What She Saw - 8

Sloane

I shoved my gun back in the glove box and slammed it closed, then turned the key in the ignition and headed into town. As I coasted down the mountain, the road felt more familiar. I stopped at the convenience store and filled my tank. Inside the store, I walked past the coffee to the soda fridge.

I paid for the gas and a ginger ale, then drove toward Dawson. I was two hours ahead of schedule. I’d never been a great sleeper, and it turned out total darkness and quiet didn’t help.

Bottom line, insomnia left me with two hours to kill. I parked in front of the Depot. The red neon sign in the front window blinked Open , and I could see several of the booths were full of customers. I crossed to the front door. I hesitated a moment and then opened the door as bells jingled above my head. I found a seat at the bar and watched a waitress serve coffee to a group of young hikers.

I’d spent a few weeks digging into every detail about the town, the victims, and the killer. I had done a detailed background check on the Festival Four. They all shared one truth: Dawson was the last town they ever saw.

The victim foremost in my mind was Patty Reed. She’d shown up in Dawson thirty-two years ago. Eighteen years old and pregnant, she’d been fleeing an abusive boyfriend. She’d wanted a better life for herself and her baby when she’d taken a job at this diner. She’d worked until the day she gave birth. And two weeks later, she returned to work with her baby strapped to her chest.

Patty. Patty Reed.

My mother.

Taggart’s file contained interviews with people who had known Patty. Buddy, the Depot owner, had offered her 25 percent of the total food sales if she worked the tent at the festival. Despite Colton’s attendance estimates, she’d told Buddy she expected at least a thousand people at the event. She’d been hearing the buzz in town for weeks and sensed a large crowd.

Patty’s 25 percent would have amounted to about $3,500. A real nice chunk of change in 1994. The money would have paid past-due bills and tuition for an accounting class at the community college. She’d wanted more for herself and for me.

As I settled on a barstool, a heavyset man in his fifties walked up to me with a pot of coffee in hand. Without a word, he filled the stoneware mug in front of me. Most who worked the breakfast shift had been up by 4:00 or 5:00 a.m. and had few words. “Cream? Sugar?”

The sugar and fat sounded good. “Yes to both.”

He glanced at me, paused, then left me with cream, sugar, and a menu. The man returned minutes later, no pad or pencil in hand. “Made a choice?”

“Whole wheat toast, butter on the side, and berries.”

“Coming right up.” He glanced back at me. “Do I know you?”

“I’ve made a few short trips to Dawson, but I’ve never been here.”

He shook his head. “I could swear we’d met.”

My grandmother, Sara, had told me that I looked like Patty. Sara had precious few pictures of Patty, and the ones she’d had were grainy or out of focus. “I have one of those faces.”

“Oh, I know faces and names. I never forget any of them.”

“Don’t know what to tell you.”

He shrugged, put my order in, and got caught up in a rush of new arrivals at the bar. Ten minutes later, he set the plain wheat toast and blueberries in front of me.

“Do you have family in the area?”

“Not anymore.”

His eyes widened. “So you did have family in the area?”

“A long time ago. I was a baby.”

He hesitated, tapping his large fingers on the counter as if flushing out a memory.

“You look like someone I knew once.”

“Really?” I reached for a dry piece of toast, opened a strawberry jelly packet, and spread it.

“We were about the same age. I was learning the ropes from my old man, and she was a waitress. She was one of the hardest-working people I knew.”

“What happened to her?” I knew the answer, but I liked to watch people when they responded to questions like this.

Disappointment tightened his face. “That’s a long story.”

“I got a little time.” I wrapped chilled fingers around the warm mug, drawing in the heat.

“You ever hear of the Mountain Music Festival?” He asked as if he expected me not to know. For most it was ancient history. And few cared about history anymore.

“Sure. Who hasn’t? It was a big case back in the day.”

Surprise wrinkled his brow. “Most people don’t know about it. Which is a good thing. Tourists were afraid of Dawson for a long time after that.”

I bit into the toast, willing my stomach to settle. “Time papers over a lot of the facts.”

“I never thought anyone would forget that festival. It was the worst thing that could have happened to Dawson. After the furniture factory closed, we needed to bolster tourism. But the festival shut all that down.”

“I read about the factory. It employed fifty people.”

“My brothers worked there.” The guy nodded as he wiped his hands on his apron. “You don’t act like her.”

Silent, I mixed more cream into my coffee, hoping it would soften the bitterness, before asking, “Do I know you?”

“I’m Buddy. I own this place.”

I nodded. “Who’s my twin?”

“Patty Reed. She worked here thirty-two years ago.”

“That’s awesome recall after all that time.”

He drew in a breath. “Hard to forget Patty.”

I picked up a triangle of toast. “Why?”

“She was one of the Mountain Music Festival victims.”

That was the final detail in Patty’s brief biography. Patty Reed, nineteen, last seen at the Mountain Music Festival. Presumed dead. But those few words didn’t paint an accurate portrait of a woman who had been a force. “Tell me about her.”

He shook his head. “Why do you care?”

“You brought her up, not me. I’m making conversation now.”

Wagging a finger at me, he asked, “Are you related to Patty?”

“Do you have a picture of her?” Good interviewers deflected back to the inquirer.

“I do, as a matter of fact.”

“Can I see it?”

“Why?”

“Curious.”

“Let me fill a few orders, and then I’ll be back.”

I nibbled on toast as Buddy filled more coffee cups. He set several breakfast plates down on the counter and rang up tabs. I kept eating, unsure if my stomach felt unsettled because I’d not eaten since the tomato soup, or if my body was reacting to the case. As I’d gotten closer to Dawson, I’d felt sicker.

Most of the victims I wrote about weren’t saints. Some were, but most had crossed a line. They’d slept with or sold themselves to the wrong guy. They’d taken drugs, wandered into a sketchy bar, or blindly trusted a predator. None of these victims had deserved what happened to them.

“I keep this posted in my office,” Buddy said. “I should have taken it down a long time ago, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. Didn’t want her forgotten.” He handed the image to me.

The rumpled color photo had a torn corner and a coffee ring stain. The background was this diner. There were a few folks sitting at the bar. A gal with permed blond hair wore a loose-fitting pink-and-white-striped sweater. A guy sported a bushy mustache and a black Bon Jovi T-shirt. In the background there was a pay phone.

The photo’s details faded from view as I studied a young woman with a bright smile who stood closer to the camera. Her thick black hair was like mine, and our vivid blue eyes were the same shade. My gaze narrowed into a tunnel as I searched inside myself for a flicker of love or regret. If anything on this planet could ignite feelings inside me, it would be a picture like this. I suspected most people would have felt sadness, outrage, or fury. But I felt nothing. I angled my phone over the picture and snapped.

“You look like Patty,” Buddy said.

I lifted my gaze. “You said Patty vanished at the festival.”

“That’s right.” Buddy tapped the counter as he stared at me. “Patty had a kid. A daughter. And she’d be about thirty-two now.”

“Yeah.”

“Are you Sloane Reed?”

“I am, but the last name is Grayson.”

Buddy’s gaze grew distant—as if he’d been transported back three decades. A customer summoned him, but he didn’t respond. Finally, he cleared his throat. “Why is your last name different?”

“I took my grandmother’s surname. Reed was my grandmother’s first husband, and Grayson was her second or third.”

“Why are you here?”

I glanced into the face of the young, vibrant, hopeful woman in the photo. She looked nothing like the woman described by the media.

Many reporters focused on Patty’s relationship with her ex-boyfriend, Larry, who had several assault charges filed against him. They also mentioned Patty’s underage drug charge and her out-of-wedlock child. They’d all painted her as a troubled woman living on the edge. The general tone hinted that good girls were safe from danger, and bad girls got what they deserved.

“I’m writing about the Mountain Music Festival victims.”

“It’s been thirty-one years. The killer is rotting in prison.”

“And the bodies were never recovered. There’s no closure for the families.”

“You think a collection of bones will help anyone now?”

“It might. And all those women deserve to be found.”

A patron held up an empty cup, but Buddy ignored him. “I liked Patty. She was a ray of sunshine. Never had a frown on her face or a sour word. After you were born, she brought you to work and waited tables with you strapped to her chest. You were fat and had no hair.”

My grandmother had plenty of pictures of me when I was a baby but only one image of Patty holding me. When I was seven, I found it in her bedroom drawer and took it. I reached in my wallet, pulled out the cracked photo, and laid it on the counter.

A smile lifted Buddy’s lips. “Yeah, I remember you.”

In both images, Patty’s hair was in a ponytail, but I wondered what it had looked like down. I wondered if she had a signature scent. If her hands were soft or calloused. Did she have a favorite song?

“When was the last time you saw her?” I asked.

“The time I remember most was earlier in the day. We were boxing up supplies for the booth at the festival. Her sitter had canceled, and she’d brought you to work for a few hours.”

“What happened that morning?”

“I kept a playpen in the back for you and anyone else’s kid who needed a temporary place to land. You didn’t like the pen. You hated naps. That morning you were playing with a few wooden spoons and a bowl. I always figured you’d be happier with a blowtorch and a knife. Never a dull moment with you.”

He wasn’t far off the mark. I’d not been a normal kid. I didn’t care about birthdays, dolls, or games. I was more interested in looking through my grandmother’s dresser drawers, purse, or the glove box in her car. And after I’d searched every inch of our house, I broke into my neighbors’ homes.

“What were you discussing?”

“Hamburger buns,” he said more to himself. “She wanted to stock more. I was worried about getting stuck with too much inventory. She was right, of course.”

Later it would come out in testimony that Buddy and Patty had been having an affair. Grainy security footage caught Buddy pulling Patty into a supply closet while I’d played in that playpen with my kitchen supplies.

Patty had resisted, but Buddy had kept tugging. Patty had glanced back toward me. Finally, she’d relented. Fifteen minutes later, they’d emerged. He was smiling. She looked stressed. I was beating the spoon against the bowl.

Patty had wanted to end it with Buddy, other employees of the diner had said. But a woman with a child had to weigh her choices carefully, especially when she was one paycheck away from being homeless. The older I grew, the more I admired how she’d handled her tough journey.

“You arrived at the festival around ten p.m.?”

“To bring Patty more buns and to clean out the cashbox. She had been right. That festival was a real moneymaker.”

“How did she look?”

“Fine. She was tired. Another girl who was helping Patty was getting ready to play on the stage.”

“Laurie Carr.”

“That’s right. Had a blue guitar case covered in old travel stickers.”

She became known in the press as the Blue Guitar Girl. Later, that blue guitar’s strap would play a pivotal role at trial.

“Laurie leaves, and you help Patty with the booth for a couple of hours. Then she takes a bathroom break.”

Thirty-one years had etched deep lines into his face. “Yeah. That’s right. She left. I thought she’d be right back. But I never saw her again.”

“Did you love her?” I asked.

“I did. I wanted to marry her. But she wouldn’t say yes.”

“Why not?”

His shoulders slumped under decades of disappointment. “She wanted to take you and leave Dawson.”

“Why?”

A sigh and then the distress vanished. He straightened. “She wanted a different life, I guess.”

“Taggart suspected you,” I said. “He mentioned you in his notes.”

Buddy’s mouth flattened. Annoyance and bitterness radiated from him. He coughed. “He suspected everyone at first. And then the other missing person reports rolled in. He couldn’t tie me to any of the other missing women, and he had to hunt elsewhere.”

Everyone assumed the same person had murdered all the women. But I was open-minded enough to wonder if the killer had help.