JULIA DRAGGED HERSELF from the courthouse at the dot of five.
Usually she worked late, calculating to the minute the time it would take to race to her son’s after-school program before it closed for the day at six. Parents who arrived after that were fined increasing amounts for every fifteen-minute increment of lateness. Julia had enriched the program’s coffers considerably.
Her mother-in-law, whose home she shared, was a big help with Calvin, but understandably drew the line at school pickups and drop-offs except in emergencies. The day had dumped a shitstorm of particular pungency upon Julia, but she doubted Beverly Sullivan would see it as a catastrophe deserving of a break in her routine.
Only a few weeks earlier, Julia’s workdays had ended in full darkness, the streetlamps casting bright circles onto the snow, the blackness beyond somehow more ominous by contrast. But now stars were only just emerging in a still-blue sky that teased her with the promise of spring, cruelly undercut by the lingering, record-setting cold.
She glanced toward the river. A tiny orange light flashed and wavered, revealing itself after a moment’s determined squint as an oil drum fire. She looked back at the courthouse clock tower. She had nearly an hour before the after-school program for Calvin’s kindergarten ended.
Halfway down the block, she ducked into the business district’s lone liquor store, tolerated by the Chamber of Commerce because it also sold artisan breads and cheeses featured in weekly wine pairings along with a selection of high-end single-malt Scotch that lived behind lock and key.
But the proprietors, cognizant of their proximity to the creekside habitués, also stocked the cheapest rotgut available on a shelf by the cash register to discourage the light-fingered tendencies of that clientele. Julia brushed past an older man surveying the pricey Scotch and brought a pint of Jim Beam to the counter. The clerk looked her over, raised an eyebrow, and rang it up.
“Ms. Geary?”
The man who’d been studying the Scotch selection approached with an outstretched hand.
“Gregory Abbott.”
Winter wear in Duck Creek tended toward shapeless parkas or neon ski gear, but Abbott wore a long black double-breasted woolen coat and a homburg that, combined with his snowy hair and neat mustache, made him seem like someone from another, more formal, era. “I run the bookstore.”
“Of course.” She took his hand. “I believe my mother-in-law has cleaned out your entire children’s section. For a while she ran a one-woman preschool for my little boy. His kindergarten teacher said he’s bored stiff because he already knows everything in her lesson plan.”
“She did keep me busy with regular orders.” Had he just winked?
“I’ll be sure and give her your regards.”
Julia stuffed the pint bottle in her coat pocket, hoping he hadn’t registered her selection.
“Good-bye, Ms. Geary. I’ll see you soon.”
He would? Maybe a subtle reminder that, while Beverly and Calvin apparently were frequent shoppers, it had been months since Julia had been in the bookstore. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d read something other than a legal document or the newspaper.
During her few short minutes in the store, the sky had darkened and the temperature dropped. She hurried to the creek, unsure of what to say to whomever she might find there but knowing she wanted to be long gone by true nightfall.
Two men and two women stood close to the oil drum, feeding the fire with copies of that day’s paper, which Julia suspected they’d pilfered from honor boxes. Flames raced across Chance Larsen’s follow-up story about Ray’s arrest, relegated to a single column low on the front page. Julia supposed the coming story about Leslie Harper would likely merit a banner headline.
They stared unsmiling, leaving it up to her to speak first.
“I’m Julia,” she said. “Ray Belmar’s lawyer.”
The older of the two women cocked her head. “You the one he calls Thumbelina? I can see why.”
With her knit hat topped with a festive pom-pom, a long down coat that was only a little frayed and dirty around the hem and cuffs, and her brisk, no-nonsense manner, she could have been a schoolteacher. She was about—well, Julia couldn’t tell how old she was. Her weather-ravaged cheeks and the charcoal-dark skin beneath her eyes—characteristics her companions shared—added decades to Julia’s original estimate of about forty.
“He tried to talk to you, you know. Guess you didn’t listen.”
Julia shrank from the accusation, made worse by the sting of truth. “I was supposed to meet with him. But then he got arrested.”
“What do you want?” one of the men said. He had a cadaverous, Ichabod Crane look, although instead of Crane’s voluminous cape, an outsize backpack liberally patched with duct tape hung from his shoulders. His companion, nearly as short and slight as Julia herself, shot her a look of pure hatred and turned his back.
“Were you here the night that Mr. Williams—Billy—died?”
The younger woman’s high-pitched cackle ended in a wet cough that bent her body double. She straightened and wiped her mouth and aimed a toothless smile Julia’s way. “We’re here every night.”
Julia remembered the contents of her pocket. “Here. I have something that might help that cough.”
The woman snatched the bottle from her hands and twisted off the top, the scent of whiskey briefly competing with that of smoke. The small man whipped back around, the hostility in his eyes diminished.
Julia formed her questions carefully, making them vague, open-ended. The last thing she wanted to do was put words in anyone’s mouth, something that could—if it came to that—return to haunt her in court.
“Can you tell me what happened that night?”
Toothless wiped her mouth and handed the bottle to Ichabod Crane. The little guy beside him performed an impatient jig, stamping feet shod in filthy Chuck Taylors that might once have been red.
“Billy and Ray, they had words. Fighting words.”
“What did they say?”
“Couldn’t hear. They went off a ways and never did come back.”
“Then how did you know they were mad?”
Little Guy finally got his hands on the bottle and tilted it high.
“Ahhh!” He smacked his lips in appreciation. Gratitude loosened his tongue. “Same way you can tell anyone’s mad. Ray was waving his arms all around, pacing back and forth.” He demonstrated, kicking through the crusted snow, arms windmilling, endangering the bottle’s contents. “And Billy, he just stood there shaking his head.”
“Did they fight a lot?”
It was the older woman’s turn for the bottle. “No,” she said as she lowered it, more than half-empty now. Julia wondered if she should have bought a fifth instead. “Ray got into the occasional scrap, but mostly he was just a goof-off, always going for a laugh. And Billy.” She looked to her companions. “How would you describe him?”
“Slow, like.”
Little Guy nodded confirmation of Ichabod’s assessment.
“Was he …” Julia sought the right phrase. “Was he mentally disabled?”
“You mean, was he a—”
Ichabod broke in before his compatriot could launch the insult.
“No, just slow. Walked slow, talked slow. You asked him a question, he’d turn it over forever in his mind before he answered. But he was all right in the head. Gentle, just like Ray, but in a different way. A quiet way. Just a big, slow-moving guy.”
Maybe, Julia thought, the kind of guy who couldn’t duck a punch.
“Was he drunk? Was Ray?”
Little Guy had gone positively garrulous. “You mean like us? Half-lit before the sun goes down. Before noon on a good day!”
Toothless emitted another racking laugh.
Again, Ichabod furnished the answer. “Naw. Billy, he’d had maybe a beer or two. But not drunk, not even close. And Ray stopped drinking some time back. Regular Boy Scout these days.”
“Hey!” The older woman elbowed him. “Maybe that’s why he jumped up on that parade float. A Boy Scout looking for a Girl Scout to claim as his own.”
Toothless glared. “Knock it off. Ray had all the woman he could handle.”
Julia felt the conversation veering off track.
“Not even the slightest idea what they were fighting about?”
Both men turned to the older woman. “Miss Mae?”
Her face went blank. “No idea.”
Just like that, Julia was back where she started. It was almost dark. Time for her to get away from the creek and pick up Calvin. But she had one more question.
“I know Ray wasn’t drinking anymore, but did you ever know him to use? Heroin, maybe?” Many of her clients used every manner of drug that existed, in combinations she’d not have imagined possible.
A soft smile played at the corners of the toothless woman’s mouth. “Ray? Never. He was a rummy, just like us. Until he wasn’t.”
“Thanks.”
Julia turned to go, then swung back, trying to sound casual.
“Turns out Billy wasn’t the only one murdered. Someone else was killed last week. A legislator.”
Miss Mae’s sage nod set her hat’s pom-pom bobbing. “The lady, right? Thought she killed herself.”
“Turns out she might not have.”
“Shame.” All four nodded and bowed their heads, as though they’d known Harper personally.
“They don’t know for sure. But the police will be questioning anyone ever arrested on a violent crime.”
She didn’t need to say more. They grasped the implications right away. “Shit. Just when things were dying down. Now they’ll be hassling all of us again.”
Julia waited for a round of curses to die down. She couldn’t feign casual any longer.
“Anybody know where Ray was a couple of weekends ago?”
Their previous curses had been general, directed at the universe. This round took direct aim at her.
“Fuck you, bitch. What are you saying?” Toothless shoved the others aside, her face inches from Julia’s, words riding on spittle.
“Angie. Angie. Take it easy.” The others tugged at her, though it seemed to Julia their efforts were halfhearted.
Julia wiped her face. “I’m only asking the same thing the cops will. They found Leslie Harper last Tuesday. She’d been dead a couple of days. So …”
A fresh spray bathed Julia’s face. “He works on weekends. That goddamn job, washing those goddamn dishes. And then he’s with us. Tell that to the fucking cops.”
“Tell them yourselves,” Julia said, backing away. “Because for sure they’ll be asking.”