Sassafras, Part 39


Joan


Rick wasn't there when I got to Tanner's. Billy and I sat at the bar and talked about his mom while we waited.

"Do you really think somebody killed my mom?" he asked me.

"I don't know, but I'm not going to leave until I know what happened. This is the last place she was seen alive, so it's the logical place to look for clues." I looked around the room, but I didn't have any idea what would be a clue. "Does anybody here look familiar?”

"Aunt Jo, everybody here looks familiar.”

“I mean, did your mom ever date anybody here?”

He looked around the room a minute, then pointed at a man playing pool. “She dated him a couple of times. I don’t remember his name. He’s a real estate agent. She was really mad when she found out he was married, but that was two years ago.” He looked around some more, then pointed at two men at the end of the bar. “She used to complain about them always asking her out while she was working, but Don told them if they didn’t leave her alone they weren’t allowed back in the diner. She hadn’t said anything about them since last spring. She went out with Deana a lot, and used to tell me about the guys she tried to fix her up with, but she never went out with any of them.”

“Well, who was the last person she dated?”

“She went out with a guy named Phil she met on-line. He writes one of the blogs she reads, the Phil-estine. I can show it to you when we get home. He lives in Kansas somewhere. They used to meet in Kansas City when she could get a weekend off, but I guess four or five months ago he started dating somebody that lives in his apartment building. She was real bummed out about it.”

“What was he like?”

“I don’t know. His blog is pretty cool, but I never actually met him. He never came to Sassafras, and I never went to Kansas City with her.” So much for a jealous boyfriend.

When the bartender came by we ordered drinks. I thought about last night, wondered if it was possible I could be pregnant. I hadn’t had to worry about that for years. I decided to just have a coke, just in case. I asked the bartender if she knew who had been in the night Jenny died, but she didn't. The bartender who had been working, Matt, wasn't working until tomorrow. Billy saw some guys he knew and wanted to go talk to them. I wondered if they were the same ones who got him drunk the night before.

While he was gone I looked around the room, trying to figure out how to find a clue. They always just jumped right out in the detective books I loved reading. Not all of them were real clues, some were just red herrings to distract you from the real ones, but I didn’t even see any red herrings. I was still looking around when I felt somebody touch my arm. I turned around, hoping to see Rick, but it wasn’t. At first I didn’t recognize him, but then I realized it was Steve Majors, a boy I had gone to school with. He wasn’t a boy anymore. He had sure grown up. In school he had been a real runt, thin and small, constantly bullied by the other kids. We had been in a couple of classes and our lockers were next to each other. He hadn’t grown much taller, but he had filled out and wasn’t wearing worn out hand-me-downs anymore.

“Joan! I thought that was you,” he said. “When did you get in town?”

I had to think for a minute. “I got in town Wednesday.”

“It’s good to see you. I’m sorry about your sister. This town just won’t be the same without her.”

“I know, that’s what everybody says. Did you see her much?”

“Just at the restaurant, and here every now and then.”

“Were you here the night she died?”

“Yeah, I was. I tried to talk her into going out sometime, but I didn’t have any more luck than I did in high school. I used to have the biggest crush on her. I guess I still do. Or did.”

“Was she with anybody that night?”

“No, she was alone, just sitting back by the pool tables. I wish I would have stayed and given her a ride home. I feel like it’s my fault she died, but I know that’s crazy. She probably wouldn’t have let me drive her home anyway. Why don’t you come and sit with me and my friends? We can talk about the good old days.”

“No, I’m meeting someone for dinner. Thanks anyway.”

“Well, I guess I’ll see you tomorrow at the funeral,” he said. “I’m sorry you had to come back to town for something like that. We’re all going to miss Jenny.” He gave me a hug and kissed my cheek, then walked to a table with a couple of other men sitting at it.