Then she changed her mind.
She told the hot cop about it, the deer and how they were sick, and he dismissed her.
Ada wanted to go back after she got her groceries and ask that cop, Kit or Cat, whatever his name was, what caused the accident, but he wasn’t in. Not according to Dale the grocery clerk. The only one in was the perverted chief of police, and Ada avoided him since she heard he was a sex maniac, arresting people to have his way.
“Shame about Marge’s boy,” Dale said as he rung up the groceries.
“Thought you said he was just injured,” Ada replied. “Not that it isn’t a shame.”
“His girl was killed.”
“Aw, that is a shame. Marge never did like her.”
“Nope.” Dale shook his head. “Bet Marge is feeling guilty. I heard she has Cass on it. Might be more to what happened than meets the eye.”
“Walt put Cass on the accident story. Wow.”
“Yeah, go figure. My thoughts exactly.”
Ada shook her head. “If you see Cass, have her come see me. I think I have an idea.” After seeing the total cost, Ada pulled out her debit card and inserted it in the machine,
“Nope,” Dale said. “We’re down. Cards aren’t working. Cash or come back.”
“Damn it.” She withdrew her card and lifted her bags. “I’ll come back.”
Dale wrote down her name.
After bidding him a farewell, she left the store. It was all too commonplace for the card machine to go down. It was the only store, probably in the country, that gave groceries on trust. As she left, Ada actually believed that the world around them could shut down and end and Griffin would probably never notice.
There was something sad and eerie about the footage when Cass and Brian realized it was the memory card from Brad’s dash cam.
They couldn’t see them, only hear them, but Brian more than Cass recognized the voices.
“Aw, man, the post in-law dinner car conversation,” Brian said.
“What?” Cass asked with a laugh. “What are you talking about?”
“Okay, it’s not when you leave the wife’s family, just when you leave the husband’s. It’s a conversation about how bad it went.”
“I never had that,” Cass said.
“Maybe yours was a post in-law walk since you both lived in Griffin.”
“Neither time. I loved my in-laws.”
“That sucks.”
Cass smiled and shook her head. She moved the video forward. “Just them talking. It has to happen soon.”
“You know, I can write the script for this,” Brad said. “Save you the trouble.”
“Why don’t you see it?”
“What is there to see?” he asked.
“She stares at me weirdly, doesn’t look me in the eye.”
“My mom has that eye thing,” Brad replied.
Brian cringed. “She isn’t winning this one picking on his mom.”
“That’s true. How does she not know about Marge and that eye thing?”
“No wonder Marge never liked her. But still, she’s dead, we shouldn’t talk ill of her.”
“No, we shouldn’t. She was still someone’s child.”
Brian looked solemnly at Cass. “Yeah, she is.”
The conversation continued, they spoke about ham and other things, and Jenson kept digging a deeper hole.
“Is there anything new that happened tonight, aside from my mom not liking you, cooking you foods that aren’t your favorite, and making fun of her lazy eye?”
“I did not.”
“You did. Now give me ten minutes of radio,” Brad said.
“Can we not… deer.”
“Sweetheart.”
“No, deer.”
“There.” Brian pointed. “Stop.”
Cass did.
“Whoa,” Brian said, finger aiming at the deer in the screenshot. “I’m not a deer expert but that animal looks sick to me.”
“Look at the sore,” Cass said. “Like it was eating itself.”
“Zombie deer?’
“What? No,” Cass said. “They rub up against a tree to scratch an itch. I mean, maybe he did that.”
“But they didn’t hit it. They stopped. I thought Kit said they hit a deer.”
“He did.” Cass started the video. She leaned back in her chair, watching the strange behavior of the animal.
“Yeah, there’s something wrong with it,” Brian repeated the sentiments playing on the recording. “I just don’t…”
Cass jumped, pushing back when she saw the deer charge. “What the hell?”
“Still, they aren’t moving. How did the accident happen?”
“I don’t know. Leave, go around it,” Cass yelled at the screen. “Don’t just… okay… where… they’re going…” Cass screamed. The vision of the second deer frightened her as if she were watching a horror film and something jumped out.
In a sense it was a horror film. For a second, they saw the accident, then the camera moved and went black. Another second or two of noise, then nothing.
Her hand went to her mouth.
“Fuck,” Brian said. “I think I heard three bangs. Not sure. I can’t figure out if the other car hit the crazy deer.” He reached around Cass for the computer.
“What are you doing? I don’t want to see the crash again.”
“Not the crash…” Brian dragged the cursor then stopped. “The buck they hit.” He indicated to the screen. “Same. Look. What the hell happened on that road?”
“Another sick deer.” Cass stood up.
“Where are you going?”
“We need to know what happened, right? Well, the cars are all at Eb’s,” Cass said. “If anyone can piece together what happened by looking at the wreckage, he can.”
“That’s a good idea. I can’t go right now, I’m meeting my wife for lunch and—”
“No, it’s fine. I’m good. I’ll let you know what he says.” Cass grabbed her purse.
“Oh, wait,” Brian called her. “Here”—he handed her the camera—“drop this off to Kit.”
“I will.” She took it and stopped walking. “And I think, I think I may stop by and see Ada about the deer.”
“You think she’s right? You think they’re poisoned?”
“I don’t know,” Cass said. “It’s something. I’ve hunted my entire life and never saw a deer look like that.”
“So you think it’s important?”
“I do. And if my gut is right, I think we may have more than a car accident story as well.”
“You are the next Scoop McDaniels.”
Cass smiled, gave a thumbs-up, and left the office. She didn’t realize how right her gut actually was.
Lena Feeny loved her lip gloss. In fact she loved it so much, she had her own brand. She never went anywhere without her case full of various colors.
She undid the cap to Ruby Rose Number 3, pulled out the stem applicator, and placed it on her lips, exhaling in relief as if she had just taken a hit of some sort of drug.
“Oh my god,” she said in ecstasy, closing her eyes, pursing her lips then smacking them together. It felt so good. She hadn’t worn any makeup all day. That was part of her reality show. It was to be ‘down home and back to basics.’ Former supermodel Lena Feeny shucks her Hollywood fancy lifestyle to return to her country bumpkin roots. Something Lena never really had. A total exaggeration. A façade the public bought when Lena’s Dig It Homestyle Cooking cookbook was a bestseller.
Lena did cook. Rather well. But she didn’t learn it from living in a small town on a farm—her parents’ housekeeper taught her.