Surprisingly, the place was only half full. She surveyed the crowd. It was a mix of townies, a pack of older women flashing their cleavage, and kids who were clearly Lyle College students. One, whose sex was unclear, was wearing a rubber werewolf mask. Another, a girl, had on an absurdly tall witch’s cap. Phoebe remembered it was Halloween weekend.
The place itself was an utter dive. The only decor to speak of were lights boasting different beer brands and a huge, weathered print of a catfish over the jukebox—the one where Wesley had played the Stones songs. Phoebe crossed the sticky floor and ordered a glass of red wine at the bar, suffering a smirk from the bartender. Then she turned and almost gasped. Tom Stockton was standing two feet away at the bar, his face turned mostly away from her.
Her gut instinct was to move, not to let him catch her, though she wasn’t sure why. It didn’t matter. Stockton seemed to sense her presence, turned and spotted her. He was clearly as surprised as she was.
“Well, well,” he said. “Of all the gin joints in the world.”
“Hello, Tom,” Phoebe said. “I could say the same to you. You’re the last person I expected to see here.”
“Hardly surprising, really,” Stockton said over the music. He was wearing a cropped brown jacket; underneath was a dark blue button-down shirt, the color of which perfectly matched his eyes. No doubt intentional, Phoebe thought. “This bar just might be the epicenter of our problems, and it seemed critical to check it out—especially tonight.”
He backed a few feet down the pockmarked wooden bar, making a place for her to stand next to him. He slid his drink with him—scotch on the rocks, it looked like. Not having a choice, Phoebe slipped into the spot next to him. “Living on a Prayer” had been pounding on the jukebox, but once it stopped, nothing else came on. It was like being in a room where someone uninvited has suddenly sashayed in, leaving the other guests speechless.
“I know what you mean,” Phoebe said. “The name Cat Tails kept turning up when I spoke to people, too.”
“In some ways, it’s just like every other college-town bar I’ve been in. But frankly, I don’t like the vibe here.”
“I hear a rumor’s going around that something will happen this Halloween weekend. Do you think there’s any basis for that?”
“No idea. What I do know, however, is that the students are hysterical. As an administration, we really need to get a handle on this thing.”
Was that a dig at Glenda? she wondered.
“I’m sure Glenda will bring things under control,” she said. “And I’m sure you’re an enormous help to her right now.”
Phoebe had allowed her tone to be the teeniest bit sarcastic, which she knew she shouldn’t have, but he didn’t seem to notice anyway.
The music started again, making it tough to talk. Phoebe followed the sound and let her eyes rest on the jukebox. Wesley had been approached by a slick-looking guy in his late thirties or early forties, but there was no one in here like that tonight—unless, Phoebe thought to her amusement, I count Tom. She noticed that the jukebox was right near the side door that opened onto Bridge Street. If someone had indeed drugged Wesley, it might have been easy to urge him out through that door without anyone really noticing.
“Well, that’s it for me tonight,” Phoebe said, setting her wineglass down, still half full.
“Why not stay a little longer, and we can grab a bite of dinner afterward? My treat.”
“Thanks,” she said, taken aback, “but I just ate at Tony’s.” Based on Stockton’s previous attitude toward her, his invitation surprised her. He probably wanted to pump her for info.
She said good night and climbed the hill to her car, nudged along by the river wind at her back. As soon as she was at the wheel, she knew what she was going to do. She was going to drive by Duncan’s. It seemed so high school, but if he was really home grading those papers he’d mentioned, she would at least know that he’d been honest with her.
But the house was dark, except for a light over the front door, and there was no car in the driveway.
Annoyed at how upset she felt, she tried to shake thoughts of Duncan as she pulled into her driveway. As she walked across the short expanse of lawn, she stopped in her tracks. The outside glass door was partially open. Someone had stuffed something white between that and the front door.
20
PHOEBE LOOKED QUICKLY left and right and then swung around to face the street behind her. There was absolutely no one in sight. With her heart starting to gallop, she turned back toward the house and stared at the package protruding from the space between the two doors. What have those little brats left me now? she wondered.
She continued to the porch and mounted the front steps. As she inched toward the door, she saw that the pale thing was a manila envelope. Her name was on it, written in thick masculine scrawl with a black marker. Probably not the Sixes, then, she thought. After glancing once more behind her, she stooped down and plucked the package from between the doors. As soon as she had it in her hands, she could tell there was a sheaf of papers inside.
She quickly unlocked the front door and hurried inside. After checking doors and windows, she brought the package to the small table in her living room and tore open the envelope. There were actually two separate batches of papers inside, each set held together with a paper clip. Attached to the first was a note, signed “Hutch.”
“Prof Hall, sorry I missed you,” it read. “I was out with the dogs. Let’s talk as soon as possible on Sunday. I’ll be home most of the day. In the meantime, take a look and tell me what you see.”
The papers felt charged in her hands. Is this where the truth lies? she thought. Am I about to finally figure something out? She plopped down at the table and tugged the note away from the two sets of papers.
The first batch were the notes about Wesley she’d given to Hutch when she’d seen him down by the river. As she thumbed through the pages, she saw that he’d underscored a bunch of lines pertaining to Wesley’s time in Cat Tails—Wesley chatting briefly at the bar with the so-called cougars, the trip to the men’s room after shooting darts, how he’d played a few songs on the jukebox, and the comments from the man asking if the machine gave change and then complimenting Wesley on playing the Stones song. The only other part that was underlined related to Wesley kicking off his loafers and swimming to shore. There wasn’t a single comment in the margins explaining why these details mattered.
Phoebe tossed those pages down and stared at the second batch. It took only a second to realize that these were the photocopies Mindy had given Hutch of the notes he’d made while interviewing Wesley a year ago. They were all in his big scrawl, and portions had been freshly underscored with pencil here, too. As Phoebe scanned the pages, she saw that Hutch had drawn attention to the same details he’d marked in her notes—the cougars, the jukebox, the man asking for change, etc. These were clearly the parts that had made the lightbulb go off in his head.
Next Phoebe spread out both sets of notes, positioning the pages that corresponded to each other side by side. She began to study them, sweeping her eyes back and forth.