Nice Girls(59)

“Mary?” Kevin asked. “These are some serious allegations. You sure about this?”

I didn’t want to believe that Dwayne was capable of murder. But at the same time, it all made sense.

He had never gotten over Olivia. If he discovered that she was seeing someone else, then the truth could have upset him. In an act of jealous rage, he had killed her, then cut her up and dumped her into Liberty Lake.

I knew Dwayne was capable of it. He had the strength to kill someone. He had the charisma to hide it.

And after my night with him, Dwayne knew that I was suspicious. He’d panicked, and he’d disposed of Olivia’s body parts into the lake. Wherever he’d hidden her, he’d cleared it out. That was how she’d wound up at West End Park.

“As far as you’re concerned, this is an anonymous phone call,” I said quietly. “This is a tip. Please, Kevin, just look into him.”

Less than twenty-four hours later, Kevin had done more than that. He’d arrested the killer, the man responsible for the murder of Olivia Willand, whose body had been ripped apart, her life and her dignity taken away.

The scene cut back to Macy Holmes.

“Though authorities have not yet released information, sources have verified that the suspect is twenty-two-year-old Dwayne Turner, an assistant manager here,” she said. “Turner was an alum of Liberty Lake High School and former quarterback of the school’s football team. In 2011, he was part of the school’s championship team. It is believed that Turner and Olivia Willand had personally known each other. More updates to come. And now back to your regularly scheduled programming.”

I turned off the TV. I looked through the glass doors of the patio. The sky was a clear, bright blue. Sunlight gleamed over the grass and the wooden fence in the backyard. It was too beautiful a day for November. But I went upstairs and changed anyway, putting on my jacket.

I took a long walk around the neighborhood, breathing in the crisp, cool air. I was steady again in what had seemed like forever.





29




The next day, I showed up for my night shift at Goodhue Groceries. Jim was especially sanguine—it was as if one of his employees had never been arrested for murder. Jim acted as if Dwayne had never existed at all. He had more important things to worry about, like the crush of Thanksgiving customers in the next three weeks. He had work to do.

“Look happy, Mary,” said Jim as I put my jacket in my locker. “It’s crucial that we all look relaxed and professional today.”

“Is it because of—?”

Jim cleared his throat and nodded. Out in the hallway, the door to Dwayne’s office was closed. The investigators would soon examine it.

“I’m sending out a store-wide email tonight with guidelines,” said Jim, his voice oddly chipper. “Our policy is ensuring a good experience for our customers. No one here talks about you-know-who or thinks about him. No chitchatting with journalists or customers.”

I nodded.

“And if anyone starts doing otherwise, I’ve been directed to fire them. And I trust you, Mary,” said Jim as he pointed his index finger at me. “You’re a smart girl. But some people here . . . not as smart. If I were you, I’d spread the word, all right?”

I nodded and watched as Jim flagged down someone else.

But work seemed normal. We were programmed for it, the routine. As daylight waned, I restocked the shelves and took over someone else’s checkout lane. The other employees continued as usual, smiles plastered on their faces. Even Ron was calm. He walked past my lane without so much as a glare in my direction.

The customers, however, were shell-shocked. Their curiosity overwhelmed them. In their minds, a murderer had once lurked the shelves, touching their food, and thus indirectly impacting their lives.

“Did you know the man who worked here?” whispered a hockey mom. “The one from TV?”

“No comment,” I said politely.

“Could you tell that he was a murderer?” asked a teenage girl a few hours later. “Did he seem off?”

“Your total is fifty-eight dollars and six cents,” I replied.

“Have you ever felt unsafe here with that monster?” asked a concerned father.

I was so tired that I only shrugged.

It was a good question, though. In the past three weeks since I’d been home, I hadn’t been afraid of Dwayne. I’d worked with him, talked with him, slept with him. Nothing had seemed strange. It was only afterward that I could piece everything together.

Olivia probably had felt safe with him, too, until she’d been killed. I could have been next. That was what should have frightened me. I could have been a mess of limbs floating in the water. I could have been hacked apart.

But the idea was alien, like an artifact on display—it was something to gawk at and then forget.

I was lucky because Olivia hadn’t been.

Half an hour before close, a squat old woman came to my lane. As I scanned her items, she started searching through her small purse.

“I heard the news,” said the old woman. “I know you’re probably tired of talking about this, but what happened was horrible.”

I said nothing as she dug out a handful of coins. She was planning to pay the exact amount down to the cent.

“Just awful,” she said, shaking her head. “How does someone kill two women and then abandon their own son? That poor baby.”