“I can’t trust you to do anything right, can I?” Linnet asked.
Myna didn’t know how to respond. She didn’t want to fight. You can trust me, she wanted to say, but all she did was shrug.
Linnet shook her head and turned away. “That’s what I thought,” she said, and disappeared down the hallway.
Myna shut the door, putting her back against it, searching for the lock.
She picked up Jake’s business card and turned it over in her hand.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Jake found himself once again sitting at the pub with his laptop powered on in front of him. Rodney set another frosty mug of whatever was on tap onto the bar.
“Thanks,” Jake said, and took a long swallow of ice cold beer. He was working on his article for the morning paper. He could’ve easily made the front page for a second day in a row if he’d pressed the sisters about the young professor’s accident on their property. He’d seen the six o’clock news. Although he hadn’t known it at the time, he’d had an insider’s view of the events when the one sister had given him a ride.
Still, it had been a bit of good luck. He couldn’t have planned it any better if he’d tried. And yet, he hadn’t pushed either sister for information. He’d been touched by the elderly doc, sensing his mind had weakened in his old age, and he’d felt dismayed when they’d refused to let the man into the university’s lab.
But the bottom line was that Jake’s heart wasn’t into the story he was expected to report. His thoughts were elsewhere.
Watching Myna and the young boy, Hank, hovering over the iPad, laughing at some game, had reminded him of the times he’d spent with his own mother, the times they’d played board games on snowy afternoons, how she’d taught him to play poker when he’d been thirteen years old. Sometimes her death seemed to come out of nowhere, hitting him harder than he’d expected.
She’d suffered for three long years. The last four weeks had been unbearable, the pain she’d endured unimaginable. He’d sat by her bedside for days, slipping away to write when he could, returning the second she’d cry out. He’d wished for it to end, for his mother to be at peace. When the day had come and she’d been able to let go, it had been a blessing, and in ways, a relief.
He picked up the mug and took another long swallow. Then he reached for the old Nokia, turning it around in his hand. Someone pulled out the stool next to him and sat down. Out of the corner of his eye, he recognized the blue uniform. He shoved the Nokia in his pocket.
“What can I get you, Chief?” Rodney asked.
“Just a club soda,” the chief said. Rodney nodded and stepped away to the other tap at the far end of the bar.
The chief turned in his seat, angling his broad shoulders in Jake’s direction. “Jake Mann?” he asked.
“Yes,” Jake said, wondering what in the world the chief wanted with him.
“I’d like to ask you a few questions about your whereabouts during the last twenty-four hours.” There were lines around the chief’s eyes. Deep crevices framed his mouth. He was getting up there in years, but he still looked fit. Intimidating. Maybe the chief saw a little bit of fear in Jake because he added, “It’s just standard procedure, son.”
“Okay,” Jake said. He’d talked to a lot of cops in his line of work, but he’d always been the one asking the questions, not the other way around.
“Were you anywhere near The Snow Goose? You know the one—big white colonial with black shutters, and all those cherry blossoms in the yard? It’s about a stone’s throw away from the dam where the birds turned up.” The chief stopped short of saying where the birds turned up dead.
“Yeah, I was there today. One of the sisters, Myna, gave me a lift. My car broke down on the mountain road.”
“Was that the first time you’ve been there?”
Jake shook his head. “No, I met the older sister the day before when I got into town. I went straight to the dam. I’m a journalist.”
“I know,” the chief said.
“Okay, well, most of the birds had drifted away from the public lot, so I got in my car and headed for the other side. I met the older sister, Linnet, in the backyard of The Snow Goose. I tried to ask her some questions, but she refused to talk with me. I tried to give her my card, but she wouldn’t take it and chased me away.”
“Did that bother you that she chased you away?”
“I didn’t take it personally, if that’s what you mean. I just assumed she was upset about the birds and what it meant for her business, which is why I wanted to talk with her in the first place and get a local’s point of view for my article.”
“Did you stick around after that?” the chief asked.
“No,” Jake said. “She asked me to leave, so I left.”
“And what time was that?”
Jake scratched his chin. “I can’t say for sure, but sometime before I went to the town hall meeting.”
“And people saw you at the town hall meeting? They can place you there?” the chief asked.
Jake realized that the chief was asking him questions because it had something to do with the young professor. “Yeah, I think so. I sat next to a guy who smelled a little fishy, like he’d been to the dam and hadn’t showered for some time. I didn’t catch his name. And I saw Linnet and her groundskeeper guy.” He tried to remember the guy’s name. He snapped his fingers. “Al. I saw him trimming the rose bushes at the B&B earlier that day. He saw me here before the meeting.”
“Okay,” the chief said. “What did you do after the meeting?”
“I was on deadline, so I came back here to write my article.”
“Just like you are now?” the chief asked, and motioned toward Jake’s laptop.
“Well, no. I was tired, so I went straight to my room to work.” He pointed toward the ceiling where the shabby room he’d rented was located.
“Did anyone visit you in your room? Or did you go anywhere else that night? See anyone else?”
“No, I was alone in my room all night. I didn’t leave. I didn’t have any visitors.”
The chief kept his eyes on Jake’s face as he talked. Jake suspected the chief was watching him closely to see if he was lying. “This is about what happened to the young professor,” he said, and a million questions leapt to mind. “Am I a suspect or something?”
“I just need to talk to everyone who was on the property that day,” the chief said.
“It wasn’t an accident, was it?” He knew the chief wouldn’t be wasting his time questioning him if the professor had died from an illness or natural causes. “What can you tell me on the record?” he asked. “I’d like to get a statement from you.”
The chief frowned, hesitated, and then he said, “I have no comment until I get the medical examiner’s report.” He pointed to the laptop again. “Go on and type it in, No comment.”
“Sure,” Jake said, but he made no attempt to touch the keyboard.
The chief turned toward the bar and sipped from the club soda Rodney had set down in front of him. “There’s something else,” he said. “Off the record.”
“Okay,” Jake said.
“My secretary told me you were in to see her first thing this morning.”
“Yes, I was.”
“She copied a police report for you.”
“Yes.” He was beginning to realize just how small this town was, where even a request for a copy of an old auto accident report didn’t go unnoticed.
“I think I know why,” the chief said.
“I don’t understand.”
“You’re his son, aren’t you?”
“You knew my dad?”
“I didn’t know him, but I remember him.” The chief paused. “We get called to a lot of accidents on the mountain road. Some can be pretty bad.”
Jake nodded.
He continued. “But there have been only two fatalities over the last twenty-five years that I’ve been chief. One was a young girl barely sixteen years old. She was going too fas
t and missed the turn, sailed right over the guardrail and down the mountain. The rail was twisted where she hit it, but it didn’t stop her car from flipping over and over.” He motioned with his arm, imitating the projectile of the vehicle. Then he ran his hand down his face. “It about killed me telling her parents what had happened to their little girl. You see, in a small town like Mountain Springs, everyone knows everyone. It was one of the saddest days of my career.”
“And my dad?” he asked. “He was the second fatality.”
“The other saddest day,” the chief said, and picked up his club soda, turning it around in his hand.
“But it had to be different with my dad because he was from out of town.”
“Different, yes, but it’s not something you ever forget.”
“Tell me what happened,” Jake said.
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
“We got a call early that morning. An elderly couple, the Olinskys, were on their way to a doctor’s appointment over the mountain for Mr. Olinsky. He was noticing some blood in his urine. They own the hardware store in town. Olinsky Hardware. It’s about three blocks down Main Street, not far from the Inn.” His voice trailed off. “Never mind. It’s not important. Anyway, I got the call there was a vehicle overturned on the mountain road.”
Jake steadied himself on the stool, his jaw stiff from holding it rigid as though he were expecting a blow.
“The Olinskys had called it in. They’d found your dad’s vehicle on its roof and your dad, well, you know. He was going too fast,” the chief said. “We could tell from the skid marks.”
Jake nodded.
“But I don’t think it was just his speed that caused him to lose control of the car and roll it over. This isn’t in the report, because it’s all conjecture on my part, you see. It’s not the hard facts. Do you understand?”
“Okay,” Jake said. “Go on.”
“There were a couple of feathers caught in the grille of your dad’s car.” He rubbed his brow. “There wasn’t a dent or any blood on the bumper as far as I could tell, so the feathers might’ve gotten stuck before the accident. It’s not uncommon to find feathers on the cars around here as I’m sure you can imagine. But on the side of the road not far from your dad’s car, we found a dead goose.”
“You’re saying that you think he hit a bird?” Jake asked, unable to keep his voice from shaking.
“Well, I think he might’ve swerved to miss it, but hit it anyway.”
“And that’s what caused the accident? He was killed because he didn’t want to hit a bird?”
“It’s just my opinion. He was driving pretty fast to begin with. And the snow geese are pretty large birds.”
They sat in silence. Perhaps he was giving Jake time to process what he believed had caused the accident. When Jake didn’t say anything, the chief finished his club soda and then put the empty glass on the bar. He got up from the stool and turned to walk away, pausing to add before he left, “The dead bird’s mate,” he said, “stayed on the side of the road the entire time we were there. It never left until someone bagged the carcass.”
“Why did you tell me this?” Jake asked.
“You’re not the only one who lost someone they loved that night. If you ask me, that bird was mourning.”
Was that supposed to make Jake feel better? That the bird’s mate had died when Jake himself had lost his father? When Jake’s mother had lost a husband that she’d loved so much she’d never gotten over it? And all because of some stupid bird in the road?
“Don’t leave town,” the chief said before he turned to leave. “I may have more questions for you.”
* * *
Jake stayed at the bar, drinking one beer after another and pounding out the article he had to turn in before midnight. He focused on Professor Coyle’s sudden death, an obituary of sorts, because he hadn’t much else to go on—single, survived by his parents, master’s degree in ornithology, where he spent time in Asia working on his thesis on the spoon-billed sandpiper.
The guy didn’t have to go all the way to Asia, Jake thought. He could’ve studied the sandpiper right here in the Poconos along the Delaware River. Jake didn’t include this bit of information in his article obviously. He was well aware he wasn’t doing his job to the best of his ability. He hadn’t asked the questions he should’ve asked about the police investigation into the young professor’s death. Hell, he’d had the chief sitting right next to him. But he’d been distracted, and he struck each key harder than necessary when he got to the part about the National Wildlife Health Center cleaning up the dead snow geese from the dam. He struggled with infusing the empathy he’d felt for the birds in his initial report. But then he thought of the lone goose standing on the side of the road next to its dead mate, and something inside him cracked.
His cell phone buzzed. It was a text from Kim. She was close to getting him a name for the number in his father’s old cell phone. Hang tight, she’d written. He set his phone down and reached into his pocket for the Nokia, rubbing the deep scratches on the back with his finger over and over again. Something the chief had said turned around in Jake’s mind, the idea that in small towns everyone knows everyone.
So who did Jake’s father know in Mountain Springs?
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Linnet slipped under the covers and into Ian’s arms. His body was warm and inviting.
“He’ll be okay,” Ian said about Hank. “The dam will be cleaned up by tomorrow, and Charlie will sort out the mess with Professor Coyle. Things will get back to normal. And that goes for Pop, too,” he added.
She agreed about Hank. He was a sensitive boy, but he was also resilient like his father. It was one of the things she loved most about Ian, his ability to see past difficult situations and keep them both moving forward. She wasn’t so sure about Pop. She had other worries where he was concerned, troubled by the things he remembered, and those he didn’t.
“I called Charlie,” she said. “I told him Jake was on the property the same day as the professor.” She felt the need to defend her actions. Myna had looked at her as though she were crazy for thinking Jake had anything to do with the professor’s death. Maybe her sister was right, but maybe she was wrong. Maybe Linnet was grasping at anything and everything that would take the attention away from Pop, who couldn’t remember the details of what had happened that night. “Charlie asked for a list of everybody who was here that day. I thought he should know.”
“You did the right thing,” Ian said, and then added, “Jake seems like an all right guy to me though.”
“Yeah,” she said. “So everybody keeps telling me.” The last part she whispered to herself. There was something about him, something that had tightened her chest and put her on guard. Plus, he was a journalist, and she didn’t want anyone from the news media stalking her family.
“I’m beat,” Ian said. “Try and get some rest.” He stretched his long arms and legs, untangling his limbs from hers.
She rolled to her side, rethinking her conversation with Myna, hating the way she’d sounded defensive, stern. If only she could find a way to talk with her sister, a way to return to the easy rhythm of their youth, when everything wasn’t strained and difficult.
She flipped onto her back and stared at the ceiling. Ian snored lightly. She wasn’t going to get much sleep. It was going to be a long night.
She turned her head toward the window. The light of the moon sliced through the branches of the trees, making oblong-shaped shadows on the ceiling and walls. Linnet had moved into the master bedroom the day she’d married Ian. Until then, the sisters had shared the room that Hank now occupied. When Myna had graduated from the university, she’d taken the first job offered to her in New Jersey. She’d been determined to live anywhere but Mountain Springs. Linnet had been running the B&B successfully for a year by then, and she and Ian had been making plans for their future. Linnet had no intention of going anywhere. Her life had always been in Mountai
n Springs, at the B&B with the dam and the snow geese. Her sister had felt differently.
But since Linnet had been determined to stay, she’d had to erase all the sad memories and create new ones, happier ones, with Ian. She’d eradicated any trace of her mother from the room, changing the color of the walls, the area rug, the curtains and furniture. When she’d finished, it had looked nothing like the room it had been—so much so that it had brought Myna to tears.
“But there’s nothing left of Mom in here,” she’d said.
“That was the point,” Linnet had said.
“But it doesn’t even smell like her.” Myna had wiped her eyes, her long dark eyelashes wet and clumped together.
“No, it doesn’t,” Linnet had said, wanting to comfort her sister, but instead she’d crossed her arms. She hadn’t told her sister that she’d kept the doily that had been on the dresser, the one where their mother had kept her hairbrush and perfume. The lace had held on to their mother’s scent, or at least the way she had smelled in the few happy months before everything had changed.
* * *
It had been during one of these happier months, November, nearly eight months after her mother had confessed her hatred for the birds, when the students of Mountain Springs High had been let out early from school for holiday break. The autumn air had been crisp. The pewter sky had smelled like rain. Linnet had rounded the corner of the mountain road, and The Snow Goose came into view. Home. She breathed a sigh of relief and pulled into the driveway. Myna was already bending down to pick up her backpack from between her legs.
“We’ve got company again,” Linnet said, and nodded in the direction of the car parked in the guest parking space.
“That’s the third time he’s been here this month,” Myna said.
They exchanged a look before getting out of the car and heading to the side door. Linnet dumped her backpack onto the kitchen table. It was heavy, stuffed full with library books to occupy her over the next few days. Myna dropped her backpack onto the floor.
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