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The diner was fairly empty. One customer lingering at a table, then her, Chris, Kim, and Austin. The three hovered at the counter, talking. Off and on, she picked up fragments of their conversation, but only when it was something interesting. For the most part, it wasn’t.
Lightning shot across the sky, followed by ripples of deafening thunder. She peered out the window, watching the sugarcane next to the diner bend against the screaming wind. Fliers of Tiffany trembled against the windows where they’d been posted, struggling to win the battle against the hostile and equally tenacious wind.
Erica flipped to the back of her notebook to a clipping from the New York Times Bestsellers list. She ran her finger over a name of a female mystery novelist. One who could possibly be her mother—using an alias. She’d scoured the Internet for a photo of the woman but couldn’t find one. The woman’s name had just popped up one day out of the blue and Erica had rushed out to get a copy of her book.
There was something about the way the author wrote. The words she chose. They just seemed too familiar to her. They screamed of her mother. Erica had found articles written about the woman and had found out she was single and from the South, but none of the articles said exactly where. Having the clipping so close, quieted a fear that she refused to acknowledge.
She closed her notebook and sighed. Her thoughts went to Haley, the only person her age she’d ever liked. Many times over the years she’d imagined Haley with a halo suspended above her head. She was just so pure. So kind hearted. And not just to a few people. To everyone. It was as though her mission in life was to make others feel good.
She remembered the girl’s touch and how easily she had invited her into her house. It was almost as though the girl considered her a friend.
But why her? They were so different. Where Haley was always polite and sweet and, at least before her father’s accident, seemed to glow with enthusiasm, Erica imagined herself as being surrounded by a black cloud of desperation.
Besides, friendship was something Erica had never shared with anyone besides her mother. She wasn’t sure she knew how to be a friend to anyone besides her.
In the months since Haley’s father had died, Erica watched Haley change. The once bright halo seemed to have dimmed, lost some of its shape. The girl’s eyes had slowly deadened and lost all of its enthusiasm. She’d become almost mute. At least in public.
Erica would study her as she sat in the cemetery, mumbling to her father. Sometimes Haley would stand in ant piles on the perimeter of the cemetery until little black specks covered her legs. Sometimes she’d cry. It’s what had drawn Erica to the girl. She identified with her loss. Her need to mask the pain. Her secret quirks.
But the two were still so, so different.
Business was slow, too slow. Erica was itching to leave early with the measly ten dollars in tips she’d earned in the four hours she’d been there.
“This investigation of theirs is goin’ pretty shitty if you ask me,” Chris was saying, dipping a biscuit into a bowl of etouffe. “The detective’s still pokin’ around, but I say if they haven’t found anything by now, they’re not goin’ to find nothin’. Seems he was a better jock than a detective.”
“I still say the girl just ran off,” Kim piped in, crossing her beefy arms. “But havin’ said that, I spoke with Myrna Adams from the college the other day and she has some interestin’ suspicions about Tom Anderson. Said that some of the staff up at the college have been more than happy to give that detective an ear load.”
Erica turned her attention back to the window. Finally successful in its endeavor, the wind ripped one of the fliers from the window and sent it soaring across Main Street.
Kim waddled to the window, although she really wasn’t fat enough to waddle. Erica figured she was just practicing because it would only be a matter of time. Kim was a bulky girl with a square torso and sausage-like appendages. Astoundingly unrefined, even by Grand Trespass standards, both her clothes and her person were always stained with something. Usually it was ketchup or some type of dark sauce.
Gazing out at the bad weather outside, Kim clicked her tongue, then ran her chunky fingers through her feathered bangs and the rest of her shabby mullet.
“Just because a man cheats on his wife don’t mean he’s a killer,” Austin said from the counter, pouring a cup of coffee.
Kim grunted and walked back to the group. “Maybe not, but it does talk to his character. And that’s really all you have to judge a man on. Right Chris?”
Chris nodded, looking out into the middle distance.
Character? What did Kim know about character? Erica wondered, doubting she knew much at all, if anything. What she did know about was spreading hurtful gossip and beating up girls younger than her. Erica had intimate knowledge as proof. Hell, Kim would probably have an affair, too. . . if anyone would have her.
“That reminds me,” Kim continued, plopping back down in her seat. “I was talking to my sister, Agnes, in Alabama last night. She asked if Tiffany was the smiling kind. Said there was someone hanging ‘round a supermarket years back.”
“I believe it was an Albertson’s or Wi
“It was disturbing what he’d do. He’d wait right outside the doors in front and watch for women to walk out. When they did, he’d smile at them. And he’d wait for the first woman to smile back. That’s how he chose his victims. He did it for nearly a year, and Agnes said that he would even write letters to the local paper out there and tell them what he was doing. Even so, they never caught the monster. He just quit killin’. Still ru
Erica re-opened her notebook and pretended to write, not wanting to seem interested in the conversation. Smiling at strangers, she mused, shifting in her plastic seat. She could see that happening.
She, herself, barely smiled. And she didn’t want to be noticed. Not yet. Not until she had something brilliant to be noticed for.
“Julia Perron, poor soul, I heard she’s been to see a juju woman,” Kim said, sighing. “She’s become desperate to find her daughter. If anything did happen to the girl, there ain’t nothin’ a witch doctor can do at this late hour, except maybe tell her where the body’s decomposing.” She glanced over at Erica. “Yore mama was a juju woman, ain’t that right, Erica?”
Erica’s face burned as she looked down at the blank page in front of her. The topic of her mother was off limits.
“Not like there’s anything wrong with that,” Kim said. “I just heard that yore mama used to practice witchcraft from time to time. Tell me, she ever heal anyone?”
Thunder rumbled in the distance. It was only two o’clock, but the sky was growing as hazy as late evening.
“Probably not,” Kim a
Erica stuffed the notebook into her backpack and rose. “It’s awfully slow today, Chris. Mind if I leave early?”
“Sure, honey. I think we’re all set,” he said, one eye on her, the lazy one on the approaching storm. “Another one of them slow afternoons, I’m ‘fraid. Not that the weather’s helping none.”
The cowbells clanked and Detective Guitreaux walked in wearing a pair of chinos, a blue t-shirt, and a ballcap. He nodded at the crowd.