Thin air, p.13
Thin Air, page 13
part #1 of Jessica Shaw Series
17
JESSICA
Jessica was relieved to find Razor, rather than Freeman, behind the bar when she slid onto a stool at Ace’s later that evening.
As she waited to order her drink, it occurred to her she’d spent every night in the place since her arrival in Eagle Rock. If she didn’t clear the case soon, she’d be in danger of ending up with a drinking problem. A bit like Mack McCool, who seemed to be as much of a permanent fixture in Ace’s as the pool table and the ripped leatherette seats. He occupied his usual booth, a schooner of beer and a whiskey chaser on the table and his deck of cards laid out in front of him.
“What’re you havin’?” Razor asked, slinging a bar towel over his shoulder. He was wearing another obscure band tee with musty armpits and skinny jeans.
“Beer, please.”
He smirked. “Let me guess. Cold, right?”
“Yes. In fact, no.”
Jessica figured she might need something stronger if she was going to attempt a conversation with Mack McCool. “Scratch that,” she said. “I’ll have a Scotch instead.”
“Decent?” Razor sighed.
“That’s right.” Jessica pointed to where Mack McCool was sitting, studying the playing cards. “And whatever he’s having too.”
Razor didn’t even bother trying to hide his surprise, but he said nothing and set about pouring the drinks.
While she waited, Jessica fired off a text to Holliday.
In Ace’s. You around tonight?
A few seconds later, her cell phone vibrated with a response.
Sorry, working to deadline. Catch you tomorrow?
Jessica felt as though she’d just been turned down for a date.
No problem. Speak tomorrow.
She slipped the cell phone into her bag and balanced the beer glass and two tumblers of whiskey in her hands. She slowly crossed the room toward Mack McCool’s booth, careful not to slosh any of the contents over the sides. He didn’t look up when Jessica approached or when she slid into the seat across from him.
He continued to play his card game for what felt like a long time. Finally, Mack McCool looked at her. “Can I help you?”
The hot room suddenly got a whole lot chillier. The way he’d said those four words seemed to Jessica to be more of a challenge than a question.
She stared back at him, tried to show she wasn’t intimidated.
McCool had the complexion of a man with too much fondness for the whiskey bottle. Broken capillaries gave his cheeks a permanently flushed, weather-beaten appearance, and a porous nose the color of a fresh bruise completed the booze lover’s look. His pale, watery eyes were bloodshot. He looked away, unable to hold her eye.
“My name is Jessica Shaw. I’m a private—”
“I know who you are.”
“I’m investigating the Lavelle case, and I’ve been speaking to some local residents about what happened that night. I hoped we might have a chat about Eleanor and Alicia.”
Jessica thought she saw his face twitch involuntarily at the mention of Alicia’s name, but he said nothing.
She went on. “I specifically wanted to ask you about a man called Rob Young. I believe he was a lodger of yours at the time of the incident?”
McCool ignored her and turned his attention back to the cards. A minute passed in silence. Then two minutes.
Then he said, “You need to leave now.”
“If you don’t want to talk to me, that’s fine. I’ll leave you alone. But I have as much right to drink in this bar as you or anyone else.”
“I’m not talking about the bar. I’m not even talking about Eagle Rock. I’m talking about LA. Get out of town tonight if you know what’s good for you.”
“Is that a threat?”
McCool shrugged and took a slug of beer from his own glass. The two drinks Jessica had bought for him remained untouched. “If you say so.”
“And if I don’t leave town?”
McCool stunned her by swiping his hand across the table, sending the cards fluttering onto the floor. He squeezed out of the booth and leaned over her, palms pressed against the table. He was so close Jessica could smell the whiskey on his breath.
“Game over,” he said. “That’s what.”
Jessica watched him leave, then picked up her own whiskey and drank it in one go. Then she sank the one she’d bought for Mack McCool.
“That went well,” Razor said, eyeing the cards scattered around the booth as she returned to the stool.
She placed the empty tumbler on the counter. “Stick another one in there, will you?”
Razor poured generously from the bottle of Royal Emblem and placed the drink on a napkin. “Don’t take it personally,” he said. “Old McCool isn’t exactly known for his social skills around here. First time I’ve seen him lose his shit like that myself, to be fair, but I hear he has a real mean temper.”
As Jessica rummaged in her bag for her wallet to pay the bartender, she became aware of movement out of the corner of her eye. The construction worker from her first night in Ace’s Bar had parked himself on the popped-pimple stool right next to her own.
“Oh, great,” she muttered under her breath.
The guy leaned into her, completely invading Jessica’s personal space. He pointed to her drink. “That one’s on me, sweetheart.”
His breath smelled minty, like he’d just popped a couple of Altoids. He signaled to Razor to pour the same again for himself. Jessica was about to tell the construction guy where to get off when he introduced himself.
“Hank Stevenson,” he said. “I saw you in here a coupla nights ago. You got a name?”
Hank Stevenson. Ex-husband of Darla Kennedy, who was the onetime best friend of Eleanor Lavelle. Suddenly, Jessica wasn’t quite so desperate to get rid of him.
“Jessica Shaw. You probably know by now why I’m in town.”
“Yeah, I heard.”
Stevenson was still wearing the ball cap but had swapped his work gear for jeans and a short-sleeved plaid shirt. The jeans were sharply creased down the middle of each leg, and she noticed the left one had a double fold where it hadn’t been ironed properly. Jessica pegged him as someone who still lived alone after the breakdown of his marriage.
Her eyes instinctively moved to his left hand. No wedding ring. She couldn’t decide whether Hank Stevenson was trying to hit on her or was just a nosy old bastard trying to find out information about her investigation. She guessed a bit of both.
“Found out anything interesting yet?” he asked.
“Bits and pieces.”
“Yeah? Can’t see how digging up the past is going to help anyone now. Me? I prefer to focus on the here and now.”
He scratched three-day-old gray stubble on his chin with dirty fingernails and gave her a smile that made Jessica’s flesh crawl.
“Your wife was best friends with Eleanor?” she asked.
“Ex-wife. And yes, she was.”
“What about you? Did you know Eleanor well?”
“Well enough. Not as much as Darla seemed to think, though.”
“What do you mean?”
Stevenson picked up his whiskey, studied it for a moment, and then took a long, slow drink. He emptied the glass, and Jessica followed suit. She caught Razor’s eye and indicated she wanted two more drinks. Stevenson watched the bartender pour, then continued with his story.
“Darla worshipped the ground Eleanor walked on,” he said. “What you need to understand about Darla is she never had many girlfriends before Eleanor showed up in town. She was quiet and lacked confidence, and the other girls at school never showed much of an interest in her. If they did, it was to make fun of her. Me and Darla, we were childhood sweethearts and got married a week after graduation, so she didn’t really need anyone else.”
Jessica watched as Razor walked over to Mack McCool’s booth and began collecting the playing cards from the floor before leaving them in a neat little pile on the table. She hoped he wasn’t expecting the old man back in the bar tonight. She wasn’t in the mood for round two.
Jessica turned her attention back to Hank Stevenson.
“We used to come along here to Ace’s every Friday night, and that’s how Darla got to know Eleanor,” he said. “They’d talk about women’s stuff—you know, like clothes and movie stars and all that kind of shit. Then they started hanging out together away from the bar. Next thing, Darla’s wearing makeup and changing the way she dresses to look more like Eleanor, even though she didn’t really have the figure, truth be told. These days, you women would probably call it a girl crush. Don’t get me wrong—it wasn’t sexual or nothing. I guess Darla just wanted to be like Eleanor.”
“What did you mean when you said you didn’t know Eleanor as well as Darla thought you did?”
“That’s the other thing you need to know about Darla: she’s jealous as hell.” Stevenson laughed. “When that green-eyed monster rears its ugly head, boy, you’d better take cover. It’s the reason why we split up in the end. What self-respecting man puts up with his wife checking his cell phone and rummaging through his pockets when he’s been out at work all day earning a living? I only stayed as long as I did because of Hank Junior. When he left for college a few years back, I was outta there.”
“Do you think Darla was jealous of Eleanor?”
“Hell yeah. What broad wouldn’t be? Eleanor had every guy in Eagle Rock after her. And Darla thought that included me too. At one point, she even convinced herself we were having an affair behind her back.”
“And were you?”
Stevenson snorted. “Not a chance. Girl like Eleanor wouldn’t have looked twice at a guy like me.” He picked up the refilled tumbler, took a sip, then looked at Jessica. “In any case, I loved my wife. I had no interest in screwing her best friend.”
They both drank in silence for a few minutes. Then Jessica remembered what Catherine Tavernier had told her about her father’s suspicions that Eleanor was having an affair with a coworker.
“You’re a construction worker, right?” she asked. “Did you ever work for Tav-Con?”
“Yeah, back in the ’90s, before Premium Construction took over the contracts. Still work for Premium now.”
“You ever remember hearing any rumors about Eleanor being involved with any of the staff when she worked in the office there?”
Stevenson shook his head. “Can’t say that I do. And believe me, if any of the boys were getting jiggy with Eleanor Lavelle, they wouldn’t have kept something as juicy as that to themselves. Whole place woulda known about it.”
“Maybe she wanted to keep the relationship on the down-low?” Jessica said. “From what I hear, the owner wasn’t too happy about the idea of coworkers getting it on together.”
“Lincoln Tavernier? Yeah, doesn’t surprise me. Old bastard walked around with a poker stuck up his ass most of the time. He wasn’t just the boss—he was the fun police. I don’t want to speak ill of the dead or nothing, but things improved a lot when his number came up and Premium took over the company. Still don’t think Eleanor was involved with any of the guys, though.” He rubbed his thumb and forefinger together. “Not enough dinero for Eleanor.”
“What does that mean?”
“Eleanor liked money. And she liked men with money. Ones with big bank balances and fat wallets and dumb enough to spend all their cash on her.”
“Sounds pretty shallow.”
“Yeah, well, she had a really shit life growing up in those kids’ homes, didn’t she? I guess she just wanted some financial security, a better future for herself. Who could blame her? What I could never understand was how she wound up slumming it in this dump and then working in an office for peanuts. The way she spoke, it sounded like she was earning a fortune when she lived in Hollywood.”
“What did she do in Hollywood?”
Jessica tried to keep her tone neutral despite the excitement suddenly bubbling up inside of her. Hollywood. Eleanor’s missing years. The years off the radar.
“Worked in a few of the topless bars. You know, a bit of ‘exotic dancing,’ as she called it. Skimpy panties and high heels and not much else. Reckoned she could make a hundred bucks on a good night and even more on weekends and holidays.”
“You know which bars?”
“Never asked. Not my scene.” Stevenson laughed raucously, as though the topless bars in Hollywood were exactly his scene.
“Did she have an apartment in Hollywood?”
“Nah, from what she told Darla, she crashed on couches mostly. When she wasn’t spending the night in motels and hotels with the customers, that is.”
Her excitement at finding out more about Eleanor’s past evaporated as Jessica listened to the details. She started to feel sick to her stomach. Hopper had been right about Eleanor—she had been lost. It seemed to Jessica that Eleanor Lavelle had been a young woman who thought she was playing all these men when she was the one who was really being exploited.
Jessica drank some Scotch, hoping the burn of the whiskey might wash away the bile rising in her throat.
“The police report mentions Darla had a fight with Eleanor the night she died. Did she?”
Stevenson whistled through his teeth in a way that set her own teeth on edge. “You’ve seen the police file? I’m impressed.”
“Yes, I have. Did they fight?”
“Physically? I don’t know about that. But they did have one helluva argument.”
“According to your own witness statement, you told the police you didn’t know anything about a fight.”
He shrugged. “Darla was my wife. I was just trying to look out for her.”
“Lying to the police doesn’t bother you?”
Stevenson chuckled. “It didn’t then, and it wouldn’t bother me none now either. Not one little bit.”
“Even though Darla was the last person to see Eleanor alive?”
“Now, that’s where you’re wrong, sweetheart. The guy who slit Eleanor’s throat was the last person to see her alive. I was with Darla the whole night after she left the house on Morrison. Hours before the cops said Eleanor died. I know Darla didn’t do it, and I didn’t see any point in telling the police about the fight and having them point the finger at her. Poor gal was in a bad enough state as it was when she found out Eleanor was dead. The last words they’d spoken to each other were said in anger. Can you imagine how that made Darla feel?”
“What did they argue about?”
“Eleanor was planning on splitting town. Darla got upset. They argued. She left. That’s all I know.”
Jessica was silent for a moment, then said, “I need to go powder my nose.”
She moved off the stool and stumbled slightly as she grabbed her bag. The room had taken on a warm, fuzzy glow. She squinted at the far wall and saw two doors and a pink neon sign for restrooms behind the pool table.
“Same again?” asked Stevenson.
“Yeah, whatever.”
Jessica headed for the rear of the room and paused at the pool table to allow a cute college guy to hit his shot before squeezing past and heading for the ladies’ room. Sandwiched between the two restroom doors was an old bulletin board made up of a cork surface behind a locked glass panel, designed to prevent drunken patrons from tampering with the displayed contents. The glass was covered in a layer of grime, and the gig flyers and drinks promos behind it were decades old. The bulletin board, like the rest of Ace’s Bar, hadn’t been updated in years. There were photos, too, the fashion and hairstyles suggesting they’d been taken a long time ago. Back in the days when people actually went to those one-hour photo places to have their film developed, before the rise of social media meant sharing pictures online instead.
Jessica immediately spotted a couple of photos of Eleanor Lavelle, her long red hair making her easy to pick out among the dozens of smiling faces. In one, Ace Freeman stood grinning behind the bar with his arm slung across Eleanor’s shoulders. In another, Eleanor and a much younger Darla Kennedy held up shot glasses in each hand to the camera. They were both laughing, their cheeks flushed with booze and youth and happiness.
A third picture of Eleanor, partially obscured by a flyer, caught Jessica’s eye. She reached into her bag and pulled out the picklock set. Looked around, saw the college guys were busy with their game of pool, not taking any notice of her. The amount of booze she’d consumed made springing the lock a trickier task than it should have been, but eventually it yielded.
Jessica cracked open the frame just wide enough to carefully slide her fingernail under the thumbtack, pulling it out along with the photo. She held the glossy print under the restroom sign’s neon light for a closer look.
Eleanor Lavelle’s arms were wrapped protectively around the neck of a slightly awkward-looking guy in his early twenties. He had piercing blue eyes and long dark curly hair that fell around his face. He wore an Alice in Chains T-shirt and baggy, ripped jeans. Even in the ’90s, the bar staff’s uniform at Ace’s appeared to have been a band tee and jeans, with only the fit of the pants changing in the ensuing years. Jessica flipped the photo over and saw some words written in neat capital letters on the back: Eleanor and Rob, Aug ’92.
She shoved the photo into the back pocket of her cutoffs and pushed open the door to the ladies’ restroom. Jessica stumbled against the washbasin and retched a couple of times, but nothing came up. She turned the cold tap on full and splashed water onto her face and wiped her hands on her shorts. Then she pulled the photo from her pocket and looked at it again under the glare of the fluorescent lights.
The writing on the back told Jessica the couple captured by the camera’s lens were Eleanor Lavelle and Rob Young.
The photo itself told her they were Eleanor Lavelle and Tony Shaw.
18
ELEANOR
OCTOBER 2, 1992
Eleanor filled Darla’s glass to just below the rim. The deep-burgundy liquid was almost black in the dimness of the candlelit room.
“Why are we drinking fancy red wine anyway?” Darla giggled and took another sip of the expensive merlot. “It’s definitely an improvement on our usual Friday-night beers.”
Eleanor smiled mysteriously. “Because we’re celebrating.”
JESSICA
Jessica was relieved to find Razor, rather than Freeman, behind the bar when she slid onto a stool at Ace’s later that evening.
As she waited to order her drink, it occurred to her she’d spent every night in the place since her arrival in Eagle Rock. If she didn’t clear the case soon, she’d be in danger of ending up with a drinking problem. A bit like Mack McCool, who seemed to be as much of a permanent fixture in Ace’s as the pool table and the ripped leatherette seats. He occupied his usual booth, a schooner of beer and a whiskey chaser on the table and his deck of cards laid out in front of him.
“What’re you havin’?” Razor asked, slinging a bar towel over his shoulder. He was wearing another obscure band tee with musty armpits and skinny jeans.
“Beer, please.”
He smirked. “Let me guess. Cold, right?”
“Yes. In fact, no.”
Jessica figured she might need something stronger if she was going to attempt a conversation with Mack McCool. “Scratch that,” she said. “I’ll have a Scotch instead.”
“Decent?” Razor sighed.
“That’s right.” Jessica pointed to where Mack McCool was sitting, studying the playing cards. “And whatever he’s having too.”
Razor didn’t even bother trying to hide his surprise, but he said nothing and set about pouring the drinks.
While she waited, Jessica fired off a text to Holliday.
In Ace’s. You around tonight?
A few seconds later, her cell phone vibrated with a response.
Sorry, working to deadline. Catch you tomorrow?
Jessica felt as though she’d just been turned down for a date.
No problem. Speak tomorrow.
She slipped the cell phone into her bag and balanced the beer glass and two tumblers of whiskey in her hands. She slowly crossed the room toward Mack McCool’s booth, careful not to slosh any of the contents over the sides. He didn’t look up when Jessica approached or when she slid into the seat across from him.
He continued to play his card game for what felt like a long time. Finally, Mack McCool looked at her. “Can I help you?”
The hot room suddenly got a whole lot chillier. The way he’d said those four words seemed to Jessica to be more of a challenge than a question.
She stared back at him, tried to show she wasn’t intimidated.
McCool had the complexion of a man with too much fondness for the whiskey bottle. Broken capillaries gave his cheeks a permanently flushed, weather-beaten appearance, and a porous nose the color of a fresh bruise completed the booze lover’s look. His pale, watery eyes were bloodshot. He looked away, unable to hold her eye.
“My name is Jessica Shaw. I’m a private—”
“I know who you are.”
“I’m investigating the Lavelle case, and I’ve been speaking to some local residents about what happened that night. I hoped we might have a chat about Eleanor and Alicia.”
Jessica thought she saw his face twitch involuntarily at the mention of Alicia’s name, but he said nothing.
She went on. “I specifically wanted to ask you about a man called Rob Young. I believe he was a lodger of yours at the time of the incident?”
McCool ignored her and turned his attention back to the cards. A minute passed in silence. Then two minutes.
Then he said, “You need to leave now.”
“If you don’t want to talk to me, that’s fine. I’ll leave you alone. But I have as much right to drink in this bar as you or anyone else.”
“I’m not talking about the bar. I’m not even talking about Eagle Rock. I’m talking about LA. Get out of town tonight if you know what’s good for you.”
“Is that a threat?”
McCool shrugged and took a slug of beer from his own glass. The two drinks Jessica had bought for him remained untouched. “If you say so.”
“And if I don’t leave town?”
McCool stunned her by swiping his hand across the table, sending the cards fluttering onto the floor. He squeezed out of the booth and leaned over her, palms pressed against the table. He was so close Jessica could smell the whiskey on his breath.
“Game over,” he said. “That’s what.”
Jessica watched him leave, then picked up her own whiskey and drank it in one go. Then she sank the one she’d bought for Mack McCool.
“That went well,” Razor said, eyeing the cards scattered around the booth as she returned to the stool.
She placed the empty tumbler on the counter. “Stick another one in there, will you?”
Razor poured generously from the bottle of Royal Emblem and placed the drink on a napkin. “Don’t take it personally,” he said. “Old McCool isn’t exactly known for his social skills around here. First time I’ve seen him lose his shit like that myself, to be fair, but I hear he has a real mean temper.”
As Jessica rummaged in her bag for her wallet to pay the bartender, she became aware of movement out of the corner of her eye. The construction worker from her first night in Ace’s Bar had parked himself on the popped-pimple stool right next to her own.
“Oh, great,” she muttered under her breath.
The guy leaned into her, completely invading Jessica’s personal space. He pointed to her drink. “That one’s on me, sweetheart.”
His breath smelled minty, like he’d just popped a couple of Altoids. He signaled to Razor to pour the same again for himself. Jessica was about to tell the construction guy where to get off when he introduced himself.
“Hank Stevenson,” he said. “I saw you in here a coupla nights ago. You got a name?”
Hank Stevenson. Ex-husband of Darla Kennedy, who was the onetime best friend of Eleanor Lavelle. Suddenly, Jessica wasn’t quite so desperate to get rid of him.
“Jessica Shaw. You probably know by now why I’m in town.”
“Yeah, I heard.”
Stevenson was still wearing the ball cap but had swapped his work gear for jeans and a short-sleeved plaid shirt. The jeans were sharply creased down the middle of each leg, and she noticed the left one had a double fold where it hadn’t been ironed properly. Jessica pegged him as someone who still lived alone after the breakdown of his marriage.
Her eyes instinctively moved to his left hand. No wedding ring. She couldn’t decide whether Hank Stevenson was trying to hit on her or was just a nosy old bastard trying to find out information about her investigation. She guessed a bit of both.
“Found out anything interesting yet?” he asked.
“Bits and pieces.”
“Yeah? Can’t see how digging up the past is going to help anyone now. Me? I prefer to focus on the here and now.”
He scratched three-day-old gray stubble on his chin with dirty fingernails and gave her a smile that made Jessica’s flesh crawl.
“Your wife was best friends with Eleanor?” she asked.
“Ex-wife. And yes, she was.”
“What about you? Did you know Eleanor well?”
“Well enough. Not as much as Darla seemed to think, though.”
“What do you mean?”
Stevenson picked up his whiskey, studied it for a moment, and then took a long, slow drink. He emptied the glass, and Jessica followed suit. She caught Razor’s eye and indicated she wanted two more drinks. Stevenson watched the bartender pour, then continued with his story.
“Darla worshipped the ground Eleanor walked on,” he said. “What you need to understand about Darla is she never had many girlfriends before Eleanor showed up in town. She was quiet and lacked confidence, and the other girls at school never showed much of an interest in her. If they did, it was to make fun of her. Me and Darla, we were childhood sweethearts and got married a week after graduation, so she didn’t really need anyone else.”
Jessica watched as Razor walked over to Mack McCool’s booth and began collecting the playing cards from the floor before leaving them in a neat little pile on the table. She hoped he wasn’t expecting the old man back in the bar tonight. She wasn’t in the mood for round two.
Jessica turned her attention back to Hank Stevenson.
“We used to come along here to Ace’s every Friday night, and that’s how Darla got to know Eleanor,” he said. “They’d talk about women’s stuff—you know, like clothes and movie stars and all that kind of shit. Then they started hanging out together away from the bar. Next thing, Darla’s wearing makeup and changing the way she dresses to look more like Eleanor, even though she didn’t really have the figure, truth be told. These days, you women would probably call it a girl crush. Don’t get me wrong—it wasn’t sexual or nothing. I guess Darla just wanted to be like Eleanor.”
“What did you mean when you said you didn’t know Eleanor as well as Darla thought you did?”
“That’s the other thing you need to know about Darla: she’s jealous as hell.” Stevenson laughed. “When that green-eyed monster rears its ugly head, boy, you’d better take cover. It’s the reason why we split up in the end. What self-respecting man puts up with his wife checking his cell phone and rummaging through his pockets when he’s been out at work all day earning a living? I only stayed as long as I did because of Hank Junior. When he left for college a few years back, I was outta there.”
“Do you think Darla was jealous of Eleanor?”
“Hell yeah. What broad wouldn’t be? Eleanor had every guy in Eagle Rock after her. And Darla thought that included me too. At one point, she even convinced herself we were having an affair behind her back.”
“And were you?”
Stevenson snorted. “Not a chance. Girl like Eleanor wouldn’t have looked twice at a guy like me.” He picked up the refilled tumbler, took a sip, then looked at Jessica. “In any case, I loved my wife. I had no interest in screwing her best friend.”
They both drank in silence for a few minutes. Then Jessica remembered what Catherine Tavernier had told her about her father’s suspicions that Eleanor was having an affair with a coworker.
“You’re a construction worker, right?” she asked. “Did you ever work for Tav-Con?”
“Yeah, back in the ’90s, before Premium Construction took over the contracts. Still work for Premium now.”
“You ever remember hearing any rumors about Eleanor being involved with any of the staff when she worked in the office there?”
Stevenson shook his head. “Can’t say that I do. And believe me, if any of the boys were getting jiggy with Eleanor Lavelle, they wouldn’t have kept something as juicy as that to themselves. Whole place woulda known about it.”
“Maybe she wanted to keep the relationship on the down-low?” Jessica said. “From what I hear, the owner wasn’t too happy about the idea of coworkers getting it on together.”
“Lincoln Tavernier? Yeah, doesn’t surprise me. Old bastard walked around with a poker stuck up his ass most of the time. He wasn’t just the boss—he was the fun police. I don’t want to speak ill of the dead or nothing, but things improved a lot when his number came up and Premium took over the company. Still don’t think Eleanor was involved with any of the guys, though.” He rubbed his thumb and forefinger together. “Not enough dinero for Eleanor.”
“What does that mean?”
“Eleanor liked money. And she liked men with money. Ones with big bank balances and fat wallets and dumb enough to spend all their cash on her.”
“Sounds pretty shallow.”
“Yeah, well, she had a really shit life growing up in those kids’ homes, didn’t she? I guess she just wanted some financial security, a better future for herself. Who could blame her? What I could never understand was how she wound up slumming it in this dump and then working in an office for peanuts. The way she spoke, it sounded like she was earning a fortune when she lived in Hollywood.”
“What did she do in Hollywood?”
Jessica tried to keep her tone neutral despite the excitement suddenly bubbling up inside of her. Hollywood. Eleanor’s missing years. The years off the radar.
“Worked in a few of the topless bars. You know, a bit of ‘exotic dancing,’ as she called it. Skimpy panties and high heels and not much else. Reckoned she could make a hundred bucks on a good night and even more on weekends and holidays.”
“You know which bars?”
“Never asked. Not my scene.” Stevenson laughed raucously, as though the topless bars in Hollywood were exactly his scene.
“Did she have an apartment in Hollywood?”
“Nah, from what she told Darla, she crashed on couches mostly. When she wasn’t spending the night in motels and hotels with the customers, that is.”
Her excitement at finding out more about Eleanor’s past evaporated as Jessica listened to the details. She started to feel sick to her stomach. Hopper had been right about Eleanor—she had been lost. It seemed to Jessica that Eleanor Lavelle had been a young woman who thought she was playing all these men when she was the one who was really being exploited.
Jessica drank some Scotch, hoping the burn of the whiskey might wash away the bile rising in her throat.
“The police report mentions Darla had a fight with Eleanor the night she died. Did she?”
Stevenson whistled through his teeth in a way that set her own teeth on edge. “You’ve seen the police file? I’m impressed.”
“Yes, I have. Did they fight?”
“Physically? I don’t know about that. But they did have one helluva argument.”
“According to your own witness statement, you told the police you didn’t know anything about a fight.”
He shrugged. “Darla was my wife. I was just trying to look out for her.”
“Lying to the police doesn’t bother you?”
Stevenson chuckled. “It didn’t then, and it wouldn’t bother me none now either. Not one little bit.”
“Even though Darla was the last person to see Eleanor alive?”
“Now, that’s where you’re wrong, sweetheart. The guy who slit Eleanor’s throat was the last person to see her alive. I was with Darla the whole night after she left the house on Morrison. Hours before the cops said Eleanor died. I know Darla didn’t do it, and I didn’t see any point in telling the police about the fight and having them point the finger at her. Poor gal was in a bad enough state as it was when she found out Eleanor was dead. The last words they’d spoken to each other were said in anger. Can you imagine how that made Darla feel?”
“What did they argue about?”
“Eleanor was planning on splitting town. Darla got upset. They argued. She left. That’s all I know.”
Jessica was silent for a moment, then said, “I need to go powder my nose.”
She moved off the stool and stumbled slightly as she grabbed her bag. The room had taken on a warm, fuzzy glow. She squinted at the far wall and saw two doors and a pink neon sign for restrooms behind the pool table.
“Same again?” asked Stevenson.
“Yeah, whatever.”
Jessica headed for the rear of the room and paused at the pool table to allow a cute college guy to hit his shot before squeezing past and heading for the ladies’ room. Sandwiched between the two restroom doors was an old bulletin board made up of a cork surface behind a locked glass panel, designed to prevent drunken patrons from tampering with the displayed contents. The glass was covered in a layer of grime, and the gig flyers and drinks promos behind it were decades old. The bulletin board, like the rest of Ace’s Bar, hadn’t been updated in years. There were photos, too, the fashion and hairstyles suggesting they’d been taken a long time ago. Back in the days when people actually went to those one-hour photo places to have their film developed, before the rise of social media meant sharing pictures online instead.
Jessica immediately spotted a couple of photos of Eleanor Lavelle, her long red hair making her easy to pick out among the dozens of smiling faces. In one, Ace Freeman stood grinning behind the bar with his arm slung across Eleanor’s shoulders. In another, Eleanor and a much younger Darla Kennedy held up shot glasses in each hand to the camera. They were both laughing, their cheeks flushed with booze and youth and happiness.
A third picture of Eleanor, partially obscured by a flyer, caught Jessica’s eye. She reached into her bag and pulled out the picklock set. Looked around, saw the college guys were busy with their game of pool, not taking any notice of her. The amount of booze she’d consumed made springing the lock a trickier task than it should have been, but eventually it yielded.
Jessica cracked open the frame just wide enough to carefully slide her fingernail under the thumbtack, pulling it out along with the photo. She held the glossy print under the restroom sign’s neon light for a closer look.
Eleanor Lavelle’s arms were wrapped protectively around the neck of a slightly awkward-looking guy in his early twenties. He had piercing blue eyes and long dark curly hair that fell around his face. He wore an Alice in Chains T-shirt and baggy, ripped jeans. Even in the ’90s, the bar staff’s uniform at Ace’s appeared to have been a band tee and jeans, with only the fit of the pants changing in the ensuing years. Jessica flipped the photo over and saw some words written in neat capital letters on the back: Eleanor and Rob, Aug ’92.
She shoved the photo into the back pocket of her cutoffs and pushed open the door to the ladies’ restroom. Jessica stumbled against the washbasin and retched a couple of times, but nothing came up. She turned the cold tap on full and splashed water onto her face and wiped her hands on her shorts. Then she pulled the photo from her pocket and looked at it again under the glare of the fluorescent lights.
The writing on the back told Jessica the couple captured by the camera’s lens were Eleanor Lavelle and Rob Young.
The photo itself told her they were Eleanor Lavelle and Tony Shaw.
18
ELEANOR
OCTOBER 2, 1992
Eleanor filled Darla’s glass to just below the rim. The deep-burgundy liquid was almost black in the dimness of the candlelit room.
“Why are we drinking fancy red wine anyway?” Darla giggled and took another sip of the expensive merlot. “It’s definitely an improvement on our usual Friday-night beers.”
Eleanor smiled mysteriously. “Because we’re celebrating.”
