Safe Keeping

The woman introduced herself. “I’m Detective Sergeant Cynthia Garza. Lincoln County Criminal Investigation Division. What can I do for you folks?”

“You’re questioning my brother about Jessica Sweet’s murder, is that right?”

“Yes, we—”

“Does he have a lawyer?”

“He hasn’t asked for one.”

“Well, I’m asking for one on his behalf.” Lissa spoke strongly, surprising herself. In hindsight, it would seem laughable, her idea that she could control any of what was happening.

“I think it’s a bit premature, but even if it weren’t, it’s actually his call,” Garza said.

“Are you arresting him?”

Evan moved more closely to Lissa’s side; she felt his warmth, his radiant calm. He said, “The family is understandably upset, so anything you can tell us—”

“Look, we’re just talking to him. It shouldn’t be too much longer,” Garza added, walking away.

“Wait!” Lissa trailed in Garza’s wake.

She didn’t respond, didn’t so much as glance back. She went through the door, and it snapped shut behind her.

Evan walked Lissa to the bench and sat her down. She put her face into her hands. She didn’t want to feel the panic that was trying to stand up in her stomach. “Tell me this isn’t happening,” she said. “It feels like déjà vu all over again.” Her voice broke.

Evan put his arm around her shoulders and pulled her against him. He murmured things, nonsense mostly. She felt his breath stir the hair at her temple. It both comforted her and made her impatient when he said it would be okay. Twenty minutes passed and when the door opened in the wall behind the duty desk a second time, Lissa straightened.

Her eyes collided with Tucker’s; he lifted his chin, and his expression was at once chagrined and belligerent. But underneath, Lissa could see that Tucker was scared. Evan stood up and Lissa did, too, along with her panic. It made her feel light-headed and hot all at once. Her stomach rolled, and she put her hand there.

“Hey, guys,” Tucker said. “Can you dig this? That I’m back here again? It’s Sergeant Garza’s fault.” He jerked his thumb over his shoulder at the detective. “She can’t get enough of me.”

“Tucker...” His name when Lissa said it was protest; it was despair. She glanced sidelong at the detective. Garza appeared unaffected, but who could say for sure?

“Don’t make any plans to leave the area, Mr. Lebay,” she said. “We might want to talk to you again.”

He raised his arm in acknowledgment. “Sure thing, sweetheart,” he said, but he was looking at Lissa and Evan. “Where were you, anyhow? You get that mess straightened out with Pederson? You guys know I’m sorry, right?” He shifted his feet, lifting the faded red Astros ball cap he wore, slapping it against his thigh, resettling it. “This?” He pronounced the word as if they had asked for an explanation. “It’s a bunch of shit. Big misunderstanding. Cindy here has got a bad case of the hots for me. She likes my company. Right, Cindy?” He turned to her and laughed, pushing the joke.

Lissa’s throat narrowed with the threat of tears, the heat of exasperation. Tucker did this when he was frightened; he made an ass of himself, but she could hardly explain that to the detective. She took Tucker’s arm. “Come on,” she said.

“Yeah, okay,” he answered. “I guess you better get me out of here before they change their minds and toss me in the slammer.” He laughed, but when he lifted his cap again, his hand was shaking.

Lissa led the way to the door, and Evan held it open, so it was her and Tucker going down the steps, shoulder to shoulder.

“When are you going to learn to mind your mouth, Tucker?” Lissa asked.

“It’s got nothing to do with my mouth, Liss.”

“Your shoes are untied.” She pointed this out as if it were important.

Tucker kept walking.

Lissa tried to catch Evan’s eye as they got into the truck, but he wouldn’t look at her. He never liked it when she and Tucker squabbled like children.

“You’d think someone from the media would be here,” Lissa said.

“Maybe we got lucky,” Evan said.

“Why?” Tucker glared at Lissa. “Because I’m a psycho?”

“I never said that, Tucker.”

“You might as well have.”

“Don’t make this about me. Okay? Tell me why the police are talking to you about this.”

“Because—” Tucker broke off, and Lissa heard him sigh as if he was reluctant but knew he wouldn’t get away without answering.

Evan glanced at him in the rearview mirror.

Tucker said, “I was with Chantelle the Saturday night before she disappeared, okay? I was the last person to be seen with her alive, according to the cops.”

“Chantelle?” Evan said.

“I thought you were in Austin,” Lissa said at the same time. “I thought you said you hardly knew her.”

“Chantelle is Jessica’s—it was Jessica’s stage name.” Tucker tapped Evan’s shoulder. “Dude, you should have seen the deck on her.”

“Tucker!” Lissa turned around as far as the seat belt would allow. “Please tell me you didn’t lie to me.”

“I didn’t. There was a party, okay? In Galveston. Before I went to Austin, I went down there with this other dude, and that’s where I hooked up with Chantelle. I didn’t want to tell you because you’d just give me shit about her.”

“What other dude?” Lissa asked.

“Hooked up how?” Evan asked.

“Have y’all been home? I bet Pop is beyond pissed.”

“Tucker, come on! This is serious.” Lissa hit the seatback with the heel of her hand. “There’s more to it than the fact you were with her, isn’t there? Isn’t there?” She insisted, because she could feel it. “Tell me,” she demanded.

“Okay, okay. Chantelle was into some kind of bad shit.”

“What do you mean exactly?” Evan looked in the rearview at Tucker again.

Lissa stifled an impulse to cover her ears.

“She did stuff just for kicks, like once she robbed a liquor store to see if she could get away with it.”

“And you were dating her.” Lissa didn’t bother hiding her disgust.

“It wasn’t dating, really. I just missed Miranda so damn much. Chantelle loved her, too. We helped each other.”

Lissa might have scoffed at that, but Evan cut her off, and it was just as well, she thought.

“The stuff she did,” Evan said, “you think there might be somebody who had it in for her, maybe bad enough to kill her?”

“It’s possible. She was hooking—”

“As in prostitution?” Evan asked.

“Prostitution!” Lissa was stunned, but then she wondered why.

“Miranda never went that far. I know how it looks—you probably don’t believe me, but just because you work for an escort service doesn’t mean you’re turning tricks. I tried to tell Jessica she was playing with fire. Looks like she got burned.”

“Oh, Tucker.” Lissa rested her head against the seatback. She had no idea what else to say. They passed several miles in silence.

Tucker broke it. “Bad thing is they got my DNA, got my prints, the works.”

Lissa whipped around, finding his gaze, even in the dark. “You let them? Why? Why didn’t you tell them you wanted a lawyer? God, Tucker! Didn’t you learn anything last time?”

“It would have looked bad if I didn’t cooperate.”

Evan asked, “Are you saying you had sex with Jess—Chantelle, whatever her name is...was? They’ll get a match?”

“They could, I guess, but one of the cops who ID’d her body works security part-time at Mystique. He knows Jessica and I hung around a lot together. You know the guy, Liss. Sonny Cade? I think he was in your class at Hardys Walk High, wasn’t he?”

“I remember him, but he was a couple of years behind me. He was kind of a thug, always in trouble. He’s a policeman now?”

“Yep. He’s still a tough guy, but he’s sharp. Runs his own security firm on the side. He knows a lot about the shit that goes on at the club.”

Lissa and Evan exchanged a glance, and Lissa knew they were sharing the same sinking sensation of dread.

Tucker touched her shoulder and said he was sorry, and when she didn’t respond, he settled back, but she was aware of him, of his distress, all the same. She knew his remorse was as real and true as her frustration. But he never changed; he just kept on making the same mistakes, again and again.

“Come on, Liss, it’s going to be fine. Don’t worry.”

How? she wondered. But she didn’t ask. She doubted he had an answer, or if he did, it would be one he’d invented, to placate her.

“I wish you guys had been with us in Austin.” Tucker bent forward. “You would have loved it. That band I was telling you about? I knew the bass player. Me and the dude I was with—”

“What dude?” Lissa asked again.

“You don’t know him,” Tucker said. “The cool thing was we hooked up with these chicks, and we’re sitting there in the club—we got, like, this whole backstage vibe going on, because of me. Because I knew the drummer and the bass player. The chicks were into it. It was great.”

Lissa caught the flash of Tucker’s teeth in the road light and knew he was grinning.

“What can I say?” he asked, having fun with it. “The women love me.”

“Jesus, Tuck.” Evan shook his head.

“Sorry.”

For several moments there was only the sound of the tires, the hum of the truck’s engine. The cab was washed in a dirty swirl of road light.

Tucker bent forward, touching Lissa’s shoulder. “Look, all B.S. aside, I’m really sick about this. Underneath all that crazy shit, Chantelle was a nice girl. Not in the same class as Miranda, but she could have been if she hadn’t gotten messed up on coke and meth. I was trying to help her.”

“Oh, Tucker, when are you ever going to learn? Women like that don’t want to be helped.”

“Nobody deserves to die the way she did, Liss. To get killed and tossed into the woods like a sack of trash. I wish I’d been with her. I wish we hadn’t gotten so pissed off with each other.”

“What do you mean pissed off?” Evan asked.

“It was nothing, really. We had a—a discussion, you know?”

“A fight, you mean,” Lissa said.

“That’s why I left the party,” Tucker said. “I’m sorry as shit now.” His voice wobbled, and Lissa felt her own tears rise in her throat.

“Was Todd Hite there? Did he know Jessica?” Evan asked. “Could she have been involved with him the way Miranda was?”

Lissa turned to Evan. “Oh, my God,” she murmured. It had been a while since she’d thought of him. Todd Hite had been the other person of interest in Miranda’s murder case besides Tucker—someone else’s brother, son, uncle, source for heartbreak. Lissa had been convinced Todd was guilty. The whole family had thought so. Todd Hite was—or he had been—a stockbroker until a police undercover operation exposed him as the ringleader of a white-collar gang, composed mostly of his clients, who were involved in everything from money laundering and drugs to prostitution. Somehow, because Miranda attended several of the gang functions as an escort, Todd got the idea she was a police informant. He was overheard threatening her life. A month later she was dead.

“Why are you asking about him?” Tucker sounded wary.

Lissa knotted her hands.

“Because, he blamed Miranda when he got arrested, remember?” Evan said. “He accused her of ratting him out. He got fired because of her. He was pretty pissed off. Maybe it was the same with Jessica.”

“Hite’s full of shit.”

“You don’t think Miranda or Jessica were working with the cops?” asked Evan.

“Hell, no. Miranda would have told me,” Tucker said. “Look, there were a lot of people at the party in Galveston. A lot of guys. Hite could have been there, I guess, but I doubt it.” He sounded forlorn now. Pressing his palms together, he knifed his hands between his knees. “Goddamn it, I do not want to see Pop. Do you guys?”

“We could get something to eat,” Lissa said. She wasn’t hungry, but she didn’t want to face their folks, either.

“I could go for a burger.” Evan pulled into the parking lot of Ace’s Grill, a diner and pool hall near Lissa’s parents’ house, and while Evan and Tucker went inside to order their hamburgers and beers, Lissa called home. She was relieved it was her mom, not her dad, who answered, even though she had to reassure her mother a dozen times that Tucker was fine, everybody was fine.

“We’re just getting a hamburger, Mom,” Lissa said.

“I roasted two chickens,” Lissa’s mother said. “There’s plenty for everyone.”

“Oh, I’m sorry. We didn’t know. The guys are already inside ordering. Will it keep until tomorrow?”

Her mother said she imagined it would get eaten one way or another. She said, “You’re sure Tucker’s okay now, he’s in the clear?”

Lissa said she hoped so. She said they’d be there within the hour.

Tucker and Evan were already eating when she joined them. She unwrapped her burger.

“Your folks okay?” Evan asked.

“Mom made dinner for everyone,” Lissa said.

“Uh-oh. Should have known.” Tucker took a swallow of his beer. “Is she mad?”

“No. You’ll have it for lunch tomorrow.” Lissa set down her burger; she wiped her fingers on her napkin. “Listen, Tucker, about this morning, at the house, I didn’t mean anything.”

“I know. It’s all right,” he said, but he wouldn’t look at her.

“It isn’t that I don’t believe in you.”

Now he met her eyes. “I said I know.”

Lissa held his glance a moment, then picked up her burger again. “Where did you go, anyway, after you left? Where did the police find you?”

“Morgan’s apartment. I was taking her car back to her. They got me in the parking lot there.”

“Who’s Morgan?” Evan asked.

“There wasn’t any reason not to go with them,” Tucker said, as if he hadn’t heard Evan, or maybe, Lissa thought, Tucker was ignoring him. Maybe, for once, he was embarrassed to admit he’d been picked up by yet one more woman, a total stranger, and spent the night with her, in her bed.

“I don’t understand why you would talk to them, though, without a lawyer, Tuck.” Lissa rewrapped her burger. She couldn’t finish it, or her French fries, or her beer.

“You’re done?” Evan asked. “Was it bad?”

“No, it’s fine. My head hurts, is all.”

“It’s hurting all the time lately,” Tucker said.

“Too much of the time.” Evan wiped his mouth, wadded his paper napkin and tossed it into his empty burger basket. “Do I have to make an appointment with Dr. White, or will you?”

“If you don’t do it, Liss, I will,” Tucker said. “You can’t whip up on us both.”

She dipped her glance; she didn’t want them to see that she was afraid.

* * *

Their mother wasn’t more than a silhouette, a dark sketch under the porch light, when they pulled up in front of the house. Still, it seemed to Lissa that she could feel the worry rising off her in waves, or maybe she was conditioned to expect it from long experience. She wondered how many hours her mother had logged on the porch, looking up and down the street for Tucker, consumed with anxiety for him, praying for any sign. Lissa had done time on the porch, too. Hard scary time. She could name the day it started, the first time Tucker disappeared. It had been the week after they were to have celebrated his fourth birthday.

Dad hired a circus clown for the occasion. He bought a movie camera. Unable to sit still, Lissa’s mother dropped her at a friend’s house to play. Lissa ended up spending the night there, and the following day when her mother picked her up, she wasn’t the same. Nothing was. She tried to explain it, how Daddy’s mind broke from all the terrible things he went through during the war, and somehow this made him lock Tucker in a closet. She said she needed Lissa to be very brave, because Daddy was gone for a while to the hospital, and Tucker was still so badly frightened, he wasn’t talking. Lissa remembered her own panic. She remembered Tucker’s hollow stare and the grim set of her mother’s mouth.

She remembered the day a week after her father left when she walked out onto the front porch, hunting for Tucker, anxious about him and her parents, her dad’s absence, her mother’s and Tucker’s terrible quiet. She expected to see her little brother playing in the yard, but instead, she saw the front gate hanging open, idly squeaking on its hinges, and beyond it, nothing.

A white aching space.

As if along with Tucker the whole world had vanished. The police were called in, and they found him just after nightfall, after everyone was good and scared, none the worse for his adventure, in a ravine nearly a mile from their house. The story he told was that he’d been trying to catch a dog, a little puppy. He said he followed it because it looked so sad and lost, and he wanted to bring it home and take care of it.

Lissa remembered Tucker hiding from their dad on his return from the hospital weeks later. Even though he was calmer and seemed to keep a better grip on his temper, it took Tucker a long time to warm up to him again. Thinking back now, Lissa didn’t remember the movie camera ever making it out of the box. It was probably packed away somewhere along with Momma’s habit of humming and Dad’s laughter, which was rare even then.

She didn’t know exactly, because even as a child she’d been reluctant to ask, to talk about her dad’s absence at all. She had always thought there was more to it; she still did.

Evan took her hand, and they followed Tucker up the sidewalk.

Their mother came to the top of the steps. Tucker joined her, and she took hold of him, bending her forehead to his chest. She wasn’t crying, but she was close to it, and Lissa was glad when Tucker slipped his arms around her.

“Come on, Ma. It’s nothing,” he said. “It’s over.”

“Are you sure?” She tilted her gaze to look at him.

“They wanted to ask me some questions, that’s all.”

“You didn’t know her, then? Jessica Sweet? You told the police you didn’t?”

Lissa’s heart sank. She ought to have warned her mother, but there hadn’t been time, and truthfully she hadn’t wanted to. “Mom? I think he’s going to need a lawyer.”

“No, I told you—”

“You talked to the police without an attorney, Tucker. They know you had a relationship with Jessica. Nothing’s over. When they find her killer, then it will be over.”

6

TUCKER SAID LISSA was making too much of it, that it was no big deal. This time he had an alibi—witnesses, receipts, proof that he was nowhere near here when Jessica Sweet was killed and dumped in the woods. Emily wanted to believe him; she did believe him. She gathered herself. “I baked a cake,” she said.

Tucker grinned his foolish puppy grin. “Chocolate?”

She nodded, patting his cheeks, happy to have him home, to have her family together. She didn’t miss Lissa’s sigh of exasperation but chose to ignore it. “Why don’t we all go inside?”

Lissa asked for a rain check. “I’m worn out, and Evan and I have an early day—”

When she broke off, Emily didn’t have to turn around to know that Roy was standing in the doorway. She froze. She had tried talking to him at dinner, forcing herself to say Joe’s name. She had said, “Please, let me explain,” but Roy answered there wasn’t a need, and his voice had been low with hurt. She had no idea what he thought he knew, or where he could have gotten his information, if he had any, and she was beside herself with the worry of it. But there was no way they could pursue it now, in front of the children. She hugged her arms around herself.

Tucker lifted his cap, whipped it once, then again, against his leg, saying nothing.

The silence thickened. Someone in the neighborhood called for their dog and now the night breeze carried the sound of a train whistle from the edge of town.

“Roy?” Emily lifted her voice. “I was just saying we should all come inside and have some cake.” She paused, and when he didn’t answer, she turned to him, and she was relieved and not a little amazed when he didn’t argue, when instead, he backed out of the doorway, leaving it open. Gesturing at Tucker and Lissa and Evan, she followed Roy down the front hall and into the kitchen. The cake was centered on the table, underneath a glass cake dome. It had turned out beautifully, and Emily was glad she hadn’t abandoned making it.

“Mmm, looks yummy.” Lissa opened a cabinet and lifted down five dessert plates.

“I hope it’s not too dry.” Emily gathered forks and napkins, taking a moment to circle Lissa’s waist as a way of thanking her for staying, for being amenable.

Lissa tipped her head to Emily’s. They were often the peacemakers, the buffer between Roy and Tucker.

“Is coffee all right? There are soft drinks and milk.” Emily looked around at the men, and she thought it wasn’t only Roy who was humoring her. Every one of them was. Even Lissa was likely wondering if Emily truly believed she could serve them slices of cake like doses of medicine and somehow defuse the tension. She knew better, of course. But she wanted her family to see that regardless of the circumstances they could still come together, just as they had in the past, to share in the sweetness of dessert.

When everyone was seated, she said they should join hands. It seemed important to offer a blessing. “Roy, would you do the honors?” she asked, and her heart almost broke with love and gratitude when he bowed his head, and taking Tucker’s hand in his left and Lissa’s hand in his right, he thanked God for them and for Evan, and for the cake, and Emily, who baked it.

After they said their amens, she squeezed Tucker’s opposite hand. “Thank you, God, too, that our son is home safe.” She smiled at him.

He kept her glance and her hand, and there was something wounded and fraught caging the shadows of his eyes. Some quality or essence had come over him—was it despair? Remorse? She didn’t know, had never seen it before.

“I’ve been a bastard,” he said.

Emily frowned.

“I’m sorry,” Tucker said.

“It’s all right, honey,” Emily said, but panic knotted her stomach.

“It isn’t all right,” he insisted. “It hasn’t been right—I haven’t been right, not for a long time.”

“What do you mean, Tucker?” Lissa asked the question Emily couldn’t find breath for.

“I didn’t murder Jessica Sweet.” Tucker looked hard at Lissa. “Or Miranda. I tried telling you earlier, Liss. The cops can dog me into hell, and they probably will, but they’ve got it wrong.”

“If they’re so goddamn wrong,” Roy said, “why do they keep coming after you?”

Emily tensed, waiting for Tucker to say something ugly; she waited to hear the scrape of his chair, the clatter of his plate when he dumped it into the sink. She waited for him to walk out in a huff, or walk out yelling. But for what seemed an eternal moment there was nothing.

And then Tucker said, “I want to come back to work.”

Emily looked at Tucker in astonishment.

But he had eyes only for his father. “I’ll do whatever it takes, Pop. You can cut my salary, put me on any kind of job. I don’t care. I just want a chance to make it up to you, to get it right.”

A tremor rocked Tucker’s voice, stalling Emily’s heart.

“I meant what I said before,” he went on, “about being a bastard. I’m sick of myself. Sick of living this way. Sick of being so fucked up— Sorry, Mom. There’s no reason you should believe me, but I swear this time it’s different. If you could just let me try—if you could just give me one more shot.”

Roy drew his napkin from his lap. “The only job we’ve got going on is Pecan Grove, and Pederson’s made it clear if he sees you out at the site, he’ll quit. We can’t afford to lose him. I think your sister and Evan would agree.”

“Maybe if we talked to him,” Evan said.

“If we reassure him he won’t have to work directly with Tuck again,” Lissa said. “Either Evan or I can meet with Carl from now on.”

Emily clenched her fists, willing Roy to see the possibility.

He didn’t. “That’s not going to fly,” he said. “If he even sees Tucker out there, he says he’s done. I had to tack five percent onto his original bid to get him to stay as it is.”