Page 22 of Murder Road

I adjusted my sunglasses. My sandals were digging into the warm sand. “Do any of you know a girl named Rhonda Jean? I think she was on her way here a few nights ago.”

The three of them went quiet and exchanged another look, their laughter gone. Finally, the boy spoke again. “What do you know about Rhonda Jean?”

“We’re just looking for some information,” I said, shrugging. “Like, where she’s from or where she lives. Anything you might know.”

“Is she okay?” This was the girl with the braid, who was wearing cutoff jean shorts and a red-and-black flannel shirt. The sleeves of the shirt were rolled down and it was fully buttoned, as if it wasn’t ninety degrees out. Her expression was alarmed. “How do you know Rhonda? What happened to her?”

“She’s a friend of yours?” Eddie asked the girl. “You’re expecting her?”

The girl looked back and forth between Eddie and me. “You’re not police?” Her tone phrased it as a question.

“Do we look like police?” I asked her, mirroring what the boy had said a few minutes ago.

“Does one of you know Rhonda Jean?” Eddie asked again.

The girl with the braid looked at the other girl. “Kay, did something happen to Rhonda Jean?”

“How would I know?” Kay asked.

I glanced at Eddie. “Let’s go in the house,” Eddie said to me.

I nodded and followed him.

This was a simple power play. The three kids at the firepit wanted information from us, so by walking away we made them follow. Besides, I really wanted to know what was inside that house.

We climbed the wooden steps to the porch. The front door was a few inches ajar. Eddie knocked on it politely. “Hello?” he called. “Anyone home?”

There was no answer, so we pushed the door open and walked in.

It was a cottage with a large main room. The shades on most of the windows were down, and several fans ran in the corners, so the place was dark and almost cool. There was a basic kitchen along one wall, the sink filled with used frying pans and plates. There was a small, spare dining table with two wooden chairs. The rest of the room was taken up with sofas and soft chairs arranged around a large TV that wasn’t on. The furniture was strewn with articles of clothing and battered pillows. Pinned to the walls, their edges curling, were posters: Alien, Smashing Pumpkins, Pearl Jam’s Ten with the silhouette of raised arms. And most prominently, right above the TV and also on the kitchen wall, Kurt Cobain.

Officer Syed had told me that the man who owned this place let the backpackers and hitchhikers use it however they wanted, and I could see that here. How many places had I been to that looked just like this? How many hostels, how many apartments shared by the roommates of the guy I was on a date with? That exact poster of Kurt Cobain in Unplugged, wearing his secondhand cardigan, had hung in the house I’d lived in the day I met Eddie.

Tension crawled up my shoulders to my neck as I pushed my sunglasses to the top of my head. I’d never been to this place, but I still knew it. The hostel in Phoenix. The apartment I’d shared for two months in South Carolina. I’d sat on those sofas and listened to whatever guys were hanging around talk about whether Soundgarden was better than Nirvana, pretending to care. Pretending I was just like the rest of them, while feeling like I was no one at all.

“April?” Eddie’s voice was soft.

I swallowed. “There’s no one here.” I pushed the tense words out.

“Just give it a second. They’ll come to us.”

He sounded so sure, and he was right. Behind us, the door opened, letting in some of the summer sunlight. The three kids from the firepit came in, along with another boy, this one closer to a man, dark-haired, with a beard and a ratty jean jacket.

“Hey,” the long-haired kid said. “This is Todd. I guess he’s the closest to being the one in charge around here.”

Todd didn’t offer to shake our hands. He put his fingers into his jeans pockets and gave us a narrow-eyed look. “What can I help you with?”

Eddie said, “We’re looking for information on a young woman named Rhonda Jean. We think she was headed here. Do you know her?”

Todd looked between us again. “Is something wrong?”

It clicked in my mind, the reason none of these people knew what we were talking about. I looked at Eddie. “The police haven’t been here.”

His eyebrows rose a fraction in surprise as he realized it, too. A young woman hitchhiking, presumably headed for Hunter Beach, had been murdered, and Detective Quentin hadn’t come here yet to ask these kids what they knew. What did that mean?

“The police?” Kay asked. “Why would the police come?”

We had to tell them; we’d come too far now. If they weren’t going to hear it from the police, then they would have to hear it from us.

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