The Brick Town Tavern, a place with a blue-collar, dive-bar vibe, wasn’t exactly what Jane had in mind when she’d agreed to have dinner with Cordelia. Not that she had anything against a good dive bar, but when it came to food, she’d been hoping for something a little more upscale.
“Oh, come on,” said Cordelia, breezing her way to a table. “You’d rather have a burger than a steak any day. Am I right?”
“I suppose,” said Jane. Steaks generally bored her. Still, she wasn’t sure why there were only two choices for dinner.
“I asked around and this place supposedly has, by far, the best burgers in the known universe.”
When the server arrived, they both ordered Grain Belts. “And we need menus.”
The young waitress looked at them with unconcealed annoyance. “We don’t do menus. We serve burgers and fries. That’s it. No turkey burgers or vegan stuff. Just the real thing. We got pretty much any toppings you can think of.” Jutting out a hip, she added, “Just an FYI. The fries are cooked in lard and the burgers are fried with butter, so if you’re going to have a meltdown, better leave now. And we only serve white buns. The soft kind. If you’re looking for sprouts and tofu, this ain’t gonna be a good fit.”
“Good to know,” said Jane.
“So, you stayin’?” she asked.
“We wouldn’t think of leaving,” said Cordelia with a grin.
“Then I’ll get your beers and be right back.”
“Do you like my new purchases?” asked Cordelia, touching her necklace and then folding her hands this way and that under her chin.
“More costume jewelry?”
“Sparkly things make me happy. Emma took me to a couple antique stores yesterday. The stuff here is so cheap, I feel like I’ve landed in Oz.”
“Was Oz known for cheap bling?”
“And look at this.” She pushed her hair back, revealing a pair of appallingly gaudy earrings. “It is my hope that one day, I will be compared to a Fabergé egg. With the all of my luscious curves, I’m already the approximate shape.”
Jane surveyed the room. She had to admit, the food smelled great. At the U-shaped bar, she noticed a familiar face. It shouldn’t have surprised her to find Darius Pollard nursing a beer at this local watering hole. His business wasn’t more than a couple blocks away. She wasn’t sure if he’d noticed her, not that it mattered. She doubted he wanted to talk to her again.
When their Grain Belts arrived, Jane asked the server what kind of burger she recommended.
“A cheeseburger,” she said. “You can’t improve on perfection.”
“The pinnacle of burger-dom,” agreed Cordelia.
Jane ordered the cheeseburger, pickles, shredded head lettuce, raw onion, and a side of fries.
Cordelia dithered, finally settling on a plain burger, with sautéed mushrooms, barbecue sauce, avocado, a slice of tomato, bacon, extra pickles, and a fried egg. “Oh, and give me a side of mayo. And fries.”
As the server wrote down the order, she oozed disdain. Jane had to agree: Cordelia’s burger was a travesty of nature—but then, to each her own.
“So fill me in on what’s new,” said Cordelia, giving the beer a taste.
Jane spent the next few minutes detailing her visit to the bank, her talk with Scott Romilly, her brief encounter with Monty Mickler, her feeling that Sam’s father probably wouldn’t talk to her, and her conversation with Darius Pollard. She saved the best for last: the information she’d overheard in the mayor’s office from the officer who was now in charge of the investigation.
“That makes no sense,” said Cordelia. “Two bullets in each revolver, one spent, one intact, all blanks. You said they determined Sam’s skull was shattered by a bullet. So what went on? Why did those revolvers end up in his grave when they had nothing to do with his murder?”
It was the same question Jane had been asking. “I’m also curious about a ring they found under the back flap of Sam’s billfold. The officer didn’t have any information on it.”
“We should ask Emma,” said Cordelia, leaning back as the burgers appeared.
“Ketchup and mustard are against the wall next to the napkins,” said the server. “Either of you want another beer?”
“I do,” said Cordelia. “What else do you have? Any Surly?”
“Yeah, we got Furious.”
“Perfect,” said Cordelia, closing her eyes in ecstasy as she bit into a fry. “These are wondrous. Magical. Beyond fabulous.”
“She has a gift for understatement,” said Jane. “Make it two beers.”
“Two breathlessly, insanely awesome Surlys coming right up.”
As the server smirked and walked away, Jane said, “Your burger is six inches tall.”
“And…” said Cordelia, making a valiant attempt to pick it up. “Your point is?”
“Maybe you should cut it in half.”
As Cordelia sawed away and then tried to leverage half the pile toward her mouth, Jane continued, “I get the feeling that something really bad may have gone down at that keg party. The problem is, nobody seems to know what it was.”
“Or they don’t want to talk about it.”
In any investigation, there were always certain elements Jane felt might turn out to be vital, a door that would open onto the truth. Determining where to find the key to that door was the real battle.
“So, who are our primary suspects?” asked Cordelia, wiping her mouth on a napkin.
“Scott Romilly, for one.”
“Emma’s having dinner with him again tonight.”
“You mentioned that this morning. I was hoping you could talk her out of it.”
“No such luck. I sent her a text a little while ago telling her to call if she needs us.”
If Scott decided to do something crazy, it would hardly be enough. “What time was she meeting him?”
“Seven, I think. Anyway, keep going. Who else?”
“Well, Sam’s father. I haven’t figured out how to get him to talk to me.”
“Try a gun and a silk stocking.”
Jane glanced over at the bar. Darius Pollard looked away quickly. So he’d been watching her. “I keep going back to Dave Tamborsky. He walked right past Ida Beddemeyer’s grave the day before Sam disappeared. At the very least, he knew the grave was there and that it would be empty until later the following day.”
“He had someone with him, right?”
“Mickler, I’ll bet. Not that it proves anything. Anyway, as for Carli Gilbert, I haven’t had much of a chance to look into her death. I’m not even sure if it’s been officially ruled a homicide, but I’ll find out.” She wiped grease off her fingers.
“Seems like someone’s headed our way,” said Cordelia, picking up her beer glass. When Jane looked up, Darius was approaching the table.
“You got a minute?” he asked, placing his hands on the back of an empty chair.
“Sure?” she said.
He glanced at Cordelia, then back at her.
“This is my friend, Cordelia Thorn. She helps me with my investigations. Anything you say to me can be said in front of her.”
“Yeah? This is kind of … sensitive.”
“Not a problem,” said Cordelia. “Consider me a black box.”
He pulled out the chair and sat down. “Look,” he began somewhat nervously, “I need to tell you a few things. Maybe I should have done it this afternoon, but it didn’t feel right.”
“I’m glad it does now,” said Jane. She didn’t have her recorder with her. Not that it mattered. The noise level in the restaurant would have precluded using it.
He repositioned his baseball cap. “Okay, so before Sam died, you should know that he was in a battle with his dad. I don’t know the details, but I do know he no longer felt safe at home. I always wondered if his father was the one behind Sam’s disappearance. Anyway, the next thing is, there was definitely something bad going down with his brother, but, again, it was his father he was afraid of.”
Wouldn’t it be ironic, thought Jane, if the one Sam really needed to be afraid of was Scott?
“See, Sam had this ability to put things in boxes inside his mind and leave them there. He could act like nothing was wrong, everything was hearts and flowers, except it wasn’t. I don’t think he ever told anyone the entire story, what was really going on with him, certainly not me, but I know the guy was in pain. I wish I could say more, but I can’t.” He pulled his cap lower over his eyes. “Okay, next. The party at the farm. I don’t know if it had anything to do with Sam’s death, but you should know about it. So,” he said, twisting his hands together, “I got there that night around ten. I didn’t want to park where all the other cars were, so I pulled off into a field about thirty, forty yards from the house.
“There were lights strung up all over the yard. People were dancing, laughing, drinking, stuffing their faces with chips. A bunch of girls were in the kitchen heating up frozen pizzas. If I recall right, the keg was inside. There were empty cups all over the place. Someone had turned on a floodlight attached to the garage and a bunch of guys were playing hoops. A few people had sparklers and were running around in the dark, waving them. Couples were making out, some had walked away from the lights and were getting it on in the trees. I was the only black person there. Even though I did get a personal invite from Corey, I didn’t figure I’d stay long.
“So, like, I found a clean plastic cup and helped myself to a beer. I stood around listening to this one conversation for a while, taking it all in, and, after my third brew, I decided I’d had enough wild fun for the evening. I mean, it was a real downer for me. But that’s another story. When I got back to my car, I found Sam and Kurt Steiner sitting on the ground with their backs resting against the passenger-side door. We talked for a few minutes, and then Kurt said he should go find his date. But he didn’t leave. By then, my beer buzz was fading, and I was tired—I’d put in a long day at work, so I flopped on my back, just, you know, listening to them talk. Next thing I know, Sam was bending over me, telling me to get the hell up. Even though it was dark, I could see he had a young woman with him. I recognized her from school. She was crying, seemed pretty upset.
“‘What the hell happened?’ I asked. He said she’d been attacked. He wanted me to drive her home. Her clothes were dirty, and the front of her shirt was ripped. It seemed clear what had gone down. The only thing I didn’t know was who’d done it. On the way back to town, she said she didn’t want to talk. I figured I had to respect that. I dropped her off outside her house, waited to make sure she got in safely, and then went home. I assumed Sam would explain everything the next time I saw him, but he never did. I held my peace for a while, but I eventually said I hoped the girl—her name was Becca Hill—would go to the cops. The guy, whoever he was, needed to be arrested. Sam didn’t disagree, but he said she refused to talk to the police. It was her decision, he said. Nothing was gonna change her mind.”
“You have no idea who the attacker was?”
“None. All I know is that there were some weird vibes at the school that fall. Maybe it had something to do with Becca, maybe not. Maybe Sam’s death was tied to what happened, maybe it wasn’t. But I decided I owed it to Sam, after all these years of silence, to tell someone.”
“What happened to Becca after the party?” asked Cordelia.
“She pretty much acted like nothing had happened. Except she missed a lot of school that fall. And she looked sick, you know? She used to be sort of bubbly, but that changed. A few weeks after graduation, she left town.”
“Do her parents still live here?” asked Jane.
“No, they left, too.”
“Maybe she’ll show up at the reunion,” offered Cordelia.
“Wouldn’t that be something.” He appeared to think about it for a minute and then added, “Well, I said what I had to say. I better get home.”
“Thank you,” said Jane.
“Yeah.” He seemed like he wanted to add something more, but instead, he just said “Yeah,” again, then got up and walked away.