18. Justice for Brittanie

EIGHTEEN

Justice for Brittanie

“Don’t look scared, I’m not going to talk about Kennedy,” she said as encouragement for him to shake her hand.

It wasn’t much, but he shook her hand, and he found it interesting she knew but didn’t care, someone had warned him about her.

“You’re the Fed,” she declared when he let her go.

“And you own the holiday store.”

“Cin told you about me, eh?”

She seemed proud.

So he felt safe to nod.

“So, you know, the town’s buzzing,” she informed him.

“I’ve heard a few things,” he replied.

Apparently, that was her indication to launch in, because that was what she did.

“I didn’t know her, my granddaughter did, and she said she could be a bitch.”

She stopped speaking and put her hands up in a Don’t Shoot! gesture, maybe due to his expression, since he knew she was talking about Brittanie.

“Her words. Not mine,” she continued. “I asked my girl why. She said, ‘She’s a maneater, Gran.’ I asked, ‘What in the dickens does that mean?’ She said, ‘She steals people’s boyfriends. That’s not right.’ So I said, ‘You mean, she’s providing a public service.’ And she was all flustered. ‘What do you mean, Gran!’ And I was all, ‘Well, if your man’s head is turned by a pretty face, then you best be knowing that while he’s your boyfriend, and not later. So it seems to me she’s helping the female population by showing these boys for who they are before a girl gets her heart broken.’ She saw the wisdom of that, I think.”

“That’s an interesting take,” he said.

And it was.

“I got a lot of those,” she told him something he already knew. “You a Christmas person?”

“Not in September.”

She waved a hand in front of her face. “Oh, don’t worry. I’ve moved the Labor Day stock out, and the fall and Halloween stock in. It’s not all Christmas all the time.”

Her green and red and bow-festooned outfit said different.

“Good to know.”

“I don’t know Ezra either. I just know Sherri. She’s a holiday person.”

That tracked.

“Always thought she could do better, though,” Kimmy continued. “No clue why. Now I know.”

He gave no indication what she said interested him, and asked casually, “You know what?”

“That girl? Murdered at the motel?” She gave an impressive fake shiver.

“He’s only a person of interest,” Rus lied.

“He did it,” she declared.

He agreed with her assessment.

Nevertheless.

“It wouldn’t be good for anyone in this town to sidestep due process.”

“Yeah, you gotta worry about that, but I can have whatever opinion I want,” Kimmy retorted. “I don’t know him, but it’s a small town. I’ve seen him. He’s a bum wearing nice clothes because his wife can afford them. He checks women out when Sherri’s not paying attention. But he doesn’t bother to hide it when she’s not around. I mean, when are men gonna learn? Bobby offed himself in his garage, for heaven’s sake.”

“Bobby?”

“Lana’s dead husband. Not gonna say rest in peace for that guy. I’ve seen more of that man than is healthy.” She dug into her pocket, presumably from what she said next, for her phone. “You seen the videos?”

He knew exactly what she was talking about now, and as such, his voice sounded clogged when he answered, “Yes.”

She read his tone. “Mm-hm, you bet. Anyway.” She stood. “I need a coffee. I need a brownie. And I need to open my shop. I open late on Sundays.”

“Smart to give yourself a day to sleep in.”

“Agreed. Good luck to you, Agent.”

“Thanks, Kimmy.”

She wandered into the coffeehouse.

Rus took a sip of his drink, not knowing whether he felt ambushed or privileged.

He looked up this time before she got too close.

“Agent,” she said.

She was tall. She was attractive. She knew it.

She reminded him of Lucinda, but her edge was cool and cutting, where beyond the veil of Lucinda’s, there was nothing but warmth. The obstacles you faced to get to the heart of this woman were barbed. The ones to Lucinda’s were clever. You had to take time and put effort into figuring out how to maneuver them, but they didn’t cause pain along the way.

“Hello,” he greeted.

“May I sit?”

“Sure.”

Although it wasn’t exactly welcoming, she took his invitation and sat, carefully aiming her very nice ass to the seat while holding her takeaway coffee.

“I’m Lana,” she introduced.

He’d just heard her name.

She explained how he knew her even though he already knew.

“I’m Malorie’s stepmother. Malorie Graham.”

Dead girl number two for Ray Andrews.

And Lana was the ringleader of the posse of wives who’d obliterated their husbands.

He sat up straighter, saying, “Nice to meet you, Lana.”

“I don’t want to take up a lot of your time, but I feel you should know, there are rumblings. Some people are demanding a town council meeting where they want to force Harry to explain what’s going on with what happened to that woman at the motel.”

Shit.

“Thanks for telling me.”

“I understand you all have to do what you have to do how you have to do it. I mean, I know much more than others how there’s a certain way to go about these things. But the town has some post-traumatic stress. That isn’t on Harry. It’s on Dern. Our last sheriff.”

“Right.”

“Still, that kind of thing doesn’t fade away. It was only about a year ago that…”

She didn’t finish.

“I know,” he said low.

She took a breath into her nose, and it came off as a supercilious sniff, but he knew it wasn’t.

She was reliving something hideous, talking to him.

Still, she was taking the time to do it and it said a lot about her.

“If they call a meeting, I’ll come and explain that it isn’t exactly in that woman’s best interest for the police to share every little thing they’re doing. I don’t know if it will help. We have a lot of characters in this town. But most people are normal. Rational. They’ll listen to logic and back down.”

“That’s good to know.”

“Also, what Ellen did is not okay.”

Right then.

She was taking the time to address all of it.

And he wondered if Lucinda was wrong for once, because Lana knowing what Ellen did just yesterday morning wouldn’t suggest she was out of that group.

“They were very angry when they found out about the murder,” she carried on. “Ellen is more…” She searched for a word. “Militant than the others. They heard about what happened to Brittanie Iverson, and obviously, as anyone would be, they were shaken.”

It seemed he now had the opportunity to learn more about this coven, and Rus didn’t squander opportunities.

“I’ve been hearing a lot about your friends,” he noted leadingly.

She was not a woman to be led.

“Wendy is my friend,” she corrected. “And I like some of the others quite a bit.”

In other words, not all of them.

More words than that, she and Wendy talk, but she’s not one of them.

“There’s a reason, or many of them, why they’re all where they are,” she shared. “You’ll never understand because you are who you are.”

“A man,” Rus deduced.

She tipped her head to the side in a, clearly.

To return her favor, but more, to win her trust because she was a woman you wanted on your side, he said, “I’m here right now to get a bead on this town, the town where Brittanie lived, and maybe where her killer lives. And I’m here to take a break. I’ve made some decisions based on information and gut. I’ve been immersing myself in Brittanie’s life. I need to shake it off. I need to hit it tomorrow with clear eyes and a fresh perspective.”

“You don’t have to explain to me.”

“Yes, Lana, I do, and since you’re one of the few people in this town who deserves that explanation, you know why I do,” he said quietly.

She looked away.

And the name hung between them.

Malorie.

“The town is going to do what towns do,” he told her. “Wendy and her friends are going to do what they do. This makes no difference to me. I know what I need to do, and I’m going to do that no matter what anyone else thinks I should be doing.”

She returned her attention to him. “They’re harmless. Wendy and her friends. They’ve been hurt. Badly. Misery loves company, for some.”

He nodded even though he wasn’t sure he believed her.

Then again, Lucinda said something about how groups of women were intimidating, even if they were just hanging out together.

In the past, groups of women wore white and burned bras for rights, and hashtagged their solidarity by announcing their membership in a club they’d been given no choice but to belong to.

Men who gathered had put on hoods and burned crosses, and cut a swath of terror through entire states. And that shit still hadn’t gone away, with more male collectives pulling up gaiters and putting on khakis and taking to the streets to claim rights they already had in abundance.

Maybe it was Rus, who lived the ideals of a father who wanted to belong to something that gave more meaning to life, who was hanging his damage on people who didn’t deserve it.

Then again, the word “militant” never gave him warm feelings.

“I won’t judge the whole by the one I encountered,” he promised her.

She nodded, lifted her coffee to him in salute, and said, “I hope you find justice for Brittanie soon.”

With that, she got up and strutted away.

But he agreed with her.

He hoped so too.

He finished his coffee leisurely, because so far, it’d been useful sitting out on the sidewalk in Misted Pines.

He had some people walk by who paid attention to him, dipped chins or even said hello.

But Kimmy and Lana were his only new acquaintances.

So when he was done with his coffee, he went in and bought a few things to have in his room should he get peckish and to take to the Bohannan’s.

He then strolled down the street to buy some flowers for his hostess that night, Delphine.