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Colleen laughed. “True.” She fixed Barbara with sharp gray-blue eyes. “You sound like you know small towns.”
Barbara hesitated and then said, “I grew up in a place not so dissimilar to this.”
Colleen nodded. “I thought I got a hint of Midwest in your accent. Not much. But it’s hard to shake.”
“You got me,” Barbara said, reaching for her beer. She took a slightly larger sip.
“Where are you based now?” Colleen asked.
“New York, Brooklyn.”
“Ah, the Big Apple. You live alone, or—”
Or…a whole heap of ambiguity in that one word. For a short while, there was an “or,” but Barbara sure as hell wasn’t going to mention Susan to this woman.
She smiled. “I like my own company, ma’am.” She glanced toward the bar. “You seemed to know the gentleman who came over?”
Colleen nodded. “Don’t judge Beau too harshly. Stephen Garrett is his grandson.”
Barbara raised her eyebrows. “Marcus’s friend?”
“You can understand why he’s upset. It could have been his boy, right?” She pressed her hand to the cross. “People just want to see the right thing done.”
“Then we’re on the same page.”
“I’m so pleased to hear that, Detective. Some townsfolk, they wanted to take matters into their own hands right away. But Chief Nicholls and I persuaded them to wait.”
Really? This was news to Barbara. But she wasn’t unduly surprised.
“That’s very decent of you, ma’am.”
Colleen beamed. In contrast to the rest of her polished appearance, her teeth were crooked and a little yellowed.
“Did you know Marcus Anderson?” Barbara asked.
“Not well. But he was a good kid.”
“Chief Nicholls said the boys sometimes met up at the cabin to drink and do drugs?”
“A good kid, not perfect. Teenagers experiment. It’s part of growing up.”
Barbara glanced across to where the teenage girl in the blue dress sat, hands folded in her lap, silently staring into space. A little odd. Normally girls of that age were on their phones every second they could get.
“Do you tell that to your daughter?” she asked.
“Daughter?” Colleen frowned. Then she turned, following Barbara’s gaze. “Oh, Grace?” She smiled. “She’s not my daughter. She’s my assistant.”
“Oh. I’m sorry…she looks very young.”
“Eighteen. Her mother died. I took her under my wing. She helps me with church business.”
Barbara glanced over at the girl again. “Did Grace know Marcus?” she asked.
Something in Colleen’s face changed. “Grace doesn’t associate with boys,” she said curtly. “She’s very devout.”
As far as you know, thought Barbara. In her experience, young people lived two lives. The one their parents or guardians knew about, and the one they didn’t.
The purple-haired waitress approached, holding a tray of food. “Cheeseburger and fries?”
