by Leah Konen
I heard a crackle up ahead, and my pulse quickened, but Vera didn’t pay it any attention. She lifted the phone to her ear. “Yes, hello, I think, Jesus, I think my husband—” Her voice cracked, her words turning into a wail. “I think my husband just fell off a cliff. We’re on a hike. God, he was just ahead, and he, and he must have stopped to take a photo, and—”
She paused, her eyes pinpointing a break in the trees that led to the next thicket of woods, her breath heaving from our quick run down. “I don’t know the address,” she said, voice strained. She was practically yelling now. “We were on Platte River Trail, the trailhead by the parking lot just off of—” She looked at me.
“Chapel Road.”
“Chapel Road,” she said, and I didn’t know if she’d truly forgotten or if it was all a part of her act. I briefly imagined her in athleisure, fresh from an afternoon run, standing in front of the mirror and practicing the 911 call like I used to practice the specials for the restaurant where I’d waited tables when I first moved to New York.
“No, we’re not in the parking lot now . . . Please, I just . . . No, we can’t see him . . . Yes, yes, I’ll stay on. Hurry. Goddamn it, please hurry.”
Without getting off the phone, she gestured to me, and we continued down the path toward the parking lot, the trees enveloping us once again, darkening the ground around us. I fiddled in my backpack for my flashlight, already nervous about hiking in the oncoming dark, but my hands brushed against a bit of paper. Strange. I’d emptied the bag last night; there shouldn’t be anything inside but my flashlight and an extra layer. Carefully, I unfolded the scrap in my hands.
My breath caught as water drops from the canopy of trees made spots on the paper. It was his handwriting, chicken scratch that I’d seen on the whiteboard that hung on their fridge, not elegant and swirling like hers. His letters were fat, short, and instantly recognizable.
I’m sorry about the other night. Please don’t tell Vera. I’ll call you soon.
I folded it as quickly as I could, my hands beginning to tingle as sweat pricked the back of my neck. Vera was up ahead, still on the phone. I shoved the note into my pocket and hurried to keep up. After another five minutes, Vera got off the call. They were sending rangers from the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation, she said, as well as DEC police officers.
The rangers came first, in hunter-green uniforms and khaki hats, driving utility-terrain vehicles. They were going to do everything they could to find him, they said, as Vera continued to play distressed and I kept my mouth shut, not wanting to say anything wrong, wondering what would happen if the rangers found John as he was making his way toward the cabin, cash and supplies tucked away in his second backpack.
It was fully dark out by the time the officers arrived, in a cop car instead of a UTV, lights flashing, giving the parking lot an eerie clublike feel, turning the tall grasses and signposts into shadow people, dancing and gyrating as the glow flickered round and round.
Vera shifted her weight back and forth as a woman climbed out of the police car and approached. She was in a similar hunter-green uniform, but her weapons belt and wide-brimmed hat set her apart from the rangers. Against her large brown eyes and neat low bun, her hat and her gear looked too big for her, like they were weighing her down. Behind her, a short, stout man emerged from the passenger side and slowly headed our way.
“I’m DEC Officer Parker,” the woman said, her voice brusque but warm. “And this is DEC Officer Roberts.”
“My husband,” Vera said, voice soggy and waterlogged. “My husband, he—”
“Are you the one who placed the nine-one-one call, ma’am?” Parker asked.
Vera nodded. “He just—” Her voice cracked, and she pointed to me. “She saw. He just . . .”
Parker faced me. “I know we’ve already got the rangers searching, but can you tell us what happened, ma’am?”
I felt my breath quicken and my pulse race, but we’d all agreed that would seem normal. We’d just experienced extreme stress. If my body showed no signs of it, that would be abnormal. I took a deep breath as I realized exactly what we were doing. This wasn’t park rangers anymore, people asking you to stay on the trail and look out for your safety. This was a cop, and I was about to lie to her: “John was hiking up ahead to get some photos, and just after I stepped into the clearing . . .” I paused to catch my breath, then stared down, as if transfixed by my own feet. “I heard him scream. I saw him slip and fall off the edge.” Still staring down, I pulled everything I’ve ever felt, everyone I’d ever lost, my mom and my dad, Davis and Ellie, as close to me as possible. Then I wiped my eyes with the back of my hand and looked up.
“And when you looked over the ledge, could you see him, ma’am?”
Vera interrupted, “No, because it’s a goddamned river. It has to be at least a hundred feet down. We need to get down there, we need to—” She stopped abruptly, as if she didn’t know what we needed to do.
Officer Parker stepped back, exchanged a whispered word with her partner, and I felt the hairs on the back of my neck stand straight up. I imagined them pulling out a polygraph machine right then and there, asking me all sorts of questions, Parker’s once-kind face looking right at me: I think you’re lying, Lucy.
Instead, her eyes flitted to the road, where yet another UTV had pulled in, driven by a ranger, a young guy whose shaggy hair peeked from beneath his cap. Parker turned back to me. “Can you take us to where you saw him fall?”
The ride in the UTV was bumpy, air slapping at our faces. The ranger and Officer Parker rode in front, Vera and I in the back, though I kept my eyes focused on the woods and the trail, not daring to glance at Vera for fear that the wrong look would somehow give us away. I pictured John out there, waiting. Could he hear the sirens? The rumble of the UTV over stones and logs and roots? How far had he gone already? Could he really find his way four miles in the dark? Could the rangers have found him? This plan suddenly seemed insane.
And then there was the note, the one now tucked into my pocket. The note I was too afraid to open again and yet desperately wanted to: Please don’t tell Vera.
Our happy new family, our much-needed escape, was starting off with a betrayal.
“Here,” Vera said at the clearing, and the UTV abruptly stopped, my knees smashing against the hard plastic seat in front of me.
“This way,” Vera said, Officer Parker’s flashlight like a beacon.
There they were, the abandoned backpack and water bottle, just as we’d left them. Parker squatted down, then stood. From a duffel bag, she retrieved a camera, about the size of John’s, and snapped a series of photos. Then she tucked it away and pulled out a large brown paper evidence bag and a pair of tongs like a giant tweezers. She expertly maneuvered John’s water bottle into the sack, then folded the top and placed it inside her duffel.
Her flashlight found the footprints and the disturbed rocks—still there, the rain not strong enough to fully wash them away. She turned to me. “This is where he fell?”
“From what I could see, yes.”
She retrieved her camera, knelt carefully, and took more photos, then stood. “Can you tell me exactly what happened?”
Breath short, pulse elevated, I pointed to the edge of the clearing. “I was a little bit behind John, and just as I stepped into the clearing, I heard him scream and saw him slip and fall off the edge here.”
A hit of nausea, a tickle in my throat. “And then Vera found me, and we looked over the edge, but we didn’t see him. We couldn’t see him.”
“How long were you standing there before Ms. Abernathy arrived?” Parker asked.
I shrugged. “A minute or so,” I said. “I called for her, but I’m not sure if she heard me. I don’t know, it’s hard to say.”
“Probably a few minutes,” Vera added. “It took me a while to catch up to her. I didn’t know—I
heard yelling, but I couldn’t make out what she was saying over the wind. God, I couldn’t have imagined—” She looked away.
With her flashlight, Parker scanned the area, but when she didn’t see anything else, she grabbed John’s backpack and her duffel, her expression matter-of-fact. “All right. Let’s get down there.”
Vera and I piled back into the UTV. It revved to life, grumbling, and we made our way, not back toward the parking lot, but down a different path, toward the river.
Where both Vera and I knew John wouldn’t be.
TWENTY
I had made it. That’s what I thought when I woke the next morning. I had made it another night in my little cottage, another night without Davis finding me. If all went according to plan, I only had one or two more nights to go.
I called Vera, but she didn’t answer. So I walked over, only to find no one was home, and a horrible thought struck me—what if she had gone, too? What if the two of them were out there, in the wilderness somewhere? What if they’d used me and left me behind, tiring of my company before our family had a chance to start anew?
It wasn’t possible, I told myself. Vera would come back from wherever she’d gone. John would call. And soon I would be gone, where Davis couldn’t find me. Where Ellie couldn’t, either.
By one o’clock, she still wasn’t back. Meanwhile, it had begun to snow. I was sitting by the window, watching the flakes fall, tracing circles in the frosty glass and looking for any sign of Vera’s car, when I saw a police cruiser coming down the road. It slowed, and as it did, my pulse sped up. It stopped in front of my house.
I whipped the drapes shut as my mind tried to make sense of it. It had to be routine, nothing more than a follow-up. Officer Parker had found the camera on the bank of the river last night, just before the rocks turned to water, smashed beyond repair and marred with John’s blood. The rangers had searched the area, and there wasn’t a single sign of John, and the working theory, just as we’d hoped, was that he’d been washed away, dying on impact or shortly thereafter. There was an all-points bulletin out for his body, but we both knew nothing would turn up.
A knock shook the door, and Dusty barked furiously.
I opened it to see Officer Parker and a man I didn’t recognize. He was tall and wore a lightly crumpled suit, his round belly bulging behind the button-down shirt.
“Miss King,” Parker said.
“Hi,” I managed. My eyes flicked to the man and back to her. “Is there news?”
Parker didn’t answer my question, but her eyes were warm. “This is Detective McKnight,” she said. “Can we come in?”
Fingers tingling with nerves, I ushered them in and offered them coffee. Parker insisted she didn’t want anything, but McKnight, after delivering a firm but sweaty handshake, took me up on it.
Standing in the kitchen, waiting for it to brew, my mind reeled. Again I told myself that this was all routine, that it was probably just a run-of-the-mill follow-up.
The machine finished, and I took two mugs from the cabinet, but one of them slipped, water through my fingers, and struck the floor, instantly shattering against hard ceramic tile. I imagined John’s camera shattering. And John shattering, too.
“You okay in there?” the detective asked.
“Fine. Just one sec,” I called back, though if he only turned his balding head, he’d be able to see exactly what was going on. I shooed Dusty away, then swept the remnants of the mug into the dustpan and tossed it into the trash, as if it were evidence of my lies.
The mugs and the sugar bowl clattered slightly as I carried them into the living room, calling attention to my shaking hands. I set one mug down in front of the detective, spilling a little of the coffee. He sopped it up with a napkin, then added four scoops of sugar. “We’re here because we have a few follow-up questions, and you’re the only witness.”
Witness. The word sent chills up my spine, even though that’s exactly what I was.
“Okay,” I said. “However I can help.”
McKnight smiled, but it was a fake one. “How close would you say you were to Mr. Nolan and Ms. Abernathy?”
The question threw me off balance. I’d expected him to have me run through last night’s events again. I tugged at the sleeve of my shirt, then stopped abruptly. “We’re good friends,” I said.
“And how long have you known them?”
I folded my hands in my lap. “Since September, when I moved here. We met right away, since we’re neighbors.”
McKnight pulled out a notepad, nodding.
My mouth filled with saliva, and I took a sip of coffee.
Parker sat stock-still, hands on her knees.
“And where did you live before September?” he asked.
A deep breath. “Brooklyn.”
“Right.” He didn’t even serve me with a nod this time, as if that was the most obvious answer in the world. His eyes were beady—they didn’t fit his round, doughy face at all. “So what brought you to the area? Kind of a big change, no? Most people—people your age, at least—they come up for the weekends. What about your work?”
“I work from home,” I said.
“Doing?”
I hesitated only briefly. “I’m a writer.”
He forced a smile. “Have I read anything of yours?”
A lump rose in my throat, but I swallowed it back. “Nothing big. I haven’t written a book or anything. Mostly articles online.”
“Great,” he said, deadpan. “So you just had a craving for some mountain air? And leaving all your friends in Brooklyn behind?”
“I had a bad breakup.”
He nodded, his shoulders loosening. “Can you tell us again exactly what happened yesterday?”
At least I knew this one by heart. “Yes,” I said, facing Parker. “What I told you. We were hiking, on a hike we’ve been on before, and John went ahead to take some photos. I heard a scream—I mean, I stepped into the clearing, and then I heard him scream and saw him slip and fall.” My heart pounded, banging my chest raw over such a stupid flub.
McKnight took another sip of coffee and glanced, once again, at his notes, but he’d hardly written anything, just a few scribbles I couldn’t make out. Parker was completely silent. McKnight looked to her and back to me. “Yes, I know what you told Officer Parker and the DEC rangers,” he said. “I’ve read the preliminary report. But I’d like to hear it all again, perhaps in a bit more detail.”
“Do you want me to describe the colors of the leaves or something?”
They both stared.
“Sorry,” I said. “Yesterday was horrible, and now you’re asking me to relive it. I just, I don’t know what you want me to say.”
“It’s okay,” Parker said. “It’s an awful thing, what happened. What you and Ms. Abernathy had to go through.”
“It is,” McKnight picked up. He scratched at his chin, at an indentation that had probably been a cystic bit of acne when he was a teenager and was now a scar that would never go away. “I guess what I’m trying to figure out is, you feel confident in what you saw?”
“Yes.”
“But you didn’t see his body down in the river when you peered over.”
“No,” I said, confidence surging at our carefully made-up story. “It’s about fifty feet from the edge of the clearing. I ran, but still, by the time I got there, I couldn’t see anything but the water. It was so drizzly, it was hard to see anyway.”
“I see,” McKnight said, making another note. Then his eyes caught mine. “So why was Mr. Nolan taking photos, if the visibility was so awful?”
I sighed. I was on solid ground—John had told me what to say for this bit. “The diffused light is actually really good for photos. As long as you don’t get water on the lens, light rain can be a great condition for shooting.”
McKnight smiled. “Hey, I’m not
a photographer—had to ask.”
I sagged against the sofa as I felt a lightness rise in my stomach. He believed me.
“So,” McKnight said. “Just to be clear. Since it was drizzly and it was fifty feet away, like you said, you definitely saw Mr. Nolan slip? There’s no way you could have heard a scream but not seen anything, found the backpack and the water bottle and put two and two together?”
“No,” I said, without hesitation. “I’m sure.”
He exchanged a look with Parker. Then he gave me a half smile, almost a smirk. “I know you think I’m probably being a stickler about this, but I like to get the facts straight.”
“Of course.”
“And sometimes it’s easy to get something mixed up. Especially since, like you said, it was raining. It was stressful. A lot was going on. It happened so fast. But you saw him? You actually saw him fall?”
“Yes.”
“Okay then.” McKnight tucked his notebook into his pocket. His eyes caught Parker’s, long enough for her to grimace, then looked to me. “Miss King, I hate to have to tell you this, but we have confirmation that Mr. Nolan is dead.”
A flash of panic. “What? How?”
McKnight stared at me, waiting, and when I didn’t say anything else: “We found his body this morning.”
No, I thought, shaking my head. No, it can’t be.
“What?” I repeated, my face going hot, my eyes stinging with moisture, my words practically spilling out. “Oh god. It’s not . . . it can’t.” I shook my head. “Not John.”
Images bounced through my mind. John hurting himself on his hike through the dark, his body crushed, his bones damp and cold, the park rangers coming upon him in the night. He was supposed to be good at this. They had both said that, they had promised me he was.
The fall, the one we’d made up, what if it hadn’t been made up at all? What if the scream I’d heard was real? What if he’d done such a good job pretending that he’d actually slipped, crashing into the river, being washed away?