Page 106 of Rest In Pink

I sat down. “What happened that night?”

Now that she’d made an admission, most of the rest came. But not all, I was pretty sure.

“Mickey began pushing me the first night he got out. He came right to my house. Demanded the money he said he was owed. The problem was, Cleve hadn’t left anything for Mickey. I don’t know why he would have.”

I sensed she was fudging there. Thacker had mentioned briefcases of cash and Skye had confirmed that. And now we knew that bikers were part of that which closed a loop. What the nature of the loop was, we didn’t know. Which made me realize there was probably a very good reason Cleve Blue would dangle money in front of Mickey: to keep him quiet. And Faye wasn’t going to get into that, but the past wasn’t the priority right now. Mickey Pitts in the here and now was.

I asked once again. “What happened that night with Navy?”

Faye sighed. “The day before the crash, I told Navy about Mickey. He hadn’t known. He thought I was being selfish. That the money I was asking for all those years was for me.” She sounded offended that her dead son hadn’t trusted her. “I told him Mickey was extorting me. The family. That I’d been paying him but we needed another one hundred and fifty thousand. Navy said he’d try to get it and to set up a meeting with Mickey the following night.”

She hesitated.

“Go on,” Rain said.

“I set the meeting up. Navy got here first. He was drunk. As usual. He didn’t say that he had that. He certainly didn’t bring it in.” She indicated the briefcase. “He said he wanted to meet Mickey before he did anything. I told him Mickey would go nuts if there was no money, but Navy was insistent. Why didn’t he listen to me?” Faye asked us, as if we were supposed to have an answer. Poor, pitiful Faye, that’s what she was supposed to be.

I wasn’t feeling it.

“Then?” Rain said. I got the feeling she was trying to be good cop. Better her than me. I was sick of this whole mess. I wanted it over before anyone else got hurt or any more of Burney burned down.

“Mickey arrived. I was right. He and Navy got in a big shouting match. Navy wanted to know how he could trust him to leave and Mickey wanted his money. Navy threatened to call the cops and that was too much. Mickey threatened to kill all of us. Me. Navy. Every Blue so that not a drop of Blue blood was left. That’s when Navy ran out and jumped in his car. Mickey chased after him on his dirt bike.” Faye paused and took a deep breath. “That’s the last time I saw my son alive.”

It was also the first time she’d referred to him as her son. I could see a drunk Navy racing away from the Blue House. Mickey chasing. Navy wouldn’t stop here where his wife and child were. Not with Mickey behind him. He kept going and then went through the guardrail. We’ll never know if it was suicide or a drunken accident, but either way, Mickey was the cause.

“You set the meeting up with Mickey,” I said. “How did you contact him?”

“He contacted me,” Faye said. “A burner phone. Like he would from prison.”

“When’s the last time you talked to your brother?” Rain asked.

Faye hesitated.

“How long ago?” I demanded.

“Monday,” Faye said.

“What did he want?”

Faye laughed, but not with humor. With the darkness of it all. “He wanted his money, of course. But he told me he was going to cut me some slack. It only had to be a hundred thousand. That he’d gotten another fifty grand from someone.”

To kill Thacker, I thought and I knew Rain was thinking the same.

Faye pointed at the briefcase. “If Navy had given him that, he’d be on his way to Mexico or wherever he thinks he can hide, right now.”

“No,” I said. “He’d have wanted his last fifty thousand.”

“We’ve got to find him,” Rain said. “He’s burned down the cardboard factory. And the Shady Rest, which killed somebody.”

Faye didn’t seem surprised. I guess she assumed any fire in town would be Mickey.

I grabbed the ledger. “Is this Navy’s handwriting?”

Faye’s eyes grew wide. “Where did you get that?”

“It was in the briefcase with the money,” I said.

She licked her lips. She was trying to read what was on it, upside down. I pulled it back closer to me.

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