“Harlan didn’t take the news well. He said something to my dad to the effect that the richer a man was, the harder he could fall.”
“That sounds like a threat,” Shea said.
“You said he was abusive to Kate. Did he hurt Becca, too?” Lily asked.
“Not that I know of, but he did hit Kate one time in the arm. That was all it took. She broke it off.”
This was news to Dru. But like most best friends, the girls had always kept secrets.
“Did it happen recently?” Lily asked.
“Around six months ago, right before Kate and Erik started going out. Harlan stalked her, too, and Erik wanted her to get a restraining order, but Harlan stopped, or so they thought. Now I’m not so sure.”
Dru said, “You do realize that finding who did this to Becca or Kate, getting justice for them—it won’t bring them back.”
“I can’t just go home, Mom.”
“Well, I can’t ignore the risk for you, Vanessa, or Leigh. Their parents are upset, and I am, too.” Dru found Lily’s glance in the rearview. “The break-in at the ranch—I heard money and jewelry were taken. It was AJ, wasn’t it?”
“That’s what the police thought, but the truth is that Dad—” Lily looked off, uncomfortable. Dru thought she might not explain after all, but then she looked back. “The truth is Dad is having some issues with his memory.”
“You’re saying he got the money out of the safe?” An unexpected flush of sympathy warmed Dru’s tone.
“Yes,” Lily said. “There have been a few incidents lately. I want—I hope to get him to see a doctor.”
“Well, that’s awful—a man like Jeb Axel—”
“Does AJ know? He must be heartbroken.” Shea sounded stricken. “He loves his granddad so much.”
“I haven’t talked to him about it,” Lily said, “but I plan to. I will . . .”
She couldn’t be sure anymore that she would, Dru thought. She caught Lily’s glance again. “How did you know to look for AJ’s truck at the lake?”
“I had a dream. It was the oddest thing—so vivid. We were swimming—”
Dru interrupted her. “He called you again, didn’t he? I bet you know where he is.”
“No. No, I don’t,” Lily insisted.
But the way she dodged Dru’s glance, the evasive shift of her shoulders, made her look guilty. She knew—something. Dru was convinced of it, and it pissed her off. She rounded her seat back. “Would you even tell the police if you knew where he was?”
“I keep asking myself that.” Lily’s gaze was unflinching now. “Do you know what you would do if you were in my place? Would you turn Shea in?”
Dru didn’t know what she’d do. Protect her child, but how far? At what cost?
“I feel like Harlan Cate’s involved.” Shea broke the silence. “He’s the one who knows where AJ is.”
“He’s a big man,” Lily said.
“The same size as AJ,” Shea said. “It would have taken someone big to take AJ out of his apartment.”
Lily bent forward. “Maybe if I go with you . . .”
“You can’t be serious.” Dru met her gaze in the mirror. “Do you even know where he lives?”
“The Little Grove RV Park,” Shea answered. “On 1620, past Decker’s Auto Salvage.”
“I know where it is,” Dru said, “and I know the folks who live there aren’t the sort you want to mess with.”
“I don’t think Harlan will try anything if I’m there,” Lily said. “When he threatened Dad, Clint—Captain Mackie—paid him a visit. Harlan will know if anything happens to me, the police will come looking for him.”
“If that’s true”—Dru eyed Lily in the rearview—“why isn’t the captain showing an interest in questioning Harlan now concerning the whereabouts of Jeb’s grandson?”
“Mom, please, if you don’t want to go, then I’ll go with Mrs.—with Lily.”
Dru glanced at Shea. She’d done it, called Lily by her first name. Dru had grappled with it, the idea that once Shea married AJ, Lily would be a mother to her of sorts, the dreaded mother-in-law. Their relationship to date had been cool. Shea had remarked on it, how awkward she felt around Lily. I don’t know what to say to her. I don’t think she likes me. Dru had advised Shea to give Lily time even as she’d fumed over Lily’s treatment of Shea. But that aloofness was nowhere in sight now.
It was the side effect of calamity, Dru thought. It forged bonds among the unlikeliest of people. “I don’t know what either of you expects,” she said, but she was already shifting the car into reverse. “It’s not as if Harlan Cate is going to invite us in for tea and confess.”
The turnoff into the RV park was so choked with underbrush that Dru would have missed it if she hadn’t known its location. The road itself, narrow and crudely surfaced, cut through a towering forest of oaks. Gradually, as Dru drove more deeply into the neighborhood, the light dimmed, the air cooled. Other roads leading off the main access road disappeared around curves, dipped into shadowy hollows. Wheeled homes were strung along the various routes in a haphazard pattern. Some rested flat on the ground like they’d gone their last mile. They all looked rough, beat-up and done. Dru wouldn’t have lived in one of them. She caught Shea’s eyes and then Lily’s, seeing her own apprehension mirrored in their expressions. She waited for one of them to say it, that they had no business here, that they should go and let the cops handle Harlan Cate, but no one spoke.
They found Harlan’s place by accident at the end of a cul-de-sac. Shea spotted his motorcycle, black with silver trim that sparkled in the light, and at her instruction, when Dru pulled over, it was against her better judgment. The man who lived here, in this busted tin can of a home, with his shiny new motorcycle parked beside it like a guard dog, would be some kind of renegade, a society dropout, a tough guy. No one she cared to tangle with. “We should leave this to the police,” she said, and she raised her hand, cutting off Shea’s protest. “We can go to the sheriff in Greeley. Questioning this man ourselves is just plain foolish.”
Lily leaned forward. “Harlan knows me. Let me talk to him. You and Shea can wait here.”
Dru looked at her, considering. “I’ll go with you,” she said after a moment. “I’ve got my .38 in my purse. We’ll leave Shea here.”
“Mom, for God’s sake, I’m not a child.” Shea opened the SUV’s door, jaw clamped in a stubborn line.
Heaving a sigh, Dru and Lily followed her out of the car.
The wind had picked up. It caught at the car doors, and at Dru’s hair. It plucked at her shirt, buffeted the legs of her cropped jeans. She grabbed her purse and wedged it beneath her arm. Her mouth was dry, her breath shallow. She had never pointed a gun at anything but a target before. Her instructor had talked about it, the cool detachment required should you encounter the need to defend yourself, if the target were to become human. Dru had questioned whether she’d have that kind of nerve. But she knew now that if anyone were to endanger Shea, she would do what had to be done. She would shoot them down without hesitation.
Lily led the way, but before she reached the step to the front door, it opened. The man who appeared was big, as Shea had described him, well over six feet, long-haired, tattooed, and barefoot. Older than Dru had thought. Thirtysomething, at least. And astonished to see them on the rock-strewn patch of earth that aproned his front door.
“What the hell?” he said. “You ladies come to sell me something, I don’t want any.”
“Harlan? I’m Lily Isley. Do you remember me? Jeb Axel’s daughter.”
“You come to offer me my job back?”
“Um, no—”
“Then I got nothing to say except you can tell your old man to shove it.” He backed up, started to close the door.
“Wait,” Lily called out.
Dru was surprised when he did.
“We—I was wondering—have you seen AJ? Maybe in the Cedar Ridge Canyon Park or Monarch Lake area?”
“You’re asking b
ecause you, what, think your son and I are buddies? What in the hell are you up to, lady?”
“You know he’s missing, the circumstances.” Lily took a step.
Dru shifted her purse from her side to her front. A pulse tapped in her ears.
Shea said, “What about Kate Kincaid or Becca Westin? When was the last time you saw them?”
Dru wanted to clap her hand over Shea’s mouth; she wanted to grab Shea and run. Instead, she inched her hand into her purse, closed her fingers around the butt of the revolver. It startled her when, looking up, her eyes collided with Harlan’s. She knew he’d seen her, knew she was out of her depth. What fools they’d been, coming here.
“I think someone took AJ, that they’re holding him.” Lily’s voice was stretched thin like a wire on the point of breaking.
“You think I’ve got him here? Are you shitting me?”
Lily didn’t answer. There was only the sound of the wind. Dru’s pulse hammered in her ears. What had Kate or Becca ever seen in this guy? The question hung in her mind.
“Jesus Christ.” Harlan laughed a little, looking bemused. “You’re serious. You think I took the kid for revenge against your old man for firing me? Or, hell, maybe I’m holding him hostage, for ransom.” He paused as if to consider. “Not a bad idea. Wish I’d thought of it.”
“What about Kate?” Shea asked again. “When did you last see her?”
“Shea.” Dru breathed her name softly. “Let’s go.”
“No, Mom. He needs to answer. You were in a relationship with both of my friends, Harlan.” Shea wasn’t backing down. Dru tightened her grip on the gun.
“So?” he said. “That bitch Kate ditched me for fucking Pedro fucking greaser. I heard she’s engaged—”
“She’s dead. They’re both dead, asshole.” Shea said it flatly, baldly.
Harlan’s eyes widened; he looked freaked out, but the moment was gone so fast, Dru thought she might have imagined it.
“You need to git on out of here,” he said.
“I told the cops in town about you,” Shea said. “I told Captain Mackie you hurt Kate. That’s why she broke it off with you. I told him you stalked her.”
“Git! Now! Or am I gonna have to run you off?”
“I’m not afraid of you, Harlan Cate,” Shea said.
“Is that AJ’s toolbox?” Lily spoke so quietly Dru thought she was the only one who heard her. The gray metal box that had caught her attention was sitting on a concrete block next to the RV. She started toward it.
“Goddamn it,” Harlan muttered. “You women are out of your fucking minds.” Grabbing the box, he retreated into the RV, slamming the door behind him. But suddenly he was back, holding a shotgun, pointing it at them. Dru would never remember it, pulling out her .38, but there it was in plain view. She dropped her purse, assuming the stance she’d learned from her instructor, gun butt clenched in both hands. “Shea, Lily, go to the car. Now!” she shouted when neither one of them moved.
“It’s AJ’s toolbox,” Lily said. “I recognize it.”
“You’re crazy,” Harlan said. “Now, git!” He brandished the gun.
Dru cocked the revolver’s hammer. That move got Harlan’s attention.
He said, “You’re probably just lunatic enough to fire that damn thing, ain’t you?”
“Please go to the car,” Dru said, addressing Lily and Shea. Grabbing her purse in her free hand, she backed toward her SUV, feeling gratified when they did the same, moving slowly, keeping pace.
Harlan stepped down out of the RV.
Dru kept the gun aimed at him; she didn’t turn her back, none of them did, until they reached the car. It was as if by prearrangement that while Dru stood guard, Lily ran around to the driver’s seat, yanking open the door. Shea took Dru’s purse and found the car keys, passing them to Lily. Dru was barely inside before Lily gunned the SUV into a U-turn, flooring it up the hill. Spewing gravel, she turned right onto the main access road. Dru looked out the back window past the pale oval of Shea’s face, hunting in their wake for a sign of Harlan, chasing them on his motorcycle. But he didn’t appear. They reached the highway, and Lily made a second right turn, tires squealing, barely checking for oncoming traffic.
They were halfway to town before Dru asked, “Is everyone all right?” She turned to Shea.
“He’s such a jerk,” she said, and her voice was sharp, furious.
Dru was relieved.
Lily said, “I know that was AJ’s toolbox.”
“Are you sure?” Dru asked, glancing at her. “I have one like it. They sell them everywhere, Home Depot, Lowe’s. I think I got mine at Walmart.”
Lily didn’t answer for a moment, then she said softly, “Maybe I only wanted it to be AJ’s toolbox.”
She looked exhausted. Beaten, Dru thought. She would have wanted Harlan to be the guilty one. She might have prayed for it to be true. But in her heart she knew better. In her heart, she would, at some point, have to come to grips with the fact that her son wasn’t a hostage but a murderer. And Shea—Shea was going to have to face it, too, that AJ was not the man, the hero, she’d believed him to be, but a monster who, until recently, had been hiding in plain sight.
15
Back at the police station in Wyatt, Lily parked Dru’s SUV next to her BMW.
“I’m going to the sheriff in Greeley about Harlan,” Shea said to her when Dru got out to come around to the driver’s side. “Do you want to come with me?”
“There’s so much evidence now against AJ.” It made Lily sick, thinking about it.
“You don’t believe it?”
It was an accusation, or that was how Lily perceived Shea’s astonishment. “I don’t know what to believe.” Lily felt like a traitor. “I’m sorry. I don’t mean to let you down.”
“It’s not me you’re letting down, Mrs. Isley. It’s AJ.”
The words, the way Shea was back to addressing her as Mrs. Isley, were like a slap across Lily’s face, one she probably deserved. She sounded as if she’d given up—on her own son.
Had she?
“That was some kind of driving you did,” Dru said when Lily got out.
“Thanks,” Lily said. “I was glad you had your gun. I don’t know that Harlan isn’t involved somehow. I don’t trust him.” She looked into the middle distance. “I used to know someone like him once. He was dangerous, the way a snake is, in ways you never see coming.” Lily didn’t know why she was bringing up Jesse, but the memory was there, clear in her mind. Jesse and Harlan were the same sort—men on the margins. Bikers, outlaws.
Dru got into her car. “If you hear anything . . .”
Lily nodded. “You, too.”
Her dad called as she was getting into her BMW.
“Where are you?” he asked. “Mackie said you left the WPD with the Gallaghers, Dru and her daughter. He said there was quite a scene.”
“I wouldn’t go that far, Dad. Did Clint tell you that Kate Kincaid was found dead at Cedar Ridge Canyon this morning?”
He’d heard, her dad said. He knew about the lotus-blossom charm and all the rest, too.
“There’s so much evidence now, Dad, and all of it points to AJ. The police are refusing to consider anyone else.”
“Yeah, but they’re dead wrong. Mackie’s saying as soon as I can bring him proof it’s someone different, he’ll consider them.”
“Shea gave him someone else, and he’s refusing to follow up.”
“Who?”
“Remember Harlan Cate?”
“The guy who worked for me? He’s got a mean streak, sure enough, but what’s his connection to the girls?”
“They both dated him.”
“He doesn’t seem like their type.”
Lily ran her fingertip along the arc of the steering wheel. Jesse hadn’t seemed like her type, either. “We went to see him—Dru, Shea, and I.”
“You went to see Harlan? Lily, for God’s sake, the guy’s a powder keg.”
“Yes, but tha
t’s exactly it. He’s got the temperament, the reputation. He was abusive to Kate, and later, once she broke it off, he stalked her. He threatened you. He could have done this, Dad. He could have driven AJ’s truck to the lake after he killed Becca. He could have left the knife inside it and set it on fire. He could have pushed Kate off the ridge and left the lotus-blossom charm there. He’s framing AJ, making it look as if AJ is the murderer when it’s him.” Lily stared through the windshield. Was it true? Was it even plausible?
“Did you ask him?”
“He denied it.” Lily decided not to mention the guns, Dru’s .38, Harlan’s shotgun. “Maybe Shea’s right and we should go to the sheriff in Greeley since Clint won’t do anything.”
“All those guys work together, though. The blue wall. You know.” Her dad didn’t sound encouraging.
“I’m coming home now,” she said. “I’ll fix lunch. We can figure out what to do.”
Her dad agreed. The call ended, and Lily checked her messages.
There were two, one from Paul: “Where in the hell are you? I just got a call from Bushnell. You found AJ’s truck? The goddamn knife out of his kitchen? And I have to hear about it from a cop? Jesus. Call me.”
A second message was from Edward. He had information, he said. The sound of his voice conjured up his face, the smallest details. She loved his smile, the intent way he looked at her when she spoke, as if he cared about her words, as if it mattered to him what she had to say. She had told him her story, and he had heard her out without a sign of censure or judgment. He had offered her comfort, instead. Comfort. Of all things.
Paul wasn’t a comforter, nor did he welcome it. He would scoff at the idea.
She tapped Edward’s number on her screen.
“I’ve got some news,” he said when he answered. “Maybe good. I’m not sure yet.”
“I could use it if it’s good,” she said.
“I heard you found AJ’s truck and possibly the murder weapon.” Edward spoke gently. “How did you know to go to Monarch Lake?”
Lily told him about her dream.
“It doesn’t surprise me,” he said when she’d finished. “I know you don’t believe it, but your connection to AJ is stronger—deeper—than I think you’re aware of.”
The Truth We Bury: A Novel Page 18