Finally he says, “You’re right. She was there.”
It feels like a gut punch, but I recover quickly, because I’m expecting it. “Then you should have told them about it in the first place, and that makes me wonder why you didn’t. Just like it’s going to make them wonder why you didn’t. Are you guilty of something, Reeve? Did something go wrong with that woman?”
“No. I can’t believe you’re even asking me that, Ali.” His eyes are locked on mine, almost cold.
It’s not comforting. People think liars have shifting eyes, and novice liars do, but accomplished deceivers do the opposite. They hold theirs still, too still, and that’s the giveaway. Their stares become fixed and their calmness feels anything but reassuring. But it’s not like I think Reeve is an accomplished liar. I have no reason to surmise that, other than the fact that I know he had some rough years as a youngster, and most teens who have juvie experiences know how to toss out a good story. I shake it off and plow ahead. “Are you kidding me?” I reply. “Of course I’m going to ask you that. What do you think this is? A woman has been murdered. This is serious shit. Why didn’t you tell them she was with you last night?”
“I don’t know. It felt wrong, like they already had me pegged.” His glance slides to my desktop, and I feel like I’m at least getting part of the truth. “Like they were looking for anything to hang on me, and I didn’t feel like giving it to them, okay? I didn’t even know what happened to her, and they kept stringing it out, not telling me, like they were baiting me. It pissed me off.”
“And you’re so stupid that you can’t figure out that, by lying, you just did give them a reason to peg it on you?”
Reeve lowers his chin like an angry, pouting child, and I see where Emily gets that look. I think of Toni with the same expression in the principal’s room, annoyed at me for telling her not to talk to Sara Seafeldt, and years later, every time she got busted by my mom or me for swiping money from us for pot and eventually harder drugs.
Finally Reeve says, “I know it was stupid of me. I got nervous, okay? I didn’t know what to do, and then, as the interview went on, it just got harder to come clean, especially when I wasn’t even sure what kind of a game they were playing with me.”
I draw a deep breath and shake my head at his utter foolishness. I’ve dealt with this type many times before in my job and, guilty or not, I’m incensed by the fact that I’ve had a child with someone senseless enough to follow the same slippery path as every other thug I’ve come into contact with over the years in my job. I think of my own father with his selfish lies and omissions of the truth to both my mom and to Toni and me. The times he said he couldn’t get off work and couldn’t make it to take us for the day, when later we’d find out he was simply drunk and high, possibly passed out. Or the times he’d show up at a school play at the very end. I’d watch him walk in and take an aisle seat, and then later he’d tell me that he was there for the whole thing.
I want to ask Reeve what all had happened, to recount the evening for me, but another part of me doesn’t want to hear it. I look down at my desk, at bills I need to pay stacked neatly in a pile in a wire file tray. I can hear Emily squealing with delight out back, and my heart sinks. “At least answer this: Were you at her friend’s cabin?”
“No, no, I’ve never set foot near that cabin.”
“Have you driven to it?”
“No. She had her own car.”
If he’s telling the truth, I’m relieved that there will be no sign of him at the scene of the crime. I’m standing, still thinking, my hip leaning into the side of my desk. “But she was at your place?” I say again in disbelief, as if this second time around, the answer will change and all will be better.
He nods to confirm what has already been established.
“But you didn’t tell them?”
“I know, Ali. I know I’ve backed myself into a corner. It’s complicated, being like that in front of two detectives—like they’re out to get you. It’s hard to cooperate.”
“Not for a normal person,” I say, and watch his face droop with sadness to hear me say it out loud. A sting of guilt for demeaning him bolts through me, but it doesn’t prevent me from slinging more his way because I’m furious, and a part of me is deeply suspicious about the fact that he did not tell them the truth. “Most people would simply tell the damn truth.”
“I realize that. But we both know I’m not like most people.” He gives me the unanimated, unwavering stare again. The line smacks of rehearsal—as if it’s his armor, as if he’s proud of it—and that infuriates me more. “But look, I just wanted to see Emily first and make sure things were okay with McKay. I’ll be out of your hair in a minute. I’ll go back and explain things to them.”
“It’s a little late,” I say, stifling my rage, my mind racing. Out of my hair? I think. As if it’s that easy. I want to yell at him that we have a child together and that means we’ll be in each other’s fucking hair for years, but I’m still clinging to the line “we both know I’m not like most people.” I’m thinking about what a cop-out it is, always has been. I can’t do it, Reeve had said to me about our relationship. I’m just not like everyone else, he had added later. Before, when he used to say that kind of thing, it gave me some relief because it gave me my out, my escape route. I never bothered to call him on it, but now, with Emily in the picture, I want to scream at him that I think it’s one colossal justification so he can get away without growing up and taking responsibility for his actions. Instead, I force myself to calm down and remind myself that none of that matters anymore. The only thing germane is protecting Emily. “You think going back now will just make this all better?”
“If I go back and tell them everything, that I was just afraid, they’ll have to understand, won’t they?”
I look at my desk, on which there’s a photo of Emily from a year ago with her arms wrapped around McKay. She looks like the happiest kid on the planet, even though I know she’s not. She often has nightmares, complains of joint pain and bellyaches, and still throws vicious tantrums. She took longer than your average girl to potty train, and her pediatrician said that it comes with the territory of split homes. That children from parents who are separated often have psychosomatic symptoms, internalize the hurt into their bodies.
And now this unexpected curveball . . . My fury boils at the stupidity of it. I want to pick the picture up and shove it in his face, say, See, you happy now? Getting yourself mixed up in something that can hurt this precious child? But I realize I’m overreacting. I can’t believe he’s asking for my opinion, but he is asking, which is more than I’d have ever expected from him.
Part of me wants to advise him to go back immediately, but another part of me knows how bad it’s going to look and that he might be better served by getting a lawyer and not saying another word before he digs himself in any deeper. Telling his truth, whatever that might be, to an advocate might be his best option. The less he says, the less can be used against him in court by a prosecutor. I look at him and say, “I don’t know. It might, but honestly, Reeve, I think that no matter what you do from here on out, you’re going to need an attorney.”
“An attorney?” Reeve’s face twists in anguish.
“Yes, you can do what you want, but that’s what I think.”
Emily bangs on the office door. “Mommy, Daddy, come outside with us,” she pleads.
“Just a sec,” I say, trying to sound happy, but before I even turn back to him, Reeve has opened the door and follows her back outside. There’s so much more to ask him, but I’m relieved. A part of me isn’t sure I want to know more than I already do, and another part of me understands I need many more details if I’m going to help him.
• • •
After a moment, Reeve has Emily bring McKay in while he goes out and fetches a backpack from his truck. He comes back in and fishes a baggie out with some extra scat he carries around and heads to the backyard to plant pieces of it behind various bushes. Th
en he takes McKay out and has him quarter across the yard to find it all. McKay performs his duties excitedly, and within minutes he has all the samples.
“Good boy,” Reeve tells him repeatedly, and rewards him by throwing the ball for some time. Emily stands by his side shivering in the cold, watching her dad throw and asking if she can throw too. He lets her.
I go inside to see Rose off. She is moving Reeve’s backpack, which he’s placed beside the kitchen door, over to the side so no one trips on it, and even that infuriates me—that he’d be careless enough, like a lazy teenager, to accidentally trip one of us. She tells me that Emily’s been great all afternoon, then whispers, “Is everything okay?”
“Yes, why?”
“Reeve looks . . . I don’t know.”
“What?”
“Well, a little stressed.” She pushes her straight strawberry-blond hair behind her ears. She’s dyed a few thick pink streaks into either side for fun. It doesn’t surprise me that she’s asking. Between Rose and Herman, I have more than my share of people interested in my and Emily’s well-being.
I say that everything’s okay, that I just needed to do him a favor with McKay.
“I hope the dog’s not sick.”
“No, nothing like that.” Emily squeals again outside, and I motion to the backyard as if her joyous yelps mean all is fine. She looks at me like she’s knows there’s more, but doesn’t push it. We’ve gotten to be decent friends, but she never presses me for too much personal information. In fact, no one in my small circle of friends or coworkers does. It’s not my style to give personal particulars, and Rose is well aware of it. “Well, Emily is happy to see him here,” she offers.
“Isn’t she always?”
“Yeah, she is.” Rose smiles and throws her bag over her shoulder. “I wrapped up a plate for you. It’s in the fridge. Just heat it up in the microwave.”
“Rose,” I chide her. “I’ve told you.”
“I know. I know. I’ve hired you to take care of Emily, not of me,” she imitates me in a low professional voice.
I laugh. “Not quite the right accent,” I say. “Needs some work.”
She smiles, and wiggles her fingers around the strap of her backpack to say good-bye. I watch her walk around the side to her place in the fading light, then go back into the kitchen and turn the back porch lights on. I find an extra jacket for Emily and make her put it on. I know she’s seen this activity hundreds of times, but this time is a novelty, since it’s in her own backyard and not out at her dad’s cabin, with all the meadows and expansive wilderness surrounding them. I watch them in the diminishing light, tiny Emily with her ratty braids beside Reeve’s tall frame with his broad shoulders and narrow waist. Emily looks like a little breakable doll next to him, and for a moment I see my little sister, Toni, in her. Jesus, Ali, I say to myself, she’s only a little girl. Besides, she’s got my grit. She won’t turn out like her.
When they’re finished, the sky has gone muddy dark from the low-lying clouds and no stars can be seen. We go back in with McKay, and Reeve asks if I have his dog food. From the car, I fetch the bag along with the bowl I grabbed from Reeve’s kitchen floor. “Here you go,” I say, handing him the food when I return.
“Thank you.” He pours some dry food in the bowl and gives it to McKay beside the back door. Emily wants Reeve to pick her up and hold her, and he does, saying, “You’re getting too heavy for this.”
“No I’m not,” she protests, nuzzling her head into his neck.
When McKay is done eating, Reeve sets Emily down, gives her a hug good-bye, tells her that he’ll see her next weekend and that she should go and get ready for bed. Emily kisses his cheek and runs upstairs, ready to please her daddy. She never does what I request so quickly, but I know that I’ve asked for this. That the arrangement we set up—that she’d see Reeve only every other weekend—would in some ways always make him the special one, the one in demand, the one to behave around, at least for some time until she grew mature enough to recognize the inconsistencies.
I see Reeve out after he puts McKay on his leash, and when he lets McKay hop into his truck and turns to me to say good-bye, I hand him a note with an attorney’s name and number I’ve jotted down. “Call this guy. He should be able to help you out.”
“I’m not calling an attorney. That just makes me look guiltier.”
“You already are going to look guilty,” I say. “Trust me on this.”
“No,” he says, then shakes his head. “I mean yes, I do trust you, but I don’t want to get an attorney involved. I trust you to help me.” He immediately looks down at his door handle as if that was a difficult thing for him to admit.
My heart rate speeds up, and I can’t tell if I’m pissed off or somehow touched by his faith in me. The temperature has dropped now that it’s dark and the chill nips at my cheeks. I shuffle from one foot to the other. “Okay,” I say, “I’ll see what I can do, but if this gets any more out of hand, you’re going to need to hang on to that name and number.” I motion to the note I’ve just handed him.
“I will.” He opens his door and hops in. He raises the flap of his center console and puts the note inside. “Thank you,” he says, then backs out of the driveway and leaves.
Reeve
* * *
Wednesday—The Day Before
ANNE MARIE FOLLOWS me from the Merc to my cabin. The sun is setting in my rearview mirror and there’s a pale light over the mountains in the east. Across the meadows, gold- and yellow-leaved aspen trees line up in front of swaths of green pine, their brilliant leaves shining in the glow of twilight like an elaborate layered fringe in front of the jutting mountains of the Livingston Range. The mountains seem to be leaning forward, as if each peak were aggressively pushing the other toward Canada, as if they haven’t fully escaped the sense of their violent, eruptive beginnings. That duality is always present out here—the aching beauty coupled with the brutality.
I’m not sure what to think. I’m excited at the prospect of having her over, but I haven’t had a woman over since Ali, and I’m nervous.
When I pull into my drive and park, I see a herd of elk at the far end of one of the meadows, their lighter backsides nearly luminescent in the gloaming. Anne Marie pulls in next to me. I get out and walk over to her car and point out the herd. She steps out and smiles.
“This is where you live? Full-time?”
“Yep. This is it.”
“It’s so nice out here. Do you live alone?”
“Just McKay and me.”
She studies me again with the same expression she had out in the field, like she’s trying to read me. For a second I think she’s going to ask me, “Aren’t you lonely?” But instead she says, “Are you going to let him out?” She glances at my truck, where McKay is sitting like a patient human passenger, simply looking out his side window.
“In a minute.” I look back out at the elk. “He might scare them off. See”—I point—“there are the bulls.” Two large males with gorgeous curved antlers barely visible in the dim light bow their heads to the wild grass. “They’re pretty amazing, don’t you think?”
“They’re wonderful.” She leans across her hood. I stand awkwardly next to her, both of us looking across the golden meadow at the herd grazing, with the vivid fall foliage in the background.
Anne Marie stands up from leaning on her hood and glances up at me; we lock eyes for a moment. Her face is rosy from the rapidly cooling air. Then, with no prompting, she simply rests her head on my shoulder, as if she’s known me forever, as if she’s completely comfortable with me. A faint trace of her perfume still lingers in the cool air, and I feel a slackening inside me, like something’s come unstuck. I hesitate for a second, then put my arm around her like I’ve known her for a long time too. We stand that way for a moment, taking in my home’s immense surroundings, a place I never tire of. One of the cow elk lets loose a strident cry, and Anne Marie puts her fingers to her mouth, the skin on the back of her hand p
ale in the dusk.
I’m aware that I’m noticing every detail, just like I’ve done all day, as if I’ve been given a drug—some hallucinogen that makes every nuance pop and come to life. I almost rethink my day, wondering if someone could have put something in my coffee at the Merc or given me a substance that I was unaware of, but I know that’s not the case. I try to relax and take it in—the sense that I feel very alive. It’s all so exquisite—achingly beautiful, as if I’ve just been reborn and life has chosen to show a glimpse of its sweet underbelly to me.
Ali
* * *
Present—Thursday
AFTER REEVE LEAVES, I go in and put away the pots that Rose has cooked pasta in, washed and set on a drying mat beside the sink. When I go upstairs to check on Emily, she’s in a pair of sunny yellow jammies and playing with two unicorn figurines in her bedroom. I get down on the floor beside her and brush her hair out of her face so I can see her eyes. She looks at me for a second, her eyes the color of brown M&M’s, but they’re not focused on me, her thoughts a million miles away in some imaginary unicorn land. She’s making swishing sounds and moves the two unicorns—one glittery blue and the other pink—through the air like they’re flying.
“Hey, kiddo,” I say, breaking her trance.
She looks at me, this time seeing me.
“You have a good day at school?”
“Yes,” she says, launching into everything that happened play-by-play, starting with her kindergarten homeroom teacher’s having them trace their hands so that they can cut the shapes out and transform them into turkeys later in the week for Thanksgiving.
“I did that,” I say, as if that activity should belong only to my generation. “Don’t they come up with anything new?”
“Mommy,” she scolds me.
A Sharp Solitude_A Novel of Suspense Page 9