by Julie Miller
“She was running around on Wallace.”
“With who?”
“I don’t know who. I heard rumors. I still hear rumors. And about two weeks ago I was coming home from a band concert and I saw Tabitha sneaking around over by the east side of town. It’s dark and dangerous over there and she was alone and it was late. I tell you, she’s rotten to the bone.” She stopped speaking and took a deep breath as though to center herself. “I know I sound terrible,” she added.
“You just sound angry,” Lily said gently. “It’s how you feel.”
“Yeah,” she said, slipping the pastries into the bag with the bread. “You owe me eight dollars and fifty-five cents.”
“Something else,” Lily said as Chance paid for the goods. “Do you have much to do with the people up at White Cliff?”
“Not too much,” Betsy said. “They come into town now and again but they make people nervous and don’t ever say too much unless you get them started and then they go on and on about politics.”
“Do you know any of them, I mean personally?”
“Not really. There was one lady a year or two ago who was nice. I guess she runs a store up there. She and her sons used to come to town now and again and she was kind of friendly. Her oldest boy is cute.”
“You’re talking about Maria,” Lily said.
“Yeah, do you know her?”
“We’re staying up that way for a couple of days and she’s been like the White Cliff ambassador of sorts.”
“Yeah. Well, some of those people have been up there for years and they’ve gotten kind of standoffish. Maria was different.”
“Was?”
Betsy shrugged. “I haven’t seen her in a long time but the last time she came in here to buy bread, she was different. Kind of quiet and preoccupied, I guess. She didn’t smile and she always used to smile.”
“When did she change?”
Betsy narrowed her eyes in concentration. “A while ago. After Christmas sometime.” She handed them the bag. Lily reached for it right as the bell on the door announced another customer. A boy about Betsy’s age seemed surprised she wasn’t alone.
“Hey, Todd,” Betsy said.
“Hey,” he responded. He ran a finger along the glass case. He reminded Chance of himself about that age, still growing into the man he’d become with time. His shoulders and buzz-cut hair glistened with water. Chance glanced through the window to see the clouds had finally broken.
“Do you want something?” Betsy asked. Her voice had undergone a distinct change from impatient to silky.
“No, just hanging out,” he said and flashed her a smile. His voice cracked as he added, “I thought you’d be alone.”
Betsy cast Lily and Chance a pleading look.
“We’re just leaving,” Lily said, and they beat a hasty retreat.
“Whew,” Lily said as they stood on the sidewalk under the awning. “That poor girl is a walking, breathing emotional roller coaster.”
“She hates Tabitha and apparently has a thing for Todd,” Chance agreed. “I can’t see how either of those concern us, but the news about Maria changing is interesting.”
“It’s gotten cold,” Lily said, stretching the poor sweater even tighter around her body.
Chance looked at the stores lining the other side of the street and added, “Follow me,” grabbed her hand and led her across two lanes of sparse traffic.
The store they entered wasn’t the kind Chance was used to navigating. Mannequins on one wall modeled what he guessed was the latest in fashion while circular racks held dozens of slacks, dresses and sweaters. The saleswoman hastened their way and asked how she could help them. “This lady needs a warm coat and a sweater and whatever else she wants,” he said.
“Come this way,” the saleswoman coaxed Lily as she moved toward the back of the store.
“We don’t have time for this,” Lily protested.
“Then don’t waste what time we do have arguing,” he said.
“I don’t want you buying me clothes,” she added stubbornly.
“I’m not. I’m using your husband’s money. Technically, I guess it’s more your money than mine as I lied to get it.”
“Money he gave you to find Charlie?”
“More or less.”
The furrowing of her brow suggested she would ask him more about this later. “Okay, I’ll get a coat, but don’t keep calling that man my husband.”
He shrugged.
Fifteen hurried minutes later, they left the store four hundred dollars poorer but at least Lily looked warm in her new faux fur lined raincoat. She carried three shopping bags as well, full of everything from warm pajamas to jeans and walking shoes. She hadn’t tried on a single garment, just bought them off the rack, so distracted by the clock that Chance wasn’t sure she even knew what she’d chosen.
“I asked the saleswoman about Maria and White Cliff,” she said as they got back in the truck. “She had no idea who I was talking about. I gather this is her first winter this far north and the rain is already getting to her.”
The Connor house was a modest one-story affair built of brick. Nobody’s yard looked great this time of year and theirs was no exception. The rain was quickly turning the sparse grass brown with mud, the cracked cement walkway was slippery with moss as though the front entry was seldom used. They made their way carefully to the front door and knocked.
It took a few minutes, but eventually the door opened and a faded-looking woman of about forty faced them. “May I help you?”
“We wondered if we could talk to you and your husband for a few minutes,” Chance asked politely.
“What about?” she asked.
“Your son, Wallace.”
“What about my son?” she said, her voice shaking now. “He’s dead and gone, murdered for a measly two hundred dollars and a ring. They didn’t even take his credit cards. What can you possibly want to talk to us about?”
“Darke Fallon.”
A man showed up behind the woman. He appeared to be ten or so years older than her, a smallish guy with a lightly freckled round face and graying hair. Light blue eyes peered from behind wire-framed glasses. “Let them in, Carolyn,” he said.
The woman opened the door wider and Chance followed Lily over the threshold. The room they entered was sparsely furnished but fastidiously clean. The woman motioned at the sofa and asked if they’d like anything hot to drink. They declined. The house smelled great to Chance, like roast beef, like home. The table in the corner had been set for dinner.
“My name is Otto,” he said, “and this is my wife, Carolyn. Now what’s this about our Wallace?”
Chance introduced himself and Lily who immediately asked if she could use their restroom. Carolyn pointed out the way and Lily left the room.
“First of all, I should mention that we stopped at your bakery and talked to Betsy,” Chance said.
“About Wallace?” Otto said with a quick glance at his wife.
“Yes.”
“Did she cry much?” Otto asked.
“A little. She also talked about Wallace’s girlfriend, Tabitha.”
“Uh-oh,” Carolyn said. She’d perched on the edge of a chair and now folded her hands together between her knees. “Betsy gets kind of wound up when it comes to Tabitha.”
“There’s no love lost between them,” Otto agreed.
“What do you think of Tabitha?”
“She’s just a kid,” Otto said. “Works a shift at the Burger Barn south of town, seems popular. Comes from a dysfunctional family but just about everyone seems to these days. We didn’t see too much of her. Wallace lived with a friend across town and seldom brought Tabitha to our house. I think he was kind of embarrassed because she was his little sister’s age.”
“And the girls didn’t like each other,” Carolyn added. “But Betsy shouldn’t be bad-mouthing her to strangers. By all accounts, Tabitha was in terrible shape after Wallace’s funeral. My heart went out to the girl.”
Otto cleared his throat. “You said you wanted to talk about the man who killed Wallace. You do realize no one knows much about him?”
“No one knows anything about him,” Carolyn said.
“I read a sketchy article about the murder,” Chance explained. “I can hardly believe the police couldn’t identify Fallon.”
“I know,” Otto said. “Neither could we. He said he was hitchhiking from Bend, Oregon, where he lived, but there was no evidence a guy by that name ever lived there. Fallon isn’t an unusual last name but the Darke part is different. Anyway, when asked about his friends, the only names he gave were first names like Johnny or Dave or Nick. He said he used Wallace’s hunting knife to rob him and when Wallace refused to hand over his money, he stabbed him. But the kid was not only younger than Wallace, he was about half his size. And then the police said it appeared he’d been stabbed while lying down, not standing. But then again, the boy did have Wallace’s blood on him.”
“How did the police explain the stabbing position discrepancy?”
“They really couldn’t. One of the officers told us that Fallon must have lied about what happened. It makes more sense that Fallon came into Wallace’s room after he was asleep and killed and robbed him and just didn’t want to admit it. Wallace had been drinking that night. His blood alcohol numbers were high.”
“He could sleep pretty soundly after a six-pack of beer,” Carolyn added.
“What about the murder weapon?” Chance asked.
“Wallace’s own knife. It was still in the van when they caught Fallon. He’d tried to wipe it clean, but there were traces of blood on the blade. It was a hunting knife Wallace carried with him all the time.”
“He wore it where people could see it?”
“Not really, but for all we know, he’d taken it off when he drove and that’s when Fallon saw it. Who knows what they talked about in that van? Wallace was a friendly guy.”
“You mentioned a ring,” Chance said.
“Yeah. It had a nice stone in it but it wasn’t worth more than a few hundred dollars and that was because of the gold. Fallon said he lost it in a river when he stopped to wash all the blood off his clothes. He didn’t know which river and he didn’t get all of it.”
“And he left a bloody footprint in Wallace’s room,” Carolyn added. “The police said he seemed a little slow-witted. He stopped talking when the questions got tricky. Didn’t say a word after that first confession, apparently not even to his court-appointed attorney. And why did he drive around all that time in Wallace’s truck?”
“Yeah,” Otto said. “And why was Wallace down in Boise to begin with?”
“The newspaper said he was there for a job interview, didn’t they?” Chance asked with a glance toward the hallway Lily had disappeared down several minutes ago. What was taking her so long?
“Bah,” Otto said. “He worked at the bakery with me. In a few years it would have been his. They couldn’t find a single employer down there who admitted setting up an interview with him. All they had to go on was his roommate’s word that that’s where Wallace said he was going.”
“And Tabitha called us and the roommate the next morning to ask about Wallace because he hadn’t shown up for a date the night before. If he was going on a job interview, wouldn’t he have told her?”
Lily appeared just then and sat down next to Chance right as Otto posed another question. “Why are you asking about Fallon? Do you think you know who he was?”
“No,” Chance said. “But do you think it’s possible he lived at White Cliff?”
Otto looked at Carolyn again. “I doubt it,” she finally said. “The boy had no papers on him, no fingerprints matched up anywhere. Nothing. The police talked to everyone here and everyone up there and no one knew a thing about a Darke Fallon. No one from there was missing, just like no one here was unaccounted for. This Fallon must have been a drifter, maybe from another country or something. I don’t know.”
“Why do you care where he came from?” Otto asked. “And why are you asking so many questions about Wallace’s murder?”
Lily answered this time. “I have a five-year-old boy,” she said. “His name is Charlie and we have reason to suspect that the Fallon family might have taken him. We want to talk to them. I need to get my son back—”
She stopped speaking as her voice choked. Chance put his arm around her shoulders. “If you guys think of anything that might help, please let us know,” he said. “We’re actually staying at White Cliff in a guest apartment.”
“I didn’t know they let outsiders in,” Otto said.
“That reminds me,” Chance added. “Do you know a woman named Maria Eastern? Your daughter said she used to come into your bakery.”
“Don’t recognize the name,” Otto said. “How about you, Carolyn?”
“No. Betsy is a lot better with names than I am, though. Is she important?”
“Who knows?” Chance said. He gave them his cell number and Lily’s, too. “Please call if you think of anything.”
“What about the police?” Carolyn asked. “What are they doing about this?”
“There are complicated reasons they haven’t been called yet,” Lily said.
“Can’t say as they got very far in our case, but they tried,” Otto commented.
Chance and Lily thanked them for their time. Their last glimpse of the couple was as Carolyn closed the door and switched on the porch light.
* * *
LILY SHIVERED INSIDE her new coat as they walked back to the truck.
“What took you so long in the bathroom?” Chance asked her.
“I wasn’t in the bathroom, I was searching the house for some sign a small boy was being held there. That’s why we went, right? To see if they might be involved in Charlie’s abduction?”
“Right. But I’d bet money those people would rather cut off their arms than put another person through what they’ve endured.”
“I get the same feeling,” she said. “And besides that, I didn’t find anything to suggest Charlie has ever been in that house.”
He opened her door and she climbed in. The stress and disappointment of the past hour had caused a horrible headache and she closed her eyes. All she could see was Carolyn’s face, the sadness and loss in her eyes. The woman would never see her son again. Did a similar fate await Lily?
She was determined not to cry, not to make a scene, not to be weak, but her heart felt broken and she didn’t know if it would ever mend. As the rain pelted the truck’s windshield, she buried her face in her hands and wept.
Chance pulled the truck off to the side of the road and gathered her into his arms. She was crying so hard by then it was difficult to get a breath, impossible to talk and he held her for what seemed an hour, rocking her gently, smoothing her hair, his body big and warm and comforting. She could get used to being treated with such gentleness. She felt small and treasured in his embrace, a feeling she hadn’t experienced since her mother died when she was six. Her father had climbed too deep inside a gin bottle to worry much about parenting.
The sobs abated and she took a few deep breaths. Anxious to look anywhere but in his eyes, she glanced out the window. “Where are we?” she asked as she dug a packet of tissues from her purse.
“I was going to go to a place called the Burger Barn,” Chance said. “I’ll go tomorrow. Right now, it’s time to get you back to White Cliff.”
“Are you hungry?” she asked as she blew her nose.
“Now that you mention it, yes, but that wasn’t why I wanted to hit the place. Otto says that Tabitha Stevens works
there. I hoped she might be pulling an evening shift.”
“Why bother with her?” Lily said. “What can she possibly tell us that would help find Charlie?”
“I don’t know,” he said, scooting back across the bench seat to his place behind the wheel. “But she may know something about Darke Fallon or Maria Eastern that she didn’t tell the police, or maybe she’s since remembered something. I thought it was worth ruling her out.”
“Because of what Betsy said about Tabitha having other boyfriends?”
“Partially. I guess I’m a turn-every-stone kind of guy. But I can do this on my own. It’s been a tough afternoon and—”
“Let’s go now,” Lily said. “I want to see if this kid is the trollop Betsy made her out to be. Besides, it’s dark and I can’t think of anything we can do at White Cliff to get closer to finding Charlie so we might as well check out Tabitha. Do you know where this place is?”
“Not really. I was going to have you check your phone, but you looked terrible after we left the Connors’.”
“I’m better now,” she said, wiping away the last of the tears. “The look in Carolyn’s eyes just got to me.”
He smiled at her. “You know, your face is beginning to heal. You’re almost pretty again.”
She laughed out loud and hit his arm. “I’ll look up the Burger Barn.”
A few minutes later, they pulled in front of a fast food place that appeared to have been built in the fifties. They went inside and found a seat where they could see the whole restaurant.
The wait staff all wore blue jeans and red checkered shirts and all seemed to be teenagers except for one woman in her forties who had to feel like a babysitter with these kids. The place was crammed, and music blared from a Wurlitzer jukebox. After the emptiness of the town, the bustling activity in the little diner was amazing.
The older waitress brought them ice water and asked if they wanted a menu. Chance asked what the specialty was and she looked at him like he was nuts. “Burgers.”
“What’s the best one?” he said.
“Folks seem to really enjoy the bacon cheese burger.”