The Lying Woods

by Ashley Elston

  “So you know who I am.” It’s not a question.

  “Of course. You look just like your mother.” Gus hesitates a few seconds then asks, “How’s she holding up?”

  I shrug. “Hanging in there.”

  He stares at me for what feels like forever. “Your dad worked here, back when he was your age. Did you know that?”

  I shake my head no. Is this why Detective Hill sent me out this way?

  “He did. Lived a summer in the house in the Preacher Woods.”

  “What’s the Preacher Woods?”

  With arms stretched wide, he says, “The little grove where all this started.”

  “Why do they call it that?”

  He leans against the side of the old truck, arms crossed in front of him. “Rumor has it, about a hundred years ago, there was an old man living in a run-down house on the edge of the property when Leonard Trudeau bought the place and he didn’t have the heart to kick him off the land. The old man never left and no one ever came looking for him. They say he wandered through that grove, Bible in hand, preaching to the trees as if they were his congregation, so everyone got to calling it the Preacher Woods.”

  “So he just stayed out there until he died?”

  Gus cocks his head to the side and shrugs. “That’s the damnedest thing. Leonard got to where he was checking on him every day, bringing him food and making sure there wasn’t anything else he needed. By then, he was pretty old…paper-thin skin hanging off of him and hair so white it almost glowed, so the story goes. Then, one day, he was gone. Everything in that house was just like it had been the day before but the old preacher was never seen again.”

  I can’t stop the rush of shivers that crawl through my body. “It’s hard for me to imagine Dad here, living in a run-down house that belonged to an old preacher who disappeared into thin air.”

  “Your dad showed up here when he didn’t have anywhere else to go. Funny how you’ve done the same thing.”

  I think about the job offer. It would be better to spend my afternoons here rather than at Aunt Lucinda’s. And maybe I can learn more about Dad since Gus knew him. “I’d like to take the job, but I don’t have a car. Not sure how I’d get back and forth every day.”

  Gus bangs a hand on the hood of the truck. “You can use this. It’s not pretty but it’s dependable.”

  I stare at the old truck. “You’re not afraid I’m going to steal this truck and never come back?”

  Gus pushes away from it and starts walking back toward the golf cart. “Is that what you plan to do?”

  “Well…no…but…”

  “Well, then stop saying stupid shit. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  Noah—Summer of 1999

  “Here’s your stop,” the guy driving the truck shouts out of the window.

  I throw my duffel bag on the ground then hop out of the back of the pickup. “Appreciate the lift,” I call as he drives away.

  He honks the horn then disappears around the curve while I start up the long winding driveway. When the house comes into sight, I’m tugging my hair back, stuffing it under my baseball cap, and taking a quick whiff of my shirt to make sure I don’t stink too bad. I need this job and I’ll screw up my chances if I look like a homeless person, even though that’s exactly what I am.

  I step off the driveway onto the wide brick path that leads to the front door. The house rises in front of me, blinding white in the sunlight, with huge columns going from the floor of the porch past the second-floor balcony, all the way up to the roof. The rosebushes are in bloom, giving the air a smell so sweet it almost makes me sick. There is a wide set of brick steps leading up to the porch with clay pots on each step overflowing with flowers.

  This is the prettiest house I’ve ever seen.

  I knock on the front door and rub my hands down the side of my pants so they’ll be dry when I shake hands with the owner.

  A black woman wearing a set of blue scrubs opens the door. “Can I help you?” she asks. She has a nice, friendly smile that makes my nerves quiet down just a little.

  “Um, I’m here about the job? Saw the notice on the board in the diner next to the bus station.”

  Her eyes light up and I relax. “Sure, let me get Mr. Trudeau for you.” She turns away, leaving the front door open, but I don’t step inside.

  It’s only a few minutes before she’s back with a man I’m assuming is the owner trailing right behind her.

  “Thanks, Betty, I’m stepping out for a few minutes but holler if you need me,” he says to the woman. She squeezes his arm and gives him a soft smile.

  “Take your time, I’ve got it covered here.”

  Betty moves away and disappears through an opening under the big sweeping staircase.

  “You here about the job?” Mr. Trudeau asks. He’s a white guy not that much older than me, maybe he’s in his mid- to late twenties. Looking at this house and all the land, I was expecting an older man.

  I nod. “Yes, sir.”

  He eyes me from head to toe, taking in my greasy brown hair that’s falling out of my baseball cap, my faded Metallica T-shirt and ripped jeans.

  “You ever work outside, with heavy equipment?”

  “No, sir. But I’m a quick learner. And I’m not afraid of hard work.”

  Mr. Trudeau runs a hand through his dark hair and turns to look back at the house. “I normally take care of this place myself but I’ve got a lot going on right now. Need a little help keeping up with things.”

  He’s still looking at the house and I’m wondering what’s going on inside that’s got him bothered.

  “I can do whatever you need me to do,” I answer. “You’ve got a beautiful place.”

  “Thanks,” he says. “This orchard’s been in my family for years.” Mr. Trudeau points to some unknown thing in the distance. “My great-grandfather bought this land when it was just a small grove of native pecan trees near the river bottom. Then he started bringing in trees of other varieties of improved pecans—Moneymakers, Stuarts, Papershells, and Desirables. It’s quiet around here now but come fall, we’ll be shaking these trees and carrying pecans to town.”

  I don’t plan to be here that long, but I don’t tell him that.

  He finally turns back to me and says, “I’ll try you out for a week. See how it goes.”

  I nod but this is not what I wanted to hear. I need steady work. “Any chance you got a room to rent?”

  He stares at me hard. “So you need a job and roof over your head. Hell, I don’t even know your name. I was expecting someone from town to take me up on the job offer.”

  I dig my hands in my pockets. “I’m Noah and I’m from St. Louis, turned nineteen a few weeks ago. I’m the hardest worker you’ll ever hire. I keep to myself and I don’t cause trouble.”

  “How’d you end up in the middle of Louisiana?”

  I kick a loose rock with my foot. “Thought about going to New Orleans. Bought a bus ticket for as close as I could get with the money I had. This was as far as I got.”

  Mr. Trudeau glances back to the house again before he says, “You still mean to get to New Orleans?”

  “Maybe at some point. Just looking to make some money right now.”

  We stand there staring at each other a few seconds and I hope he doesn’t see the sweat pouring down my neck, soaking my shirt.

  “There’s an old house in the back of the orchard. It isn’t much but it’s cheap. I’ll take the rent out of your check.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Trudeau.”

  “Gus. Call me Gus. I’m taking a chance on you, but don’t think I won’t put a bullet in you if I think you’re going to hurt what’s mine.”

  3

  Even on break from Sutton’s, we rarely spent time in Louisiana. Some summers we stayed in Sun Valley while others it was a villa in Mexico right on the Caribbean. Christmas was always skiing in Aspen. So it’s not surprising I get turned around and take a couple of wrong turns on my way to school. Landmarks that I thought I
would recognize are gone, or changed in some way. Everything looks different. Feels different.

  But the high school is exactly like I remember it. On those hot summer afternoons before we started middle school when there was nothing else to do, Pippa and I would ride our bikes here and roam around the grounds. The ugly gray building looks more like a factory than a school, but both us couldn’t wait until the day when we would go here. Pippa even picked out what she thought would be the perfect parking spot…it was far from the front door but close to a side entrance that she hoped would be easy to sneak out of so we could cut for lunch.

  She was always two steps ahead of where we were, always looking forward to getting out of here—to moving somewhere new and leaving this town behind.

  But I was the one who left instead when my parents enrolled me in Sutton’s for sixth grade.

  God, I haven’t thought about her in forever. Will she be here? Would I recognize her?

  My phone vibrates as I pull into the parking lot at school. I click on the highly inappropriate picture of Jack that I assigned to his contact in my phone. It’s his head, stuffed between an enormous pair of stripper’s breasts. The picture was taken while we were out on a pass from Sutton’s. We were wandering around the Quarter, looking to make the most of our first night away from school, when we passed a club. The guy working the door was unimpressed until Jack pulled out a wad of cash, so for double the cover price, we were in. It was our first time in a place like that. We were freshmen, young and stupid with braces and acne and it was obvious we were out of our league the second we walked through the door. Ray, Sai, and I put our money together and bought Jack a lap dance, mainly so we could do it to him before he did it to us. We laughed about it for weeks after.

  Thinking about that night hits me in the gut.

  I stare at the notification on my phone. Jack’s been my best friend since we both started Sutton’s and the only person that has ever come back home with me to Lake Cane.

  I swipe open his latest message.

  JACK: if you don’t call me back I’m kicking your ass fucker

  Have to admit that brings a smile to my face. I respond:

  ME: not ready to talk

  JACK: wtf get over it your dads a dick

  ME: later

  And I power my phone off. Jack means well but he has no idea what it’s like coming home to this. If I thought we lived big, it was nothing compared to the Cooper family. We had a time share in Aspen and they had a house on top of the mountain with a private lift to get there. The only thing I regret is not saying good-bye to him before I left.

  God, I would give anything if my only worry was if he papered the locker room with pictures of my bare ass.

  Hunkered down on the couch in the den, I spent most of last night on the internet reading every news story, blog post, tweet, and Facebook post outlining Dad’s greed and corruption. When Dad got out of college, he started working for my grandfather, my mom’s dad, at his company, Louisiana Frac. Back then, it was a small fracking service that employed a couple dozen people. Natural gas drilling in Louisiana has always been steady but nothing compared to what happened when it was discovered that there was a lot of gas down deep a little more than ten years ago.

  So business exploded. While a typical well needed about five frack tanks, a deep well needed around fifty. To help get the most out of a well, you have to frack it. That means you pump water, sand, and other fluids and chemicals down the drill hole to open, or fracture, the earth, then hold the fracture open for drilling. There is a lot of controversy around this process because water sources local people use can become polluted if there’s a leak.

  My grandfather had just passed away and Dad had taken over the company, and with the higher demand in business he expanded the operation and hired dozens more employees just as Dr. Winston mentioned yesterday. It wasn’t long before Louisiana Frac was the biggest employer in our small town.

  According to several articles, his theft is estimated at more than ten million. It’s no coincidence that the boom in his business and the start of his theft was the same time we moved into the new house, the one that’s been seized, and I was shipped off to boarding school.

  The growth of Louisiana Frac launched other businesses as well, like transportation companies that hauled the frack tanks to different well sites and suppliers that sold us the materials we need to frack a well. Now that Louisiana Frac is shut down and the possibility of it running again very slim, those other businesses find themselves with problems.

  Guys who worked under my grandfather, who were months away from retirement, are screwed because they’re out of a job and have no money to retire on. And the guys who are far from retiring are just as screwed because they’ve worked all these years for nothing and have to figure out how to start all over in a town that doesn’t have a lot of other opportunities.

  There are also theories on the identity of the person or persons who is believed to have helped him, but the general consensus is that it was Mom. Most believe she knows what he was doing and she knows where he is, but she’s playing dumb to stay out of trouble since he left town without her.

  By midnight, I was ready to punch something. Or someone.

  And then the comments started rolling in on my social media accounts. Every picture I had ever posted of us on vacation was targeted.

  Wish I could spend Christmas in Aspen! Oh yeah, I could have if your dad hadn’t stolen all our money. Dick.

  Scuba diving looks so fun! You’re welcome.

  U and ur family totally suck

  Your dad ruined our life

  I was not expecting that. For hours, I watched the comments pour in. I was frozen…numb…with indecision. Should I reply to every comment, let them know I didn’t know what he was doing? Would that make it worse? It was obvious those commenting were locals, so would I meet @gdogg4312 at school? Would he be sitting next to me in class and I wouldn’t even know it? I had never faced anything like that. Had no idea how to handle it. So in those early-morning hours, I deleted every online account because I didn’t know what else to do and I needed it to stop.

  When I sat down across from Mom at breakfast, the one thing I was sure of was that she had no idea what was going on. Every charge against Dad was etched in a fine line across her face.

  Fourteen days to go. Now more than ever I need to see him. Hear his side. Even with everything I read, I still feel like there’s something more to this. Something I’m missing.

  Since the school isn’t too far from Aunt Lucinda’s, Mom was going to walk with me so she could get me enrolled, but one peek out of the front window changed those plans. Instead of bored housewives, news vans were parked out front, cameras ready to go. One look at Mom and I knew how scared she was to leave the house. So Aunt Lucinda slipped out the front door to talk to them while I snuck out the side door and ran to the truck I’d parked down the street.

  I haven’t told Mom about meeting Gus and the loan of the truck because I know she’d make me give it back—not wanting us to take anything else from the people here.

  And since Gus didn’t specify it was only to be used to get to work, I decided it would suck to have the cameras catch me walking to school so I drove the short distance instead.

  A group of girls trickles by, each peeking inside the truck as they pass. It’s a small town and a small school so it’s not surprising they are curious about this new addition to the parking lot. I slump down in my seat, but I can’t stall any longer.

  Ducking behind a group of guys who just stepped off the bus, I jump out of the borrowed truck and follow them up the meandering path toward the entrance. The main hall is as packed and chaotic as high school five minutes before first bell should be, but it’s still nothing like I’ve ever witnessed.

  I scan the space for a familiar face and am surprised when I actually recognize several people. I nod to a guy that I know pretty well. Seth Sullivan. We were friends before I left; we would spend nights hangin
g out on a regular basis. I remember we both loved to play Madden and hated Mrs. Tinswell, who taught us fourth grade.

  But now he stares, then walks right past me. Damn—that sucks more than I thought it would.

  I try a little harder with the next three people I recognize, making eye contact with them then throwing in a small smile to go with my head nod. Dirty looks, glares, and even a hard shoulder that nearly knocks me over when we pass are the only responses I get in return.

  I guess this is how it’s going to be.

  With my new schedule in hand, I stop trying to find a friendly face and instead try to navigate the mazelike layout. I’ve never missed Sutton’s more than I do in this moment. If I was back there now, my friends and I would be leaving the dining hall, laughing and joking as we made our way along the stone path to Hunter Hall.

  I make it to second period before I get in my first fight. Coming out of class, some kid blindsides me with a weak-ass punch to the shoulder. After sitting through two classes being stared at, whispered at, pointed at, I lose my cool. I shove him, hard, and he skids across the floor. He stares at me for a few seconds before hopping up and taking another swing. I pivot around and his fist hits the locker behind me instead. He howls in pain then runs off in the opposite direction.

  Since he threw the first punch, I could have whaled on him, but I didn’t. I barely touched him. Yet every person in the hall is looking at me like I kicked a baby.

  I hate that my dad is a royal son of a bitch, but I’m not taking a beating for something he did. By the time Mr. Roberts comes out into the hall, there isn’t anything left to handle other than clearing the area.

  When the other students start walking away, Mr. Roberts motions for me to follow him into his room.

  “Have a seat, Owen,” he says and shoves a chair in my direction.

  I drop down and lean back, the chair teetering on the back two legs.

  He circles around me, arms crossed, and I brace myself for the lecture I know is coming.