The Dry

by Harper,Jane

  Falk nodded. Luke had loved that dog. He’d been fourteen and had cried openly as he’d cradled it by the roadside.

  “And he always had a houseful of town blokes hanging round until all hours when he was younger, didn’t he, Gerry? Drinking and tearing up and down the roads in their trucks. Blasting their music when he knew we had to be up at the crack of dawn to keep the farm going.”

  “That was a while ago now, love,” Gerry said, and Barb turned on him.

  “Are you defending him?”

  “No. God, no. I’m just stating a fact. He’s not been able to get up to much like that for a while, has he? You know that.”

  Falk thought about his strange encounter with Deacon at the pub.

  “Sounds like he has some sort of dementia.”

  Barb snorted. “Is that what they’re calling it? A miserable lifetime of bad deeds catching up with the drunken bastard, if you ask me.”

  She took a sip of coffee and looked up at Deacon’s land. When she spoke again Falk could hear the regret.

  “It was Ellie I felt most sorry for. At least we could shut the door on him, but the poor girl had to live with it. I think he did care for her in his own way, but he was so defensive. Remember the upper field, Gerry?”

  “We couldn’t prove that was him.”

  “No, but it was. What else could it have been?” Barb turned to Falk. “It was when you kids were about eleven, not long after Ellie’s mum did a runner—not that I blame her. The little girl was forlorn, wasn’t she, Gerry? She was so thin; she wasn’t eating properly. And she had this look in her eyes. Like it was the end of the world. Eventually, I went up there to tell Mal that she wasn’t right and he needed to do something, or she’d be making herself sick with all that worry.”

  “What did he say?”

  “Well, he showed me the door before I could barely get the words out, as you’d expect. But then a week later our upper field died. No warning, nothing. We did some tests, and the soil acidity was all wrong.”

  Gerry sighed. “Yeah. It can happen, but—”

  “But it happens a lot easier if your neighbor dumps a round of chemicals on it,” Barb said. “It cost us thousands that year. We struggled to keep afloat. And it never properly recovered.”

  Falk remembered that field, and he remembered the tense conversations around the Hadlers’ dinner table that year.

  “Why does he always get away with it?” he asked.

  “There was no proof it was him,” Gerry said again. “But—” He held up a hand as Barb went to interrupt. “But you know what it’s like here, mate. It takes a lot for people to be willing to stand up and rock the boat. It was the same then as it is now. We all needed each other to get by. Mal Deacon did business with a lot of us, and we all did business with him. And he collected favors, let the odd payment slide so he had a hold over people. If you fell out with Deacon, it wasn’t only him you fell out with. Suddenly doing business and having a peaceful beer in your own town become a hell of a lot harder. Life was already hard enough.”

  Barb stared at him.

  “The girl was so unhappy she drowned herself, Gerry.” She gathered their empty mugs together with a clash of ceramic. “Stuff the business and the beer. We should all have done more. I’ll see you inside. There are a thousand jobs waiting when you’re ready.”

  She turned and stalked off toward the house, wiping her face with her sleeve as she went.

  “She’s right,” Gerry said, watching her go. “Whatever happened, Ellie deserved far better.” He turned to Falk, his eyes drained of emotion. Like he’d burned through a lifetime’s supply in the past few weeks. “Thanks for sticking around. We heard you’d been asking questions about Luke.”

  “Started to.”

  “Can I ask what you think? Did Luke kill Karen and Billy?”

  “I think,” Falk said carefully, “there is a possibility he didn’t.”

  “Jesus, are you sure?”

  “No. I said possibility.”

  “But you do think someone else might be involved.”

  “Maybe, yes.”

  “Is it connected with what happened with Ellie?”

  “I honestly don’t know, Gerry.”

  “But maybe?”

  “Maybe.”

  A silence. “Christ. Listen, there’s something I should have told you from the start.”

  Gerry Hadler was hot but not unhappy about it. He tapped a light rhythm on the steering wheel, whistling to himself. The evening sun warmed his forearm through the window as he drove along the empty road. They’d had a solid rainfall that year, and out on the farm these days he liked what he was seeing.

  Gerry glanced at the bottle of sparkling wine lying on the passenger seat. He’d popped into town to pick up some supplies and had spontaneously nipped into the liquor shop. He was taking it home to surprise Barb, who he hoped at this moment was making her Friday night lamb casserole. Gerry turned on the radio. It was a song he didn’t recognize, but it had a deep jazz beat he liked. He nodded in time and pressed his foot to the brake as a crossroad appeared ahead.

  “I knew you and Luke were lying about your alibis for the day Ellie Deacon died.” Gerry’s voice was now so quiet Falk had to strain to hear it. “The thing is, I think someone else knew it too.”

  Gerry was still twenty meters from the crossroads when the familiar figure flashed across on a bike. His son’s head was down, and he was pedaling furiously. From that distance, Luke’s hair looked slicked back and shiny in the low sunlight. It was a change from his usually floppy style, Gerry noticed vaguely. It didn’t really suit him.

  Luke sped through the crossroads without as much as a glance in either direction. Gerry tutted under his breath. He’d have to have a word with that boy. Fair enough, the roads were usually empty, but that didn’t automatically mean it was safe. Behaving like that, Luke would get himself killed.

  “He was coming from the south, from the direction of the river. Nowhere near the fields you boys said you were in. You weren’t with him. He didn’t have his shotgun.”

  “The river’s not the only thing to the south,” Falk said. “There are farms, for one. The bike trails for another.”

  Gerry shook his head. “Luke hadn’t been on any bike trail. He was wearing that gray shirt he loved at the time. You know, that awful shiny button-down one he always saved for best. My impression was that he looked pretty fancy that afternoon. Like he was dressed for a date or something. His hair was slicked back. I told myself at the time he was trying a new style.” Gerry put his hand over his eyes for a long moment. “But I always knew his hair was wet.”

  Luke was well through the crossroads by the time Gerry pulled up. As if to prove a point, Gerry brought his truck to a complete stop and checked both ways. To the right, his son’s shadowy figure grew smaller. To the left, he could see only as far as a bend in the road. All clear. Gerry eased his foot onto the accelerator and moved through. As he cleared the crossroads and pulled away, he glanced in his rearview mirror.

  The image in the reflection was there and gone in less than a second. It had disappeared almost as soon as he saw it: a white truck flashing through the crossroads. From the left. Following in the direction of his son.

  Falk was silent for a long moment.

  “You didn’t see who was driving?” Falk watched him closely.

  “No. I couldn’t tell. I wasn’t paying attention, and it went by so fast I couldn’t see. But whoever it was, I bet they saw Luke.” Gerry wouldn’t look at Falk. “They pulled that girl’s body out of the river three days later, and it was the worst day of my life.” He gave a small strange laugh. “Well, until recently. Her photo was everywhere—do you remember?”

  Falk nodded. It had felt like Ellie’s picture had stared blank-eyed and pixelated from newspaper pages for days. Some shops had put it up as a makeshift poster, collecting money for the funeral expenses.

  “For twenty years I’ve lived in fear of that driver coming out of th
e woodwork. Knocking on the door of the police station and saying they saw Luke that day,” Gerry said.

  “Maybe they really didn’t see him.”

  “Maybe.” Gerry looked at his son’s farmhouse. “Or maybe when they finally decided to knock, it wasn’t on the police station door.”

  19

  Falk sat in his car by the side of the road, thinking about what Gerry had said. White trucks were ten a penny in Kiewarra, both then and now. It could be nothing. If someone saw Luke coming from the direction of the river that day, Falk thought, why wouldn’t they have said so at the time? Who would benefit from keeping the secret for twenty years?

  One thought nagged at him like an itch. If the driver of the truck had seen Luke, was it not possible Luke had also seen the driver? Perhaps—the idea grew, demanding attention—perhaps it was the other way around. Maybe it was Luke who had kept someone else’s secret. And maybe, for whatever reason, Luke had finally had enough.

  Falk stared unseeingly at the bleak landscape as he turned the idea back and forth in his mind. Eventually, he sighed and pulled out his phone. He heard a rustle of papers down the line when Raco answered.

  “Are you at the station?” Falk asked. It was a beautiful Sunday outside. He wondered what Raco’s wife would make of that.

  “Yeah.” A sigh. “Going through some of the Hadler paperwork. For all the good it’s doing. You?”

  Falk filled him in on what Gerry had said.

  “Right.” Raco breathed out. “What do you reckon?”

  “I don’t know. It could be something. Could also be nothing. Will you be there for a bit longer?”

  “I’m sorry to say I’ll be here for a lot longer.”

  “I’ll head in.”

  Falk had barely put down his phone when it buzzed again. He opened the text, and his frown morphed into a small smile when he saw who it was.

  Busy? Gretchen had written. Hungry? Having lunch with Lachie in Centenary Park.

  Falk thought of Raco, flat out trawling through reports at the station, and of the coffee churning in his stomach since leaving the Hadlers’ place. He thought about Gretchen’s smile when she’d left him standing under the stars outside the pub. That dress must be all for you, you dickhead.

  On my way, he texted. Thought for a moment. Can’t stay too long, though. It didn’t really assuage the guilt. He didn’t really care.

  Centenary Park was the first place Falk had seen in Kiewarra that looked like it had had some dollars thrown behind it. The flower beds were new and had been carefully planted with attractive drought-friendly cacti, giving the park a lushness Falk felt he hadn’t seen in weeks.

  The bench they’d spent so many Saturday nights on was gone, he noticed with a pang of regret. Instead, elaborate play equipment shone in glossy primary colors. It was crawling with children, and every one of the picnic tables bordering the edge was taken. Strollers jostled for space with coolers as parents chatted, breaking off only to alternately berate and feed their offspring.

  Falk saw Gretchen before she saw him, and he stopped, watching for a moment. She was alone at a table on the fringe, sitting on a picnic bench with her long legs stretched out in front of her and her elbows resting on the tabletop behind. Her fair hair was pulled into a messy bun on top of her head, topped by sunglasses. She was watching the activity on the play equipment with an amused look on her face. Falk felt the warm bloom of familiarity. In the sunlight, in the distance, she could almost have been sixteen again.

  Gretchen must have felt his eyes on her because she suddenly looked up. She smiled and raised a hand, and he headed over. She greeted him with a kiss on the cheek and an open Tupperware container.

  “Have a sandwich. Lachie’ll never get through them.”

  He selected a ham one, and they sat side by side on the bench. She stretched out her legs again, her thigh warm against his. She had thongs on her feet, and her toenails were a shiny pink.

  “Well, this is absolutely nothing like I remember. It’s amazing,” Falk said, watching the kids scrambling over the equipment. “Where did the money come from for all this?”

  “I know. It was a rural charity thing. We got lucky a couple of years ago from some rich do-gooders’ fund. I shouldn’t make fun. It’s brilliant really. Nicest place in town now. And it’s always packed. The kids love it. Even if I was heartbroken to see our old bench go.” She smiled as they watched a toddler bury his friend in the sandpit. “But it’s great for the little ones. God knows, they haven’t got much else going for them round here.”

  Falk pictured the peeling paint and lone basketball hoop in the school playground. “Makes up for the school, I guess. That was more run-down than I remembered.”

  “Yeah. Another thing you can thank the drought for.” Gretchen opened a bottle of water and took a sip. She tilted it toward him the same way she used to offer vodka. Easy intimacy. He took it. “There’s no community money,” she said. “Everything this town gets from the government goes toward farming subsidies, so there’s nothing left for the kids. But we’re lucky to have Scott as the principal over there. At least he actually seems to give a toss. But there’s only so much you can do with an empty bank balance. There’s no way we can ask the parents for any more.”

  “You can’t tap the rich do-gooders again?”

  She gave a sad smile. “We’ve tried that, actually. We thought we were in line for a windfall this year. It was a different mob from the playground, though. This was some private group, the Crossley Educational Trust. You ever heard of them?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Typical bleeding-heart types, but it sounded right up our street. They give cash to struggling rural schools, but apparently there are other schools more rural or struggling than us, if you can believe it. God help them. We made the short list, but no dice this time. We’ll look around, try again next year, I suppose, but until then, who knows? Anyway.” She broke off to wave at her son, who was standing at the top of a slide trying to get their attention. He slid down as they watched. “Lachie’s happy there for now, so that’s something, at least.”

  She reached for the Tupperware as the little boy ran over. Gretchen held out a sandwich, but her son ignored her, staring instead at Falk.

  “Hi, mate.” Falk held out his hand. “I’m Aaron. We met the other day, remember? Your mum and I were friends when we were younger.”

  Lachie shook his hand and grinned at the novelty of the action.

  “Did you see me on the slide?”

  “We did,” Gretchen said, but the question wasn’t aimed at her. Falk nodded.

  “You were really brave, mate,” Falk said. “That looks pretty high.”

  “I can do it again. Watch.” Lachie took off. Gretchen watched him go with a funny look on her face. The kid waited until he had Falk’s full attention before he went. He ran straight around to do it again. Falk gave him a thumbs-up.

  “Thanks,” Gretchen said. “He’s obsessed with grown men at the moment. I think he’s starting to see the other kids with dads and … well, you know.” She shrugged. Didn’t meet Falk’s eye. “Still, that’s what motherhood’s about, isn’t it? Eighteen years of crushing guilt?”

  “His dad not involved at all?” Falk heard the note of curiosity in his own voice.

  Gretchen heard it as well and smiled knowingly.

  “No. And it’s OK; you can ask. His dad’s gone. No one you knew. Not a local, just a laborer who passed through for a while. I don’t know much about him other than he left me with this amazing kid. And yes, I know how that sounds.”

  “It doesn’t sound like anything. It sounds like Lachie’s lucky to have you,” Falk said. But as he watched the child clamber athletically up the ladder, he found himself wondering what Lachie’s father had looked like.

  “Thanks. It doesn’t always feel that way. I wonder sometimes if I should make an effort to meet someone. For both of us. Try to give Lachie a bit of a family. Let him see what it’s like to have a
mum who’s not stressed and exhausted all the time, whatever that looks like. But I don’t know…” She trailed off, and Falk was worried she was embarrassed, when she flashed him a grin. “It’s a bloody shallow dating pool in Kiewarra. Muddy puddle at best.”

  Falk laughed.

  “So you never got married at all?” he said, and Gretchen shook her head.

  “Nope. Never did.”

  “Me neither.”

  Gretchen’s eyes crinkled with amusement. “Yeah, I know.”

  Falk was never sure how, but women always seemed to know. They looked sideways and smiled at each other. Falk imagined Gretchen and Lachie living by themselves on the vast Kellerman property she’d bought, and he remembered the eerie isolation of the Hadlers’ farm. Even Falk, who liked his own space more than most, started to crave company after a few hours with nothing but fields.

  “You must get lonely on the farm on your own,” he said, and he could have bitten his tongue off. “Sorry. That was a genuine question, not a terrible pickup line.”

  Gretchen laughed. “I know. With lines like that, you’d fit in better round here than you think.” Her face clouded. “But yeah. It can be an issue. It’s not really the lack of company; it’s feeling cut off that gets me a bit. I can’t get reliable Internet, and even the phone coverage is patchy. Not that I’ve got loads of people trying to call me, anyway.” She paused, her mouth pressed into a tight line. “You know I didn’t even find out what had happened to Luke until the next morning?”

  “Seriously?” Falk was shocked.

  “Yep. Not one person thought to ring me. Not Gerry and Barb. No one. Despite everything we’ve been through, I guess I…” She gave a tiny shrug. “I wasn’t a priority. On the afternoon it happened, I picked up Lachie from school, went home, had dinner. He went to bed. I watched a DVD. It was so ordinary and boring, but it was like the last normal evening, you know? Nothing special, but I’d give anything to go back to that. It wasn’t until the next morning at the school gates and I turned up and everyone was talking about it. It felt like they all knew and…” A single tear slipped down her nose. “And no one had bothered to call me. I couldn’t believe it. I mean, I literally couldn’t believe what I was hearing. I drove past his farm but wasn’t able to get anywhere near. The road was blocked, and there were cops everywhere. So I went home. By then it was on the news, of course. No chance of missing it then.”