It was like Lawrence never to say a bad word about a colleague. It was impossible to know how he really felt about the detectives.
“And their team processed the scene?”
“Yes, the crew was down here within a couple hours of the locals calling it in, I got to hand it to them. Course we didn’t do much other than take pictures and secure it. But Stillman and me, we’re working close on this one. We’ve set aside the big conference room for the team.” He grimaced. “Me and him’ll be doing the press conference together tonight.”
“The press,” Madeleine said tightly. “It’s bad enough just dealing with the Pittsburgh crews. Now it looks like they’re coming from as far away as Chicago. People’s sending someone up here to take a look. They called the office.”
“Now don’t worry, we’re going to keep them in check,” Lawrence said, patting Madeleine’s hand.
“It really makes no sense to report it now.” Madeleine’s cheeks were pink with anger.
“Lawrence.” Gin would have preferred to do this away from Madeleine; she didn’t have a sense of how much her mother could handle. “What can you tell me about Lily? Did the initial examination reveal anything?”
“Now, Gin,” Lawrence reproved her gently.
But Gin knew that if she backed off now, she’d be setting the tone for every future interaction with Lawrence, who probably had trouble accepting that she was a grownup, a professional. And the dark, gnawing anxiety she’d felt since Jake’s call had not diminished. She had to be involved. Had to see for herself what had been done to her sister.
Gin was not about to waste her chance to help identify Lily’s killer. Perhaps the county police were competent, perhaps they were even excellent, but Gin wasn’t going to leave anything to chance. She was determined to make sure that nothing was missed at autopsy by a pathologist unfamiliar with the effects that being buried for seventeen years would have on a body. She was hopeful that Harvey Chozick would see things the same way.
At the same time, she couldn’t risk alienating Lawrence in any way. Given their family’s friendship, and her one-time involvement with Jake, he might bend some rules for her. The county officers would have no such incentive.
She took a breath. “Lawrence, I’m not going to say anything to anyone, you know that. My only—only—goal here is to help. I need to know what happened to my sister. And I knew her better than anyone, so I might have a unique perspective.”
The older man nodded slightly. “Ginny. Honey. This is me speaking to you as a friend, you understand. I don’t need to tell you I could lose my job for giving you confidential information.”
“No, you don’t.”
We’re in this together, Gin was tempted to add—her family, the Crosbys, and the Parkers. Three families, or what was left of them anyway, their histories knitted together in ways they might try to forget but could never undo.
Lawrence sighed and shifted uncomfortably. “She had a head injury. The condition of the body made it hard to say much more than that, but the skull was fractured.”
“Mom, don’t feel like you have to stay for this,” Gin said.
“It’s all right.”
“They won’t know more until they do the autopsy, but one of the crime-scene guys showed me, he called it a depression fracture. More like a, I guess you’d say like a dent, not a crack.”
“When is the autopsy scheduled?”
Lawrence’s forehead creased. “Ginny, sweetheart, you know you can’t be there.”
“I know . . . I know, Lawrence. I just wondered.”
“It was supposed to be this afternoon, but they ended up delaying it,” Lawrence admitted. “Case like this, they’re being extraordinarily cautious. They’re not going to make a move until they’re sure they’ve lined up the right experts, considering the condition of the—of the remains. They can put it off practically indefinitely, since it’s not like a delay’s going to change the outcome. Fellow who caught the case is supposed to give me a call tonight.”
“Not Chozick?” Gin asked.
“Lawrence,” Madeleine interrupted, setting down the glass of seltzer she’d been sipping. “Virginia is just trying to help. She won’t get in the way.”
Gin tried to contain her annoyance at her mother speaking for her. “I’m sure he knows that, Mom.”
“But,” Madeleine continued, ignoring her, “you have to know she’s good at what she does. The best. Let her help. She can help figure out who did this. I just know she can.”
Her mother’s voice wobbled on the last few syllables, to Gin’s surprise. That endorsement—and the emotion that accompanied it—were completely unexpected. Were they evidence of her mother’s desperation, the splintering of her careful composure?
“I hear you, Madeleine, I do,” Lawrence said. He had always been powerless to stand up to her. “I can’t promise anything at all—hell, I don’t know if I’ll be on the case tomorrow.”
“We appreciate everything you’re doing,” Madeleine said. “You have to know that.”
“I do.” Lawrence pushed back his chair. “Now Gin, if you’ll walk me out, I’ll look up the name of the pathologist who’s doing the autopsy. It’s slipped my mind at the moment, but I’ve got it in the car.”
“Sure. Mom, I’ll clean up when I get back.”
“No need,” Madeleine said, already stacking the dishes, scraping off the uneaten pastry.
Outside, Gin waited until they were halfway down the walk to touch Lawrence’s arm. “You didn’t forget his name. You’ve never forgotten a name in your life.”
Lawrence dipped his head in acknowledgment. “You always were a smart one. And you know I can’t give you that name, either, even if I wanted to. I just didn’t want to say this in front of your mother. Here, walk with me, make it look convincing, because Madeleine’s no dummy.”
He opened the passenger door and took out a sheaf of papers. “Now listen, Gin. You probably don’t need me to tell you this, but Jake’s right back in the crosshairs. Stillman’s already asked me if it’s going to be a problem. I’m dancing as fast as I can here, but there’s a real danger they’ll remove me.”
“I . . . understand,” Gin said, guilt coloring her words. She couldn’t bear to voice her suspicions of Jake to Lawrence, but pretending to agree with him was little better than a lie. “I mean, there’s reason to hope that the autopsy might . . . take them in another direction.”
“That’s what I’m hoping, but for now, what they’re looking at, it was his cooler,” Lawrence said. “I mean, sure, he got it from Lloyd, but there’s a handful of people in town who are still going to remember how you kids used to hang around down by the water tower. And the people who thought it was him all those years ago—well, now they’ll think they have proof. When word gets out about the cooler, half the town is going to be convinced all over again that he did it.”
“But so much time has passed. I mean, he’s got one of the most successful businesses around—”
“By hiring from out of town, and doing most of his work elsewhere in the county. People don’t forget that, even if they’re the reason he was forced to go outside in the first place. Truth is, there are quite a few people here who’d like to see him fail. Who still won’t give him the time of day, much less their business.”
“I never knew it was that bad,” Gin admitted.
“We’ve got friends,” Lawrence shrugged. “I don’t mean to paint too negative a picture. Lots of folks believe in him. But there are those who don’t, and others who never really made up their minds. You’d be surprised.”
“But anyone who ever knew him,” Gin started, then realized she couldn’t complete the thought. She’d been in love with Jake—she’d planned to share her life with him. They’d talked about getting married someday, about the future they’d build together.
But then Lily had disappeared, and the lies had started to pile up. Late that afternoon on the last day her whereabouts were known, she had been seen walk
ing with Jake—a fact he disputed for days, until the county police brought him face to face with the woman who’d claimed to have seen him. The woman who, it turned out, had given a perfect description of him, right down to what he was wearing.
Then he’d finally told the truth. But not before he’d lied to Gin.
After that, everyone knew that Jake Crosby was the last person to see Lily alive. But only Gin knew that two nights after her disappearance, he had held Gin while the tears coursed down her cheeks, swearing that it was all going to be okay, which counted as the second lie he’d told her.
After that, Gin had begun to wonder if her father had been right about Jake all along, when he called him shifty and irresponsible, and worse. Things she’d dismissed as meaningless began to seem suspicious and even sinister: The increasing amount of time he’d been spending with Lily, his unwillingness to tell her what they talked about. Lily’s moodiness, the nights she disappeared after curfew. The times Jake didn’t call when he said he would.
Gin had never allowed herself to fully believe that Jake had harmed Lily. But she became convinced he knew something, that he was involved in some way, even if it was just trying to keep Gin from knowing the truth.
“Look, I don’t blame people for what they think,” Lawrence said. “I don’t have the faintest idea how Lily died or who was responsible. I don’t know why the killer used that cooler. Why anyone would hurt your sister. But I do know that what people want now is answers. That’s just human nature, when something like this happens. Our hearts aren’t big enough for the grief, is the way I’ve come to see it after all these years on the job. And so we do the next best thing: we start looking for answers, trying to find someone to blame, so we can understand.”
Gin nodded, not trusting herself to speak.
“There’s something you should know, Virginia, honey,” Lawrence said gently. “Your dad isn’t at the caterer’s. He left the house because of me. He left because he blames my son. He still thinks Jake killed your sister.”
“Lawrence, Dad’s just . . .” Gin floundered to find the words. Standing outside her house with this gentle man, in the driveway where Jake had kissed her good-night so many times, her own doubts about his innocence blurred in a haze of confusion. “He just never understood Jake.”
Lawrence made a sound that was half grunt, half sigh. “I was far from a perfect father,” he said gruffly. “I take the blame for that. His . . . ways. He didn’t have a mother looking after him.”
Gin toed the ground with her shoe, silenced by the insurmountable weight of the past. She knew what Lawrence meant: In high school, Jake had run as wild as possible while still making the honor roll and staying out of juvenile hall. His hair had been too long, he made a point of riding his skateboard over every municipal building, he cut class when he was bored—which was often—and he committed the grave sin of refusing to call her father “Dr. Sullivan” or even “Sir.” The first time he took Gin out, he brought her home an hour after curfew, and when her father came out into the driveway to berate him, Jake looked him in the eye and told him he figured Gin could make up her own mind. After that, it was only Madeleine’s intercession on her behalf that prevented Richard from outright forbidding Gin from seeing him.
Time had seemed to soften her father’s distrust of Jake, as their romance blossomed and Jake was named salutatorian of their graduating class. Gin had held out hope that someday the two might be close—a hope that ended when Lily disappeared.
“None of this is your fault,” Gin said fiercely. That, at least, she believed with all her heart. “You were a great father. And my dad, he can be rigid. And after everything with Lily, well, I think it was just easier for him to lash out than to accept that we might never . . . might never know . . .”
Lawrence pressed the back of his hand to his forehead, suddenly looking exhausted. “Ginny-girl, your father is a good man, a fair man. But there are things you don’t know. Things that were said, back then . . . you didn’t need to hear all that, especially because it didn’t make it into the official investigation.”
Gin was quiet for a moment. She stared down the road, wondering where her father had gone, if not to the caterer’s. But that was an easy one—Richard had found an unexpected passion when the town had created community gardens a number of years earlier.
“Lawrence . . . I’ll talk to him.”
“I don’t know if that’s wise, sweetheart,” Lawrence said. “He’s as stubborn as I am, and that’s saying something. Give him his space, a little time to think things through.” He dug in his wallet and handed her a card embossed with the logo of a local roofing contractor. “Now, your mom’s watching out the window, so just play along here. Tell her all we talked about was the ME’s office. No need to mention the rest. The last thing I want is to add to their pain. I offered to talk to your mom at the station rather than coming here, but she said . . . well, she knows him best, I guess. She thinks your dad will come around.”
“He will,” Gin said with as much conviction as she could muster.
“I hope you’re right. Lord, I really do.”
Lawrence went around to the driver’s side and got into the SUV, hanging his arm out the window and smacking the door. “All righty,” he said, a version of good-bye that he’d been using as long as Gin had known him.
She watched him drive away, the SUV’s tires spinning gravel into her mother’s impatiens, before heading back into the house.
Now she had another reason to get involved. She wanted to ease the burden of a kind man who had dedicated his life to helping others, only to have his community turn on him.
But the tiny, hard kernel of doubt refused to go away. Deep in the night, when the grief and horror of loss churned endlessly in Gin’s mind, it couldn’t help snagging on the damning facts that were just too much for coincidence. Jake, the last person to speak to Lily before she disappeared. Jake, who couldn’t account for where he’d been that night. And Jake’s cooler, interred in the earth where he’d brought them all a hundred times.
Once before, Gin had allowed that tiny seed of a doubt to poison her feelings for Jake.
Last time, it had destroyed the love they had shared.
What was left for it to destroy now?
9
Gin planned to drive the back way to the community gardens to find her father, but there was something she needed to do first.
Clay had texted her back yesterday afternoon, saying he was sorry she wasn’t feeling well and that it was a shame she’d miss the movie, and maybe if she was better they could try for the Sunday matinee. But now it was Sunday and she still hadn’t come clean with him.
As she rummaged in her purse for her phone, the thing started ringing, and somehow she just knew it was Clay. She’d been too slow—she’d lost the chance to call him first and make things right, to explain herself, and now he had the upper hand; he was the aggrieved one.
After four rings the call went to voice mail, and Gin’s feelings of guilt turned to relief. She needed to talk to him, just not now. After she talked to her father, maybe, when she had a chance to compose herself. And she would apologize, of course. For lying to him that night at his condo—and for leaving town without bothering to call and explain.
She waited until the ding alerted her that Clay had hung up, then hit play on the voice mail.
“Gin. It’s Clay. I’m . . . I don’t know what to say. I saw it on the news. They showed a family photo. That’s your sister, isn’t it? Lily? I can’t believe you never—I mean, didn’t you feel like you could tell me?” Gin winced—it hadn’t occurred to her that the discovery of the body would be reported in Chicago already. Clay sounded both wounded and angry that she had lied to him, though he was clearly making an effort to suppress his emotions. “Look, I’m sure things must be a madhouse there, but call me, please, when you can.”
When you can. Well, Gin thought, turning the key in the ignition, evidently she couldn’t yet. It was wrong to keep Cl
ay hanging like that, but she felt like she was unraveling at the edges, and if she started down the rabbit hole of history with him, she wouldn’t be able to stop. It would all come out at once in a flood of emotion, and Gin just couldn’t afford to go there just now. Just a little longer, and she’d make it right, she’d tell him everything.
She drove down the hill through town to the patch of land across from the plant’s smokestacks and parked along the rutted shoulder, her tires sinking into the soft earth. The company offices had stood on this spot when the plant was running at full capacity. The buildings had been demolished and the earth turned and composted, but traces of the steel company’s shadow remained. Two edges of the foundation remained, repurposed as markers for the bright-green rows of snap peas, tomatoes, lettuces, and other plantings. A scarecrow wearing someone’s hand-me-down Carhartts oversaw the garden, but there was only one other lone figure bent over a row of feathery young carrot seedlings.
Gin got out of the car, glancing at the clouds forming to the east, and detected a faint rumble of distant thunder as she picked her way through the rows.
Her father had always believed that anything was achievable, given focus and hard work. She’d heard that lecture dozens of times as a child, though usually it was directed at her sister. All that natural talent, Richard scolded Lily—such a waste not to develop it! Next to dazzling Lily, Gin had often felt dull, plodding, unartful. Still, she worked hard, taking her father’s lesson to heart—but every accomplishment lost its shine next to Lily’s spirited, attention-seeking behavior.
Gin had always felt a kinship with her father, but oddly, it seemed to her that he never felt it in return. She thought that wound had finally healed, as her career flourished, but as she watched him dig carefully for weeds, tossing them in a plastic bucket, she wondered how much of her success she owed to him after all. Richard was admired in Trumbull in a way that few outsiders were. Trumbull credited him for bringing the clinic to the town, creating jobs while his wife led the charge to revitalize the downtown, but it was more than that. His brand of unvarnished hard work was appreciated here, both by the old-timers who still remembered the days when steel kept the local economy thriving and by the younger generation who’d been born too late to profit from it.
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