Chapter Thirteen
THIRTEEN
IT’S ONLY ABOUT A fifteen-minute drive outside of town, down a long country lane, to where Scarlett and Nathaniel Nickels live.
I pull into the driveway, groaning when I see that Chief Dishman is already there, getting out of a cruiser with Gavin in tow.
I park right behind him, hop out, and start marching toward them.
“Annie, this isn’t your case,” Dishman says just as I say, “You did recognize the truck!”
“How long a list was that?” I ask.
“Long. But a name jumped out at me. Scarlett Nickels.”
“Because of course you know about Nathaniel’s record,” I say.
Dishman stares at me like he’s running some kind of appraisal, making a judgement. When he’s finally done, he just says, “That’s right.”
There’s a brief pause while we both look toward the Nickelses’ trailer, a yellow-sided double-wide set in a grassy field on a permanent foundation.
A metal carport off to the left shelters a blue Mustang and a big, shiny Harley, the pink-and-blue shield of the Bluegrass Biker Babes embossed on a saddlebag. The silver F-150 is nowhere to be seen.
“How’d you find her?” Dishman asks, wiping sweat from his brow.
“Facebook.”
Dishman snorts and then I start toward the trailer. He falls into step beside me and we approach together. We walk past the carport, toward the front door, and Dishman says, “Truck’s not here.”
“Nope,” I say.
“Gavin,” he says. “You go around back. Just in case. Stay alert and be ready.”
Gavin says, “Yes, sir.” And he trots off, taking a wide circle around the home.
Dishman jogs up the little set of steps onto the porch at the front of the trailer and knocks. Music plays inside, some Top 40 pop song with a low beat. Dishman knocks again. The music cuts off. Thumping footsteps. Then the door swings open.
Scarlett Nickels looks exactly like her photo. Model-tall and thin, with blazing blue eyes and tanned skin that definitely did not come from a spray nozzle, Scarlett takes a look at Dishman and says, “What’d he do now?”
Dishman says, “We just need to ask your husband a couple questions.”
Scarlett leans against the doorway, hooking her thumbs through the belt loops of her shorts.
She wears a silky black tank top and I notice a partially obscured tattoo over her left breast: two simple hearts, linked together.
It looks like an old stick-and-poke, the thin outlines now blurry and faded to a muddy gray.
“Well, I haven’t seen him, Chief,” she says.
She looks at me, seeming to see me for the first time, and says, “Who are you?”
“She’s just helping me out,” Dishman says before I can answer.
Scarlett narrows her eyes at me, like a cat, and then looks back at Dishman and says lightly, “Well, I haven’t seen him since Friday afternoon.
He took my truck, said he’d be back later, and I haven’t heard from him since.
I had to take his shitty Mustang into town for my nail appointment this morning. Just got back and he still ain’t here.”
“Why didn’t you report him missing?” Dishman asks.
She snorts and rolls her eyes simultaneously. I get the feeling it’s a well-practiced expression.
“Seriously? You think this is the first time Nathaniel’s run off over a weekend? He’s probably piss drunk in some whore’s bed and I don’t give a shit if he is.”
I watch her, lips pursed as she studies her fingernails, definitely giving a shit.
“You said he took your truck—” Dishman starts.
Scarlett’s eyes flash back up to him, angry, as she says, “Yes, and he’d better goddamn well bring it back without a scratch or I swear to God that is the last time I let him in the door.”
“Okay, well, Scarlett, do you mind if—”
“Oh—” I interrupt him, almost pushing him out of the way, as I get Scarlett’s attention with my sudden jump.
“Oh my God,” I hiss. “Shit.”
Blood rushes to my face and I bite my bottom lip before I lean closer to Scarlett.
“Do you mind if I use your restroom?”
Her face scrunches up like I’m a feral raccoon scratching at her door for food. “What? Hell no. Go in the bushes.”
I lean even closer, pitch my voice low and conspiratorial.
“It’s—damn it, I just got my period. And I don’t have anything.”
I meet her eyes, grimacing, embarrassed.
Scarlett puffs her cheeks up and then lets the air out, unable to refuse a fellow woman in need. She moves to the side and says, “Follow me.”
The trailer is obsessively tidy. The whole place smells like lemon Pledge and Pine-Sol.
Big wooden bowls of decorative rattan balls sit on the coffee and end tables without a speck of dust. A nook off the kitchen features a landline phone on the wall, a notepad, and a sign that says BISTRO! in big looping letters.
There’s a narrow hallway with two doors on the right and one on the left.
She goes into the one on the left, where another sign informs me that I’m in the powder room.
Then, opening a narrow cabinet, she asks, “Pad or tampon? I’ve got both but only the big-ass tampons because my period’s a real son of a bitch. ”
“I’ll take a pad,” I say. “Thanks.”
She grabs a pad and thrusts it into my hand, then shuts the door behind her. I sit on the toilet seat and get out my phone, bring up Dishman’s number, and text him.
Call her landline. You’re a telemarketer.
I wait, staring at the cottagey decor—the white-painted mason jar soap dispenser and the thick ceramic vase full of fake lavender—unsure whether or not Dishman will play along. Seconds pass.
RIIIING!
I smile to myself. You almost never hear landlines these days. The sudden, jarring, metallic clanging always takes me back.
Scarlett thumps across the floor and answers. I hear her voice through the door.
“Hello? Well … no. Listen, now is not…”
I rip the pad out of the wrapper and toss the plastic and paper backing in the pink trash can beside the toilet, doing my due diligence to prove I really needed what I asked for. Then, I reverse-roll the pad and cram it into my jacket pocket. I ease toward the door and silently turn the knob.
I hear Scarlett in the kitchen. “No, I never have. But…”
I look at the two doors across the hall and pick the one on the left first. Silently, I move into the room, apparently Scarlett and Nathaniel’s bedroom.
Painted baby blue with framed black-and-white photos and a shabby-chic sign that says YOU & ME, it’s as tidy as the rest of the house.
No dirty socks or underwear littering the floor.
No half-empty water glasses sitting on the nightstand.
There’s a gun cabinet, unlocked, but as far as I can tell, nothing looks out of order.
There’s a dresser with a big mirror, and a closet which I open and find full of Scarlett’s and Nathaniel’s duds but nothing else.
I look under the bed, just to be sure, but there’s nothing. Not even dust bunnies.
I ease back out and listen for Scarlett, who’s all nice and polite now, and I wonder just what the hell Chief Dishman is saying to her. She laughs, lightly, and I turn the knob for the second room.
This one is much the same except with a nautical theme, complete with a cutesy hand-painted sign listing BEACH RULES.
There’s a computer on a desk, an older tower PC, powered down, along with a printer.
There’s a smaller bed with a red-and-white quilt, which I look under.
Nothing but storage boxes full of linens and winter sweaters.
The closet features more boxes and an assortment of hanging cubes holding Scarlett’s handbag collection.
There’s no husband hiding behind the curtains or under the desk.
“Listen,” Scarlett says from the kitchen, “I really have to go.”
I scoot back across the hall into the bathroom, and ease the door shut behind me. As I’m washing my hands, there’s a quick rapping on the door.
“You about done in there?”
“Yep,” I say, swinging the door open. “I really appreciate it.”
“Whatever,” she says, and leads me back out of the trailer and onto the porch. Dishman approaches from the gravel driveway, his phone already back in his pocket, and says, “You’ll tell Nathaniel we’re looking for him, won’t you, Scarlett?”
“Sure,” Scarlett says. Then shuts the door with a slam.
As we walk back toward the cruiser and the Bronco, Dishman says, “You knew I was about to ask to look around inside the house.”
“Yeah,” I say. “And I knew she’d just tell you to go piss up a rope unless you had a warrant.”
He stops me, pulling at my shoulder. His touch is firm but not threatening.
“Annie, what if he’d been in there? Nickels probably killed Dean Griffon.”
“Yeah,” I say. “He probably did. But it’s not like I went in without backup.”
Dishman shakes his head and does his best to look disappointed, but when he brings his fingers to his mouth and tries to whistle for Gavin, he can’t manage it because he’s smiling.
“You’re a pain in my ass,” he mutters.
“What’d you tell her?” I ask. “On the phone, who’d you say you were?”
“Police charity,” he says. He finally does manage to whistle, high and long, and while we wait for Gavin to return like a faithful retriever he says, “I needed to keep her on the line and you’d be surprised how many shady people contribute.
I think the theory is that if they have a police charity sticker on their car, the cops’ll let ’em out of speeding tickets. ”
Gavin comes trotting up to the car and says, “I didn’t see anything, Chief. Nobody came out.”
Dishman nods and looks at me, his face going serious, as he says, “Listen, wherever this guy is, he’s dangerous. Like as not, he killed Dean Griffon. You need to leave finding him to me.”
“Not a chance,” I say. “I was hired to investigate and that’s what I’m going to do.”
Dishman opens the door to his cruiser and, for a moment, looks like he’s going to get in and drive away without another word. Instead, he pauses, looks past me at Scarlett’s trailer, and lets out a deep breath.
“This is not your case,” he says, still not looking at me.
“Chief, I didn’t come to your town to stir shit up. Truth be told, I didn’t expect to find anything suspicious about Ezra King’s death. But I show up and start asking questions and now suddenly you’ve got two murders on your hands and the likeliest culprit in the wind?”
“Annie—”
“Somebody came after me, Chief. They cut Honey’s brakes and I can’t leave until I know exactly why and—”
He waves as if he’s heard enough and says, “Okay, I admit, someone tampering with your brakes is suspicious. But Ezra King died by snakebite, for Christ’s sake.”
“But—”
“Look,” he says. “I get that you’re not gonna let this go. So, you find solid evidence—and I mean rock solid—that Ezra was wrapped up in something criminal? A real connection to drugs or Joel Shepherd specifically? Then we’ll talk.”