Page 85 of Nightshade

Sneed nodded and looked down at the can she held on the table in front of her. She kept her eyes on it as she spoke.

“She… wasn’t a good person. She talked about all of these guys. Guys who would give her stuff, you know, if she fucked them. But the thing is, she didn’t like any of them, I don’t think. She’d come back to the apartment and sort of brag about how she was just using them. Like how she had an old boyfriend on the mainland who had a place where she could stay and how he was hopelessly in love with her.”

“But she didn’t love him back.”

“No. No way. She called him ‘the schmuck.’ She didn’t love anybody, you ask me.”

“What about over here on the island? Was she doing the same thing?”

“Oh, yeah, she talked about a couple guys she was seeing on and off.”

“From where?”

“From the club, I’m sure. I mean, she didn’t say so specifically, but she said she was through dealing with guys who didn’t have any money.”

“And we’re talking about the Black Marlin, right?”

“Definitely. That’s why she got the job there. She said it was like shooting fish in a barrel. All these old guys over there stepping out on their wives. She’d go with them if there was something in it for her.”

“Did she ever mention any names?”

“No—she was smart enough not to do that. Girls like that know the rules of the game, I think.”

It appeared that Leigh-Anne might have broken the rules or at least threatened to, Stilwell thought.

“Do you remember anything else she said about these men she was seeing?” he asked.

“She just said it was hard sometimes to keep everything separate,” Sneed said.

“What did you take that to mean?”

“Well, like that she was going with different men and had to keep them all separate so one didn’t know about the others.”

“Did she ever mention that there was a problem with any of them?”

“Not really. I think the guy on the mainland knew what was going on over here and was jealous. She said something about that, but she also called him a puppy dog that she had on a leash.”

“You’re talking about the guy she called the schmuck?”

“I’m pretty sure it was the same guy.”

Stilwell would pass that piece of intel on to Sampedro and Ahearn, since they were now handling the mainland aspects of the case.

He tried to get more information out of Sneed.

“But she never mentioned having any problems with anybody over here?” he asked. “Nobody from the club?”

“Not really,” Sneed said. “With her, it was like a balancing act.”

“Do you know if she dated anyone over here who was not from the club?”

“I don’t know, but I don’t think so. I remember she once called that club a target-rich environment.”

“Her words? ‘Target-rich environment’?”

“Yeah, that’s what she said.”

Stilwell was about to end the interview but thought of something else.

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