Start with Chapter 1
CHAPTER 14
January 10, 1979
Dean and Guthrie met at the station. After confirming with the Adamson’s receptionist that Sarah had taken a personal day, the two of them drove back through town to the Ashbury Court Apartments. Three buildings with a red brick first story and Tudor Revival second story stood in a horseshoe pattern around a central parking lot. Four main entrances equidistantly spaced led to an open stairwell.
They climbed to the second floor in the building anchoring the horseshoe. Clumps of snow had drifted into the entryways and found corners of shadow to hide. Guthrie knocked on the door. After what seemed like a long enough wait, Dean pounded three times on the door. They heard shuffling inside. The slip of the chain. The click of the deadbolt.
In the half-open doorway, Sarah stood dressed in a long white robe. Her shoulder-length, black hair was parted in the center but strands stuck out at odd angles. Her nose was red and she held a tissue in her hand, crumpled and moist.
“What?” she asked. Then she recognized Guthrie. “Oh. You’re the detective.”
Guthrie nodded once.
Sarah stepped back from the door, pulling it open to let the two of them in. The entryway led directly into the living room. A TV stood on a small stand. A coffee table sat between the TV and a tan couch with large dark brown throw pillows. A box of tissue and a mug with dark stains on the inside sat on the table. A checkered blanket of browns and tans was piled up on the couch. Beyond the living room, a small kitchen and a hallway leading to two closed doors. Bedroom and bathroom, Dean supposed. The room smelled of incense. Two sticks pointing at the ceiling in a small bowl sat on the coffee table. The pungent smell of marijuana lingered in the background.
Sarah flopped down on the couch and pulled the blanket over her. “Here about Billy, right?”
Dean stood across the coffee table from her. “That’s right. Can we make you some coffee?”
She waved her hand in an I-don’t-care fashion.
Dean nodded to Guthrie who walked to the kitchen. Dean looked at the TV stand, its antenna, and the wall behind it. A large picture of the moon and waves made with thread hung askew. A small framed photo stood on the only space on the TV stand—the TV had been shifted to the far right to offer the space. A palm tree and three teens stood near a beach. Dean picked it up.
“That’s me and my two brothers.” Sarah blew her nose. She sounded as if she had been doing that most of the morning.
Guthrie opened and closed the cabinet doors until he found the tin of coffee.
“Where’s it taken at?” asked Dean.
“San Juan.” She looked at him. “Puerto Rico. That’s where my brothers are now.”
“How long have you known Billy?”
“Since high school. Since we moved here.”
“You been dating him the entire time?”
“No. Off and on. Mostly off.”
“Recently.”
“On. We’d been dating for a year now. Our longest stretch ever.”
“What caused the break ups?”
She sighed and tucked her legs beneath her. “Many things. Nothing sometimes.”
Dean pulled out his notepad and jotted a few notes. He tapped the pen on the metal spiral binder. “Did you see Billy the day he disappeared?”
“No. I was working. He went out with Corey and Josh after. We talked. He called me from the bar. I saw him the day before. New Year’s Day.”
Guthrie walked back in. “What’d you talk about?”
“I don’t remember. Usual stuff probably.”
“The last conversation you had with your boyfriend and you don’t remember?” Guthrie sat himself in the chair beside the couch.
She glared at Guthrie. “I didn’t know it was going to be my last conversation with him.”
The clicks and knocks of the water heating in the coffee maker came from the kitchen. Dean studied her. She was distraught. Over the years, he had come to understand that every person reacts differently to death and that reaction was not indicative of anything, but something about Sarah’s response troubled him. She seemed too distraught. He fought against his initial reaction, but he could not bury it.
“What happened to Billy?” asked Sarah.
“That’s what we’re trying to figure out.” Dean walked toward the sliding door that led to the back porch. “Can you tell us about him? What was he like?”
“He was a great guy. He may not have been the sharpest knife in the drawer, but he was a good guy and he had a lot of common sense. He loved baseball. He was pretty good himself.”
“What position did he play?”
“Second base mostly.”
“Hmmm.”
Sarah curled up her legs beneath her butt.
Guthrie asked, “Anyone you know want to hurt Billy?”
“No. No way. He was a nice guy. Nicest I ever met. I can’t think why anyone would hurt him.”
Dean walked back around and stood in front of her, interlocking his fingers and dropping his hands. “We heard Billy and Alex hadn’t been getting along.”
“Well, Alex is—. Alex is an asshole. Plain and simple. Spoiled rich kid thinks everything he does is gold. It’ll catch up with him some day.”
“So they weren’t getting along?”
“Billy didn’t talk about it, and I didn’t ask. But yeah, I get the sense he was upset about something. So it could’ve been with Alex.”
The sounds of the coffee pot sputtering the last of its hot water into the grounds called Guthrie back to the kitchen. He opened cabinet doors looking for a mug.
“Upset how?” Dean pulled his hand to behind his back. He walked over to the sliding patio door. The wood security rod was leaning upright against the frame. A small white bookshelf stood next to the door. A large plant with broad white and green leaves sat in the middle shelf. On the bottom shelf, Salem’s Lot, A Stranger in the Mirror,Chesapeake, and Eye of the Needle. The covers looked worn. On the top shelf, a photo of Sarah, Billy, Alex, Corey, and Josh. Where were the photos of her and her girlfriends? He stared at the photo.
Sarah said, “I just knew. He seemed edgy somehow. Anxious.”
“How long was this before he disappeared?”
“Not sure. Maybe around Thanksgiving or so. He was worried about his parents or something. But I don’t know.”
“Worried about them how?” asked Dean.
“It’s all in my head probably. I mean, they didn’t like me.”
“Why not?”
Guthrie set a blue and white mug of coffee on the table, using John Travolta’s face on People Weekly magazine as a coaster.
“Thanks.” She looked at the steam rising from the mug and left it on the table.
Dean said, “Don’t thank him yet. It’s probably policeman’s coffee.”
She let a smile flash across her face and then bit her lower lip.
“Why didn’t they like you?”
“Look at me. I’m a Puerto Rican girl in a town without a lot of us.”
“What does that have to do with anything?”
“They wanted Billy dating some nice Anglo-Saxon girl. Not me.”
“They said something to you?”
“No. No, not directly. It was how they acted around me. Always on pins and needles. And his mom, I would catch her sometimes glaring at me. I stopped visiting him at his home. I don’t need that.”
“How’d Billy feel about this?” Guthrie picked lint off his pants.
“Said I was overreacting.” She shrugged. “But what does he know?”
“How was yours and Billy’s relationship recently?”
“Good. Really good. We were on a good path.”
“Like getting married?”
“Yeah, I think that was in the future.”
“And your parents?”
“My dad was more—.” She bit her lower lip.
Dean kneeled down. “What about your dad?”
She let out a short breath. “Look, my dad is the Puerto Rican. My mom worked for the Navy for a while down at a base down there. At Roosevelt Roads Naval Station. Her parents got sick, so we moved up here. He thinks I should be dating a Puerto Rican. I know. Bullshit, right? And he definitely thinks I should be marrying someone whose parents at least are okay with my heritage. So he wasn’t particularly happy to have me dating and thinking about marrying Billy. But where am I going to find another Puerto Rican around here? And who the hell is he to talk?” She held out her hand to emphasize the point.
Guthrie gave her a sympathetic shrug.
Dean said, “I don’t see any photos around here of you with any girlfriends.”
“So?”
He frowned and looked around. “Just unusual is all.”
She shifted her feet beneath her. “I wasn’t too popular in school. So I don’t have any, really.” She sighed. “I got into fights a lot. That’s how Billy and I met. He jumped in one day to break up a fight between me and Tracy. Bitch.” She shook her head. “And Billy and his friends became like my posse. They’d protect me.”
“What about Corey and Josh?”
“What about them?”
“What was your relationship like with them?”
“Those four are thick as thieves, and I was allowed into their space. They’d protect me. But I was always Billy’s girl.”
“Corey says you were after Billy’s money.” Dean lifted the photo of Sarah and her posse. They were out at the Lance Field, where the Panthers played football, the large, unlit scoreboard serving as the backdrop. The balance was off. Off beyond the testosterone-heavy image. The boys were in front, kneeling or crouching down. Sarah was directly behind Billy. Her right hand was on his shoulder. Her left hand was on Alex’s back, just at the neck.
“Billy and money? He didn’t have any money.”
“Did Billy buy you stuff?”
“Occasionally, yeah.”
“A necklace and a bracelet, recently?”
Sarah shook her head. “Corey proves again he doesn’t know anything. Anything at all. Yes, Billy gave me those. But.” She looked to the side and shook her head. She grabbed a kleenex and touched the corners of her eyes. “I’m not sure how to say this.”
“Usually it’s easiest just to say it,” said Dean.
“My mom got sick last year. Money was tight. So I pawned a bracelet and necklace last summer. They belonged to my grandmother—on my dad’s side. I didn’t tell dad about it. He’d kill me. Just gave him the money and told him it was from my savings. But it tore me up. Those had been in the family for three or four generations. Billy bought them back.”
“With what money?”
“I don’t know. I didn’t ask. I was so happy to have them back.”
“You didn’t ask?” asked Guthrie. “Come on. You ain’t stupid. You had to wonder.”
“I did wonder, but I didn’t ask. And he never told me.” She swung her feet to the floor.
“Where did you think the money came from?”
“I don’t know.” She bit her lower lip and looked at Dean, who raised his eyebrows. “Fine. I thought he was stealing from Charlie.”
“Stealing from the register?”
“Yeah, something like that.”
Dean nodded.
Guthrie twisted his lips. “Okay. Thanks. So how much did you pawn them for? And where?”
“The bracelet I pawned for two hundred. The necklace for five. A place in Plattsburgh.”
Dean asked for the name and address. He handed her his pen. She grabbed a copy of People magazine and wrote it down, tore off the corner where she wrote, and gave him the paper and pen. “Thanks. Where were you the night he disappeared?”
“You think—” She cut herself off. “I was here. I did my usual and slept.”
“Didn’t see Billy?”
“No.”
“What time did he call?”
“I don’t know. It was late. Probably midnight maybe.”
Dean stood up. “Thanks. We’ll check that against the phone records. How long did you two talk?”
She shrugged. “A few minutes. Not much.”
“Anyone who would want to hurt him?”
“God no. No. He was a nice guy.”
Dean pulled out the slip of envelope with “I love you” written on it, all still encased in plastic. “Yours?”
She leaned over and looked at it. She raised her hand to her mouth and tears welled up. She nodded.
Dean walked toward the front door. Guthrie stood up. “Thank you for your time and sorry for your loss.”
She nodded.
Dean opened the door. “What were Billy’s politics?”
She looked at him confusedly. “He said he voted Ford in the last election. Pretty conservative really. But we didn’t talk about it much.”
“Any reason why he’d have a copy of The Communist Manifesto in his possessions?”
“What?” She looked down at the floor, back up at them, and back down. “No, not really. He wasn’t usually interested in that kind of stuff. Politics and whatnot. But—”
Dean squinted at her. “But what?”
“When he called that night, after I told him I had to go to bed, he said something odd. I just thought he was drunk.” She paused and looked up at Dean, tears welling up along the outside edges of her eyes. “I only caught the first part. The rest of it sounded slurred. I thought he was drunk.” A tear from each eye hurtled down her cheeks. “‘Workers of the world.’ That’s what he said.”
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