The Night Shift(16)

“I want to be a writer,” Jesse says.

This surprises Ella for some reason. “Oh yeah? What kind of writer?”

“I’m thinking long-form journalism. At my old school, I was the editor of the school paper.”

There’s pride in her voice. Ella wonders why Jesse transferred schools. Cruel to move a kid senior year. She decides not to ask. One step at a time.

“I’d love to read some of your pieces.”

Jesse doesn’t respond but Ella swears she blushes, her porcelain skin briefly turning a shade of pink.

Ella raises her cup. “Here’s to the next Woodward or Bernstein.”

“I prefer Joan Didion.”

Ella has no idea who that is. She’ll look it up later. “You working on any stories now?”

Jesse sips her drink. “Yeah, a pretty fascinating one.”

“Yeah?”

“A true-crime mystery.”

Ella leans in to hear more.

“About an unsolved crime in Linden.”

Ella feels a tingle crawl up her spine.

Jesse continues, “A fifteen-year-old mass murder at the local Blockbuster.” She continues staring at Ella, waiting for a reaction.

Ella sips her coffee but makes no reply.

“So?” Jesse prompts her.

“So what?”

“Will you let me interview you? The prior reporting’s weak. It’s a joke, really.”

The girl has clearly done much more research than Facebook-spying on Brad.

Ella’s never wanted to talk about that day. Ever. In the past twenty-four hours, she’s already talked about it more than she has in the past fifteen years. But she knows that Jesse’s request for an interview isn’t about Ella or Candy or Katie or Mandy.

It’s about Jesse.

“Let me think about it.”

Jesse’s stare continues, strangely unsettling.

Yet, for some reason, Ella can’t seem to look away.





CHAPTER 13


KELLER





Keller crinkles her nose at the smell.

“Place is downwind from the Sewage Authority,” Atticus explains without her asking. They trudge up the steps to Union Self-Storage, its office housed in a cinder-block building. A chain-link fence topped with razor wire protects the rows of aluminum huts containing the remnants of people’s lives. She wonders who’d want to store their belongings in a place permeated by such a stench. Spying a semitruck parked in front of one of the larger units, she realizes it might be industrial storage, a place to keep excess loads of nonperishables.

Inside they’re met by a lazy-eyed clerk. Keller flashes her badge. That wakes him up.

“We’re here to see Rusty Whitaker,” Keller says.

“Rusty’s, ah, at lunch.” The man is jittery. But the badge tends to have that effect. Still, he seems to be sweating an unusual amount.

Keller follows his glance out the window to the semi. “He’s at lunch?”

“He goes to the buffet at Kitten’s,” the guy explains, wiping his brow with his sleeve.

“Kitten’s?”

Before the clerk responds, Atticus tells her, “I know the place.”

Ten minutes later, they’re at the front door to Kitten’s Gentleman’s Club, though Keller doubts there are any gentlemen inside. The flash of the badge does its thing again. The two make a sight: an eight-month-pregnant FBI agent and an Indian-American detective in a skinny tie. The burly guy with a long beard working the door taps out an anxious text and they’re met inside by the greasy smile of the owner.

“Mr. Kitten?” Keller says, for her own amusement.

He starts to respond, but realizes she’s kidding and displays the greasy smile again. “We don’t get the privilege of having the FBI here often. How can we help you, Agent…”

“Keller, Special Agent Keller. This is Detective Singh from Union County.” Keller glances about the dreary club. A woman wearing a bikini dances in the background to “Pour Some Sugar on Me.”

“We’re just customers.” Keller gives him a hard stare.

The owner sucks his teeth. Calculating. The smile returns. “Welcome! For our friends in law enforcement we waive the two-drink minimum and give twenty percent off lunch. Buffet for two?”

Not on your life.

Atticus points to a man at a table near the stage who’s watching the dancer while he eats chicken wings. “We’re just here to meet a friend.”

The owner hesitates. “You need anything, you tell them to come get me.”

Keller couldn’t care less about whatever the guy is nervous about. Probably more than dancing is going on in the back rooms. She has no interest being the morality police for sex workers on the afternoon shift at a strip club near the sewage plant.

She feels less sympathetic toward the patrons seated at small tables throughout the club. She and Atticus approach Rusty Whitaker’s table. They sit directly across from him.

Rusty is unfazed at the presence of strangers, and continues gnawing on a chicken bone. “Who the hell are you?”

Keller doesn’t answer, but displays her badge.

Rusty rolls his eyes. Begins sucking another wing.

Keller feels a wave of nausea watching him eat.