The Drifter(93)

“Are you sure? How can you be sure?” said Betsy.

“Well, that’s what the police investigators said.” Caroline raised her eyebrow at Betsy. “They placed the time of death right around one thirty or two a.m. There’s no denying that he left the place in a mess, which was unusual for him. And then Ginny was his last victim. He left town, because of you.”

“And you’re absolutely sure she was dead by the time I got there?”

“The detectives seemed to know what they were talking about,” said Caroline. “And now the sick fuck’s just a corpse in a box so, thank God, we’ll never get to ask him. Not that Scottie would have told us. He wasn’t interested in putting anyone at ease. But listen, there’s something I have to tell you, too.”

Caroline paused for a minute before her expression turned grave.

“Wait, what?” Betsy said. “You’re freaking me out. There’s more? How could there possibly be more?”

“It wasn’t your fault that Scottie knew where we lived.”

Betsy eyed her warily.

“But we saw him at Taco Bell, and again at Walmart,” said Betsy. “He must have followed us back.”

“Maybe he did,” Caroline said, “but he had been there before.”

Any part of the landscape that wasn’t spinning in Betsy’s vision before, the weirdly manicured plants in front of the hotel, the sliding glass doors filled with yellowish light from the lobby, was set in motion.

“Wait, hold on,” Betsy said. “What are you saying?”

“That night at the Porpoise, the night I came home from summer break, do you remember it?” asked Caroline, her voice quivering now.

“Yeah, I mean, vaguely. We went to C.J.’s first and then to the Porpoise and we hung out in back by the pool tables. You were in a booth talking to one of Ginny’s guy friends from high school, right?”

Betsy remembered leaving Caroline at the bar.

“I was in a booth, but it wasn’t with a guy from Ginny’s high school,” said Caroline. Betsy could feel her heart pounding hard against her sternum. She put her hands up to her ears, reflexively, afraid of the words they would hear.

“You’ve got to stay with me, Betsy. I have got to tell you. I’ve been trying to tell you for twenty years,” said Caroline.

“Y’all OK?” asked Teddy again, clearly desperate to leave.

“Yep, we’re fine. Just give us five more minutes,” shouted Caroline in his direction, and then turned back to Betsy and squeezed her hand tightly.

“You and Ginny were doing your thing. You’d been together all summer without me, and I walked into this chummy roommate situation. I mean, you weren’t even paying rent. And I felt like a third wheel in my own apartment. So I was being pissy and I bought those shots, and then another round of shots. We had already had so many drinks at C.J.’s. I was feeling angsty and rebellious and, you know, twenty-one fucking years old, so I wandered into the front bar. He was sitting on a stool by himself.”

“Who, Caroline? Who was sitting on a stool by himself?”

“Scottie.”

Betsy pulled her hand away from Caroline’s in shock, but she hung on every word.

“He was sitting on a stool, nursing a whiskey or something, just brooding and you know, dark. He had a guitar case. He said he was a musician and that he was playing for tips. And I believed him. He was a little dirty, kind of scruffy, but interesting. You know, his face was almost handsome, if you didn’t stare too deeply into his eyes. The eyes were what gave him away.”

“Jesus, Caroline.” Betsy’s mind was reeling.

“I know. It gets worse,” she said, putting her head in her hands. “And I would do literally anything for something to drink right now. My throat is dry as hell. Let’s go look for a vending machine.”

They walked into the lobby of the hotel, past the front desk and down a long corridor of hotel rooms. The fluorescent lights in the hallway made Caroline’s cheeks look hollow, and her skin glowed nearly green.

“So we were talking. I don’t remember everything he said, but he told me his name was Michael something. He had a thick accent and he said he was from Louisiana. He said he was making his way down to the Keys to play at a bar where his friend worked. He said he was just passing through.”

Caroline scavenged through her pockets for change but came up short. Betsy dug through her bag to find a dollar bill crisp enough to feed into the slot. Everything about her felt limp and soggy—her dress, her hair, her brain. A can of Coke tumbled through the machine and landed with a thump at the bottom.

“I bought us some drinks and we were just bullshitting, you know how it goes. Ginny came in to try to make me leave and she looked at him funny, like maybe she recognized him or something? But I was thinking that couldn’t be possible. Ginny doesn’t remember anybody, and this guy was just on his way through town. So I stayed. He said he would drive me home later. We had a few more drinks and then he walked me out to his car. I say it was his car, but it was stolen. He stole it from a Piggly Wiggly in Lutz, or something. I think it was like a Caprice Classic, a total beater. We were talking some more in the car, had a cigarette or two. He got out his guitar and starting playing. I mean, he wasn’t terrible. Well, he was obviously terrible. But he was a decent guitar player.”