Then she showed me some photos of herself and Barb in high school and in swimming suits by a pool.
“Where was this one taken?” I asked, pointing to one of the pool pictures, wondering why it looked vaguely familiar.
“Down at the Mountain View Lodge. They used to let the locals swim on Tuesdays and Thursdays for a dollar each,” she said with a soft smile. “We spent a lot of time at that pool. Barb used to keep her bikinis at my house and she’d change in the car. Hank had forbidden her to wear anything but a one-piece. If he’d found out, he would have strung us both up.” She released a short laugh.
“So he was a strict father?”
“You don’t know the half of it,” she said. “Barb loved him to death, but she kind of rebelled.”
“Did she know what her father did for a living?”
“Her mom used to tell people he was an entrepreneur, but Barb knew he was a drug dealer.”
“Did you know?”
“Oh, yeah. I figured it out because Dad worked for him, but Barb didn’t keep it a secret from her friends. Still, she made sure to tell us he was the nice kind. Not the heroin kind.”
“Did the teachers know?”
“Everyone knew. I’m not sure why Mary tried to pretend otherwise. But Barb was right—Hank was never scary, so no one thought anything of it. Hell, the Drummonds were respected, and they’d made moonshine for decades. Pot ain’t all that different, ya know?”
“Yeah.” I leaned closer and lowered my voice. “I heard that Barb got involved with drugs when she was in high school.”
Cassie shrugged. “We all did, you know? Small towns are boring as shit, so drinking, drugs, and sex helped us occupy the time. Mary was glad when Barb went to college. What she didn’t know was that Barb thought Knoxville was far enough away to get away with bad behavior.”
“Was Hank pissed when she told him she was pregnant?”
“Well, sure,” she said with a soft smile. “He wasn’t thrilled, of course. But Mary was the one who really went wild over it. Hank kept tellin’ her the horse had been let out of the barn, so they might as well make the most of it. But Barb wasn’t happy about moving back into that tiny house.”
“Seems like that would have been a good time to move into a bigger one,” I suggested.
“Hank told Mary and Barb that he was gonna give them a bigger house on their land. He said he had some big deal in the works, and when it came through, they could have whatever they wanted. A heated swimming pool even. But then the whole mess with Louise went down, and soon after, Hank told them they’d have to put their plans on hold for a while longer. And then Mary got sick, and Hank said it was a bad time, and so on and so on. Barb told me she thought Hank had gone broke. And then he sold the business to Todd Bingham, and there was some money for a while, but Mary’s treatments were expensive.” She pushed out a sigh. “And then Mary died, and Barb was furious with her father for having kept her in that shack. She got back into drugs after that. It started with Mary’s leftover pain pills, then more pills. Then meth.”
“Did she get the meth from Bingham?”
“Nah,” she said with a frown. “Bingham had made some deal with Hank that he would never sell drugs to his kin. Made it harder for her to get her supply. But then some new guys started sellin’ and she bought from them. Until it killed her.”
We were silent for a moment—Cassie lost in her sadness, and me lost in thought.
“She was more than drugs and shady men,” she said softly. “She didn’t want to be pregnant, but once she decided to keep the baby, she was all in. She was a good mother, and she loved that boy, but sometimes a person has so much sadness that lovin’ someone isn’t enough. And the love of other people isn’t enough either.”
“Did Seth know that?” I asked, my heart breaking. “Did he think he wasn’t enough?”
Her mouth dropped open, and then she quickly closed it. “It wasn’t like that.”
“I’m not judging her,” I said gently. “It sounds like she took Mary’s death hard. I guess takin’ drugs was her way of self-medicating.”
“Yeah,” she said, her expression growing hard. “But I blame Hank. If he’d just let her get drugs from Bingham’s guys, she wouldn’t have died.”
“You can’t know that,” I said. “She could have ODed on anything.”
“She didn’t OD. She died because the drugs she took were bad. Bingham might be a lowlife, but his drugs are good quality.”
I knew firsthand about those bad drugs. I’d been injected with them and barely survived. I couldn’t help wondering if Hank believed the same thing and blamed himself. Did he have regrets about not giving Barb and Mary that nice house they wanted?
“Did Barb ever work for Hank?”
“Not before she left for college, but she did after she came home. Mary was none too happy about that either. She wanted better for Barb.” Cassie paused. “Mary . . .” She scowled. “She changed after Louise was arrested. It seemed to break Mary’s heart.”
“Why?” I asked.
“She tried to give Louise a chance. She told Barb and my mom that the reason Louise was so difficult was because she’d never had much love in her life. Plus she felt bad for Lula. She wanted a better life for them, and after everything went down with Walter and Louise, well, her heart just hurt over the whole thing.” She turned momentarily pensive. “Barb wasn’t so keen on Louise. She was really pissed when she found out that Louise had been sleepin’ with Bruce Abernathy.”
I did a double take. “What?”
“Oh, you didn’t know that part? I figured Michelle would have told you. She’s still bitter over it.”
“No . . .” Dumfounded, I stared at her, trying to process what she’d said. And then I found myself processing out loud, starting with what I knew to be true. “Bruce worked for Hank.”
“Yeah.”
“And Bruce was arrested after getting into a fight with Todd Bingham two days after Walter died?”
“Yep . . .”
“Do you know why?”
“Don’t have a clue,” she said. “But it’s pretty suspicious, isn’t it?”
“Surely there were rumors,” I suggested.
“Some people thought Louise and Todd Bingham were screwin’,” she said. “I don’t know if it’s true, but I wouldn’t put it past her. Either one of ’em could’ve started a fight over her.”
“Or they could have been fighting about Hank’s business. Bingham was probably after it then,” I said.
“Maybe,” she said. “Or it could have just been a bar fight.”
“So why did he kill himself?”
“People who knew he was screwin’ Louise thought he did it because he loved her and couldn’t live without her, but that’s plain bullshit. Bruce was too self-centered to care about anyone but himself.”
“What do you think?” I asked.
She made a shrugging gesture. “I’ve got no idea. But I know Michelle wasn’t all that upset by it.” She leaned closer and lowered her voice. “Even if she let the world think she was a grieving widow.”