AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“There’s still loose ends,” he said. “Where’d this murder take place? And where’s Marc’s vehicle?”
“They could have gotten rid of the vehicle after they dumped the body.”
“A truckanda boat?”
“Let’s ask her. Should I go pick her up?” Stokes asked. “Bring her in for questioning?”
“No,” Nick said. “Not yet. Double down trying to find security video from the road between Luck and Bayou Breaux. Now we know the trucks we’re looking for, and we have a tight timeframe for early Monday morning. I’d rather have that evidence before she comes in. If that’s what went down, it’ll be a lot easier to get the truth out of her if we can put proof right in front of her face.”
“On it,” Stokes said.
“Call me when you find something.”
“You’ll be the first to know.”
Nick watched him go, then pulled out his phone and texted Annie.
27
“I alwaysliked Robbie,” EliMcVay said, stirring his sweet tea. He was a slightly taller version of his little brother, Caleb, with the McVay trademark flame-red hair and pointy chin.
They sat at an outdoor table on the deck of a little café not far from the Lafayette Public Works department. The sun had grown warm enough to be pleasant. Down along a rambling little bayou a mob of white ibis were prancing around on their sticklike legs, grazing for bugs with their long, curved yellow beaks. It was a soothing view after the morning Annie had had.
They had already had their lunch, caught up on family news, talked about the upcoming annual Doucet family Thanksgiving weekend get-together—all the conversation essentials before Annie had asked a single question.
“He was a different breed of cat, for sure,” Eli qualified, “but I liked him.”
“Different how?”
“Robbie always marched to his own drummer. He wasn’t just a jock. He had other interests. He was a reader. He followed the news.He wanted to know about the world. He wanted to be some kind of documentary filmmaker or investigative journalist. I mean, the dude could have ended up in the NFL, for sure, but there was a lot more to him than football.
“He used to make all these videos on his phone and then post them on social media. Little news stories about stuff going on around school. Interviews with people—coaches, janitors, lunch ladies, teachers. He’d ask them all kinds of things. It was so odd because he was a quiet guy, himself. You didn’t always know what he was thinking, and it was usually something deeper than the average teenager.
“Such a shame, what happened,” he said. “He had a lot of promise. Drugs took that all away.”
“So you were all good friends—you and Robbie and Marc Mercier?” Annie asked.
“Yeah, we were pretty tight up until Robbie got hurt.”
“And Dozer Cormier?”
“Dozer was more Marc’s friend. He didn’t really fit our group. He wasn’t the sharpest tool in the shed, you know? Or the most ambitious. But Marc would hang with him. I think they knew each other through their families somehow or family businesses or something. Me, I was interested in hot cheerleaders—I’m not gonna lie—and hot cheerleaders were not interested in having Dozer Cormier hanging around. Fair or not, he’s got that kind of creepy giant vibe about him. A handy guy to have around if you wanted to intimidate somebody, that’s for sure. Can’t say we didn’t make use of that talent more than once.”
“And Robbie wasn’t part of the group anymore after his accident?”
“Well, first of all, he was out of school a long time. He almost lost that leg, the injury was so bad. And then he didn’t really want people around him. I’m sure he was in a major depression, but kids don’t think about that kind of thing. He was out of sight, out of mind.And that senior year is busy, you know? And by spring that year he’d already gone down the rabbit hole with the drugs…”
“I understand that was a particular problem for Marc—the drug thing?”
“Yeah, well, me and Marc were the DARE leaders, so we couldn’t really be hanging around with a guy doing drugs and stealing and whatnot. And of course our parents didn’t want us being around him.”
“So that was the end of the friendship?”
He sighed. “Looking back, I wish I’d done some things differently, because I liked Robbie. I don’t think I was a very good friend. But you know kids that age. We were self-involved and not really equipped mentally to navigate something like addiction. It was easier just to walk away, but that’s not what friends should do.”
“Do you think Marc might feel the same way?”
He shook his head. “I doubt it. Marc cut him off. Boom. Done. Of course, it was an awkward situation for Marc because when Robbie went down, Marc had to step in and take his place on the team, and the team went on and won the state championship. Marc ended up getting a scholarship to Tulane. That didn’t really work out for him as far as football, but nevertheless there he was, and where was Robbie? In rehab or in jail. How do you get a relationship back from that? I don’t know…”
