The Lying Woods

by Ashley Elston

  “Some guys delivered a headstone and I went with them to take it to that small cemetery and when they unwrapped it, it had Gus’s name on it. So I don’t know if the real Gus is dead or what but the guy living there isn’t the real Gus.”

  “Hold on, hold on,” she says. “You’re not making any sense.”

  “Then listen to what I’m saying!” I shout but then feel instantly bad when I see her flinch. In a calmer voice I say, “The guy I’ve been working for, the guy living in that house, is not Gus Trudeau. I don’t know who he is but I think he has something to do with Dad. I found pages and pages in his desk about Louisiana Frac and the people that work there and financial records.”

  Aunt Lucinda comes into the kitchen and I can tell she’s heard every word. “What’s going on?” she asks.

  I don’t want to talk about this with her so I look at Mom and say, “Come with me. Let’s go somewhere we can talk.”

  Aunt Lucinda holds her hands out as if that’s all it would take to stop us from leaving. “Might as well talk here. Anything affecting you is bound to affect me!”

  I can’t do this with her here. Can’t say the things I need to say. We need to get out of this house. I turn back to Mom and say, “I need you to come with me. Right now.”

  The look on my face must convince her because she gets up from the table and grabs her phone and purse. “Okay, let’s go.”

  “Wait…where are you going?” Aunt Lucinda says as she follows us out. I ignore her and latch on to Mom’s arm, propelling her out of the house faster than she would have gone on her own.

  We’re in the truck when she finally says, “You’re scaring me. Where are we going?”

  I glance at the clock on the dash. It’s already four thirty. With all that happened today, I almost forgot about the meeting with Dad. “There’s a restaurant not far from here.”

  Putting the truck in drive, we pull away from the curb and head to the next town over. He may have only wanted to see me but he’s getting us both, for better or worse.

  And maybe what I have in the manila folder will be all he needs to set everything straight.

  I drive in circles for about ten minutes. I know Mom is confused by the way she watches out of the window then looks at me like I’ve lost it, but I know Detective Hill has someone watching the house and I need to make sure we’re not being followed.

  Traffic is light and it takes no time to get there. I rode out this way a few days ago just to make sure I wouldn’t have any trouble finding it.

  The parking lot is about halfway full, mostly work trucks with drilling company logos on the doors.

  “All of that just to come here?” she asks.

  I haven’t told her who I’m expecting just in case I’m wrong. There’s no reason for us both to be disappointed.

  “Let’s go get a table,” I say.

  We find an empty booth against the back wall and wait. It’s just now five so hopefully there’s no chance we missed him.

  The only thing I worry about now is if he won’t come in if he sees Mom at the table with me. The background music plays old country, which seems to fit the crowd, and I tense up every time the door opens.

  “Owen, please tell me what happened at Gus’s this afternoon. I’m worried about you.”

  A waitress shows up at the table, pad and pen poised to take my order. “Afternoon, sweetie, what can I get you?”

  I glance at the plastic menu. She’s not going to like us sitting here, taking up space, without ordering anything, but I feel like I could puke. “Mom, what do you want?”

  She looks like she’s not well, either. “Uh, how about a glass of sweet tea. And maybe just a BLT sandwich.”

  “Same,” I say and the waitress moves away from the table.

  “Owen, talk to me,” she pleads.

  “Gus isn’t Gus.”

  Mom runs a hand through her hair. “You keep saying that. What does that mean?”

  I tell her again but slower and in more detail about what happened this afternoon. She falls back against the booth and looks shocked. “Gus is dead?”

  Her eyes fill with tears and I hand her a few napkins from the dispenser.

  “I guess. I mean, why else would someone put a tombstone with his name and date he died in the graveyard?”

  Mom covers her face and I glance around the room. People at the tables near us have stopped talking and are watching what’s going down at our table.

  She wipes her face and pulls herself together. “Then who have you been working for?” she asks.

  I throw my hands up. “I don’t know. That’s why I’m freaking out.”

  Mom keeps wiping at her eyes and the rough napkin has irritated her skin, making it look bright red.

  “And there’s something else, but please don’t get mad.”

  She looks at me. “What is it?” she whispers. We’re both wondering how much more she can take.

  “I heard from Dad.”

  She’s instantly pissed. “What!” she yells, and now everyone in the room is looking at us.

  Mom notices we’re causing a scene and leans closer to me and says in a quiet, but sharp, voice, “You better spill it. And I mean everything.”

  Since the letter has been burned into my memory, I recite it for her.

  “I got a note the day before you showed up at Sutton’s. It said, ‘Hope things are going well at school. Just checking in on you. Thanksgiving break is coming up so you’ll be home soon. Found a new place right outside of town called Frank’s. Best burger around. They run a special on Wednesday nights. Maybe when you’re in town during your break, we can check it out. It would be a great place to have dinner with your dad.’”

  She scans the room, looking like she’s ready to pounce on him the second he shows his face. But he’s still not here.

  “Why wouldn’t you tell me this earlier?” she asks. I can tell I’m in deep shit with her.

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t know what to do. And you were hiding things, too. About the threats.”

  Her head drops in her hands and she lets out a strangled-sounding moan.

  How did we get here? Like this?

  I watch the door, then look at her, and back and forth.

  The waitress stops at our table, depositing our drinks. “Food will be out shortly,” she says before walking away.

  Mom and I wait.

  And wait.

  The food comes and we both pick at it, neither of us having any appetite.

  “He’s not coming, Owen. He took the money and is long gone,” she says when the waitress clears our mostly full plates.

  “But he said it would be a great place for us to eat together. He mentioned Thanksgiving break specifically. And the special on Wednesdays. Why would he write that if he didn’t plan on being here?”

  She puts her hand over mine and sadness radiates off of her. “Let’s get out of here and go talk to Detective Hill. Tell him what you found out this afternoon and then you and I are going to have a long-overdue conversation.”

  Mom is digging in her purse for money to pay the check when I see him.

  “Oh shit,” I mumble.

  She looks up and says, “Language, Owen.”

  “It’s him,” I whisper.

  Mom sits up and scans the front door, but I’m looking at the side door near the bathrooms.

  “Where?” she squeaks.

  “Look to your right,” I say and I hear all of the air leave her lungs when she sees who I’m talking about. Her hands shake and all the color drains from her face.

  “Do you know who that is?” I ask, because the man claiming to be Gus just walked in and it looks like Mom recognizes him.

  Her hand flies to her mouth and she lets out a strangled sound.

  Fake Gus notices us and he looks as shocked as Mom does.

  I look between the two of them as he moves slowly toward the table, but they only have eyes for each other. He’s a few feet away when I ask, “Mom, I don’t understa
nd. Who is he?”

  “The note said this was a great place to have dinner with your dad,” she says, almost to herself like she’s working out a puzzle. “Owen, this is Noah Bennett.”

  Noah—Summer of 1999

  The court-appointed lawyer sits across from me in the same small white room, my arm still cuffed to the center of the table.

  “What do they have on me other than finding the drugs in the car I was driving?” I ask him.

  Mr. Mitchell flips through some papers in front of him. “It doesn’t look good, Noah. They pulled you over because there was an anonymous tip with that make, model, and plate of that car saying there’s a new guy in town, trying to sell drugs to the kids here.”

  “Who would do that? I don’t do drugs. Or sell them.” This is a setup. It has to be.

  He holds up a copy of one of my prior arrests that clearly disagrees with my earlier statement.

  “Well, I don’t do them or sell them anymore.”

  He shuffles through some other papers. “And then the bag with the drugs has your prints all over it.”

  My jaw drops open. “There’s no way. No fucking way. I never touched that bag. I had no idea it was there.”

  I’ve been set up. But how did Nate do it?

  “The real nail in the coffin here is your prior convictions,” my lawyer says.

  I knew it was only a matter of time before my past caught up with me. I’m not proud of it. I promised myself I wouldn’t ever do anything that could land me in jail again.

  And yet here I am.

  It turns out that detective was right. I could scream from the top of my lungs that I’m innocent or stay silent until I die but I will go to jail for this.

  “You’ve got two options at this point, Noah,” Mr. Mitchell says. “First, admit to possession with intent to distribute and they’ll let Maggie walk out of here immediately. That’s straight from Detective Broward’s mouth. They know her family and she’s never been in trouble so they’re willing to accept she was in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

  He doesn’t add with the wrong boy but we’re both thinking it.

  “What’s my other option?”

  “We take our chances in the system. Take this case to trial. But I’ll warn you, both you and Maggie will get booked into jail and you’ll both be charged with possession with intent. The evidence against you is strong so I can’t give you any guarantee this will end well for either of you.”

  This is no choice. The case against me is strong—looks like someone made sure of that—and with a public defender who believes this is a loser case, and no money to hire anyone better, I can’t take Maggie down with me.

  “I’ll take the first option with one condition.”

  “Noah, you don’t have to decide—”

  “I’m not letting her get dragged through this with me.”

  Mr. Mitchell looks unsure but there’s no way I’m getting out of this. Whoever built this trap didn’t leave anything to chance—drugs, in my possession, in a bag with my fingerprints, with my priors.

  “My one condition—I want a few minutes with Maggie. To say good-bye.”

  He looks resigned when he says, “I’ll see what I can do.” Mr. Mitchell leaves me alone and I drop my head on the table. These last two months were too good to be true. No way it could last. Not with my luck.

  An hour later, a soft knock on the door has me lifting my head and turning toward it.

  The sight of Maggie causes all of the air to leave my lungs and I struggle to catch my breath.

  She hesitates just a second or so, then throws herself at me.

  I bury my face in her neck, breathing her in.

  “Why is this happening?” she asks in a quiet voice. “What is going on? They’re telling me that your fingerprints are all over that bag they found in the car? And that you’ve been arrested for drugs before. And car theft. And that you spent time in jail.”

  Yeah, these are the things I never wanted her to know about me.

  I lean back and look at her. Tears race down her cheeks and her bottom lip trembles.

  “Is it true?” she asks.

  I take a deep breath and say, “My neighborhood was rough. I ran with the wrong crowd and was arrested more than once. Everything they told you is true.”

  The way she’s looking at me is killing me. So I try to explain what it was like even though she’ll never understand. “Sometimes we stole things so we could put food on the table. Sometimes we fought to stay alive. Sometimes we smoked pot or drank too much because losing yourself in that high was better than being present in real life. Sometimes we did those things because we didn’t know any other way to be. Those aren’t excuses…just how things were. Before I came here, I didn’t know it could be like this. Safe. Peaceful.”

  My eyes never leave hers while I speak. I know I should have told her all of this weeks ago.

  “But the drugs in the car aren’t yours. I know they aren’t. You may have done those things in your past, but you’re not like that now. I know you.”

  I didn’t think I could love her any more than I already did. When faced with the ugliness of my past, she still believes in me.

  “They told me you’re taking a deal. That you’re saying the drugs were yours so I can walk away from this, but I’m not letting you. I’ll talk to my dad. We’ll get the best lawyer in town. Or in the state. You are not going to jail for something you didn’t do. I won’t let you.”

  She barely took a breath while all of that spilled out of her. I know her and she won’t let this go. And I know her dad won’t lift a finger to help me. This will destroy her relationship with her parents. She won’t get to go off to college in a few weeks like she was planning on. Maybe if Gus was in a better place…but he doesn’t need this any more than Maggie does. And once he hears about my past, there’s no way he’ll stick his neck—or his pocketbook—out for me.

  There’s only one thing to do.

  I have to lie to her.

  “The drugs in the car today were mine.”

  Her hands drop from my shoulders. “No, I don’t believe you.”

  “They were. I thought I could make some quick money so I could go off to school with you in January. For my living expenses.”

  She wraps her arms around her stomach. “I don’t believe you,” she says again but this time with less conviction.

  “I told you that I always find a way to screw things up.”

  She gets off my lap and moves across the room. Her eyes scan my face, looking for signs this is a sick joke. It is a sick joke—just not the one she’s thinking it is.

  “You and I come from two very different places,” I say. “You need to go off to school. You need to live a life that doesn’t include someone like me.”

  She just stares at me and it takes everything in me to keep going.

  “But I want you to know this was the best summer of my life. You are the best person I know and I’m sorry I couldn’t be the guy you needed me to be.”

  She crumbles and races to the door, banging against it so she can flee this room and get away from me.

  A guard opens the door and I think she’ll fly right out of here but she stops in the doorway. She looks at me one last time and says, “It was the best summer of my life, too.”

  And then she’s gone.

  I’m lying on the narrow bunk in my cell when I hear shouting from somewhere on the other side of the cinder block wall. A guard shuffles in, his hair sticking up all over the place, and unlocks my door.

  “Gus Trudeau is here to see you. I’ve been instructed to bring you to him,” the guard says.

  I don’t think this tiny police department sees much action so no one really knows how to handle today’s events.

  I follow him down the hall, back into the room I spent so many hours in earlier. Gus is waiting at the table.

  He points to the guard and yells, “Get out and shut the door behind you.”

  And the guard does e
xactly what he says.

  I drop down in the seat across from him but he’s still standing, staring down at me. “What in the hell have you done?”

  I have to look away. “They found drugs in the car….”

  “That’s not what I’m talking about. Why in the hell did you take a deal and sign your life away before talking to me?”

  He finally sits down and we stare at each other from across the table.

  I’m floored. “You don’t think I did it?” I ask. I would have never guessed a few months ago how important the answer to this question was.

  “No. I don’t.”

  “Did you hear about my past? The other problems I’ve had with the law?” There’s no way he knows everything about me or he wouldn’t be sitting here. He’d leave me to rot in that cell.

  “Yes,” he says. “But I don’t believe you would put drugs in Abby’s car. And I don’t think you would have them anywhere near Maggie Everett. I don’t think you’re the same guy who got in all that trouble before.”

  I hang my head and I hear Gus let out a loud breath. “Why didn’t you wait for me to get here?”

  I look back at him. “Whoever did this to me…framed me…covered every angle. My prints are on the bag! How would that even be possible? There’s no way out of this for me and there’s no way I was going to let them drag Maggie down with me. Not even for one minute.”

  “This isn’t right. Nothing about this is right.”

  I haven’t cried yet, I couldn’t in front of Maggie, and I wasn’t going to give the satisfaction to the cops for them to see me fall apart, but I can’t hold it back anymore in front of Gus.

  “I’m scared,” I whisper.

  Gus puts his hand over mine. “You may have already set your course, but let me see what I can do to make it a bit smoother sailing.”

  Gus managed the impossible. I don’t know if he sold his soul to the devil or gave over his fortune, but instead of going to a regular state prison, I was sent to a federal facility in Florida that caters more to white-collar crimes.

  I’ve been here almost a month now. The days are long and the nights are longer. If I try hard enough, sometimes at night, once lights are out and everything is quiet, I imagine I’m back in the Preacher Woods with Maggie, sitting under our tree, whispering our secrets.