Lake of Tears (19 page)

His question stopped Claire. Usually she had a questioning all thought out, but this was rather informal. They weren’t charging him with anything, yet. “She dropped it in a friend’s car.”

“Whose?” Terry asked, dropping the ring back in the bag.

“What would you have done if Tammy Lee had left you for Andrew?”

“I’d have killed them both.”

Andrew roused slowly as he heard some music coming from next to the bed. At first he thought it was the clock radio alarm waking him for work, but then he remembered he was on leave. He realized it was his phone in time to grab it and mumble, “Hello,” before it went to voice mail.

“Stick-man, Dougie here.”

“Doug, wha’ time is it?”

“I dunno. Late, or early.”

“What’s up? You coming my way?”

“Yeah, just wondering if we could hook up tomorrow.”

“Yeah, that’d be perfect.” Andrew thought quickly. He didn’t want Doug to come to his parents’ house, not until he was sure that he wasn’t going to be too crazy. “You know where Fort St. Antoine is?”

“I already told you I’ve been doing my recon. Saw that sweetheart of yours.”

“What’re you talking about?” Andrew thought of Meg.

“That Tammy Lee. She is one stacked woman. Feisty, too.”

“When did you see her?”

“I don’t remember exactly. Sometime last week. Before I came to my grandma’s. I was getting pretty tired. Things kinda all mix together in my mind.”

Andrew didn’t want to scare him off, so he decided not to ask him anything more about Tammy Lee. He needed to get Doug, to meet him. That was what was important now. When he was face to face with him, he could ask him if anything happened to Tammy Lee or his grandmother.

“Sure. Well, there’s a bar, the Fort, right on the corner of Highway 35 and Main Street. I’ll meet you there. What time can you be there?”

“I’m probably going to sleep in, and I’m still a ways away. Haven’t been sleeping that good. Let’s say around eight tomorrow night.”

“Where’ve you been?”

“Around.”

Andrew thought about all Doug wasn’t saying. “Any place in particular?”

“I stopped off to visit my grandma.”

“Oh, yeah. How’s she doing?”

“Not so good. She’s got that cancer pretty bad. But I think she was happy to see me.”

Andrew just couldn’t bring himself to give Doug the news of his grandmother’s death over the phone. He knew Doug had been close to her. Plus, he wanted to see his face when he told him. He needed to know if Doug already knew about the death. “That’s good. See you at eight.”

When Amy walked into the bar, she realized she hadn’t been there in quite a while. She guessed that’s what happened when you settled down and didn’t need to go trolling the local haunts to find some guy. Looking around at the blue air, the rumpled hair, the hunting jackets and baseball caps, the sagging shoulders of the men lined up at the bar, she was so happy she didn’t need to visit very often.

She was still in her uniform, so she got the stares and then the quick looks away. All of the men probably had something in their past they weren’t proud of, some bill they hadn’t paid, some driving violation they hoped no one had seen.

There was a stool open in the middle of the pack and she walked over, sat down and ordered a Leinie on tap. “I’m off duty,” she explained to the bartender.

“It’s okay with me,” he said. “On the house.” He set it down in front of her.

She slid a couple bucks across the bar—he could use them to pay for the beer or as a tip, didn’t matter to her. “You know Terry Whitman?”

Bartender scratched his head. “Terry? Short guy? Works for the railroad?”

“That’s the one.”

“I’ve served him. Not much of a talker. Comes in, has a few brewskis after work, then he leaves.”

“Anyone here a friend of his?”

Bartender looked up and down the bar, shaking his head, then he looked back to a booth and then pointed. “That guy knows him. I think they work together.”

Amy walked over to the booth. A man with steel-gray hair cut short and a weathered face looked up at her without turning his head. He had both hands around his beer glass. “You looking for me?” he asked.

“Not really,” she said to reassure him. Then, without waiting to be asked, she sat down across from him. “Not you. I’m wondering what you can tell me about Terry Whitman.”

“Not much. Cocky guy. Does his job. Don’t know him that well.” He lowered his head to take a sip of beer, barely lifting the glass up. He seemed dog tired.

“You just get off a shift?” she asked.

“Yeah.”

“You seem exhausted.”

“Yeah, the shifts aren’t getting any easier.” He kept his gaze lowered at the table as if he didn’t want her to be there.

“I know what you mean,” Amy said, pointing at her uniform even though he wasn’t looking at her. “I just got off too.”

“So this isn’t official?”

She ignored that question. “You heard that Terry’s fiancée died?”

“Something like that.”

“You ever meet Tammy Lee?”

“Sort of. She’d be waiting for him here in the bar most nights he got off. They’d hang around for a while, you know. We didn’t socialize or anything, but I’d see them together.”

“Was she here last Thursday night?”

“Yeah, I’m pretty sure she was.”

“What state was she in?”

“Kind of happy. She was tying one on, if you ask me.”

“Was that usual?”

“Not unusual.”

Amy now really understood the phrase ‘it was like pulling teeth.’ This guy had a clenched jaw; hard to get anything out of him. “Did you notice anything going on between the two of them?”

“Well, they didn’t leave together.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah, she left first. Then Terry finished his drink, hung out maybe another fifteen minutes or so and left.”

“How did he seem?”

“Like usual. Tired, a little pissed off. But that was Terry.”

“Do you think Terry could have killed her?”

He took another slurp of his beer, then looked up at her for the second time. “Don’t know, but wouldn’t surprise me.”

Rich wasn’t sure when Claire was coming home, and for once he didn’t feel like waiting for her to call to find out. Since she had taken over as sheriff, her schedule was more packed and erratic than ever. Often she would come home an hour or two after he and Meg had eaten and stand by the refrigerator, eating leftovers, not even bothering to sit down.

He felt like having someone else cook for him, and he felt like eating a hamburger. Meg had told him she was going out to eat and then ran upstairs to get ready, so he didn’t have to worry about her. He had a feeling she was going to meet Andrew, but he didn’t ask and she didn’t say.

He decided to walk down to the Fort, a small café bar right in downtown Fort St. Antoine. It wasn’t even a mile away. Not that he needed the exercise—pheasant season was going strong and he was exhausted every day from the work—but it was a nice night, and in October you didn’t know how many of those you’d have left. Winter could come along any time. No one in his generation would ever get over the Halloween snowstorm in 1992 that dropped over two feet of snow in a day and half, most of which never melted all winter long. Just more snow piled on top of it.

But tonight, the air was crisp and snappy, like biting into an apple. The sun was leaving the sky a bit sooner every night and he hated to see it go, but there was still a bit of dusk left in the west, over the lake. Not much traffic along Highway 35. The leafers didn’t usually come out mid-week, and the colors hadn’t been that good this year.

He could see the Fort ahead of him, the big red Texaco star all lit up from when it had also been a gas station. No one but a fool would ever take that sign away. It was a classic, and right in keeping with this old rivertown.

When he walked in the Fort, he saw the place was nearly empty. Two kids were playing pool while their parents had a beer. A lone man ordered something at the far end of the bar.

The man turned when Rich came up to the bar, and Rich saw who it was.

“Andrew, how’s it going?”

“Hey, Rich. Not as good as it could be.”

“Sorry to hear that.”

“No one’s fault but my own.”

“Sometimes it’s just like that.”

“Want to grab a booth?” Rich asked.

“No.” Andrew lowered his head, then shook it. “I’m meeting somebody here in a bit. But thanks.”

Rich ordered a burger and wondered who Andrew might be meeting, and if he would feel compelled to tell Claire about this rendezvous. He hoped not.

Andrew had made a hard decision. He had to tell Meg they needed to quit seeing each other, at least until this investigation was over. And preferably until he got his feet back on the ground emotionally. He was still upset about the way he had pushed her into having sex with him, assuming she wanted it when he did. If he had even taken the time to think about what she wanted.

Maybe he did need to check into the VA and see a therapist again. He had hoped he could avoid that—certainly no badge of courage in the armed services, but he knew that PTSD was turning up in a third of returning vets. What made him think he would be so lucky as to avoid that curse completely?

When he looked around the bar, he saw Rich Haggard walk into the Fort. Rich was a good guy, but Andrew didn’t know him very well and couldn’t be sure he wouldn’t let Claire know that Meg and he had been seen together.

He hoped Meg would get here before Doug. He wanted to get that talk with her out of the way before he tackled whatever Doug had going on in his crazy brain. One thing about Doug—at least the Doug he had known in Afghanistan—the guy couldn’t lie to save his life. If he had done something to his grandmother, he would tell Andrew.

Andrew heard the door bang shut and turned to see Doug walk in. He looked rugged, like he had been out on duty for days and hadn’t had time to shave or bath. He certainly didn’t look like he was in the service anymore, as his hair was down to his shoulders.

Yet there seemed to be less of him.

Doug had been a pretty bulky guy in Afghanistan, working out on weights every day, eating more than his fair share of the awful grub. He had dwindled since he had come stateside.

Andrew raised his hand. “Doug, over here.”

Doug nodded, then scanned the room before he walked across it. Still working the area. When he got closer, Andrew could see his eyes were bloodshot and wary, and the scar on the side of his head.

Andrew stood up from his stool and reached for Doug. Doug pulled back for a moment, then grabbed onto Andrew and squeezed him hard.

“Too long, buddy,” Andrew said.

“Yeah, man. I didn’t know if I’d ever see you again. After what happened over there.”

Andrew wasn’t ready to talk about what happened in Afghanistan. He wanted to get some food and drink into Doug before they got into it.

“How does a burger sound?”

“Yeah, I could go for that,” Doug said, sliding onto a stool, but still checking the room.

Andrew ordered two burgers with fries. “You want a brew?”

“Sure, whatever they have.”

When the two glasses of Leinenkugel’s came, they tapped them together and Doug’s eyes started to water. “Who’d a thunk we’d ever be here like this. Just normal guys drinking a beer.”