Wolfhunter River (Stillhouse Lake #3)(59)

“Yes,” I say. “She’s helping me today.”

“Doin’ what?”

“Taking notes,” Lanny says. She reaches into her bag and takes out a pen and paper. Writes down the date. Her hand is shaking, but damn if she doesn’t sound calm. “Go ahead.”

“Y’all ain’t neither one from around here,” Vee says, and it’s a velvety-smooth, uniquely Tennessee drawl that I don’t have, and neither does my daughter. “Where from?”

“We don’t have long with you,” I say as Lanny opens her mouth; I don’t want this girl-prisoner to know any more about us than is strictly necessary. Just in case. “What happened the day your mother passed, Vee? Imagine yourself waking up in the morning, and just tell me about that day as you remember it.”

I say it as kindly as I can, because I’m trying to be generous and believe the weird blankness in her is shock and trauma, and I don’t want to make it worse. I imagine the police weren’t nearly as considerate.

Vee says nothing. Nothing. She just shakes her head and looks down toward her feet, with the mess of tangled hair tumbling forward to shade her face.

“I promise you, I am trying to help,” I tell her, even more quietly. “Nothing you say to me is going to be admissible in court, it’s only for your attorney to use to try to help you. It’ll be okay. You can trust me.”

If she even hears me, she gives no sign of it at all. She sways a little, like willow branches in a cold wind, and I feel a prickle of gooseflesh on the back of my neck.

Then Lanny suddenly says, “It’s the wrong question, right?”

I send her a look that I hope clearly says don’t lead the damn witness, but it’s worked. Vee is looking up at us again. No, at Lanny. She even pushes some hair back from her face.

“You’re right. I didn’t wake up ’cause I never went to bed. I was out over at the cutoff near the river.”

“Which river?” I ask.

“Wolfhunter River, ain’t no other one around here.”

“Were you with anyone?” I ask.

“No,” she says, and I know that one is a lie, because I see her clear green eyes dart away and come back to fix on my daughter again. I don’t like that look. I don’t like it at all. “Well. Maybe some others, but we don’t pay no mind to each other. We do our thing, that’s all.”

“So what’s your thing?” Lanny asks. I bite my tongue on an impulse to tell her to be quiet, because I have the strong guess that if she stays quiet, I get nowhere.

But even Lanny just gets a dull shrug of Vee’s prison-uniformed shoulders to that question.

Hector Sparks is avidly following all this. He’s staring over his glasses at Vee Crockett with an expression that seems intent and very interested. It honestly makes me a little uncomfortable.

She ignores him totally. Like she’s had practice.

“So,” I say, “tell me about the night before, and keep going up to when you found your mom.”

I think she’s going to shut down completely, but instead she finally says, “I went out to score. Tyler had some Oxy he bought off some old lady as needed the money, so I got a few. Sharon had a nice bottle of whiskey and some vodka. So we built a fire and shared all round. Dicky came around with meth, but I didn’t have none of that shit.” She sounds briefly superior. “Then Tyler said I needed to blow him for the Oxy, the dickhead. I stretched out by the fire after. The Oxy and whiskey made me kinda sick, so I stayed. Tyler and Sharon was gone when I stopped flyin’. Fire was out.”

I feel my daughter flinch at the too-casual mention of the sexual transaction, thrown out by a girl her own age.

“So what did you do after that?” I ask. Another shrug, even more apathetic than the last.

“Went to school for a hot minute,” she replies. “Then I got bored.”

“Where’d you go?”

“Nowheres.”

“Wolfhunter’s not that big,” I say. “Not a lot of places to go. Try to remember.”

She rolls her eyes. “Hung out at the abandoned glass factory a while. I got a sleeping bag there and some stuff for when I don’t want to go to class.” Stuff, I imagine, is some hoarded pills, or booze, or both.

“Did you see anybody else there?”

“No.”

“So what were you doing?” Lanny says. Vee suddenly smiles. It’s a smile that shocks me, because it looks so . . . normal. Like the two of them are just having a friendly conversation, without bars all around. Without one of them being accused of matricide.

“Good times, girl. Drank, took the last of my Oxy,” she said. “Just sort of drifted awhile.”

I don’t like that answer. “And then what?”

“Walked home. It ain’t far.” She turns her face away again. I can’t tell if the smile is still there, but I imagine it is, and fight off another wave of misgivings. “Momma was on the floor. Gun was right there next to her. Guess they got her, just like she thought they might. I picked it up ’cause I heard somebody outside. So I fired it to warn ’em off. Thought they might kill me like they did her.” She laughs. Laughs. “Anyway, it were just the postman, and I missed him.”

“Detective Fairweather said you had blood on you. Can you tell me how it got there, Vee?” She doesn’t answer that. She freezes up. I let it go, because the clock is ticking. “You said they. Who are you talking about?” Vee shakes her head.