18

On Thursday, after a coffee-fueled morning in the office filing paperwork and attending a monthly quality circle meeting, Preach called the Courtyard and learned that Mackenzie Rathbun was working the lunch shift. Surprised that something concerning a witness had gone his way, he hurried to his car to catch her before she left. Tracking down a college kid with a vibrant social life could be more challenging than finding criminals.

Accessed by a long gravel drive, surrounded by a tract of deep Carolina woods, the Courtyard was a swanky steakhouse built in the style of a traditional log cabin. A pair of roaring fireplaces bookended the dining room, but the real draw was the elegant flagstone patio that, for nine months or so a year, provided an unmatched natural ambiance. The place had been around for decades, but it was expensive, and Preach had only eaten there once.

The lunch rush had ended by the time he arrived. He introduced himself to the manager, asked to speak to Mackenzie when she freed up, and waited at a table in the corner. Soon, a young woman with all- American good looks walked over, untying her apron and shaking out her hair as she crossed the dining room. Preach noticed a mole on the left side of her neck, long blond hair as fine and shiny as galvanized wire, good posture that made him recall her upper-class roots, and starshaped earrings with a blue stone in the center.

She sat across from him, looked him in the eye, and spoke in a selfassured voice. “You look familiar.”

“I don’t know that we’ve met.”

“Do you work for my father ?” The question was posed in a curious manner, rather than a rude one.

“I’m a Creekville police officer.”

“Oh.” She searched her memory for a moment, then said, “Were you at David’s funeral ?”

“Good memory.”

Her eyes slipped away. “I’m surprised I remember anything about that. A bunch of us got really hammered afterward.” She put a hand to her temple and took a deep breath. “God, how awful. He was such a sweet kid.”

“I’m very sorry. How well did you know him?”

She started to answer but choked on her words. A tear fell from the corner of her eye, and he waited in silence as she composed herself.

“He worked here last summer,” she said finally. “We talked a bit, mostly during the breaks and such.”

“I’ve heard from a few people that he was . . . quite taken with you.” She flashed a soft, sad smile. “Yeah. I guess he kind of was.”

“You didn’t return the interest ?”

“David? He was just a kid.”

Preach arched his eyebrows. “Was he that much younger?”

“He was in high school.” She laughed lightly and gave him a confident, knowing look that said, I’m in college and know everything there is to know about the world.

“I’m trying to piece together what happened the night he died. You didn’t see him, did you? October 2, a Thursday?”

After she thought for a moment, her eyes widened. “That was that night? Yeah, he stopped by the restaurant. He seemed pretty upset.” Preach realized the actual date of David’s death was not yet widely known. He leaned forward, intense. “Do you remember what time it was?”

“Around ten-thirty, I think. I was already rolling silverware. So yeah, had to be after ten, but probably not after eleven.” She waved a hand. “I’m gone by then.”

“How long did he stay?”

“Five minutes, maybe ? He said he really needed to talk. I told him I was busy but he insisted.”

“Had you seen him since the summer?” Preach asked.

“He stopped by now and then after a shift to say hi. To me and a few other people.”

Preach wrote down the names of David’s other friends at the restaurant, then said, “Please go on.”

“We stepped outside so I could smoke—I usually have one after my shift—and he unloaded a bit on me. Told me he hated his mom and was moving out.”

“Did he say why?”

“He despised her boyfriend, I forget his name, and thought they wanted him gone so they could be alone together. He said they couldn’t wait until he graduated.” Her eyes widened. “Wait—you don’t think they . . .”

“Don’t worry about that,” he said.

Mackenzie put a hand to her cheek. “Christ.”

“Did he say anything else ?”

“Hey—do you mind if I smoke? I could use one right now.”

Sure.

After Mackenzie grabbed a beige, knee-length suede jacket from a closet, he followed her to the patio and wondered if her parents, one of the wealthiest families in North Carolina, insisted she help pay her way through college.

“What are you studying?” he asked, after she shook out a Benson& Hedges from the pack and used a black lighter with a stylish purple swirl to light up. Could he see her carrying a silver cigarette lighter? It didn’t seem like her style. Mackenzie was less hipster and more international fashion model. Poised, intelligent, rich, the world waiting at her feet like an obedient lapdog. It was easy to understand why David had been smitten, and Preach couldn’t help but think of the parallels between himself and David at that age, and Claire and Mackenzie.

“Global finance,” she said.

“Big plans for the family company?”

“Something like that. I won’t deny I have some advantages in life, but the expectations that go with it?” She rolled her eyes. “Those are a killer.”

“I can imagine.”

She took another puff, holding the cigarette delicately in her fingers. “To answer your question, I can’t think of anything else we talked about. He did seem more distraught than normal. I didn’t think much about it because I’d heard it all before—except the leaving part, which I assumed was just talk.”

“You mean he’d talked about his mom and her boyfriend before, in the same vein?”

“A lot. It really brought him down.”

“What happened next that night?”

She shrugged. “He tried to get me to take a ride with him, but I had to study.”

“Where did he want you to go ?”

“He didn’t even say. I felt bad, because he seemed like he really needed someone. But I knew he had plenty of friends, and, well . . .” she trailed off and held a palm out.

He understood. She hadn’t wanted to lead him on.

“What about someone else? Did he mention seeing another girl that night?”

“Not to me.”

“Where did you end up studying?”

Her face clouded, and he regretted having to ask the question. “With a guy named Jared. Jared Wilson.”

She took out her cell and gave him the guy’s contact information. “Thank you,” he said, then pursed his lips as he thought. “I want you to think very carefully. David’s whereabouts that night are crucial to the case. You might have been one of the last people to see him alive.”

That knowledge caused her to pale, a crack in her flawless poise. She fought back the tears again, and he remembered the feeling of being immortal when he was young. How far away and unreal death had seemed.

“I know this is hard,” he said. “Did he mention where he was going next? Anything else that might be important?”

She pinched off her cigarette and dropped the butt in an ashtray she had carried out. “I asked him where he was going,” she said, in a heavy voice, “and he said he didn’t know. I told him to go home and talk things out with his mom, that I was sure she loved him.”

“What did he say?”

She hesitated and wrapped her coat tighter, as if something besides the weather had given her a shiver. “He said she didn’t love him anymore, and that maybe she never had. He said she was just like his dad.”

Preach felt a great weight on his shoulders as he returned to the station. Mackenzie’s words still haunted him. He could feel David’s pain as he struggled through adolescence, struggled to find a place in the world, struggled to be loved.

Where had the hurting teen gone after yet another rejection, this time by the girl of his dreams ? To whom had he turned?

Like most murders, Preach’s gut told him someone David knew— and knew well—had stolen his young life.

The brainy deputy chief of forensics, Lela Jimenez, approached his cubicle. Short, athletic, and cherub-faced, her dark bangs brushed the top of her red-rimmed glasses as she tapped a manila folder in her hand.

Preach swiveled in his chair. “You found something?”

“It’s what we didn’t find. Hemp fibers in the woods. Not a trace outside a ten foot radius around the leaf pile.”

“You checked in all directions?”

“All reasonable directions. Off the path, it’s mostly just bramble.”

Preach nodded, thoughtful. “Is that it?”

“For now. I thought you should know.”

“You thought right. Thanks.”

After she left, he considered the new evidence. No hemp fibers on the path meant someone had carried David a few hundred yards out of the woods.

Not dragged. Carried.

No way Claire could have done that.

He expelled a breath and tipped back in his chair. It didn’t completely rule her out. She could have hired someone. But the evidence in this case was sounding more and more like the work of a man.

And, he thought grimly as he stroked his two-day stubble, there just so happened to be a male suspect sitting in a holding cell in the basement of the police station. Brett’s lawyer had stopped by that morning, but until the businessman agreed to discuss the damning texts on David’s cell phone, there was little his counsel could do.

Preach decided to eat lunch before he went downstairs. No need to go hungry while Brett sweated it out. After a Reuben sandwich from a deli near the station, he stuffed a pen and pad in the pocket of his overcoat and strode down the hallway of the holding chamber.

Brett was slumped on the cot with his back against the wall, shirt untucked, bleary-eyed, unshaven.

“How’s the Internet business?” Preach asked.

“Fuck you, man.”

“Kind of hard to run your empire from jail.”

Brett gave him a defiant stare.

“You think this is hard?” Preach said. “You should try prison. Jail is for sissies.”

“I’m not going to prison,” he muttered. “I didn’t do anything.”

“No? Innocent people explain their actions. This won’t get you anywhere, you know. I’m sure your lawyer told you that as soon as we haul you before the judge, he’ll force you to comply. That or I guess you can stay down here forever, in contempt of court.”

Brett’s face reddened. “This is a civil rights violation!” he shouted. “You don’t have the right to intrude on my private life!”

“I do when you’re a suspect in a murder investigation. Tell her by Friday or I will,’” Preach said, quoting David’s text. “What did he want you to tell Claire?”

Brett hunched tighter on the cot.

“Brett.”

With a snarl, the businessman jumped and started pacing. “You can’t say anything.”

“What?”

“To Claire. You can’t tell Claire. If I come clean, you have to promise me she won’t find out.”

“I can’t promise that, unless it doesn’t involve the case.”

Brett’s arms flew up. “It doesn’t. I swear.”

“So it doesn’t involve a receipt in the back of your jeans for a BP gas station on the night David was murdered? The BP on the road to Barker’s Mill ?”

Brett looked confused for a moment, then put his hands to his head. “Oh God—what—how did you find that?”

“I didn’t. Claire did. She already knows, Brett. Whatever it is, she knows you were part of it.”

Brett moaned. “I’m so stupid.” He closed his eyes and roared in anger, then looked at Preach with stricken eyes. “I love her. I really do. I’m going to marry her.”

Preach folded his arms. “What happened, Brett?”

“Lisa Waverly happened, the little slut. I slept with Lisa Waverly.” “Once?”

He swallowed. “A lot.”

“And David knew?”

“Yeah. The little prick spied on me. Read my texts and followed me to Lisa’s house one night.”

“And he wanted you to tell Claire?”

Brett nodded, miserable. “He wanted me out of her life.”

“You must have been pretty happy when he couldn’t speak up for himself anymore.”

“What? No.” Brett’s face screwed up. “I didn’t want the kid dead.

“Then why were you pumping gas near Barker’s Mill that night?” “It was on the way to Lisa’s house. That’s it, I swear.”

“The timing is awful convenient.”

Brett raised his palms in a helpless gesture. “I didn’t kill David. Don’t be ridiculous.”

After a few moments, Preach uncrossed his arms and let his hands fall to his sides. Though he would verify every inch of Brett’s story, the man’s emotional reaction felt real.

“You gotta let me out of here,” Brett said. “Right now.”

“I’ll send someone down for a full statement. And let you call your lawyer.”

“Let me out right now!” he shouted, then lowered his voice and tried to sound humble. “You can’t tell Claire, okay? I’ll talk it out with her. The thing with Lisa is over now.”

Preach turned his back and walked away.

Back at his desk, Preach tapped his pen against his thigh and considered the new evidence. After the argument with his mother, David had gone to the restaurant, and then driven off again. Not long after that— had he gone somewhere in between?—he had returned home, where Sharon Tisdale had later seen him conversing with someone, most likely Claire.

That was a fact Preach couldn’t reconcile.

Maybe Claire had been bombed out of her mind that night and had forgotten her last few moments with her son. Maybe she was sleepwalking, maybe David had locked himself out—maybe maybe maybe. Or what if Sharon Tisdale had her timeline confused, or had been drinking herself ? The testimony was pretty weak.

Another thought hit him. What if David hadn’t threatened to tell his mother and Brett about the affair in order to break them up? That line of reasoning would explain the Facebook post, but there was another option.

What if David, too, was having an affair with Lisa?

An affair that could ruin her career and land her in jail?

What if, for some reason—maybe to hurt Brett—David had threatened to go public?

Now that was a motive.

After a quick records search on his computer, Preach grabbed his coat and rushed out of the office.

Fifteen minutes later, Preach was knocking loudly on the door to Lisa Waverly’s matchbox house wedged into a middle class neighborhood on the edge of downtown Creekville. The little cottage with blue siding and an uneven front yard was barely larger than a one-bedroom condo. The English teacher answered the door in a pair of Lycra workout tights and a white sports bra. Sweat dripped down her face and beaded on her bosom as she clutched a carton of coconut water.

“Hi, Detective.” She wiped her forehead. “I just got back from my run.”

“Didn’t school just let out?”

“I carpooled in and ran home today. I do that three days a week.”

“I see. Do you have a minute ?”

She raised her arms over her head, arching her back as she stretched, drawing his eyes to her lean torso. “I’m all yours. Would you like to come in?”

“Sure.”

She led him to a living room just to the left of the door, where a large bookshelf took up much of one wall. An array of potted plants accented the room and, while her house possessed a fresh floral scent, he mostly smelled the pungent aroma of Lisa’s sweat-soaked body.

After toweling off, she slipped into a pair of sweats and joined him on the couch. She sat a few feet away, crossed her legs, and leaned toward him. This woman has a strange sense of personal space, he thought. He decided to get to the point and get a gut reaction.

“At best,” he said, “you lied to me. At worst . . . well, we won’t go there. Not yet.”

She froze with the bottle of water halfway to her lips. “I don’t understand.”

“I think you do. I know David came here to see you. Trust me—it’s better if you tell me the truth. All of it.”

“Who told you that?”

“Doesn’t matter.”

Her eyes slid away. “Okay. Yes, he did. I’m sorry. I was scared.”

“Of what?”

“It was selfish. But he was already . . .” her eyes teared up, and she replaced the cap on the water with a shaky hand.

“You didn’t think you would get caught because he was already dead. Was it just the one time, or a longer affair?”

Her eyes flew up. “Wait—you don’t think I would—that Face- book post wasn’t about an affair with David. It was Brett Moreland. I thought that’s why you . . . ah, I see. You were testing me. I would never sleep with a student. Never.”

“So why didn’t you tell me about Brett? Or David’s visit?”

“For a long time, I didn’t know Brett was Claire’s boyfriend. I met him at a bar one night, and we started sleeping together. He never mentioned her. I have open relationships, so I never asked.”

“When did you find out ?”

“After David wrote slut on my Facebook page. That was the same night he came here to confront me. He hates Brett, but he also hated the idea of his mom’s boyfriend cheating on her with one of his teachers. I swore to David I had no idea. To this day, I don’t think he believed me. He took the post down and said all the right things to the principal, but he remained sullen with me.”

Preach spread his hands. “Maybe because you were still sleeping with Brett?”

“David didn’t know that. And it was none of his business.”

“It was his mom.”

“They weren’t married. We’re all consenting adults here, detective.” “Claire didn’t consent to an affair behind her back.”

“Maybe you should talk to Brett about that.”

Preach sighed and rubbed his chin. “If you’re so open to all this, then why not just tell me in the first place ?”

“Quite frankly, it’s none of your business. Or anyone else’s. Creekville prides itself on being so progressive, but the attitudes toward sexual behavior, especially with women, are just as repressive and hypocritical as everywhere else. It’s fine to be a lesbian or a militant feminist, but an openly sexual woman in her thirties, especially a teacher? God forbid. I kept it to myself because, whether I knew it at first or not, I had an affair with the boyfriend of a student’s mother. That’s all anyone would see, and I could get fired because of it.”

“Was Brett here on October 2? The night of David’s death?”

He was.

“Do you remember when he arrived, and when he left ?”

She unscrewed the water cap again. “He arrived around midnight and left in the morning.”

“Isn’t that pretty late for a date ?”

“It was more of a rendezvous.”

“He stayed the entire time?”

“As far as I know.”

“And it was the just the two of you?”

She nodded, her eyes defeated. “You can check with my neighbors. I’m sure someone noticed his car.”

“I will. How would you describe Brett’s relationship with David?” “He never talked about him or Claire.”

“I get the impression he was terrified David would tell his mom about the affair.”

“I’m sure he was, but he never told me. It was sex, Detective. Nothing more and nothing less.”

After thinking through her testimony, Preach stood to leave. He would try to confirm her story, but at the moment he needed to stop by the station before he met Ari, hopefully followed by an audience with Nate Wilkinson. “Ms. Waverly?”

She looked up at him with a somber expression, her arms now crossed over her chest, protective.

“It would be best if you didn’t leave town for a while,” he said. “How long?”

“I’ll let you know. One final question: Who fell asleep first that night, you or Brett?”

At first she looked confused by the question, but when she realized what he was getting at, a drop of sweat trickled slowly down her jawline, plopping onto her bare arm. “I did,” she said, almost in a whisper.