Bad Memory Page 8
“What’s she like now?” Patty asked suddenly.
“Who?”
“Rue Hunter. You said you met with her. What were your impressions of her?”
Jessica considered the question for a moment before answering.
“Quite a complex character,” she said. “I spoke to her for around an hour, and in that time, I found her to be articulate, humorous, erratic, unsettling. Overall, I’d say intelligent but emotionally stunted. I don’t think she’s been unaffected by life in prison.”
“How about manipulative?” Patty asked pointedly.
Jessica thought of Rue Hunter’s parting comment, her own decision to sign Rose Dalton’s contract as soon as the visit was over.
“Yes, I suppose she is.”
“Will you be at the execution?”
“No,” Jessica said. “Will you?”
Patty Meeks smiled coldly.
“Oh yes,” she said. “I’ve been waiting for this day for more than thirty years. Wild horses wouldn’t keep me away. The only thing that’d make me happier is if they let me stick the needle in her myself.”
They both fell silent. Jessica could hear a clock ticking somewhere in the house.
“Do you mind me asking what you remember about that night?” she asked eventually. “The events of the evening as you recall them?”
Patty Meeks folded her hands onto her lap and stared at them. Then she looked up at Jessica and nodded. When she spoke, her voice was surprisingly strong.
“Megan was supposed to be going to a party. She’d mentioned it a few days earlier, asked if it would be okay to go with Rue and Lucas. The party was being held at the home of a girl from school. I knew the girl’s parents, so I told Megan it would be fine to go along for a while so long as she was home by midnight, which was an hour later than her usual curfew. Lucas picked her up around eight thirty. He didn’t come to the door or come inside. Just blasted the horn once, because they were picking up Rue next, and they were in a rush to get to the party. I remember Megan seemed excited, maybe a little edgy. Her cheeks were flushed, and she looked so pretty. It was summer, so she had a nice tan. She was wearing white jeans and a black silk blouse and high heels. A little more makeup than usual.”
Patty inclined her head toward the sitting room’s large front window.
“I watched from that window right there. She ran across the yard toward the car. Then she turned and gave me a wave before getting into the passenger side. It was the last time I saw my daughter alive.”
“When did you realize something was wrong?”
“When Megan wasn’t home by half past midnight, I started to worry. Then I phoned Lucas and Rue’s parents. Steve and Heather James hadn’t heard from the kids all night, but they weren’t too worried. Barb Hunter wasn’t at home—no big surprise there. I phoned the house where the party was taking place, but no one had seen Megan or Rue or Lucas the entire evening. Then I called the sheriff’s station. I paced the floor, and I prayed to God, and I tried to convince myself Megan was absolutely fine. That she’d gone to some other party, had a little too much to drink, lost track of time. Sometime later, there was a knock on the door. When I opened it and saw the looks on Charlie Holten’s and Pat McDonagh’s faces, I knew Megan wasn’t fine. They didn’t have to say a word. I already knew my little girl was dead.”
Jessica had been the one who’d found Tony’s body, and it was something she’d never gotten over. Still, she could only imagine what that moment must have been like for Patty Meeks. That knock on the door.
“When did you find out about Rue Hunter’s arrest?” she asked.
“The following day,” Patty said. “Sheriff Holten was convinced she was guilty as soon as they found the knife. Hours before she confessed. I had no reason to disagree with him.”
“You’d known Rue for years, since she was a little girl. She and Megan had been friends for a long time. Did you really believe she was capable of murder?”
“Yes, I did,” Patty said matter-of-factly. “I didn’t approve of their friendship, and I certainly didn’t approve of the way Barb Hunter raised her kids. I never let Megan stay over at that house on Perry Street. Not once. Any sleepovers the girls had took place right here in this house. Don’t get me wrong—I had no problem with Rue to begin with, even though I never liked her mother. As a little girl, she was sweet and polite. Then things changed. As she got older, she became sullen, withdrawn, downright odd at times. By the time she was a teenager, she was wild. Drinking, taking drugs, shoplifting. I know I was too strict with Megan, but I was terrified she’d wind up like Rue. I told her a dozen times I didn’t want her being friends with Rue Hunter anymore, but Megan would get upset, and I’d always give in.”
“I didn’t realize Rue had a history of shoplifting,” Jessica said. “Rose Dalton says she was accused of taking some items from Megan and Lucas the night they died. What was stolen?”
“Some cash and jewelry,” Patty said. “Megan didn’t have much money on her, probably around twenty bucks. Lucas had more, according to Steve and Heather, maybe fifty or sixty dollars. Both their wallets were empty when their bodies were found. Lucas’s watch was also gone. It was a gift from his parents for his eighteenth birthday. A big, heavy gold thing. Very expensive. I remember noticing when Megan left the house she was wearing her diamond-and-emerald bracelet. It was also missing and also worth a lot of money.”
“A gift for her sweet sixteenth?” Jessica asked.
Unlike her friends, Megan had not yet celebrated her eighteenth birthday. Never would. Forever seventeen.
Patty shook her head. “No, it was originally a gift from Megan’s father to myself for my own eighteenth birthday. Megan always liked it, so I passed it on to her once she was old enough to look after it.”
“Allan, your partner, he was Megan’s father? He bought the bracelet?”
“No, I met Allan several years after I lost Megan. Her father wasn’t . . . around much when she was growing up.”
“Did he know what happened to her?”
“Yes.”
“Will he be at the execution?”
“No.”
Another puff of scented air.
“Do you believe Rue Hunter stole those items?” Jessica asked. “They were never recovered.”
“Yes, I do. I believe that’s why she murdered them. I think Rue Hunter was probably very high on drugs and alcohol that night and wanted cash to buy some more. And, when Megan and Lucas refused to give her the money, she killed them and took it anyway.”
“You don’t think the motive for the murders was Megan and Lucas’s relationship? It sounds like the police think the attack was sparked by jealousy, and the theft was simply opportune.”
“My daughter wasn’t allowed to date,” Patty said. “I fell pregnant with Megan when I was seventeen, and I didn’t want her to make the same mistakes as I did. Not that I ever regretted having Megan, not for a single minute. But I wanted more for my daughter. I wanted her to go to college and have a career and see the world. There was no relationship with Lucas James.”
“It sounds like Megan lied about the party,” Jessica said gently. “Maybe she lied about Lucas being her boyfriend too? Especially as he was dating Rue at the time.”
“I was young myself once, you know,” Patty said with a smile. “Was still young when Megan was a teenager. I remember exactly what it was like to be crazy about a guy. All those hours spent daydreaming, listening to romantic songs, suddenly making more of an effort with your appearance. I saw all the signs with Megan. I also saw her with Lucas plenty of times, and there was no change whatsoever in how they acted around each other in the weeks before they died.”
“What are you saying?”
Patty Meeks smiled sadly.
“What I’m saying is, yes, Megan was in love with someone. But I don’t believe for a minute she was in love with Lucas James, and I don’t believe she was dating him behind Rue Hunter’s back.”
12
Jessica sat behind the wheel of the truck, yellow legal pad on her lap, scribbling notes from the conversation with Patty Meeks. Trying to get down on paper the key points before exhaustion wiped them from her memory.
When she looked at what she’d written, she realized she had more questions than answers. She slid the pad and pen into the bag sitting on the passenger seat, put the truck into drive, and headed for home. The question that occupied her thoughts the most for the duration of the short journey was the true nature of Megan and Lucas’s relationship.
Patty Meeks struck Jessica as a woman who had been too overprotective of her daughter, who had treated Megan as though she was younger than her seventeen years. She wasn’t allowed to date. She had an eleven p.m. curfew. She was expected to find a pay phone and call home if she was going to be out late. When she thought about it, Jessica wasn’t surprised the woman didn’t want to accept the girl had been dating Lucas.
Not only would Megan have been defying her mother by having a boyfriend; she would also have been lying to her best friend and hooking up with someone else’s guy. A hell of a lot of deception for anyone, let alone a teenager who had probably just started dating. Then there was the visit to Devil’s Drop. Jessica knew from personal experience that kids didn’t always go to make-out spots just to make out—sometimes kissing led to a whole lot more. Maybe Patty Meeks couldn’t accept the fact her daughter was more grown up than she’d wanted to believe.
But, if Patty Meeks’s take on things was right, it threw up a whole bunch of other questions. Who was the guy Megan had been mooning over for weeks? Were they a couple? And what was she doing in the back seat of a car at Devil’s Drop with Lucas James instead of her boyfriend?
Jessica rubbed her eyes. A headache was starting to bloom right behind her eyeballs, and she knew she was badly in need of some proper sleep after her uncomfortable night spent in Pryce’s parking garage. As she turned onto her street, her heart sank as she realized a much bigger headache was waiting for her after spotting a familiar truck parked by the curb.
It was a dirty two-tone turquoise-and-cream Ford Ranger. Three-tone if you counted the rust patches holding it together. Ninety-two model, rear wheel hubcap missing.
Michelle Foster’s daddy’s truck.
Jessica had last seen the vehicle through a zoom lens out on a patch of wasteland on the edge of town. A load of illicit booze had been piled up high on its flatbed, and teenagers had crowded round placing orders. The truck and its contents had been the subject of a dozen photos slipped inside a brown envelope and stuffed into Jed Lockerman’s mailbox Friday night.
“Shit,” Jessica muttered under her breath.
She passed the Ford and turned into the driveway of a one-story concrete house with crazy paving siding. There was a two-car garage to one side of the property and a vintage Airstream trailer mounted on bricks on the other. The isolated patch of land, and everything on it, was owned by a woman by the name of Sylvia Sugarman, who had been Jessica’s landlord for the best part of six months now.
When she’d first landed in Hundred Acres, Jessica had quickly realized a long-term stay at the Acres Motel wasn’t going to happen after spending a few nights there. The place was so bad even the cockroaches had moved out. Unfortunately, it was the only motel in town.
She remembered Dylan telling her once about plans to build a big casino and hotel complex in Hundred Acres back in the eighties. Lucky by Lucchese had been the brainchild of a local businessman and would offer Angelenos all the glamour and fun of Sin City, without the long drive there and back across state lines. The project had fallen through, and visitors to the town ever since had been stuck with the Acres Motel instead.
When Jessica had been looking for a place to stay, committing to a rental on a house had felt too permanent, so Sylvia Sugarman’s trailer had been the ideal compromise. The rent was cheap, it had all the space she needed, and, even though the wheels were long gone, Jessica liked what it had once represented. A mobile home designed with people, like her, in mind who didn’t want to stay in one place for too long.
She parked in front of the garage and walked across the front yard, rounded the side of the house to where her own humble dwelling stood, and readied herself for yet another fight. It was shaping up to be quite a weekend.
Michelle was pacing back and forth in front of the trailer. Or at least she was pacing as much as anyone can pace on sunbaked mud while wearing a pair of acrylic-heeled mules and spray-on pants. A fulsome cleavage threatening to spill out of a low V-neck tee and too-black hair made longer and thicker by cheap clip-on extensions completed the look. Kim Kardashian after falling on hard times, Jessica thought.
The woman was sucking furiously on some sort of plastic vaping device, plumes of smoke streaming from her mouth and nostrils. The vape cloud drifted on the breeze toward Jessica as she approached the trailer. The smell was sweet and cloying, like cotton candy. The opposite of the sour expression on Michelle Foster’s face. She stopped pacing and faced Jessica, one hand on her hip, the other stabbing the vaping device in her direction.
“I’ve been looking for you.”
“Something I can do for you, Michelle?”
Jessica rummaged in her bag for the key to the trailer.
“You can explain why you got me fired from the liquor store.”
Jessica sighed. She walked past the woman and inserted the key in the lock and opened the door. Turned to face Michelle.
“I didn’t get you fired. You were stealing booze from your boss. That’s why you got fired.”
“It was a few lousy extra bucks,” Michelle yelled. “A side hustle, no big deal. Everyone knew about it. Even Dylan and his daddy knew about it. But you had to ruin it for everyone, didn’t you?”
“Jed Lockerman didn’t know about it,” Jessica pointed out. “He was losing money, and he didn’t know why. He paid me to look into it, and that’s what I did. It was a lot more than a few bucks, and you only have yourself to blame for getting fired.”
Michelle shook her head in disbelief. “After what you did to me? I should be making your life hell. Not the other way around.”
“So that’s what this is really all about? You’re still pissed about Dylan?” Jessica could feel herself becoming even more irritated. All she wanted was to climb into bed, go to sleep, and shut out the rest of the world for a few hours. Especially Michelle Foster. “You guys broke up before I even arrived in town. And Dylan said there was no chance of you getting back together anyway. You really need to move on, Michelle.”
Jessica’s neck snapped back suddenly, and her head connected hard with the side of the trailer, the blow from Michelle so rapid she didn’t even register it happening until a searing pain shot through the base of her skull. Then Michelle’s hand was around her throat, pinning her against the Airstream, acrylic nails pinching the delicate skin. Michelle’s face was an inch from Jessica’s own. Saliva foamed in the corners of her mouth; her breath was hot and fast and heavy. Not cotton candy, Jessica decided. Something fruity and sickly. Cherry or strawberry.
“You better watch that smart mouth, you little bitch,” Michelle hissed. “Or someone might just shut you up permanently.”
Jessica’s headache had shot up from blooming to blazing in the space of five seconds, and she was light headed from the lack of oxygen reaching her brain. She clawed at the hand around her throat while trying to push Michelle off her. The woman had a few inches and at least ten pounds on her, and Jessica was no match for her physically. She fumbled under her T-shirt, pulled her Baby Glock from her waistband, and held it up. Not pointing it at Michelle, but making sure it was in her line of sight.
“Take your fucking hands off me,” she gasped.
Michelle looked at the gun and let out a short, harsh laugh, but she removed her hand from Jessica’s throat and took a few steps back.
“You have no idea who you’re messing with, do you?” the other woman asked.
&nb
sp; Jessica sucked in fresh air, felt her head begin to clear, her breathing return to normal.
“Oh, I’ve got a pretty good idea,” she said. “A grown woman who acts like she’s still in junior high.”
When Jessica had first hooked up with Dylan, there had been a few petty incidents she’d had to deal with. Trash dumped outside her front door, the word whore scrawled in scarlet lipstick across her windshield, calls to her cell phone in the middle of the night. Stupid, childish stuff that she’d known Michelle Foster had been responsible for. It had stopped after a few weeks, but Jessica had a feeling the liquor store business had just reignited the feud, and then some.
Michelle smiled thinly. “That was just for starters.”
“I’m not interested in your stupid games, Michelle,” Jessica said. “Turn around and walk away now. If you don’t, I might just be tempted to put a bullet through each of those plastic shoes. Then you won’t be walking anywhere for months.”
“You’re not the only one with a gun, you know,” Michelle said.
Then she turned and stalked toward her daddy’s Ford Ranger, the acrylic mules slapping loudly against the hard mud. Jessica watched as Michelle climbed behind the wheel and turned the key in the ignition. Heard the engine cough and splutter, before catching and rumbling noisily. She waited until the truck drove off, leaving a cloud of dirty fumes in its wake. Then Jessica picked up her bag from the ground, where it had fallen during the altercation, and wearily climbed the two steps into the trailer.
Once inside, she locked the door, pulled down all the window shades, stripped off her clothes, and left them where they fell on the floor. She climbed into bed with a bottle of Scotch that Dylan had bought for her a few weeks earlier.
She wondered, as she drank what was left of the bottle, if it had been purchased from the back of Michelle Foster’s daddy’s truck.