“I told you,” came Tripple’s voice from the next room.
Bobby didn’t exactly sigh, but he did appear to brace himself.
A moment later, Tripple pushed into the kitchen. He was still carrying his plate. The cardamom roll was untouched.
“I told you,” he said again. “Look at him. He can’t wait to get his nose in it.”
“This is a private conversation,” Bobby said. It was about as close as Bobby ever came to telling someone to screw off.
“Yeah,” I said. “Go eat your roll in the other room.”
“No, thanks.” Tripple set the plate down and leaned against the counter. “Don’t care for sweets.”
“Okay,” Bobby whispered, and he squeezed my arm. “Take a breath.”
“You don’t care for—”
“Dash.”
I swallowed my outrage—and my total bewilderment—and finally managed to say, “I’m not sticking my nose into anything. But Keme’s my friend, and I think I ought to know what you’re accusing him of.”
“He’s my friend too,” Bobby said, and I was surprised by the hardness of his tone. “And no one’s accusing him of anything.”
“JT Haskins,” Tripple said. He was watching me like it might mean something to me.
I glanced at Bobby. “Who’s that?”
“Keme hasn’t told you about him?” Tripple asked. “Hasn’t complained about him? Told you his sob story?”
“I’ve never heard that name from anyone,” I said. “Certainly not from Keme. Who is he?”
“He owned the Gull’s Nest.” At my look of confusion, Bobby added, “It’s the RV park on the north side of town.”
“That’s where Keme lives,” I said with a flash of realization. “Well, he doesn’t live there, but you know what I mean.”
“His mom lives there. Some of the RVs are more or less permanently there—you can rent by the month, and enough people stay that it’s like a mobile home community in some ways.”
“What happened to—JT? Was that his name? And why are you looking for Keme?”
“This is an ongoing investigation—” Bobby began.
“Somebody bashed his brains in,” Tripple said. He had that weird almost-smile again. “And that boy got in a big fight with JT last night. Everybody saw it.”
I couldn’t imagine Keme getting into a fight. Or rather, I could, but it was terrifying—and not consistent with the Keme I knew. The Keme I knew was more than capable of murdering me by stabbing me with a pencil. But a fight? A big, blowup argument? The Keme I knew would have been filled with cold rage, maybe. He would have thrown some icy silences. But I couldn’t imagine an actual fight.
“This is crazy. There’s no way Keme would hurt someone, let alone kill them.”
The pained look on Bobby’s face came and went so quickly I thought I’d imagined it, but it was Tripple who responded. He laughed and said, “You don’t know him at all, do you? That boy’s a bad seed. Always has been. Vandalism. Destruction of property. Shoplifting. Assault. He always walked away from it because he was a minor, but now that he’s an adult, well—” Tripple’s smile flashed out. “—now something’s going to stick.”
My automatic reaction was to tell Tripple he was full of, uh, beans, but I glanced at Bobby first. His expression was totally closed off, and that was its own kind of confirmation.
“So, what?” I could hear myself scrambling, but I couldn’t seem to stop. “He got into an argument. That’s not a crime.”
“It is when it gets physical,” Tripple said.
Ignoring that, I pushed on. “What evidence do you have that he had anything to do with this man’s death? Tell me one single piece of evidence.”
Tripple opened his mouth, but this time, it was Bobby who spoke. “We don’t have anything, Dash.” Theyetin that sentence was painfully loud, even though he didn’t actually say it. “Right now, we just want to talk to him.”
