Chapter Fifty-Two

“Still confused as to why Stella didn’t just kill Noe,” Billy Ray said.

It was a week later and Billy Ray and Raven were alone at the restaurant during the hour when the sun was still new and golden. They sat at a small table near the bar. Early morning light slanted through the tall windows and fell across their table. White tablecloths and sparkling silverware awaited customers who would soon turn the contemplative atmosphere into a boisterous, devil-may-care place of food and laughter. Raven hoped it would be enough to blot out the pain the town had experienced these last months, especially for her brother and nephew.

Noe was in the hospital, and Cameron, vowing to be a better father, hadn’t left his side, not even to shower or eat. If it weren’t for Raven bringing him food every day, or cajoling him to the hospital’s cafeteria, he would have, as Raven’s stepmother was fond of saying, dried up and blown away.

Noe was well enough to give a statement. He told them that Clyde had convinced Edmée to let him and Noe help with her garden on that Friday after school. Clyde lied to his mother because he knew June didn’t approve of Edmée. He thought he would be able to convince Edmée to let them stay the weekend in the guest house. The boys had planned to leave for school from Edmée’s place on Monday, and after school let out, catch opening night for that new movie, the one with serial killers and chainsaws that June had already told Clyde he couldn’t see. That was why Clyde texted his Mom from Noe’s phone that they would be late getting home on Monday.

“We had spent the entire lunch hour watching videos on my phone. I was already almost out of juice,” Noe said in his statement. “And right after Clyde texted his mom, my phone died.” This explained why the last ping to Noe’s cell phone was at school on Friday afternoon.

Clyde failed to convince Edmée to let them stay. She kept saying it wouldn’t be appropriate to allow them to stay the weekend, especially without talking to their parents. They were walking back to the bus stop when Stella drove alongside them.

“She had stopped by when we were in the garden,” Noe said. “But Miss Edmée acted real weird and told her to leave.”

Stella asked them if they wanted to make more money by helping her around the farm during the weekend. Noe didn’t want to go, but Clyde, seeing dollar signs, talked him into it. “Come on, bro,” Clyde had said. “She’s okay. We know her. Besides, more money for the movies. We’ll have enough to take girls.”

During the drive out to the farm, Clyde sat in the backseat, talking nonsense and telling lame jokes the entire time the wheels were on the road. Noe thought that Clyde had been nervous, and that his friend knew something wasn’t quite right. He peppered Stella with questions, made jokes about her sheep, bragged about how he couldn’t wait to see one of them ‘cut’. Clyde was so nervous he didn’t catch the vibe in the car, missed Stella’s one-word answers. He was laughing so hard at one of his own stupid jokes that he didn’t hear her whisper ‘shut-up, shut-up, shut-up’.

At the stoplight on the road leading out of Byrd’s Landing, Stella motioned for Clyde to come forward. When his head was between the front seats, she drew a circle on his forehead with her index finger. He laughed, started to pull back. But Stella smiled, and told him to stay still, that everything would be okay. She had a surprise for him.

“She took this long black thing from her bag, and touched it hard to Clyde’s head. Here.” Noe drew a circle on his own forehead. “And then she pressed it down, hard. That’s when all hell broke loose.”

Noe knew Clyde was hurt, but didn’t know how. He jumped out of the car only to have Stella drag him back.

“She had this long knife,” Noe said. “Man, it looked so sharp. She kept it on me the entire time, said she would stick me like a pig if I gave her any more trouble.”

When they reached the farm Stella forced Noe to remove Clyde from the car. But it was raining and muddy and Noe couldn’t see through his tears. He kept tripping, kept dropping his best friend’s dead weight in the mud.

After he wrestled Clyde’s limp body into the shed, Stella made Noe strip. And then she made him watch. She chained Noe to the wall, cut Clyde’s throat, hoisted him, and let his blood splatter into a rusted steel bucket.

Raven stopped the story; she swallowed. “That was rough,” she said, looking out the window at the sunshine. “Listening to him, seeing his face while he told it.”

“So that’s why Clyde was dirty?”

“Yes, from Noe dropping him in the mud,” Raven said. “Having to deal with Noe distracted and disoriented her. Plus, Clyde’s kill was impulsive. I think she wanted that body away from her as soon as possible. So, she didn’t wash him. Just wrapped him up and dumped him.”

“Still, why not kill Noe and get it over with?” Billy Ray asked.

“Back-up,” Raven said.

“So, I guess Noe isn’t the only one making statements?”

Raven nodded. “You’d be right about that. Stella doesn’t want the needle. She’s singing like a bird. She wanted back in Edmée’s life, her money, sure. But more than that, she wanted control over Edmée, and in some sick way, she wanted Edmée to love her again. Like Edmée did when she was little and didn’t know any better. When Stella heard that Ronnie True had been killed, she immediately thought Edmée did it. So she carried on that revenge by making everyone involved in placing Edmée’s son pay for their mistake.”

“By taking it out on their sons,” Billy Ray said.

“Or if they didn’t have sons, their nephews or cousins. As close as she could get. When it was all done, she planned to go to Edmée and tell her what she had done. Stella thought Edmée would be glad.”

“That’s not just plain evil, that’s crazy-evil,” Billy Ray said. “But I wouldn’t expect less from this town.”

“So you’ve told me,” Raven said.

“Still doesn’t explain why Noe is still topside.”

“Like I said, Clyde’s murder shook Stella, made her doubt. What if Edmée wasn’t thrilled that boys were being killed in her name? If Edmée threatened to go to the police, Noe was Stella’s ace-in-the-hole to keep Edmée in line long enough to get out of town. She was going to use Noe to make Edmée give her running money as well if it came to that.”

They sat in silence for a few moments longer. Billy Ray was drawing invisible patterns on the table with the tips of his fingers. Then he said, “Sorry I wasn’t there with you that night.”

“No worries,” she said. “I handled it.”

“But you shouldn’t have had to do that by yourself.”

She said nothing. She was hoping he would change the subject. As if reading her mind, he said, “Well, we sure know how to pick ’em.”

“Please don’t tell me that you were sleeping with Edmée. After everything I’ve been through, I don’t know what I’d do if I thought I didn’t know you as well as I thought I did.”

Billy Ray grunted. “Your imagination is something else, Raven. You know there’s no way I’m sleeping with a married woman. She was, no is, a friend.”

“Have you been able to see her?”

“No. We did talk on the phone, though. I told her I was there for her, but she just cried and hung up. Have you seen her?”

“Yes,” Raven said. “I’ve been by the house. She’s out on bail, doing okay given the circumstances. She’s tough. I think Long is talking the DA into manslaughter. If she’s convicted, she’ll do prison time, but at least it won’t be for the rest of her life.”

“Maybe she’ll get off,” Billy Ray said, rubbing the side of his face. “Sounds like she wasn’t in her right mind when it happened.”

They stared at each other for a few long moments. Raven finally agreed with a weak, “Maybe.”

“You said Cameron was off the hook? Completely?”

“Looks that way,” Raven said.

“But what in the hell was he doing with two of the same kind of blanket Stella was using for her kills?”

“Even with all this you still looking with a side-eye at Cameron?”

“I’m just wondering, Raven.”

She didn’t say anything for a few moments, then said, “Noe was wetting the bed after his mother died and he moved in with Cameron. Trauma, I guess. Cameron thought it’d be easier to have a couple of blankets and sheet sets on hand rather than wash them.”

“That seems a silly thing to risk prison for,” Billy Ray said.

“Cameron’s not the most mature person I know. Besides, he figured Stevenson and Goldie wouldn’t have believed him anyway. Thought it was a waste of breath.”

“So Cameron being Cameron almost got his skinny ass sent to jail.”

“I guess you can say that,” Raven agreed.

“What’s happening with Stevenson?” he asked her.

Her laugh was harsh. “I think the chief is going to keep him around a little bit. Still don’t know if Breaker’s coming back. Department could use Stevenson.”

“And the Lamont Lovelle murder investigation? How you looking for that?”

“I’m not a suspect. I may have been in the state when Lovelle was killed, but they can’t place me at the scene. Stevenson was rogue all the way. According to the chief, he’s the only one in his department who likes me for Lovelle. Everybody else has moved on. Even Stevenson’s boss.”

“Moved on?”

“Yes, to other cases, maybe to victims a little bit higher on the morality scale than a serial killer. The case is officially cold.”

“That’s good for you.”

She was about to answer, but he held his hand up. “I don’t want to hear no more about it. You staying on at BLPD?”

“I don’t have a choice.”

“You have a choice with everything. The problem is you just keep insisting on making shitty ones.”

“What am I supposed to do? Wait tables the rest of my life?”

“If you can make a living at it, and it makes you happy, why the hell not? Besides, I thought you wanted to be a teacher, do some good.”

“That was a pipe dream, Billy Ray. I realize that now. The only good I can do is on the force.”

“So you think.”

“So I know.”

He sat up, and leaned toward her. “You’re going to be around so much killing that you’ll get a taste for it more than you already have. How you going to protect yourself from that?”

She met his lean with one of her own. Staring him in his handsome eyes, she said, “By doing the very best that I can to set things right.”