And yeah, Ricky seemed insistent, but I have to admit that I was intrigued. He said you wanted to know about Barb Chalmers and her son.”
I gestured to an empty booth near the front window. “Why don’t we go sit down and you can tell me what you remember about her.” I paused. “Do you mind if I take notes?”
“Not at all.”
I hurried to the back and grabbed my notebook out of my purse before returning to the booth and sitting down opposite Cassie.
“What do you want to know?” she said, then took a sip of her drink.
“I don’t know if Ricky told you, but I was the person who found Seth after he was shot. I hate that his death was the only part of him I knew, so I’ve been asking people to tell me about him.”
“That’s sweet,” she said. Then she reached into her purse and pulled out a small photo album. “I brought some pictures, if you’d like to start with them.”
A huge smile spread across my face. “I’d love that.”
She turned the photo album around to face me, then opened the cover. “I made this album after Barb died.”
The first photos were elementary class photos. “This is us in fourth grade,” she said, pointing to a stereotypical riser photo of Mrs. Franklin’s class. “This is me,” she said, pointing to a cute blonde girl. “And this is Barb.” Barb had pigtails and a wide smile. “We were close friends back then.”
“Is one of them Michelle Abernathy?” I asked.
She gave me a surprised look but pointed out a girl with dark hair. “This is her. She struggled in school and kind of kept to herself, until she started workin’ for Hank. Then she and Barb got kind of close.”
Michelle had called Cassie “prissy,” but I wasn’t getting any animosity from her.
“Was Louise Baker in your grade?” I asked.
She blinked at me, taken back.
“You’re related, right?”
“I don’t claim her if I can help it,” she said, forcing a laugh. Then she drew a breath and said, “We were friends until she started dating my uncle Walter, and then it was just weird, you know?”
“I can imagine,” I said sympathetically.
“Plus, she was sleepin’ around and cheatin’ on Walter.” She paused. “I couldn’t sit back and watch her break his heart, so I stopped hanging out with her.” She made a face. “Not that she seemed to mind all that much. She was too busy with all her gentlemen friends.”
I couldn’t say I blamed her for backing off.
She turned the page in the photo album. “I started hanging out more with Barb before she left for college, and then we saw a lot of each other when she came home over the summers. Our mommas were best friends, you know. I was the one Barb called when she found out she was pregnant with Seth. Some boy from college, but she’d never tell her daddy who he was. I sat with her when she told them, and Hank was fit to be tied when she wouldn’t reveal the baby daddy’s name, but it was a smart move on Barb’s part. I suspect he might have cut the guy’s balls off.”
I cringed, because I didn’t have trouble believing he would.
Then she showed me some photos of herself and Barb in high school and in swimming suits by a pool.
“Where was this one taken?” I asked, pointing to one of the pool pictures, wondering why it looked vaguely familiar.
“Down at the Mountain View Lodge. They used to let the locals swim on Tuesdays and Thursdays for a dollar each,” she said with a soft smile. “We spent a lot of time at that pool. Barb used to keep her bikinis at my house and she’d change in the car. Hank had forbidden her to wear anything but a one-piece. If he’d found out, he would have strung us both up.” She released a short laugh.
“So he was a strict father?”
“You don’t know the half of it,” she said. “Barb loved him to death, but she kind of rebelled.”
“Did she know what her father did for a living?”
“Her mom used to tell people he was an entrepreneur, but Barb knew he was a drug dealer.”
“Did you know?”
“Oh, yeah. I figured it out because Dad worked for him, but Barb didn’t keep it a secret from her friends. Still, she made sure to tell us he was the nice kind. Not the heroin kind.”
“Did the teachers know?”
“Everyone knew. I’m not sure why Mary