“A little, not really.”
“Your name just keeps coming up a lot.”
“I got a catchy name,” he shrugged. “Look, back then, Kinnakee was racist as hell. Indians they did not like. I got blamed for a lot of shit I didn’t do. This was before Dances with Wolves, you know what I’m saying? It was just BTI all the time out in BFE.”
“What?”
“BTI, Blame the Indian. I admit it, I was a shit. I was not a good guy. But after that night, what happened to your family, it was, like it freaked me out, I got clean. Well, not right after, but a year or so later. Stopped drugs, stopped believing in the Devil. It was harder to stop believing in the Devil.”
“You really believed in the Devil?” Lyle said.
He shrugged: “Sure. You gotta believe in something, right? Everyone has their thing.”
I don’t, I thought.
“It’s like, you believe you have the power of Satan in you, so you have the power of Satan in you,” Trey said. “But that was a long time ago.”
“What about Diondra Wertzner?” I said.
He paused, turned away from us, walked over to the bunnies, started stroking one through the wire with his index finger.
“Where you going with this, Deb, uh, Libby?”
“I’m trying to track down Diondra Wertzner. I heard she was pregnant with Ben’s baby at the time of the murders, and that she disappeared after. Some people say she was last seen with you and Ben.”
“Ah shit, Diondra. I always knew that girl would bite me in the ass sooner or later.” He grinned wide this time. “Man, Diondra. I have no clue where Diondra is, she was always running off, though, always making up drama. She’d run away, her parents would make a big deal, she’d come home, they’d all play house for a little, then her parents would be assholes—they neglected the shit out of her—and she’d need the drama, start some shit, run away, whatever. Total soap opera. I guess she finally ran away, decided it wasn’t worth coming home. I mean, you try the white pages?”
“She’s listed as a missing person,” Lyle said, looked at me again to see if I minded the interruption. I didn’t.
“Oh, she’s fine,” Trey said. “My guess is she’s living somewhere under one of her crazy-ass names.”
“Crazy names?” I said, put a hand on Lyle’s arm to keep him quiet.
“Oh, nothing, she was just one of those girls, always trying to be different. One day she’d talk in an English accent, next day it was Southern. She never gave anyone her real name. Like she’d go to the beauty parlor and give a wrong name, go order a pizza and give the wrong name. She just liked screwing with people, you know, just playing. ‘I’m Desiree from Dallas, I’m Alexis from London.’ She was always giving, uh, using her porn name, you know?”
“She did porn?” I said.
“No, like that game. What’s the name of your childhood pet?”
I stared at him.
“What’s the name of your childhood pet,” he prompted.
I used Diane’s dead dog: “Gracie.”
“And what was the name of the street you grew up on?”
“Rural Route 2.”
He laughed. “Well, that one didn’t work. It’s supposed to sound slutty, like Bambi Evergreen or something. Diondra’s was … Polly something … Palm. Polly Palm, how great is that?”
“You don’t think she’s dead?”
He shrugged.
“You think Ben was really guilty?” I asked.
“I got no opinion on that. Probably.”
Lyle was suddenly tense, bobbing up and down, pushing his pointy finger against my back, trying to steer me toward the door.
“So thanks for your time,” Lyle blurted, and I frowned at him and he frowned back at me. A fluorescent above us thrummed on and off suddenly, flashing sick light on us, the bunnies scampering around in the straw. Trey scowled up at the light and it stopped, as if scolded.
“Well, can I give you my number, in case you think of anything?” I said.
Trey smiled, shook his head. “No thanks.”
Trey turned away then. As we walked toward the door, the music got loud again. I turned around as the storm started to crackle, one side of the sky black, the other yellow. Trey was coming back out of the office, watching us with his hands on his sides, the rabbits behind him doing a sudden scuffle.
“Hey Trey, so what’s BFE then?” I called.
“Butt Fucked Egypt, Libby. That’s our hometown.”
LYLE WAS GALLOPING ahead of me, leaping off the steps. He reached the car in three big strides, jiggling the handle to be let in, comeoncomeoncomeon. I dropped in next to him, pre-annoyed. “What?” I said. Thunder crackled. A gust of air kicked up a wet gravel smell.