The loft looked more like a day room in a college frat house than a full-grown man’s home. Sixties and seventies horror-film posters hung haphazardly on the walls with thumbtacks, and thrift-store bookshelves were filled with graphic novels, ragged and well-read pulp paperbacks, and VHS cassette tapes of even more old-school horror movies. The top shelf of a tall bookcase to the far right, close to the kitchen area, held a massive blown-glass hookah, green with specks of white and blue at the base. Six leather-wrapped pipes fell down the sides of the rectangular unit like the tendrils of an octopus. The steel grating on top of the liquid-filled pipe was pristine and shiny and looked unused. The loft smelled of incense and hippie. “Why are we here, Kirby?”
“I was fixing to ask you the same thing, Dane,” Keith said as he appeared from behind the divider. He was now wearing a pair of loose-fitting Levi’s and a Day of the Dead T-shirt that used to be black three hundred washings ago and was now more of a light gray.
“Keith, you remember this guy?”
Ned tipped his chin and cocked a half smile.
“Of course, man—Ned fuckin’ Lemon. It’s been a hot minute.” They shook hands in a way that turned into a shoulder bump—a man hug. “I heard you were back, but I didn’t believe it.”
“Well, you can now. You got any real cigarettes?” Ned shot a sideways glance at Dane.
“Uh, no,” Keith said. “I don’t smoke. Not anymore. It’s been almost three years now. Second-hardest thing I’ve ever done.”
Ned scowled. “When did everyone in Waymore get so goddamn healthy?” He walked toward the kitchen and opened the fridge as if it belonged to him, and Keith mouthed the words “What the hell?” at Dane.
Dane held out a palm as if to tell him that all would be revealed in due time. Keith nodded.
“This is Special Agent Roselita Velasquez with the FBI,” Dane said. Roselita tipped her chin. Keith worked at the itch on his ass a little more. Neither of them spoke. Keith didn’t have to be told Roselita was police. She reeked of it.
Dane sighed and began to explain. “Listen, Keith, Ned needs a shower and maybe some clean clothes. As bad as this may sound, his pants are now being held as evidence in a crime scene, and he can’t be walking around in those sweats on loan from the sheriff’s office.”
Keith scratched and watched Ned close the fridge and lean heavily against the kitchen counter, letting his long, unwashed hair fall into his face.
“Yeah,” Keith said. “Cool. Whatever y’all need.”
“And that coffee you mentioned wouldn’t be a bad idea, either, if you’re still offering.”
“Yeah, no worries.” When Ned turned to face his friends, he looked exhausted and filthy. Keith pointed over to the divider. “Ned, the bathroom is over there on the other side of that wall and the bed.”
Ned pushed himself off the counter, nodded as if it was a struggle just to keep his head up, and disappeared behind the portable wall without a word.
“There are clean towels under the sink, too,” Keith shouted. “And as far as clothes go, grab whatever fits—mi casa, su casa. Oh, but don’t take anything from the pile at the foot of the bed. That’s all dirty. No telling what’s in there. Otherwise, take whatever you need.”
Ned still didn’t answer—no thank-you, no okay, no nothing—but Keith didn’t seem bothered by it. He gave the itch on his ass a break, walked into the kitchen, scooped some coffee from a can in the cabinet, filled the plastic machine with a tumbler of tap water, and flipped the switch on. It lit up, and he pulled out a chair to take a seat at the kitchen table, where Dane and Roselita had already settled in. Roselita nodded and Keith nodded back. He noticed Roselita staring at the hookah. “It’s never been used. I just thought it looked cool.”
“It does,” Roselita said before adding, “and I don’t care if it’s been used. None of my business.”
“Right on, then,” Keith said. It was clear, though, that he felt uneasy around Dane’s new friend.
Once they could all hear the water running in the shower, Keith broke the uncomfortable silence in a whisper. “Holy shit, Dane, where the hell did he come from?”
“I’m not quite sure yet. I just found out he was back the day before yesterday.”
“Jenkins and Boner told me he was back, but I didn’t believe it was him. They said they found him in the woods. They said you were there, too, and Darby Ellis had him locked up down at the station for shooting some old-timer up the mountain. Seriously, though, I didn’t even think to call you or go down and ask Darby himself because I really didn’t think it was him. And because, I mean, Jenkins and Boner are full of shit most of the time.”
“Well, it’s him.”
“Did he really kill somebody?”
“No.” Dane shook his head as if the notion of it were preposterous. “But I can’t prove it one way or another—not yet, anyway.”
“Dane—it’s been what? Ten years since he disappeared?”
“Coming up on nine.”
“And you don’t believe he did it? Boner said he was stone-cold drunk, still holding the damn gun.”
“It’s circumstantial, Keith. You know Ned as well as I do. He would never shoot anybody. He doesn’t have it in him.”
“I don’t know, Dane. He looks like shit. And people change, man. And who knows what the hell he’s been up to since he left.”
“You’re right, Keith. People change, but not like that they don’t, and not Ned. I don’t believe it for a second. Neither should you. And once you hear everything other than what you heard from Jenkins and Boner you’ll understand. Everything about it stinks; I just can’t tell you why. He might’ve been set up.”
Keith leaned back enough to tip the front two chair legs from the ground. “Who the hell would want to set up Ned Lemon for murder? As if the poor bastard hasn’t been through enough already—and where’s he been? Why did he come back?”
“I’ve got my suspicions, but to be honest, Ned’s problem is not my main focus here. We’re actually here running down a lead that could help us find a missing child—an eleven-year-old boy named William Blackwell. Does that name mean anything to you?”
Keith didn’t hesitate with his answer. “No, but you think Ned knows something about him?”
“How about we wait on him to get out here so I don’t have to tell this story twice.”
Roselita’s antsy leg bounced up and down under the table. She kept looking at her phone while Dane and Keith had their conversation. She felt like they were wasting time again, and now this Ned guy and his predicament seemed to be part of her new partner’s angle. She didn’t like it. She didn’t like it at all. They had been tasked with finding a child, not with proving the innocence of one of Kirby’s childhood buddies, and once again she was sitting in a chair instead of moving. She hated the whole idea of heading out to this damn farm with one lowlife to smooth over talking to another lowlife. And she wasn’t happy about O’Barr allowing it to happen, either. The old man was taking too many liberties here, and lives were at stake. Lives had already been lost. Innocent lives. This was not at all what she’d signed up for. Roselita felt she’d be better off up here on her own, but for now she was going to keep her mouth shut and ride it out.