Lie in Plain Sight

by Maggie Barbieri

  “Exhausted,” Rebecca said. “And starving. Where are we going?”

  “Your choice,” Maeve said.

  Rebecca chose an Italian place not far from campus. The smell of garlic swept over them as they walked in, and not in an entirely unpleasant way. Maeve realized that she, too, was starving and didn’t need a lot of time with the menu before settling on the pasta special of the day.

  Rebecca regaled her with stories of her professors, what she was doing in her classes, a party she had been to the Friday before and left early because the “music was too loud.” At twenty, she was turning into a chip off the old block, going to bed as early as possible because of her laserlike focus on doing as well as she could in school. Maeve had been the same way.

  “How are Heather’s applications coming?” Rebecca asked and then, seeing her mother’s face, laughed. “Or should I not ask?”

  “Your guess is as good as mine,” Maeve said. “What do you know?”

  “She’s got her heart set on Washington.”

  “D.C.?” Maeve asked.

  “State. University of Washington,” Rebecca said.

  “What? As in across-the-country Washington?” So Maeve’s lie on back-to-school night hadn’t actually been a lie. “Out west” was what she read. “Out west” it appeared to be.

  Rebecca laughed. “Maybe Heather being so far away would be a good thing?”

  Maeve wondered about that. Maybe it would be. Probably not. Maybe so. She couldn’t decide. All she knew was that while she was looking forward to the upcoming year and Heather taking the next step in her life, she was not looking forward to the empty house at the end of the day, something she would have to figure out how to handle.

  “She’s playing soccer,” Maeve said.

  “Who?”

  “Your sister. Heather.”

  Rebecca dropped her fork onto her plate with a loud clatter. “What? ‘Soccer is for losers.’ ‘Only girls who can’t play anything else play soccer.’” She looked across at Maeve. “You know that’s what she used to say to me, right?”

  Maeve didn’t, but she wasn’t shocked to hear that Heather had taunted Rebecca. “I’m as surprised as you are.”

  “Why the sudden interest?” Rebecca asked.

  “You’ve got me. One day she wasn’t playing soccer and the next day she was. Something about extracurricular activities looking good on her college applications.”

  “It’s a little late for that,” Rebecca said, leaning over and slurping up the rest of her soda through the straw. “She should have been doing extracurriculars all along.”

  “Well, maybe this will help her feel a part of something. Be a nice hobby for her,” Maeve said. Hadn’t Cal said those same words to Maeve once, hoping she would find something other than baking and motherhood to keep her occupied? He hadn’t banked on the fact—and would never know—that her hobby had turned out to have a murderous bent.

  “Such a weirdo,” Rebecca said under her breath.

  “Rebecca,” Maeve cautioned.

  “Well, she is. I don’t know what’s up with her half the time. Sometimes we get along great, and other times—”

  Maeve held up a hand to stop her. “Say no more. I feel the same way.”

  “She’s.…” Rebecca started, searching for the right word. “Mercurial.”

  “Sounds good. Your English classes are paying off. Now, if I knew what it meant…”

  Rebecca smiled. “You’re smarter than you think, Mom. I know you know what that means.”

  It was after they had placed their dessert order that Maeve mentioned the three boys whose names she had seen in Chris’s notebook.

  Rebecca had never been good at hiding her emotions. “Yuck,” she said, her face clouding over. “Why do you want to know about them?”

  “Yuck?” Maeve asked, making room on the table for the giant plate of tiramisu that arrived. She took a bite. The one she sold in the store was better by a lot.

  “You know the type. Rich. Has a BMW or a Mercedes. Thinks his shit doesn’t smell.”

  “You have quite the vocabulary,” Maeve said, raising an eyebrow.

  “You know what I mean. They think they run the town.”

  “Run the town?”

  “They decide who’s cool, who’s not. They throw the parties.”

  “Did you go to the parties?”

  Rebecca took a bite of the dessert, grimaced, and put her fork down. “Yours is so much better.” She answered around a mouthful of pastry. “I did not go to the parties.”

  “Your sister?”

  “Probably.” Rebecca put her napkin over the dessert plate. “Bunch of assholes.”

  “Rebecca!”

  “I’m sorry, but they are.” She looked at a spot over Maeve’s head.

  “I met Morehead. The Connors kid. They were raising money for a trip to Mississippi.” And may be suspects in this disappearance, she thought but did not add.

  Rebecca smirked. “Sounds like them. Kissing up to parents and looking like they wouldn’t harm a fly. They’re not good, Mom. Don’t get sucked in.”

  “I’m not getting sucked in,” Maeve said, but her mind flashed on the fifty-dollar bill she had tucked into the envelope for the trip funds. She had gotten sucked in but good.

  “The Donnell kid moved, I think. Ask Heather.” She looked intently at her mother. “Why do you want to know about them?”

  Maeve shrugged, not wanting to say how she found out their names. “I heard something.”

  Rebecca nodded, not believing her. “You heard something.”

  “That’s all I can say, Rebecca.”

  “Jo?” Rebecca asked.

  Maeve laughed. “No. Not Jo. All Jo talks about is the baby. When he poops, how often he smiles, why he is the smartest baby who was ever born.”

  Around them, the restaurant was a beehive of activity, families filling the red vinyl booths, pizzas flying out of the brick oven at the back of the space. Waiters carried carafes of mediocre red wine and pitchers of soda to the tables around them, the little kids slurping up red-sauce-covered spaghetti, the adults drinking the red wine and chatting amiably. What people saw was a middle-aged mother having dinner with her college-aged daughter, not imagining that the turn their conversation would take was something Maeve hoped they would never have to discuss with their own children.

  Rebecca looked down at the table. “I don’t know if I should say this, but it may help.”

  “What?”

  “I’ve been debating whether or not to say this because it’s only something I heard and not something I know for sure.” She sighed. “I heard that they drugged a girl at a party and something may have happened. I heard it might have been Taylor.”

  Maeve felt sick to her stomach and asked for the check so that they could get out of the restaurant as soon as possible and into the fresh air. She chose her words carefully, not wanting to reveal that there must have been a link, their names in Chris’s notes on the investigation. “Who knows this?”

  Rebecca made a face that indicated almost everyone. “There was a rumor that something was said on social media. This generation’s version of the town crier.”

  “When?”

  “I don’t know. A year ago?”

  That explained why Maeve hadn’t heard a word about this; she’d had her own troubles to contend with, namely finding her sister, a sister she hadn’t known she had and now, whose paternity was still a mystery.

  “And did Taylor go to the police?” Maeve asked.

  “I don’t know,” Rebecca said, a look of fear passing across her face. “Do I need to? You know, go to the police?”

  Maeve thought about that. “I don’t know,” she said, knowing that Chris had these kids’ names already. That and his circumspect response to why everyone had upped the investigation so quickly after the girl disappeared confirmed what Maeve thought: Something else was going on. Whether it was something to do with child support or abuse or something else, she di
dn’t know, but Chris and the rest of the Farringville Police Department did, and maybe this was it. “Just don’t say anything. It’s hearsay, right?”

  Rebecca nodded. “I guess.”

  “How did you hear this? When?”

  “Facebook. Maybe a year ago?” Rebecca said. “I don’t remember exactly. There was something on someone’s page right after it happened, and then it was gone. Everyone knows.”

  “Like a post?” Maeve asked. “A video?”

  “One of the guys posted some kind of gross status update, and from the comments, you could tell what it meant,” Rebecca said. “I feel sick.”

  “That makes two of us,” Maeve said.

  “He took it down. I don’t know why.”

  “Which guy?” Maeve asked.

  “Morehead. He’s the worst of the bunch.” She bunched up her napkin and threw it on the table. “Yet I heard he’s going to Harvard.” She shook her head. “Life is just not fair.”

  No, it’s not, honey, Maeve wanted to say. “What about Taylor’s father?”

  “What about him?” Rebecca asked.

  “According to the news reports, Taylor and Jesse Connors have the same father.”

  Rebecca’s mouth hung open. “Are you kidding me?”

  Maeve shook her head. “Nope. Hard to believe, right?”

  “I have never heard that before,” Rebecca said. “And you know how everyone in the town gossips. How did that remain a secret?”

  “Not a clue.” Maeve’s one dalliance with her ex was practically reported in the local paper, but the paternity of a young girl had remained a secret to most everyone for almost eighteen years.

  “I never saw him, not at a game or anything. Right? You didn’t either, I bet. But that’s the way it is in Farringville.”

  “What way?”

  “You see the moms but not the dads.”

  “I guess we haven’t gotten very far as a community in terms of gender roles.”

  “Farringville is a traditional place, Mom. As much as it likes to pretend it’s not.”

  The check arrived, and Maeve glanced at it, then extracted enough cash to cover the bill plus a generous tip and laid it on the table. She picked up her purse. “Let’s get out of here.”

  Out on the street, Rebecca threaded her arm through her mother’s and pulled her close. “I will never admit this under oath, but I missed you, Mom,” she said. “I’m glad you came up.”

  “Don’t worry,” Maeve said. “I won’t tell anybody.”

  They got to the Prius, and Maeve took out her wallet. She pressed five twenties into Rebecca’s hand, the girl starting to voice a complaint but stopping when Maeve put her other hand over the girl’s mouth. “Here. There will come a time when I either won’t be able to give you cash or you won’t want or need to accept money from your dear old mom, but for right now, take the money and run.”

  Rebecca pretended to sprint down the street. “Okay.”

  “Listen to your mother,” Maeve said. “And if I’m not around, channel what I would do. What I would say.” Just not how I might act, she thought.

  “Like WWMD?” Rebecca asked. Maeve looked confused. “What would Maeve do?” Rebecca explained.

  “Exactly,” Maeve said, accepting a hug from her much taller daughter.

  They drove back to campus, Maeve pulling into the same spot in which she had picked Rebecca up. “Have a good night, honey.”

  “Thanks, Mom,” Rebecca said, leaning in for another hug. “Oh, and hey. Sounds like Heather’s in love, huh?”

  But she was out of the car, the paper bag of goodies Maeve had brought in her arms, before Maeve could ask her with whom, leaving her mother to wonder just what her second-born was up to when Maeve wasn’t around.

  CHAPTER 18

  There were a lot of different directions to go in, but Maeve thought she’d start with the easiest one. David Barnham was an easy target. After she left Rebecca, she buzzed past his place to make sure he was home and that he was alone with his beloved Cosmo, but he was on his way out just as Maeve turned onto his street. Before she really knew what she was doing, she had followed him to the grocery store, keeping a safe distance as he meandered through the aisles, buying more kale than any one person should need. When he was done, she tailed him to the local Episcopal church and noted, from what was posted on the sign outside, that there was a meeting of the volunteers for the upcoming Founders Day celebration, at which the church would have a booth.

  Guy was a regular altar boy.

  The appearance of being perfect—and into health—didn’t deter Maeve. If what she had heard through the grapevine was true, he would slip up eventually, and she would spot something that would let her know who David Barnham really was, not the guy that he was presenting to the rest of the world, the guy with a million ways to cook kale.

  She knew better than to ask Heather to confirm what Rebecca had said about the boys whose names she had seen in Chris’s notebook. Kid wouldn’t even tell her what she had had for lunch, never mind whether she knew the trio or if she had been at the party where, according to what Rebecca had heard, something terrible had happened, something Maeve could only guess at. She also knew better than to ask Heather who this new love of her life was; with the exception of that last night when Cal had been over and she had raced out the door, she had stayed close to home, her trips to the library confirmed by the village librarian, a loose-lipped lover of Maeve’s brownies who was a regular customer.

  She went to bed that night, restless and slightly queasy, wondering how two boys who had the whole world at their fingertips could possibly be involved in something so horrible that if it truly was pinned on them, could ruin their lives.

  The next night, Maeve had a date with Chris, but she built enough time into her afternoon schedule to take a ride to a tony part of town that she rarely visited. It was close to the reservoir, wooded, and, like many developments with multimillion-dollar homes, quiet and serene. Maeve cruised up and down the street, spying Taylor Dvorak’s father’s home, the last house on the right, the gate closed, a camera mounted to the brick pillar on the right side. He lived below the former location of the stone yard, where the bigger and newer houses had been built. She stayed inside the car but noted a late-model Mercedes in the circular drive as well as a brand-spanking-new BMW SUV. The house itself was understated—something that couldn’t be said for the rest of the houses on the block—but it certainly spoke to the owner having money and a lot of it.

  The gates swung open, and a low-slung sports car shot out of the driveway. Maeve sank down in her seat and watched as it drove off, kicking up gravel and dust in its wake. The gates swung closed slowly, and the house went back to being just another silent architectural monstrosity set in a beautiful landscape, cold and quiet and dark.

  She was tapping the steering wheel, thinking about what she might want to do next, when a late-model sedan pulled up to the gates, the driver speaking into the microphone and gaining access to the house. She scrolled through her phone, checking the local news station app for any new developments in the case, and hit the jackpot as a headline popped up saying that Charles Connors was in the process of preparing a statement to the media about Taylor Dvorak.

  As she drove away, she passed a news van on its way toward the house, the people inside the vehicle, she suspected, readying themselves for any additional coverage that might be needed.

  Maeve had an hour before she was to meet Chris for a drink at a local restaurant, one not unlike the Italian place she had taken Rebecca three nights earlier. She went home and put on the television, pouring herself a glass of wine while she waited for the meteorologist to finish talking about the impending thunderstorm. She settled in on the couch to watch the report on Charles Connors’s statement.

  The reporter, now standing in front of the Connors home, read the short statement. Yes, Charles Connors was Taylor Dvorak’s father, something that he hadn’t admitted publicly up until this point. A brief af
fair with his former housecleaner, Trish Dvorak, had transpired many years prior, and a settlement had been reached upon Taylor’s birth for her care. He appreciated the village granting his family privacy during this difficult time and said it would be the last he spoke on the subject.

  Maeve put the glass on the coffee table and stared at the television. The phone rang and she picked it up, still stunned.

  “Can you believe that?” Jo asked.

  “You saw the news?”

  “You’d better believe it. You weren’t kidding when you said this village had secrets.” Maeve heard Jo soothing the baby. “‘Grant the family privacy’? There’s a girl missing. You’ve got no privacy anymore, buddy.”

  “Something tells me this only scratches the surface of the secrets here,” Maeve said.

  “Well, ask your buddy Larsson when you go out tonight. See what you can get out of him. This is the most exciting thing that’s happened since Jack’s umbilical cord fell off,” Jo said before hanging up.

  Chris was already at the bar when she arrived a half hour later, a glass of wine waiting for her. She touched it to his pint glass, even though he didn’t look like he was in the mood to celebrate.

  “This whole thing is getting weird,” she said.

  “You can say that again.”

  She thought she’d have to press him to get him to talk about it, but he was particularly chatty that night. “He came to us early on. Didn’t want to appear that he was hiding anything from us. He doesn’t know anything.”

  Maeve wondered why he had come to that conclusion so quickly. In her experience, people knew more than they let on. She thought about the list she had seen at Chris’s. Jesse Connors. “His kid is in Heather’s class. Like Taylor.”

  “He’s the uncle. Adopted the kid after his father and mother died in a car accident. Raised him like he was his own son,” Chris said.

  “Any other kids?”

  Chris looked at her, leaning in close so that no one else could hear them. He dropped his voice to a whisper. “No. He and his wife don’t have biological children.” He stopped her before she could ask. “I don’t know why and I don’t care why.”