Deadly Ever After by Eva Gates (distant reading .txt) 📗

a record of the time you turned it over to them,” Watson said. “As will you.” His eyes wandered to the little piece of paper on the desk half tucked under the iPad alongside the room key.

“How clever you are,” Evangeline said cheerfully. “Why yes, so I will.”

Watson crossed the room and picked up the valet stub. “Nine twenty-five.”

Mom and I exchanged glances. By 9:25, Richard Eric Lewiston Junior was dead.

“Quite a long drive,” Watson said. “If you left the restaurant around eight. Jake’s is less than a five-minute drive from here.”

“I like to drive,” said Evangeline. “It helps to clear my head.”

Once again, Mom refrained from saying, Are you kidding?

The phone in Evangeline’s hand trilled. She almost leapt out of her skin and dropped the phone onto the sofa next to her. She scrambled for it and fumbled to push the button and hold it to her ear. “Ricky! What? No, I do not want an all-expenses-paid vacation to the Bahamas. You call this number again, and I’ll sue you for every penny you have. I am quite sure that is not much.” She threw the phone across the room. It landed on the carpet and bounced once. She burst into tears, and my mom gathered her into her arms. Fluffy resumed barking.

“Is that the dress you were wearing to dinner this evening?” Watson asked her.

Evangeline mumbled, “Yes.”

Following Watson’s train of thought, I studied the front of Evangeline’s black dress and her bare arms for signs of … gulp … blood. I saw nothing out of the ordinary.

“She had a jacket over it,” I said. “The jacket’s on the bed.”

Watson gave me a nod, then turned to Butch. “The bartender at Jake’s said Ricky told her he’d be in the bar here. Go and see if he’s there. Have you met this guy?”

“No,” Butch said.

“Lucy?”

“I’ll go with Butch.”

“Why would Ricky have told a bartender his plans for the evening?” Evangeline sobbed to my mom. “And what did Lucy mean, she doesn’t have any money?” Mom didn’t answer as Butch and I left the room.

“She wants her son to marry you? And he doesn’t want to?” Butch said. “Guy sounds like a fool to me.”

I smiled at my friend. “Thanks for the vote of support. Ricky and I dated all through college and for years after, but it was more what our mothers wanted than what we wanted. That’s why I came to OBX in the first place, to get away from all those family expectations. Mom’s come around to understanding. Evangeline, apparently not so much.”

We arrived at the lobby bar, and I looked quickly around. No sign of Richard Eric Lewiston III. “He’s not here,” I said.

“Let’s ask if he’s been in.” Butch crossed the floor, and I trotted along in his wake. Everyone stopped what they were doing to stare, even if they were pretending not to.

The bartender, a grizzly older guy, finished pouring a pint of beer, shoved it at his customer, and sauntered over to us. “ ’Evening, Officer. Something up?”

“Just a quick question,” Butch said. “I’m looking for a man who might have been in earlier. Age thirty-five, uh … Lucy?”

“About five nine, slightly chubby around the middle. Short brown hair thinning in the center. Fashionably rough stubble, some sunburn on his face. He was wearing dark jeans and a white golf shirt under a white blazer, loafers with no socks. He would have been on his own, or maybe with a young woman.”

“Yeah, I think I saw him.”

“When was this?” Butch asked.

“I started shift at six. He was here then.” The bartender jerked his chin to the end of the bar. “Nursing a Scotch and fiddling with his phone. I didn’t see him talking to anyone, and he left not long after.”

“He hasn’t been back?”

“Not that I saw, and I’ve been here all night.”

“Thanks,” Butch said.

“What’s he done?”

Butch didn’t answer. When we were taking the stairs to the second floor, he said, “Sounds like your friend Ricky blew off the bartender from Jake’s.”

“Fair enough, as she told him she wasn’t coming.”

Butch knocked lightly on the door to the suite, and Watson opened it. Evangeline was on her feet. The tears had stopped, but she clutched a tattered tissue in one hand. She stared at the door. When she saw that Butch and I were alone, she resumed pacing up and down, twisting her tissue in her hands.

“I’m going to stay here tonight,” Mom said. “Evangeline shouldn’t be alone. I’ve called down to the desk and asked them to send someone to make up the pullout couch and bring me a bag of toiletries.”

“You’re going to sleep on a pullout couch?” I said.

“I’m sure Ricky will return his mother’s call shortly and I can go back to my sister’s place.”

“Do you suppose he’s lost his phone, Suzanne?” Evangeline asked. “That’s possible, isn’t it? Or perhaps the battery died.”

Or he met a woman and isn’t taking calls from his mother, I thought but didn’t say. I glanced at Detective Watson. What he was thinking and not saying was that Ricky might be on the run after killing his father.

“I have to get back to Jake’s,” Watson said. “If you hear from your son, Mrs. Lewiston, notify me immediately.”

“I’ll see that she does,” Mom said.

“I’d appreciate it.” Watson held a plastic bag in one hand. Evangeline’s shoes were no longer on the floor, and the size and shape of the bag indicated that the gold lamé jacket was inside. Watson had taken her things for analysis, I realized.

“You going to be okay, Mom?” I asked.

“You go home, dear. I’ll be fine. I’m sure we can find something enjoyable to watch on television. Evangeline and I will have a nice evening.” She was facing me, her back to Evangeline. Mom rolled her eyes to the heavens as she spoke.

“Before I go, Mrs. Richardson,” Watson said, “a word?”

Mom and I followed the detective into the corridor. I shut the door behind me.

“She doesn’t seem all that upset at the death of her husband,”