The Truth We Bury: A Novel

by Barbara Taylor Sissel

  No, Lily thought. As much as she and Paul might deplore the union, as much as they might have hoped for more for their son than a degree from culinary school and marriage to the pierced and tattooed daughter of a single mom who ran a catering business out of her kitchen, she knew AJ’s heart had found its home. Lily had seen the way AJ would draw Shea’s hand through the loop of his elbow when they walked together. And when Shea spoke, he tipped his head toward her as if he couldn’t bear to miss a single word. Shea made him laugh; they made each other laugh. At the restaurant, where AJ had made that awful scene, it was Shea’s touch, her soothing voice, that had brought AJ back to himself. Lily couldn’t imagine he would ever leave Shea, not willingly, not by choice. But she said none of this to Paul. Instead, she asked about AJ’s passport. “Have the police found it?”

  “I don’t know,” Paul answered. “But he could find ways to get into Mexico without a passport.”

  Other countries. Lily was thinking AJ could as easily find his way to other, more distant countries. It wasn’t as if he was unfamiliar with overseas travel, not since his stint with the marines, the one Paul had insisted AJ undertake once he’d gotten clear of the charge of murder six years ago. Paul had said military training would straighten him out, make a man out of him. Lily had felt he was wrong in her bones, but nothing she said made any difference. AJ went, as if even he felt it was his only option.

  “I’ll call you from the ranch,” she said.

  She was back on the interstate, flipping through radio stations, looking for a distraction, when she heard Becca Westin’s name. Her heart stalled. She wanted to turn it off—the radio, the car, the terrible looming future. Instead, she made herself listen while the commentator ran through facts she already knew, the how, what, when, and where. It was the mention of AJ’s name—the who—that jolted her. Suppose her dad was tuned in, listening to this same station? Suppose he had a stroke or a heart attack and no one was there? Lily drove faster, weaving in and out of traffic. Reckless, thoughtless now, and when she reached the ranch, she let herself through the arched iron gate using the keypad.

  It clanged shut behind her with the finality of a cell door, and she stopped, keeping her hands gripped to the wheel. If there was any way not to do it, not to tell her dad that his beloved grandson . . . but there wasn’t. She set her foot back on the accelerator and went up the three-quarter-mile drive to the house, slowly. Her great-grandfather, who had founded the cattle ranch and created the brand, xL, after the family’s surname, Axel, had built the road more than one hundred years ago, clearing an avenue through the live oaks wide enough for horse-drawn wagons or carriages to pass. In those days, the road’s surface had been layered in crushed granite and caliche. Since then, asphalt had been added to the mix, and the trees had grown, becoming thicker trunked and more twisted. They bent over the macadam, old men grasping one another’s shoulders, wheezing in the freshened breeze. Sunlight through their tangled canopies dimpled the uneven pavement. Native grasses spiked with new green and patches of white-and-yellow daisies and bluebonnets past their prime verged on the crumbling edges. Every so often, there were clearings that gave sun-drenched views of juniper-clad limestone outcroppings. The cattle pens, a couple of barns, and the workshop were farther on.

  AJ could be in one of those buildings, Lily thought, or inside any of a number of other outbuildings that dotted the acreage. She crossed the one-lane bridge that arched over Copper Creek, and thought, He could be hiding underneath it. There was more than enough room to conceal a man.

  When the white two-story clapboard farmhouse appeared in her view, the knot in her stomach tightened. The deep L-shaped front porch was empty, the six black-trimmed windows across the front blank. She drove around back, fearful of seeing AJ’s truck, but it wasn’t there. Only the tailgate of her dad’s pickup and the back of the old Jeep he kept for use on the property were visible through the open garage door. Even Winona’s Subaru SUV was absent from its usual spot, and the hope that Lily had been harboring since leaving Dallas—of finding her here—fell to pieces on the floor of her stomach.

  Leaving her car, she went quickly up the steps onto the covered back porch, careful not to slam the screen door behind her, relaxing slightly on registering the scent of cinnamon. Long sticks of the spice, uncut and raw, that Win had relatives ship to her from her native Oaxaca hung from an exposed porch rafter. She used it in everything from hot chocolate to enchilada sauce. Even though Win’s car was missing, Lily half expected to find her in the kitchen, but it was dark and empty, without a whiff of what might have been served at breakfast or lunch. Mystified, pulse tapping, Lily crossed the room, trailing her fingertips along the edge of the marble-topped island as she passed it, briefly aware of the stickiness there and under her shoes. The huge, old porcelain sink was full of dirty dishes; the kitchen towel hanging askew over the oven door handle was grimy. None of this was right.

  The television was on low volume in the living room, tuned to an afternoon game show. But her father’s big leather recliner was as empty as the kitchen. The messy stack of newspapers beside it was topped with his coffee mug and an ashtray that held a half-smoked cigar.

  “Dad?” she called, crossing the room toward his office that overlooked the front porch. “It’s me. Lily.”

  “Huh? What?” He turned from the window to blink at her, and it was there, the bewilderment in his eyes as if he didn’t know her. It had happened a few times before on the occasions when he saw her. There would be seconds of doubt, of outright panic, while he searched his mind, because there was a part of him that realized he should know her. It pained him; she could see evidence of that, too, in his expression. She knew he must hate it, feeling so vulnerable. She was no less disconcerted. It was as if the ground, or perhaps it was something more like the seat of power, was shifting between them. But she couldn’t pause now to sort out all the ways in which they might be affected if he was losing his mental grip.

  “It’s Lily, Dad,” she said gently.

  “I know that,” he answered. “What are you doing here? You didn’t call,” he accused.

  “I have some—news and wanted to tell you in person. Where is Winona?”

  “Gone to Oaxaca.”

  “What? When?”

  “Last Thursday. Her mother died.”

  “Why didn’t she call me?” Lily sat down hard in the club chair across from her father’s desk, nonplussed. She and Win had once talked almost daily about everything and nothing—a book they’d read, a recipe, what Erik and AJ were doing. Lately, though, on the rare occasions when they spoke on the phone, it was only about Lily’s dad. “I didn’t think Win was in touch with her mom, not for years. Since before Erik was born.”

  “She wasn’t.”

  “Did he go with her?” It seemed logical that Erik would accompany his mother, and it would explain why he wasn’t picking up his calls.

  But her dad said, “No. He doesn’t know her people. Win wouldn’t have gone herself if she wasn’t such a good Catholic daughter.”

  Lily held still, feeling the prick of annoyance. She wanted to know how Win could leave without a word when she was the one reminding Lily’s dad to change his shirt. But Lily couldn’t exactly ask her dad that, could she?

  “Before you go off getting your knickers in a knot,” he said, seeming to read her mind, “I made her go. She tried convincing me it would be fine if she didn’t, but I know better. She wanted to make her peace. I wasn’t going to stand in the way of that.”

  “Dad?” Lily said after a moment, and then she stopped and looked at her hands, clenched in her lap.

  “What’s the matter? I’m getting the idea you didn’t come here just to check up on your old man.” He sat at his desk, holding her gaze.

  “I wish you didn’t have to know,” she said.

  “Is it AJ? Has something happened to him?”

  “Yes,” she said, and she went on, keeping it brief, fighting to be matter-of-fact.

 
At first he was visibly pale and seemed shaken, but a moment before she might have gone to him, he slapped his desktop with his open hand and said, “What the hell?” as if she’d left out the vital part, the one that would explain it.

  Lily said, “I was certain he would be here. You haven’t seen him?”

  “No. But you know it’s a lot of horseshit, right?”

  “Paul’s worried they won’t let him off so easily this time.”

  “He wasn’t let off last time, Lily. He was cleared. By the Dallas district attorney’s office. Because they had no evidence. You know as well as I do he tried to stop that guy, tried getting the gun from him. A witness testified to it,” her dad added.

  “When did you last talk to him?”

  “Last weekend. He and Erik came by, scouting a place to roast the pig for the rehearsal dinner.”

  The Hawaiian theme had been AJ’s idea, conceived when he and Shea had decided to forgo a honeymoon in Kailua in favor of saving their money. If they were going to make their shared dream of opening a restaurant serving food they’d grown themselves come true, they would need every cent. The luau was going to be held in the north pasture nearest the house; they could move it into the barn if the weather was bad. Shea and AJ, along with Dru and Winona—and Lily had offered to help out, too—were cooking most of the food themselves. It seemed like an enormous undertaking to Lily. Paul called it total stupidity. The wedding was a lot of do-it-yourself crap, and their woo-woo restaurant plan was an amateur effort that would yield amateur results. They’ll be belly-up inside a year, he’d said. Lily knew he was miffed, even hurt, that AJ hadn’t asked his advice, hadn’t sought out his help. The prediction of AJ’s failure was a salve, a means to feed Paul’s need for vindication. He didn’t tolerate failure, not his own or his son’s.

  “I guess you’ve tried calling AJ.” Her dad eyed Lily from under his brow.

  “Dozens of times.”

  “Did he know the dead girl?”

  “She was a friend of Shea’s, a bridesmaid.”

  “Not the little gal Erik’s engaged to—Kate, isn’t it?”

  “No. Kate is Shea’s maid of honor. This girl—Becca was her name, Becca Westin. The police are saying she and AJ dated—” Lily’s phone sounded, and she bent over the chair’s arm, scrabbling for it inside her purse. But it wasn’t AJ, and straightening, she shook her head at her dad, mouthing, “Shea.”

  “Mrs. Isley?”

  “Yes, Shea, have you heard—”

  “No, I was wondering if you—”

  “—left message after message—can’t believe—”

  “No, I can’t, either.”

  They talked over each other, creating a disjointed hash of unfinished sentences that ended abruptly in an uneasy pause.

  Lily broke it, saying she was at the xL. “I thought he might come here.” To be near Dad and Erik and you. The implication was plain if only to Lily—that AJ would choose the company of his grandfather, his best friend, and his fiancée over that of his mother. She ducked her glance to keep her father from seeing the hurt she knew was in her eyes.

  “AJ didn’t do it, Mrs. Isley.”

  Shea’s voice trembled, but it was the underlying note of her conviction that struck Lily, and she felt a rush of gratitude and relief—and a warm affection that surprised and disconcerted her. “No,” she agreed. “He didn’t.”

  Shea said, “I’m supposed to call the police in Dallas, Sergeant Bushnell. I don’t know why he wants to talk to me, what to say. I don’t know anything.”

  “He told—Sergeant Bushnell told Paul . . .” Lily hesitated, wondering if she should repeat it. What if Shea didn’t know? But this was no time for secrets. They would all come out now, she thought. Even her own might. “The sergeant told Paul that Becca and AJ dated.”

  “Yes, but they broke up over a year ago. Becca introduced me to AJ. She was always taking credit for it, that she hooked us up.”

  “AJ never mentioned—”

  “Oh my God!” Shea interrupted. “Does Sergeant Bushnell suspect me? Is that it? He thinks I killed Becca because I was jealous?”

  Lily considered it, the possibility that Shea could have a motive. Was it so far-fetched to presume Becca’s death was the result of some love triangle gone bad? Were the police investigating that idea?

  “It’s ridiculous,” Shea said, unhappily.

  She ought to agree, Lily thought, but her mind wouldn’t obey. Her tongue sat heavy and unmoving in her mouth.

  “Becca and I were friends—since junior high,” Shea added.

  “Do you know where AJ is?” Lily was wary now, remembering Paul’s admonition to question Shea herself. “When did you last see him or speak to him?”

  “I saw him last Sunday before I left Dallas to come here to my mom’s,” Shea said. “We talked last night. He called me when he left work.”

  “Are you sure he was at work? Because Detective Bushnell told Paul he missed his shift.”

  “AJ wouldn’t lie to me, Mrs. Isley. Sergeant Bushnell better check again.”

  Lily. Call me Lily, she thought but didn’t say, although she had said it before, a number of times.

  Another small silence teetered on a tight wire.

  “What if he’s—” Shea began.

  “No.” Lily cut her off. She didn’t want a thing to do with it, the idea that AJ might be hurt, a victim himself, even though it was clearly conceivable, and she’d brought it up to Paul. She’d know if something terrible had happened to him, wouldn’t she? She would feel it. She was AJ’s mother, and regardless of her mistakes, that tie was implicit, with its own infallible means of communication. Hadn’t she always heard that?

  “I’ve been calling everyone I know from school,” Shea said. “No one’s seen him or heard from him. I don’t know what to do. I think we should make flyers and post them in Dallas, around AJ’s apartment. We need to get the word out here, too, around town, in case—”

  “Tomorrow,” Lily said. “Let’s not do anything until tomorrow.” She was thinking if AJ was close by, if he saw the police, it would drive him away. He would be remembering last time; he would know what he was in for, how it could play out. Even in his innocence, he wouldn’t risk his freedom. Ending the call, Lily stowed her phone in her purse.

  “She know anything?” her dad asked.

  “I’m not sure. She seems nervous that the police suspect her. If AJ was seeing Becca, and Shea knew . . .” Lily paused when her dad raised his hand in a dismissive gesture.

  “AJ isn’t the cheating kind. You know that as well as me.”

  She would like to, Lily thought. But how well did anyone know another person? In her own lifetime, she had acted in ways and made decisions that in retrospect completely amazed her for their spectacular and blind stupidity. How could she judge what someone else would do, even her own son?

  “Leaving AJ out of it,” her dad went on, “Shea is awfully small. She doesn’t look like much of a fighter. Does she weigh a hundred pounds?”

  “Maybe just,” Lily said.

  “You realize AJ could be in trouble himself.” Her dad repeated the ongoing concern, the only realistic alternative that would support AJ’s innocence, the very scenario Lily hadn’t wanted to discuss with Shea.

  Should she pray for that? Lily wondered. Pray her son was endangered?

  “Whoever did kill the girl—they could have him,” her dad continued. “Or he could be running scared, thinking because of all that other business back in the day—” He got up. “Let’s go.”

  “Where?” Lily stood up, too.

  “You’ve got your boots on. Let’s take a ride. If AJ’s around here, we need to find him before the police do.”

  He echoed Lily’s plan; her intention in coming here had been to hunt for her son, but outside, when her father headed for the garage, pulling his truck keys from his pocket, she stopped, watching him. “Dad?”

  He turned to her, eyes sharp, impatient.

  “I
thought you said you wanted to ride.”

  His expression went totally blank, the way it had when she’d first arrived. It filled the space of one heartbeat, perhaps two, before his eyes cleared, but as he repocketed his keys, the pain the lapse caused him showed in the angle of his bowed head, the low, defeated curve of his shoulders.

  “I’ll get the horses from the pasture and bring them to the barn,” Lily said, and her voice was so bright, he flinched.

  Lily had sat on a horse before she could crawl. When she was a girl, her dad had liked to tell people that. He’d liked to say that when she rode, she was poetry in motion. It had embarrassed her even as it thrilled her, seeing his face take on the sheen of pride. He had glowed like the shiny half-dollars he’d handed her sometimes when she was a little girl and she’d done a chore to his liking. He, Lily, and Winona had taught Erik and AJ to ride, too, and for a while, until the boys graduated high school, if the five of them were together at the ranch, they’d saddle up before dawn and ride out to the east ridge to watch the sunrise. The boys had learned to rope and brand livestock and cut hay. They could mend a fence. Summers they’d entered rodeo competitions to show off. It had always made Lily and Winona smile, seeing the way they’d swagger, watching from under their hat brims to see what girl was looking. Both Lily and Win had drawn the line, though, at tobacco chewing, and been glad for it when Lily’s dad backed them up.

  Lily was remembering all this as she walked her dad’s palomino, Sharkey, and her own dainty paint mare, Butternut, back to the barn. They said you could tell a lot about a person by the sort of horse they rode. She’d never questioned her dad’s choice of a stallion. He and Sharkey were a lot alike, both of them hardheaded, irascible, and determined to be in control. Sharkey was old now, nearly as old as her dad in horse years, but he still stepped sharply, and she was still wary of him.

  In the barn, she handed Sharkey off to her dad, and they set about saddling the horses in silence.

  Her dad broke it. “I know you’re scared, Sissy.”

  She had her hands on the front cinch of her saddle, testing that it wasn’t too snug, when he said it, and she bowed her head to Butternut’s neck, listening to her blow gently through her nostrils. How long had it been since her dad had called her Sissy? Not since she’d gotten into all the trouble in Arizona. She’d been scared then, too, and in sore need of his comfort.