Hallow Springs

Twenty-three

A couple of new faces came by the diner and judging by how many times they glanced my way, they hadn't come for Lewis's pancakes. It was day two of the investigation and my arrival to town had surely already gotten around. Jeannine Whiteside was there and had no doubt followed me all the way from the crime scene to here. If I ever needed a private investigator, a nosey housewife like Jeannine would be twice effective than my current rolodex. I could complain about how high school it all was, but what more could I expect? I was in Hallow Springs and that was how the dramas played out in small towns. Besides, she could tell her clan of overly powdered moms whatever the hell she wanted to, I was here to find Jeremy.

I was now looking over photos from the crime scene and considered the blood, smearing toward the back door. The overturned table and lamp, the shoebox of pictures of me.

What did it all mean? Now Jeremy owed multiple people money. But who else did he owe and why? Could he have fled town and staged his kidnapping? But why would he do that?

We only had a couple open leads – the phone and the high schooler. We needed to find out who Jeremy owed money to and why.

I looked up quickly enough to catch Jeannine's peering over at me from behind a menu. She stirred immediately and found the corner of the ceiling after I saw her watching me. For some reason, I decided to mess with her. I mean the bitch is watching me and I know she's going to conjure up some story as damaging as a National Enquirer article about me. My reputation was in her crosshairs, but I wasn't going be in town long enough to care.

I locked a cold, hard stare on her until her eye's returned to me. When she saw me, her face lifted into a forced expression of surprise as if she didn't know I was there. I got up from my booth and approached her, my face was stern and serious. I dropped one of the case file folders on her table as I took a seat in her booth. I didn't say anything at first, I just tapped out a finger riff on the folder. She looked down at the case folder and then back up to me and then back to the folder. I loved seeing the panic slowly begin to build in her.

"Jeannine..." I waited another fifteen seconds, just to keep the suspense. "Where were you on Tuesday night?"

She leaned back in terror at the implication. A woman like her read into anything and everything too far. So, I let her imagination run with it.

"Well... I was... I was at book club!" Her lips were trembling.

"Oh Jeannine... we both know book club is tonight..."

"We had to reschedule! Joyce Jacobs had her baby and Paula Coefield's mother-in-law are in town!"

"Is there anybody who can corroborate this story?" I remained serious as a heart attack and stifled the urge to laugh in her face.

"Oh my God. I have nothing to do with Jeremy's disappearance. You don't... think... I had anything to do with this, do you?"

"I can't comment on an ongoing investigation. I just need to know if there is anyone who can corroborate your story."

"Yes. Jackie Lowell and Joyce Hanks and Patty Duvall. They were all there!" The words tumbled out desperately.

"And what time did you leave?"

"9 O'Clock..."

"Oh?" I decided to react to this as if it were a problem. I pulled a pen out and jotted a quick note inside the file, playing it off like it was her file.

"Am I a suspect?!" she asked with trembling lips.

"I'm sorry I can't comment."

"And since the divorce, I assume no one can vouch for when you got home that night?"

Shock and terror paralyzed her. She shook her head in agreement as I pouted my disappointment in her answer, jotting down another note. I had her on the ropes, she was shaken to the core and would probably go hide in her house for the rest of the week. I feigned the fakest smile possible at her and closed the file in front of me.

"Okay Jeannine! Well I'll let you know if I have any other questions."

She just bobbed her head, wide-eyed and lost in the distance. It wasn't long after I got back to my booth that she scurried out of the diner. Lewis beamed at me through those old, proud eyes, knowing exactly what I had just done and agreeing with it whole-heartedly.

My phone began to vibrate and the caller ID illuminated – it was Peters.

"Hello?"

"We found his phone."

I was already out of the booth, heading to my car. 

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