Authors: Katie Allen
“I’m fine,” Trevor gritted out, jerking away. He hated being fussed over. “It’s nothing.”
“Hold still.” Ignoring his protests, Pete held Trevor by the shoulders. “Tip your head down.”
With an exasperated sigh, Trevor obeyed. He figured the more he struggled, the longer this would take. Rhodes, Wash and the sheriff all crowded in to see. Trevor clenched his teeth.
“Looks like a pretty good lump but you’ll live,” the sheriff said, stepping back.
“Hardly any blood at all,” Wash said, sounding slightly disappointed at the lack of gore.
“See,” Trevor told Pete, pulling away. “I’m fine.”
Pete’s mouth was set. “I don’t like when you’re hurt.”
With a snort of laughter, Trevor said, “Me neither.”
“What’d you do?” Rhodes asked.
Shooting a look at Pete, Trevor bit back a laugh. “Um…a chunk of wood fell in the garage.”
“It just fell?” Sometimes Rhodes was a little too perceptive for his own good. 152
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“I, um, tripped and fell against the wall,” he muttered. His cheeks were so hot, he knew his face was bright red. “Dislodged the board.”
“But how…” Wash trailed off, staring at him for a second before a smile lit his face.
“Oh! Right. Got it. Tripped, fell, something hard and woody smacked you on the head.”
Rhodes’ cough sounded a little strangled.
“Exactly.” Trevor turned to look at the sheriff. “Weren’t you here to arrest these two or something?”
The sheriff shook his head. “Just talk to them, actually.”
“Do you want to come in?” Pete asked. “I have to warn you—there’s not much to sit on in there except camp chairs.”
“No, thanks—this shouldn’t take long.” The sheriff turned to Rhodes. “You have an interesting history, Officer.”
All humor, all emotion, disappeared from Rhodes face. “I’m not an officer anymore,” he said evenly.
“Yeah, I saw that.” The sheriff didn’t seem to be intimidated by the large, stonefaced man standing in front of him. Trevor was a little impressed. “Also saw why.”
“No you didn’t,” Wash interjected, shifting closer to Rhodes. His usually goodnatured face was set. The sheriff raised an eyebrow at him. “What you saw was a bunch of bullshit.”
“Wash,” Rhodes told him. “Enough.”
“What concerns me,” Osgood said, “is having what appears to be an emotionally unstable, trigger-happy ex-cop in my county, especially right across from a murder scene.”
“Emotionally unstable?” Pete scoffed. “Rhodes? He’s the most stable person I’ve ever met.”
Osgood didn’t respond. He just kept his gaze steady on Rhodes. Trevor’s hackles were definitely up. “What are you saying?”
The sheriff eyed him calmly. “Exactly what I said.”
Wash took a step toward him, his eyes narrow with fury, but Rhodes stopped him with a hand to the chest. “Are you accusing me of murdering Greg Lawson?” Rhodes’
voice was almost casual, as if he were asking the sheriff what time it was.
“No,” the sheriff said. “I don’t think you killed him. I’d feel more comfortable if you cut your vacation short and headed home as soon as possible though.”
Before Rhodes could speak, Pete snapped, “That’s too bad, Sheriff, since he’s not going anywhere. He’s staying right here as my guest for as long as he wants. If you don’t like that, you can just go fuck yourself.”
Osgood looked around the circle of set faces and gave a slow nod. “I’ll go do that then.” He took a few steps toward his car parked at the curb and then stopped and 153
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turned. “As much as I appreciate the help, I’d prefer you all stay out of this case from now on. Can’t have laymen disrupting the process, you understand.”
“Fine,” Pete said shortly. The sheriff gave him another nod and walked to his car. The four of them watched silently as he drove away.
“Going for a run,” Rhodes told them as he headed into the house.
“Shit,” muttered Wash, watching him go. “I’ll be scraping him off the sidewalk in a couple hours.”
Pete looked at him, confused.
“He’ll run ’til he’s about to drop and then go another five miles. Usually he ends up in the next state,” Wash explained, still staring at the front door. “I’ll see if I can talk to him.” He climbed the porch steps and disappeared inside.
“What a fuckwad that sheriff turned out to be,” Trevor growled. Pete nodded. “Know what we should do now?”
“What?”
The corner of Pete’s mouth twitched. “I have a few gardening questions.”
Trevor stared at him. “What?”
“Who do I know who knows about gardening?” He tapped his lips as if deep in thought.
Realization struck Trevor. He grinned. “Abby! You’re going to interview Abby.”
“Interview?” Pete shook his head. “Never. The sheriff specifically said to stay out of this case. I’m just going to ask her a few gardening questions.”
“And if she happens to talk about Greg’s death…?” Trevor couldn’t stop smiling. Pete was awesome.
“Sometimes the brutal murder of a neighbor has a way of coming up in conversation,” Pete said innocently. “Coming?”
“Fuck yeah.” Trevor fell in next to him and they headed across the street.
“Wouldn’t miss this.”
* * * * *
They found Abby in her backyard garden, snapping heads off a bushy, redflowered plant.
“Don’t like the red ones?” Pete teased and she jerked upright, her eyes wide.
“Oh!” She rested a gloved hand over her heart. “You startled me.”
“Sorry,” Trevor said, smiling at her. “Thought we’d see how your garden was coming.”
“Sure,” she agreed, although her smile looked forced. “I was just taking the dead blooms off this salvia.”
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“Are you okay?” Pete asked, taking a seat on a small concrete bench. “You seem a little anxious.”
Abby took up her beheading again, her eyes focused firmly on the plant. “I’m fine.”
“It’s understandable,” Pete told her. “I mean, our neighbor was killed. We’d just met him but it must be really hard for you to have lost a friend.”
She shook her head. “He wasn’t really a friend—not a close one, at least.”
“Terrance must be pretty torn up about it though,” Trevor interjected, pretending to inspect a yellow pepper hanging heavily on a plant.
“Why do you say that?” Abby stiffened, her head swiveling to look at him.
Should I be doing this?
Trevor wondered. He had no interrogation experience. Shooting Pete a quick questioning glace, he received a slight nod in return. “You know. Because of their…close relationship.”
Abby was staring at him now, her gardening forgotten. “What relationship? They didn’t have a relationship,” she told him. “Where did you hear that?”
“I can’t really remember who mentioned it.” Trevor pretended to think, glancing over at Pete, who shrugged. “Someone at the barbeque? Or maybe it was the sheriff?”
“People tell him things,” Pete said to Abby, sending Trevor a besotted smile. Trevor resisted the urge to flip him off. “He has one of those faces.”
“Well, whoever it was lied.” Her fingers gripped a stem and twisted, snapping off another blossom. “Terrance had nothing to do with Greg.”
“Sounds like that was probably smart,” Pete told her. “From everything we’ve heard about Greg, seems like he could be a troublemaker.”
She shrugged, moving over to yank a yellow leaf off a tomato plant. “I wouldn’t know,” she said evenly. “I told you, I didn’t really associate with him.”
“I couldn’t believe the sheriff asked for our alibis,” Trevor said, deciding to change the subject. “I’ve never been asked for an alibi before.”
“Good thing we were together when he was murdered.” Pete picked up the interrogation ball and ran with it. “I’d hate to be the one home alone watching T.V.”
Her eyes flickered and then she bent to pull out a weed.
“I suppose you and Terrance were together that night,” Pete said casually.
“Yes,” she confirmed. “Terrance was watching a movie and I was working out here. If I look away for two minutes, this garden gets wild on me.”
“Oh, so you weren’t together?” Trevor tried to keep how interesting he found this information out of his voice.
“I can see him from here,” Abby explained, gesturing toward a window. Despite some reflection on the glass, Trevor could see into the room, noting the back of a sofa and a flat-screen T.V. mounted on the far wall.
“That’s good you can vouch for each other,” Pete told her. “Gets the sheriff off your back, at least.”
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“Why would the sheriff be on my back?” she asked a small yellow squash.
“Hasn’t he been here to question you?” Pete asked. “We were stuck in a little room at his office for hours as he asked us questions.”
“No,” she said slowly, still staring at the vegetable. “I just gave my information to one of the deputies. I haven’t talked to the sheriff at all.”
Pete stood and stretched. “Guess we were first then. You’re busy—we’ll leave you to your gardening.”
“Thanks for talking to us,” Trevor added, following Pete out of her backyard. “See you later, neighbor!”
“Okay, Mr. Rogers,” Pete murmured under his breath as they cut between Abby’s and Len’s houses. Trevor gave him an elbow to the gut. Pete grunted and then laughed.
“She was lying.” The voice came from behind them.
Whirling around, Pete shoved Trevor behind him, only to relax when they saw the whisperer was just Danny.
“You scared the sh— Stuffing out of me, kid,” Pete growled. “Were you lurking again?” The boy shrugged in what may or may not have been an apologetic way.
“What do you mean she was lying?” Trevor asked. The three of them crossed the road and climbed Pete’s porch steps. The two men settled on either end of the top step. Danny hesitated a moment before taking a seat between them.
“She just was,” Danny said.
“About what?” Pete met Trevor’s gaze over the boy’s head and Trevor stifled a laugh at his exasperated expression. Getting a straight answer out of the kid was never easy.
“Being in the garden.”
“When Greg was killed, you mean?” Pete asked.
“Yep.”
Trevor sighed silently. Obviously they were going to have to pull the information out of the kid, piece by piece. “How do you know?”
“I can see her yard from my room,” Danny explained. “Through the window behind my computer. I saw her at, like, eight but then she left.”
“She left?” Pete repeated. “Did you see where she went?”
Danny shook his head. “I just looked up and she was gone. I didn’t see her come back.”
“How long were you working on your computer?”
“’Til I heard a scream.”
This is interesting,
Trevor thought, once more meeting Pete’s eyes over Danny’s head.
“So how’s it going, Danny?” Trevor asked, breaking the short silence. 156
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He shrugged again. “Okay, I guess.”
“How’s your dad?” Pete asked.
Danny frowned at the toes of his athletic shoes. “Dunno. Acting weird. What’d you guys say to him last night?
“That he should talk to you,” Pete said.
“He tell you…about me?”
“That you’re gay?” Trevor asked.
Danny’s nod wasn’t much of one, more of a twitch of his head combined with a shrug as he continued to stare at his feet.
“Yeah,” Pete said, watching the kid closely. “He told us.”
The edges of Danny’s ears flared hot and red. “It’s none of his fucking business.”
“Yes and no,” Pete told him. “It is because it’s freaking you out and, as your dad, it’s his responsibility to help you out with whatever’s going on with you. On the other hand, your sexuality is no one else’s business except your own. Get used to people sticking their noses in though. That doesn’t stop with family members and it sure doesn’t stop when you reach eighteen.” He paused. “And watch your language.”
Danny didn’t seem to know what to say to any of that. He just shrugged and picked at a seam in his shoe.
“Is your hair different?” Trevor asked him, studying the top of the kid’s head. The black dye had faded to a…less-black dye.
“Yeah.” Danny snuck a quick glance at him. “I washed it a bunch of times last night.”
“Going blond?” Pete asked, a small, quickly hidden smile touching his mouth.
“Yeah.” Danny reached up as if to touch his hair and then snatched his hand down. Trevor looked back and forth between the two, feeling as if he were missing something. “It’ll look nice blond,” he said. “You have a boyfriend?”
The color rushed back into Danny’s face as he shook his head. “I don’t know anyone else who’s…” He waved a hand to replace the missing word.
“Gay?” Trevor held back a laugh. “What are we, chopped gay liver? Kid, you live on the gayest street in the world. I think there must be something in the water.”
“No.” Danny shook his head. “I meant, I don’t know anyone who’s gay and not…
old
.”
Pete and Trevor’s eyes met yet again. “Uh-huh,” Pete said, a quiver of laughter touching his voice.
“Let me tell you something, Danny,” Trevor said, tossing an arm around his shoulders. “You know lots of kids who are gay. You just don’t know any kids your age who are gay and
out
.”
“So how do I figure out which ones are gay without getting my ass kicked?” Danny asked, meeting Trevor’s eyes straight on.
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“Isn’t that the million-dollar question,” Pete muttered.
“Well…” Trevor floundered. He hadn’t dated guys in high school—he’d just privately crushed on them. “You get to know them, I guess. Look for the signals that show someone’s interested in you.”
“If you come out, they’ll come to you,” Pete offered.
Danny stared at him as if he’d just suggested going to school naked. “Come out? In Honeysuckle? No fucking way!”
“You have to decide what’s better for you,” Pete told him. “Hiding who you are for the next four years or dealing with the fallout of everyone knowing you’re gay.”
“The first one,” Danny said without hesitation. “Definitely.”
Len stepped out of his house, closing the door behind him. When he saw the three of them, he stopped and stared for a few moments.