Fic: Summer (13/?) (Logan/Veronica) R
A/N: Just to clarify again...this story only goes to 2.21...therefore the bus crime has not been solved and I'm not blaming it on the person that it was revealed was the culprit in the season finale 2.22.
Chapter 13 - Cotton Eyed Joe
Logan and Veronica were logged on to the live journal site that Mac had set up for them to communicate with Keith: http://keith02ponystore.livejournal.com/. Veronica thought it would be funny to have her wish for a pony be the thing that kept people off their trail. For description they had a bunch of random things listed as interests: cheese, hibachi, hoof pick, body curry, led zeppelin, tazo, and ducks. All random things that had nothing much to do with one another. Of course all the entries were ‘friends only’ meaning that only Keith, okay really Mac, had the ability to allow anyone to see the details. So far the three had learned a great deal of information regarding Aaron Echoll’s plight for freedom.
Keith’s latest entry had sent Veronica’s brain into high gear…
“…found that Priscilla visited Lame Boy -Honey, are you sure we can’t find a better name for him?- twice, once March 22 and again on April 11. Both lasted about 45 minutes each…can’t get any footage access. Still working on official employees…”
Veronica quickly looked to her right, taking in Logan’s face, waiting until he was finished with the passage before speaking, “So this tells us a lot.”
“Yeah,” he agreed, “Skanky McBitch was seeing how great father and son could be. Wonder if she’s hit that since he’s been out, I mean she wouldn’t be the first, would she?”
Logan’s last comment was said with such malice that Veronica immediately grabbed his hand. “Hey,” she caught his chin, forcing him to meet her eyes, “hey…don’t you think about that.”
Logan jerked his chin away from Veronica, turning from her gaze, “How can I not think about it? Hell, Kendall doesn’t mean anything to me, but…but Lilly did and she was the first,” he spit out the entire sentence like he had a filthy taste in his mouth.
Veronica knew that he was upset about his father and Lilly that was something that she never questioned, even when he didn’t ever communicate the thoughts. If anything, she had enough of an idea because of his reaction to the video tapes, but it must still hurt awfully badly, especially since Lilly had to have known about Aaron’s beatings. His reaction to learning about Kendall’s visit to his father only drove the point home even more. Had he been betrayed again by someone who he thought cared just a little about him?
“Logan..” Veronica started.
“No…no, Veronica, I know that this isn’t the same thing. Hell, I was only using her to get over you, to get my mind off of you and Duncan, it wasn’t like I had ‘feelings’ for her, but I just figured that when you sleep with someone that you have a little bit of feelings toward them, not just complete indifference,” he voiced his thoughts.
Veronica was speechless, she hadn’t thought that she had caused such an impact on him by dating Duncan, sure she knew that he wasn’t happy with the coupling, but being the reason that he fell in with Kendall…she didn’t know how to respond to that.
Logan looked over at Veronica, she was being just a little too quite after his confession. He caught her staring at him, her mouth gapping like a fish. He couldn’t help it, he had to laugh, she looked like she was trying to suck some water into her mouth.
Veronica, realizing that he was laughing at her, smacked him on the shoulder in retaliation. “Hey, no laughing at a girl,” she chided.
“It’s just…I don’t ever think I’ve seen you for a loss of words,” he squeezed out between laughter.
Veronica snapped her mouth shut. “Well…it’s…it’s just I didn’t know that Duncan and I…that we caused…caused you to start…start seeing her,” Veronica stumbled over the confession.
Logan stopped laughing immediately. Grabbing Veronica’s hands, he twirled her around to look at him full on. “Veronica, I’ve told you I was a complete jackwad last summer…I know that you had every right to break up with me, I understand your reasoning, I do. But, seeing you back with Duncan…well you know it broke my heart. I just…I have no excuses for what I did with Kendall, but it was an escape for me, a way to get away from what I know was going to happen with you and Duncan. It let me be numb for a while. I had my heart broken, I loved you…” he glanced down as he continued, “I don’t think I’ve ever stopped, loving you that is…but I made a mistake and now we’re both dealing with the consequences. And…and I can’t tell you how much it means to me to have you here with me now, going through all of this, it just means…”
Veronica pulled Logan’s face up with her hands, forcing him to look into her eyes, “Logan, you aren’t the only one that made mistakes. I needed closure with Duncan, yes, but I could have tried or talked more with you. I shouldn’t have cut you off completely. We both learned things, how to communicate and the here, now, is what matters. Are we agreed?” she questioned.
Logan nodded his head, leaning forward to press their lips together, sealing their confession to one another. He noticed she hadn’t told him that she loved him back, but he wasn’t giving up hope yet.
Veronica turned back towards the computer, picking up the investigation thread of their conversation, “Now, since it looks like Kendall was, indeed, involved in this whole debacle then we have a better handle on why she has been pushing herself on you the last month and a half,” Veronica explained.
“So what do we know?” Logan questioned further.
“Well, we know that Kendall was working with Aaron. We know that she has been to the suite for different reasons, either trying to keep an eye on you or for some other various reasons on Aaron’s instruction. We know that the Kane family didn’t have any ‘supply’ of Lilly’s blood,” Veronica restated what she had learned from a well placed call to Clarence Wiedman the other day.
“Clarence Wiedman, please,” Veronica spoke into the phone. After a few minutes she was put through.
“Clarence Wiedman,” came a deep voice.
“Clarence,” Veronica said with familiarity, “Veronica Mars.”
“Veronica, what can I do for you?” he questioned.
“Well, Duncan said to call if I ever needed anything, said you’d be able to help,” she explained.
“Yes,” he had expected this phone call a week earlier when the ‘not-guilty’ verdict had come down.
“I need a little information on the Kane’s,” she explained.
“I see…my instructions from Duncan were to help, not hurt the Kane family,” Wiedman clarified.
“Oh this is helping, don’t get me wrong,” she quickly stated, “I need to know if anyone in the Kane family kept any of Lilly’s blood or if she had donated any that they were aware of.”
Clarence could already see where she was going with this questioning, as he had already explored this avenue the minute the new evidence had been found in the Kane residence’s former backyard. “No. No one, including myself, had access to Lillian’s blood,” he replied with certainty.
“I take it you’ve already explored this avenue?” she questioned him.
“Yes, just to start locking up the possibilities of charges being brought against Duncan. Since no one had access to any type of her blood but the people handling the case then Mr. Kane had no thoughts on how this new evidence could have been anything but real,” Wiedman’s doubtfulness was evident in his tone.
“I take it you don’t see eye-to-eye with his conclusion,” Veronica asked.
“No, there are many ways some thing like this could still have been planted. People could have been bought, evidence tampered, there are many ways that this case could have been altered, starting with the obvious disposal of the video tapes,” his annoyance with the tapes being destroyed was very clear.
Veronica knowing the next comments would be about Logan, cut him off, “Yes, well I can tell you with complete certainty that those tapes were destroyed out of loyalty to Lilly and not in any way to try and help Aaron,” she stated clearly.
“Be that as it may be, it still didn’t hurt Aaron,” he replied.
“Yeah, we’re getting that now,” she sounded very tired to him all of a sudden.
“Ms. Mars, Veronica…you know that Duncan made it clear that if you needed any help my services are at your disposal. That still is the case, if you need…” he conveyed that the offer was still available, “that offer extended to Mr. Logan as well,” he finished quietly.
Veronica inhaled quickly. “Wh..what?”
“Mr. Duncan wanted to make sure that you were both taken care of, it seems that he knew that you both would be needing one another eventually,” he said the statement so carefully Veronica wondered if he was worried that he was overstepping his boundaries.
“Thank you, Mr. Wiedman,” Veronica said quietly, “we’ll keep that in mind. Right now things are being handled, but if we need you in the future…well, I know where to find you right?” she finished the last quietly.
“Indeed you do Miss, indeed you do.” Clarence hung up the phone. Of course he knew where they were hiding, he had planted a tracker in her computer long ago, right after Duncan had left, in fact. If anything further transpired he would be aware of it, he would protect the two teens and their group of friends. It was his duty, according to young Mr. Kane.
“Dad’s still working on finding out about any officials coming into major money. And of course, there is the insurance list that you have,” Veronica finished going over what they knew already.
Logan nodded his head in agreement. “Yeah, two Oscars listed in items recovered in the fire. Of course, I’m sure if we were to ask for that document now it would only list one Oscar,” he stated the obvious.
“But the good thing is that you have a dated copy, Logan,” Veronica praised him, encouraging him by squeezing his hand, “that proves that back in November that both were found. And Dad is working to locate the team that sorted through the evidence, we can only hope that Aaron and his team didn’t think about paying off who ever found the Oscars, it would be really stupid if they had forgot, but it could be a possibility. I mean, who forgets finding Oscars in a movie star’s house fire?” Veronica reasoned.
The two sat in silence contemplating what they had learned so far. It seemed that they had many pieces to the puzzle, but were still missing a few key ones to get to see the whole picture.
The computer had been such a great form of communication for them. Veronica was able to communicate with Keith, Mac could let her brother know what to tell her parents when they questioned about her whereabouts, and Logan was able to buy furniture for the new beach house. He had purchased quite a bit of his furniture from Room and Board and Pottery Barn. Most of the furniture was to be delivered the day after tomorrow and the group would be moving the day following.
Currently Veronica and Logan were outside by the pool area. Veronica had disconnected the lap top from the wireless connection. It was sitting next to her, displaying her screen top of unicorns. Logan had teased her the day before about finding something more ‘grown up’, she had reasoned that everything else about her life was already grown-up and she still needed a little bit of her childhood present. He hadn’t argued with her.
Getting up Veronica took the few steps over to Logan’s chaise lounger. Laying down next to him, she through her leg over his legs. She had a wrap skirt on and small tank top, Logan was in board shorts and wife beater. He let her snuggle up with her head on his chest, tucking her head under his chin.
“I wish we could stay like this forever,” he commented.
“Umm,” Veronica agreed.
Just then Mac and Cassidy stumbled out of the back of the house, laughing.
“What’s so funny?” Logan questioned.
“Oh you know, Dick and his great “Cotton Eyed Joe’ rendition,” Mac gaffed.
Veronica and Logan swung their heads around towards the duo, “Wha?” Veronica questioned, the eyebrow over her left eye rising.
“Oh, my brother. He likes country and he found a karaoke machine,” Cassidy explained with mirth.
Logan shock his head in amusement. Mac and Cassidy settled on the chaise next to the couple.
Seeing the computer open on the small table between the couples, Mac asked, “Have you found out anything further?”
Veronica swung her self over Logan, settling on his other side so she could see the duo better, “Not too much,” she stated, “Kendall visited Aaron a couple of times in prison.”
“Hmm,” Cassidy made a sound like he was contemplating something.
Mac, nuzzled into his side, glanced up at him, “What?” she questioned.
“Well, it’s probably nothing,” he started, getting both Logan and Veronica’s attention immediately, “I just remember Kendall getting a few phone calls from Major Goodman.”
Veronica sat fully up in her seat. “When was this, Cassidy?” she questioned quickly.
“Uh…it was the few weeks before we thru her out,” he answered, confused on why it would matter.
Veronica glanced at Logan to see if he was thinking the same thing she was, he looked as if he was.
Turning back to Cassidy, Veronica questioned him further. “Why did you think it odd?”
Cassidy shrugged his shoulders, “I didn’t really…but I guess I did a little because I couldn’t figure out why she would need to be talking to the mayor. I mean, Dad hasn’t been in contact with her and I had her buying land in the poorer section of town for my corporation. I just didn’t think that with all the hostility that the incorporation would pass,” he explained his reason. “Why would Mayor Goodman want to talk with her, especially with her name being on all the purchases in the un-incorporated section?”
Veronica turned to the lap top, pulling it back on Logan’s lap and logging back in to connect the wireless, “and I’m going to get my Dad to look into it right away. This might just be the connecting we’ve been looking for,” Veronica finished her thought with a grateful smile towards Cassidy.
“Papa Bear…new information…Priscilla said to have gotten phone calls the weeks before trial…from official…mayor…??? Look into it??? 1-4-3 - Goldilocks”
While she was typing her message to her father, Wallace dragged a sweaty Dick outside in front of the group.
“You guys have got to get this white boy to shut up,” Wallace complained to the group.
They all glanced at Dick; he was in a pair of overalls sans shirt, with a cowboy hat on top of his head.
“Where did you get the outfit?” Logan questioned.
“Larkin’s stuff,” Dick answered. He then started doing a two step and singing,
“If it hadn't been for Cotton-Eye Joe
I'ld been married long time ago
Where did you come from where did you go
Where did you come from Cotton-Eye Joe
If it hadn't been...”
“Ugh, enough,” Mac shouted over Dick’s voice while covering her ears. Turning to Cassidy she questioned him, “What the hell has gotten into him?”
“Oh, you know, he just likes his country,” Cassidy answered, a small smirk gracing his face.
“You think this is funny,” Wallace and Mac accused him together.
Logan and Cassidy couldn’t hold their laughter any longer; this was something they had witnessed from Dick many times before. Get him going on a ‘good’ country singing song and the boy lost all control on his body.
Wallace, totally ready to rip his hair out, pushed Dick, sending him flying into the pool. Dick bobbed up and kept on singing,
“He came to town like a midwinter storm
He rode through the fields so hansome and strong
His eyes was his tools and his smile was his gun
But all he had come for was having some fun”
Everyone started in amazement at the soaked ‘cowboy’ treading water. Seriously, the world had to be ending somewhere, right?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Sorry this has been so long in coming, but I'm hoping to have more out soon. I'm in the process of moving this week, but will have my laptop with me for the 12 hour drive and am hoping that my husband will let me write some of that time. Anyway, please let me know what you think.