Page 33 of Always Murder

“Why don’t you start from the beginning,” I said, “and tell us what’s going on?”

“I don’tknow, man.Paul disappeared yesterday, and then Anthony said if I didn’t pay up, bad, uh, stuff was going to happen, and then—”

Ryan didn’t actually gulp when he cut off, but it seemed like a close thing.

“And then what?”I asked.

But Ryan closed his mouth and shrank in on himself.He even forgot about soothing his injured knee.

Keme was the one who broke the silence: “Anthony Turnley?”

Ryan nodded miserably.

“Who’s that?”I asked.

“Uh, theTurnleys,” Ryan said.

I took another deep breath.Several, actually.I found myself—to my own surprise—feeling a sudden pang of sympathy for Christine.And, even more so, for Millie.Finally, I managed to say, “Who?”

“Big family,” Keme said.“They live by the river.”

“They’re—” Ryan gave me another of those worried looks and settled on “—buttheads.”

“What kind of buttheads?”I asked.“Murdering buttheads?”

Keme didn’t respond except to narrow his eyes in consideration of the question.

Ryan, on the other hand, nodded frantically.

“You think they had something to do with Paul disappearing?”I asked.

“Maybe,” Ryan said.“I don’t know.”

“You said this guy, Anthony, he talked to you?”

More enthusiastic nodding.“At GaGa’s.He was there, and he said we had to talk, but not in public, so I was supposed to meet him back in the U-cut trees.”

The look on Keme’s face was one of wonder—primarily, I suspected, at how Ryan had managed to stay alive this long.

“What was he wearing?”I asked.

“This stupid Santa suit,” Ryan said.“He looked like such a jerk.”

“Okay,” I said.So far, Ryan’s story lined up with what I’d seen, so I asked, “What next?”

“He said he wanted to talk to Paul.He said he’d been looking for him.”

“Did he say why?”

“No, he just said Paul owed him.”

I looked at Keme, but there was nothing there.“What does that mean?”

“I don’t know.That’s what he said: Paul owed him.And then he kept asking where Paul was.I told him I didn’t know, and he said I’d better find him, or I was going to have to pay up.”

I thought about that for a few seconds.“If they’re looking for Paul, it doesn’t sound like they killed him.”

“Oh dang,” Ryan said.“I didn’t think about that.”

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