Francis hovers in the doorway.
“I’m fine, Francis,” I say, clearing my throat. I busy myself with looking through Eve’s files but still he lingers. “Seriously, Francis, you can go now.”
Once he leaves, it’s all I can do to hold it together. The fire, Eve’s case, this. It’s all too much.
I’ve decided that all I can do is throw myself into Eve’s case knowing that I will have to talk to Shaun about everything sooner than later.
I’ve barely made a dent in organizing the files but at least I’m getting somewhere. I create two documents on my laptop. The first is an index to inventory all the different reports I come across. I enter the type of report—interviews, lab reports, photos and so on, and then note which binder, section and page number they’re on.
This way I’ll be able to quickly find a report that I need to refer to without having to dig through binders and boxes. I also create a media section. Peppered throughout the files are newspaper clippings that discuss the case so I make note of where I can find these if I need to.
I go back to my laptop and a wash of memories flows over me. Eve and I huddled together over a fashion magazine. Eve braiding my unruly hair into a French braid. Eve and I down at the caves on hot summer afternoons talking about boys, our parents, school and about nothing at all. And Nola is always there, on the edges, lurking.
Stuck among some random paperwork, I finally find the list of the evidence collected at the crime scene. This is what I’ve been looking for. I scan the items and nothing unusual jumps out at me. All of Eve’s clothing is listed: the secondhand pair of brand-name jeans that she had bought at the thrift store, her boot, socks, underwear, bra, sweater, a light jacket.
Then it hits me. What I found odd about the crime scene photos. Eve wasn’t wearing her scarf. She wore that thing all winter long. With a coat, without a coat, it was always hanging around her neck. She should have been wearing it.
I remember her wearing it the day she died. I flip back to the crime scene photos to take a look.
It’s not there. It doesn’t make sense. I push away from the table and stand up. I blink back tears. How Eve loved that scarf. I remember the day we found it at the secondhand store. I told her it was hideous but she said it was beautiful.
That was just like Eve. She saw something or someone who was different or damaged and took him or her under her wing with little or no forethought. She always fought for the underdog. Case in point—Nola. Even if it was true Nola could fend for herself. Eve just didn’t want Nola to have to. I look back through all the crime scene photos just to be sure. It’s not there.
Then I skim back through my dad’s notes until I find a notation in his messy handwriting: Charlotte Knox and others indicate that Eve often wore a multicolored knit scarf. The scarf wasn’t found at the scene nor with her belongings at home. Did killer take it with him? Poss. trophy?
My phone rings again. I’m tempted to ignore it but I know I can’t.
“This is Maggie O’Keefe,” I say cautiously into the receiver.
“Maggie,” my brother says. “Dad took off.”
“What do you mean, he took off?” I ask. “Where would he have gone?”
“I don’t know.” Colin sounds panicked. “Leanne is beside herself. She says she went inside to get Dad’s medicine and when she came back out to the porch he was gone.”
“He probably just went for a walk. Have you gone looking for him?” I try to keep the irritation out of my voice. I’m honestly not alarmed. Our dad has taken off before; he never goes far.
“Of course I went looking for him,” Colin snaps. “I’ve been looking for him for the last thirty minutes. I wouldn’t call you if it wasn’t important.”
I prop my elbow on my desk and lower my forehead into my hand.
Just outside my office door the phones are ringing in a constant cacophony. I should be answering phones, I should be in the evidence room preparing to send the samples from Eve’s case off to the lab, I should be looking into the arson files to see if there is a connection to the fire at our place. But something in Colin’s voice tells me that he truly believes my dad is in trouble.
“I’m sorry,” I sigh. “I’ll be right over.” Colin hangs up without saying goodbye. He’s pissed and I can’t blame him. I’ve been so caught up in my own personal dramas that I haven’t been paying attention to the people I need to. My family.
I grab my keys and head to the elevator. When I reach my car I’m relieved to find there’s no note on my windshield to greet me.
When I pull up to my dad’s house, Cam Harper is just pulling out of his driveway. I park and unlatch my seat belt. The restraint is rubbing against my blistered shoulder. And just like every time I see Cam, a bubble of rage rises in my chest. I remember the first time I noticed him looking at me as something different than his babysitter. I had put the twins to bed hours earlier and I was curled up on the couch watching a movie and trying to keep my eyes open. I didn’t even hear them come inside. Mr. Harper jostled my shoulder and I awoke with a start to find him looking down at me. Wake up, Maggie, he said. We’re home. He smelled like cigarettes and alcohol. He held out his hand to help me from the sofa. His fingers were warm and smooth and completely enveloped mine. His eyes never left mine and my skin burned beneath his gaze. It was electric and I went to bed that night with the memory of my hand in his.
It progressed quickly after that. I loved him. And Cam Harper did what any thirtysomething man who is sleeping with a fifteen-year-old does. He manipulated me.
I sit there for a moment trying to gather my thoughts. I haven’t been inside the Harper house since the night Eve died. In fact, Cam Harper and I haven’t spoken since. Though God knows I tried. He tossed me aside like a piece of garbage, which is exactly what I felt like. Now when our paths cross, he doesn’t look me in the eye. He doesn’t dare.
I throw open my car door and step out into the street. Leanne comes down the porch steps to greet me.
“I’m so sorry,” she says tearfully. “I only left him alone for a minute.”
“It’s okay,” I say, placing a hand on her arm. “Don’t worry, we’ll find him. Where’s Colin?”
“He’s driving around looking for him,” she says. “I’m so sorry,” she repeats.
“It’s okay, really,” I assure her again. “Did you go check with the neighbors?” I scan the street. All is quiet. The trees are still, American flags droop limply from their poles and doors and windows are shut tight to keep out the simmering afternoon heat.
Leanne nods. “I checked with everyone but there.” She points to the Knox house. “I saw her drive off in her truck a while ago.”
“Stay here and let me go look around,” I tell her. I start to make my way over to Nola’s house and despite my order for her to stay put, Leanne is right behind me.
The driveway is empty; it doesn’t look like Nola is home. The shades are still pulled tight. I knock but there’s no answer. I press my ear to the door and listen. I dig into my pocket for my cell phone and call the Knoxes’ home phone. It rings and rings and I hear it echo from inside the Knox house. It eventually goes to voice mail and I hang up without leaving a message.
“It doesn’t look like he came over here,” I tell Leanne. “You go back to the house in case he comes back and I’ll go around the back and see if he’s wandering around someone’s yard.” Leanne nods and just as we are walking away, a crash comes from inside the house.
I pound on the door again. “Nola?” I call. “Are you in there? We’re looking for my dad.” No answer. I give an experimental twist of the door handle. It’s not locked.
Because I’m a police officer and I heard a crash, I tell myself it’s my duty to go inside and make sure everything is okay.
The muscles in my abdomen tighten and then release. Braxton-Hicks contractions—I’ve been getting a lot of t
hem lately. They don’t hurt, just intermittent reminders that the baby is getting ready to join us on the outside.
“Too soon, Peanut,” I murmur to her. I push on the door and it swings open and I step inside.
My senses are assaulted with the scene in front of me. I cover my nose with my hand, my stomach protesting against the rotten, sour smell.
“Oh my God,” Leanne breathes as she comes up behind me to get a closer look.
The state of the living room is straight out of Hoarders casting. Layers upon layers of junk fill the room. Boxes and baskets crammed with odds and ends are stacked neck high. Newspapers and magazines cover nearly every surface. Bottles of bleach and glass cleaner and laundry soap and rubber gloves are in a jumble in one corner. From somewhere inside the house there is an insistent mewing.
“I have to talk to her,” comes a familiar voice.
“Dad?” I say in disbelief and then turn in a slow circle but he’s nowhere to be found. It’s Leanne who peeks behind the open front door and there is my dad, his back pressed against the wall.
“Dad, what are you doing here?” I ask, my voice sharper than I intend.
For a second, his eyes cloud with shame at being scolded by his daughter but then it disappears. “I need to talk to Charlotte,” he says more forcefully.
“Charlotte’s not here. She’s in the hospital, remember?” I say and then kick myself. Of course he doesn’t remember. “Is Nola here?” I ask. “Did she let you in?”
“I always give Charlotte an update on Friday,” my dad insists, running his fingers across his thinning hair. There’s a stain on his shirt and he looks exhausted. “I’ll just wait until she gets back.”
I know that when my dad gets like this it does little good to argue with him. It’s better to try to break the persistent loop that plays in his head and redirect the conversation. “That’s why she’s not here. It’s only Wednesday,” I say, showing him the calendar icon on my cell phone. “We’ll come back on Friday. You can talk to her then.”
My dad takes my phone from my hands and examines the display more closely. “Oh,” he finally says in a small voice. “I got my days mixed up.”
“That’s okay,” I say, blinking back tears. “I get my days mixed up too sometimes.” It’s so hard seeing him like this. Confused, unsure of himself.
To Leanne I say, “Can you take him home? I want to make sure everything is closed up tight here. I’ll call Colin and say we found him. I’ll come in a few minutes.”
Leanne places an arm around my dad’s waist and steers him through the door. I watch as she leads him across the street and back to the front porch. I do want to make sure that Nola’s house is shut up tight but I also want to see the rest of the house. I’m shocked at its condition.
I squeeze through the narrow path that I know leads to the kitchen. The smell is worse in here. The meowing is louder. A small kennel sits by the back door and from inside a cat arches its back and hisses and screeches at me.
Every counter is covered with mounds of mail and dishes and canned goods. The sink is brimming with forks and spoons and knives. One drawer is pulled open and piled with coffee cups. I open a cupboard—cans of tuna and bags of sugar. I open the oven—again more canned goods. Soup this time. It appears that Charlotte and Nola Knox have a system. I bend over and look in the cupboard beneath the sink and it’s filled with the usual: dishwasher liquid, drain opener, rags, garbage bags and carpet cleaner.
I open the door that leads to the basement that is as black as Ransom Caves. I flip the light switch on, hold tightly to the railing and take a few steps downward. It’s just as bad as the main floor. Garbage bags and boxes cover every inch. There is a rusty old bicycle sitting in a corner and a treadmill draped with winter coats. I look down. Dark spots dot the steps. Blood from Charlotte Knox’s fall? I don’t go any farther. The basement is a minefield and I know I need to turn around and head upstairs and back into the kitchen.
I open the refrigerator door and a putrid, rotten odor assaults my nose. It’s stuffed with moldy cheese and packages of black lunch meat, shriveled apples and slimy carrots. There’s a quart of congealed milk with the lid missing, containers of half-eaten takeout and liquefied heads of lettuce. I gag and slam the door shut and tear from the kitchen, knocking over a pyramid of mason jars that crash to the floor.
Back in the living room, I lean over, hands on my knees and inhale deeply trying to expel the rancid smell. Once the nausea passes I fight the urge to flee the house. How did Eve’s mother and sister come to live this way? Though the Knox home was never fancy it was clean and cozy. I always liked spending time here, though we spent most of our time hidden away in Eve’s room.
Stacks of books line the staircase and I have to step carefully, clutching onto the railing so I don’t tumble backward. What happened here? I wonder as I reach the landing to find a mattress and folding chairs leaning against the walls. I barely fit through the narrow pathway to get to Eve’s bedroom door.
I’m afraid to open the door, afraid of what I might find. Only the worry that Nola will come home prods me forward and I push the door open and step inside. “Oh,” I breathe and spin around slowly. Eve’s room hasn’t changed a bit and I feel like I’m transported back twenty-five years in time. The small desk where Eve did her homework is still there, her nubby pink cardigan sweater draped over the back of the chair. There was the gray stuffed rabbit with the worn velvet ears that Eve rubbed between her fingers when she was nervous and brought with her to every overnight.
I bite the sides of my cheeks to stave off the tears. A ratty, slightly yellowed white robe hangs on the front of Eve’s closet and I brush it aside to open the door. Eve’s closet is filled with her secondhand store finds. I smile as I thumb through the jeans and the Grateful Dead and Jimi Hendrix T-shirts. Her shoes are lined up on the floor of the closet and her book bag hangs from a hook on the back of the door. There are half a dozen scarves but not the one she was wearing the day she died.
I glance down. A floral hatbox sits on the floor of the closet. I’ve been in Eve’s room a million times as a kid and I know every inch of the space. Twenty-five years ago there was no hatbox. This wouldn’t be remarkable except that everything else in this room has not changed a bit. I give the box a shake and its contents rattle.
“What the hell are you doing in here?” comes a voice and the hatbox tumbles to the ground. My heart lodges in my throat as I swing around to find a redheaded woman standing in the doorway. The box spills open and the ivory-colored items scatter across the hardwood floor. My hand flies to my sidearm, but I had taken it off when I got into my car. The girth of my belly was making it uncomfortable to wear.
The woman is Nola. Nola with red hair. “Nola, I...” I begin but before I can finish she is backing me against the closet door.
“What are you doing in here?” she repeats, her voice shaking with anger. She towers over me and is standing so close that I can see the shiny puckered skin below her collarbone. Scarred from her altercation with Nick Brady years ago.
“Calm down, Nola.” I press my palms against her shoulders, trying to make some distance between us. “Back up, I can explain.” Nola holds her ground. I’m losing control of the situation. I was caught off guard, in a home I legally have no right to be in, and I’m unarmed. “I mean it, Nola, take a step back, now.” Somehow the words come out forcefully, with no tremor or hesitation.
Nola steps back and folds her arms across her chest and looks down at me waiting for an explanation.
“My brother called me. My dad was missing. We came over here and heard a crash. My dad was here. Inside. We got him out quickly, but...” Nola is unmoved by my explanation. “And I thought you might be up here. I didn’t want you to be scared.” This part is a lie but I couldn’t bring myself to tell Nola that I was wandering around her home out of morbid curiosity.
I sidle past Nola
and move to Eve’s small bookshelf. “I remember when she got that shelf,” I say. “She wanted to decoupage it with pictures from old magazines. We cut out pictures and words for hours...” Nola has a cold, unreadable expression on her face. I need to get out of here, now.
“I obviously should have just left and called you from outside,” I say contritely.
“Maggie,” Nola says in a singsong voice. “Are you in here?”
“What?” I ask in confusion but Nola keeps talking.
“I want to be alone,” Nola cries. Her face remains smooth, dispassionate, but her voice cracks with emotion and her eyes are wild and filled with a crazy glint.
“Are you okay?” I ask but she doesn’t respond. “I’ll go,” I say, inching toward the door, eager to get out of the house, but Nola blocks my way.
“Maggie,” Nola says as if confused. “What are you doing here? Did you leave the kids all alone?” Her voice has taken on a different quality, one I haven’t heard in decades. She sounds just like Eve.
“Let me pass, Nola,” I say. She’s lost her mind. I never should have come here.
“He’ll probably never talk to me again,” Nola says, her voice heavy with tears. “Why did you have to come over? You can’t tell anyone. You have to promise me.”
“Nola, you’re not making any sense. Let’s go outside. Get some fresh air, talk about this.” Even if I get past Nola I have to maneuver my way through the maze of junk. I’m pregnant and slow, there’s no way.
“Because it’s wrong. I want to help you,” Nola says in Eve’s voice. “It’s going to be okay, Maggie, we can work this out together.”
Then her tone changes again, becomes venomous. “It’s not okay and I don’t want to work it out. Eve, I’m pregnant. I need to figure out how to tell him,” she pretends to sob. “You ruined it. You ruined everything. I hate you for this, Eve. I hate you.”
Realization begins to sweep over me. I’ve heard this conversation before. I was part of this conversation. The baby gives a sudden kick as if prodding me forward. I have to get out of this room, out of this house. I feign moving left in hopes that Nola will shift that way and I can run past her but she stays put. I can’t catch my breath and tiny pricks of light dance in front of my eyes. I sway on my feet and sink down on the edge of Eve’s bed.
This Is How I Lied Page 15