by Mason Cross
She hung up, closed her eyes and rubbed her finger against her temple, hoping it would soothe the headache. Mission accomplished: she had covered Haycox’s back for a little while longer. She was starting to worry about Haycox though. About more than a minor disciplinary.
Her eyes snapped open when she heard the door open. Sheriff McGregor was in the doorway, looking pointedly at the empty seat behind Haycox’s desk. He turned to look at Isabella questioningly.
So much for mission accomplished.
34
Carter Blake
Night had fallen by the time I turned off Route 19 and onto the south road that would take me through the thick woods toward Lake Bethany. On the way, I passed the trail out to the old ruined house I had followed David to the other day, and then the entrance to Benson’s. Both were dead ends, like all of the roads in this town.
The single light was still burning in the upstairs window of David Connor’s house as I pulled the car up the curving drive. A slim figure appeared at the window, just a black outline against the light. I parked and got out. When I looked up, Connor was still at the window. I raised my hand in a hello, but he didn’t move to respond. A moment later, he turned and vanished.
I climbed the stairs up to the deck, and by the time I got to the door it was swinging inward. David Connor looked out at me, his eyes wide and expectant.
“Did you find her?”
“Let’s go inside,” I said.
Five minutes later, I was sitting on the patched leather couch as David Connor paced back and forward on the rug. There was a loose board by the window which creaked every time he passed that way on his circuit of the room. He kept running the fingers of his right hand through his hair, pushing it back.
“You let her go, man. That was her.”
“She looked a lot like her,” I said. “I was halfway convinced myself. But it wasn’t Adeline.”
He blinked a few times, and then turned his head away from me. I thought he was about to start pacing again, but he pivoted and collapsed in the big easy chair, the fingers of both hands threading through his hair now as his hands framed his face. He looked like a math undergrad struggling with a complex equation.
“That doesn’t make any sense,” he said quietly, to himself rather than me.
“I know it feels that way,” I said. “But sometimes, people are just gone. Sometimes you can’t find them.”
He looked up at me, eyes focusing in on me as though he had just remembered he wasn’t alone.
“That’s not what I meant. Wheeler told me he was close.”
“Wheeler never spoke to her,” I said. “If he had, he would have told you the same thing. Her name is Jane, not Adeline. She’s from California. She showed me ID.”
“That can be faked,” he said.
“You’re right. I suppose it could be faked. But why would she do that?”
He didn’t answer.
“Sometimes the simplest explanation is the right one. Even if it’s the explanation you least want to be true.”
“It doesn’t make any sense,” he said again.
“David …” I began. “I have some other questions for you, based on some other things I found out when I was down there.”
“Other things?”
“First of all, do you know if Wheeler was expecting any trouble when he went down there? Did he have any enemies that he mentioned?”
He looked confused. “It was a carjacking, I told you.”
“Right, the local police agree that’s what it looked like.”
“What do you mean ‘what it looked like’?”
“You ever hear of a guy named Vincent González?”
He shook his head. “Should I have?”
“He’s the tattooed man.”
Connor’s voice was urgent again. “Did you talk to him?”
“He wasn’t taking questions. Somebody cut his throat the day after Wheeler was murdered.”
Connor’s eyes narrowed, but he didn’t say anything. I left a long silence as I tried to read his expression. Something about his eyes triggered a memory and I realized what it was. Jane Graham had had the same hard-to-read gaze. It was disconcerting, and suddenly I was a little less sure of what I had told Connor.
I got up and walked to the window, looking out at the night. The ash trees enclosed the house on three sides. A cocoon of darkness. I put a hand to the glass to block the interior light so I could look out at the driveway and Connor’s shiny orange pickup truck.
He got up and crossed the floor to where I was, not hurrying. He held eye contact the whole time. Those dark eyes that gave nothing away.
“Wheeler is dead and the tattooed man is dead.”
“That’s right.”
“And you still think there’s nothing there? That she wasn’t Adeline?”
“I didn’t say there was nothing there. But it isn’t what you want it to be. You’re right, I don’t think it’s a coincidence, but right now you are the only person I know of who links Wheeler and Vincent González.”
“And Adeline.”
I let that one go. “I think the same person killed them. I want to know why. I was hoping you might have an idea.”
He looked out of the window at the dark again. “What you said about the simplest explanation being the right one. The cops thought that back when Adeline disappeared, you know that?”
“I know they looked at you.”
“What do you think? Is it always the simplest explanation?”
I thought about it. “No. Not in my experience.”
“I want to go to Atlanta. Take me to see her.”
“I can’t do that,” I said. “But I want to know what happened to Wheeler and González.”
“Why? That’s not the job.”
“It’s not the job, but if I don’t try to find out what happened, it’ll eat away at me. I don’t like not knowing.”
He understood that, at least. I could read that much in his eyes.
“And if I’m right, there’s a killer out there who’s getting away with it. I don’t like that either.”
35
Carter Blake
After leaving Connor’s place I took out my phone with the intention of calling Deputy Green. I changed my mind after a second, thinking it might be better to talk in person. I drove back into town, turned right off Main Street and a minute later I was at the sheriff’s office.
I parked outside, and before I had time to get my seatbelt off, I saw Sheriff McGregor at the door. I knew this wouldn’t be good. I got out and approached. He nodded as though he had expected no better and leaned on the door frame, his arms folded.
“Back so soon,” he observed.
“I went to Atlanta today,” I said, still considering whether I wanted to tell McGregor about what I had found. He had made it clear I was about as welcome as an outbreak of measles, but he had knowledge I needed. He was someone who knew David Connor, had spoken to Wheeler, and had worked the Devil Mountain case back in the day. The look on his face was not promising.
“I know where you went,” he said.
That meant either Joe Benson or Deputy Green had told him where I was headed. Or perhaps he had spoken to Connor, but I doubted that. My money was on Green.
“I also know where you were last night.”
So that was what it was. The incident with the two idiots at Jimmy’s Bar. I had already forgotten about it. I should have known it would make more of an impression on the sheriff.
“I don’t know how much of the background you know, but—”
“You do this job long enough, you learn to judge people by what happens, not how it happened. I thought after our little talk you understood that we don’t take kindly to people coming in and stirring up trouble.”
“If you talk to Jason at the
bar, he’ll tell you I didn’t stir up anything.”
“We don’t take kindly to people stirring up trouble,” he repeated, as though I hadn’t spoken, “whether that takes the form of a bar fight, or trouble of a more insidious nature.”
All right, so that was it. It wasn’t really to do with the two guys last night.
“You find anything down there in the city, Blake? You turn up that dead girl?”
“Nothing to report,” I said.
“That’s a damned shame. If you had listened to me, you could have saved yourself a trip.”
“I appreciate your concern, but I think it was worthwhile.”
He raised an eyebrow. “I told you this was a dead end, Blake. No need for you to stick around wasting your time.”
“I don’t think my time’s wasted at all. I’m getting to spend some time in your beautiful town, meet lots of interesting people.”
The sheriff took his eyes from me for the first time since I had gotten out of the car and raised them to the road that led back to Main Street. “Don’t stay too long. We’re a friendly town, but a fella can outstay his welcome pretty quick. If he’s not careful.”
“Thank you for the advice. I’ll be careful.”
He looked back at me and straightened up, taking his weight off the door frame. He walked four paces toward me, stopping midway between my car and the building.
“To be clear, we’re going to be watching you. You pull any more bullshit like last night – no matter the background – and I’ll have to think about getting a little more official. Do you understand me?”
I nodded. There wasn’t much room for misinterpretation.
“And one other thing.”
“Yes?”
“Stay away from Deputy Green.” He stared at me for a moment, as though to make sure I knew he meant it. “I don’t want you bothering her.”
With that, he turned and walked back to the office, shutting the door firmly behind him. That parting shot had caught me by surprise. The rest of it had been standard procedure straight out of the small-town lawman’s book of intimidation. But the last thing had been different. His tone had been different when he said it. Like that part wasn’t just the usual spiel, like he was worried about Green.
As I drove back out to the cabins I thought about why that could be. She didn’t strike me as the fragile type. Not at all. But perhaps her history was just one more reason McGregor didn’t want the past disturbed.
There was no sign of Joe when I got back to the cabins. I let myself in by the French door around the back and checked for signs of entry. Nothing looked disturbed, the vase was still hanging on the door handle, and the pencil lead I had placed in the hinge was unbroken. I undressed and hung my suit up in the closet. I remembered the looks I had gotten in the bar the previous night, and decided a more casual mode of dress might be in order from here on in.
I got into the shower and stood under it for a long time. I thought about the two dead men in Atlanta, about the woman who looked just like my missing person, about how she’d convinced me I was wrong. Then I thought about the way David Connor’s certainty had made me doubt everything all over again. After all, driver’s license aside, I hadn’t seen anything to prove he was wrong, just I hadn’t seen anything to prove he was right.
Deputy Green was still on my mind. Why had she made the effort to reach out to me, when the rest of the department had been about as welcoming as a Stasi squad? I thought about our conversation the previous evening, going back over the information she had given me, the little snapshots of the town’s history. After a while I realized that I wasn’t just remembering her words. I was remembering the way she kept her eyes on me when she moved her head to toss a stray lock of blond hair out of her eyes. Her crooked smile when she found something I had said amusing.
I slammed the shower onto cold.
The sheriff wanted to protect her from something. Perhaps it wasn’t about her father. Maybe he was suspicious on her behalf of male attention in general, maybe me in particular. I stepped out of the shower, dried off and wrapped the towel around my waist. The blinds were open on my window, and when I stepped out of the bathroom I saw Deputy Green parking her civilian car outside.
Our eyes met, and she looked away, obviously not expecting to see me in a towel. I threw on a T-shirt and jeans and went out the back way, coming around to meet her at the front door. She was waiting outside, her hand on the wooden guard rail, looking out at the lake.
It was a cold, clear night. The stars and a crescent moon were reflected in the inky blackness of the lake beyond the pines.
“Beautiful view,” she said. “In the daytime, I mean.”
“Makes you want to stick around,” I agreed.
She turned to face me. “How was the city?”
“Actually, I was hoping we could talk about that.”
She seemed to think about the offer. “Did you eat yet?”
I shook my head. “I tried Jimmy’s last night. I don’t feel the urge to go back.”
“I thought you might say that,” she said. She turned and walked back down the stairs toward the car, digging her keys out of her pocket. “Come on.”
If Jimmy’s was out, I wondered where she was going to suggest. The diner on Route 19 again, I guessed. “Where?”
“Your lucky day, Blake. It’s not every man I’ll take to meet my mom.”
36
Carter Blake
We took Green’s car. She drove fast, but with precision.
Her mother had been ailing following a stroke, she explained. She was still able to do most things for herself, but Green didn’t like her to be alone at night.
At one point on the drive, Green slowed the car and I realized she had spotted something on the road ahead. A pair of pinpoints of light in the dark. She slowed to a stop and flashed her lights.
“Come on, curious.”
As I watched, the pinpoints blinked, and then a deer stepped out into the field of the lights. It paused a second to stare at us, and then darted across the road and into the woods.
She watched it go, and tapped her hands on the wheel, thinking.
“About four years ago a stockbroker from Connecticut driving a Maserati hit a deer on this road going at eighty.”
I winced.
“Yeah. Have fun cleaning that up. Double fatality. The deer and the asshole driving.” She turned to look at me. “Decapitated.”
“The deer or the driver?”
“The driver.”
I settled back into my seat, grateful that Deputy Green seemed to be a careful driver so far. She shifted into drive again and pulled away. I kept my eyes on the side of the road, looking for more eyes reflecting back the headlights. A couple of minutes later she took a turn off the main road and we started ascending a hill. We passed through a thick avenue of trees and then it cleared on one side and I could see a valley and the black outline of Devil Mountain against the stars.
Green’s mother’s house was at the top of a long, lazy hill, grouped with three other houses in an enclave with a big oak tree out front. It was more modern than David Connor’s place, looked like it had been built in the eighties. It was a wide, low building. There was a porch out front from which hung a string of fairy lights. The lights were all on. Green parked outside and we got out.
“This is where you grew up?”
She nodded, though she was looking back at the view, rather than the house. “We moved here when I was six. I loved it from the first time I saw it.”
Green’s mother was slightly younger than I had expected, perhaps only in her late fifties. She greeted us at the door, smiling at Green and giving her a kiss on her cheek before turning her eyes to me.
“Who’s the gentleman?”
Her accent was subtly different from Green’s and I guessed she had come from far
ther north originally. She was very slim, with gray hair tied back in a tight bun, wearing a green dress with some kind of Celtic pattern on it.
Green looked back at me. “Not a gentleman, just another troublemaker I picked up on the mean streets of Bethany. Mom, this is Carter Blake. He’s visiting town.”
I stretched out my hand and she shook it. “Pleased to meet you, I’m Kathleen.”
She stepped aside and gestured at the open door. I entered the house, making sure to ignore the questioning look Kathleen gave her daughter when she thought I wasn’t looking. It was neat, but lived-in. There was a grandfather clock at the far end of the hall, the ticking sound audible from the door. She led me past a series of pictures showing a stern-looking man with Green’s blond hair and blue eyes. In some of them, he was posing with a younger Kathleen, and Green as a child. In others, he wore hunting garb.
“That’s dad,” she said, unnecessarily. “Everybody says I take after him.”
She indicated a picture of the two of them in the woods, her cradling a Remington 700 that was almost as big as she was.
“I bet you handled yourself okay in second grade,” I said.
“Mom disapproved. Said I was too young. I don’t think she would have kicked up a fuss if I’d been a boy.”
“You still hunt?”
She shook her head. “Grew out of it, I guess. How about you?”
“Only things on two legs.”
Dinner was roast chicken with broccoli, carrots and sweet potato. We ate and made conversation. Green hadn’t said anything beforehand about avoiding sensitive topics, but I knew the drill by now. Anyway, it tends to be bad form to bring up murder over dinner. I spoke a little bit about working on a project here and in Atlanta and deflected things back to talk about the town. If Green hadn’t told me of Kathleen’s condition, I might not have picked up that there was anything wrong. She occasionally forgot words and got details wrong, but for the most part she was just fine. She was occasionally indiscreet about Green’s childhood and teenage years, but that was hardly an unusual parental trait.