Guilt by Association (A Murder in the Mountains Book 3) Page 2

  The realtor speaks behind me and I jump. “Who is that kid?”

  “I’m trying to find out.”

  He groans as if the whole world has let him down. “I don’t know how we can stay on-schedule today if the police are coming. Your mom was hoping to look at several houses…” He raises an eyebrow, probably waiting for me to dismiss him.

  “Afraid you’re not going to get off so easy,” I joke.

  His lips pucker as he gives me a look of disbelief. Why is he so antsy to get going? I finish my thought.

  “The police will want to talk to you, since you were first on the scene. Standard protocol,” I explain. I don’t actually know if that’s the case, but it sounds about right.

  As if on cue, a vehicle pulls up. It’s a familiar camouflage Hummer. A half-grin pops onto my face and Samuel gives me another weird look. I ignore him and stride toward the tank-like vehicle, because I know exactly who’s driving it.

  My steps slow as I realize the friend I’m walking to meet is a homicide detective. Why on earth would a homicide detective be first on this scene? And what’s he doing all the way down in Boone County, anyway?

  Detective Zeke Tucker’s salt-and-pepper hair is just as short as ever, and his matching beard is neatly trimmed. He looks tan and healthy, like he’s been basking in the sun all summer. He’s open-carrying a very substantial handgun (Thomas would call it a “hand cannon”) in a leather chest holster. Even in the heat of summer, he’s wearing his ever-present combat boots. I’m guessing those boots have definitely seen some combat.

  His nearly-black eyes fix on me for a moment, then flick to Samuel, who seems to be hiding directly behind me.

  He addresses me first. “Tess. I’d ask what you’re doing here, but I know you’ll ask me the same thing. Fact is, I was passing through on another case and they called me in since I was closest to the scene. I’m friends with Biff, the sheriff in this county. He wanted me to swing by and get the lay of the land.”

  Normally, I’d laugh at the name Biff, but the way Detective Tucker says it gives it all kinds of gravity.

  I try to explain. “Hi, Detective”—I have to correct myself—“Zeke. This is my mom’s place. I came to look at houses with her and this realtor, Samuel. He’s the one who found the body.” I step aside to fully expose the coward.

  His gaze narrowing, Zeke moves toward Samuel. As he passes by me, a nearly electric charge ripples the air. Zeke carries himself like a predator you know you can never escape, so you don’t even bother to try. His menacing reputation has actually inspired some criminals to confess before he ever appears to question them.

  He glances at a notebook in his hand. “So you saw the body first? Walk me through that.”

  Samuel’s slim hands tremble and he licks his dry lips.

  Zeke just stares at him until the silence gets downright awkward.

  Samuel starts jabbering. “I showed up right on time to meet Mrs. Lilly for our showing. I parked over there.” He points to his older-model silver sedan, which is parked directly opposite the body. “I noticed something lying on the ground. I walked over that way and saw the kid, then I immediately went to the door and told Mrs. Lilly and her daughter to call the police.”

  Zeke gives a brief nod. He glances toward the side of the trailer. “Samuel, you can wait inside if you’d like, but don’t leave until the police get here.”

  Samuel runs up the porch steps and gives a frantic knock.

  Zeke starts walking, then turns briefly. “Tess, you want to come with me?”

  I trail after him, once again getting distracted by the bright poppy patch. Did Mom actually plant and water those? I find it impossible to believe.

  Zeke dons gloves and begins to look over the body. I give him my initial impressions, which are admittedly feeble.

  But when he’s finished, he straightens and looks me in the eyes. “You know, I was actually planning on calling you this week. I have a load of work coming in now that I’ve taken on a couple new counties. I’m an organized man, but I have a hard time staying on top of the paperwork. Would you want to be my secretary? You could just work out of my office in Buckneck, since it’s close to you. I’m hardly ever in there.”

  Excitement races up my spine. My work as a temp has been okay because it’s flexible, but it’s also totally unfulfilling. I’ve been thinking about looking for another job, but haven’t had time to get serious about it. Now, a man I highly respect has asked me to be his secretary.

  “Administrative assistant.” I correct the term under my breath.

  He shoots me a quizzical look. “Whatever you want to call it. I can see if the department’s willing to pay you, but if not, it’ll come out of my paycheck. And maybe sometimes I can bounce ideas off you, if you’re good with that. You have an instinct for things. Just now, you mentioned that although this kid’s hair looks like he’s been sleeping in a car for weeks, his clothes are well-maintained. Kid this age, maybe nineteen or twenty, is probably checking in at his parents’ to get his laundry done. We need to find them.”

  He pulls the blue name tag up and wipes dirt from it, exposing the name. “Mason Roark. Looks like he’s an assistant caregiver at someplace called Tranquil Waters. Nursing home, you think?”

  “Sounds more like a funeral home,” I say.

  He points to me. “You have a phone? Let’s Google it.”

  I grin at his youthful terminology, but extract my phone from my back pocket. It takes some doing, but we finally nail down what Tranquil Waters is.

  Zeke whistles. “Drug rehab center, huh? And looks like it’s tucked up tight in one of these hollows.”

  Police vehicles finally whir into view, converging outside the trailer. Samuel comes down the stairs and approaches us, an irritated look on his face.

  “I’ve been knocking this whole time and your mother hasn’t opened the door. I really need to get out of this heat.” He fans at his face.

  I expect Zeke to scoff and say something like, “Poor little pansy’s wilting,” but instead, Zeke turns to me. His look has changed.

  Officers with bags and gloves walk around me, giving respectful nods to Zeke on their way to the body. A sheriff hitches up his pants and strides toward us.

  I turn back to Zeke, a strange dread uncurling as I meet his gaze. I guess his next question before he voices it.

  “You saw your mom go back inside?”

  “I heard her head that way.”

  “I see two cars here—yours and that one of the realtor’s.” Zeke pauses for a moment. “So where’s your mom’s car?”

  I can’t stop myself. I glare at Zeke, jabbing a finger toward him. “What’re you saying?”

  The sheriff butts in. “Hey, you’re Pearletta Vee’s daughter, ain’t ya? I remember your pretty face from years ago, when we had to take your momma in. Drugs, wasn’t it?”

  I don’t answer. Instead, I race up the porch stairs and turn the doorknob, but it’s locked. I pound on the door’s faded varnish. “Mom! Hey, Mom, I need you to open up.”

  I wait to hear movement inside, but it’s silent. I give a few more knocks for good measure, then speed down the steps to see if her small Kia is parked in its shady spot behind the trailer. There are weeds galore, but no car.

  Zeke doggedly makes his way toward me, concern etching his face.

  “She’s gone.” I speak the words aloud, daring myself to believe them.

  “Looks like it,” Zeke says.

  He doesn’t mention anything about my mom’s history. He doesn’t ask if she knew the dead teen. But he does reach out and pat my shoulder. And that’s enough to rip a hole in the flimsy cushion of trust I’ve inflated around my heart.

  Pearletta Vee Lilly is still a world-class liar.

  3

  In a fog, I follow Zeke as he briefly speaks to Sheriff Biff. They must give Samuel the okay to leave, since the realtor jumps in his car and rips out like his time is pure gold.

  Zeke leads me up the steps to the porch
. He tries the door again. Some part of me hopes it’s unlocked, that it’s all been some crazy misunderstanding.

  He shakes his head slightly, then he walks down the steps. He grabs a larger rock from the yard and returns to the door, where he covertly pulls a keychain out of his pocket. I’m not sure where the rock fits into this scenario, so I keep watching.

  He tries one key, but it doesn’t fit. The next key slides in and he pulls it out a bit, then turns it to the right while gently hitting it with the rock. He repeats the turn/bump process and on the second attempt, the key turns and he opens the door.

  “Trailer locks.” He makes a disgusted face.

  I’m going to pretend like I didn’t see what just happened, although it could be perfectly legal for a detective to carry bump keys.

  We scour the small trailer, but it’s clear Mom is gone.

  “Do you think she packed her things?” he asks.

  I search her bedroom, but can’t definitively say any of her clothes are missing. Shoot, I don’t even know if she owns a suitcase.

  In the bathroom, I don’t see her usual razor sitting in the shower, but that could just mean she recently tossed her old one. Her bathroom mirror cabinet is always in disarray, so that doesn’t give me any clues. As I examine the bottles, I’m thankful that the strongest medication I run into is Xanax.

  Although I wonder when she had to get on that.

  “I can’t say,” I shout toward the hall. I wander into the kitchen, noting she only managed to take a couple of bites of her peanut butter sandwich. I feel a ping of sadness that she’s running on empty, but I shut it down. She has done this to herself.

  Like always.

  I fall into the soft cushions of Sally’s hand-me-down couch, toying with a throw pillow. The heart-shaped pillow is so obviously Mom’s addition—all silky magenta and purple swirls. It belongs in a teen girl’s room, not on a couch in a living room. My heart clenches and I clear my throat, as if that will settle my tumbled emotions.

  Zeke sits on a nearby chair and briskly scrubs his beard with his hand. “Any reason your mom would’ve had any dealings with the dead teen?”

  “She didn’t seem to know for sure who he was. Said he might be dating a neighbor’s daughter.”

  “I’ll need that neighbor’s name.”

  “Mom said her name is Sally, but you could ask the guy who owns the trailer park, Billy Jack Hopkins, for the details.”

  Zeke nods. “You heading back to Buckneck, now your mom’s house-hunting has been cut short?”

  I start to nod, but realize I can’t go home yet. Not with Mom running around, who knows where. Maybe she’ll come back to the trailer after the cops clear out.

  “I guess I’ll stick around a while.”

  “Sounds good. I’ll give Biff your cell number, if that’s okay. And you just check in with me when you’re ready to get to work.”

  My spirits lift a bit. “I’m looking forward to it.”

  He grabs a scrap of paper from the counter and finds a pen. After scrawling something on it, he strides over and hands it to me. “This is the number for Biff’s office. Call him if your mom shows up.”

  “Okay.”

  He peers into my eyes. “I don’t have to tell you it was a serious thing for her to run away from this scene. Whether the kid overdosed or it was something else, it doesn’t look good for her.”

  Stupid tears spring to my eyes. “I know.”

  He eases off. “I’ll head on out—I’m sure you want to give Thomas a call.”

  Although many times I haven’t kept Thomas fully apprised of my comings and goings, today’s events definitely warrant a call. “I’ll do that, thanks. And I’m so glad you were here.”

  “Glad to help,” he says. He opens the front door and hot, blinding sunlight pours in.

  I sit in my dark cocoon of silence, feeling every bit as helpless as I did when I grew up here.

  Finally, I pick up my cell phone, but it’s not Thomas I call first.

  “Nikki Jo? I’m going to have to stay overnight.”

  It takes hours, but the officials begin to clear out without asking me any other questions. I’m pretty sure Zeke told Biff and his cohorts to leave me alone.

  My final sweep of the trailer ends in Mom’s room. On a hunch, I pull her mattress up and whisk my hand along the top of the box springs.

  It makes contact with something that I pull out. It’s a green, unmarked pill bottle. When I twist the lid off, I immediately recognize the pills—OxyContin.

  Disgust and fear wrestle for a moment, then I take the cowardly route I’ve chosen so many times before. I close the lid, shove the bottle back, and drop the mattress over it.

  I’m sure the police will find it, if it comes to a full-scale search. And if that happens, I can figure out a way to explain why my fingerprints are now all over the bottle. But right now, Mom is just a witness who happened to disappear at an inopportune moment.

  My conscience screams that Zeke has every right to know about those pills, especially if it turns out Mason was killed. But I can’t expose Mom that way, not so soon after her release. I turned my mother in once, and I never want to do it again.

  I scan the room. The brown floral wallpaper seems even darker than ever, and the walls seem to shift, like they’re closing in on me. I know it’s just a trick of my mind, but I bolt outside.

  The sun has dropped behind the mountain and the trailer park has resumed its typical shadowy appearance. I don’t glance toward the poppy-strewn edge of Mom’s trailer. Instead, I stroll the other way, toward the blond boy’s home. He’s nowhere in sight. I pick my way around the plastic trucks and balls that litter the porch, then rap on the door.

  A hunched-over, white-headed woman sticks her head out. She squints up at me, and I feel like a giant at five foot six, even though I’m fairly petite.

  “What you need?”

  Not your typical welcome, but I’ll take it. “I’m looking for a woman named Sally. She has a teenage daughter?”

  The woman grunts, chewing on something that might be tobacco. “You’re wanting Sally Crump. She’s a couple houses over. Number five.”

  “Thanks.”

  Her look sharpens. “Something wrong?”

  Like a ray of light in the dim room, a blond head moves toward us. The little boy peeps out at me, sucking on a lollipop as big as his mouth. His lips are sticky, smeared with the blue sugar.

  The grandma doesn’t even pay attention to him. I have an overwhelming urge to pat his tousled head.

  Instead, I voice a warning. “There was a death in the park—did you notice all the police cars?”

  The old woman nods, glancing toward Mom’s trailer.

  I’m just getting warmed up. “With all those cars, don’t you think this little scamp should stay out of the road?” I give the boy a grin, which he hesitantly reciprocates.

  Grandma, however, isn’t so happy. “I’ll thank ye kindly to stay out of our business.” She starts to shut the door in my face, but I can’t stop myself.

  I shove out a hand, stopping the door. I take a step toward her, taking in the smells of rotten food and mildewed laundry emanating from her trailer. “It is my business when your boy here nearly became a casualty in his own front yard because he was totally unsupervised.”

  A string of curse words flies from her lips, and the boy doesn’t even flinch. His blue eyes are fixed on me as he licks the sides of his lollipop. He’s heard all these words before, probably directed at him. The gist of Granny’s diatribe is that unless I’m a cop or a social worker, I have no right to come up on her porch and butt into her life.

  I turn, unwilling to listen to the rest of her rant. She stops yelling and slams the door behind me. As I reach the bottom stair, a small hand pats my lower leg. I look down to see the boy has trailed behind me.

  “You go back home,” I say. “Did you hear what I said? You have to stay out of the road. Maybe play on the side of your house or behind it?”
r />   He stretches his little sticky hand up in the air for me to take. A gesture of trust, bestowed so easily and quickly. Something primal rears up in me, something that wants to make sure this wordless little boy is clean and loved and safe.

  His long sleeve falls back, exposing a heavy, greenish bruise on his wrist.

  Fighting every instinct to march him straight out of this place, I take his hand in both of mine and lean down to his level. I throw a glance at the trailer, but the door’s shut. Granny Dearest obviously ignored my advice to pay attention to this little guy.

  “I have to go back to my own home soon,” I explain. “But I’m going to ask someone to check in on you, okay? You just do what I said and stay out of the road.”

  Although he’s probably four or five, he still hasn’t said a word. While I don’t want him to follow me to Sally’s house, I still hate to tell him to go inside his dank trailer.

  “Why don’t you go play on your porch now? I saw you have a nice truck up there. I need to get going.” I let go of his hand, which is no easy process with the lollipop goo.

  He smiles wider, showing brilliant white baby teeth. He pulls his lollipop from his pocket and pops it back into his mouth like a pacifier. I wonder if that’s his supper.

  I take a slow breath and stand, thankful for his trusting smile.

  I might not be a social worker, but I’m betting Zeke knows a good one.

  4

  Without a doubt, the number five trailer is the prettiest place in Scots’ Hollow. Sally has a wraparound deck, and she’s decorated it with at least six hanging ferns, which aren’t cheap. Antique rocking chairs are painted bright colors, and there’s an inviting mint colored metal glider that looks like it’s been refurbished from the sixties. She’s placed lilacs in a galvanized metal watering can for an added touch.

  To all appearances, Sally has her act together.

  I push the doorbell, which is in an ornate copper setting.

  A woman opens the door, and I wonder if this is Ruby. She has choppy red hair, her eyes are streaked with mascara, and she’s wearing a tight baby tee that says Skateboarding is not a Crime. I look closer, and can make out some barely-visible crow’s feet and some wrinkles on her neck. Pretty sure this must be Sally.