no good this year—went rotten before I got ’em on the tiles.” He waved his hand around the expanse of greenery. “Still pulling carrots and onions.”
“Kim told me about this garden,” I said, realizing how stupid it sounded as the words were coming from my mouth.
“She did, huh?” That mocking tone again. He squinted up at me. “Funny. She never took a bit of interest in it all the time she grew up here.”
“Sorry I missed her. Was she alone?”
“No,” he said, tired of the game. “She wasn’t alone.” He rose from his knees and stood to face me. “Why don’t we set up on the porch and knock down these beers?”
ON THE BACK PORCH T. J. Lazarus moved two garden chairs together and pulled the remaining beers from my hand, setting them on a low aluminum table between us. He pulled a fresh one off the ring and popped it.
“Who are you, son?” he said. “You sure as hell didn’t come here to see my garden, and I don’t believe you’re a friend of my daughter’s. Now I don’t appreciate the company of a liar, especially in my own house. But if she’s in some kind of trouble, I want to know. You a cop?”
“Private cop,” I said, my own words sounding unreal. I was getting tired of telling lies to honest people. Nevertheless, I handed him my phony ID.
He inspected it. “I didn’t think you were a cop. Cops don’t get beat up.”
“So I’ve been told. I apologize for not being honest with you. But I’m not looking for Kim. I’m after one of the boys she was with. She was with two boys, wasn’t she?”
“That’s right. What’s going on?”
“I was hired by the grandfather of one of the boys to find him.”
He studied me. “Where you from, Nick?”
“Washington, D.C.”
“Murder Capitol, huh?” I didn’t answer. “You just get into town?”
“Yessir.”
“Hungry?”
“I could use something to eat,” I admitted. “I really could.”
“LIKE IT?”
“I like it fine.”
We were sitting at his kitchen table, eating an early supper of grilled chops, fresh corn, and a tomato and onion salad. The late afternoon sun came in through the west window, brightening the colors on my plate. Lazarus brought a glass out of the cupboard and placed it next to my can.
“Here,” he said. “Drink it like a white man.”
I poured the beer into the glass. “What did you think of the boys Kim was with?”
“They only spent the night. The one boy said his name was Eddie, but the younger one called him Red.”
“Redman,” I said.
“That’s right. This Redman was the tougher of the two, a brawler from the looks of him. And cocky, like everything was a joke.”
“What about Jimmy, the other one?”
“He was trying to be tough, but it wasn’t in him. You know what I mean.”
“Where did Kim fit in with the two of them?”
“My daughter was way too old for both of them,” he said bluntly. “This Redman character clearly thought he had a shot at her. Maybe something was going on between ’em, I don’t know. But like everything else, she didn’t seem to be too serious about the situation.”
“What do you mean?”
He stared into his beer can. “Ruth and me had Kimmy late in life. That’s not an excuse, but we were a little old to be raising a girl in these times. When she was in her teens, we thought her wildness was just something she’d grow out of, but she went through her twenties the same damn way. After Ruth passed on, I lost touch with her. She sends me expensive gifts on holidays now, but to me it doesn’t mean much.”
“Do you have any idea where they’ve gone?”
“They were headed to the Banks, I think.”
“They tell you that?”
“I heard them talking about it.”
“Where? Nags Head?”
“That would be a start,” he said.
“She have friends there?”
“She worked there years ago, in restaurants. Worked in beaches all along the coast for a while, from Nags Head down to Cape Fear. Yeah, I suppose she’s still got some friends on the coast.”
“Where did she work in Nags Head? Specifically.”
He tapped his empty can on the table while he thought. “It was a Mex place or Spanish. That’s all I can remember. It’s been a long time.”
“That’s plenty of information,” I said, exaggerating. “Thanks.” There couldn’t be too many Mexican joints on the Outer Banks. I was beginning to get a picture of a smalltown girl, attracted to the resort towns by the money and drugs that came with