Sunset Beach(131)

62


Drue was sitting in a back booth at Mastry’s Bar when Zee walked up. He slid onto the bench opposite hers, already looking distinctly uncomfortable. She’d ordered a chardonnay for herself and a beer for him.

He took a long pull on the beer. “Brice tells me you’ve agreed to the new job. That’s good news for both of us, right?”

“It is,” Drue said. “Thanks for the recommendation.”

She hefted a cardboard box onto the tabletop and pushed it toward him. “I brought you something.”

“You didn’t have to do that…” He opened the box, and lifted out the black binder. He rifled through the pages, nodding. “Where’d you find it?”

“In a crate of Dad’s stuff, up in the attic at the cottage,” Drue said. “I think I know why you took it, but I can’t figure out how it ended up there.”

“I put it there, and then I completely forgot about it.”

“When?”

He scratched his chin as he pondered the question. “It was the year after I retired, while I was living there.”

“You lived in my cottage?” she said, taken aback.

“Technically, it was still your mom’s cottage back then. I was, as you might say, between relationships at the time, so I rented it for six months, before I bought my condo at Bayfront Towers.”

“I had no idea,” Drue said. “Dad never said anything, and Mom sure didn’t. But then, there was a whole lot she never told me.”

Zee took off his sunglasses and swung them by the earpiece. He settled back in the booth. “Brice told me you had a lot of questions about Colleen Hicks. So that’s what this meeting is about?”

Before she could answer, a hand gripped her shoulder. Brice stood there. “Mind if I join you?”

The waiter appeared and Brice ordered a double martini.

When they were alone again, Zee opened the box and showed his friend the contents.

“Son of a bitch,” Brice said.

“Yeah,” Zee agreed. “She found it in the attic at the cottage.”

“So you did take it,” Brice said, nodding. “I wondered.”

“I’ve read most of the file,” Drue said. “And I talked to Vera Rennick, who has her own theories, but I’d appreciate it if you two would just please tell me the truth.”

“You might not like it,” Zee warned.

“I’m a big girl. I think I can handle it,” Drue countered.

Zee sipped his beer. “Yeah, you keep telling me that.”

“I told Drue I was having a thing with Colleen,” Brice said. “She’d already guessed that much.”

“Vera told me Colleen’s husband was abusive,” Drue said.

“That’s putting it mildly. Allen Hicks was a sadistic drunk,” Brice said.

“Piece of shit dirtbag,” Zee put in. “You know what our big mistake was? We should have taken him out and dumped him in Lake Maggiore that first night at the Dreamland. Let the gators take care of him.”

Brice filled his daughter in on the domestic call the two partners had responded to at the motel, the week before Christmas in 1975.

“There was nothing about that in the file,” Drue said.

The former cops exchanged a meaningful look.

“Colleen refused to press charges,” Brice said. “We never even called it in to dispatch, so there wouldn’t be any paper trail.”

“It started that night,” Brice said, looking miserable. “I thought I was being so damn clever. I told Sherri I had a study group on Thursday nights, but she eventually caught on.”

“And you knew Dad was having an affair with Colleen?” Drue asked Zee.

“It didn’t take a genius.”

“Things ramped up with her so fast, I didn’t realize, until it was too late, that Colleen had emotional problems,” Brice said.

“Total head case,” Zee agreed, swirling his finger beside his face.

“I guess it was in July when she really started talking crazy. Allen beat her up pretty bad. I kept telling her she should leave him, get a divorce. I offered to help her, but I was very clear that I was never going to leave Sherri.”

“You’d screw around on Mom, but you didn’t want a divorce?” Drue asked, her voice dripping scorn.

“Believe it or not, I loved your mom. Through everything, God help me, I loved her. When things got really crazy with Colleen, I realized, too late, that I wanted to make my marriage work. Your mom and I had a life together. We had plans. I was going to go to law school, we were gonna have kids.” He sighed and fished the olive out of his martini.

“And what did Colleen want?” Drue asked.

“She wanted to run away, assume a new identity, a new life. When I told her there was no way I’d leave, things got ugly. She got hysterical, made threats. She was stalking me, driving past the house. She even went to the office where your mom worked, to check her out! I didn’t find out ’til later that Sherri knew exactly who Colleen was.”

“What happened next?”

“She was calling me all the time, driving past the house, acting so crazy, I thought I’d lose my mind,” Brice said. “I couldn’t sleep. I got ulcers.” He looked over at his former partner.