“Of course.”
“Last night, when I saw that car barreling at you, that was the worst moment of my life. Worse than when my dad died. Worse than when the doctors finally diagnosed my mom. I thought I’d lost you, Conley.” He exhaled slowly. “I thought I’d lost you, but then, I realized I never really had you. Did I?”
“Don’t talk about it like that,” she said, shaking her head. “But I still don’t get how you even saw what was going on.”
“Mom was having a bad night. I finally managed to get her to bed around one, but then I couldn’t get to sleep, so I went out, and I was sitting on the porch, just kind of enjoying the peace and quiet. I guess I was looking down the block toward your house, and then I saw the Corvette, parked in the driveway of the Bennetts’ old house. Suddenly, the driver revved the engine and shot backward out of there like a rocket. Then he screeched off, and the next thing I knew…” He took a sip of coffee. “I’ve never been so scared in my life.”
“Me either,” she admitted. “While it was happening, it felt so surreal. I called 911 to report the phone calls, and they said they’d send an officer to check it out, and the next thing I know, somebody’s right there, holding up a badge. I was so relieved! I was unlocking the door, but then he kicked it in. Like it was nothing.”
“What phone calls?” Skelly said, frowning.
“The calls only started recently. At first I just assumed it was a disgruntled reader. Like, harmless crank calls. It would be a man’s voice, and he’d say, ‘You’re dead, bitch,’ and then he’d hang up.”
“I should have warned you about Poppell after that night at the wreck,” Skelly said. “I saw the way he was checking you out. He was hitting on you, but I thought that was just Popps being Popps. Same old weirdo. Nobody ever took him seriously, back in the day, when he’d say crude stuff to girls.”
“He was always like that?”
“Yeah. He kind of had a reputation as a perv even back then.”
“Did he ever get into serious trouble?” Conley asked.
“You know,” Skelly said slowly, “he did get kicked off the football team, which was weird, because you saw him—he was a beast. I don’t remember what the reason was.”
“I ran into Poppell a couple of more times when I was at the sheriff’s office, working on the Robinette story,” Conley said. “He asked me out, and I didn’t really think anything of it. I told him I was busy, which I guess made him angry. And then, when Sheriff Goggins fired him, Poppell blamed me.”
She took a last bite of tortilla and pushed her plate away. “He’d been stalking me, Skelly. He told me so. He even followed me out to the Dunes. He said he saw us that night. On the beach.”
“Jesus! I should have known! I should have warned you about him,” Skelly said.
“Stop,” Conley said calmly. “It’s not Grayson’s fault, and it’s notyour fault. It’s not anybody’s fault. Clearly, Poppell had some kind of mental issues.”
“How does a guy like that get a job with a gun and a badge?” Skelly wondered aloud.
“That’s what I want Michael to find out.”
“While you figure out Buddy Bright?” Skelly asked.
“With your help.”
“What’s our first stop?” he asked.
“The radio station. They knew the guy, worked with him, right?”
Neal Evancho sat slumped at the desk in the reception area. “I already told all this to the cops,” he said, running a hand through his thinning hair. “He came in here, according to my records, six years ago. Had a good voice, said he’d been in radio a long time, and after I tried him out, I knew he was the goods, so I hired him.”
Conley considered this. “Don’t deejays usually have tapes from previous jobs? Résumés, references that you check?”
“I was shorthanded,” Evancho said. “My night guy just didn’t show up one day. I was filling in his slot myself, and I’m getting too old for this shit. Buddy showed up out of nowhere, and I figured, what the hell? He was a godsend. Listeners loved him.”
“Let me guess,” Conley said. “He worked for cheap?”
“I prefer to say his wage was reasonable. I guess, though, since he’s dead, I could tell you that he was a bargain. Never asked for much. Worked whatever shifts I needed, including double shifts. But the deal was, he had to be paid in cash.”
“That didn’t seem odd to you?” she asked.
“Everything about Buddy was odd,” Evancho said. “That dyed-black hair and him never wearing anything except black? The car with the homemade license plate. Working Press? The guy never slept. He’d get off the late-night shift, drive around all over the place. He was always calling in from some wreck somewhere. I guess he was an old newshound. The station’s got a website, you know? We put all the deejays’ photos on there,and their bios, but Buddy flat refused. He had some excuse about an ex-wife trying to nail him for alimony.”
“What did you do about his paperwork, social security, all that?”
