“I’m cleaning out the closet,” she’d said, and followed his gaze to the pile of suits. “I thought I’d donate them. They’re a bit outdated I suppose, but someone might get some use out of them.”
“Why can’t I have them?” He’d wanted nothing more than to pull on one of his father’s jackets. He’d wanted to remember.
“You’re right,” his mother had said, and picked up the jackets still on hangers and hung them back up. “I’ll just save these then.”
He’d upset her. “No, it’s okay. You’re right. They’re old-looking anyway.”
She’d kept her back to him, but he saw her bring the sleeve of a jacket to her nose. “I was lucky, you know.” She hadn’t waited for him to reply before she’d continued. “Your father was a good man. If you remember anything about him, I hope you remember that.”
Jake hadn’t moved. He’d been used to these sermons by now, about what a wonderful husband his father had been, how his leaving hadn’t been his choice. Although Jake had wanted to believe his father had been some great man, his adolescent mind had been starting to suspect that his mother had built him up, created a romanticized version to ease her grief.
She finished hanging up the last of the suits and closed the closet door. He probably wouldn’t have been able to fit in them anyway.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Charlie and his men had come and gone before Ian and Hank or Myna and Pop had returned home. Now, Linnet was sitting next to Ian on the bleachers at the baseball field, pushing through the day as though nothing were out of the ordinary for Hank’s sake. His game was about to start. The teams had just finished warming up. Hank took his position in center field. Dark clouds huddled overhead, and the air was damp. She wondered how many innings they’d get in before the game was rained out, postponed for another day. Every spring they’d had to rearrange their lives around an ever-changing baseball schedule due to inclement weather. And every spring it was getting harder and harder for her to attend his games and keep her guests at the B&B satisfied. Looking back, she’d give her right arm to return to the luxury of such concerns.
She and Ian whispered back and forth. They sat at the very top of the stand in the far corner, away from the other parents. They needed to talk without anyone overhearing their conversation.
“Charlie took his shoes,” she said, feeling as though she were reliving a nightmare, telling Ian about a bad dream. “They found prints in the yard. I told them my footprints, yours, Hanks, all of our prints could be found all over the property. It didn’t change their minds, and they took his shoes anyway.” She showed him the list of lawyer’s names she’d collected.
She continued. “I don’t know much about any of them,” she said. “I stayed away from anyone local, and I searched outside the county.” She didn’t have to explain the reasons why she didn’t want anyone from Mountain Springs representing Pop. No one local would be equipped to handle a case of this magnitude.
“I just can’t believe he had anything to do with it,” Ian said. “It doesn’t fit with the man I know.” He paused, and leaned a little closer, so close she could smell the soap on his freckled skin. “What do we know about this Professor Coyle, anyway? What if this guy was involved in something that had nothing to do with the birds or Pop? What if it was just bad luck that it happened on our property?”
“What are you talking about?”
“Awhile back I overheard something in the teacher’s lounge, something about him having an affair with one of the teachers.”
“Really? A teacher in your school? Who?”
“Do you remember Donna Cowell?”
“Terry’s wife?” He’d been in the crowd at the dam the day the dead birds had been found.
“Yeah. Apparently, she met the professor while taking a continuing education course at the university.” He wiped his hands on his jeans.
“Why didn’t you say something to me before?”
“I shouldn’t have said anything now. It was just a rumor.” He wasn’t one to gossip, and she imagined he didn’t want to start now. He fidgeted, clearly uncomfortable for having said anything at all. It wasn’t as if Professor Coyle could defend himself against such an accusation.
“There they are,” Ian said, spotting Pop and Myna at the far end of the bleachers. He raised his arm to signal them. “Just forget I said anything.”
But how could she forget? It opened up the possibility of someone else being involved with the professor and his murder.
“Why the gloomy faces?” Pop asked as he approached, taking his place next to Linnet. She knew immediately that he was having one of his good days. His face was alert, and there was an acute awareness in his eyes, the one that would disappear behind a hazy film on what she thought of as his bad days.
“Not gloomy,” she said. The first batter was up. “So what did you two do all afternoon?”
“We stopped for coffee and then drove around town.” Myna sat on the bleacher in front of them, turning around to talk. “Pop got his glasses adjusted.”
He touched the frames and pushed them up his nose. “I had a nice long conversation with that journalist friend of your sister’s. I hope it puts an end to those picketers and their crazy talk.”
Linnet leaned in closer. Maybe she hadn’t heard him correctly. “What friend was this?” she asked, and felt the cords in her neck strain. Ian put his hand on her thigh and squeezed, his way of saying Stay calm.
“Jake something-or-other,” Pop said, and looked to Myna.
Crack! The boy at bat hit a fastball into center field.
“Mann,” Myna said, barely above a whisper.
Hank captured the ball in his mitt on the first bounce. The runner rounded first, sliding into second before the ball ever left Hank’s hand. Safe.
Linnet tried hard to remain in her seat and pay attention to the game, and to ignore her sister’s blatant refusal to do the one thing she’d asked of her: to stay away from Jake.
Oh, forget it. She was too damn angry. “Myna,” she said. “Do you mind if I talk to you a minute? Alone.” She stood and walked down the side of the bleachers, pausing to look over her shoulder to make sure her sister was following. Behind her she heard Pop say, “Where are they going?”
She marched to the parking lot and stopped next to her car. Myna slowly walked over to her, dragging her feet like a guilty child about to get reprimanded.
“What in the hell were you thinking?” she asked.
“I know you didn’t want Pop talking to him,” Myna said.
“You’re right. I didn’t.” She couldn’t believe her sister could be so stupid. “With everything going on, the last thing Pop should be doing is talking to anyone from the press. And least of all Jake Mann.”
“But you should’ve seen Pop. He was amazing.” Myna’s head was lowered, but she looked up into Linnet’s face as she spoke. “And Jake. He’s that man’s son. And I wanted to do something nice.”
Linnet craned her neck, coming in close to Myna’s face. “And how do you know for sure he’s his son? Let me guess. You looked him up on the Internet.” And erased your history afterward, she almost added, but she didn’t want Myna to know just how far she’d gone to spy on her. “And then you took it upon yourself to do something nice for him. At Pop’s expense. Really, Myna? You’d put a total stranger before your own father?”
“No, it’s not like that. Jake is going to write about Pop’s theory about what happened to the birds, and that’s all. Pop was … he was good today. It gave him some dignity back.”
Linnet covered her forehead where the pressure was building. Why couldn’t her sister behave rationally? Why couldn’t she think ahead and understand her actions had consequences? If her sister had learned anything from their past experience, it should’ve been this. “And you believe this guy’s going to write up something that makes Pop look good? Is that what you were going for?”
“Yes,” Myna said. “He promised me he would.”
“He promised you, huh?” Linnet looked to the sky. The clouds were heavier, darker. The crowd on the bleachers clapped at some play Linnet had missed. “And you believed him because, after all, his father was such a trustworthy and honest man.”
“That’s not fair.” The space between Myna’s eyebrows creased. “Do you want to know the reason why I did it?” Her jaw set. She spoke through gritted teeth. “Because I think about it every day. Every damn day. And I thought maybe, just maybe, if I did something nice, I could get through a few hours without hating myself.”
Linnet grabbed Myna’s arm. “What I know is that you’re messing around in something you shouldn’t be. You have no idea what you’ve done.” She was every bit aware of how much she sounded like a mother scolding a child, and she hated herself for it, but Myna was leaving her no choice.“Do you know what Charlie did today? Do you?”
Myna shook her head ever so slightly.
“He searched our property! Our house! He took Pop’s shoes!” She hollered. “Do you know what this means? Do you? It means Pop’s a suspect.” She lowered her voice, scratchy now from the yelling. “He needs a lawyer.”
“Pop didn’t do anything wrong.” The angry knot between her eyebrows relaxed. “And it’s crazy to think he did.”
“Yes, it is crazy. Crazy for our crazy father,” she said before she could stop herself. She didn’t mean it.
The umpire yelled, “You’re out. That’s three.” There was more clapping. The teams were changing positions, which meant Hank was coming up to bat.
“I don’t understand you,” Linnet said. “I thought I did. Or, I used to.”
They both fell quiet, listening to the sounds of the game, chatter coming from the bleachers. A light drizzle fell from the sky.
Myna fiddled with the sleeve on her forearm. “They weren’t onions,” she said.
“What?”
“Mom. She wasn’t cutting onions. She never cut onions. She didn’t like the way they smelled or how they left an aftertaste in her mouth.”
“What are you talking about?”
“That day we were playing our spy game under the kitchen table and she chased us outside. You said she was cutting up onions. But she wasn’t, Linny. She wasn’t cutting up onions. She was crying.”
Thunder rolled, giving way to the black, angry clouds. Parents stood, calling the boys off the field.
Linnet didn’t want to discuss their mother unless they were on the same side, but it was apparent they were not. She longed to get back to the place when they once were. She wanted her sister tucked securely by her side, knowing she’d have her back no matter what. She wondered if Myna ever felt the same way. Or was the bond between them so far stretched that one more disagreement, another tug and pull, and whatever was left between them would break in two?
“Will you answer something for me?” she asked, a bitter taste burning the back of her throat. “Why was there a feather in your suitcase?”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Myna lay in bed staring at the ceiling, the birds outside the window signaling the arrival of dawn. One robin in particular sang something that sounded strangely like cheer up, cheerily, cheer up, which she knew in bird speak meant either he was defending his territory or trying to attract a mate. Only the robin knew for sure. But the bird’s chatter wasn’t nearly loud enough to dull the buzzing in her ears. There should’ve been a chorus of honks, high-pitched quacks from goslings, the clap of wings.
It was the absence of the noisy snow geese that perched heavy on her chest, making home feel not quite like home. She’d looked forward to seeing the geese almost as much as she’d looked forward to seeing her family. But the most surprising ache pressing in on her this morning was the longing to return to Florida. How she missed the sights and smells and sensations—the blue of the ocean, the scent of hot sand, the warmth of Ben by her side. They’d chatted briefly on the phone last night, the connection cutting in and out. She’d felt the tension run the length of the miles between them. She’d told him about the journalist who had interviewed Pop. Instincts had told her to leave Jake’s name out of the conversation to avoid any uncomfortable questions she couldn’t answer. She’d started to tell him about Professor Coyle and the ongoing police investigation, but their time had been running out. “Please don’t give up on us,” she’d said. The line had gone dead before she’d heard his reply.
A sliver of sunlight snaked through the closed curtains, cutting across the floor where her suitcase had been tossed the night before. The feather she’d saved all these years, the one she’d taken with her from state to state, city to city, was nowhere to be found. She couldn’t believe Linnet had gone through her things. The excuse she gave, her concern about what Charlie might have found during his search of the house, was lame. Maddening. It wasn’t that she’d violated her privacy. No, it was proof her sister didn’t trust her.
Yet, Myna was feeling smug. Jake had e-mailed a copy of his article late last night. It had read beautifully, portraying her father as smart as the town had always known him to be.
She tossed the covers aside. It was clear she wasn’t going to get anymore sleep, so she padded down the hall and stairs in her pajamas. She’d barely had the opportunity to spend any time on the water since she’d arrived. Now that the fallen geese had been removed from the dam, she didn’t see any reason why she couldn’t take the rowboat out and watch the sunrise. She poked her head into the kitchen to find it empty. The house had a hazy feel of sleep, the yawn of morning in its walls and fixtures.
She slipped out the side door. The grass was covered in dew and stuck to her feet. She held the pants of her pajamas up so the bottoms didn’t get wet. She picked her way across the lawn and jogged down the path through the woods, watching where she stepped. The usual fresh geese droppings were nowhere to be found, although she spied hard clumps from geese of weeks past.
She reached the end of the path, the dam opening wide in front of her. The leaves rustled in the trees. The water rippled in the cool breeze, but there was something wrong. She took a tentative step closer. Floating on top of the water were hundreds of fish, belly-up. She recognized the olive green pattern and sharp underbite of chain pickerel, the plumpness of largemouth bass, the ever-so-cuteness of sunfish. She covered her mouth and nose, her hands in prayer. She thought of the picketers outside Murphy’s Diner, their claims the end of the world was near, ticking off the signs of the Bible’s version of the apocalypse. What’s next, one of the women had said. Dead fish.
There had to be an explanation, a reason grounded in science, just like there was a rational explanation for the fallen birds. But oh, how awful.
A grunting sound came from somewhere off to her side. She took a step closer. “Who’s there?” she asked, continuing to move toward the noise. Two rowboats were tied to the dock. This second boat had replaced the canoe not long after her mother had died. “Too many memories,” Linnet had said when she’d traded it in.
Myna took three more tentative steps. Pop was lying on his back halfway in the water, the other half on the muddy bank. She made the tiniest whimper before yelling, “Pop!” and rushing over to him. The mud squished between her toes. She slipped and nearly landed on top of him.
“Are you hurt?” she asked.
“I’m okay,” he said.
“Let me help you up.” She grabbed his arm, trying to get her footing, reaching around his waist, sliding in the slick earth. Her left hip hit the squishy ground with a thud, splattering mud up her back and arms.
Once she was able to get him out of the water, he rolled to all fours, crawling to the grass before being able to stand.
She did the same.
They made it to the bench and sat. His pants were soaked from the thighs down. Mud caked his shoes and her feet. His spectacles were crooked. He righted them.
They stared at the water, at the fish drifting in the current, piling up along the shoreline. The sun made its way over the mountain, shining brightly
for what should’ve been a gray day.
“I didn’t know how to help her,” he said, and looked at Myna, a deep sorrow reflecting in his eyes.
She recognized the pain, the same sorrow she’d often felt whenever she, too, thought about her mother. “I know, Pop. None of us did,” she said, and her heart cracked anew, for him, for her mother, for herself. “I know,” she said again, and reached for his hand.
* * *
They sat on the bench for some time, holding hands. Neither one talked. The day would be full of reporters and picketers, Charlie and the Mountain Springs Police. They took solace in the silence before the chaos enveloped them.
“I thought I’d find you here,” Linnet said. She was dressed in her typical khakis and oxford, her hair sleek and straight. She walked toward them, glancing in the direction of the dam and stopped. Something like a gasp escaped from her lips. “No,” she said. “Not the fish, too.” She gripped the day’s newspaper in her hand and marched to the dock, staying clear of the mud, and stepped onto the wooden planks. She surveyed the scene. When she turned around, she looked as though she might throw up at her feet.
“Sit with us,” Pop called.
Linnet did as he asked and took her place on the other side of him. For a moment it felt like old times, when Myna had been young, she and her sister flanking their father, their hips pressed against his, waiting patiently for one of his stories.
“I think one of two things happened,” he said about the fish. “They could’ve died from what they call a winterkill, or what happened to them is indirectly related to the geese. Either way, I believe it has something to do with the oxygen levels in the water.”
“What’s a winterkill?” Myna asked.
“When you have a cold winter like the one we had, and there’s not enough non-frozen water for the fish, it becomes not only a water-loss problem, but an oxygen problem.”
“Have you tested the water?” Linnet asked.
“My lab might be small, but I can still perform some basic tests.”
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