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“We need to ask you some questions about Cody. Is there somewhere we can go sit down and talk?”
“Is Cody all right?” Izzy asked, abandoning her task and stepping out of the grooming bay into the aisle. “Did something happen to him?”
“Oh, my God,” Tulsie said. “Was he in a car wreck or something?”
“No,” Annie said. “Nothing like that.”
“Well, you can ask me here, can’t you? We’re trying to get the horses tucked in for the night. It’s supposed to get cold tonight.”
“I’ll get their blankets on,” Izzy said. “You can go in the lounge.”
“Right,” Tulsie said. “Okay. We can go right in here.”
The lounge was directly across from the grooming area, a small room with barnwood walls and a grouping of a beat-up leather couch and a pair of armchairs, their worn upholstery covered with saddle blankets. The overhead light was a fake wagon wheel set with fake lanterns. Tulsie went to a corner of the couch and tucked herself into it. She looked terrified.
“You’re scaring me,” she admitted.
“I don’t want you to be scared, Tulsie,” Annie said, taking a seat. “You haven’t done anything wrong. We just have some questions. We’ve seen a video from Outlaw, from Saturday night.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah. You wanna tell us what went on there?”
She gave a nervous little laugh and dodged eye contact. “Well, it wasn’t what it looked like. It was just…”
“Just start from the beginning,” Annie said. “You and Cody went out…”
“No, actually, it was a girls’ night with a couple friends. Cody didn’t want me to go, but it was my friend Celeste’s night out to celebrate her divorce—which Cody didn’t think was anything anyone should celebrate, so he was mad about it, and he didn’t want me to go. But then I got mad, and I went anyway, which I shouldn’t have done. I should have just stayed home. Cody’s been working extra hours, nights lately, and he was tired, and I just should have stayed home with him. So, it’s my fault what happened.”
“So you and your girlfriends went dancing at Outlaw…”
“Yeah, and we were just dancing with a bunch of different people. Guys that we knew. It didn’t mean anything. We were just having fun.”
“So, you know Marc Mercier?” Stokes asked.
“I know him through Cody. The Parcelles do construction. They take down old houses and do remodels and stuff, so they do business with the Merciers all the time, selling them the salvage. Cody and Marc have been friendly since Marc came back to town. I didn’t think he’d mind so much. We were just dancing.”
“So why did Cody show up if he didn’t want to go out?” Annie asked, already knowing the answer.
Tulsie shrugged with her good shoulder and looked down at a scratch on the leather couch, trying to rub it away with a fingertip.
“He doesn’t trust you?”
She kept her head down, fighting the rise of tears. “He just gets jealous. That’s just how he is,” she said in a tiny voice. “It’s just because he wants me all to himself. He doesn’t want other guys thinking that they could have me, ’cause I’m his.”
She was his, a piece of property, his toy to play with and no one else’s. She didn’t own herself, wasn’t supposed to think or feel or do anything separate from him. She was a possession. As demure as she was being in her explanation, Annie had no doubt there was a side of Tulsie that rebelled, at least internally, a side that pushed at Cody’s boundaries and probably even goaded him a little. She was a cute, sassy little thing with a flirty smile, and Cody Parcelle had not ground that out of her altogether. Yet.
“So Cody came looking for you,” Stokes said. “And he and Marc got into it.”
“It was so stupid,” Tulsie said, rolling her eyes. “We were just having fun dancing. Marc’s married, too. Nothing was gonna happen. But Cody had been drinking, and he gets mean when he drinks. He’s not really like that.”
“It looked like Cody hit Marc pretty hard,” Stokes said. “And then the bouncer broke it up. What happened then?”
“They both got thrown out.”
“Did they keep fighting in the parking lot?”
“No. Cody was just mouthing off.”
