The stairs were located behind a varnished door across from the restrooms. When I climbed to the second floor, I found myself in a cold, narrow hallway, decorated with posters of black cats. There were four doors on each side, looking in on empty rooms that didn’t offer much more than a twin bed and a closet-sized bathroom. The smell told me that people threw up here regularly. I passed seven open doors, but the last door on the right was closed.
The noises I heard inside told me what was going on.
I knocked hard. “Will Gruder! It’s Deputy Lake. We need to talk.”
The grunting from the bodies behind the door stopped abruptly, and I heard a string of profanities. Footsteps creaked on the wooden floor, and the door inched open in front of me behind a chain. I saw a redheaded girl who couldn’t be more than a teenager. Behind her, the room was pitch-black.
“What do you want?” she demanded.
“Is Will Gruder in there?”
“What if he is?”
“I need to talk to him.”
She looked ready to give me attitude, but I heard a male voice behind her. “Just do what she says.”
The door closed again. I heard angry whispers on the other side, along with the rustle of clothes. When the door opened again, the redhead passed me with a slur about cops underneath her breath. The light was still off in the bedroom, and the shutters were closed. When I opened the door, I could barely make out the body of a man on the twin bed. The long stretch of pale skin told me he was naked.
“Get dressed, Will.”
“Turn on the light so I can see.”
I didn’t bother with games. I knew he wanted to shock me. I turned on the light, and I kept my reaction off my face. Yes, he was naked, and his skin was mottled all over with the shiny, grotesque burns that he’d suffered in the explosion of his meth lab. Vince had died, but seeing Will made me wonder if his brother had gotten off easy. I didn’t like Will, and I didn’t like what he and Vince had inflicted on the people around Mittel County with the drugs they sold. But he’d definitely been punished.
He saw through the impassive look I was faking. He smirked at my discomfort. His own face was like a shiny plastic mask, with a nose that resembled the opening of a skull. His mouth was like a round cave. His eyes were unaffected, still sharp and blue, as if part of his sentence was to be able to see himself in a mirror every day of his life.
Will limped to a pile of clothes near the bed. I remembered Anna talking about his bad knee, which was wrapped in an elastic bandage. He grimaced as he stepped into a white pair of underwear, and then he sat on the bed without putting on anything else.
“Vengeance is mine,” Will murmured. “That’s what you’re thinking, right? I got what was coming to me?”
“I’m sorry about your situation,” I told him. And I was.
He had the look of a man who was accustomed to pity from everyone he met and had no patience for it. “You can turn off the lights again if you don’t want to look at me. I keep the lights off for sex. Girls won’t do it if they see me. I don’t blame them. I’m a monster.”
I felt like I should disagree with him, but I couldn’t.
“Does Anna know you’re cheating on her? Does she know you bring other girls up here?”
“Anna and I don’t sleep together, so I can’t cheat on her.”
“Oh.” I couldn’t hide my surprise. Or my relief. “Okay.”
“Yeah, I’m sure you’re happy about that. It’s not like Anna hasn’t offered, by the way. She’s told me lots of times that she wanted to do it. I said no.”
“Really.”
“Yes, really. There are only three reasons a girl will sleep with somebody who looks like me. One is because I pay them. Two is because they think they’re at the circus, and they want to see the freaks. Three is because they want to punish themselves. Anna’s number three. That’s the worst kind.”
“Then why do you hang out with her?”
“I don’t. She hangs out with me.”
“Well, do us both a favor and knock it off. I don’t want her with you. I don’t want her anywhere near you. You make her feel bad about herself, and I hate that. That girl can do amazing things with her life, but she’ll never get there with you dragging her down.”
“You’re wrong. I don’t do that. She does it to herself. But hey, I get it, it’s easier to blame me.”
“You told her she was a bad person.”
“No, I said we’re all bad people. I’m a bad person. You’re a bad person. We sin. That’s what people do.”
I had to remind myself that you can go through a lot of physical suffering and still be a jerk. Underneath it all, Will Gruder was still Will Gruder.
“Look, you got a crappy deal,” I told him. “It doesn’t matter that you brought it on yourself. I wouldn’t wish it on anyone. If you’re not dealing drugs anymore, great, good for you. If you want to spend your life reading the Bible and doling out pop psychology, that’s fine, too. But leave Anna alone.”
Will shrugged. “Is that all?”
“No. That’s not all. I assume you heard about Jeremiah Sloan and the Mittel Pines Resort.”
“Yeah. Everybody’s talking about it.”
“And about the death of Belinda Brees.”
“Sure. That’s too bad. Breezy was cool.”
“How well did you know her?”
“In the old days, she was our favorite customer. Sometimes she didn’t have any money, so Vince would make her sleep with us instead.”
“Real nice.”
Will rocked back and forth on the bed. His blue eyes were cold. “So what? Like I said, everybody sins. You weren’t exactly an angel back then, were you, Deputy? Cheating. Lying. Wasn’t that you?”
I ignored him, but I felt the sting. He was good at pinpointing people’s weaknesses. His grotesque appearance also gave him a strangely hypnotic presence. He was like a cult leader gathering up disciples to spread his gospel, and Anna was under his spell.
“Where were you Monday night?”
“Lying in a hospital bed. My knee went out, and I had injections. I couldn’t walk. I was there Monday. I was there Tuesday. I only got out this morning. Sorry if that bums you out, Deputy, but I didn’t kill anybody.”
“I never said you did.” But he was right. I wasn’t expecting an unshakable alibi from Will in Breezy’s death. To me, he was my prime suspect. “I want to talk about the weekend that Jeremiah disappeared.”
“What about it?”
“The Mittel Pines Resort is close to your house.”
“So?”
“So did you and Vince ever go out there?”
“Sometimes.”
“Doing what?”
“Hanging out. Screwing around.”
“What about that weekend? Did you go there?”
“No. We’d just got home from our supply trip to Mexico, and we were back in business. We were busy.”
“The road to the resort goes right near your place. Did you see anything that weekend? People? Vehicles?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Did you hear anything?”
Will tilted his chin in thought. He leaned back, putting both palms flat on the mattress. “Music.”
“You heard music? Where was it coming from?”
“I don’t know. Could have been anywhere. We heard it both nights. Friday and Saturday. Someone was playing it pretty loud. Vince was getting pissed.”
“Breezy thought the music was coming from the two of you.”
“That’s why Vince was pissed. He didn’t want the cops getting nosy.”
“Did you check it out?”
“No.”
“Why not? If Vince was angry, seems to me he’d go bang some heads.”