Crooked River: A Novel

by Valerie Geary

  “Sam, honey, come sit down.” Franny patted the empty chair next to her. “Deputy Santos was just telling me she was able to talk to your grandparents this morning. They’re on their way to the airport as we speak.”

  I sat down and leaned my elbows on the table, and even though I tried to look at something else—the knickknacks on the wall, the salt and pepper shakers in front of me—I couldn’t keep my eyes from wandering back to Mom’s coffee cup, awkward and out of place in Deputy Santos’s rough hands. Her nail polish was chipped so badly it was almost gone, her cuticles shredded. There was a burn scar on the back of her left hand—from what I had no idea—but that didn’t matter so much as the plain fact that her hands didn’t belong to my mother. My chest hurt. I wanted to grab the mug and smash it on the floor.

  “Sam? Are you listening?”

  I looked at Deputy Santos.

  She said, “They’re going to call with flight information as soon as they have it, but they should be here sometime tomorrow night. Saturday morning at the latest.”

  One day. That was all I had left. To check on the bees. To pack. To say good-bye. To uncover the truth and prove Bear’s innocence and salvage the pieces of our family. All of it so impossible.

  “And then what?” I asked.

  “And then they’ll take you home.” Franny reached over to pat my hand.

  I pulled away from her, tucking my hands in my lap underneath the table. “We don’t have a home. Not anymore.”

  “Oh, sweetheart,” Franny said. “Of course you do.”

  “It’s their home. Not ours.”

  “It’ll be a good change,” Deputy Santos said.

  “How do you know?”

  “Sam,” Franny scolded.

  Deputy Santos tapped her thumbs against the side of my mother’s coffee cup. “You just need to give yourself a little time is all, to get used to everything.”

  “What about Bear?”

  Zeb coughed into his fist. Franny shifted in her chair, and the wood creaked beneath her.

  Deputy Santos tightened her grip around the mug. “What about him?”

  “Did you follow up on those boot prints? The tire tracks?”

  “I’m sorry, Sam. I can’t talk about the case with you.”

  “You did before.”

  “I know. And I shouldn’t have.”

  “I want to stay here.” I leaned back.

  “You know that’s not possible,” Deputy Santos said.

  “As long as Bear’s in jail, I’m not leaving.”

  “You’re still a minor, Sam.”

  “So?”

  “So it’s not for you to decide.”

  “Then whose decision is it?”

  Franny smoothed her fingers along the edges of the place mat in front of her. When she spoke, her voice was faint and stretched thin with emotion. “Your grandparents think it’d be best if you and Ollie were with them right now. With family.”

  “But you and Zeb, you’re our family, too. We were going to stay here with you anyway, if Bear hadn’t found a place by the end of September. Can’t we just stick with that plan?”

  Franny gave me a half smile. “It might not seem fair to you now, but your grandparents just want to make sure you and Ollie are in the best possible place. They’re trying to protect you the only way they know how.”

  “Mom would want us to stay.”

  “Your mama’s not here, child,” Franny was whispering now, and her eyes dropped away from me, down to her hands laid flat on the table. “Nothing else to do but put on your best face and carry on.”

  “Besides,” Deputy Santos said, “school’s going to be starting up again in a few weeks. Better to be back with kids your own age, don’t you think? Make some new friends.”

  “Bear registered us at the schools here.”

  “It won’t be hard to get all your paperwork to the school district in your grandparents’ neighborhood,” Deputy Santos said. “It’s not your responsibility to worry about any of that anyway.”

  “But I don’t want to go.”

  “Sam.” Deputy Santos leaned closer to me.

  I leaned away.

  She said, “It’ll be better for you to be away from all of this. Better for Ollie, too. Trust me.”

  I pushed away from the table and hurried out the sliding glass door before they had a chance to say anything else. I went straight to the barn where Zeb had cleared a place for our bikes, grabbed the handlebars of the black-and-red Schwinn, swung my leg over the seat, and then just sat there, feet on the ground, not going anywhere, suspended and trying to decide.

  Deputy Santos came out to the barn and stood in front of me. She folded her arms across her chest. “Joe Mancetti called me last night.”

  I picked at a small hole forming in the handlebar grip. “Who?”

  “Don’t play stupid. I know you called him pretending to be me.”

  I bit down on my lower lip and shrugged.

  “Why?” she asked.

  I shook my head. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Did you break into my house, too?”

  I stared at the rafters, where the sun was shining in through the open loft door, spreading yellow light into dark corners.

  Deputy Santos sighed. “It’s an election year. Did you know that?”

  I shrugged again.

  “People around here haven’t exactly been thrilled with the way Sheriff Harper’s been handling the department. They haven’t been so thrilled about having a woman on the force, either. This case is high profile, Sam. We have to tread carefully, do everything by the book. If something happens that jeopardizes our investigation, if I take even one step in the wrong direction, I could lose my job.”

  I started to push the bike around her.

  She grabbed the handlebars, slamming me to a stop. “If you’re planning something else, Sam, just forget about it. Leave it be. I know you want to protect him, but you’re going to make things worse.”

  “Do you think he did this?” I pushed a strand of hair behind my ear. “Do you think Bear’s guilty?”

  She hesitated, then said, “Yes. I do.”

  “And you want me to believe that, too, don’t you?”

  “I just think it will be easier if you start working through it now.”

  “Easier?”

  “To move on. To get over this and get back to being a kid and having fun.” When I didn’t say anything, she continued, “I know how hard this summer’s been for you, Sam. First you lose your mom. Then this whole awful thing with Bear. But you’re strong. You’re young. You’ll bounce back.” She smiled.

  I gave her a cold stare, and she sighed, shook her head and said, “Ollie needs you right now. She needs someone who can look out for her and set a good example.”

  “What about me?” I wrenched my bike out of her hand. “Who’s going to look out for me?”

  I jammed my feet onto the bike pedals and rode hard away from her, around the barn, to the dirt road that would take me to the meadow and the bees and the river and all the very best things I loved about August and my father. I rode with my head lifted high and my eyes wide open, taking it all in, every yellow grass blade and white butterfly, every flitting cloud and grasshopper. If this was going to be the last time I saw this place, I wanted to memorize every last inch, shadow, and crinkled leaf. If this was going to be the last time, I wanted to be able to remember every good thing.

  Just before the hemlock stump, I slammed on my brakes.

  Wide tire tracks cut deep ruts around the stump, carving holes in the brush and shredding the grass, leaving flowers trampled and wilting, trees scarred and bent, pushed aside by whatever silver, shiny, barreling beast had come through here. Our path into the meadow was narrow, meant for people walking, not a truck ramming, sh
oving its way into a place it had no business going. I dropped my bike in the dirt and ran the rest of the way through the trees.

  The air changed as I entered the meadow. The shadows grew darker, turning into something thick and shifting. Bees swarmed, spinning in mad clumps, humming so loud I had to cover my ears. The tire tracks cut straight through the center of the meadow and into the apiary before circling back around, back to the path and the hemlock stump, the dirt road leading to the highway. Whoever’d been in the truck had also turned over the picnic table and spray-painted black and violent words on the outside of our teepee: FREAK and MURDERER and BURN IN HELL. But it was the apiary they’d focused on most, the destruction here ruthless and assured.

  Two hives had been knocked onto their sides, and the tops were broken open, bees visible on the inside, working to save what they could. A third had been tipped and then run over, smashed beyond recognition. Shattered frames and spoiled comb littered the now damp and sticky, amber-tinted ground. And everywhere: bees. Lost bees, wandering bees, angry bees, dead bees. The ones who’d survived flew in mad circles around me, which meant this damage was recent, maybe even as early as a few hours ago. There hadn’t been enough time for the colonies to regroup and fly off to new homes. They were still reeling from the violence and counting their dead.

  I stood apart from the hives, watching the bees tumble and riot, unable to catch my breath, trying to think, trying to reason the who and why, but I couldn’t. There was no sense to this destruction.

  If Bear were here, he’d tell me we could salvage the pieces. He’d tell me to start at the beginning. Rebuild the boxes, replace the frames. Leave a jar of sugar water and let the bees do the rest. “They’ll carry on,” he would have said. “They’ll work harder. They’ll fight. They’ll survive.” But Bear wasn’t here, and I didn’t have the equipment to do any of that. Nor the skill.

  A bee flew right up close to my face. I waved her away, but she came right back, darting and weaving in erratic patterns.

  “What do you want?” I felt a little stupid talking to her, but she was the only one here to listen. “What? What the hell am I supposed to do?”

  The bee landed on my arm. I froze. Her delicate feet whisper-danced over my skin, her wings fanned slowly up and down. She crawled in tiny circles.

  I whispered, “Go away.”

  She walked the length of my arm from my wrist to my elbow, moving toward my sleeve.

  I whispered, “I can’t help you.”

  She turned and walked back down to my hand. I tried to shake her off, but she kept returning, landing on my arm again and again.

  I drew her close to my face. “I don’t know what you want from me.”

  My breath moved her wings, and she stopped walking. She turned her huge black eyes on me, waiting. There was something alarming about the stare of that bee—like she was looking inside me, seeing everything, even the parts I stuffed way down and hid deep. Like she knew me better than I knew myself and knew what I was going to do even before I had decided.

  I glanced at the broken hives, the comb scattered across the grass, the abandoned, vandalized teepee, and the overgrown garden. I looked again at the bee and whispered, “You’re on your own now. He’s gone and he’s not coming back.”

  The bee plunged down her abdomen too quick for me to fling her away, and the sting came hot and furious, a small patch of skin swelling red almost instantaneously. I yelped and tossed the bee off my hand. She stumbled away, flying off somewhere to die. With my fingernail, I picked out the stinger she’d left behind.

  I couldn’t sleep. I closed my eyes and saw cars flying off cliffs and felt bees crawling over my skin and heard someone moaning and thrashing. I opened my eyes and returned to the quiet, dark bedroom at the top of the stairs and there was only the rustle of blankets when Ollie rolled over and my throbbing hand keeping me awake.

  Franny had made me soak the sting in an ice bath and then applied a warm oatmeal paste. It had helped for a few minutes right after, but now it hurt again. And itched something awful. When she’d asked me what happened, I’d told her I was checking the new hive.

  “Without any gear?”

  “Bear does it.”

  “He lives every day with those bees,” she’d said. “They’ve reached an understanding.”

  I didn’t tell her about the damaged hives or the threats scrawled black on white, because I didn’t want her to worry. I was afraid, too, that somehow Bear would find out and I didn’t want him to know how badly I’d failed the bees, failed him. Tomorrow I’d go back to the meadow with Zeb’s old suit, the one he kept in a plastic box in the barn just in case, and fix what I could. Try, at least. I’d do what Bear would do if he were here. I’d start at the beginning.

  I got out of bed and put on jeans and a sweatshirt, my socks and shoes. Bear had said he’d driven to Eugene the night Taylor Bellweather was murdered. To the cemetery. And maybe Deputy Santos and Detective Talbert didn’t believe him, but I did. And maybe they’d stopped looking for the real killer, but that didn’t mean I had to. Bear had returned the truck to Zeb and Franny with a nearly full tank, which meant he had to have bought gas somewhere between here and there. Which meant someone must have seen him, talked to him. Someone who could give him an alibi, even though he said there was no one. There had to be someone. There had to be.

  I grabbed a flashlight and the folded-up newspaper I’d been keeping in my duffel bag since Bear’s arrest. As quietly as I could, I tiptoed downstairs and out the back door.

  The truck was unlocked. I got into the driver’s seat and felt under the visor for the spare key Zeb kept there for Bear, so he could use the truck anytime he wanted. I had my learner’s permit, and Mom had been letting me drive with her to the grocery store and back every week. I’d even driven this truck once last summer when Bear and I were checking fences for Zeb. Bear had given me the keys and said, “Go easy on the gas pedal.” As long as I didn’t speed, or break any laws, as long as I didn’t attract any attention, maybe I could get away with it.

  I turned the key in the ignition. The engine roared awake. I glanced at the house. The windows were still dark, but I doubted they’d stay that way for very much longer. I turned on the headlights and jumped so high out of the seat, I hit my knee on the bottom of the dashboard.

  Ollie stood in the driveway directly in front of the truck, holding a small, flat box with one hand, keeping the other on her hip. A crooked apparition in the dim yellow lights, she’d shown up out of nowhere.

  I rolled down the window and leaned my head out. “Go back to bed.”

  She came around to the passenger side, opened the door, climbed into the front seat, and buckled her seat belt.

  I didn’t have time to argue with her, or push her out, or ask her what the hell she was doing out here wearing nothing but pajamas and slippers, because lights turned on inside the house. First, the light in Zeb and Franny’s bedroom. Then the one in the kitchen. Then the floodlights on the front porch snapped on, burning white hot across the grass.

  Ollie locked her door.

  “Goddamn it.” I put the truck in drive and stepped hard on the gas.

  I didn’t need a map. I’d been there twice already, but even just once would have been more than enough. When I buried my mother, it was like I’d buried some small part of me, too. For the rest of my life, I will always know how to find my way back to her. I could drive there with my eyes closed. Highway 126 two hours due west until you see a flagpole. Driveway is on your left.

  26

  ollie

  My sister stops the truck in the empty parking lot in front of the mausoleum and turns off the engine. “Maybe you should just stay in the car.”

  I open my door first and get out, holding the Ouija board safe under my arm.

  My sister scrambles after me. “Ollie! Stop! Where are you going?”

  The one
from the river runs ahead of us. In the flashlight beam, she is a bright green snake, weaving through the grass, a glow-in-the-dark jump rope dragged along by an invisible hand. The trees bow at her passing.

  The moon is a thin sliver, casting pale light over the cemetery. The headstones that rise from the ground look like hunched old men. The grass is gray. The trees are black. The shadows in between are constantly changing shape.

  And the one from the river goes faster.

  “Ollie, this isn’t the right way,” my sister says, but follows me still.

  We veer off a gravel path and tiptoe between rows of grave markers that are buried flush to the ground. The one from the river stops in front of a plot where the earth is still mounded and the grass laid over the top is lined with seams.

  My sister puts her hand on my shoulder and says, “Come on, Oll. This isn’t where we want to be. Mom’s over there.”

  I shrug off her hand and point to the temporary plastic grave marker.

  My sister moves closer and shines the flashlight so she can read the name. She squints and then jerks her head around to me again, her eyes wide and confused and more angry than afraid.

  “How did you know she was here?” she says, backing away. “Did Franny tell you?”

  The one from the river sits on her grave and traces the letters of her name.

  T-A-Y-L-O-R-B-E-L-L-W-E-A-T-H-E-R.

  She does it again and again and hums a little to herself.

  I sit on the grass beside her and take the Ouija board out of the box.

  My sister grabs my arm and tries to drag me to my feet. “No. No, absolutely not. There are no such things as ghosts, Ollie. No such things as unsettled spirits or happy spirits or any kind of spirits at all. And I’m not going to play any of your stupid games.”

  The one from the river purses her lips and blows at my sister’s face. A rush of cold air moves across both of us and my sister’s hair flutters. She lets me go and takes a step back. She shivers and hugs her arms. She looks left and right and up and down, but the trees are still and the night is warm.