All Good People Here(43)

He looked up from his book as the bell above the door chimed Margot’s arrival. “Welcome.”

“Thanks.” Margot hesitated by the doorway. She’d been planning on asking him directly about Jace, but something stopped her—the curtness of his voice maybe, or the cool look in his eye. Perhaps it’d go over better if she eased into it. She turned toward an aisle and pretended to browse, hoping he’d initiate a conversation, but he stayed quiet. As she walked along the aisle, the images on the DVD covers changed from old black-and-whites to darkened houses and words written in blood. She grabbed one at random and brought it to the register.

The guy glanced at the DVD as she placed it on the counter. “Classic,” he said.

Margot looked down at the movie, surprised to discover she’d actually seen it before. It was about a young girl who comes back from the dead over and over to torture then kill. “Tale as old as time.”

As he rang her up, Margot kept waiting for the guy to say something—everyone else in this town was so curious about who she was and why she was there—but he accepted her credit card wordlessly, then handed over the DVD and receipt. “Due back by Thursday.”

“Thanks.” Margot slipped the movie into her backpack. “Hey, are you Eli, by chance?”

The guy looked up from the book he’d already gone back to. For a moment, he was silent, then, “Yes.”

“I’m Margot Dav—”

“I know who you are.”

“Oh. Right…Then you probably also know that I’m looking into the January Jacobs case. I know you moved to Wakarusa after it happened, but someone mentioned that you used to be friends with Jace. I was hoping to ask you about him.”

Though she hadn’t asked a direct question, most people would have felt compelled to respond, if for no other reason than to avoid an awkward silence. Eli, on the other hand, just stared passively back at her.

After a moment, she said, “Is that true? Were the two of you friends?”

“We were friends.”

“Do you guys still talk?”

“No.”

“Do you happen to know where he is?”

“No.”

“Okay…Listen, I’m sorry I’m prying. I’m not trying to get Jace in trouble or anything. I—”

But Eli cut her off. “I don’t give a shit about that. I’m not, like, hiding anything. I just haven’t heard from the guy in over a decade.”

“Right. Okay.” Margot hesitated. She was pretty sure he was telling the truth, but she also suspected he knew more about Jace than he thought he did. She just needed to coax it out of him. “Could you tell me what he was like when you did know him then?”

“I honestly didn’t know him that well. We mainly just…smoked weed together.”

“That’s way more than anyone else in this town did with him. You probably remember more than you think. Please. I’m not using this for an article or anything. I’m just trying to find him.”

Eli eyed her for a moment, and then, finally, he sighed. “What do you wanna know?”

Margot gave him a grateful smile. “Did he ever talk about the future? What he wanted to be, where he wanted to live?”

“Not that I remember.”

“Okay…What did he talk about?”

“I don’t know. He was pretty quiet.”

Margot forced her face to remain neutral. “What was he like? Personality, likes, dislikes, that kinda thing.” She was getting further away from what she actually needed, but at this point, she just wanted to get Eli talking.

“Um…He liked art, painting and shit. He hated his family.”

“Really?” Margot raised her eyebrows. “How d’you know?”

“Because he’d say things like I hate my fucking family. And, you know”—Eli shrugged—“I’d read between the lines.”

“Huh. Was his sister included in that?”

“January?” For the first time, Eli looked surprised by the question. “I don’t know. He didn’t ever really talk about her.” His eyes roved around the store and it seemed he was trying to remember whether or not that was true. “Yeah, no. He couldn’t have hated her. He used to bring flowers to her grave every year.”

Margot blinked. “Jace brought flowers to January’s grave?” She’d heard him clearly enough, but she was having trouble wrapping her head around it. It didn’t jibe with the boy she remembered or the grown-up version of him she’d created in her head. “Every year, when?”

“In high school.”

“No, I mean, what time of year? Do you remember? Was it the same time every year?”

“Oh. Maybe. I don’t know. I just remember this one time when we were smoking. It was like midnight or something, and suddenly he said he had to go. And he never had a curfew, or at least not one he ever cared about, so I asked where he was going and he told me he was bringing flowers to his sister’s grave. Said he did it every year. I remember because he’d never really talked about her before and he got all weird when he did.”

“Weird how?”

Eli hitched a shoulder. “I don’t know. It was like he thought he’d slipped up or something. Said something he shouldn’t have.”