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“Moderna,” Holly says. It’s the new meet-and-greet. She takes off her mask and holds it in her hand for a moment. “I feel silly wearing it out here, but I had a death in the family recently. It was Covid.”
“Oh, I’m so sorry to hear. Someone close?”
“My mother,” Holly says, and thinks, Who bought jewelry she didn’t wear.
“That’s awful. Was she vaxxed?”
“She didn’t believe in it.”
“Girl, that’s harsh. How are you doing with it?”
“As they always say on the TV shows, it’s complicated.” Holly stuffs her mask in her pocket. “Mostly I’m concentrating on the job, which is finding Bonnie Dahl, or finding out what happened to her. I won’t keep you from your friends for long.”
“Don’t worry about it. They’re all playing softball or swimming. I’m a lousy baller and I’ve spent most of the day in the lake. Take all the time you want.” There’s an outbreak of cheering at the softball game. Keisha looks over. Someone waves at her. She waves back, then turns to Holly. “A bunch of us have gotten together here for the last three years and I was really looking forward to it. Since Bonnie disappeared…” She shrugs. “Not so much.”
“Do you really think she’s dead?”
Keisha sighs and looks at the water. When she looks back, her brown eyes—beautiful eyes—are filled with tears. “What else could it be? It’s like she dropped off the face of the earth. I’ve called everyone I can think of, all our friends, and of course her mother called me. Nothing. She’s my best friend, and not a word?”
“The police have her down as a missing person.” Of course that’s not what Izzy Jaynes thinks. Or Pete Huntley.
“Of course they do,” Keisha says, and takes a drink from her own bottle of Snapple. “You know about Maleek Dutton, right?”
Holly nods.
“That’s a perfect example of how five-O operates in this town. Kid got killed for a busted taillight. You’d expect them to take a little more interest in a white girl, but no.”
That’s a minefield Holly doesn’t want to walk into. “May I record our talk?” Never call it an interview, Bill Hodges said. Cops do interviews. We just talk.
“Sure, but there’s not much I can tell you. She’s gone and it’s wrong. That’s the extent of what I know.”
Holly thinks Keisha knows more, and although she doesn’t expect any great breakthrough here, she has that Holly hope. And curiosity. She sets her phone on the scarred table and pushes record.
“I’m working for Bonnie’s mother, and I’m curious as to how they got along.”
Keisha starts to reply, then stops herself.
“Nothing you say will go back to Penny. You have my word on that. I’m just crossing t’s and dotting i’s.”
“Okay.” Keisha gazes down toward the lake, frowning, then sighs and looks back at Holly. “They didn’t get along, mostly because Penny was always looking over Bonnie’s shoulder, if you know what I mean.”
Holly knows, all right.
“Nothing Bonnie did was quite right with her mom. Bon said she hated to drive her mother anywhere because Penny would always tell her she knew a shorter way, or one with less traffic. She’d always be telling Bonnie to get over, get over, you want the lefthand lane. You feel me?”
“Yes.”
“Also, Bonnie said, Penny’d always be pumping the invisible brake on the passenger side or stiffening up if she felt like Bon was getting too close to the car in front of her. Irritating as hell. One time Bonnie got a red streak in her hair, very cute… at least I thought so… but her mother said it made her look slutty. And if she’d ever gotten a tattoo, like she talked about…”
Keisha rolls her eyes. Holly laughs. She can’t help it.
“They fought about her job at the library all the time. Penny wanted her to work at the bank where she worked. She said the pay and the benefits would be much better, and except for in-person meetings she wouldn’t have to wear a mask seven hours a day. But Bonnie liked working at the libe, and like I said, we have a good gang. Everybody friends. Except for Matt Conroy, that is. He’s the head librarian, and kind of a pill.”
“Grabby?” Holly’s thinking of something she’s heard from one of the other librarians, neither of whom are here today. “Touchie-feelie?”
“Yeah, but he’s actually been a little better this year, maybe because of that assistant prof in the Sociology Department. You probably didn’t hear about that, the administration kept it pretty quiet, but we hear everything in the library. It’s gossip central. This guy grabbed some grad student’s ass, there was a witness, and the prof got fired. That’s around the time Matt started to behave.” She pauses. “Although he never misses an opportunity to peek up a girl’s skirt. Not unusual, except he’s pretty fucking blatant about it.”
“Could you see him having anything to do with Bonnie’s disappearance?”
