The Truth We Bury: A Novel

by Barbara Taylor Sissel

  “Dad?” she called.

  He came to the doorway. “C’mon. I’ve got the crowbar and a mallet if we have to bust the glass.”

  Lily held up the two bundles of cash.

  His eyes flared. “What the hell?”

  “It’s the money from the safe, Dad. All five thousand.”

  “Why would AJ leave it here?”

  “He didn’t take it.”

  “Then who did?”

  Lily didn’t answer.

  It was possibly a full minute before he took her meaning, but she saw it happen—the flash of pained comprehension in his eyes, followed by the darker shadow of his shame. Almost instantly, though, his mouth twisted; his expression hardened, a stubborn knot of denial. “C’mon, we don’t have time to talk about it now.”

  Lily followed him from the barn, wordless, needing him to be all right, praying that he was, that his mental clarity of the moment would hold.

  They took the Jeep. She drove, retracing the same route she’d driven before dawn. If she hadn’t seen the rain earlier, she wouldn’t have believed any had fallen. The road was dry; the sky soared overhead, high and blue, almost laughably innocent of any blemish. Coming up to Winona’s house, she said, “There was a light on earlier.”

  Her dad looked past her, through the driver’s-side window. “There’s not now,” he answered.

  Once they got to the clearing and made their way to the truck, it took him several minutes, working the pry bar, to get the truck door open, and then he did what she couldn’t have—he leaned into the cab, through both doors, front and back, shoving the charred debris around, hunting for evidence of the horror neither one had put into words.

  “There’s nothing here.” He straightened. He was black to his forearms. Even his face, sheened with sweat, looked dusted with charcoal.

  He should have worn gloves. They should have brought water. Lily’s thoughts distracted her from the plague of her anxiety that even now was shot through with a bone-lightening sense of reprieve. “What is it, rolled up back there?”

  “A tarp. I found this under it.” He held the knife, an eight-inch chef’s knife, by the silver endcap, between his thumb and index finger.

  Lily’s heart bucked against her ribs. It was one of a set, a Shun chef’s starter set she had bought for AJ a year ago. She’d had his initials, AJI, engraved on the bolster.

  “You recognize it?” her dad asked.

  “It’s AJ’s,” she said.

  Her dad locked her gaze. “That girl was stabbed.”

  “Yes,” Lily answered.

  “Last I heard, they hadn’t found the murder weapon.”

  “No.”

  Her dad bent at the waist and laid the knife carefully on the ground between them.

  “What should we do?” Lily asked when he straightened.

  “I don’t know,” he said.

  “Should we call the police?”

  “Is that what you want to do?”

  “I want to know AJ is safe.”

  Her dad shifted his gaze. “When they hear we found his truck, the condition it’s in, burned up with a knife inside it, you know it’ll just confirm what they already suspect.”

  Lily hugged her arms around herself, looking through the trees at the lake. “Do you want to wash up? There are some rags in the Jeep.” Not waiting for his answer, she went to get them. When she came back, her dad was standing at the water’s edge.

  He said, “You know that day when AJ almost drowned—you know that wasn’t your fault.”

  “I shouldn’t have panicked.” Squatting, she dampened a rag, wrung it out, and handed it to him. He wiped his face and neck. Taking it from him when he was done, she rinsed it, wrung it out, and handed it back to him again. They repeated the routine two more times until he’d gotten all the grime he could wiped away. Still, they didn’t leave the shore but stood together, watching the water. That was when she told him about the dream and how when she’d wakened from it, she’d known to come here.

  “This was the spot? Where you and AJ were when it happened?”

  “Yes,” she said. “The boat came from over there.” She pointed to her right, east, she thought.

  “Well, maybe you did panic,” her dad said, “but you recovered. You did what you had to do. You got hold of your boy and got him to land. You saved him. Anybody looking at it any other way is a fool.”

  Did he mean Paul had been a fool to take AJ’s care out of her hands all those years ago?

  “I didn’t speak up then,” he said, “but I should have. I should have,” he repeated, and his voice caught.

  “Oh, Dad,” Lily said, and she set her hand on his back.

  “Are you sure you want to go to the police station with me?” Lily looked at her dad over the roof of the Jeep.

  He kept her glance.

  She thought he knew the direction she was going in. “They assume the safe was broken into,” she said, “that it’s AJ who took the money. We can’t let them—”

  “You think it was me, that I opened the safe and don’t remember. You think my mind is slipping.” He sounded resigned, and it was almost worse, hearing that, than the angry reaction Lily had been anticipating.

  “I think you should see a doctor,” she said.

  He lifted his hat and ran his hand over his head, before resettling it. “Yeah,” he said. “We can talk about it, I guess.”

  “There are drugs nowadays, Dad, that can help. There are things you can do with diet and exercise.”

  “I’m not losing my goddamn mind.” He glared at her, but he was trembling, vulnerable in a way Lily had never seen him. Her heart broke for him even as she was seized with a fierce need to protect him.

  They got into the Jeep.

  “I’ll drop you at the ranch, then go into town to the police station. I want to get my car, anyway.”

  “What will you tell them?”

  “About the cash? I’ll say I did it, that I got out the money and forgot to tell you.”

  “What about your mother’s jewelry? I’ve got no damn recollection where I—”

  “We’ll find it. I’ll help you look when I get back.”

  He drummed his fingers on his knees. He was sorry, he said. “For the whole damn mess.” His voice was thick.

  She patted his hand. “Me, too,” she said.

  He asked again if she was sure about going to the cops. “You know how it’ll look, finding that knife in AJ’s truck.”

  “I can’t help how it looks. I have to know where he is, if he’s all right. That’s the only thing that matters now.”

  “It’s possible he won’t thank you.”

  She jerked her glance to her dad’s. If AJ had done it, if he was guilty of murder, her dad meant. “I’ll worry about that later.”

  “Okay, then, if you’re dead set on finding him, you need police help to do it.”

  Lily saw the sun-faded red SUV when she pulled into the WPD parking lot, and her heartbeat slowed. It looked much like the one Dru had been driving when she and Shea had come to the xL on Thursday. Something’s happened, she thought. She went quickly up the walkway, but stepping through the door, she was hit by a blast of air so cold it took what was left of her breath. She paused, getting her bearings. Across from her, the counter that served as the duty desk was unmanned, which was no surprise. The Wyatt PD was perennially shorthanded.

  “Mrs. Isley?”

  She looked up. Shea was coming through a swinging door behind the counter, Dru in her wake. Both women were red-eyed. From crying? Exhaustion? “What’s happened?” Lily asked, but then, suddenly she knew. “The police have found AJ.”

  “No,” Shea said.

  “What is it, then?” Lily asked, and her voice was sharp, but in her distress, she couldn’t help it.

  “Kate, Kate Kincaid.” Shea lifted her hand to touch her face, or perhaps her hair, but then it faltered midway, as if she’d forgotten it was there.

  “Kate is—was—Shea’s ma
id of honor,” Dru said.

  “Yes?” Lily knew that.

  “She’s dead.” Shea lowered her hand.

  “What?” Lily was incredulous. “When?”

  “This morning. She was hiking at Cedar Ridge Canyon. She was supposed to meet Erik at Bella Vista, but they got their wires crossed, and when she didn’t show up, Erik figured she must have gone to Cedar Ridge by mistake. He went there to check. The police were already there. A couple of other hikers had found Kate and called 911.”

  “He was just telling me about their engagement.” Lily felt winded. “He must be devastated. All of you must be. I’m so sorry.”

  Shea said, “I can’t get my mind around it. She was my best friend, like a sister.”

  “Is Erik here with you?” Lily asked.

  “He’s at her mom and dad’s,” Shea answered. “He didn’t want them hearing what had happened from a stranger, or on the news. That’s how Mom and I found out. It was awful.”

  “The police don’t think it was an accident,” Dru said in a manner that seemed pointed, ominous.

  Shea pulled a delicate chain from inside her shirt. “You know I bought these lotus-blossom charms, one for me and one for AJ—they found one on the trail, above where Kate fell.”

  Lily felt her blood cool.

  “There were signs of a struggle.” Dru said. “The police think it was AJ, that he attacked her, that he was stalking her.”

  “I heard the sirens,” Lily said. “I was at Monarch Lake. I—I found AJ’s truck—”

  “Lily?”

  She glanced up. “Oh, Clint.” She knew Clint Mackie, the Wyatt police department captain, in another, friendlier capacity, as a hunting buddy of her dad’s. “Shea and Dru were just telling me about Kate.”

  “Jeb called a while ago and said you were on your way in.”

  Clint’s look was trenchant, probing, as if Lily and her father, and their actions, were somehow suspect, and she realized she’d be foolish to consider he was anything other than her adversary. “Dad told you I found the truck?”

  “Why don’t you come on back and we’ll talk in my office.”

  “We can talk right here,” Lily said, because Shea and even Dru had a right to hear of her discovery. They’d know soon enough anyway.

  “All right.” Mackie leaned against the duty counter. “Jeb said the truck was burned?”

  Shea inhaled so sharply that Lily turned to her immediately, reassuring her. “No, no, AJ wasn’t there.”

  “It was his truck for sure, though?” Shea asked.

  “Yes.” Lily paused. She didn’t want to tell the rest, but she had to. “We found a knife, a chef’s knife under a tarp. A Shun, from the set I gave AJ last year.”

  “Oh my God,” Dru said. “What more proof—”

  “All that means,” Shea said, “is that whoever killed Becca took the knife and AJ’s truck from his apartment, and AJ, too. Can’t you see that, Mom?” Shea looked at Captain Mackie.

  He said, “Sergeant Carter is on his way there now to retrieve the vehicle. It’ll likely go to Dallas, along with the knife and any other evidence they find.”

  “So that’s it?” Lily flung out her hands. “You’ve made up your minds; you and your counterparts in Dallas have decided my son killed these girls? You know AJ, Clint. You know he isn’t capable.”

  “There’s quite a lot involved here that you may not be aware of, Lily. For instance, did you know a note, written in lip liner, was found on Ms. Westin’s body?”

  “He just told me about it,” Shea said, indicating Clint.

  “I heard about it, too,” Lily said, not citing Edward as her source. Fixed you . . . The note’s message hovered in her mind.

  “Another note was found yesterday evening under the windshield wiper of Leigh Martindale’s car,” Clint said. “Someone left it while she was parked outside the Gallaghers’. It was also written in lip liner.”

  “It said, ‘I’m sorry for hurting you. I’m in trouble and I don’t think I can stop.’” Dru sounded accusatory, as if Lily had been the author.

  “In addition to the notes,” Clint went on smoothly, “there’s evidence that Ms. Kincaid and Ms. Westin exchanged several texts on the day Becca was murdered.”

  “Is that suspicious?” Lily asked.

  “Not in and of itself, but taken along with everything else—”

  “What’s suspicious,” Dru said, “is that Kate didn’t mention she and Becca had texted until last night, when the police came about the note Leigh found. Kate hadn’t even told Shea about the texts, and they told each other everything.”

  “Are you saying she knew something about Becca’s murder, Mom?”

  “No!” Dru seemed horrified by the idea, but maybe it was only pretense.

  “Sticking to the facts,” Clint said, and he ticked them off on his fingers as he named them. “A piece of jewelry, a vehicle, and the possible weapon used in Becca Westin’s murder—all items belonging to AJ—were found in the same vicinity where Ms. Kincaid was hiking.”

  “Why would AJ follow Kate, Captain Mackie? Why would he stalk her? What’s his motive? Can you answer that? No, I didn’t think so.” Shea was derisive.

  “Are you going to keep patrolling our neighborhood, and Vanessa’s and Leigh’s neighborhoods?” Dru asked. “None of us is safe until this maniac”—she paused to glance sidelong at Lily, and Lily saw the accusation, the clear conviction in Dru’s eyes that AJ was the maniac—“the person,” Dru amended, out of pity, perhaps, “is caught.”

  Mackie said he’d run a car by as often as he could spare an officer. “We’re pretty shorthanded. You know how it is.”

  “What I know,” Dru said, “is that there’s a murderer running loose, and it appears my daughter and the members of her bridal party are targets. You need to get off your ass and catch this guy before another one of these girls comes to harm. Catching bad guys, it’s what you’re paid to do, isn’t it?”

  Clint reddened and looked to Lily as if she might defend him. Dru glanced at Lily, too, but she looked at the floor, tense, fuming. How either of them—Mackie or Dru—could expect support from her was a mystery. She was grateful for it, though, when Shea took a step toward her. It was tiny, almost imperceptible, but a sign of support all the same.

  Mackie mentioned the break-in. “I guess from what Jeb said, it’s no longer an issue?”

  Lily gave her head a small shake, hoping that would be the end of it. It wasn’t.

  “I heard about that,” Dru said.

  Lily could feel her gaze. It’s not your business. She was on the verge of telling Dru, of making it clear, when Clint said, “I understand,” in a way that let her know her dad had been honest. She couldn’t imagine what it had cost him, admitting to his mental lapse, something so humiliating. He would have been thinking of AJ, though, wanting to get him clear of that suspicion at least.

  Clint said, “Okay, ladies, if we’re done here—”

  “No,” Shea said. “We’re not done.” She looked at Lily now, brow knotted, jaw set in a stubborn line. “I know who murdered Kate and Becca. I told him”—she jerked her thumb at the captain—“but he’s refusing to investigate.”

  “If you can bring me something concrete—” Clint began.

  Shea kept Lily’s glance. “Becca and Kate both dated this guy—Becca only went out with him a couple of times, but he and Kate got kind of serious until he abused her.”

  “As I explained before, Shea, if you can bring me evidence, a police report. Proof of injury. I need something more than your word before I can question the guy.”

  “Fine,” Shea said. “I’ll do it myself, then.” She headed out the door.

  “I don’t advise it,” Clint called after her.

  “Shea!” Dru followed her daughter.

  “You’re sure about this guy, that he’s the one who hurt the girls? Does he have AJ? Do you know?” Lily asked, catching up with Shea and Dru outside.

  “Probably, yes,” S
hea answered. “But no one believes me. Not even my own mother.”

  “I didn’t say I didn’t believe you,” Dru protested. “You need to let the police handle it, that’s all. If it’s true, we are not talking some minor act of delinquency; the man is dangerous. He could be a killer, for God’s sake. You can’t go there. I won’t have you getting hurt, too.”

  “Two of my friends are dead.” Shea addressed Lily, nearly shouting. “One of them was my best friend in all the world. And my fiancé, the man I love more than anything, is gone, lost somewhere, in trouble, terrible trouble, and Mom wants me to go home and lock the doors.”

  “I want you to be safe.”

  I know. Lily’s understanding of Dru was automatic and visceral and had nothing to do with her dislike of Dru. It was something universal to mothers, the instinct to protect her child. “Who is the man?” Lily asked.

  “Harlan Cate,” Shea answered, and on hearing the quick intake of Lily’s breath, she asked, “Do you know him?”

  “I do,” Lily said. “I certainly do.”

  14

  Harlan worked for my dad,” Lily said.

  Dru and Shea had gotten into the car to escape the midday heat. It had been at Shea’s invitation that Lily joined them. Left up to Dru, they wouldn’t be having this conversation.

  “Really?” Shea was animated. “Was he—did he have a temper that you saw?”

  “I remember he got into a couple of fights. He was a hard worker, though, and Dad kept him on until he sold the herd last year.” Lily took a moment.

  “What?” Shea asked.

  Looking at Lily in the rearview mirror, Dru saw it, too—the flash of misgiving that crossed Lily’s expression.