“Thanks, Rhonda. I will,” I said, giving her arm a squeeze before I headed toward the back exit with Hobbs hot on my heels.
When I pushed open the door, Landry stood by the dumpster, tucked into a dark blue down jacket, his hands and nose beet red. A plume of smoke rose above his head as he stared vacantly at the brick wall in front of him, smoking his cigarette.
“Landry?” I asked, approaching him with tentative steps as Hobbs placed a protective hand on my waist.
He pulled at his knit cap and eyed us with a defensive glare. “Who’s askin’?”
I didn’t bother to offer my hand, instead I merely responded, “Halliday Valentine, and this is Hobbs Dainty.”
He snorted, a puff of condensation shooting from his mouth in a small cloud. “Dainty? Your name is Dainty? Like, delicate?”
Hobbs stepped toward Landry, looming over him by at least a foot and a half. “Uh-huh. It rhymes with ‘I don’t like it when people make fun of my name.’ So are you gonna behave like you’re still on the playground in fifth grade, or are you gonna use your manners and act like the adult your license says you are?”
I watched Landry’s face go even redder before he straightened up and took a small step backward, but he didn’t back down entirely. He made that clear from his defensive tone. “What do you want from me, lady?”
Eyeing him, I jammed my hands in my pockets to keep from putting a hex on his sullen butt. “I want to know what you know about the deaths of Gable Norton and Evan Fowler.”
As the snow began to pour out of the sky, he flicked his cigarette to the ground and scrunched up his face. “I don’t know anything about either one of them.”
“That’s not what Patricia Fowler said,” Hobbs told him.
“Yeah? Well she’s whack, okay?” he spat. “I didn’t make Evan take any drugs. I wasn’t anywhere around him when he died. They teach you at my substance-abuse program that you’re responsible for what you shoot into your veins. Evan shot up a bad batch of somethin’. That’s not my fault.”
“Did you sell the bad batch of somethin’ to him, Landry? In fact, while we’re talking about selling drugs, did Gable sell drugs for you? Was he still selling them as of last night? Was he only pretending to be clean? Or do you know of someone who might have a drug-related grudge against Gable?” I asked, unconcerned about the accusatory tone to my questions.
Landry’s narrowed eyes flashed angry under the bruised purple skies. “What is it with you idiots? It’s like you don’t want me to get better when every time anything in this Podunk town happens, it’s my fault. I’m the first person they come lookin’ for. It’s crap!”
“Sometimes, your reputation precedes you,” Hobbs offered as an explanation.
Landry spat on the ground from a clenched jaw. “Well, I didn’t have anything to do with Evan’s death. His mother knows that, but she keeps harping about how I’m responsible for getting him into drugs, which is stupid. Evan bought from a lot of people, but I definitely didn’t sell him that bad batch of snuff! Evan was a weak little follower who would have taken drugs from the devil himself if he would have invited him to his kegger. It was a long time ago, for crap’s sake. Why won’t she let it go?”
I fought a cringe at his cavalier attitude about Evan, but I stuck to asking him questions rather than grabbing hold of his ear and dragging him off to the naughty corner.
“How long ago did Evan die, Landry?”
He made a face at me, his cold eyes dull with disinterest. “What? You don’t know, lady? What kind of snoop are you? He died almost eight years ago—when we were still mostly kids. And before you ask, I don’t know if Gable was using drugs again or if anyone from his drug using days was bent enough to want to kill him, but I was nowhere near him last night. You can ask Miss Rhonda. I was here working. Now get off my back and leave me alone!” he bellowed.
He made a crude gesture with his finger as he pushed his way past us and stomped back into the bakery.
I looked at Hobbs and made a face as fat flakes of snow came floating down, hitting my cheeks. “So that was pleasant.”
Hobbs clucked his tongue. “He’s got a pretty nice-size chip on his shoulder, doesn’t he?”
“I want to feel sorry for him because obviously he’s the target of a lot of blame, and not without reason, but he was a little bit of a you-know-what. That instantly cancels everything else out.”
“Yeah, he was. But he does have an alibi we can check with Rhonda. So let’s go check it.”
Hobbs held open the door of the bakery for me and motioned to go in ahead of him.
When we entered, I stopped dead in my tracks, my stomach sinking to the floor.
Mothereffer, Hessy Newman—my friendly neighborhood burn-her-at-the-stake fan—was the last person I needed in the mix today. But there was no hiding from her. She saw me the instant we walked out onto the floor of the bakery.
“You!” she yelled, pointing an accusatory finger at me as she backed away, her aging face riddled with lines and creases. “You stay away from me! You’re the devil, Halliday Valentine—the devil! Your whole family’s wicked!”
Hobbs stared at her for only a moment before he reacted, stepping beside me to put his arm around my waist. “Pardon me, ma’am, is there something we can help you with?”
But I wasn’t going to be the shrinking violet here. Plastering a smile on my face, I waved. “Hello, Ms. Newman. What brings you to Rhonda’s today? It’s mighty cold out there. Are you grabbing a treat to take home to help you get through the next snowstorm?”
“No, no!” she hissed, backing up farther, her deep-set gray eyes wide. She curled her hands into her pilling red poncho and lifted her chin as though she were facing off with the devil himself. “Don’t you come near me with your black magic and your devil’s deeds! You stay far away. Far away!”
I take that back. I guess she really did believe I was the devil himself.
What I really wanted to do, as petty as it sounds, was saunter up to her and yell “boo!” in her wrinkly old face, but I knew better. My mother and nana would label that childish. They’d expect me to keep her at arm’s length and behave with decorum.
They fear what they don’t understand, Hallie-Oop. We have to first try and understand and sympathize with their fear of the unknown before we put up our dukes, I heard my mother’s melodic voice say in my head.
But I didn’t have to say anything else. Rhonda rushed in and glared at Hessy. “Hessy Newman, you will not treat another customer in my store like that! That’s what you’re not gonna do. No, ma’am. I won’t have that nonsense circulating about my friend. Hal’s a good person. Now, choose what you’d like and get on out of here!” she hissed with a stern warning.
But I patted her on the arm, turning my back to Hessy, who’d slunk off to the far corner of the bakery, properly chastised. “It’s okay, Rhonda, but thank you for being my friend. I appreciate you.”
Rhonda gave me a sympathetic look. “She’s just old and a little too invested in all that supernatural TV she watches.”
I dismissed it with a wave of my hand. “Forget it, Rhonda. She’s been saying that all my life. Why I’m here is more important, so can I ask a quick question before I go? Was Landry here last night around five or so?”