Summer Sons(94)
“He’s not going to mentor me anymore, either,” he said.
“Well, fuck,” Riley said.
Andrew flopped lengthwise over the arm of the empty couch, legs propped up at the knee. He felt like a starter that wouldn’t turn over, coughing and whining and straining, fuel lines flooded. The research explosion bracketed Riley off on the second couch, but he leaned over to tousle Andrew’s hair, one firm ruffle that contained a comfort words couldn’t begin to provide.
That made it easier for Andrew to admit, “He did steal the field notes, though. Gave them to me this afternoon, had it out with him about the whole thing.”
“Holy shit,” Riley said, startled. “Well, damn, hand them over—what are you waiting for?”
Andrew heaved himself to sitting on the couch, grabbed the journal out of his messenger bag, and threw it to Riley. While his roommate fumbled to catch it, he covered his face with both hands, pressing onto his orbital bones to relieve a building stress headache. Continually smashing himself against walls—picking up a clue here or there, reaching dead end after dead end—had drained him to the point of surrender. Pages rustled on the other couch.
Riley said, “His Rolodex is the final few pages, looks like.”
Andrew executed a combined roll and bounce onto his stomach, sticking out a hand for the journal. He skimmed the list of names, addresses, and phone numbers with a quivering chill, each of them a possible contender. Would their interviews rule them out? Page numbers correlated to each person, a total of twenty-three participants including the last addition, Lisa McCormick. Andrew paged to the right spot and found a blank page. Eddie had begun the entry with her details at the top, then added a big, fat asterisk that said review the Gerson first to compare, schedule 8/9?? His immediately preceding annotations were, judging by a fast skim, from an interview with one of Sam’s customers that was mostly about the Blair Witch Project.
“Another reference to the fucking monograph,” Andrew said.
Riley stole the notebook back with a frown and did some paging through of his own, nearer to the front. Andrew watched him chew his thin lower lip, incisors peeking out along with his front teeth. His brow furrowed.
“I figured,” he said, turning the pages toward Andrew.
The notation at the top said Jane Troth (follow with Mark [Troth??] later).
“She said he interviewed her about her family shit early on,” Andrew confirmed.
“Dude, he only filled a page and a half on her, they barely talked about anything,” he said. “That strikes me as a little weird, yeah? Given her goddamn cursed house.”
“Noted. You want to add reading those interviews to your helping-hand research?” Andrew asked—offering him an opportunity to assist them that wouldn’t put him out in the field, a minor concession to Sam’s demand.
“Sure, I guess.” Riley gave him a confused look, as if he wanted to ask why are you not more excited about this, but the thought of reading a whole book of Eddie’s handwritten ghost stories made his skin crawl. “Wanna smoke?”
“God, yeah,” Andrew said.
Riley peeled a page flag from the minuscule dispenser to keep his spot and disappeared upstairs. While Andrew waited he texted Sam, crossed out the one real lead I had. Professor Troth and her husband spooked the shit out of him but, given her rail-thin build and his state of illness ten weeks or so after Eddie’s death, neither of them were prime candidates to handle Eddie’s six-foot-plus frame, even after he bled out. They could be connected, but how? Missing pieces taunted him, twisted him up on himself. Riley’s bare feet slapped the wood of the stairs as he returned, blunt in hand, and blew smoke in Andrew’s face. He breathed it in and let Riley stick the blunt in his mouth, lopsided. Filling his lungs with sweet, weighty burning calmed his nerves instantly, a fully Pavlovian reflex.
“I’m still searching for a copy of that monograph,” Riley said.
“West told me he didn’t take the book, just the notes, and only to keep Troth from doing it first.” Andrew lifted the blunt into the air blindly and Riley snagged it back from him. “Who else would’ve known about the book, though?”
“Honestly? Literally anyone who talked to Eddie in that last week. He was running his mouth off to everyone, from Troth to his interviews to … whoever,” Riley said.
“Square one,” Andrew said.
Riley sighed, agreement without needing to agree. Andrew’s phone buzzed on his chest and he picked it up to read Sam’s response: I’m off tonight, you’re off every night, let’s get the boys together. A text alert cut through the music from his roommate’s phone a moment later. He tipped his head back and their eyes met. Riley smirked, knowing.
“Sam?” Andrew asked.
Riley checked his phone and said, “Yep.”
fine, he texted back.
* * *
Star-white gas station lamps threw bottomless shadows between the gaudy finery of the waiting pack. Andrew circled his thumb around the knob of the Supra’s gearshift as he coasted on neutral into the space between the WRX and the Mazda, conspicuously unoccupied. The interior of his own car was almost alien to him, stripped to its necessities aside from the red LEDs he’d added aftermarket. Compared to the broad bulk of the Challenger or the spacious interior of Sam’s altered WRX, his Supra molded around him like a second skin. He pulled the brake and slid out.