Page 101 of One In Vermillion

“I’m never going to that place again,” she said.

“Does it bother you that your nephew, Jim, is dead?”

“It’s been a tough year,” Faye said, which was her acknowledgement of losing two children, a nephew, and a brother.

“Yeah,” I said. “Must be tough for the dead.”

“What do you want, Cooper? Your Liz is in town. Anemone is off with that little bitch lawyer who had me sign a living arrangement document in order to stay here. Can you believe it? This is my house.”

“Was. Actually, it never was since Cleve put it in the trust.”

“Whatever.”

“Where were Mickey and Jim hiding after Mickey got out of prison?”

“They’re both dead,” Faye said. “Who cares?”

“I care.”

“I don’t know,” she said.

The fact she hadn’t led with that indicated she was lying. I pulled the blue ledger out. “This was Cleve’s. Found it hidden in his office.”

“Cleve’s been dead for years,” she said. “Whatever’s in there doesn’t matter.”

“I checked the codes against the one on the bank statement I retrieved from Navy’s car. One code is the same. I’m assuming that one is you. Cleve kept track of every penny he gave you.”

“It wasn’t enough,” Faye said. “I’m homeless and destitute.”

I looked at this woman sunning herself in the back of a multi-million-dollar mansion and I didn’t see financial destitution. I saw a moral wasteland.

“I asked Pete how he felt about you,” I said. “While he was handcuffed in the back of a cop car. Going away for life. He said you’d been useful. That was it.”

That finally brought a reaction. She sat up and lifted the sunglasses. “He loves me.”

“He’s like you, Faye. He’s not capable of it.”

“He won’t make it in prison,” Faye said. “I know that much about him. He’s not a man that can be contained by four walls. He’ll go crazy.”

“Yeah, whatever.” I stared her in the eyes. “Tell me where Mickey and Jim were hiding out or you’re out of here today.”

“It’s my house!”

“It’s Anemone’s house. And she’s barely tolerating you. I ask her and she’ll have your shit in the street. I’m sure Imani put a clause in the agreement about lying.”

Faye rolled her eyes. “Damn, you people are soooo fucking stupid. Where do you think Mickey would go when he got out? He went home.”

“I did check that,” I said. “Ken Porter told me there is no record of any property being owned by the Pitts in Burney.”

She looked up at me, squinting in the sunlight. “‘Owned’? How would my mother have owned a place? Back then the damn Blues owned most of Over-the-Hill. Rented shacks out to their workers. A regular company town. Once he moved the factory a lot of people couldn’t make rent, which is kind of ironic. Cleve worked out some sort of tax break and government payout to dump them as some sort of preserve, except the animals living there were people. He could make a profit off anything, Cleve could. Most people just stayed and squatted on the land. It wasn’t like anyone else would want to live there.”

“Where exactly?” I pushed, but Faye was caught up in her memories.

“Our old man split right after Mickey was born. Mom worked her fingers to the bone, literally at times, in the cardboard factory. Then Cleve just moves the manufacturing to Mexico. That was it for her. She was done. She died less a year later. I had to raise Mickey.”

I didn’t point out what a shit job she’d done on that. She was wallowing in her version of Faye-Pitts-tragic-past with a side of whine. I didn’t want the sad tale of the Pitts family. Mickey had spread enough grief and pain to compensate. And of course, she was talking about Cleve as if she hadn’t been married to him and profited off all his dirty dealings. “Where did you grow up?”

“Deaf Goat Lane.”

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