On Saturday, I slept in a little. I didn’t have to work, and I enjoyed being lazy for once. I took a leisurely shower and tried to figure out what to do with my new hairstyle. The bandage was no longer needed, but because the cut was red and the stitches unsightly, I put a smaller one on to cover the abrasion. Luckily, my hair fell into to place with just a brush. I still wasn’t planning on keeping the style, but it was beginning to grow on me.
Harry and I went for our usual walk in Reed Hill City Park. I took it slow, but it felt good to be outside. My apartment complex has a number of individual buildings with four apartments in each. Mine is toward the front. At the back of the complex, the nicer and more expensive units face the park. I loved our city park. It had walking trails and a bike path. There were lots of trees and grassy areas, and there was a small creek running through it.
In February, I had found the body of my distant cousin lying facedown in the creek. Actually, Harry had found him. I hadn’t known Donnie, and he had been a jewel thief and career criminal, but he hadn’t deserved to die. As another cousin had been the one to murder him, it had put me off looking for our relatives.
As we neared the entrance, I glanced over at the houses lining one side of the park. On the corner closest to my apartment complex, there was one house with an exceptionally large lot. Because of that, the house next to it was sitting on a smaller piece of land. It was the small Cape Cod style house that had gotten away.
There was a moving truck in the driveway. It and the house appeared to be locked up tight. There was no sign of activity. I desperately wanted a glimpse of the person who had stolen my house, but the new owners had either already unloaded or were waiting for help.
Harry tugged on the leash, and we made our way into the park. The walking path was great. It was wide enough that joggers could easily get around the walkers. Harry and I strolled along, stopping occasionally for him to investigate. I was lost in thought and not paying attention to my surroundings so I didn’t see him until he called my name.
“Hi, Leah.”
Sean Walters was a struggling artist. Well, his art was struggling, and he played the part by wearing shabby clothes, keeping odd hours, and drinking a little too much. However, he lived in one of the nicer apartments with his father. Sean jogged daily, and I used to see him quite often, but he had been involved with the scheme my cousin had cooked up to rob me. Sean hadn’t known all the details, and I didn’t blame him for anything, but I hadn’t seen him since the night he had told me about his part in the scheme.
“Hi, Sean,” I said, giving him a bright smile. I knew he had been avoiding me as my routine was pretty regular. I was in the park later than normal so I probably surprised him.
Sean was a large man, over six feet tall but young and sweet. He was incredibly shy and not very self-confident. It had taken me months to get him to say more than a few words. Things had been easier after I expressed an interest in art.
He shuffled his feet. “Uh, hi, um, how are you?”
“Good. You?”
“Fine,’ he mumbled. He took a deep breath. “I never got to say, you know, sorry for everything.”
“It wasn’t your fault, Sean. Ricky hired you to make the rose.”
Ricky Cantono had been involved in the scheme to rob me. He had forced Sean to carve a wooden rose that looked like the one I had inherited from my grandmother. Sean was addicted to Vicodin and found an easy way to get it. Ricky supplied the drug in exchange for Sean’s talent. Ricky was being blackmailed too, but that didn’t excuse his behavior. The whole situation was one large mess orchestrated by Wade Collins.
Sean rubbed the back of his neck and refused to meet my eyes. “Yeah, but I knew something was wrong.”
There wasn’t anything I could say to that so we stood there awkwardly. Harry broke the tension by moving closer to Sean, wagging his tail. Sean grinned a little and reached down to pet the dog.
Still not looking at me he said, “Leon Hollins is out of jail.”
“How did you know about that?” I hadn’t known Sean knew Leon.
“You already knew?” His shoulders relaxed. “Good. That’s good.”
“What do you know, Sean? What are you trying to tell me?”
“Nothing really. I heard from a friend that he was out and asking around about a place to stay. He’s bad news, Leah. Everyone knows what he did. I guess I wanted to warn you. You know, in case, he tries something.”
“Myra said he told her he was trying to make amends.”
Sean shrugged. “He’s been asking around about a way to make some fast money. Offered his services to anyone who’ll pay.”
A shiver went down my spine. “Services?”
“Selling or, you know, collecting.”
Ricky had been Sean’s supplier until the drug bust. Sean had told me he had purchased from the Cantonos until the arrests in December when he had to find a new dealer; however, Ricky had found a way to get the Vicodin to him in February. After everything that had happened, I had assumed he had stopped using. It was a stupid assumption.
“Who told you that?”
“Just rumors, Leah.”
“Sean…”
“Gotta go.”
He suddenly took off. I started to follow, but Sean jogged regularly. There was no way I could catch him. I wasn’t sure what he told me meant anything for Myra or me, but if there was a new drug dealer in town, Griggs needed to know.
I had to leave him a message, and Harry and I finished our walk with no further interruptions. On the way back to my apartment, I checked out the house again, but there was still no sign of anyone.
Before I headed out for the day, I spent some time with Pandora and making a list. There were several people I wanted to speak with regarding Brandy. I also needed to pick up the gift I had ordered for Arabella assuming the birthday dinner was still on.
Checking my purse, I pulled out my handgun. I did a quick cleaning and verified that everything was in working order. I had been to the range the week before, and the gun performed fine. My shooting preference was a rifle, but I was proficient in handguns. Griggs had once challenged me to a shooting competition. It had been close, but I had beaten the chief of police. It had been a heady moment. I didn’t plan to use the gun but wanted it with me just in case.
I took Harry with me this time. I didn’t want a repeat of what happened to me at the lake. The gun wouldn’t do me any good if someone came at me from behind. Harry wasn’t trained to be a guard dog, but he had good instincts and was very protective. He was incredibly friendly, but most people would hesitate to approach me if he was around.
Our first stop was Harbor Trailer Park. I wanted to talk to Ricky Cantono. I believed he had been following me the day I went to the lake. What I didn’t know was why. Ricky probably wasn’t involved in Brandy’s murder, but something was going on with him. If there was a new drug dealer in town, he would know. Last I heard, he was living with his girlfriend, Vanessa, in her trailer.
Harbor Trailer Park wasn’t the most cheerful place to live. Most of the trailers were in disrepair. Many were rusted and had peeling paint. The park itself wasn’t large. It had two lanes with trailers on either side, and many of the slots were empty. Vanessa’s trailer was small but one of the few in good shape. The yard around it was neat, and the trailer had no peeling paint or obvious flaws.
Ricky had known my cousin, Donnie, who had been murdered. Donnie stayed with Ricky at the Cantono house in Mayville when he was in town trying to steal my great-grandmother’s wooden rose. After Donnie was murdered, Ricky had tried to remove himself from the scheme, but my other cousin, along with Leon, needed the local contact. They had kidnapped Vanessa and blackmailed Ricky into helping them. He, in turn, had forced Sean to help him.
At first, I had felt sorry for Ricky. He truly cared for Vanessa, but looking back, I had a feeling it wouldn’t have taken much for him to join the others. Vanessa had simply been an excuse. After everything calmed down, Vanessa had been found locked in a bathroom in one of the rooms at the Main Street Inn where Leon had been staying. She had been scared but unhurt. At the time, it had seemed lucky. Now, I wasn’t so sure it hadn’t been planned.
Although Vanessa had been involved because of her kidnapping, I hadn’t met her. All I knew about her was what I had learned from one of her neighbors who had said that Vanessa was a good person. She didn’t have the best childhood but was trying to improve her situation. I didn’t understand what Vanessa saw in Ricky. She hadn’t sounded like the type of person to get involved with him, but Mike had told me in February they had been planning to marry.
I stopped the car, and Harry and I got out. There were no vehicles parked in front of Vanessa’s trailer, and I didn’t see any sign of the car Ricky had been driving when he was following me. I’m not sure I would’ve recognized it, but there were no cars that even came close. The trailer appeared to be locked up tight. I knocked on the door anyway, but no one answered.
Turning around, I walked over to the next trailer. The woman who opened the door was the same one I had spoken with the night Griggs and I had tried to find Vanessa. She looked to be in her fifties, but I thought she might be younger. Hard times had taken a toll on her. Her face was thin and haggard, and her hair was starting to gray. Like before, she had a cigarette in her hand.
“Hi, Dee,” I said brightly. “Remember me?”
“You’re that not cop,” she said in her harsh voice.
When I had spoken to her before, she had asked me if I was the police. She didn’t like cops. I had answered her honestly, but Griggs had been there. Dee had been worried enough about Vanessa that she had ignored him and answered my questions. She was a hard woman who had been beaten down one time too many, but she cared for Vanessa.
“What happened to your hair?” she asked me before I could speak.
Unconsciously, I raised my hand to my hair. “I got hit in the head. They had to cut my hair to sew up the wound.”
I turned my head slightly, showing her the back. She actually leaned forward to look at it. She couldn’t see anything. It was covered with a bandage.
“Huh,” she said. “Who hit you?”
“I don’t know. Probably someone trying to keep me from asking questions.”
Dee took a drag from her cigarette, the smoke curling in the air. “So you’re sticking your nose in other people’s business again.”
“That’s right.” My reputation around town was getting worse. “And I’m, once again, looking for Vanessa.”
“What’da want with her?”
I paused. “I guess I’m looking for Ricky. I heard he was living with Vanessa.”
“Not no more. She kicked him out a week ago.”
“Really? I thought they were getting married.”
“Nah. Vanessa changed her mind about that. Told him she didn’t want anything to do with dealing drugs.”
“Ricky’s dealing drugs?”
“He’s a Cantono, ain’t he?”
“The Cantono drug-dealing operation has been shut down.”
Dee snorted in disbelief.
“You think he’s selling again?”
“Saw a couple of deals go down. He had some guy come by a couple of times. Think he was the supplier cause not long after that he had a parade of people through here. Vanessa wasn’t home so I told her about it. She confronted Ricky. He said he and his dad needed the money. That’s when she kicked him out.”
So Damian had started up the old family business. I wondered if Marcus or Arabella knew. It didn’t answer my question about why Ricky was following me unless he and Damian had something to do with Brandy’s murder after all.
“Do you think Vanessa would know where Ricky is staying now?”
Dee took another long drag off her cigarette, then shrugged. “Maybe, but she left. Ricky kept coming around trying to get her back. Couple of days ago, she got a job in Dallas. She locked up and left. Said she’d be back to get her trailer as soon as she found a place for it.”
I glanced around looking for a clue I knew I wouldn’t find. Ricky wasn’t there. I thought the house in Mayville had been sold, and he hadn’t been at Autumn’s with his father. Or, at least, I hadn’t seen him. I thanked Dee for her help and left.
As I backed the car out, I thought about where I could get more information about Ricky’s whereabouts. Mike might know where his brother was staying, but I doubted he would tell me. I knew Marcus wouldn’t tell me so that left Arabella. Silently, I added her to my growing list of people I needed to see.