Crooked River: A Novel by Valerie Geary Read Free Book Online Page A

there.”
    “On what?”
    “You know. How she was killed. Who did it. That sort of thing.”
    I felt sick to my stomach. “Who did it . . . ?”
    “Yeah, like her boyfriend or a jealous ex-wife. A trucker. Or some long-gone drifter. Or even someone living right here in Terrebonne. Pastor Mike, maybe.” He grinned. It was supposed to be funny, the part about Pastor Mike, but if his name was being thrown around, even in jest, then chances were Bear’s name had come up, too. And I bet no one laughed when it did.
    “I’ve got twenty on a drifter,” he said.
    I stared at my shoes.
    A long time must have passed with me staring at the ground like that, trying to think of something to say, because the next thing I knew, Travis was touching my shoulder, saying, “Hey. Are you okay?”
    “What?” I lifted my gaze.
    The back door swung open again. Travis let go of me and took a step back.
    A redheaded kid I’d sometimes seen hanging around Travis poked his head through the doorway and said, “Hey, dumbshit! Let’s go! Something’s happening at the Meadowlark. They’ve got it all roped off. A bunch of black cars and men walking around in suits—” He noticed me standing there and his expression changed, like he’d been caught doing something he shouldn’t. “Oh. Hey.” And then talking to Travis again, “Looks like you’re busy out here, man. Sorry to interrupt.”
    “Not busy. Just having a smoke.” He took one last pull on the cigarette and then tossed the butt away.
    It landed in a clump of tall grass at the edge of an abandoned field, and I watched it, waiting for the whole thing to go up in flames, but there was only a thin ribbon of gray and then nothing.
    The kid jerked his thumb over his shoulder toward the front of the building. “So you coming or what?”
    “Yeah. We’re right behind you.” Travis untied his apron and draped it over his arm. He turned to me, arched his dark eyebrows, gave me a sly grin, and said, “You got anything else going on right now?”
    I didn’t think about Ollie or how I told her I’d only be a few minutes. I didn’t think about the jacket or Bear waiting for us back at the meadow. Right then, the only thing I was thinking about was that if this had anything to do with the dead woman, I needed to be there. I needed to know what was happening.
    T he deputy inside the taped perimeter waved us away from the yellow line. “Stay back, folks! Give us some space.”
    Travis and I stood on the sidewalk, part of a gathering, gaping crowd that was starting to spill into the street. If I had bothered to look around, I might have recognized some of the people knocking up against me, trying to push forward even as we were being pushed back. But all my attention was on Detective Talbert and room 119. Everyone and everything else were just part of the scenery, blurred shapes shifting in my peripheral vision, jumbled voices rising up, falling down.
    “I bet she was a whore—”
    “A drug dealer—”
    “A crack addict—”
    “Maybe she got what she deserved.”
    Detective Talbert knocked only once before taking the keys from the motel manager and opening the door. He disappeared inside the room for several long minutes, and when he came back out, he was holding his suit jacket over one arm and rubbing the top of his bald head. He stared across the parking lot to where an entire town waited, holding its collective breath.
    Was this where she’d stayed in the days leading up to her death?
    Was this where she’d dreamed her last dream? Taken her last shower? Watched her last news program? Eaten her last meal?
    And her things—her clothes and shoes and makeup bag and whatever else she carried with her to places like this—were all her belongings still inside, barely unpacked, spilling from an open suitcase?
    Did they know now who she was? Were they finally going to give us her name?
    Detective Talbert nodded to a group of people all dressed in dark blue shirts and black