Page 24 of Sworn to Silence
“Do you know of anyone who might have wanted to hurt Amanda? Did she have any enemies?”
For the first time she gives me her full attention. Some of the attitude drops away and I get a glimpse of the young woman beneath all the trashy brawn. “That’s what I don’t get,” she says. “Everyone liked Amanda. She was like... a nice person, always up. Laughed a lot, you know?” A smile that’s much too worldly for a twenty-one-year-old twists her mouth. “I’m the one people usually don’t like.”
I consider telling her she might contemplate an attitude adjustment, but I’m not here to enlighten some smart-assed punk. I’m here to find out who killed Amanda Horner. “What about a boyfriend?”
She lifts a shoulder, lets it fall. “She went out with Donny Beck some, but they broke up a couple of months ago.”
My cop’s radar goes on alert. This is the second time Beck’s name has come up. “How bad was the breakup?”
“Amanda didn’t put up with any of that me-Tarzan-you-Jane shit. She laid down the law and he listened.”
“Tell me about Donny Beck.”
“Not much to tell. He’s a clerk at Quality Implement. Likes Copenhagen and Bud and blondes with big tits. His biggest goal in life is to manage the store. Amanda’s too smart to get tangled up with someone like that. She knows there’s more to life than cow shit and corn.”
I notice she’s speaking of Amanda in the present tense. “Any messy breakups in the past?”
“Don’t think so.”
“Can you think of anyone who might be holding a grudge for some reason?”
“Not that I know of.”
I’m chasing my tail and we both know it. A gust of wind snakes around the building, bringing with it a swirl of snow. “What time did you last see Amanda?”
Her overplucked brows knit. “Eleven-thirty. Maybe twelve.”
“Did you leave the bar together?”
Exhaling smoke, she shakes her head. “Separate cars. I don’t like having to rely on other people for transportation, you know? If I want to leave and they want to stay...” Shrugging, she lets the words hang. “Could be a pain in the ass.”
Her lack of emotion bothers me. Amanda was allegedly a good friend. Why isn’t this young woman more upset?
She rises and brushes at the back of her coat. “I gotta get back to work.”
“I’m not finished.”
“You going to pay me for this, or what?” She motions toward the door. “They’re sure as hell not if I don’t get back in there.”
“We can do this here and now or we can do it at the police station,” I say. “Your call.”
She frowns like a petulant teenager, then plops down hard. “This is a bunch of shit.”
“I need you to tell me everything that happened Saturday night. Don’t leave anything out.”
Sarcasm laces her voice as she recaps a night of drinking, dancing and flirting. “We ordered a pizza and pitcher of beer and talked.” She sucks hard on the cigarette and I notice her hand shaking. “After that we played some eight ball and talked to some people we know. A few guys hit on us. I wanted to get laid, but they were a bunch of fuckin’ losers.”
“What do you mean ‘losers’?” I picture a group of hard-drinking, drug-dealing types looking for trouble.
She looks at me as if I’m dense. “Farmers. A bunch of go-nowhere, I’m-going-to-live-in-bum-fuck-the-rest-of-my-life good ole boys. I could practically smell the pig shit on their boots.”
“Then what happened?”
“I left.”
“I need the names of everyone you and Amanda talked to.”
Sighing, she recites several names.
