“You’re mistaken,” Jacob said. He cleared his throat. “Those aren’t my boots.”
I waited, smiled at him, in no hurry.
“We sent Wilderness Shoe a subpoena, and I just got the information a short time before I showed up at your wedding.”
Jacob didn’t respond, just stared at me, his eyes freezer-cold.
“You really should have used shoes you’d paid cash for in a store, not ones you ordered from a website. They keep a record of those purchases. The right style. The right size. And I’m betting the report coming early next week will list your DNA as having been found on the inside. I’m sure you left traces when you wore them, probably on the inside of the high-tops where your leg rubbed, and on the shoelaces when you tied them,” I said. “But I don’t suppose you had time to think everything through, since you planned this in such a hurry.”
Jacob’s head dropped, and he cringed and again brought his hands up to the bandage on his neck.
“Hurts, huh?” I commented. “Of course, it’s nothing compared to what you did to your family. Think about how Laurel felt when she saw you wielding that knife. What Anna and the children went through when you killed them one by one. Who died last, Jacob? Little Benjamin? I bet he worshipped you, followed you around like a shadow. How terrified he must have been as he watched his father murder his mother, his sister. Or was it Sybille, that precious little girl? Then you wiped off the grip, the trigger and threw the gun out into the woods. You went in the kitchen, cut your own throat and waited for Naomi to arrive. It was a gamble, but you were betting that she’d call for an ambulance and save you.”
Jacob’s hands trembled ever so slightly. “No one will believe you,” he whispered. “No one.”
“Are you willing to bet your life on that? We have the death penalty in Utah. Four murders, terrible murders, you’ll certainly be a prime candidate.” I let that sink in for a little while. Then I whispered, “Are you willing to take that risk?”
I hesitated to let him stew, then said, “Or would you rather make a deal?”
For a moment, nothing. Then Jacob slowly brought his head around until he faced me straight on. He took a few deep breaths, thinking it all over, I figured. I didn’t rush him. Minutes passed before he asked, “What are you offering?”
Forty
“I couldn’t have proven any of it, except that those were his boots,” Clara said.
Despite the three-hour drive to the cabin, she’d arrived a bale of nervous energy. Max was cooking a very late dinner. His fishing trip successful, he had two good-size trout sizzling in a cast-iron pan. Outside, the icy winds were beginning to howl. They still had one full day and part of Sunday for their stolen interlude, but weather reports predicted that they would be spending most of it indoors. The impending gale carried up to a foot of snow, and Max secretly wondered if they’d be able to dig out to go home. But then again, he didn’t really care. Perhaps the storm would give them a day or two more. After waiting so long to have Clara to himself, extra hours carried the promise of more time to sort through their emotions.
“You should have called me,” Max said. “I would have come.”
Clara smiled. “I didn’t want you there.”
“You didn’t want me? Why—”
She shook her head and gestured as if to wipe away what she’d just said. “Not that I didn’t want you there, more that I didn’t think I should have you there,” she explained. “I needed to do this on my own, to show the locals that I didn’t need your help or anyone else’s to do my job.”
“Oh, the protesters?” Max said. “They’re just a bunch of disgruntled folks who are mad at the world about how the town is changing.”
“Yes, them, but not just them,” Clara said.
Max flipped the trout, the two-bedroom cabin filling with the heavy scent of the hot oil browning the cornmeal coating the fish. He’d mixed together homemade tartar sauce, and he had French fries baking in the oven. Salads were already on the table. The place defined the word “cozy” for Max. Small but comfortable, chintz curtains and hand-stitched quilts on the beds. A sign out front read: The Hideaway, and Max understood why his friend named it that, secluded as the cabin was on ten acres and backing up to a forest.
“Okay, I understand why you didn’t wait for me,” he said. “But what would you have done if Jacob hadn’t agreed to the plea deal? If he hadn’t admitted his guilt?”
A half-hearted shrug, Clara curled her lips into a bow. “I didn’t let myself think about that,” she admitted. “I figured there wasn’t going to be any more definitive evidence than what I already had. When Stef told me that the shoe company said the boots belonged to Jacob, that pointed in a direction. I thought about what that could mean and called the doctor. He sounded surprised, but then he admitted that he’d had suspicions about Jacob’s injuries. Before long, I thought I had it pretty well figured out. I knew the little evidence I had would never stand up in court. I don’t think I could have gotten the DA to take charges with it, but I thought that spun right, what I did know might be enough to get Jacob worried about the death chamber. If he was innocent, he’d tell me to go to hell. If I was right, I figured I had a shot.”
“And it worked,” Max said. “He opened right up.”
“Opened his mouth and let it all stream out like a convert making his first confession,” she said. “Once he talked to the DA, had a paper in front of him signed by her that said she wouldn’t pursue the death penalty, he unraveled every secret.”
“Why, do you think?” Max asked.
“Jacob did a horrible thing, but it was on impulse,” she said. “I think, as cool as he was about it, it needled at his conscience. Not enough so he was going to voluntarily accept blame, but enough so that once we struck the deal, he wanted to let it out in the daylight.”
Max nodded. They’d both been cops long enough to have encountered this before, the need of some killers to unburden themselves.
“So, Carl was the one who murdered Myles, but none of the others?” Max asked.
“Yes,” she said. “After Jacob killed Laurel, he called Carl and told him how to set up Myles.”
“So, Jacob planned the entire cover-up?”
I nodded. “Carl wrote the suicide note as Jacob told him to. Then Carl went to Myles’s cabin on horseback. He had a gun. Carl forced Myles to text Scotty to tell him to look after the cabin and the dogs. He left Myles’s phone at the cabin because Jacob had warned that it could be traced.”
“Smart,” Max said. “Why did he bother to have him text Scotty?”
“Jacob thought it was more believable that Myles left voluntarily if he made provisions for his dogs.”
“That makes sense,” Max said. “And then…”
“Carl planted the boots in the bedroom. Then he forced Myles to saddle up Homer. Carl tied Myles up, and used the horse to lead him to the river. Once they got there, Carl cut off the bindings and forced Myles into the river. Then Carl let Homer loose with the suicide note in the saddle. He rode that old mare of his home to the trailer, and it was over.”
“Carl murdered for Jacob. He was willing to do that?” Max shook his head, a look of great sorrow on his face. “Friendship is one thing, but this…”
“As Carl and Jacob both put it, they were compadres, amigos,” Clara said. “The odd thing is, I think Carl almost told me that he’d done it at one point. Early on, he said that Jacob knew he would do anything for him.”
Max shook his head. “What about Naomi? You thought she was lying to you. Was she involved somehow?”
At this, Clara let loose an exasperated sigh. “Not in the murders, but my hunch was right. Jacob was awake that day I saw her talking to him. He had signaled her not to tell anyone. So, she lied and told me he was still unconscious. Jacob didn’t want to have to start answering questions yet. He wanted to pretend to be out of it for a while longer, to give us time to land on Myles and discover the horse and the suicide note.”
Af
ter dinner, Max stacked more logs in the fireplace. The blaze spread and the room grew warm and welcoming. He turned off the lamps, and the only light came from the flames. Max wanted to curl up on the couch with Clara, but she stood up.
“Let’s go outside,” she said.
“It’s freezing out there,” he protested.
“Just for a few minutes,” she said. “I want to see the stars.”
Moments later, wrapped in their heavy parkas, they stood on the front deck, looking out at the shadowy mountains in the distance and the navy sky above. “You never see stars like this in the city,” Max said. “Salt Lake always gave off too much light.”
“Dallas, too,” she agreed. Moments passed, and she confessed, “I missed this.”
Max wondered if this was the time to bring it up, to talk at last about the future, about them. “Have you missed it enough to stay?” he asked. “To put down roots?”
“I don’t know,” she admitted. “I’m still not really wanted. The folks in town are working hard to make that clear to me.”
“It’s a small minority. They’re just angry that Alber is changing, that the old ways are dying,” he tried to explain. “You’re handy to take it out on, an apostate in a position of power. Time passes, and they’ll regret what they’ve done. You’re too good at your job for them not to realize how much they need you.”
The temperatures dropping quickly, with each breath Max felt his lungs burn ever so slightly. To keep Clara warm, he wrapped his arms around her shoulders. Clara nestled into him, nuzzled against his chest.
“You know, Max, I’m tired of trying to win people over,” she confided. “Mother doesn’t want me around either. She tells me that every time I see her. And Mother Naomi was spitting mad when we booked Jacob. I think, despite it all, she still saw him as her only chance out of poverty.”
“No,” Max said. “She was just confused. I’m sure once she thinks it through, she’ll understand that you saved her from a terrible marriage. Any man who could do what Jacob did? When she realizes that he was such a man, she’ll be grateful.”
Clara thought about that and wondered. “Maybe.”
“How did Mullins take it?” Max asked, his voice edged in worry.
“He blustered at first and didn’t believe me.” Clara thought back to her detective’s visceral reaction, his fury as he refused to accept that the man he’d given his daughter to had savagely murdered her. “Telling Mullins was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done,” she admitted. “We both knew that Laurel didn’t want Jacob. Mullins finally watched the video of Jacob’s confession. When it ended, Mullins got deathly quiet, thanked me and rushed off.”
“Pretty broken up, I bet,” Max said.
“I think he needed to be alone,” she whispered. “I don’t think he wanted me to see him cry.”
They leaned into one another in silence, and then Clara looked up at the stars again and asked, “Max, do you think that although not here on earth, Laurel’s final prayer was answered?”
He held her tighter. “Was that in her last letter?” Clara nodded, and he asked, “What was it?”
“That she and Myles would someday be together,” Clara said, staring out at the vast landscape, the heavens above them.
Max rubbed her shoulders to keep her warm. “I’d like to think the afterlife works that way. I hope it does.”
She smiled up at him. “I do, too.”
At that, he suggested they go back inside.
They shed their jackets and hung them on hooks near the door. Clara returned to her spot on the couch, and Max walked over. “Okay if I sit next to you?”
She looked up at him, smiled, and patted the cushion beside her. “I’m counting on it.”
The fire flickered, and he held her close. She tilted her face up to his, and as she had so many years earlier at the river, she placed her hand on his cheek and drew him to her. Their lips met and didn’t part for long minutes. Then she turned away again and watched the fire.
“You know that first time we kissed?” she asked.
“I’ll never forget it,” he said.
“We were children,” she said. “Just really children, who had our lives ahead of us.”
For a minute, Max remained quiet and considered what she’d just said. “We still have much of our lives ahead of us, Clara, don’t you think?” When she didn’t answer, he lowered his voice and murmured, “The question is if we’ll spend those years together.”
Quiet moments passed, and Clara stroked his arm and settled on his hand. She took hold and held it, and she thought about how warm he felt, how inviting. She wondered if this was the time to explain and again if he’d understand. “The man they gave me to, his hands were like ice,” Clara said. “So cold. As cold as his heart.”
She’d never brought up her marriage before, and Max wanted to ask questions, but didn’t. Instead, he waited, and moments later, she said, “On the day my parents delivered me to him I was seventeen, and my husband was sixty-four. He could have been my grandfather.”
Max had asked about Clara over the years. He’d never been able to find out what caused her to flee, but he’d heard about the marriage to one of the prophet’s brothers, a man with many wives and children.
“You never had kids?” he whispered.
She shook her head. “No, I…” at that, she hesitated, then she focused on him with such intensity that he understood what she’d say next was something she held close. “Max, my husband told everyone I wasn’t a good woman, that I wasn’t in communion with him, of like mind, and God had punished me by making me barren. Even my own mother believed him.”
Max thought he understood where she was heading. “But that wasn’t the truth? It wasn’t you?”
“No, it wasn’t,” she said. “It’s that… well… he was so much older, not in the best health, and… I was young, but he was past the point where he was able to…”
“He couldn’t…” Max said.
Clara shook her head. “He blamed it on me,” she said. “He said I was ugly and unlovable. He said that no man would ever desire me.”
Clara fell silent, and Max waited, unsure what to say. He thought she’d talk more about her past, but instead she asked about his. “We both have ghosts that haunt us,” she said. “At times, I’ve had the feeling that you’re still carrying Miriam around with you.”
That struck him, and his heart ached. It often did at the mention of his late wife’s name.
“At times, I am,” Max whispered. As she had, he fought to find the right words, and the courage to say them. “I’ve always felt responsible for Miriam’s death, for Brooke’s injuries.”
“No!” Clara said, turning toward him, shaking her head.
“That night, when Miriam decided to go home, not stay at her aunt’s house until the morning, I should have driven through the mountains. But I’d had a tough case, and I’d been working long hours all week. I felt sleepy, and she insisted she would drive. I knew Miriam had problems seeing at night, but when I brought that up, she swore she would be fine. I shouldn’t have given in, but I did. I should have at least stayed awake to keep watch. But I nodded off. If I’d been awake to see the truck overturned on the road…”
Max’s eyes filled, and he pulled Clara closer. She used the tips of her fingers to wipe away his tears.
“Oh, Max, I’m so sorry,” she said. “I didn’t mean to upset—”
“I don’t talk about it,” Max murmured. “I haven’t been able to get to the point yet where it doesn’t rip me apart when I think of it. But I’ve wanted to tell you. I’ve tried to a couple of times.”
For a while, silence. Then she said, “I wonder if either one of us will ever be free of our pasts. Do you think so?”
Max hesitated, but then said, “Our pasts are part of who we are. The pain will always be with us. But maybe we don’t have to let it define the rest of our lives.”
Clara nodded, and then they kissed again, a long, familiar comi
ng together, this time at his urging. When their lips finally parted, he asked, “Clara, you know what you said earlier, what that old man you married said to you?”
“Yes,” she said. “What about it?”
He gazed deep into her dark eyes, and she felt the years fade away, all the hurt, all the pain, all the loneliness she’d endured. Maybe she’d been wrong when she assumed that she would always be alone, and that she’d never find a place to call home. All these years after they’d parted, she still felt as if she belonged in his arms.
His voice husky with emotion, he said, “No matter what, there is something you should never doubt.” She brushed her lips against his cheek, burrowed into his warm, soft neck. He put his hand on her chin and tilted her face up to his, then whispered, “I assure you that you are a highly desirable woman.”
At that, Max smiled at Clara, his eyes reflecting the deep emotions flooding his heart. She reached for him, and he pressed his lips to her hair, her ear and whispered so quietly she could barely hear him: “One more thing: I don’t give a damn about your mother or any of those people carrying their ridiculous signs. They may not realize it, but they need you.”
“They do?” Her lips hovered so close to his that it was as if they shared a breath.
“They do,” he whispered. “They absolutely do.”
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Her Final Prayer: A totally gripping and heart-stopping crime thriller (Detective Clara Jefferies Book 2) Page 29