Gradually, slowly, her thoughts turned to Jo and the news about Billy. No, no. She wasn’t ready to think about it yet. She couldn’t bear to think he was gone from this world. Not Billy, too.
But she did think about him, the boy he was the last time she saw him. He was wearing a white T-shirt and jeans even though it had been a particularly hot day. In fact, it had been a hot summer. The days were long and the humidity relentless. But somehow not even the heat could touch cool Billy. Or maybe because he spent so much time on the lake, the coolness of the water never truly left him. It was as though he had been a very part of what made the lake special.
True, she had been young, but not so young that she didn’t recognize the way her stomach flip-flopped and her heart skipped whenever he was near. “Are you feeling okay?” Dee Dee would ask. “I feel funny,” she would whisper, only to have Dee Dee whisper back, “That’s why they call it lovesickness.”
She had followed Billy everywhere. He had never given any indication he had minded. In fact, thinking back, he had encouraged her.
“What do you think, Pattie-cakes?” He had looked into her eyes. There had been something about his gaze that had invited you in. A girl, young or old, could have lost herself in those eyes, so deep and full of mystery. “Should we take the boat for a spin?”
She had tried to answer, mixing up her words and stuttering. In the end, she had resorted to nodding. He had picked her up, his biceps bulging, sunglasses perched on the top of his head. He had placed her in his boat and off they went, speeding across the water after dinner well before the partying started, before Jo had turned up to take him away.
* * *
Patricia stopped pacing when a car pulled into the yard and parked. Her first thought was that it might be the sheriff. She yanked the curtains aside and looked out the window, recognizing Kyle’s BMW. He knocked on the door. She didn’t know what else to do but let him in, caught off guard, surprised to see him. It must’ve been why he tried calling earlier, to let her know he was coming.
“Is there any news?” he asked, straightening his tie, the crease in his pants still evident even after a six-hour drive.
The sight of him in his crisp suit, fresh and pulled together, more than bothered her. She touched the tangles in her hair, glanced at her wrinkled clothes. “Nothing yet,” she said.
“How are you holding up?” He crossed the room and sat in one of the wicker chairs.
“I’m okay. Can I get you anything? Coffee? You must be tired after the long drive,” she said, wondering why she felt compelled to play the role of wife, to pretend nothing was wrong.
“No,” he said, and rubbed his brow. “I’m good.”
She sat on the couch across from him and waited. He obviously wanted something from her, but she couldn’t force herself to care enough to ask, to show him any empathy. Instead she picked up a couple of Sara’s pictures from the table and started shuffling them around, making the collage she had promised her daughter she would make on their first day here.
“Can you put those down?” he asked.
She carefully set the pictures back on the table and folded her hands in her lap.
“How long is it going to take to find her?” he asked.
“I don’t know.”
“But they must’ve told you something, given you some idea.”
She shook her head. “They’re doing what they can.”
“Is it possible they’ll never find her? I mean, is it possible it could take weeks, months, even years? How long are we expected to wait?”
“I’ll wait as long as it takes,” she said.
“But I can’t. Don’t you understand?” He stood, smoothing back his hair. He walked around the chair. “I just can’t take off days and days to sit around and wait.”
No, of course not, you always were weak. It took a tremendous amount of strength to sit and wait and hold it together. “What do you want, Kyle? Do you want me to tell you it’s okay that you left? That you went back to work knowing your daughter was still out there? That you didn’t care enough about her to stick around until they found her, her body?” She raised her voice.
“No. Yes.” He walked around the chair again. “I don’t know. Maybe.”
“You want me to ease your guilt?” She stood, her anger building, understanding that was exactly what he wanted.
“No,” he said, and stopped. “I want her found as much as you do.” His voice cracked.
There was pain in his eyes when he looked at her. He was hurting, and for a second she wanted to reach for him, to have him put his arms around her, to grieve with her. It was their child and nothing could change that. But before she had a chance to go to him, to comfort him, to comfort her, he opened his mouth.
“Just promise me, when all this is over, we’ll handle it between us. That you won’t get anyone else involved.” He held his hands up, pleading with her.
“What are you talking about?”
“We can do this on our own. I can draw up the papers. I promise, I’ll be fair.”
“Papers?” My God, he was talking about their divorce. Her body stiffened. How could he bring up their divorce at a time like this? Her teeth rattled with rage. “Get out,” she said.
“What?” He cocked his head. “Where do you want me to go?”
“Get out!” she shouted.
“Calm down. There’s no need to shout,” he said, trying to placate her. “Somebody will hear you.”
“I don’t care. Just get out.” She pushed him in the chest. “Now.” She screamed.
“Be reasonable. I drove all this way.”
“Get out.” She continued pushing him, slapping him in the arms, shrieking. “Get out. Get out. Get out.” She hollered until she pushed him outside. The screen door banged shut between them. He stood on the other side, staring in at her.
“We’re not done talking about this,” he said.
She slammed the wood door in his face.
* * *
She returned to the living room and dropped into the wicker rocking chair. How could she have loved him? He was an awful human being. She cried into Dolly’s soft stuffing, but still she wouldn’t allow herself to unravel. Not now. She wouldn’t give Kyle the satisfaction.
What she needed was to talk with someone, someone who would listen, someone who would understand what she was going through. She could no longer do this by herself.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
Dee Dee drove straight to the sheriff’s office after receiving a message he wanted to see her. She was still in scrubs having worked a double shift. She had covered for one of the nurses who had called in sick. The extra shift had felt like it would never end. Her feet hurt in spite of the comfortable sneakers. Her skin was sticky and smelled like a mixture of stale air and antiseptic. But she wasn’t about to stop home for a shower. She pressed the accelerator. She couldn’t get to the sheriff’s office fast enough. She broke every speed limit, skidded into the parking lot, and burst through the door, surprised to find Heil stuffed into one of the metal chairs in front of the sheriff’s desk.
Heil stood as soon as she entered. “I’ll leave you two alone,” he said, and moved toward the door, but not without making eye contact with the sheriff first. “Dee Dee.” His fat stomach brushed against her arm on his way out.
“Frank,” she said. Neither one hid their apparent dislike for one another.
“Please, sit,” the sheriff said when they were alone.
“What was he doing here?”
“He wanted to know if he should be calling his lawyer,” the sheriff said.
“What did you tell him?”
“I’ve got a couple of witness statements saying they saw Billy drinking under the steps of the Pavilion bar. I told Heil to do what he thinks is in his best interest.”
“Does this mean you’re reopening the case?”
“Yes,” he said. “I got the final report this morning. The DNA is a match. The bones are Billy’s.”
Relief overwhelmed her and rendered her speechless. She hadn’t realized just how badly she needed it to be official until now, how much she had relied on the DNA results for validation. The bones were Billy’s, and one of them was fractured.
The sheriff continued. “After reading the original file and the new report from the medical examiner, something about his injuries doesn’t add up. Your brother fractured his skull here.” He touched the left side of his head above his temple. “But he fractured his right arm. You would think if he fell on the pier like we assumed, a flat surface with no obstructions, his injuries would be on the same side of his body, say his left arm and left side of the head. But that’s not the case. So the question is, how did he fracture his skull on one side and fracture his arm on the other?”
It didn’t make sense. But she was still too stunned, exhilarated, to respond. After all this time the very thing she had been hoping for was finally happening. She gripped the car keys so tight, the jagged edge dug into her palm.
“Now, I suppose it’s possible he fell twice, first hurting his arm and then hitting his head before falling into the water. But even that troubles me. The toxicology report confirmed there were traces of alcohol in his bloodstream. It’s hard to know the exact amount, since five days passed between the time of death and when his body was recovered. Minus the lower half of his right arm, of course, until now. But there’s not one statement in the file claiming your brother was drunk. Drinking, yes, but not falling down drunk. So what else could’ve happened that made him fall twice?”
She was nodding. Yes, she agreed with all of it. He didn’t have to sell it to her. She had known all along it didn’t make sense. Nothing about Billy’s drowning had ever made sense.
“There’s one other thing.” He was scowling.
Oh, here it comes, she thought. Nothing good ever came without a price. “What is it?”
“You know it’s a sensitive issue, especially when we’re still trying to find that little girl. People around here are reluctant to talk about drownings, past or present.”
“What are you saying?”
“It was one thing to poke around and ask a few questions, but now I’m going to be asking in an official capacity. And I have no doubt Heil is going to tell everyone to keep their mouths shut. Remember, he’s worried about his own liability in this.”
“I don’t care about Heil or that the damn alcohol came from his bar.”
“That may be. But he cares. And people aren’t going to want to speak out against him.”
She shook her head. The sheriff was missing the point. He needed to focus on Billy’s friends. He needed to interrogate Jo. “You’re still going to try, right?”
“Yes,” he said.
“Even Jo? Because I know she knows something about that night that she’s not saying.” She wanted to be present when he questioned her, but knew he’d never allow it.
“I’ll talk with her.” He paused. “I need you to be patient a little while longer. Like I said, it’s a sensitive matter, and I don’t want people to clam up before I even get started. You need to be patient and let me do my job.”
She didn’t respond, and continued squeezing the keys in her fist.
“I’m serious,” the sheriff said. “Let me handle this.” He waited for her to say something. When she continued giving him the silent treatment, he said, “You know I never would’ve closed the case if we would’ve found his arm with the body. If we would’ve had all the evidence back then, things would’ve gone differently.”
When she still refused to acknowledge what he was saying to her, he asked, “Did you hear me?”
“Oh, I heard you,” she said, and turned her head away.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
Caroline woke to a wet stickiness between her legs. She tossed the covers off. The sheets were stained with blood. Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God. What happened to her last night? Her underwear was soaked. She pulled at her nightgown and found the back of it spotted red. It took a few more panicked seconds for her to understand.
She jumped from the bed and felt a warm gush between her legs. She cupped her hand over her private parts as if she had to pee. She peeked into the hallway, looking, listening for any sounds. The bathroom door was wide open. She made a break for it, not knowing what else to do. She stripped off her pajamas and cleaned herself with a washcloth. She knew she needed supplies. She had read all about menstruation from the stupid pamphlets the nurse had handed out during the school year. But it wasn’t until she had read Judy Blume’s Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret did she fully understand what was coming. It wasn’t like her mother had ever sat her down and had “the talk” with her. She wondered if there were parents who actually did stuff like that with their kids.
She doubted it.
What she knew about sex she had also learned from reading books. The information the other girls her age had imparted was mostly misinformation, like how you couldn’t get pregnant the first time, how anal sex wasn’t really sex. Books set Caroline straight. They saved her from the embarrassment of having to ask her mother to explain.
Although she had to give her mother props for standing up to the school board when they had threatened to remove some of the more graphic health books from the school library. Caroline’s mother had stepped out of her dark place and into the world, rallying a group of women’s rights activists into the largest protest the school had ever seen. With the support of the librarians and most of the other mothers behind her, the books stayed on the shelves. She was proud of her mother and embarrassed, too. The subject of sex had made Caroline feel all weird inside. It was a subject her mother cared about deeply.
She sometimes heard strange sounds coming from her parents’ bedroom, the moans, the creaking bed, the thumps and crashes. Once, she banged on the door, shouting for them to stop, thinking they were killing each other. They never answered her cry, but the rest of the night had been eerily quiet. She shuddered. Don’t think about it. No child ever wanted to think about their parents having sex, let alone the loud boisterous kind her parents had.
She searched in the cabinet above the toilet for supplies. Nothing. Her mother had never stayed at the cabin for more than a day or two, except for this summer. None of her feminine products were stored here. She guessed Gram went through her phase already, meno-something. What was she going to do? No way could she tell her mother. But what other choice did she have?
She thought about buying supplies at the Country Store. What if someone saw her? She’d die of embarrassment. Maybe she should tell Megan and she could help, but it felt too personal, a private matter she didn’t want anyone to know about. She plopped on the toilet and covered her face. Stop being a baby, she told herself.
“Caroline,” Gram said in a soft voice, and knocked on the bathroom door.
“Yeah,” she said, wiping her eyes. “Just a sec.” She grabbed a towel and wrapped it around her. How was she going to get out of the bathroom without anyone knowing what happened? Her pajamas were stained, and she was still bleeding. “Gram,” she said. “Are you still out there?”
“Are you okay?” Gram asked.
“I need some help.” She opened the door a crack and waved Gram inside. She didn’t know which one of them was more embarrassed when she showed Gram the pajamas and underwear.
“Oh,” Gram said. “Is this the first time?”
Caroline nodded.
“Do you want me to wake your mother?”
“No.” She shook her head.
Gram touched her arm in a sympathetic way. “Stay here. I’ll bring back some clean clothes. We’ll go the store. I planned to go today anyway. You can come along and get what you need.”
Gram returned with clean clothes. “Use these for now.” She handed Caroline a stack of cloth rags she was supposed to put between her legs. She must’ve made a face, because Gram said, “It’s what women had to do before. It won’t kill you to use them for a little while.” She
left Caroline alone in the bathroom, mumbling on her way out something about Caroline’s mother and not being better prepared, not stocking up for what was obviously coming.
Caroline stuffed a cloth rag in her underwear and pulled on her shorts. She felt as though she was wearing a diaper. She didn’t want any part of this. She finished getting dressed and met Gram in the kitchen.
“I stripped your bed,” Gram said. “I’ll go to the Laundromat later. Now, let’s get to the store. I have a long list.”
* * *
At the Country Store, Mrs. Nester made a point of ignoring Caroline, maybe because Gram was with her, and maybe because she regretted giving Caroline the old newspapers. Gram went about getting the food and paper products on her list. Caroline lingered in the candy aisle, working up the nerve to go down the aisle where the feminine products were located. She took a deep breath and turned the corner, pretending to be lost, looking for something, anything other than what she was there for. She plucked the first box of pads she saw off the shelf and tucked it under her arm.
With her head down, she darted away to find Gram and hide the small box in the grocery cart. She made it to the end of the aisle and bumped into someone. When she looked up, she was staring into Chris’s two-toned eye. He smiled. She fumbled the box and quickly hid it behind her back.
“Sorry,” she said, and scurried around him. She found Gram in the next aisle over, and she stuffed the box in the cart. Gram was too busy with her shopping list to notice the flustered look Caroline imagined was on her face.
Gram pushed the cart farther down the aisle. Caroline felt someone’s eyes on her back and turned to find Chris at the other end, watching her.
“You’re up to something,” he said, and folded his arms. The grin on his face made her feel as though he was the one hiding something.
“No, I’m not.”
He motioned for her to come closer. She looked over her shoulder for Gram, but she must’ve moved to a different aisle. Caroline took a tentative step in his direction. Her uncertainty seemed to amuse him.
“Come here,” he said. “I’m not going to hurt you.”
The Secrets of Lake Road: A Novel Page 19