Page 61 of Nothing Ever Happens Here

“Not kill, Florence!” Evan growls, clenching his teeth against the pain. “Let’s get shit straight. Leo had a heart attack! I just put him in the trunk and drove him out to Lumberjack’s Motel so we could discuss the money I was owed, and he dies all on his fucking own! He ended up in Shelby’s lake becausefuckShelby. She deserves to be a suspect. It’s all her fault any of this happened. She fucked me over!” Evan gasps, moans in pain. I don’t back off. “They all did, all those years ago. They gave no thought to me! And Otis was a service to him and his family. Bernie too, but he was depressed anyway. I did them both a favor. Just let it go. Nobody cares about these old guys.”

“What?” I gasp.

“Help me, goddamn it. Give me some towels, you fucking psychopath.”

“Bernie did nothing to you—to anyone. Ever,” I repeat.

“Just give me something to wrap this—fuck! To stop the bleeding and I’ll…”

“After you tell me what Bernie did to deserve this!”

“He walked into the front office the night before and saw me watching videos I took. Whatever. From the cameras I put in room 128 where Shelby stays the night sometimes—she was undressing and I told him someone from the tip line sent this video to me and we’ll take it to the cops, but I could tell he didn’t buy it…so he had to go. That’s it, now fucking help me!” he pleads.

I feel tears welling up in the backs of my eyes. Bernie. I feel sick.I feel lightheaded, like I could actually faint. The horror of what he’s telling me is too much to absorb. My heart feels like it will burst.

I remember, now, with all of these facts flying around me like shrapnel. I remember that he was actually shot in the head, and that he’s actually lost his mind. I’m not just dealing with someone who snapped or is inherently evil—he could be brain damaged and completely unhinged—literally a clinical psychopath with no empathy or remorse, and that’s very,verybad news for me.

I need a moment to think. Do I ask him for the phone and then shoot again if he doesn’t slide it to me? I can’t get too close. I don’t want to shoot him again. I don’t know if I can. He’s already down. I just need my phone. I grab a couple of towels from a rack next to the oven and take two steps toward him, the gun still pointed at him and ready to go if I need it, but he pulls me. Before I can release my grip on the towel, he yanks the end he grabbed so hard and pulls me toward him and I fall—I crash to the ground, and the gun hits the hardwood with a smack and skids under the table.

I howl in pain. I landed on my wrist, and I heard the snap of bone as I reached out to try to catch my fall, but I still try, in a moment of surging adrenaline, to reach for my phone which has fallen on the floor inches away. I know I can’t make it to the gun across the room before him, but maybe I can call for help. I manage to get the phone into my hand, but I’m trembling so violent that I can barely hold it. I steady my hand and tap in 911 and it rings and I hear a voice, but before I can say a thing, I feel a searing pain that steals my breath. There is a blow to the back of my head so hard I see an explosion of stars behind my eyes, and then the world goes black.

27

MACK

I rush directly to the police station when the call from Florence drops. I ask for Riley and I’m told that he’s off for the night, but they will take my report, and my blood boils at the lax attitude this is being met with.

“So what are you gonna actually do about it?” I ask. “She’s in immediate danger! It should be all hands on deck!”

“Well,” a man with a close-cropped hair and unstylish glasses says, and I can hear him trying to keep the condescension out of his voice. “We’re sending a squad to look and we’ll have Angela call her family—see when they were last in contact, and…”

“No,” I cut him off. “Her husband died twenty-seven years ago, and she doesn’t have other family. The Oleanders are her family. Did you call them?” and even though everyone knows everyone here, that’s onlymostlytrue. You can’t know every single person, and I only know this officer vaguely. Jerry is his first name,I think, and he’s young-ish, so maybe he doesn’t know the Oleander’s like everyone in town does, because he has a stupid look on his face as I say this.

“Did I call who?”

“Did you contact the senior living facility where she lives?”

“Well, since you just made the report nine seconds ago and you’re still standing here, when exactly did you think I had time to do that?” he asks, which is fair.

“Fine. Then I’m telling you that’s where to start. And where the hell is the fucking squad gonna start looking? They don’t know where she goes, or anybody she spends time with. What’s the strategy?” I say, impatient and overflowing with anxiety.

“Again, ma’am. We can work on our strategy if you give us just a minute, alright?” he says. And I know I’m being unreasonable, but there has to be some action here. There’s no time to waste.

“What about a silver alert? How do we put out one of those?”

“We don’t. We can’t do that based on your account of a three-second phone call where you think she sounded in distress. It’s just…” And I don’t even need him to finish his bullshitty, runaround answer. They think Shelby and her cronies at the Oleander’s are completely carried away and causing drama on purpose for podcast ratings, pointing the finger at the wrong people, and off the deep end. I’ve heard the talk in just the space of a day, and this means they will probably do the minimum amount they have to do here, just to say they did their job. They don’t believe there’s any danger.

“Where’s Riley?” I ask.

“Off. Red Lobster, I think.”

“Red fucking Lobster? Did you tell him about this?” I snap.

“Yeah, but it’s all-you-can-eat shrimp. And he said to send out a squad and call the family which we are doing, so—” I don’t listen to the rest of whatever is coming out of his mouth. I walk out the front doors, to my car, ready to bust into Red Lobster and flip a goddamn table in attempts to get him to take this more seriously,but then I think of Shelby in the bar and how far that got her. I can’t put myself in that position right now. I’m the only one of us they still might listen to, so I drive. I’ll go to the Oleander’s myself.

I call Riley instead on my way there. He doesn’t pick up so I call twice more, and when he finally answers, I can hear the annoyance in his voice.

“Riley,” he says, still chewing his all-you-can-eat shrimp.

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