Luke Montgomery was scrubbing down a rear fender of a fire engine with a sudsy brush when Test walked up to the open overhead bay doors of the station. A System of a Down song echoed off the concrete floor of two empty bays, the trucks parked along the curb. The song was a favorite of Test’s husband’s, not a note of which appealed to a strand of Test’s DNA. It amused her that her husband gravitated to music in complete contradiction to his quiet temperament.
Two other young men were lathering the front of the engine with soapy sponges.
Montgomery seemed to sense Test and turned to give her a look as if he’d been lost in a daydream. The look sharpened as he wiped his hands on the front of the yellow, rubber raincoat and overalls that reminded Test of the boat captain on a fish sticks box. His big black rubber boots looked like something an astronaut might wear.
He was tall, sturdy, good looking in that bland, homogenized way of young men who were only a few years beyond bad skin and braces; Test could see why teenage girls might fawn over him, though she had always leaned toward the quirky, awkward, offbeat types her friends deemed homely.
Montgomery looked confused; why was a strange woman here?
The two other young men, also in yellow rain gear, kept at their task, oblivious of Test, their movements in aggressive time to the music.
Montgomery stepped out onto the sidewalk. “Help you?” he said. His eyes shifted to his fellow firemen. Test sensed he hoped his peers wouldn’t notice the woman whose attention was all his for the moment. Test hoped they wouldn’t notice her, either. She didn’t need to deal with false bravado or rivalry for her attention.
Test showed her ID and told him who she was. “I’d like to talk to you about Mandy Wilks and Abby Land.”
“Who?”
“Mandy Wilks, she was murdered a couple weeks back. Abby Land murdered her.”
“Yeah,” he said, “Right. Crazy.”
He glanced at his peers again, and this time Test wondered if it were out of wanting to protect his territory, or some other motive. He seemed nervous.
“You knew them,” Test said.
“No. Not really.”
“I’d like to talk to you anyway.”
“Let’s get out of this noise.”
Montgomery walked down the sidewalk and opened a door to an office of sorts, a concrete floor and white walls, a metal desk and chairs. On a lone shelf above a filing cabinet sat a police scanner, rows of red lights blinking, a half-dozen walkie-talkies perched in chargers.
On the table sat an iPad and a deck of playing cards, on the back of which were images of naked women. Montgomery snatched up the cards and tossed them in a drawer.
“I didn’t know them,” Montgomery said. “I knew who Mandy Wilks was, of course, but—”
“Of course?”
“She was behind me a couple grades. But she was the kind of girl you noticed. Kind of creepy saying that now.”
“You were seen at a party with her, there are pictures of you standing near her and her looking at you while you had your arm around Land, laughing.”
“Pig roast. Everybody was there. Like four hundred people, probably. Lots of pics taken. Six kegs got tapped in no time. Port-a-Lets. The works. I was pretty wrecked, honestly.”
“Were you talking to Mandy?”
“I didn’t know her. I told you.”
“If you never talk to pretty girls you don’t know, how are you ever going to get to know any pretty girls?”
“What? I just didn’t talk to her.”
“What about Abby Land?”
“I’m twenty. She’s like what, twelve?”
“Answer the question. Did you know her?”
“No. I was having a good time. Joking with people. I don’t remember having my arm slung around her. I don’t understand. Why’re you after me? I didn’t know them, and I didn’t do anything. I told the cops all this shit a couple weeks ago.”
“No one is after you.”
“Then why are you asking me questions weeks after that skank was busted?”
Test hesitated, then said, “Because Mandy Wilks was killed because of you.”
“Are you crazy?”
It was an awful way for Test to put it, but it was the truth, at least Abby Land’s truth, if you believed what she claimed, that she’d killed Mandy Wilks out of rage spawned of jealousy over Montgomery giving Mandy the eye at the pig roast. Test didn’t believe it. Not anymore. No. There was more to it than Land being pissed off over a flirtatious glance. Had to be. Didn’t there?
“Land said she killed Mandy because of the way she looked at you.”
“So? This Abby Land chick is bat shit. But don’t say Mandy was killed because of me.” He took a step toward her. “If some crazy chick killed a guy for the way he looked at you, would you think you were to blame?” His voice was raised. Test had her parka zipped up, her M&P45 tucked in her chest holster underneath it. She’d not worn a hip holster today.
“Take a breath and—”
“Take a breath. I’m at work. I volunteer to save lives, risk my life probably more than you do, for free, when other guys my age are whining because someone said boo on Facebook, and you accuse me because a retarded redneck chick killed another girl for looking at me wrong?” The veins in his neck stood out. The music had stopped, and now the other two young men, big meaty guys, stared at Test through the window that looked out to the bay. Their stares were not the ones she had imagined earlier, where she was the object over which the young men would compete for attention, the boys turning to nemeses against each other. No. The looks were those that steeled their camaraderie, fraternity. The young men were on the same side here.
The beefier of the two young men opened the door and they stepped inside the small office.
“She bothering you?” the bigger guy said, his cheeks puffy from too much booze.
What was this? He was asking another young, built guy if a woman half their weight and six inches shorter was “bothering” him.
“She’s giving me shit about some crazy chick I don’t even have a clue about. I’ll tell you what,” he said, glaring at Test, “say another word accusing me—”
Test stepped closer. A headache pounded at her forehead, seemed to want to splinter her skull. She’d been clenching her jaw. Could not unclench it.
“Speak to me like that again, and I will arrest you,” Test said. “And you two.” She pivoted to the other two boys, in part to meet their eyes straight on, and in part to demonstrate that she was unafraid to put her back to Montgomery. “Step out. I’m an on-duty police detective conducting an interview and you two are interfering. Step out or get arrested.”
The young men eyed each other.
“We’ve got no gripe with law enforcement.” Puffy Cheeks shrugged as if to say you’re on you own, man and the two young men left and went back to washing the truck.
Test turned to Montgomery. “Don’t speak to me again like that.”
Montgomery seemed to release the tension in his body, though his face remained flushed. When he spoke, the anger in his voice was tempered, but the message was the same. “I have work to do. You want to speak to me again, contact my dad’s attorney, Fredrick Bauer.”
He left and set to washing the engine.
Test’s blood fizzed, not with anger, but with the adrenaline rush that her suspicions might be correct. Somehow, Jamie Drake, Abby Land, and Mandy Wilks were connected, and Luke Montgomery was connected as well. Mandy Wilks had been in the Dress Shoppe and been seen by her mother and two clerks leaving the shop for a moment to stand out on the sidewalk, looking around and acting odd, as if she’d seen someone pass by. Looking toward the firehouse. That night, Abby Land kills Mandy. She admits she killed her in a rage of jealousy spurred by Mandy looking the wrong way at Montgomery. Montgomery who claimed he didn’t know either girl. Now, Abby was in jail, and her closest friend is found hanged. Test looked out the door window at the bay. Montgomery looked up and gave her a fake smile. She smiled back, not at him, but at the thought that he was going to need his attorney sooner than later, and not for the reasons he believed.