11. Chapter Eleven
Chapter Eleven
Remington James
G iggles are pressed down inside me, as Skip turns slightly in confusion over boxes being knocked off a shelf in Pop’s grocery store. He still hasn’t figured out that I tied the plastic produce bags from the spool onto his cart. It couldn’t be helped. He was working a specific nerve with me on the way here.
I place bananas in the cart, and turn away to look for some more Sharpies. “Rem, we have a counter full of brown bananas no one bothers to eat.”
“Yeah, I know.” Ceily tasked me to help her make something for the town festivities on the Fourth of July. The only thing I know how to make a load of at once is banana bread. It requires a lot of mushy bananas. It was my civic duty to save the residents of Lake Hollow from Ceily’s idea of a bake sale item. Wait for it… she called it fluff salad, but it looked suspiciously like the contents of a diaper. At a glance part of the mix was mayonnaise. Nope. Keenan and I tore that recipe up into bits and for good measure put it in the town square trash bin.
“Did you know that Cal asked Grady to be involved with the Flicks n’ Fun float.” God, not this again. He’s relentless about me helping.
“Yeah. He’s only doing it as a big middle finger to his dad. I wouldn’t be so excited about that.” Gary Marlow still stands in his yard with his arms crossed, as if he thinks it’s getting too noisy and busy at the Funpark. Total buzzkill, but Skip ignores it. The repeated calls to the town council and law enforcement… aren’t getting Gary anywhere. They all love Uncle Skip. Much to the growing fury of Grady’s dad.
Skip finally sees the bags. “Goddamnit, Remington.” He fumbles around getting it undone-handing the end of it to me. Winding it back up to put back on the spool, I mouth ‘sorry’ to the cashier who doesn’t seem to care. “Besides, having the lead singer of a top ten rock band on our float, that’s worth more than I’ll ever be able to afford in advertising. It’s the ultimate flex.” Ick. Just when I think he can’t say anything to make me more irritated. Look at that. So happy that my relationship with Grady Marlow is working out for him, not to mention the one with Charlie Gibson… or oh, his overworked employee Cal Truitt. Jesus, it’s like he’s pimped his own niece out.
If I said that out loud, he’d be appalled, but the behavior would continue.
“Good luck getting that whole thing together. I’ll be watching from the side of main street with a bag of taffy, a big root beer float, waving a flag.” Cause there is no way I want to stand waving or walking next to this behemoth he has planned. Nah. It even has a dang clown. Next, he’s going to insist on everyone dressing as clowns. Then I’m getting blackmail pictures. That makes me laugh out loud.
“Amused by your total abandonment? So heartless,” he mocks me with a half-smile. “I bet the guys can get you to do it.”
Ugh. So, back to manipulation.
I wasn’t trying to spend my morning chasing down my goofy pal, Droolius. Last night was rough between a thunderstorm and the window over the sink. He whined near my head, doing circles. Rounding the first cabin on my way to the lodge, Wilder comes at me with Droolius happily bouncing along behind him. I get it, dog. I do.
“Yeah, your dog was just chilling in one of the lodge’s flowerpots.” Evidenced by the wet black dirt on his back end.
I crouch in front of him, scratching the fur on his neck. “How can I be mad at you? Look at your little teefers while you smile at me. Just too damn cute.”
Wilder accompanies us back towards my cabin. I look over at him. “Did your mom leave already?”
He nods. “She’s not a fan of this place, or most of the people in it. You get a big thumbs up, though.”
Instantly I’m thrilled. Because his mom might be the coolest person I’ve ever met. “Oh, I loved your mom. I think I like her more than I like you.” Mmm, maybe not quite. Not to mention I’m still in awe of the way she handled the hate Wilder was getting at the funeral. Her telling the mayor’s wife off was perfect.
“Most people do.”
“Deena, I read your editorial in the last church newsletter. Such an important and poignant message.” Wilder’s mom gave her a big smile. Even after the mayor’s wife had the gall to ask her if it’s a good idea for her son to be attending the funeral. She goes on after tapping at her lips, “What was it again? Oh, yeah… it was based on a verse from Ephesians wasn’t it? Ephesians 4, 31-32. Get rid of all the bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice. Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you.”
The mayor’s wife turned pale, her hand fluttering near her face. With tears in her eyes she ducked her head, apologizing for suggesting Wilder leave.
Wilder’s mother remained calm, cool, collected, and fucking cutting. She is a queen in my opinion.
He stops near the dock by his cabin, watching as a man in a boat stands to net a fish he caught, giving him a wave. “What did you think of Bonnie Gibson?” he asks, looking down at me.
That’s more complicated. She was pleasant, nice even until Wilder came out of the church. “I don’t know.”
He chews at the inside of his cheek. “When I moved here in second grade, I made quick friends. Maybe because no one new often moved to town. Within a month everyone but Grady stopped associating with me. It was pretty evident that Charlie was behind that. On his birthday that year, everyone in our class was invited to a party at the Funpark. Except me. Even Grady got an invitation. I told myself I didn’t care, but fuck that hurt.”
I don’t know where he’s going with this, but I take his hand. “Keep going.”
“I didn’t tell my mom. Jesus Christ, she would’ve gone to war over it. Charlie’s mom, Bonnie, volunteered in our class one day a week. It was the day before his party. The teacher must’ve said something about me being the only one not invited. Bonnie hauled him into the hallway and tore into him. Told him she was embarrassed to have a son that treated people like that. It went on for several minutes.”
The boater holds up his large, netted fish in triumph and we stop talking to clap, Wilder whistles and calls out, “That’s a tournament winner there, my friend.”
He leans against the maple tree a few feet from his cabin. “When Bonnie came back into class, she knelt next to my desk, asked me to come to Charlie’s party. She made some excuse for the lost invite. She was genuinely sorry; I could see the tears in her eyes.” He kicks at one of the tree's roots. “The rest of the day she was very attentive to me. I’ll never forget that. She may hate me now, but I don’t think it makes her a bad person. Just a grieving parent.”
Suddenly, I want to cry over how much the people in town have hurt him. “Did you go? To Charlie’s birthday party?”
“Fuck no. That little shit got worse after that day. Like his mom getting mad at him was my fault.”
My own childhood had all kinds of ‘lost invites’. I was given wide berth by my classmates because of my differences. I had the mom that caused a scene if she bothered to show up to school functions, I dressed oddly, drew on myself, said strange things, was blunt, and stood up for other misfits. There were countless reasons to disregard me. “But you had Grady?” My voice is clogged with tears that I’m fighting.
Wilder closes his eyes, his head dropping back. “Yeah, I had Grady. Until I didn’t anymore.”
There’s more I want to know. Things no one is talking about, but it’s all interrupted by seeing Detective Hemminger’s unmarked squad car rolling to a stop at the door of Wilder’s cabin.
Once the pleasantries get exchanged between us, we settle at the table where Wilder passive aggressively puts a plate of Ceily’s ‘rock’ cookies. Hemminger says, ‘No, thank you’ which is wise. “It’s been years, so I just ask that you do your best to remember that last time you saw Sara Truitt.”
Since I’ve grilled him endlessly over that day, his memory should be just fine.
He spins his coffee cup as he answers her, “Sara had been at her brother’s baseball tournament all day. Against her wishes, her parents forced her to go. I hadn’t answered her calls during the day, so when she got back to town, she came over here.”
The detective nods his way, looking at her tablet, typing and then scrolling she asks, “That was around ten pm?”
“It was. We got into a fight right away. She accused me of cheating on her, I told her she was being paranoid. Then I told her to leave, I broke up with her.” Wilder takes a deep breath. “Not that she was going to let me be the one to break it off. She didn’t leave, she continued fighting with me.”
Quietly, I feed a cookie to Droolius, watching the detective grimace listening to Wilder recount that day. “It was just the two of you here?”
“No. At some point Grady Marlow was dropped off here.”
“No one else but the three of you were here?” Why does she keep asking for clarification on that? It seems odd. How much did Carlotta tell her before her ‘proof’ disappeared? Or did the detective already have it?
“When Sara finally left, she was alone. It was just Grady and I here. He wanted to go after her to make sure she got home okay, but I stopped him.”
“Why would you do that?” She sets her tablet down, crossing her arms. “It was dark, she was miles from home. Why shouldn’t her friend go check on her?”
He leans forward on his elbows, steepling his hands. I can see tears gathering in his eyes. “I shouldn’t have stopped him. I wish I hadn’t, but she was looking for attention. Sara and I would argue all the time. It was the same thing over and over. A blow up, she’d accuse me of all kinds of things, I’d say it was over, she’d fight me on it, then when I conceded she’d get angry and say she was done. Then after walking away, she’d come back apologizing. I was tired of it all. I wanted to be done. I didn’t want her to come back with him saying sorry.”
“Done enough that you would hurt her?” It’s not said in a damning way, very carefully the detective continues, “You know how that sounds, right?”
“Yeah. I know. But, not wanting to be in a relationship and wanting someone dead are not the same thing.” He should have a shirt made saying that. Wear it in the parade or something. Just a thought.
“I have to ask you about a couple of the other accidents that summer.” I sit up straighter. Maybe she knows something. “You didn’t know Susanna Ross, that first drowning victim that summer, right?”
Wilder’s face scrunches up. “I heard about it, but I never met her. No. She was struck by a boat or something?”
Scratching at her cheek she replies, “That seems to be one of the stories that went around. Her family was renting the cabin just south of this one. She disappeared the evening before she was found. A boater found her washed up on the rocks at the shore here. No apparent injury. She had no substances in her system. Just like Sara and Katie.”
His mouth drops open. “Just like…”
“You and your mom were in California during her family’s stay here. Is that right?” He simply nods dumbfounded.
Is that how Carlotta eliminated him as a suspect?
I push my hand over my mouth, so I don’t ask how Cal, Charlie, or Grady knew Susanna.
“I don’t think I need anything else right now. Thank you for speaking with me.” As she’s packing her tablet up, she gives some love to Droolius, while telling me her family loved James’ Flicks n’ Fun. “We’ll need to check out one of the double feature nights at the Drive In. I’m excited that they’re themed.”
We sit in silence after the detective is ushered out by Wilder. The implications that there is no good excuse for the drownings… that it’s being investigated.
Placing my hand over Wilder’s, I sigh. “Are autopsy reports public record?”
“What? Are you seriously going to request autopsy reports like you’re a regular ole Nancy Drew or Veronica Mars?” He knocks his head against his arms folded on the table. Before groaning, “I don’t like where this is going.”
Me either.