Aftermath Read online

  “No, it wasn’t exactly the gracious sanctuary she’d advertised.”

  “Unpack first and then get some breakfast.”

  The click of heels from that hallway announced Bebe before she made her appearance. Instead of red again, to match her hair and nails, she’d opted for a royal blue long-sleeved blouse, a matching, knee-length skirt, and pumps dyed to complement the outfit. “Great to have you back with us,” she said, turning on the brogue with a roll to her “R” and a beguiling lilt at the end. “I’ve got your room all set, and I laid in enough food to keep us stuffed for weeks.”

  I said, “I hope I don’t impose for that long.”

  “Nonsense,” David drawled and gave my hand a squeeze that felt decidedly un-fatherly. “You haven’t even settled in, and you’re already talking about leaving?”

  CHAPTER 22

  My suite boasted plenty of ruffles, lace, and pillows, but the overall feel was maturely feminine, not girly-girl like the rooms decorated by one Stapleton Scholar after another during their senior year with my father. Not a bad place to hole up while putting my affairs back in order. As long as I could keep David at bay. He definitely was looking forward to my stay more than I was. Friends often accused me of having no dating standards, but I did draw the line at sleeping with men my mother had tagged.

  As I hung my clothes, put things away in drawers, and placed toiletries on the wide double-sink of the bathroom, I wondered if he saw my mom whenever he looked at me, just as he’d speculated that my dad was forever trying to find her in the Scholars he tutored and no doubt seduced in his gross, Svengali-like way. If that were the case, I needed to make it very clear we could only be friends. Besides, I still couldn’t believe he and Bebe had gone from being lovers to mere associates. Not with her acting as jealous as she was.

  To keep David from getting any more ideas about me, I had to put him on the defensive and keep him there. Thinking back to our conversation in the truck and garage, he’d dodged or deftly steered me away from some of my questions, as if he were protecting someone. Bebe immediately sprang to mind, but maybe because I was feeling jealous about Cade’s relationship with her and way overthinking everything.

  I took the case file into the bathroom, to flip through it again as I cleaned up. It felt good to get out of the clothes I’d lived in overnight and to scrub off the odors I’d accumulated. On the downside, as I lathered my hair, I did have a Psycho premonition and wondered if David and Bebe could see me through a peephole or, more likely, with a hidden camera. Another note to self: Never again bathe in a horror writer’s house with my imagination set on overdrive.

  However, better to be modest unnecessarily than to amble around naked as I usually did after a shower and end up on their highlight reel. Not that seeing me naked would be a highlight for either of them.

  Body towel tucked into place, seated before the mirror, I worked on my hair first as I started from Cade’s incident report and read through the file, page by page. By being more methodical this time, I hoped it would pay off.

  Once again, I read the supplemental report, where Cade detailed learning that my father hired Wallace Landry in late June to do handyman chores around the property, and how Dad dismissed Cade’s caution after the police chief related stories from others who’d paid the out-of-towner for yard work. Behind that was a page I’d overlooked the night before. The police chief had included the names and addresses for three people who had mentioned Landry’s insolence and aggressiveness: a couple of men whose names I didn’t recognize, and Bebe McLaren.

  Finally, a connection between Landry and someone else I knew. Significant? I had no idea, but I dog-eared that page and started in on my make-up. The coroner’s report was such a disturbing mix of clinical detachment and lurid description that I nearly flipped past that section to pick up reading elsewhere. However, the associated forensic reports were a reminder that more had gone on than mere gunshot carnage.

  The laboratory doing the toxicology had identified the percentage of alcohol—which they referred to as “ethanol”—in his system but didn’t specify what kind of liquor my father had consumed in such quantities. That forced me to go back to the coroner’s meticulous account, where I flipped to the page that detailed the gastrointestinal system. Stomach contents had consisted of partially digested, semisolid food consistent with Mexican cuisine and a quantity of liquid that retained the odor of tequila.

  I remembered how, a few nights before, Tim had sort of freaked when I suggested a pork chimichanga and strawberry margarita. He blamed it on his concern that I’d get him drunk and grill him about his pariah comment, but maybe he felt some guilt about eating at Azteca, as if I were forcing him to return to the scene of the crime. Then again, there was no chance he would’ve been slugging down shots of Jose Cuervo with my father, and he didn’t yet have access to the alarm code: motive but no means. Mr. Pearson did have that means, but, as he pointed out, no motive. Coming in a distant third, David ate at Azteca all the time, but he had neither a reason to kill my father nor access to the alarm code.

  Bebe, on the other hand, clearly despised my dad. Maybe she’d seduced him to give herself the chance to get the code. Then she did Landry as well, filled his head with hate, and sent him to kill my father, who she could’ve gotten drunk for the occasion. Tying up loose ends, she tripped the alarm once Wallace was in the house so her other lover, Cade—primed to be wary of the young man because of her warning—could end him. So, that would’ve been three men she had to sleep with, two of whom she knew would be killed. Would she really be capable of that? It was hard to imagine a sitcom actor becoming a real-life femme fatale. Still….

  Plotting my breakfast conversation, I finished touching up my eyes, gave my cowlick a bit more mousse, and went to get dressed. Somehow I had to get some answers without being evicted again. Just in case, though, I chose my warmest jeans, a crème turtleneck topped with a jade jacket, and low heels.

  Following the smell of frying bacon, I felt my stomach rumble, a reminder I hadn’t eaten since my lunch with Tara the day before. I found Bebe in the kitchen whisking eggs. An apron covered her outfit, and she’d pushed up the royal blue sleeves to her freckled elbows. The domestic scene and the sweat-damp bangs she kept blowing out of her eyes made her seem less intimidating and even harder to envision as a bloodthirsty siren.

  “Put me to work,” I said. “Can I flip the bacon?”

  “Oh my goodness no, you’ll ruin that cute outfit.” She tonged over the four slices before pushing chopped green onions, tomatoes, and cubed ham from a cutting board into the eggs. With a practiced hand, she poured the mixture onto the griddle and set to work scrambling it.

  I asked, “Will David be joining us?”

  “He eats early—has to feed his muse, don’t you know.” She glanced at me. “If you’re here long, you’ll get accustomed to his ways. Do you prefer soft or hard?”

  “What are we talking about?”

  “How do you like your eggs, Janet?”

  “Oh.” I felt my cheeks flush. “Soft is fine.”

  She plated up an equal portion for each of us and put the dishes on a table she’d already set with napkins, flatware, sliced toast, and spreads. Trying to contribute, I poured the coffee. Bebe removed her apron, dropped it over a chair back, and we sat across from each other in a nook that overlooked the ice-glazed snow of the back yard.

  I quieted the urgent growls of my stomach with a forkful of eggs. “Do you have to do everything around here?”

  “You mean all the chores?” When I nodded, she said, “We have a housekeeper, comes twice a week to clean. I’ve always liked to cook, so that part’s a snap.”

  “How about yard work, leaf blowing, that kind of thing?”

  She shrugged, but tension in her shoulders made the gesture look spastic rather than casual. “There’re folks in town I call for that.” She picked up a crispy slice
of bacon and bit it in half.

  “I heard Wallace Landry did handyman work for some people before my dad hired him.”

  Bebe gazed out the window. “Cindy Dwyer felt sorry for him. She’s been so lonely since her husband died, she’ll take in any vagabond off the street—not that we get many of those in the back of beyond. Anyway, she put out the word he was looking for work.” After a morsel of eggs and a slug of coffee, she said, “I’m surprised you didn’t get on with her. You strike me as being a lot alike, the kind whose heart goes out to strays. Ever been married?”

  I frowned at the sharp conversational pivot. “Um, no. You?”

  “Engaged though, right? You have that shell-shocked look of someone left at the altar.”

  I dropped my fork on the table. “How did you hear about that?”

  “Just a gift I have for reading people. It was a tremendous help in my acting career.” She looked innocent, but the truth was that I’d filled Facebook that summer with an hour-by-hour account of my shock, hurt, and bone-deep sorrow caused by Andy. Easy enough for her to find with a little digging.

  “Well, I wasn’t left at the altar—thank God it didn’t get that far.” The words were out before I realized I was offering information instead of obtaining it. “Ancient history.”

  “Oh, you don’t look that old,” she said with a wink, although she was at least five years my senior.

  I drank some coffee and forced myself to eat as my temper rose. “Did you know your name was in the police reports about my dad’s death? You knew the killer.”

  “It’s a small town, as I’m sure you’re realizing. Lots of people knew, or knew of, Wally.”

  I seized on that. “You’re the only one who calls him that, except his fiancée.” My smart mouth—my father’s legacy—once again was primed and ready to let fly. After a pause for effect, I added, “You didn’t just hire that young man, you slept with him.”

  Bebe didn’t even blink. “Why are you behaving like someone who doesn’t care about burning bridges? When I said Graylee is small, I mean it’s small. Not like Dublin is small compared to New York City. I mean, you won’t be able to avoid running into me and Cindy and everyone else you’ve offended in your short time with us.” She crunched up more bacon, teeth snapping. “You’re indeed Brady Stapleton’s daughter. What’s next, shutting down the town until we answer all your questions? Or, like your father, will that be your last resort when no one will sleep with you?”

  She resumed eating, as if waiting for me to deliver my next line in a script she’d already memorized. I realized much too late I couldn’t scare or influence her. With Cindy, I’d tapped into her guilt and shame as a Scholar’s mother. All I had with Bebe was speculation—I couldn’t prove anything. Still, my obsession with piecing together the answer wouldn’t go away, so I tried a new approach.

  “What does it do to a woman,” I asked gently, “as she watches families give up their teenaged girls to a tyrant, one after another, for years? It doesn’t matter if most of the Scholars go on to great things. This woman—blessed with beauty and smarts just like them—knows the kind of damage a man can cause, the scars that don’t show but also never fade.”

  I continued, “What happens when she sees a family make a stand despite the pressures brought to bear, and instead of the whole town turning on the tyrant at last, she sees them target the family? Threats become actions, and the family nearly burns along with their home. Meanwhile an angry young man, down on his luck, has come to town. Does she see a way out for everyone? Stoke that man’s rage and point him at the tyrant, promise that at last he can be the hero instead of the goat? After so many innocent girls’ lives have been affected, is the sacrifice of one unlikable stranger really so wrong, when it’s in service of the greater good?”

  While I spoke, Bebe had worked her way through the eggs and bacon and polished off a slice of toast. She drained her mug and said, “Ah, but you do tell a fine story. A stirring tale, like something from the old country. You don’t understand one thing, though.”

  “What’s that?”

  “The only reason I’m in South Georgia is because of my dream job with David. I don’t give a flying fuck about Graylee or the people here.” She glanced at my coffee cup. “Refill?”

  I didn’t believe her cynical act. “Are you sure anyone had to die?”

  “Still a dog with her bone? Won’t you give over?” She stood and started to clear the table. “You shouldn’t live in a town that will take generations to recover from what your father did. Where the mere sight of you brings back the bad old days. Take your riches and go.”

  “Except that maybe I can help speed their recovery. It’ll only take generations if no one talks about it openly.” I snatched away my plate and cup as she reached for them. There was something especially awful about being waited on by the same person I was fencing with. As I deposited my dish, flatware, and mug in the sink, I said, “Maybe I can help undo some of his damage. Set up, I don’t know, a sort of truth and reconciliation commission.”

  She placed the other items in the adjacent stainless steel basin and laughed in my face. “Well aren’t you the grand lady, the savior come to rescue us all from our terrible troubles?”

  “No, I think that’s the role you want to play. I’m just dealing with the aftermath of what you did.”

  I stalked out of the kitchen and halfway down the hall filled with David’s celeb photos before I forced myself to stop and breathe. To my left was the doorway into the study, with the secret pocket door that would take me into his writing space. Was he involved at all in the scheme Bebe had enacted? Assuming he wasn’t, did he have any idea about what she’d done? If I brought my theory to him, would he mostly be pissed off that I’d interrupted his muse?

  Behind me, water ran in the sink as Bebe scrubbed away the residue of our breakfast. She’d been right in one respect: I was burning bridges all over the place, acting like an inquisitor passing through instead of someone planning to live in Graylee. If I kept alienating people, I’d turn my worst fears, those Four Horsewomen, into self-fulfilling prophecies.

  Once again seeking distraction in photographs—maybe another trait I’d picked up from my dad—I marveled at how many A-list politicians, actors, and entrepreneurs David knew. I recognized someone in every shot. At least until I reached the end of the wall, with what probably had been the first framed photo he’d hung there.

  As I stared at it, two other pictures popped into my head in succession. First, the photo on Mr. Pearson’s wall of three shirtless boys hamming it up in a forest glade, a clearing that could’ve been the very one where this house now stood. The second was a Stapleton Scholar image from Cindy’s memorial wall, notable because, in subsequent years, the newspaper editor had settled on a recurring presentation style, with “Stapleton Scholar” and the year printed above the teenager’s image and, underneath, the girl’s name. For the first Scholar, in 1985, a larger portrait photograph showed a blond beauty with the headline “Stapleton Scholarship Winner Named” but the text below her picture had been sacrificed to fit the clipping within the uniform frame size Cindy had chosen.

  I now saw that teenager again, on David’s celeb wall. Slightly older, with a more mature hairstyle and an obviously forced smile, she displayed his first hardback, Witch’s Requiem, the book that launched him into the publishing stratosphere. David had slung his arm around her in the casually affectionate way countless fathers posed with their children. The way I’d fantasized as a kid that my father would one day appear and hug me for the camera. That unhappy girl was his daughter.

  What if my dad had tapped some connections through his wealthy family’s network of contacts and made an offer to his childhood buddy? By David’s own account in interviews, he’d obsessed over getting his manuscripts published but had been luckless early on. I imagined my father asking him how he would like the chance to see his work in pr
int, for sale in every bookstore in America. Just one condition.

  There had been no fabled summer intern who’d brought his work to the world’s notice, as he’d told countless journalists. The girl he owed everything to was, in actuality, the one he’d raised and then traded to my father for a shot at fame. If I recalled correctly, David’s first wife had left him before Witch’s Requiem came out—maybe soon after he’d agreed to that deal with the devil.

  Had he told Dad to fuck off, would my father have abandoned the Stapleton Scholarship notion, and settled on a far less horrible means of finding a girl who could remind him of my mother?

  It was impossible to say, but as the one who carried perhaps the most compelling backstory of guilt and shame—the man who’d enabled the launch of those scholarships—David also had the perfect motive: to finally save the town from what he’d unleashed more than three decades earlier. Maybe he just needed the final push that came after my father shut down Graylee for longer than ever before and threats against an innocent family turned to actual violence. Wallace Landry’s arrival had provided him with the perfect way to do it without bloodying his own hands.

  I’d been gunning for the wrong person. No doubt Bebe had welcomed my accusations, because they kept my focus off her idol. At most, she probably had played a supporting role: finding the ideal fall guy and seducing Cade so that her warning about the drifter stuck in his mind. Then, David had gone to work on Landry. I knew first-hand how persuasive the author could be—it was easy to imagine the righteous fury he could kindle in the man, along with promising a reward commensurate with the deed. He even could’ve coached Landry about how to ingratiate himself with my father, to get a job and learn the alarm code.

  All David had to do after that was give the recently hired handyman an untraceable gun and reassure him that the burglar alarm was a necessary part of the scenario—to make it look like a random break-in, not perpetrated by someone with access. Then David delivered my father home tanked on tequila, entered the code Landry had given him, and let Tara’s fiancé show up at a designated time to finish the job and be finished as well.