Chapter 16
Depression hung in the endlessly hot air, the sky hazy but clear, no occasional drifting cloud to provide respite from the sun.
It hadn’t been a long shift at the diner, but Jeannie was in one of her unpleasant moods and kept Anna busy cleaning shelves and equipment and checking dates on stock between customers, and she was glad to be done, even though the heat threatened to suffocate her.
She took a sip from her water bottle and tried to swallow her nervousness with the liquid.
It had seemed like a good idea when she’d gotten up that morning to finally push forward with the piece instead of just staring at the competition entry every evening, and to track down Jamie to talk to him, but now, walking through the quiet, her fear was threatening to get the better of her.
The Cornerstone Motel marked the end of Harper’s Creek, a few streets back from Main, the road beyond looping around to the right where it no doubt hooked up with the highway toward the city but now was empty of traffic.
The motel itself was one level and small, with a little café-cum-diner attached to the locked reception office, but through the glass she could see that all the equipment had been stripped out, only the screwed-in plastic tables and chairs remaining.
In its heyday the place had probably been quirkily charming.
A small kidney bean–shaped pool sat in the center courtyard—still filled with clean water, which came as a surprise—and the doors were painted funky blues and greens, rooms numbered with large signs, in an almost sixties retro style.
Anna’s sneakered footsteps were louder than they had any right being out here in the silence, where all the windows were neatly boarded up except at number twenty-three, the room in the middle of the block, where the drapes were closed.
She could hear the noise of a TV on inside.
Outside, to the right of the door, were a couple of folding beach chairs with a small plastic table between, an empty beer bottle on the ground by one of the chairs.
She took a deep, shaky breath and knocked on the door, stepping back immediately. Nothing happened except the TV fell silent.
“Jamie?” she said. “It’s Anna. The girl from the church. I gave you a cigarette?”
Nothing for a moment, and then: “What do you want?”
“I…” She shuffled from foot to foot, her body ready to run, despite whatever her brain commanded.
What had possessed her to be out here alone with a junkie?
After everything, why would she put herself in this position?
Her palm sweated around her gripped keys.
“I want to talk to you about Lila. And Bonnie. I’m writing something. ”
There was movement again, and then the door opened, Jamie blinking against the light as he peered out. He ran his fingers through his messy hair to smooth it. “Sorry I’m a mess. Had the sweats in the night. Thought I was through the worst of getting clean, but I guess not.”
Anna glanced over his shoulder. She wasn’t sure what she’d been expecting, but the room—while not perfect—was pretty tidy and a plate and a bowl and a couple of mugs were clean on the side by the sink, his scooter charging up against a wall.
The bed was made and the place didn’t smell too bad.
Stuffy but not dirty. She’d seen plenty of junkies on the party scene in New York, and despite his personal appearance, Jamie was not as bad as it could get.
“You getting straight?”
“Done ten days.” He paused. “You want to come in?”
She shook her head. No way. “Outside is fine.”
“Sure.” He turned back to grab a bottle of Tito’s from by the bed. “I could use some daylight.”
As they sat in the plastic chairs, a safe distance between them, she looked around, trying to imagine being out here at night. Neon sign dead. No light. No noise. “Don’t you get lonely?”
“People are overrated.” He drank as she lit them each a cigarette and handed one over.
“Lila was your girlfriend?”
“Yeah,” he said, and she noticed he had a tooth missing. “She was amazing. We’d have stayed together, I’m pretty sure. My dad didn’t think she was good enough, but we really loved each other. We were going to leave town. Go to LA or New York. Bonnie I didn’t know much.”
“How come you’re so sure the killer is still here?” Anna wanted to get straight to the point. Her heart was thumping. Alone in the middle of nowhere with a man.
“The police tried to pin Lila’s murder on me.
” His foot tapped, nervous, on the ground.
“I guess they figured it’s nearly always the boyfriend.
They wasted so much time looking at me, even trying to find a way around my damaged shoulder—hurt playing football, and I’d been trying to hide it so I didn’t miss the big game—when that fact came out.
It was crazy, but eventually they quit. A few other people were questioned, I think, but it all went quiet.
No trail to follow. Then, three years later, Bonnie happened. ”
“And the police got that other guy.”
“Michael Cairns. Sheriff Adams probably didn’t have much of a choice but to take that as a win.
Gave everyone peace and he got elected again.
He was broken enough after Lila, think he nearly had a nervous breakdown when another girl got murdered.
But whether he’ll admit it or not, he didn’t get the right guy. ”
“How can you be sure?”
“Well, aside from the fact that Michael Cairns was a Peeping Tom pervert but neither of the girls was sexually attacked.” Jamie sniffed, one knee bouncing up and down, fast as a jackhammer. “Because of the clown.”
“The one who did something to you?” In her pocket her phone was recording so she could remember every shift in the tone of his voice, every sadness. His ripple—his wave—was grief. If he accepted the killer had been shot during that robbery, then he was going to have to let Lila go.
“Yeah.” He let out a long, shaky sigh. “He did this.” He held out his track-marked arm.
“Happened not long after Lila was murdered. I’d been in The Shamrock Saturday night, then got a bottle from the liquor store.
I’d been struggling. Aside from the grief, people still looked at me funny, you know?
Even though the sheriff had made it clear I was innocent.
Lila’s folks left town. Went to Montana.
But I got stuck here. I wasn’t brave enough to follow through on our plans without her.
The next morning, I burst into the church mid-sermon, still drunk out of my mind, and called everyone liars.
Said that one of them was guilty and I knew it.
Said I could prove it. A bunch of bullshit like that.
My parents hated me drinking, and they were losing patience with my erratic behavior, so instead of going home, I came here and passed out in one of the rooms.
“I was out of it when something woke me. I opened my eyes to see someone in a horrible clown mask sticking a needle into my arm. They probably thought the dose would kill me. Shut me up permanently. Don’t know why it didn’t, to be honest. I’d never been into drugs.
But they won anyway. It turned me into this. And who listens when a junkie speaks?”
Anna watched him, staring into the middle distance, as if reliving it.
He believed what he was saying, she could see that.
Was it a lie he’d told himself so often it had become a truth?
Or could someone in this town actually have done what he said?
She knew how people could be monsters inside and perfectly decent on the surface, hiding in plain sight.
“Couldn’t the guy in the clown mask have been Michael Cairns?”
“Not possible.” Jamie looked at her and there was sharpness in his eyes.
“Wrong season. He was a summer worker. This happened to me right before Thanksgiving. Michael Cairns was nowhere near here. Whoever wore that clown mask was one of us.” He sniffed hard.
“Maybe they’ll try killing me again now I’m dredging it up, but I won’t stop.
It’s nearly the anniversaries of the murders again.
Another three years. Even if all I do is scare people enough to make them stay home so it’s harder for him to pick a target, it will be worth it.
Lila would be proud of me. If I can save one life, that’s the only thing that matters. ”
It made Anna shiver, just the thought of it. Men in masks had done something bad to her too, and she couldn’t even remember who they were to bring them to justice. She pushed her cigarette butt down into the empty beer bottle.
“It’s always easier to blame a stranger,” he said softly. “Harder to think someone here could be like that. Someone alongside you at church. In the grocery store. A serial killer.”
“A serial killer?”
“Two here, and who knows, maybe more elsewhere. The way he killed them. A blow to the head, then strangled, and then that square of skin missing on their backs. Too weird.” He looked at her. “Not exactly a crime of passion.”
Anna nodded, her mouth unpleasantly dry. Of course whoever had done it was a serial killer, but it was surreal to think that one might be living and breathing in Harper’s Creek.
“And I promise you, Anna, on my love for Lila, I’m staying clean.” He leaned forward, deadly serious. “So, if anything happens to me, like I’m found dead or anything before the anniversaries, you’ll know.”
“I’ll know what?”
“You’ll know I was right about the killer still being in town. Because they’ll have murdered me to shut me up.”
“Nothing’s going to happen to you.” Anna’s skin tingled with an anxiety that belied her words. Harper’s Creek was supposed to be a safe place. A move from the city. From the bad things that happened there. Had she in reality gone from the frying pan into the fire?
“But if it does.” Jamie’s gaze was so intense she was glad when the sound of a car engine getting closer broke the moment, making them both look up. “Who’s that?”
The car, a blue compact SUV, pulled up by the curb.
“Anna?” The voice was clear across the distance. Shit, was that the deputy? “That you?” The tall frame of Todd Greenbough stepped out of the car, a dark shadow against the bright sunlight.
“You friends with Todd Greenbough?” Jamie glanced at her, suspicious.
“No, I’m not.” She didn’t move, hoping Todd would get back in his car and drive off, but he didn’t. Shit. She was going to have to see what he wanted.