Chapter 16 #3
“I certainly didn’t plan it that way,” Diane went on. “We didn’t even have a grave picked out yet.”
Rosa pulled the pickup into the pharmacy parking lot where the others had parked. It was four blocks from the murder scene and she prayed it was far enough.
They all got out to say goodbye. Rosa wondered if it looked suspicious. Four old ladies out together at almost eleven p.m., hugging in a pharmacy parking lot.
Diane unlocked her crossover and reached in to grab her phone. “Oh, yeah, Jenna’s texted me three times. Probably all of you, too. She’s been trying you, Rosa, and she’s worried.”
“Now you see why I didn’t tell her I was sick,” Rosa said. “There’ll be no peace till I croak.” The others groaned or shook their heads, and she said, “What? Too soon?”
Diane stopped tapping her reply and the whoosh sound announced its transmission. “All good with Jenna. We’d all best get home.”
Christine shook her head slowly. “I just… I don’t know if can face Jeff.”
“Oh right, I almost forgot what I found in that penthouse.” Sighing heavily, Diane reached into her bag and pulled out a picture frame and a wadded-up photograph. She handed the photo to Christine. “I’m so sorry.”
Christine uncrumpled the photo. Diane took the frame ten feet away and dropped it into a public trash can, then came back brushing her hands. Christine was staring at the photo, unblinking, her face blank.
Rosa reached out and took the photo from her hands, and she never moved. Her hands stayed in the same position, holding a photo that was no longer there. Rosa looked down at it. Jeff, arm in arm with Dangerous Dan and a third man. “Son-of-a-bitch.”
She passed it to Bonnie, who whispered, “Oh, no.” And then she closed her eyes. “Oh, no.”
“It’s okay, Bon. We already knew—”
“Not that,” Bonnie said. “The man in the middle. I know him. That’s Detective Sterling, the one Sam replaced. Said he has other plans he wants to pursue. You suppose he meant kids?”
“Do you mean Charles Sterling?” Christine asked.
Bonnie thought back. “He did tell me to call him Charles, yes.”
“I know his other plans, then,” Christine said. “He’s going to run for mayor. That’s the skinny, anyway.”
They exchanged stunned glances.
“You know,” Christine said softly, “I really thought Jeff and I might be okay, before I found out. He’d been so attentive and present.”
Diane said, “Christine, did all that attention start before Terrence or after?”
Rosa widened her eyes, picking up on what Diane was suggesting. “Holy mother, he knew Dangerous Dan. And Dan knew what happened to Mr. Terrence. Do you suppose he told Jeff?”
“It’s possible.” Christine swallowed hard. “I have to go home, then,” she said. “We have to know for sure. I need to find out what he knows.”
“God, is this never going to end?” Bonnie whispered. “What have I done to us?”
The stabbing pain came again to Rosa’s head. She winced, scrunching her face.
“Rosa?”
“You okay?”
“What’s wrong?”
As the pain faded, she relaxed her face and said, “Just a headache. Probably stress. I’ll be okay.”
“You gonna make it home okay?” Diane asked.
“We’re not going home,” Rosa said. “Not yet. We’ve all been seen in the area. Diane’s and Christine’s cars were nearby, and Berto’s truck was right in front of the hotel. I feel like we need to establish an alibi.”
“And how the hell do you suggest we do that?” Christine asked.
“This little strip here,” Rosa said, “is where the bars are. We’re hitting the clubs, ladies.”
Diane shook her head. “We don’t have time—”
“If I can do it, you can do it,” Rosa said. “Dying, remember?”
The music was so loud, Bonnie couldn’t really hear anything anyone said to her. They sat at a table in the back corner, while wall-to-wall college students packed every inch of the dance floor. They bounced, more than danced, Bonnie thought, observing them with interest.
Hiding at a corner table wasn’t going to do, though. Weren’t they supposed to make themselves noticed?
“What are we—” she began.
“Excuuuuuuuse me!” Christine bellowed, and man, did Bonnie ever hear that!
A server glanced their way, looked surprised, and came over. She wore black, mid-length shorts and a white button-down blouse. No cleavage, no mini-skirt. Applause.
“I’m so sorry, I didn’t see you there.”
“You turn invisible when you get to be our age,” Christine said. “We’ve been here for hours, but you didn’t even notice.”
“No, no, I saw you earlier, I just meant—I didn’t know you needed drinks. What can I get you?”
Now this exchange occurred in full-volume shouts over the thrumming music. Bonnie couldn’t even note the look of the place, other than dark and noisy. There was a bar, a few tables around the outer perimeter of the space in front of it, and bodies everywhere else.
“Rum and Coke,” Rosa said, raising her voice. “Four, please!”
The server got their drinks in record time. Christine downed hers. The others sipped. “All right, now make a pest of yourselves,” Rosa said. “Ten minutes. Hit the dance floor!”
Bonnie took a deep breath, and a deeper drink. Then she got up, walked right into the midst of a group of youngsters and started shaking her money maker. One young man looked at her, grinning and elbowing his boyfriend.
Bonnie kept dancing and said to them, “So what are you studying?”
“Miz Tucker?” Oh no. She knew the voice that came from behind her.
She turned slowly, “Coy! Oh, hey, Coy, how are you?”
“Miz Tucker, what are you—?” He moved closer, put a protective arm around her shoulders and steered her toward the entrance, where it was noticeably quieter.
“Hey!” Christine tapped him on the shoulder. “What the hell are you doing with my friend, you little sicko!”
“What? No, no, I wasn’t—”
“It’s okay, Chrissy,” Bonnie said, getting in between them. “This is my friend Coy. The one who helped me get Mark’s old phone unlocked, remember?”
“Oh.” Christine withdrew her claws, and behind her, Diane and Rosa did too. “Okay, then.”
Coy looked back at Bonnie, and the poor kid seemed really confused. “Miz Tucker, what are you ladies doing here?”
“Oh, you know, Coy, sometimes even old dames need to let off a little steam,” she said.
He looked at her oddly, then at the others, then at her again. “Do you need a ride?”
“We have three rides between us, Coy. No worries. But we’ve been here long enough, haven’t we girls?”
“Hours and hours,” Rosa said, “should anyone ask.”
“We’ll see her home, Coy,” Diane told him. “You’re a very kind young man, aren’t you?”
“I try to be, ma’am.”
“You stay that way, kiddo. A kind heart’s worth more than gold.”
Long after they’d finally returned to their respective homes, Diane laid awake, wondering about the girl, whether she’d made it home, and whether she was okay, and whether she’d ever really be okay after what she’d suffered.
She was worried about that girl, and she was worried about her best friends. Rosa hadn’t looked well tonight, and she kept wincing and holding her head. This was an escalation. She hadn’t been like this before the accident.
If that bastard Fitzpatrick’s actions had accelerated the cancer, she’d…
Well, there wasn’t much she could do to him. He was already dead.
She had taken his life. Yes, she’d been a part of that. That first strike had dented his skull visibly. He probably would’ve died from that, even if the girl hadn’t bashed his brains in to speed things along.
So she’d killed him as much as the girl had. She did not feel one iota of regret for it. How many children would be spared his abuse now that he’d been removed from the planet like the tumor he was?
And to think Jeff, a man she’d known for almost two decades, was a child-predator, as well. She’d never really known him at all, had she? Nor had Christine, it seemed.
Was he dangerous? Was it even safe for her friend to be in the same house with her husband tonight, not knowing how much he knew about what they had done?
Beside Diane in the bed, Harry rolled from his side, facing away from her, onto his back and folded his arms behind his head. “Can’t sleep, babe?” he asked.
Diane rolled onto her side, facing him. “Harry, do you have any secrets you’re keeping from me?”
“What?” His eyebrows went up high, wrinkling his forehead. “What do you mean? I don’t keep secrets.”
“Oh, that face is not innocent. It’s worried.” She sat up in bed. “And guilty. What have you been keeping from me? You tell me right now, Harrison Adam Maisy.”
He sat up, too, saying, “Okay, okay. Just…don’t overreact, okay?”
“Oh my God,” she whispered. She couldn’t help it. What awful secret was about to be revealed? Would it turn her life upside down the way Jeff’s secret was doing to Christine’s?
Harry took a deep breath. He closed his eyes. “You were not the first girl I asked to the prom.”
She didn’t react at first. She lowered the hand she’d pressed to her chest and said, “What?”
“You weren’t even the second. You were the third.”
A laugh bubbled up in Diane’s chest, but she covered her mouth with her hand to keep it from escaping.
“Don’t cry yet. There’s more. That prom proposal, with Three Times a Lady playing on the boombox, and the flowers, and the poem I read—I used the same one on all three of you.”
The laughter pressed harder to escape, sounding like a sob, perhaps.
“I even used the same flowers.”
The laugh burst free. Diane wrapped her arms around her husband and held him.
“Are you laughing?” he asked. “That secret’s been eating away at me for forty years, woman. And you’re laughing?”
“I just love you so much,” she said. “And if that’s the biggest secret you’ve kept—you’re the man I thought you were. The man I love, thank God.” She kissed his mouth. Then she said, “Which two other girls?”
“I don’t even remember. I had a list. I was determined to have a date for prom, and I didn’t have a girlfriend. I was desperate.”
“Huh.”
“Yeah.”
She frowned and kissed his beautiful face. “I reserve the right to get mad about this later.”