On a Dark Tide

by Valerie Geary

  Clara turned off the television and leaned her knee against his. “Well?”

  “Well, she didn’t tell me much.”

  “You were up there talking for hours.”

  “It was twenty minutes.” He rubbed the bridge of his nose. “Apparently she’s been having trouble with this Kimmy girl and her friends since the beginning of the year.”

  “What does that mean, ‘having trouble’?” Clara wrapped her hands around her water glass, stroking her thumb down the side.

  “I guess they’ve been teasing her a lot. Leaving mean notes in her locker, running into her on purpose, making her spill her lunch. Calling her names.”

  Her grip tightened on the glass, her thumb going still. “But why? How do they even know her? Kimmy’s a junior.”

  “It’s not that big of a school,” Marshall said, smiling. “You know how it is.”

  Clara and Marshall had both graduated from Crestwood High, and Clara remembered all too well the claustrophobia of those narrow hallways and low ceilings. There had been mean girls in her class, also. Girls who teased her for being poor, or for not having a father, or not wearing the right clothes. All of that stopped when she and Marshall started dating, but she never forgot the way they treated her.

  “Elizabeth claims she doesn’t know why these girls are teasing her, that it started out of the blue, but I don’t know, Clara.” Marshall ran his hand through his hair. “Things like this, they usually come from something, don’t they? It’s usually a back and forth. Isn’t it?”

  Clara stared at the faint ripples she was creating by holding her water glass so tightly. “Sometimes girls are just mean because they know they can get away with it.”

  “That doesn’t give her a right to do what she did, though, to retaliate like that. If she was being bullied, she should have gone to the principal. Or come to one of us.”

  “It was sugar, not acid,” Clara said.

  “She punched a girl in the face.”

  “Oh, she was fine. She didn’t even need ice.”

  “That’s not the point. Elizabeth knows better. She’s a good girl, Clara. She doesn’t act out like this.”

  “Which means she must have had a good reason to do what she did.”

  “Reason or no reason,” Marshall said, “She’s old enough to learn that actions have consequences.”

  When the glass in Clara’s hand cracked, Marshall was the one who yelped in surprise. He sprang to his feet and ran into the kitchen. Clara stared at the jagged cut on her palm, the thin trickle of blood running down her wrist, wondering why it didn’t hurt. Then the feeling came, sharp and stinging. Marshall pressed a towel to her palm, and the pain worsened, but Clara pretended it didn’t bother her.

  “There must have been a chip,” she muttered and shook her head, returning the conversation to Elizabeth. “Don’t you think her suspension is enough of a lesson?”

  Without answering, Marshall pulled Clara to her feet and led her to the kitchen sink, where he removed the towel and forced her hand under the faucet.

  The cold water burned. Clara hissed and tried to pull back, but Marshall held her there until the blood washed away. He lifted her hand, inspecting the cut as carefully as a surgeon might.

  “I don’t think it’ll need stitches.” He wrapped her hand in a clean towel and made her lift her arm over her head.

  As they stood together, waiting for the bleeding to stop, a smile tugged on Marshall’s mouth. “Poor you. Does it hurt?”

  “A little.”

  He kissed her on the forehead. She lowered her head to his shoulder and closed her eyes. Her heart fluttered in her palm, a maddening pulse, pounding, pounding, the incessant rhythm of blood beneath her skin inescapable.

  Chapter 9

  Rain slashed sideways across the Beetle’s windshield as Brett drove toward Deadman’s Point. The wind howled through cracks in the door. It had taken Charlie over two hours to finish Nathan’s autopsy, during which the mist that had started this morning escalated to a full-blown autumn storm.

  Brett pulled the car into the empty parking lot, turned off the engine, and sat a moment watching waves lift from the raging ocean to smack hard against the shore.

  During the autopsy, Charlie had confirmed that Nathan’s carotid artery was severed and was most likely the cut that killed him. There were lacerations to his chest and abdomen as well and damage to the liver. But there was no water in his lungs, nothing at all to suggest drowning. Nathan Andress was dead because someone wanted him dead.

  When Nathan’s car was found here two nights ago on Saturday, officers had done a sweep of the area. They’d found empty beer cans, cigarette butts, and fast-food wrappers, nothing exciting. Nothing that would even come close to qualifying as a murder weapon. Of course, they weren’t looking for a murder weapon at the time. There didn’t appear to be any visible blood in the car itself either, but there might be trace amounts, droplets hidden beneath the floor mats or in the trunk, and if there were, the techs would find it. It was possible, Brett supposed, that Nathan had been killed somewhere else. The killer had then driven his body here and dumped it in the ocean. Or maybe he walked out to the end of the dock to meet his killer and only because of bad luck and a damning tide was his body discovered.

  Whatever happened out here on Friday night, this case was officially a homicide. Everything they knew so far needed to be reexamined in that context. They needed to get a team out here as soon as possible to search again. Though Brett couldn’t help but think that if there ever had been evidence in this parking lot, or in the tall shore grass, or out on that rickety-looking dock, it would be nearly impossible to find. The storm was washing it all away.

  Someone needed to talk to Nathan’s mother again, too.

  It was late afternoon and nearing the end of Brett’s shift. She should probably let Irving handle this because of her possible conflict of interest. It was his case, anyway, but with a homicide, the longer you waited to gather evidence, the faster it degraded. The longer you waited to talk to people, the more they forgot. It had been two days since Nathan’s body washed ashore, and every minute they hesitated gave the killer more time to disappear.

  * * *

  It was one kind of horror to be told your son died in a tragic accident, another to be told he’d been murdered. Brett knocked on Mary Andress’ front door and waited.

  After speaking briefly with Irving over the radio, the lead detective had agreed to send officers to search Deadman’s Point again. Then he asked Brett if she could go and talk to Mary. She should have told him then about the message Nathan had left her before he died, but it seemed too delicate a conversation to have over the radio. As soon as she got into the precinct tomorrow, she promised herself, as soon as she could get Irving alone, she would tell him everything. Mary Andress was about to get the worst news of her life. Brett didn’t want to add to her pain by sending an inexperienced officer to her house, someone like Stan Harcourt, who knew nothing of this kind of loss or how it felt to have your whole life shatter in the span of a single sentence.

  The rain was starting to let up a bit, but sheets of water still spilled from Mary’s clogged gutters, turning the dirt around the foundation to mud. In one of the houses nearby, a dog was howling, lonely and mournful. It took a minute, but finally, the deadbolt clicked, and the door opened. Mary stood in the entryway, blinking at Brett in a way that reminded her of Amma. Like she didn’t know where she was or who she’d become or how she’d even gotten here in the first place. Brett offered her a sympathetic smile. “Mrs. Andress? I’m sorry to bother you. I need to ask you a few more questions about Nathan. Is now a good time?”

  Another slow blink, then she opened the door wider. “Yes, come in, dear. I’ll make us some tea.”

  Mary’s house was decorated with furniture that looked second-hand, but everything was tidied up and cozy. Lace doilies yellowed with age decorated side tables and pastoral paintings hung from b
eige walls. Mary brought a tea tray from the kitchen into the living room and, with a ragged sigh, sat down in a faded orange armchair as she lowered the tray to the coffee table. Brett sat on a floral print couch across from her. The older woman looked tired, pressed thin by her grief. When she reached to pour the tea, her hands shook so hard, the porcelain cups clattered. Tea splashed onto the carpet.

  “I can do that.” Brett took the pot and finished pouring as Mary settled into her chair.

  “How is your grandmother these days?” Mary clutched her hands in her lap. “She used to come by the coffee shop every Thursday. Decaf with a splash of cream. And an almond croissant. Her favorite.” She rubbed her knuckles. “But she hasn’t been by in so long. I hope everything’s all right?”

  Brett stirred sugar and milk into her tea. Mary waved away both and said, “Just a little honey for me, that’s good.”

  “Amma’s doing fine, Mrs. Andress.” She brushed away the question. “Just busy these days, I guess.” She didn’t come here to talk about herself or her grandmother.

  “Please call me Mary, dear.” She stared at the cup on the tray that Brett had poured for her, but she didn’t reach to pick it up. The look in her eyes was distant and distracted.

  Brett cleared her throat and said, “Mary, I know you already talked to another detective.”

  She nodded and finally reached for her teacup, taking a sip before saying, “Yes, Irving Winters came by Saturday. Such a sweet man. Did you know his wife used to babysit Nathan? A long time ago, when she was in high school, before she ever met Irving, of course. But Nathan took to her like a fly to honey. She was such a natural with him. Always knew the right thing to say and how to make him laugh. It was never that easy for me, but I did my best. I tried.” She closed her eyes a minute, her hands tightening around her cup. When her eyes fluttered open again, they were damp with tears. She smiled sadly at Brett. “I keep thinking that he’s going to walk through the front door. I keep thinking that he can’t possibly be dead. It doesn’t make sense. Wouldn’t I have known? Wouldn’t I have felt it?” She clutched one hand to her chest and shook her head, letting out a ragged sigh. “It doesn’t make sense.”

  Brett shifted forward on the couch. She set the teacup back on the tray without drinking. “The questions I need to ask you, they’re going to be difficult.”

  Mary brushed a finger under her eye and nodded. “Go ahead. I’ll do my best to answer them. I just want to know how this happened.”

  “You told Detective Winters, Irving, you told him that Nathan was home for dinner and left again around eight to meet up with someone at the Blue Whale Diner?”

  “Yes, that’s what he told me anyway. I didn’t press him on it. He lives with me, yes, but he’s an adult. He comes and goes as he pleases. He has his own life.”

  “Had you noticed any recent changes in his behavior?”

  “Like what?”

  “Moodiness? Changes in appetite? Or how he was spending his time?”

  Mary stared into her teacup a minute, a frown pulling at her mouth. “It’s hard to say. He changed so much after the car accident.”

  “When was that?” Brett reached into her jacket pocket for a notepad and pencil.

  “Oh, ages ago.” Mary fluttered her hand in the air. “In college. He was going to Boise State on a football scholarship, but then one weekend, he was on his way home to visit, and this semi-truck crossed the median and crashed into him head-on. We almost lost him that day. But the Lord works miracles. He never fully recovered, though. His leg still bothers him from time to time.”

  Brett remembered Nathan walking into the bar last month to meet her, how he limped a little, a motion so slight she thought it was deliberate.

  “He came to live with me after the accident, and I thought it would be temporary, for a few months, maybe a year, but he never could seem to pull himself out of his funk. Even after he found that fishing charter job, he just seemed to get sadder and meaner. I did what I could for him.” She smoothed her hand over the fabric of her green pleated skirt. “He wasn’t an easy boy to love. I was strict with him sometimes, I’ll admit. But I did my best to make sure he knew he was loved, too. I was so worried he’d turn out like my sister’s boy. And I didn’t want that for him. I wanted—” She choked back a sob.

  The cup in her hand rattled and splashed tea onto her lap. She leaned forward and set it on the tray, picked up a napkin instead, and dabbed at the wet spot. “I’m sorry. It’s just, a mother never expects to outlive her children.”

  Brett gave Mary a minute to gather herself again, then pressed on with the questions. “What about girlfriends? Was Nathan dating anyone?”

  Mary shook her head. “I don’t think so. At least, not anyone here in town. Not anyone I knew about.”

  “Was there anyone you can think of who might have wanted to hurt Nathan? Anyone who was angry with him? Or held a grudge?”

  “Why would you ask that?” Mary’s eyes widened in surprise. “He drowned, didn’t he? That’s what Irving told me when he showed me that awful picture. But what now? Do you think someone did it on purpose? Pushed him in?”

  “Mrs. Andress…Mary,” Brett corrected herself. She leaned forward as if being closer to her would lessen the blow she was about to deliver. “Nathan didn’t drown.”

  “You found him in the water, didn’t you?”

  “Yes, but he was killed before that.”

  “What? I don’t understand.” Mary clutched at her skirt. Her eyes searched the room as if the answers lay in the cracks and cobwebs.

  “Mary, Nathan was stabbed to death. I’m sorry to tell you this. But someone killed him. Can you think of anyone who could have done that? Anyone who might have wanted him dead?”

  Mary swallowed and swallowed. Her hands twisted her skirt. After a minute, the words finally sinking in, she whispered a single name, “Danny.”

  Brett sat up a little straighter. “Danny? Does Danny have a last name?”

  “Danny Cyrus.” Mary licked her lips. She reached for her teacup, took a sip, set it down again. “He came by the house a few weeks ago. Came roaring up on a motorcycle, waving a baseball bat, and screaming for Nathan to come out of the house and face him like a man. Well, Nathan wasn’t home at the time, and I told him that. I told him I’d call the police if he didn’t get the hell off my property. He left. But not before he broke the back window out of my car.”

  “Do you know what he wanted with Nathan?”

  She shook her head. “Not then, I didn’t, but later. He came around again last week. Tuesday, I remember, because I was making mini cheesecakes, and I make mini cheesecakes on Tuesdays. He came to the shop that time and brought a gun. Showed it to me right there at the front counter. Told me to tell Nathan that Danny Cyrus was looking for him. Said it just like that. His full name. Like I don’t know who he is. Like I don’t know who his mama is, either. Then he said that he was a patient man, but if Nathan didn’t have the money by Friday, there was going to be trouble.”

  “Did you call the police that time?” Brett asked, though she already knew the answer. She’d checked the call log Saturday after leaving Lincoln Byrne’s property. If there had been mention of Danny Cyrus at any point last week, she would have noted it.

  Mary’s shoulders straightened. “I’m not afraid of him.”

  But then she crumpled, and a tremor shook her body as she realized for herself the terrible timing.

  “Oh, God.” Her voice cracked around the words. “Did this happen because of me? Because I didn’t? Did Danny—?” She pressed her hand to her mouth and gathered a shaking breath before continuing, “Nathan and I, we have coffee together every morning. We read the paper. We try to do the crossword, but we’re both…” She laughed, a bitter sound. “We’re both terrible at it.” She shook her head as if trying to jar the memory loose. “When he didn’t come home Friday night, I thought he might be crashing on a friend’s couch. Saturday, he still was
n’t home, and I didn’t think…I just tried to do the crossword by myself.” She pressed her fingers to her temple. “I couldn’t even get one word on my own.”

  She blinked at Brett, fear and grief rolling shockwaves through her. “I should have called the police right away when he didn’t come home that night. I should have done something. But honestly? I was glad.” Another sharp laugh. “Can you believe that? I was happy that, for once, he wasn’t home moping on the couch. For one night, I didn’t have to listen to him complain about his sore muscles and aching leg, how he couldn’t get the fish smell out of his clothes. I could watch my favorite TV shows in peace.”

  She buried her face in her hands, whispering, “What kind of mother does that? A monster. That’s what I am. He needed me, and I wasn’t there. I wasn’t—” Her words broke apart as she started to cry.

  “Mary. You can’t blame yourself.” Brett touched the older woman’s knee, wanting to offer some small comfort, even though she knew it would never be enough to lessen the agony she was feeling. “This didn’t happen because of you. Nathan’s death isn’t your fault.”

  “Isn’t it, though?” She took a deep breath. When she lifted her face again, that familiar vacant look had settled in her eyes. “I’m supposed to take care of him. That’s my entire purpose. To keep him safe. And I failed him.” She rose abruptly from the chair, gathering the tea tray and carrying it to the kitchen. “You’re not a mother. You have no idea.”

  Brett stood, too, shoving the notebook in her pocket. “I’d like to take a look at Nathan’s room. If that’s all right with you?”

  “Fine, whatever you need. It’s the second door on the left.” Mary tipped her head toward the back of the house where the bedrooms were and disappeared into the kitchen. The porcelain cups rattled and clinked as she washed and put them away.

  Chapter 10

  On Tuesday morning, Clara entered her daughter’s room to find Elizabeth still in bed with the covers pulled to her chin. Her alarm had gone off over an hour ago. She should have been dressed by now and headed out the door.