Chapter 11
Pete left the police station, angry that they wouldn’t listen to him. He needed to find someone who would help him bring that bitch down.
Eventually, someone would believe that she'd been right there by his brother's side. That video the cops released of his brother standing on the end of the pier had to be fake. There was no way Ansley wasn't a part of Craig's death.
He was set to visit Ansley's hometown and find out what that bitch had done there. He didn't believe for a second that she was innocent in that guy falling off the water tower.
Pete planned on spending a week questioning everyone. He had meetings set up with four people who had known Ansley back then. He would get information from them in one way or another.
He grunted and brushed away the disgust he held for cops. They would regret not listening to him. He would show them exactly how irresponsible they’d been by not taking him at his word.
During the flight, he ended up sitting between two men who had earbuds in before they even sat down. Far be it from them to actually be human and to listen to his worries. He needed someone to talk to. He deserved someone to talk to. People were way too selfish these days.
His pout lasted until the plane landed, and he could escape the insufferable jerks. Once in the rental car, he drove an hour to the small town where Ansley had grown up to become the bitch she was.
The overall theme of the town was drab and brown, with leaves piled in gutters, and people walking with their heads down. He bet before Ansley pushed that guy off the water tower that this town felt lively.
He stepped from the car just as the first fat drop of rain fell. Great, just what he needed. Even the weather was conspiring against him.
Pete rushed into the diner, trying to stay dry. Once inside, he paused to gasp at the state of his shirt. How had that much rain fallen in such a short time?
“Welcome in. Take whatever seat you want. We ain’t picky here.”
He wiped rain out of his eyes, anger building. Lashing out at the woman behind the counter seemed like a possibility, but then he saw his first interview subject. It wouldn’t serve him well to yell in front of the woman he wanted to wring information from.
On his way over, he smiled, though based on the look she gave him, maybe it came off more as a grimace.
“Hello. Are you Courtney?”
“Yes. You’re Pete Nellis, that reporter who contacted me.”
“Yes.” He’d gambled that none of these yokels would do any research to search for his bylines. He had none, at least none in any real publications. Soon things would be different.
He would expose Ansley for the lying, murderous bitch she was, and then one of those papers that had rejected him would pay him double what he’d asked for his last article. Soon, he would be rolling in money.
“The rain caught me by surprise.”
Courtney gazed listlessly out the big shop window, her lips down in a frown. “That’s going to ruin my afternoon.”
Pete sat, pulling out a recording device and clicking it to record. “Listen, so in the email you said you had information about Ansley.”
The woman nodded. “I want breakfast first.”
“Sure. Order what you like.” He would sneak out before the bill came, at least that was his plan.
Courtney ordered eggs, sausage, and biscuits with sausage gravy. He'd been a little surprised that she'd ordered so much, considering he'd only ordered eggs and bacon. When that damn bitch of a waitress whipped out the payment device and charged him right then, he wanted to tell her to go to hell.
He kept the anger inside, though it swirled like a whirlpool in his guts. He needed the information this woman would give him. He hadn't planned on eating much, but he sure as heck would finish everything on the plate since he'd already paid.
"So why don't you start at the beginning?"
“You’re going to record everything.”
He nodded. "It's just for my ears. No one else will hear it." The lie rolled easily off his tongue. He would play this for the masses if it proved that Ansley was the bitch he knew her to be.
Courtney started speaking, dragging Ansley through the mud. Based on the acrimony in her words, he thought for sure she would tell him that she’d seen Ansley push that poor guy to his death. But she didn’t.
Flummoxed didn’t even come close to how he felt at the end of her story. He glanced at her plate, seeing she’d practically licked her plate clean. She was done eating but hadn’t given him what he wanted. How could she have done this to him?
He was about to tell her off when a police officer stumbled in, his wide smile making him look more like a caricature than a real officer.
The man didn't stop at the table, but Courtney called out to him and gave him a little wave as he passed by.
Of course, she was happy. She'd gotten a free meal for nothing.
She hadn't told him that Ansley had pushed that jerk, or anything else of importance.
Her stories sounded like bad teen drama, not anything he could actually report on.
Sure, Ansley was a selfish bitch, but that was easy to see.
Would this entire trip be a waste? The other three people had to have something more than this idiot had given him.
There was no way he would have come out here for nothing more than teenage gossip about some girl they all hated.
It angered him that she had no proof that Ansley had killed her boyfriend.
Pete left the diner during a break in the rain. He headed out to meet the one guy who’d promised to talk to him.
When he pulled up at the man's property, he almost stayed in the car. Dogs, goats, donkeys, and other farm animals roamed around the area with only a small wire fence separating the farm animals from him. Of course, the dogs didn't give a shit about the fence and came to the car to bark.
He was seconds away from starting the engine and putting the car in reverse when a huge guy stepped from the house and yelled something that made the dogs run toward him.
Pete stepped from the car, his knees a little wobbly. The man approached, and Pete realized the man really was huge. Not just tall, but muscular. He probably weighed about a hundred pounds more than Pete.
There was no way he could strong-arm this man into divulging anything. Whatever stories he got here were the stories he was going to get.
While he was greeting the man, another car pulled up. The two other people who’d agreed to meet with him had arrived. They’d done this on purpose, arranged a meeting with this beef slab of a man so Pete couldn’t force them to tell him anything.
The meeting went about as well as he'd expected after he'd been ambushed at the diner.
He learned nothing concrete. The three of them just spewed anger and resentment about Ansley, not telling him any real information that he could put into print.
If he wrote up their complaints about Ansley, he would be laughed out of town.
He thought they had details about how their friend had died, but all they'd given him was pathetic teenage gossip.
The whole trip had been a waste. He needed evidence, and all he was getting was bullshit about how Ansley had worn pink the day these girls had picked to wear pink, and how she’d not given the guy her lunch one day when he said he was hungry.
This was absolute bullshit. He needed more. He needed the real truth about what had happened the night Ansley's boyfriend had fallen from the water tower, because this washed-up old high school drama wouldn't convince anyone that Ansley had killed her high school sweetheart.