Liar Liar Read online

  Nicole checked her watch. It was 5:45 p.m., and Josh would be home soon. She’d have to stop for the day. If she really was under the weather, it wouldn’t make sense that she’d work until bedtime. As soon as she heard his car pull in, she reluctantly turned off the computer.

  After dinner, she and Josh cuddled on the couch, watching two detective shows in a row. Nicole was thinking about the Hemet rape charge that resulted in the quarterback being kicked out of school. It was just like what had happened to Doshan. And there was more. Three Hemet Bulldogs had ended up on the Oceanside team, and two had testified against Doshan. The third Hemet grad was Andy Drummond, now a second-string quarterback at Oceanside. How was that for coincidence?

  She wondered if there a way to reach Rojas and get his story. And what about Andy Drummond? In high school, he’d directly benefitted from Rojas’ expulsion. Was it possible Andy had been behind that rape charge? What if he’d set up some poor girl at Hemet High to accuse Rojas? Even if that couldn’t be proved, the information she’d found showed a pattern that could point to Andy Drummond as a possible suspect in Mary Ellen’s murder. If it could be proved, it could change the course of the trial.

  In the morning, Nicole told Josh she still wasn’t feeling well and lingered in bed while he got dressed. He went downstairs and, after a few minutes, returned with a breakfast tray complete with a rose in a vase.

  “Oh, Josh, you didn’t have to do that,” she said, feeling even guiltier. She waited for him to leave for work before she got up, pulled on jeans and a T-shirt, and went back to her computer. It only took minutes to find Rojas on the firm’s database. He was still in Hemet, and a phone number was listed. She pulled out her cell phone and called.

  “Hola?” a woman said. In halting Spanish, Nicole tried to explain that she wanted to speak to Alejandro. The woman interrupted, switching to slightly accented English. “He’s at work. You want his cell phone?”

  Nicole took the number and thanked the woman profusely. As soon as she hung up, she called Alejandro. No one picked up, so Nicole left her name and number, briefly explaining that she wanted to talk about Andrew Drummond.

  It wasn’t more than ten minutes before her phone rang.

  “This is Alejandro Rojas. You called about Drummond. That right?”

  “I need to talk to you about what happened at Hemet High. Do you have time?”

  After a long moment, he said, “You a cop or a reporter or something?”

  Nicole explained, and he hesitated again. Then he said, “Give me your name so I can check you out. I’ll call you back.”

  Her phone rang a few minutes later. “Okay,” he said. “But I can’t talk about it on the phone, and I don’t have wheels. I’ll tell you what I know, but you’ll have to come to me.”

  They agreed to meet the next day. After they hung up, Nicole looked at the clock. It was 9:30 a.m. She considered going in to work but decided against it. If she was going to meet Alejandro tomorrow, she’d need yet another excuse to get off work. It would be easier to say she wasn’t up to coming in today and work from home. Tomorrow she’d feign a relapse. Lies, lies, lies, she thought. But it couldn’t be helped.

  She decided that she was going to own up to Josh about her trip to Hemet. She couldn’t keep this from him any longer. She was in too deep, and the meeting in Hemet could have significant implications. She considered what to say. Was there any way of telling him without starting a row?

  Josh arrived home loaded with grocery bags. When she told him she was feeling better, his face lit up. He unpacked his groceries and got busy making her favorite dinner, chicken tagine with couscous. He had the music turned up and was humming to himself as he worked. She tiptoed up behind him and gave him a hug. He turned to her, planting a kiss in the middle of her forehead before happily turning back to the stove.

  Oh, God, she thought. How can I spoil this? I’ll wait ‘til later. But there never seemed to be the right moment. Finally, when they climbed into bed, she turned to him and said, “There’s something I have to tell you—”

  He put his face against hers so that, from her perspective, his two eyes merged into one. This always made her laugh. “It can wait until later,” he said. Then he was kissing her, and the moment had passed. Afterward, she lay awake for a long time, hating herself for being such a coward.

  In the morning, she overslept, then had to rush to get ready for the day ahead. It was too late; she couldn’t tell him now because there wouldn’t be time to discuss it. When they both left the house at 8:30, Josh was still in his upbeat, affectionate mood, which made her feel even worse.

  Recalling the incident in Oceanside’s parking lot, Nicole took steps to make sure she wasn’t followed. She’d reserved a rental car and took a circuitous route through side streets before heading to the auto agency. She left her car and drove out in a generic, white compact.

  She routed the journey on the car’s GPS, which told her it would involve three freeway changes and over two hours to get to Hemet, if traffic was clear. She was supposed to meet Alejandro at noon at a coffee shop near his work and figured she’d probably arrive at least an hour early. But traffic was stop-and-go for much of the 102-mile drive. She arrived just a few minutes before noon. The diner where he’d asked her to meet was on the outer fringe of town in an industrial area. The place looked like a shack from the outside, but the interior was decent enough. It had a U-shaped counter and half-dozen tables against the wall. Except for two men at the counter who looked like day laborers, the place was empty. She chose a table and sat down.

  She spotted him as soon as he walked in, a tall Latino in his late teens or early twenties. He’d undergone a radical change since the photo of him she’d found on a newspaper website. It had been taken before he was expelled. Now, only two years later, he looked as if life had defeated him. Much of his muscle had gone to fat. His face was bloated. He had dark circles under his eyes, and he looked hungover. She gave him a wave and he sat down opposite her. They shook hands across the table.

  Alejandro’s first words were spoken with heavy sarcasm: “So what’s with my old pal Andy? Got himself in some trouble?” Nicole could smell alcohol on his breath.

  “Not yet,” she said. “At least not that anybody knows. He’s to be a witness in the trial of Doshan Williams.”

  “Yeah, I heard about that Williams guy. He’s on trial for murder.”

  “Tell me what happened at Hemet High when you left the football team.”

  Just then, a waitress appeared. They ordered drinks—a Coke for Nicole, a beer for Alejandro.

  After the waitress was gone, he said, “You know, even after all this time I’m still steamed every time I think about it. I was kicked off the team, thrown out of school, and I’d done nothing wrong. Nothing. I was out with my bros one night drinking beer. Some girls drove up and started to joke around. This girl I barely knew came onto me. She led me into the women’s room, locked the door, and what happened happened. She wasn’t even my type, but I wasn’t about to say no. The next day she went to the principal’s office and said I’d raped her. It was her word against mine, and the school chose to believe her.

  “The police investigated and decided there wasn’t enough evidence to charge me. It was, like, you know, he-said, she-said. But the school wouldn’t take me back. I had to finish senior year at continuation high, you know, where the screw-ups and gangbangers get their diplomas. So that was the end of any hope for college. Losing my place on the team meant I couldn’t get an athletic scholarship. My parents couldn’t help. They’re barely making it as it is.”

  “There are grants and work-study programs for students who can’t afford school,” Nicole said. “Can’t you apply for one of those?”

  “Nah. I got incompletes in my college prep classes. I’d have to make those up.”

  “What about community college?”

  “I’d be thirty before I got out of school. I’m working two jobs. Full time at the auto repair where my dad w
orks and three nights as a security guard. I’m saving so I can get my own pad. I’m still living at home. Which is hard, you know. My family’s pretty disappointed in me.”

  “What’s the name of the girl who accused you?”

  “Kayla Jones.”

  “Do you have any idea why Kayla would have made a false accusation?”

  “I think Drummond put her up to it so he’d get quarterback. He was always telling people he was better than me, and how he should have been picked. After the rape thing came out, I remembered I’d seen Kayla with him in his car and wondered about it. She’s not the hot, cheerleader type he usually went for. Maybe he conned her into thinking she was his girlfriend and talked her into setting a trap for me. A couple of weeks later some porno shots of her got posted on the web. After that, she dropped out of school.”

  “Do you know where she is now?”

  “Sure,” he said. “She’s a waitress at a place in town—Harry’s Waffle House.”

  “Did she ever take back her accusation?”

  “Nope. Hemet’s a pretty small town. I run into her once in a while. She won’t even look at me. She acts like—I don’t know—like we both know she lied. She’s not about to own up, and she’s ashamed.”

  They ordered lunch. While they ate, he told her in depressing detail what it was like to be a blue-collar worker in a small, dead-end town. She noticed that, despite his youth, he already had what looked like permanent frown lines. He didn’t seem interested in anything except the bum deal life had handed him. When they were done, she picked up the check.

  As they were leaving the restaurant, Alejandro said. “If you’re planning to go into town and talk to Kayla, be careful. Drummond’s family lives in Hemet, and he still has a brother and a lot of close friends out here. Besides that, the cops love him. He’s like a hometown hero, big college man and all. People will notice if you go around asking questions about him.”

  “Thanks for the advice. What does Kayla look like? I don’t want to have to ask for her when I get to Harry’s.”

  He shrugged. “I dunno. She’s got blonde hair. Kinda chubby.” He thought a moment. “She usually wears glasses, big round ones with black frames. Look, if you’re determined to talk to her, keep it short and get out of town. Andy’s friends are not nice guys.”

  “I’ll be fine.”

  Nicole stopped by her car to get her hat out of the trunk and put it on, along with her sunglasses. She was pretty sure no one had followed her.

  She pulled out her cell phone to see if she had any messages, but the phone was dead. This was the second time this had happened, and it made her suspect her battery needed replacing. She plugged it into her portable charger and waited a few minutes. It still showed the icon of an empty battery. This meant it was going to take a while to charge. She put it back in her purse and used the car’s GPS to find her way to Harry’s Waffle House. On the way, she monitored her surroundings to be sure she wasn’t being followed.

  Harry’s looked like its days were numbered—the place needed paint inside and out. The faux-wood floor was grimy, as were the red upholstered booths, which were frayed and ripped in places. At 12:45 p.m., the place was barely half full.

  Nicole stood near the door, pretending to read the posted menu. She took a quick glance around. A middle-aged brunette was working as cashier, and there only seemed to be one waitress, an older woman with gray hair flattened by a hairnet. She was dressed in what looked like the establishment’s uniform, a brown blouse with a logo on the pocket, brown slacks, and a red-and-white half apron. She was pitifully thin and looked well past retirement age.

  Where was Kayla?

  Just then, the double doors to the kitchen flew open, and a young woman carrying a loaded tray hustled out. Her outfit matched that of the older waitress. But any resemblance ended there. This girl had rosy cheeks and a substantial build. She wore round, oversized glasses, and her blonde hair was pulled into a topknot with a pencil stuck through it. She hoisted her tray and headed for the booths to the left of the cashier. Nicole followed, picking a booth next to the one Kayla was serving.

  The girl pulled out her order pad as she stopped at Nicole’s table. “Can I get you something to drink?”

  “Sure,” Nicole said. “Coffee. And I wonder if I could talk to you about something. Maybe you have a break coming up?”

  Kayla stared at Nicole a moment before she broke out in a big smile. “Hey! I know you. You were all over the news when that guy got murdered. I saw you on TV. Wow!” She seemed genuinely impressed.

  Nicole smiled. Usually she denied any connection with the case, but she could see that Kayla was thrilled to meet someone who’d actually been on TV. “Right,” she said. “Nicole Graves. Pleased to meet you. I’m hoping you can find a minute to talk to me about Andy Drummond.”

  Outside there was a loud roar of motorcycles; it sounded like Harry’s was being invaded by Hell’s Angels. The racket stopped just outside, and Kayla’s smile disappeared. “I—I can’t. I mean—no way. Not here.” She looked out the window, then back at Nicole. “I think you’d better go.”

  “It’s really important, Kayla. Someone’s life might depend on it.”

  There was a ding as the front door opened and a group noisily entered the coffee shop. Nicole glanced around. There were seven of them, toughs in their early twenties. They were dressed alike, in black leather jackets, low-slung Levi’s, and black boots. They all sported the same tattoo, the snake’s head she’d seen on Drummond and the others.

  At the sight of them, Kayla uttered a low, “Uh-oh.” She turned her back on them and disappeared into the kitchen. Nicole glanced over at the young men. They’d commandeered a booth near the front door and were sitting down.

  It wasn’t long before Kayla was back with another tray. She walked over to Nicole and put a mug of coffee on the table. She placed a napkin next to it; Nicole could see it had writing on the underside.

  When Kayla walked away, Nicole turned the napkin over. A note was written in a hasty scrawl: “Don’t look at the guys who just walked in,” it said. “When I go back to the kitchen, head for the women’s room. I’ll meet you there. Leave your sweater at the table like you plan to come back.”

  With a sidelong glance, Nicole watched Kayla drop off food from her tray and stop at the young men’s table to get their orders. As soon as Kayla walked back through the swinging doors, Nicole got up and followed the sign to the restrooms at the back.

  Kayla was already in the women’s room, waiting. “You’ve got to get out of here,” she said. “One of those guys is Andy’s brother. He’s sure to have seen the news and recognize you. He’ll suspect you’re sniffing around for something about Andy.”

  “Wait,” Nicole said, “I need to ask you some questions.”

  “All right, but make it fast. What’s Andy done now?” Kayla didn’t bother to conceal her dislike.

  “It has to do with the Doshan Williams case. You know—the quarterback who’s on trial for murder?”

  Kayla nodded.

  “Doshan was kicked off his college football team when a young woman charged him with rape,” Nicole went on. “She was murdered. Now he’s accused of killing her. Can you guess who one of his teammates was?”

  “Oh, my God. Was it Andy?”

  “It was. And two other former schoolmates of yours are also on the university team, Cody Marshall and Joe Sabatella. Do you know them?”

  “Not really,” Kayla said. “They hung out with Andy. He was their leader, and they were bullies, just like him and those guys out front. What’s this got to do with you, anyway? You’re not with the police, are you?”

  “No. I’m a witness for the defense. You see, before Mary Ellen was murdered, she told me that she’d lied in court. Someone blackmailed her into accusing Doshan of rape, but she wouldn’t tell me who. I think it was Andy. It would help if you told me what happened to you in high school.”

  Kayla glanced at her watch and bit her lip. “Okay
, I’ll tell you, but that’s it. I won’t talk to the cops, and I won’t testify in court. Andy said he’d kill me if I ratted him out.”

  “How did it start?”

  “Andy asked me for a date. Then he acted like I was his girlfriend.” Kayla was talking so fast that it took all of Nicole’s concentration to follow her. “I was sixteen. I’d never even had a boy ask me out. He was a senior and really popular. You can’t imagine how thrilled I was. He told me we had to keep our relationship secret. I was so dazzled by him that I never asked why.

  “He had it all planned. He’d take me to the woods or a deserted place in the hills to—you know. He had me pose for some pretty raunchy photos. He said he wanted them to look at when he wasn’t with me.

  “After he got the photos, he changed. He told me I had to seduce Alejandro and then accuse him of rape. I said ‘no,’ but he said he’d post those photos on the web if I didn’t do it. I knew what my parents would do if that happened, so I did what he said.”

  “Did he say why he wanted you to do that?”

  “It’s obvious, isn’t it? Andy wanted Alejandro kicked off the team so he could be quarterback. After I did it, Andy was supposed to give me the photos, but he wouldn’t even return my calls. One day, I waited after school to confront him. He offered to drive me home. Instead, he took me out of town and beat me up. He said if I told anyone, he’d kill me. Then he put the photos online. My folks kicked me out. I had to quit school to support myself.”

  She put her hands over her eyes and drew in a ragged breath. When she dropped her hands, tears were running down her face. “I feel so guilty about what I did to Alejandro. He didn’t do anything wrong.” She pulled a napkin out of her pocket, mopped her face with it, and stood up. “We’ve been here too long. If they get suspicious, they’ll come looking for us. There’s a back door in the kitchen. You can go out that way. Just follow me.”

  “Wait,” Nicole said, “this time Drummond may have killed a girl, and Doshan could be convicted of the murder. Won’t you at least talk to his lawyer? He’s really smart. He can figure out how to protect you if you tell your story in court.”