Read Online StoneDust by Justin Scott - Free Book Online Page B

nothin’ about them. ’Course, they went bust…Wouldn’t put anything past Sherry Carter.”
    I shrugged. Personally, I thought Sherry was more talk than action; but I didn’t want to argue with Marie, I wanted her to keep talking. Which she did, in a hoarse whisper in case the nanny was listening from the gazebo. “Mrs. Bowland? Wouldn’t put anything past her, either, when she’s drinkin’—You seen that party room the Fisks built?”
    â€œHeard about it.”
    â€œCheck it out, sometime. Heavy duty.” She grinned, gap-toothedly. “Like a porn video.”
    â€œHow would you know about a porn video, Marie?”
    â€œHey, you wouldn’t believe the people who go in and out of that little side room at the rental. Your cousin Brian told me—”
    â€œYou said just three couples—four couples, counting Duane and Michelle.”
    â€œPlus the crashers.”
    â€œWho?” I asked.
    â€œSomebody stayed late. From the cookout. Slipped into the Jacuzzi with the rest of them.”
    â€œWho?”
    â€œNobody knows.”
    â€œLights out?”
    â€œI don’t know. Nobody knows. But the word is, there was somebody else and they ran off into the woods.”
    â€œAl Bell said they had a stripper who jumped out of a cake.”
    â€œAl Bell doesn’t know his ass from a hole in the ground. What the hell would four couples in a Jacuzzi need a stripper for?”
    â€œI wondered about that. But he said the stripper ran into the swamp.”
    â€œThe man is a fool, Ben. He doesn’t know crap. There was no goddamned stripper. And that’s the truth.”
    â€œBut there was a crasher.”
    â€œRight.”
    â€œI get it.”
    â€œAt last.”
    I drove home and wandered over to Town Hall to chat up Vicky, who usually had her ear to the ground and had arrived at the cookout shortly before I left.
    She was busy as hell and in no mood to chat, though she did hint she’d be available for a late beer and burger at the Yankee Drover. As I had some reason to hope that Rita Long might be up from New York, I weaseled out of it and asked, even as she edged me toward the door, “Do you know if any extras stayed on for Stage Two of the Fisk party?”
    â€œNo.”
    â€œNo, you don’t know, or no, no one stayed?”
    â€œNo, I don’t know, and I doubt any did. Michelle was acting like a chaperone at a Methodist dance.”
    â€œMethodists don’t dance.”
    â€œThat’s what I meant. Bye, Ben. I gotta—”
    â€œDid you by chance see Reg at the cookout?”
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œI gather you stayed late.”
    â€œNot that late.”
    â€œBut did you see Reg?”
    Vicky hesitated, then closed the door she’d been attempting to hustle me through. “When I arrived,” she said.
    â€œI didn’t see him then.”
    â€œHe didn’t come in. He was kind of driving by.”
    â€œKind of? What do you mean?”
    â€œI was coming from town, so I was about to turn left into their drive, when I saw Reg coming the other way, in his Blazer. I waited for him to turn right, but he just slowed down a second and then kept going.”
    â€œWhen was this?”
    â€œAbout six-thirty.”
    â€œDid you talk?”
    â€œNo. I waved. But he just went by.”
    â€œDidn’t wave back?”
    â€œNo…”
    â€œHe didn’t turn in?”
    â€œI saw his face. He looked so sad…Like he was going to cry.”
    â€œYou didn’t say anything Sunday, when I told you we found him.”
    Vicky didn’t answer me. Instead, she mused, “It was like he was saying goodbye or something. Too bad he didn’t come in; it might have been different.”
    â€œHe wasn’t invited.”
    â€œWhy not?”
    â€œThey’d kind of drifted apart after Reg stopped drinking. You didn’t see him