Dead Even Part 22

"What's the name of the restaurant?"

"Buckeye Bob's."

"Cute."

"I'm sure someone thought so."

"Did the sergeant say if Johnson remembered Channing?"

"I didn't get the impression that they questioned him. I think they just located him and confirmed that he's the same Ronald Johnson."

"Well, then, I guess he's all ours."

"Guess he is." Miranda stared out the window. Autumn had come and gone here, leaving the trees mostly bare.

"It's almost Halloween," she said. "Few more days . . ."

"What?"

"I said, it will be Halloween in a few days."

"I wondered why I keep having this sudden urge to rip the sheet off the bed and cut holes in it."

"I would have expected something more creative from you. Please don't disillusion me by telling me that the white sheet was your costume of choice."

"Actually, I didn't have a favorite costume. I mean, I didn't have costumes."

"They didn't trick-or-treat where you grew up?"

"Well, yeah, they did. At least, everyone else did."

"Are you saying you never trick-or-treated?" She frowned. "Every kid trick-or-treats on Halloween, Fletcher."

"Not quite everyone."

"So what was the deal? Chocolate allergy? Fear of rubber masks and fake teeth?"

"My parents wouldn't let us go." He glanced over with an odd smile plastered on his face. "Halloween is the devil's holiday. Didn't you know that?"

"Huh?"

"Sure. It's all about devil worship. It's a celebration of the occult."

"You believe that?"

"No. But my parents did."

"Wow." She tried to think of something more intelligent to say, but could not.

"Yeah, wow. That pretty much sums it up."

"I'm . . . I'm sorry, Will."

"Thank you, Cahill. That's the nicest thing you've said to me in a long time." He continued staring straight ahead. "What was the name of that road again?"

"Essington."

They drove in silence for another minute, then Miranda said, "It's kind of sad, don't you think, that we know so little about each other? I mean, we've slept together a dozen or so times, and we don't really know each other very well at all."

"I think the times we slept together, we weren't concerned about how well we knew each other."

"That doesn't speak well for either of us." There was a hint of regret in her voice.

"It's not too late, you know."

"For what?"

"To get to know each other."

"Maybe," she said softly.

"I'll take that as a yes."

"There's Essington up there at the light." She pointed.

"Are you trying to change the subject?"

"You betcha. Take a left here."

"And then what?"

"Then you go about three hundred yards to . . . yes, there it is. Buckeye Bob's. Right where it's supposed to be. Pull in here. . . ."

He made a right into the parking lot and stopped the car.

"What are you doing?"

"Waiting for you to tell me where to park."

"Very funny. Move it."

He grinned and made a wide circle in the parking lot before parking the car in a s.p.a.ce near the front door.

"Is this close enough for you?" he asked.

"You are pushing your luck today, Fletcher." She got out of the car, slammed the door, and walked up the wide concrete steps, then paused at the top to wait for Will.

"I trust you'd like to do most of the talking," he said as he came up the steps.

"Well, I am lead on the case, but you can feel free to chime in at any time."

"I'll do that." He held the door for her, then held it a moment longer for the three women who were leaving the restaurant.

"Table for two?" the hostess asked.

"Please," Miranda said with a nod.

"It will be about five minutes."

"That's fine," Will told her, then stepped back so as not to block the doorway.

"What exactly does Mr. Johnson do here?"

"I think he's the manager."

"And this is his shift, right?"

"The sergeant said Johnson would be working tonight."

A waitress appeared and motioned for them to follow her to a booth toward the back. Miranda slid into her seat and shrugged out of her jacket.

"Oh, look. There's a sign that says they make old-fashioned milk shakes here." She was grinning from ear to ear. "Yum."

When the waitress reappeared with menus, Miranda shook her head. "Don't need the menu. I'll have a black-and-white milk shake and a burger."

Will suppressed a smile and ordered the same.

"Copycat," she taunted.

"It sounded too good to miss out on."

"Portia and I used to go to this little place when we visited our grandmother in Nebraska. Dolan's. They made the most incredible milk shakes ever. We'd arrive at the house and make nice with Gramma for a while, then when she and Mom would hunker down on the back porch with tea, Portia and I would race down to Dolan's." A cloud pa.s.sed over her face briefly.

"What?" he asked.

"What what?"

"What was that little bit of a frown for?"

"Mr. Dolan wasn't always very nice to us. He knew our mother in school, and sometimes, when we came in, he'd make a big deal out of us." She lowered her voice. " 'Well, well, what have we here? Looks like Nancy Cahill's little girls. How's your mother doing, girls? She ever get married?' "

"Wow. That's ugly." Will frowned. "Those must have been some great milk shakes, for you to keep going back there."

"He wasn't always there. Most times, someone else was working the counter. We used to sort of tiptoe in. If he wasn't around, we'd feel like the G.o.ds were smiling on us that day." She shrugged. "Besides, there was no other place to go in town, and I should also add that by the time we were eight or nine years old, we were used to hearing that in Morningside. This was a real small town, and everyone knew my mother's family. Everyone knew the story of how Nancy Cahill had spurned the local lads to take up with a wild Brit. And just look at what happened to her."

"Didn't it upset your mother when people said unkind things to you like that?"

"It would have killed her if she'd known. We just never told her." Miranda chewed on the inside of her bottom lip.

He started to say something when the waitress appeared with their order.

"Can I get you something else?" she asked.

"Actually, yes." Miranda smiled up at her. "Is Ronald Johnson available?"

"He's here," the waitress replied, "but I'm not sure if he's busy. Are you friends of Ron's?"

"Sort of." Miranda slipped her ID out of her pocket and laid it on the table. The waitress's eyes widened slightly, then flickered from Miranda's face to Will's, then back again.

"Could you tell him that we're here, and that we need to speak with him about someone who used to work for him?"

"Sure." She nodded. "Sure . . ."

She disappeared into the back room.

Before three minutes had pa.s.sed, Ron Johnson, a balding man in his mid-fifties, with acne-pocked skin and thick gla.s.ses, appeared at their table. "You the folks who wanted to speak with me?"

"We are if you're Ron Johnson," Will responded.

"I am. What's this about someone who used to work for me?"

"Curtis Channing." Miranda slid over on the wooden bench and patted the seat next to her. "Can you join us for a few minutes?"

"Curtis Channing." Johnson sat. "I should have known it would be him. I read all about him. The papers were full of stuff about how he killed those women back in Pennsylvania, and how they traced him to some murders out here. I should have figured someone would be asking about him one of these days."

"We understand that he used to work for you."

"Yeah, yeah. 'Bout five, six years ago. The Red Door in Wynnefield."

"We heard you fired him."

"Yeah, well, he wouldn't work the last shift. Midnight till seven in the morning." Johnson shrugged. "You work at the Red Door, you work all the shifts. The place is open twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. You can't opt out of the last shift."

"How did he take getting fired?" Will asked.

"As I remember, he just sort of nodded his head. Said okay. Took his ap.r.o.n off, hung it up, and left."

"That's it? He just left? He didn't argue, plead for his job, threaten you?" Miranda frowned.

"Nah, that wouldn't have been like Curtis. He never reacted to much of anything. Everything sort of rolled off his back, you know what I'm saying? Never saw him get angry with anyone. Just did his job, kept to himself. He was a good employee, except he refused to work late shift, so I had to let him go."

"He never got into arguments with any of the other employees? No bad blood between him and any of the others?" Miranda persisted.

"Not that I was aware of. Honestly, a more laid-back guy you'll never meet. Just did his thing, and when it was time, he moved on."

"You ever see him after he left the Red Door?"

Johnson shook his head. "Not until they flashed his picture on television a few months back. You coulda knocked me over with a feather. I said, no way is that Curt Channing. No f.u.c.king way." He turned to Miranda somewhat sheepishly. "Sorry. Forgot for a minute I wasn't in the kitchen."