He leaned forward. "You don't think ... Darla actually came on to Justin? And maybe ... one of those two guys shot her in a jealous rage?"
Ali's hand flew to her chest, and her eyes darted heavenward. "Welcome back to Steepleton," she said.
TWENTY-FOUR
TOREY CONTINUED TO STARE at the tabletop until Bo ran his fingers over his buzzed army hair, saying, "I'm sorry, you guys. Ali, you're engaged, and Tors, you're almost famous, and you have to come back here for my games of the dark side."
"No, man, that's what we're here for." Torey came to life, reaching across and laying his million-buck guitar hand on top of Bo's arm this time. "The truth'll set you free. You know? You can't help your sister this time around, but you can find out the truth."
I took it Torey's fascination with truth had not changed.
"Oh, God," Bo said. "I don't want to see Justin wind up in jail ... for any reason." He turned his agonized face to me. "Did he say anything today that would imply, you know, he was ever 'with' my sister? Romantically?"
I shook my head, and somehow sensed that could not be right. "Have you seen the suicide note?" I asked.
He shook his head. "I was at the Burdens' house earlier tonight to hug on Wiley some. The mister and missus said they weren't ready to see it yet."
I pulled my copy out of my notebook and laid it in the middle of the table. "Don't say who showed this to you. But I think it implicitly denies that Justin could have shot your sister."
Bo read it aloud for the first few paragraphs, as Chief Rye had, then gave it to Torey with a shake of his head. "Damn, that Danny was a worse writer than I am. How'd he expect to pass college English?"
Torey picked it up and slowly and patiently took over reading Danny's tale of grief aloud. It reminded me of him pouring over another letter, once upon a time. I wish to be gone ... therefore I AM.
Torey got to the bottom and handed it back with slow respect, maybe a few memories of his own.
"You think it was a ruse?" Bo asked. "Danny writing this to protect Justin?"
Ali shook her head. "He wouldn't kill himself to protect Justin. I think he was being sincere. I think ... well, she killed herself, and he panicked after the shock of what he saw."
Bo sniffed. Angrily. Maybe in frustration. I didn't exactly want to be sitting beside him, given what I knew about his temper when he got mad. He seemed to have outgrown his outbursts, but I was still on edge. I'd already been beat on once tonight.
"Doesn't explain how she got six feet under out in the Pine Barrens," Bo said.
"Look." Ali reached across and rubbed his elbow some. He acted like he didn't notice. "We all know the loyalty of people out in the boondocks—though I understand we're not calling it that anymore."
"Conovertown," Bo said. "We're still boons at heart."
"Yeah, and those are pretty big hearts," she said. "I'm sure somebody saw what happened and tried to cover Danny's back. Whoever it was thought they were doing a good thing ... a heroic thing. For the living. It's a shame it didn't work out, but let's focus on the intentions of people who really do care ... beneath all their toughness."
"This stinks of the McIntyre brothers, Mack and Ozone," Bo said, unable to resist. When Ali's eyebrows shot up, he said, "Half brothers of Mrs. Creed, if you can believe that. We call them the Brownie's Mafia, though it's more bluster than anything. They're always threatening to kill somebody. Problem is, their aim is so bad, they couldn't drop a turkey. We all know it."
Torey smiled.
"If a body needed burying, they'd give it a whirl, I bet, without totally fucking it up. They could keep somebody buried for three months. That sounds like their work."
"How does Justin fit in to this?" Ali swung the conversation back around. "Do you think he's in some sort of trouble?"
I didn't tell them he had driven me here and was only about twenty feet away. I just had a bad feeling about it, given that he'd seemed even more manic after his mother came to grizzly life than when Bo had dropped him off. I thought his condition might set Bo off worse. "I'm not sure. But I will try to find out what he knows. He, um ... he's taken a liking to me."
Bo nodded, watching me gratefully, probably remembering how Justin had wanted me to stay for their private talk. "Thanks, man. I don't need his monkeys on my back right now unless they need to be there ... I got a lot to deal with. You'll see what you can find out?"
I said I would, this time doing it right, putting Bo's cell phone number in my phone. "I'll call you if I find out anything about him being involved."
"And do me another favor, too," Bo said. "While you're hanging out with Justin and trying to find out if he got caught up in my sister's shenanigans somehow, can you please try to find out something else?"
"I'll try."
"Find out why that twerp picks now to think that his brother is coming back. It doesn't have to do with how he knew we were coming back, does it?" His finger circled to imply Ali and Torey and himself, the inner circle of Creed memorializers.
"No," I assured him. "I know why he thinks his brother is coming back. It's probably nothing that would sound very interesting to anyone but him."
"So, it's nothing credible. Right?" Ali asked, looking concerned. "I mean, let's face it. Everyone at this table thinks Chris is going to show up someday. But when a time comes that he might actually show up, we're skeptical before we even find out the reasons why. You're saying that there is no real reason to suspect that Chris would show up here, right?"
I didn't know how to answer that honestly. My jaw kind of bobbed in a way that they misinterpreted. Bo and Ali sat straight up, staring for all they were worth.
I had only been pondering how I wasn't entirely dismissive of quantum thought influencing a brother's heart from across the miles. I hadn't meant to give them heart seizures.
"You don't think he's going to show up here in the next day or two. Do you?" Bo asked more directly.
All I said was "I'd be inclined to say no."
It sounded more hopeful than I'd meant it to. I thought of Chris as a forgotten chapter in their lives, but apparently he could be easily remembered, and with a lot of excitement.
"What do you know? Come on," Ali begged.
"Nothing," I said, feeling bad for having accidentally led them on. I stumbled, "I'll tell you what ... your guess is as good as mine, okay?"
"Since I have no reason to believe he will show up while we're in Steepleton, my guess is no," Ali said, watching me, as if I was supposed to add to it. I let out a sigh of frustration.
"I'm a no," Bo said. "I ain't even so sure he's alive anymore, poor kid."
Adams had been pretty quiet throughout the back end of the conversation, leaving me to think that he got a lot out in writing and maybe had become the type of person who didn't have a whole lot to say. And I sensed he kept his words concerning Chris at a minimum. Maybe out of respect.
He had his chin on his chest, his eyes shut. At first I thought it was dislike of the conversation. But Bo nudged him. "Yo, Trancelike. What are you doing? Reaching for that gift of ESP you got? The gift that found you a dead body in the woods, once upon a time?"
"I didn't find that body via ESP," he said quietly, without opening his eyes. "I found it via a psychic who told me I was going to find it."
In Adams's tale, he and Ali ended up at a psychic's, who told him he would find "death in the woods." He thought it would be the body of Christopher Creed. He actually did stumble upon a body, and Adams wrote a compelling passage near the end of his story. He marveled at how accurate the psychic actually had been, even though she was a chain smoker living over a garage, and had some game show blaring on the TV in the background when she announced her "death in the woods" prediction.
Adams pulled himself forward, leaning over the table. He was smiling and shaking his head, as if he was undecided about something.
"I shouldn't tell you this," he said.
That's the last thing you should say if you don't want to tel
l something. Ali nudged him and said, "Don't do that to us!"
He wouldn't have started if he didn't plan to spout. "I posted on ChristopherCreed.com yesterday when my mom e-mailed me they'd found a body..."
"I know," Ali said. "I still get e-mail alerts when you post. And?"
"There was something I didn't include. An attachment my mom sent along that was supposed to make me laugh. I guess it did..." He brought a piece of paper from his jacket pocket and unfolded it. "Since we're talking about that stupid psychic, remember how she was mooching a room over her niece's garage? Apparently, she finally got her own permanent digs and is doing well."
He tossed the paper onto the middle of the table. My fingers and Ali's slapped down on it at the same time, so we were both reading sideways. It was a .pdf file of an advertisement, and Mrs. Adams had been good enough to put the Press of Atlantic City dateline at the top from a week ago. I let Ali do the aloud reading.
"'Vera Karzden. Psychic. Criminal Investigations. Psychic Forensics. Cold Case Readings.'" Ali looked at Torey in disbelief. "Oh my God! I think you made the woman famous!"
"If so, I didn't mean to," he said quickly, and we all laughed. Miss Vera's prediction that he would find "death in the woods" had freaked Torey out so badly that he didn't sleep for nights. From his web passage about him and Ali visiting her, you would think he had never forgiven the woman for being so accurate.
He said, "Read on."
"'Miss Vera has moved her offices from Margate, New Jersey to Route 9, just two miles north of Steepleton—' and the address and phone."
They laughed a little more, thinking it was funny to hear something about Miss Vera so many years later. Margate was only about half an hour from Steepleton, so the move wasn't exactly strange.
Torey even added hastily, "A lot of people move from the islands because it's too expensive there now." But his tone implied he was offering explanations to keep from being freaked out by something.
"Her Margate offices ... I wonder if that was her room above the garage!" Ali laughed. "Glad she finally made it!"
I was smiling too, though I felt tempted to say More bad frequency.
I supposed Bo had read ChristopherCreed.com, but probably only once, if that. I wouldn't have pegged him as a reader.
Ali said, "Remember when you stole Chris's diary, and Torey and I found in there that he'd briefly dated some girl named Isabella Karzden? Torey and I went to her house in Margate to see if he'd told her anything about where he was going. Remember this?"
Bo muttered, "Yeah, sure," but looked lost in thought. Obviously this had nothing to do with his sister.
"She hooked us up with her aunt Vera, the chain-smoking, Dorito-munching psychic who lived over the garage." Ali let out a snorty laugh, and Torey managed to smile. "She told Torey he would find 'death in the woods.' Torey ran out of there so fast—"
"Two miles north of Steepleton..." Bo recited, twisting the ad around so he was looking straight at it. He read off the address. Bad frequency, I thought, though Bo seemed to have a slightly different opinion. "That's somewhere between Steepleton and Conovertown."
Nobody could deny it. The silence pounded.
"So," Bo said, seeming to come to life after being lost in thought. "Do you guys believe in fate?"
Only Torey answered, saying, "Oh my God. Don't—"
Bo pulled out his cell phone, laughing but not smiling. "You guys want to know why I hardly ever drink more than one beer?" He tapped his glass, which only had an inch of brew left in the bottom. I think it was his second. "It's because I have moments like this."
He dialed. I felt the call would be a dud. It was close to midnight, and the woman probably had business hours, even if she was a psychic.
"Just be careful, man," Torey said quickly. "I hold no opinion on psychics. In other words, I was just showing you a weird and funny ad. If you're let down, I don't want it on my conscience."
Bo put the speakerphone on, and we put our heads together to hear. I was almost smiling, not believing the passage of great writing I'd set myself in the middle of, even if she didn't answer. But the situation got better than my wildest dreams.
A woman actually picked up. She didn't sound like she'd been asleep. It was a normal "Hello?"
"Is this Miss, uh, Vera?" Bo asked.
"Sure is," she said.
"Sorry ... if I woke you up. This is not a crank call, okay? My name is Brody Richardson, though my friends call me Bo. You ever, um, take night visitors?"
I could hear something like the exhale of a cigarette. The woman replied, "Grief doesn't have hours. And I'm so sorry for your loss."
TWENTY-FIVE
OUT IN THE PARKING LOT, I found Justin snoring behind the wheel of his mom's car. He was sitting straight up, mouth open, as if the sleep had come on so suddenly that he didn't even have time to lie down.
Adams looked over my shoulder and whispered, "That your ride?"
Lanz stood in the back seat, wagging his tail. I nodded, then turned to smile at Torey. "Justin Creed."
Adams did a double take. "He was a little kid last time I saw him, and now he looks almost like a man."
I could see the kid in Justin, but knew what he meant. Bo and Ali were already in Bo's old bomb car, and he honked, which made Adams jump straight up, though Justin didn't even stir.
"Do we ... include him in this?" he whispered.
"Uh, no," I said, using the same line of reasoning as I'd used to keep him out of the interview. He'd gab and dominate. "Let him sleep. He really needs it."
We took off down Route 9 in Bo's car.
Ali turned around to the two of us in the back seat. "Torey, are you sure you're okay with this?"
Bo added, "Listen, buddy. If visiting the woman freaks you out too much, I'll turn around now."
Torey straightened only slightly. But out of his mouth came more Torey Adams integrity: "Bo, I got a great music tour coming up, and you've had a death in your family. Would I deprive you of any means to get to the truth?"
"You don't have to come in," Bo added.
"I'll decide when we get there." He picked one thumb with the other and said under his breath to me, "I don't know which would be worse: going in and maybe being singled out again for gross and disgusting predictions, or staying in the car alone at midnight so the Jersey Devil can come along and make a snack out of me."
Bo added loudly, "I'm suddenly not so sure I'm going in. What in hell am I doing, going to a psychic to find out who buried my sister? If the guys in my unit found out about this, they'd think I'd lost my marbles."
"You're responding to your grief," Ali said, rubbing the back of his head. "Nobody would expect you not to have dialed that number under the circumstances." She turned sideways in the front seat, so we could hear her musings. "It was weird, how she knew who you were right away. It was almost like she was expecting you to call her."
"Don't let's get carried away," Bo said. "You'll freak Adams out, and I don't want him puking in my car on the way home, lovely as it is." There was a rip in the fabric on the ceiling and it hung down. I had to keep batting it away from my face. "She read today's newspaper is all. Anybody, psychic or not, who heard the name Richardson today would think of that."
The house was right on Route 9 and had lights on in every window, so it wasn't hard to find. It was a cute little rancher with ground lights going up the walk and around the bushes—a step up from a room over the garage. As we parked in the drive and rang the doorbell, Torey stayed silently beside me, apparently having made his decision not to be eaten alive by the Jersey Devil.
I felt a sense of déjà vu, which was probably even stronger in him. In his story, he'd been amazed that he felt nothing entering the psychic's house and nothing as she made her predictions. Waiting for her to open the door reminded me of that. You'd expect to be overwhelmed with some feeling of creepiness, especially given the midnight hour. But we could see boxes in the front room, as if she still had a lot of unpacking to do.
She opened the door in a T-shirt that said IRISH PUB, and shorts and bare feet.
"Sorry—I was painting. I'm a nightowl," she said, standing aside so we could come in. The smell of paint was overwhelming, and through the doorway I could see the dining room walls glistening.
"Sit down," she said, and pointed to a long couch in the living room. There were boxes in front of it, but she pulled a folding chair over and sat facing us, using a box to rest her elbow on.
"You sure have changed." Ignoring the rest of us, her eyes rolled up and down Torey, who was next to me. As she'd spoken to him for all of about five minutes five years ago, it jarred me.
"Um..." He tried to smile politely, but his neck looked tense enough to crack. When she didn't break in with further commentary, he added, "And you've quit smoking, I take it?"
"Oh, no, I just don't bring them into my soon-to-be parlor. I just had one. You can't smell it?"
I smelled it but wasn't sure they did.
Adams shook his head once, studying his fingers with a nervous grin. "Guess I'm not very psychic."
"So, you found death in the woods," she persisted. "I read your website. The whole thing."
Torey scooted around in his seat, though the four of us were kind of squashed. "Yeah, well, I really don't want to talk about ... that's not why we're here."
She looked immediately at Bo and kept her gaze fixed there. We hadn't introduced ourselves, so she could have easily thought I was him. Bo didn't pick up on that.
He laughed nervously and said, "Lady, I'll be frank with you. I'm a one-beer Charlie, and I was at the bottom of my second when I said we should come here. I guess you could say ... I don't know what I'm doing here."
"A lot of people feel confused on their way through my door," she said easily.
He didn't look too comforted. "I mean, if Adams hadn't whipped out your ad and pointed you out as the person who was pretty accurate with him, I wouldn't be here. At all. I don't exactly believe in psychics."