River Bodies (Northampton County Book 1)

by Karen Katchur

  Becca nodded. “In ways, I guess it is. In other ways, it isn’t.”

  Jackie filled the teapot with water and put it on the stove. “When your dad started asking for you to come home, I knew it was close. You see, when a person knows they’re dying, they want to be surrounded by their loved ones.”

  “Did he ever ask for my mother?” She didn’t want to hurt Jackie’s feelings, but the child inside of Becca wanted to know. No matter what he’d done, she’d always wanted to believe that he’d loved her mother.

  “Oh, yes, he asked your mother to come home too.”

  “I’m sorry. That must’ve been hard for you.”

  “No, don’t be sorry. I understand. They were married a long time. They share you. And besides, your mother is truly a lovely person. We’ve talked a lot on the phone in the last few months.”

  Becca knew they’d talked, but it almost sounded as though Jackie and her mother had become friends.

  Jackie continued. “Your mother thought it was best if she stayed away and gave you and your dad some time to be alone together. She wanted the two of you to work things out without her relationship with him interfering. She thinks it interfered enough.”

  “And she told you all of this?”

  “Yes. She wanted me to call her when the time came,” she said. “But, Becca, it’s you he’s been asking for all this time. You’re the one he wants with him. Go to him and say what you need to say before it’s too late.”

  She nodded or thought she might’ve nodded. She wasn’t sure. She turned to go, each step feeling heavier and heavier as she made her way up the stairs and down the hall. More than anything, she wanted her mother here, but she understood her mother’s reasons.

  Becca pushed the bedroom door open. Her father’s eyes were closed. His breathing was slow. She stood in the doorway watching him. Sometimes there were long pauses between his breaths.

  She walked into the room. The smells of antiseptic and sickness were still there, but there was something more, a weight to the air that hadn’t been there yesterday. She looked over her shoulder, certain she would see a dark figure of some sort, of death, at the door. It was everywhere, the sense of the end settling into the cracks and crevices, filling the space around her.

  She pulled the chair close to the bed and sat. “Dad,” she said. She didn’t know if he could hear her, but he must have, because after a few seconds, he opened his eyes. He blinked.

  “Becca.” He said her name as though it had taken a lot of effort.

  She slipped her hand into his. His skin was paper thin and cool and bluish in color.

  “I need to talk to you,” he said, each word coming out thick and slow.

  “Take your time. I’m not going anywhere.”

  His eyebrows furrowed as though he was angry, his expression a ghost of what it had once been. Becca watched his face and waited.

  He coughed and tried to swallow.

  She picked up the cup of water from the tray on the nightstand and put the bendy straw to his lips. Helping him drink and eat had been so strange, so foreign a few days ago, but today she felt more at ease with the intimacy. It was hard to stay angry with someone who couldn’t bring a cup of water to his lips when he was thirsty. Although the anger was still there, it was just that she’d set it aside, no longer giving in to its shape and form.

  He didn’t even try to sip the water. She put the cup back onto the tray and looked at her hands in her lap.

  “Is he a good man?” he asked and coughed. “Jackie told me.”

  “Oh.” She couldn’t explain Matt to her father, not without sounding angry or hurt. In ways, her father and Matt were tied together in her mind. So much of her behavior involving Matt had been a reaction to her relationship with her father. When she traced every event, every lie and indiscretion back to its beginning, she was certain how it would end. Maybe she wasn’t being fair to either one of them. Maybe she wasn’t being fair to herself. And maybe, just maybe, all the lying and cheating they were all guilty of was because they just hadn’t found the right one, the right woman or man that was meant for them.

  “Is he?” he asked again.

  She took her father’s hand again, squeezed it gently. “Please, Dad, don’t.” She wouldn’t tell him Matt was more like him than she wanted to admit. She wouldn’t hurt him, not now. All she wanted was to let it go. But she couldn’t. She couldn’t. She had to know. “Why did you do it? Why did you bring that woman here? And in front of me? I was so young. Why were there so many others?” She asked the questions her mother could never ask. Becca asked for both of them.

  She waited for him to answer, and when he didn’t respond, she wanted to shake him. Tell me why, she wanted to shout. She deserved an answer. Her mother deserved an explanation.

  “Why weren’t we enough?” she asked, pleading to get some kind of response from him.

  He struggled to breathe. “I was chief.” He choked. “I let it go to my head, thought I could do what I wanted. I was nothing but a selfish fool.”

  She touched his arm, his shoulder. She didn’t know what to say, what she’d expected, but it didn’t feel so shattering, knowing the simple truth.

  They sat quietly for a long time. His eyes opened and closed as he drifted in and out of sleep. Downstairs, Jackie was banging the cupboards as though she was searching for something. Romy padded up the steps, stopped inside the bedroom doorway. The dog peered into the room. She didn’t enter. Instead, she lay down in the hallway, her head resting on top of her paws as though she sensed what was in the air.

  Becca wasn’t sure how much time had passed, enough time for the sun to begin its descent behind the mountain. The sky turned gray. Shadows stretched across the floor. She’d moved from the edge of the seat some time ago, resting her spine against the hardwood slats on the back of the chair. Her arms dangled over the armrests.

  Romy got up and went downstairs. Becca heard the back door open and close. Jackie must’ve let the dog out for some fresh air or to do her business or both. Now, Jackie was leaning against the doorjamb, arms folded, with a syringe in her hand, the sharp needle pointed away from her body.

  “He’s resting,” Becca said.

  “I hate to disturb him, but it’s time for his medicine. I don’t want to let it go and then he wakes up in pain.”

  Jackie didn’t have to explain herself to Becca. If anything, Becca felt an overwhelming need to explain herself to Jackie. She wasn’t a bad daughter, she wanted to say. Sometimes the wounds were too deep. The scars of the past between parent and child weren’t always healed. And although her relationship with her father would never be repaired, not completely anyway, she’d found love for him.

  She didn’t say any of these things to Jackie, though. Instead, she watched as Jackie injected him with morphine. He stirred but didn’t wake.

  “Parker called. Twice,” Jackie said.

  Becca nodded.

  Jackie continued. “I’m warming up some soup. Why don’t you come down in a few minutes and eat?”

  “Okay, thanks,” she said and watched as Jackie walked out of the room.

  Her father’s eyes opened the second Jackie had gone. He looked at Becca, and she could see in his gaze he was there, he was present, when earlier he’d drifted in and away.

  Her father gripped her hand. His eyes grew wide. “John.” He swallowed hard.

  The muscles in her neck and back tensed. She nodded, signaling him to continue.

  When her father didn’t continue, she said, “Tell me.”

  His eyes closed. His breath came in short bursts.

  Her heart thrummed. She put her hands on his shoulders, forcing him to look at her. “Tell me, Dad. I need for you to tell me everything.” She felt the pull like a current in the river, forcing her in a direction she had no choice but to go.

  He remained silent.

  “Tell me.” She was aware of the panic in her voice. “I’m not a little kid anymore. I know what I saw. I know why you
sent me away.”

  He blinked several times, trying to stay alert, fighting the morphine pulsing through his veins. He reached for her. His hand covered her mouth, then dropped to the bed. His eyes closed again.

  He was telling her to remain quiet. And she hated herself because she was thinking about it. All she had to do was tell Parker she’d made a mistake. She hadn’t seen a thing. She could walk away from this place, from John, and forget anything had ever happened.

  But what if he killed again? Could she live with herself? She didn’t think so. And what about Parker? Was she prepared to forget him too, to walk away from him a second time? It was what she would have to do. She’d never be able to look him in the eyes knowing she was the key witness in his case.

  “What should I do, Dad?” she asked, listening to his labored breath before covering her face with her hands.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  Becca stayed at her father’s bedside, refusing to leave him for even a moment. Twice since the sun had set, she’d used the bathroom, but otherwise she hadn’t left the room. She’d skipped dinner and Jackie’s soup. Romy had stayed outside the door in the hallway. The dog had been aware of what was happening from her body language. She’d kept her head lowered, a deep sadness in her eyes. Becca had wanted Romy in the bedroom with her so that she could pet and comfort her, so they could comfort each other. But the last thing Becca wanted to do was upset her father by bringing a dog into his room. The truth of it made her sad, the power he held over her still, the leftover childhood fear.

  It wasn’t until sometime after midnight that she rose and stared out the window at the darkened sky. The night was clear and cool. The stars were plentiful, shimmering and glittering, dancing around the moon. It was almost too beautiful to look at, too happy, a sharp contrast to the sorrow staining the walls of the house.

  The small lamp on the nightstand gave off a dim yellow glow that spread across her father’s face and chest. Jackie was sitting in a chair on the opposite side of the bed, silent, watching him rest. She’d taken his hand and began massaging his fingers and palm, working her way to his wrist and forearm. All the while, she whispered to him. Becca couldn’t make out everything she’d said, but she’d caught some of the words. “We’re with you. You’re not alone.”

  It was now close to three o’clock. He opened his eyes. Becca stood and peered at him. “We’re here, Dad. We’re right here with you.” She said the words not knowing if he understood. His eyes were glazed over, and the longer she stared at him, the more she realized he wasn’t there. Oh, he was there physically. But whatever had made her father who he was had disappeared. His eyes no longer held any of the emotions he’d once carried, nothing of the life he’d lived.

  She sat back down and took his hand, rubbing his fingers and palm the way Jackie had done. His skin was dry and cool, as though his body heat had left him. His nails were blue. “Maybe we should get him another blanket,” she said.

  “It’s normal for his skin to feel cool,” Jackie said. “But there’s another blanket in the hall closet if it makes you feel better.”

  Yes, it would make her feel better. She would take any little thing she could to make herself feel better. Becca stood and left the room. Outside the door, she stopped and put her back against the wall, sliding down to the floor next to Romy. The sixty-five-pound dog crawled into Becca’s lap, and Becca buried her face in Romy’s fur.

  Some time had passed, not much time, and Becca stood once again, giving Romy a kiss on the top of her head. Becca pulled a blanket from the hall closet and returned to her father’s room. Jackie helped her spread it over him.

  They sat in silence. The house was so quiet she could hear the clock in the kitchen downstairs tick off the seconds. On occasion, the old electric heat kicked on, the pipes pinging, the sound much louder than Becca had remembered.

  “I told your dad he needed to get a new furnace,” Jackie said. “The first time I heard those pipes rattle, I thought someone had lit firecrackers under the bed.” She laughed and gazed at his face, seeming to be lost in a memory she’d shared with him.

  Becca didn’t say anything, and the silence stretched on. They continued massaging his hands and arms, talking to him in whispering voices. He’d stopped drinking more than forty-eight hours ago. It was almost another three hours before his eyes opened wide again. Becca stood over him, touching his shoulder.

  “Dad. Can you hear me?”

  He looked at her with the same vacant eyes. She would never again see the sternness of his glare, the fear, the twinkle of his charm, the shades of love in his gaze. A deep sadness moved through her, a great sorrow for all the things they were to each other, all the things they could’ve been, all the things they would never get to be.

  “I came home for you,” she told him. “I came because I wanted to be here with you.”

  His eyelids fluttered once, twice, and closed. His skin was dusky. His jaw relaxed, and his mouth hung open as the hollows in his cheeks collapsed. His breaths came in short, shallow spurts with long pauses in between. It was five forty-five in the morning.

  Jackie continued rubbing his forearm and bicep and shoulder. Becca lowered herself in the chair, unable to do anything but watch.

  “We’re here, baby,” Jackie said. “You’re not alone.”

  No, Becca thought, they were the ones who were alone. He was gone from them. Maybe Jackie hadn’t realized it yet. Maybe she had yet to feel the void, the emptiness in the room.

  At six o’clock his breathing stopped, his last breath no different from the one before.

  Slowly, Becca rose from the chair and crossed the room to the window. She folded her arms as though she were hugging herself. The top of the sun appeared behind the mountain, lighting the ground with its golden rays. Yellow and orange leaves blew in the breeze and scattered across the yard. Romy entered the room, sat by Becca’s side.

  Behind her, Jackie crawled into the bed with him. She wrapped her arms around him, rested his head on her shoulder, and quietly sobbed.

  Becca left Jackie that way, curled around Becca’s father, and walked out of the room with Romy. She dressed in running gear, long black pants and a bright-pink shirt, the color bold and vivid like her father had told her to wear in case there were hunters in the woods. She tied the laces of her sneakers. Then she folded the sheet of paper with the witness’s statement into a small square and shoved it into the front pocket of her pants. Romy jumped and pranced at her side, tired of being cooped up in the house, ready for her morning exercise.

  Becca stopped in front of the foyer closet and opened the door. She grabbed the small Ruger off the top shelf. Her father had kept it in the coat closet by the door with the Glock he’d carried on the job ever since she’d been a kid. The first thing he’d do after coming home from one of his shifts was to put his weapon on the shelf where she could reach it if she’d wanted.

  The Glock he used to carry was no longer there. She imagined he’d had to turn it in when he’d retired. But not the Ruger. The Ruger had been waiting for her. Her father had prepared her for this day when he would no longer be around to protect her. She hadn’t understood then that this was his gift to her, a way of showing her how much he’d loved her. No country girl worth a spit doesn’t know how to fire a gun.

  The Ruger felt familiar in her grip, although not as heavy as she remembered. She tucked it into the back waistband of her pants, double-checking it was secure, and threw the back door open.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  John leaned against the oak tree, the same tree Russell had leaned on at the edge of the woods overlooking Clint’s yard, the same spot where Russell and Clint had struck a deal.

  John had been resting against the tree for the last two hours. It had been dark when he’d arrived, the sky the color of ash, not quite night but not yet morning. His hips and knees ached. He flexed and extended his fingers to get the blood circulating. His joints cracked. His body temperature fluctuated between hot a
nd cold. He gripped the .30-06 rifle in his hand at his side. He’d been awake all night, unable to shut his mind down, turning his options over and then over again, searching for a way out. He’d paced the rooms in his house until his legs had grown tired, and the walls had threatened to confine him. It hadn’t been until he’d stepped outside into the night air that he’d started to relax, his muscles unknotting along his spine, his shoulders no longer up around his ears. The night had been cool. He’d lit another fire in the fire pit and spent several hours watching it burn. It hadn’t been until dawn approached that he’d picked up the rifle.

  Now, while he propped himself up against the oak tree, waiting, he talked to himself. He shouldn’t have allowed Becca to see him by the river. It was his fault he was in this position. He’d been sloppy, and he was being forced to clean up the mess. He had no choice. She would talk to her detective friend, if she hadn’t already. Without her, the detective had no case.

  Or so he believed.

  John kept his gaze on Clint’s house and the dim yellow light coming from the second-floor window. Behind John the mountain loomed, and the first hint of the sun’s rays stroked the ground at his feet. He was here watching, waiting, relying on a gut feeling and his knowledge of her and her routine. He hoped for once his gut was wrong. For the first time in his life, he wanted to be dead wrong.

  The back door to the house swung open. Becca’s dog raced outside.

  John stepped behind the tree, hiding behind it, gripping the rifle with a clammy hand. For a moment, he thought she was just letting her dog out to go to the bathroom. But then she appeared in the doorway. John ducked farther behind the tree, peeked around the trunk. She stepped into the yard wearing tight black pants and a bright-pink shirt.

  He recognized her running gear.

  Quietly, he slipped away from the oak tree. He would have to be careful and take extra precautions as he moved through the woods so her dog wouldn’t smell him and give him away. His adrenaline pumped as he darted soundlessly through the brush, careful of snapping twigs and crunching leaves. When he was a safe distance away, he stepped behind a hemlock tree. Again he waited.