.
The detective jotted something down, “What did you do next?”
“I just left. I walked away.” More like hauled ass out of there. Should he mention that Gayle Crawford was smirking about it?
“Where did you go?”
“I went next door to Sunny Shores, to see a friend.”
“And then?”
“Then I went back home.”
“So after that initial altercation, did you see Mr. Crawford again? Anywhere?”
“No,” and that was the truth.
The Detective paused and looked down at his notepad, now full of messy black writing, “Do you know a Mr. Hunter Altman?”
What the hell? Where did that come from?
“Yeah, I mean—yes.”
“Did you get into a physical altercation with him at the Crystal Waters pool on June 3?”
“What?” Ethan’s heart sank, “No, we were just talking.”
“I have a witness who said you,” Zeller began reading from his notepad, “‘grabbed him by the shirt and lifted him very aggressively.’” The detective stared at him with his emotionless expression.
Jesus. They had obviously done some quick police work—and it seemed to be focused on him. “We just got into an argument,” Ethan tried to keep his voice even-keel, “I didn’t hit him or anything.”
The Detective leaned forward, “Ethan, you went through some pretty traumatic stuff last October, didn’t you?”
“Okay detective,” Dad decided to finally jump in, “We came here voluntarily and we are more than happy to answer questions regarding Mr. Crawford, but if we’re going to delve into personal questions, then this interview is over.” Dad was pissed.
