The Sisters of Blue Mountain

by Karen Katchur

  Jake had never questioned how she hacked into computer files, nor had he ever asked who helped her when she couldn’t come up with answers on her own. “You have my word.”

  “So you’re doing it? You’re going to the police?”

  “I think so.” He’d take one more shot with Myna and try to get to the doc one last time. The justice system was slow, and once the police and lawyers were involved, Jake may never get the answers he was seeking.

  “Please be careful,” Kim said.

  He liked that she was worried about him. “I’ll keep you posted.”

  After he hung up the phone with Kim, he directed his attention to the TV. The room had grown quiet as the crowd listened to a female reporter broadcasting from the parking lot near the boat launch, the dam in the background. The camera panned out for a full view of the water as well as the stream of picketers chanting and waving signs. Then it zoomed in on the fish, belly-up, the current pushing their bloated bodies against the shoreline. So this was what Myna had been talking about. The place and time for volunteers to meet for the dredging of the dam and disposing of the fish flashed at the bottom of the screen. Jake jotted the information down not only for his article for the paper but also to search for the sisters and the doc among the volunteers.

  The camera cut away to another reporter, this one standing on the street in front of The Snow Goose. “Dr. Henry Jenkins was questioned by police today concerning the death of Professor James Coyle.” He went on to explain that the investigation was ongoing. The police hadn’t released an official statement.

  Jake’s phone pinged. He looked at the text message. He couldn’t believe his luck.

  It’s Myna. If you still want to talk, text me.

  * * *

  Jake rubbed his hands together, pacing the length of the small, rented room above the LG. Downstairs in the bar he could hear the clinking of glasses, the hum of conversation, the scraping of barstools. He checked his face in the bathroom mirror one last time: clean-shaven, a little puffy around the eyes, otherwise he looked like himself, but the permanent scowl had to go. He shook his shoulders and arms, clearing his face of all expression. Play it cool, man. Don’t scare her off.

  Footsteps sounded on the metal steps of the fire escape. He greeted her at the door.

  “Thanks for coming,” he said. Their arrangement to meet in his room felt indecent now that she was here. It wasn’t anything like that, but if someone saw her coming, if someone saw her leaving, it would look suspicious to an outsider, maybe even scandalous.

  Screw it. He didn’t care. It wouldn’t hurt his reputation. It would only make him look good, proof he was going straight to the source.

  He motioned for her to sit, but where? There wasn’t a chair in his room, only a bed with an ugly orange bedcover. She sat on the edge of the mattress, tucking her hands between her knees. The collar of her sweatshirt was stretched and worn and hung off one shoulder. He met her gaze, forgetting himself for a moment in her big brown eyes.

  “My sister doesn’t want me to talk to you,” she said. “And, to tell you the truth, I’m not really sure I should. So whatever it is you want, you better ask quick before I change my mind.”

  “I need to talk with your dad.”

  She was shaking her head before he’d finished. “No, I can’t set that up for you.”

  “Can’t or won’t?”

  “Won’t.” She stared at the floor.

  Jake noticed her flip-flops, her pink toenails. “I was very young when I lost my dad,” he said. “I was barely nine years old.” He sat on the edge of the mattress next to her, aware his shoulders slumped. “I’m trying to hold on to the few memories I have of him, but most are bits and pieces of stories my mom told me. I don’t know which ones are mine anymore and which ones are hers. And now I don’t even have her memories of him.” He swallowed the rock in his throat. He hadn’t meant to share such private thoughts.

  “I’m sorry.” She put her hand on his thigh. “But I’m not sure how I can help.”

  “I think your dad knew him. I’d like to talk to him about how he knew him.”

  She removed her hand, dropping her gaze to her lap.

  “I just want to talk to him. That’s all,” Jake said.

  “I don’t see how he could’ve known your dad. He doesn’t have many friends outside of Mountain Springs. The ones he does have are his colleagues. And I’m not even sure you could count those anymore.” She touched her forearm, and then pulled the sleeve of her sweatshirt down.

  “I didn’t say they were friends.” Something in Jake’s voice shifted, making his words sound more like a growl rather than empathetic. He sensed her body tense up, stiffen, but he couldn’t stop himself from continuing in the same gruff tone. “I’m not sure how they knew each other. But they must have. You have to let me talk to him.”

  “No, I don’t.” She stood.

  “Please,” he said, and got up, taking a step toward her.

  She backed away from him.

  “Then tell me why your father’s number is the only one on my dad’s phone?” He pulled the scraped, black Nokia from his pocket and showed it to her. “I found it with his personal effects from the night of his car accident.”

  Recognition registered in her eyes. Fear flickered across her face. She touched her lips, and for a moment she looked as though she were going to scream.

  “You’ve seen this before?” he asked, and took a step closer.

  She backed up.

  “What do you know about it?”

  She blinked. For every step he took toward her, she took one step back until she was against the wall, and there was nowhere else to go.

  “What does your dad know about it? Why was his phone number the only contact listed?” He was scaring her, he could see it in her face, but he couldn’t stop himself from pushing. “Tell me what you know.”

  Her phone pinged. She pulled it out. “It’s Linnet. I have to go.”

  Before he knew what was happening, she was racing out the door and down the fire escape stairs.

  “Wait!” he called. “What are you hiding?” he shouted.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  Myna ran to her car. The text message had been from Ben, not her sister. He’d saved her, although he hadn’t known it. Ben had seen the news about the fish and then, later, the report about her father. He’d been concerned about her. He wanted her to call him.

  Her heart flapped as though a thousand snow geese had taken off inside her chest. She gripped the steering wheel, checking once, twice, three times in the rearview mirror that Jake hadn’t followed her.

  She’d thought she’d been clever, leaving the house only after Linnet had left to check on Pop one last time before bed. Ian had been in Hank’s bedroom helping him with his algebra homework. And then there had been the phone calls. How many phone calls had Linnet taken after the news had aired about Pop? It had to have been at least ten, all cancelations for the upcoming weekends at the B&B. No one wanted to rent a room where a suspected murderer lived. The Snow Goose would be empty the next few months. Linnet hadn’t shown any emotion about the cancellations one way or the other.

  She punched the steering wheel with her palm. She checked the rearview again, seeing a blanket of darkness behind her.

  The road dipped and swayed. The full moon shined down from above, but it did little to light the way under the branches of trees. She moved through the black tunnel, guided by the two small headlights of her rental car. She started to sweat.

  When she reached the B&B, she pulled into the driveway, parking under the cover of an old maple tree. She cut the headlights and turned off the engine. She breathed deeply and rubbed her eyes, trying to settle down. She needed to collect herself before confronting her sister.

  * * *

  “Linnet,” Myna whispered, and tapped on her sister’s bedroom door. “Are you up?” She couldn’t keep her hands from shaking. She knocked again.

  “Hold on.” There wa
s the sound of sheets, the creak of the box spring. In the next second, Linnet pulled the door open, wrapping a robe around her.

  Myna couldn’t remember the last time she’d seen her sister naked, probably not since they were teenagers. Her sister was still muscular, lean.

  “What is it?” Linnet asked. “Is it Pop?”

  “No.”

  “What’s going on?” Ian asked from somewhere behind Linnet. He made no attempt to get out of bed.

  “I just need to talk to Linnet about something,” Myna said. “It won’t take long.” She motioned for her to follow.

  Linnet looked over her shoulder and said to Ian, “I’ll be right back.” She closed the bedroom door behind her. “What’s happened?” she asked once they were a few steps down the hall. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

  She grabbed Linnet’s wrist and led her to the guest bedroom where she’d been sleeping since she’d arrived. There weren’t any other guests besides Myna, no one to overhear their conversation on the third floor. Once they were inside her room, she shut the door and put her back against it. “Don’t be mad,” she said.

  “What did you do?”

  “It’s bad, Linny,” she said, her legs starting to tremble. “You were right. And now I have to tell him the truth. He has to know. It’s the only way.” She couldn’t stop from blubbering. “Please don’t hate me.” She covered her face with her hands.

  “What are you talking about? Why would I hate you?” She stepped toward her. “Tell me what you did.”

  “I saw Jake.”

  “You did what?” She crossed her arms. “After I specifically told you not to go near him? You couldn’t listen to me. You’re like a spoiled, rebellious child, you know that? Always doing what you want to do and never thinking about how it might affect other people.”

  “Me? What about you?” she asked. “You made the decision not to tell.” Her voice rose higher. “And I listened to you. That time, I listened to you, and I shouldn’t have.” Her hands balled into fists at her sides. “He deserves to know the truth.”

  Linnet was breathing deeply, clearly trying to control her anger. “What did you tell him?”

  “I didn’t tell him anything.” She paused. “I got scared.” She stared at her sister. “I wanted to talk with you first.”

  “What scared you?”

  “He has the phone, Linny.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “The phone,” she said, and paced around in circles as she talked. “The cell phone. You know.” She pulled at her fingers.

  “That old Nokia?”

  “Ding, ding, ding,” Myna said.

  “That’s not possible. It doesn’t make sense. How?”

  “He found it with his father’s personal effects or belongings or whatever.” She stopped pacing and grabbed Linnet’s biceps. “Our phone number is on it. Do you understand me now? He thinks Pop had something to do with the car accident.”

  Linnet covered her mouth and slowly sat on the edge of the bed, the quilt flattening around her.

  “Don’t you see? We have to tell him the truth,” Myna said.

  They were silent. The window was open, and a breeze blew into the room. Outside, the crickets chirped. The lightning bugs blinked on and off in the backyard. Birds rustled in the trees. But the geese were absent. There would be no honking to lull them to sleep, no comforting sounds from their childhood, only the memory of one horrible night invading their dreams.

  “It’s your fault,” Linnet said, breaking the silence. “It’s all your fault. You let him talk to Pop. And now this happened.”

  “No, you’re wrong.” She shook her head. “It’s not my fault.” She hesitated. “Maybe it is, a little.” She knelt on the floor at her sister’s feet. She placed her hands on her sister’s thighs, the robe silky underneath her fingers. “We have to tell Jake the truth. We owe it to him. We owe it to Mom.”

  Something dark moved across Linnet’s face. Her features turned cold, hard. “I don’t owe Mom anything.”

  Myna removed her hands from her sister’s legs. She sat back on her heels. There was so much hatred in her sister’s words, so much pain. “Don’t you see what this has done to us? This lie. Look what it has done to you and me.”

  “To you, maybe. Not to me. What did you lose, anyway? I became your mother. I was the one who took care of you better than she ever had even on her best days.”

  “You’re right. You were a better mother to me.” Linnet had taken care of her, had been there every day, all through high school and college, cooking dinners, helping with homework, washing her laundry, doing all the things a mother would do, all the things their mother hadn’t been capable of doing. “But I lost something, too, and it was more than losing Mom,” she said. “It’s something you’ve never understood.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “You, Linny. I lost you,” she said. “I lost my sister.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  Linnet closed the master bedroom door at the same time Ian turned on the small light on the nightstand. He was sitting up in bed.

  “Everything okay?” he asked, and pulled the covers aside to welcome her back in.

  She slipped off the robe, letting it fall to the floor, and crawled into his open arms. They spooned. Her back pressed against his bare chest, his legs tucked neatly into the folds behind hers. His arm dangled around her waist. They’d finished having sex minutes before Myna had knocked on their door, disrupting their quiet time in each other’s arms. Linnet had reached for him like she’d always done whenever she’d been troubled about something, seeking his love, wanting him close.

  “Hold me,” she said, needing him now maybe more than she ever had.

  He pulled her closer, wrapping his arms firmly around her waist, his breath warm on the back of her neck.

  “Tell me what I can do,” he said softly into her ear. She linked her fingers through his and closed her eyes. How could she explain to him without admitting what she’d done?

  “Whatever happens,” he said, “I’ll be by your side. We’ll get through this together.” He kissed the back of her head. “I do love him,” he said about Pop.

  She nodded. They stayed this way, curled around each other, for some time. Her last thoughts as her eyelids grew heavy were on her sister and the night Jake had lost his father.

  * * *

  Linnet had taken her time on her hair, trying to straighten the tangles of curls. Straight hair was in. She’d seen it in all the magazines, sleek and shiny and sophisticated. She wanted to look older. She had to pass for a college student if they were going to pull this off.

  Myna, on the other hand, was lying on her back on the bed staring up at the ceiling, curly hair splayed all around her head. She’d run her fingers through the long, kinky locks earlier. “There,” she’d said. “All done. Ready when you are.”

  Linnet had scoffed, but secretly she’d admired her sister’s cavalier attitude about her appearance. Myna had been comfortable in her own skin since they’d been kids, and it hadn’t changed even now that her sister was fifteen. The more Linnet fussed over her hair, the less Myna cared about her own.

  Linnet put the flatiron down. Myna clasped her hands behind her head. She was singing the words to one of her favorite songs, “All I Wanna Do.” Linnet turned the volume up on the CD player and sang along with her, the words perfect for the occasion.

  Myna reached across the bed and turned the volume down. “We don’t want to wake up Mom,” she said.

  “Oh, please,” Linnet said. “Like I care.”

  Myna sat up and reached across the bed a second time. She turned off the music. She put her finger to her lips. “Listen,” she said before Linnet could protest.

  There were sounds coming from their mother’s bedroom. It almost sounded like … but no, it couldn’t be. Was their mother singing? She heard the spraying of an aerosol can, hairspray or maybe perfume. There was more singing, or rather it w
as more like humming—happy, joyful humming.

  “What’s she doing?” Myna asked, her eyes wide, worried. “Is she going somewhere?”

  “I don’t know,” Linnet said. “I doubt she’s going anywhere. Don’t worry.” She picked up her blue rattan bag and slung it over her shoulder. Was their mother going somewhere? No, no, she couldn’t be. Since when did she leave the house? Somewhere in the back of her mind she remembered the phone conversation she’d listened in on between her mother and that man, but that had been weeks ago.

  She refused to think about it any further. She wasn’t going to let it ruin their plans.

  If ever there was a night to get out of Dodge, it was tonight, now more than ever. The small town, the petty girls in her class, her mother, it was all getting to her. She suspected it was also getting to her sister. Myna had been rubbing her forearm more and more lately, scratching at the birthmark on her arm, a habit she had whenever she was agitated or stressed.

  When Myna started picking at her skin, Linnet’s decision to go to the college party, the spring fling, was cemented.

  “Let’s go.” She grabbed the car keys from the top of the dresser.

  Myna slid off the bed and followed Linnet out of the bedroom.

  They were halfway down the hallway when she stopped. “Wait here,” she said. “I forgot the phone Pop gave us.” She rushed back into the bedroom, plucked the black Nokia from the nightstand, and tossed it into her bag.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  Jake parked his car in the public lot at the dam. The place was nearly filled with pickup trucks, minibuses, and news vans. A light rain made everything wet and muddy. Fog lifted from the water, a white haze amidst the gray. All around him the mountains stood tall, the trees’ new green leaves slick from the spring shower.

  Several men congregated around the dock and shoreline dressed in rain jackets and waders, holding masks to their mouths and noses to block the stink of rotting fish. Three men who appeared to be in charge pointed toward the dam. A large dredger machine had entered the water at the boat launch. The machine would drag along the bottom, removing the plant life that had choked the fish.