Page 47 of 1st Shock
"Hey." Her gaze shoots to Charlie and her elegant clothing, then to me in my ripped jeans and Wonder Woman T-shirt. "Sisters, huh?"
I smile at that. "I know. Hard to believe."
I hold my hand out. "I'm Meg. Thank you for opening up."
"Sure. But I'm on my way to an appointment. Got two minutes. What do you want to know about Mickey?"
Interesting. She opened it but won't invite us in.
Charlie nods. "As I said, we're investigating a cold case. We suspect the woman was murdered by a serial killer."
Dixie's demeanor, her entire body really, seems to collapse, just fold in on itself. "Oh, God. Please tell me they didn't find more of his victims. He’s the devil himself. Pure evil."
"The case we're working doesn't match up with Mickey's timeline. He was already in prison when this girl was murdered. The manner of death fits though."
"You think it's a copycat?"
I cock my head, more than likely giving away my surprise the sister of a serial killer would automatically jump to that idea. Charlie will give me grief for, as they say in baseball, tipping my pitches, but that's me. I wear my emotions like a Burberry overcoat worth showing off.
"We don't know," Charlie says. "The killer knows a lot about Mickey's methods. We're hoping you can tell us about his friends, people he interacted with, coworkers."
"Ha," she barks. "Mickey didn't have friends. He's too much of an asshole. Nobody wanted to be near him. Except us. We were stuck with him."
"We?" I ask.
"Yeah. Myself, Billy Ray, and Bonnie, my brother and sister. Bonnie hightailed it to the other side of the country to get away from Mickey. Me and Billy Ray? We wouldn't leave. This is our home. We like the East Coast and I'm not letting that no-good monster wreck it for me. As long as Mickey is locked up, I'm staying."
Charlie leans casually against the doorjamb. "I read his trial transcripts. I'm sorry for what he put you through."
"It is what it is. We had Billy Ray. He took care of us. Mickey used to beat him senseless. Call him a useless piece of shit, but he always protected us." Dixie turns and holding the door open with her foot, reaches for something inside. The sound of jingling keys cues us that we're losing her. "I gotta go. You can walk out with me and we'll talk."
"Thank you," Charlie says. "Where is Billy Ray now?"
"He lives in the Smoky Mountains. After the trial, he got sick of the news media. Plus, his fiancée dumped him. He hid the whole Mickey thing from her and refused to go to court because he didn’t want her to know they were connected."
"He lied to her," Charlie says.
"Can you blame him? Would you marry a man whose brother is a murderer?"
Point there.
Dixie nudges her chin and Charlie and I move aside to give her room. "Losing her destroyed him. All that time he'd spent protecting us, doing the right thing, sacrificing and she dumped him. Still breaks my heart. He wanted to get out of town, so he bought a cabin and hid out." She shrugs. "He liked it there and stayed."
She steps between Charlie and I to lock the door and we inch backward, in case she, like Billy Ray, likes her space. "I do know," I say. "When life gets crazy I have a spot on the Silver Tail I like. It's quiet. Babbling water, tweeting birds, swishing trees. There's something about nature that relaxes me."
"Well, you and Billy Ray would get along then. He's a nature buff."
Dixie heads for the stairwell with Charlie and I in tow. She's clipping along, but her much shorter legs are no match for Charlie. I take up the rear, more than happy to let my sister do her thing and squeeze whatever info she can from Dixie.
Charlie grabs the handrail as she hustles down, an impressive feat in her skinny, high-heels. "Do you have his address?"
"Yeah. It's a cabin off Cove Mountain Trail. In Little Greenbriar."
"Little Greenbriar?"
"East Tennessee. Deep in the mountains." She rattles off an address, then, "The cabin has a giant wagon wheel in front. You can't miss it."
Dixie pushes the door open allowing a burst of sun to light the shadowed hallway. Once we clear the doorway, she lets the door go and it closes with a loud thunk.
