by R. L. Syme
I nodded, having been mulling over similar thoughts ever since Austin had made the comment about getting money when he turned eighteen. Follow the money was a rule for a reason. It was so often the place where the motive hid. People would do a lot of illegal and immoral things for money. Murder was only one on that list.
“Would he have talked over any of that with the banker?” I asked.
“Maybe his lawyer. He’s still in the state, too, although he’s not here at the B&B with us. He’s staying in Madison Falls at the Hilton.” Scarlet stretched and sighed. “I would so prefer that to this dump.”
When she thumbed toward the old house, I felt my hackles raise again. Scarlet wanted the Stepford familiarity of comfortable beds and perfectly tiled bathrooms, while I was the kind of person who preferred the character of this old house. The history. The depth.
We couldn’t have been more different. But in one thing, we were the same. We’d both cared for Henry. In our own way.
“Do you need someone to stay with you?” I asked. “Are you going to be okay?”
Her pout turned from spoiled princess to genuine sadness, and I couldn’t help worrying about her.
“I’m fine,” she said. “I’ll find this Travis person and handle that story. You don’t have to worry about your precious job. Call me if you discover anything else.” Scarlet didn’t say goodbye when she left the car. Once again, I was alone.
The bakery parking lot was empty when I got back, but Emma’s shop was open, so I went inside. She sat behind the counter, poring over a book—her usual between-customers activity.
She pulled me up a chair and I called all the window shops in the phone book. Peter had been right—no one would be able to get to it for several days, and it sounded like it would cost me thousands of dollars.
Emma convinced me to open for lunch, even though all I had was the Ribollita from yesterday. It was a good idea. It gave me something to do, other than obsess about Henry’s death, the knife, and all the things we still didn’t know.
After the lunch crowd cleared out, I checked the seams on the garbage bag window cover. They seemed to be holding up all right. I could probably afford to stay open most of the rest of the day, although I didn’t like not being able to see into the parking lot. It felt like being blind on one side. Every time the bell rang, it made me jump.
Peter Mayhew stopped by again, giving me yet another warning and eyeing the blacked-out window with severe suspicion. This time, he’d been to the police station and discovered the case of Claire’s murder had been closed. I wondered what the man did all day. He was worse than the coffee ladies with his gossiping. I tried to reassure him that everything was fine, and when I pulled out a file folder of sermons I’d already read, pretending I was desperate to return to work, he finally left.
Whoever had put a bug in his ear at the paper was going to get me fired if Scarlet didn’t work her magic. If I hadn’t just been warned about not stepping a toe out of line, I might have gone down to the paper to crack a head or two. In my clergy shirt, maybe. But I was sure Peter would hear about it.
Scarlet had promised she’d handle it. I had to trust her.
I finished the audio version of the Bonhoeffer book and prepped the pastry dough for the next day. Leo walked in just as I was pouring water for the coffee.
He kept glancing back at the place-where-there-used-to-be-a-window, his eyes wide. “What happened, Miss Vee?” he finally blurted out.
“A tiny accident with a rock. Nothing to concern yourself with.” I gave him a bright smile and mentally added, or your parents, but I decided to keep that nugget to myself. Between Jenna’s appearance at Derek’s and the presence of a Van Andel in the sheriff’s department, I was getting more and more of a sense for just how wrapped up they all were in this case.
I didn’t know why yet.
“Austin’s at his grandma’s again,” he said.
“Do you have homework?” I asked, walking over to the bake case and surveying the remains. The macarons were all completely gone, which was for the best. They didn’t last more than a few days. “Hey, that reminds me, are you still coming in to bake tomorrow morning?”
“What reminds you?” He gave me an easy smile as he leaned against the counter.
“Looking at the macarons almost gone.” I reached in and picked out the last of the bright green ones. Leo took it from my hand and smelled it. I took the last vanilla and we toasted cookies before downing them in a few bites. “I should have called you so you wouldn’t come in. With the traffic from the window, I’m almost out of everything. I’ll have to close before the after-school rush, I think.”
“That’s okay. I’ll just do my Advanced Chem here until you leave. Yeah, I can come in tomorrow morning.”
“Good. We’ll have to try a different recipe this time.”
“Yeah, those green tea ones weren’t your best work, Miss Vee. I don’t know if I’d make them again.” He licked his thumb and his eyes shot to the front door. A second later, the bell dinged.
I turned around, saying, “That’s what the feedback cards said, too. Oddly, that was the one…” But I didn’t continue.
The angry face of Mike Van Andel stopped me.
“Hi, Mike,” I said, backing up like I’d done something wrong. “What can I get for you?”
“Nothing. I need Leo to come with me.” He put his hands on his hips, standing wide like Superman, though he was dressed more like a lumberjack in his flannel shirt and jeans.
“Dad, we talked about this—”
“Just for this afternoon,” Mike said, not giving up the hard look. “You can come back tomorrow.”
Leo shook his head but didn’t talk back. The tone of his dad’s voice didn’t leave any room for argument. “I have my own car. I’ll see you at home.”
There was some kind of silent conversation between the two of them as they glared each other down. They were much better at communicated this way than Scarlet and I were, because there was no more talking after that. Mike left Leo and I behind the bake case. He did turn back once at the door, giving his son a pointed—but silent—look.
“That was chillier than it needed to be,” I said, shaking out my limbs like I’d just gone on a run. There was a twinge of adrenaline in my body and I had to calm myself down.
“He’s mad at me because I decided to keep the job here. Tried all night to keep me from coming back to work.”
I cocked my head to one side. That struck me as so odd. It had to be about more than just my support of Henry, didn’t it? Something else was going on.
Mike was the one who’d stopped Derek and told him about the duffel bag, wasn’t he? How did he figure into this whole thing?
“Hey, can I ask you a quick question?” I said as Leo grabbed his backpack.
“Fire away.” He shouldered his coat on, then his pack, and stood waiting to hear what I would say.
“When is Austin’s birthday?”
Leo raised a dramatic brow. “You gonna make him a cake or something? You never made me a cake.”
“No, but that would be something good for you to practice. I could have you come in early on his birthday, and help you make him a cake.” I traced my finger along the edge of the counter. “When would that be?”
“Oh, it’s not until the end of May. After school’s out. Like, the very last day or something. We can talk about it later? I gotta go.” He waved at me and walked out the door. I followed him, locking the door behind him and flipping the Open sign to Closed.
Mike Van Andel still sat in his truck in the parking lot. Once he saw his son, he called to Leo to follow him, started the vehicle, and backed out without acknowledging me.
Yes, there was something very strange about his behavior.
I decided to grab my purse and follow him, as well, just to see where he was going. The Tank didn’t exactly blend in with anything, but maybe that would work to my advantage. No one would think I’d try following them in a car like tha
t. Besides, the town was pretty small. It would be easy to pretend I was going somewhere else, and I could always pull in somewhere unexpected.
By the time I was inside the Tank, Leo had already pulled away. He was headed down Main Street, and I skidded out to follow him. He was a few car lengths behind his dad. We wound through the outer parts of town, past houses and a church and a convenience store.
When we got to the stop light, which was green, Mike turned right. Leo did the same. The light turned red, but I had an easy vantage point, so I watched as they drove all the way down to the end of the block and pulled up in front of the Rocky Mountain Bank.
Instead of following, I went straight at the light and then took the next right and circled around. I parked the Tank outside the newspaper office.
I hurried down to the end of the sidewalk, ducking into one of the stores across from the bank. It was a drug store, and I walked to the big picture window. It gave me a good view of Mike and Leo, who were standing outside the bank talking. No, arguing. Leo’s body language said that he was not only impatient, but mad. He was all tightness and hard, closed-mouth breaths.
Austin came through the sliding front doors, hands fisted and mouth pressed in a line. He didn’t see Leo or Mike, and kept walking down the street. Mike made a gesture and Leo ran after his friend.
A round-faced clerk came over and asked in a bubbly voice if she could be of any assistance. She even called me Reverend. I let her sell me a couple of postcards and then ran through the front door as soon as Mike Van Andel pulled away from the bank parking. He went back the way he’d come, taking a left on to Main Street.
I had no idea where he was going, but my heart was starting to race again, and I couldn’t help worrying that he was on his way back to the bakery to talk to me about something. At least he hadn’t seen me. At least I didn’t think so.
Should I follow Leo? With his dad gone, I might be able to ask Austin some questions about the knife. Like what Claire had planned to do with it.
Austin and Leo were still walking down the opposite sidewalk, only together now, and I needed to know what they were saying to each other. I hurried back to the Tank and pulled out onto the street, following the two boys at a bit of a distance.
I cranked the window open and a cool blast of air hit my face. I tried to drive up alongside them, nonchalantly, but they stopped talking as soon as they saw me. The only thing I heard was—“You can’t blame her”—blowing on the air.
“Need a lift?” I asked, leaning over the console. I knew Leo had his car with him. I’d seen him take it, but it was the only excuse that came to mind.
Leo shook his head, pulling on his pack and looking back at the bank. “I’m good, Miss Vee,” he said.
“I’ll take one.” Austin jumped off the curb and into the car, and before Leo could protest, we were off.
“Where to?” I asked, trying to sound cheerful.
“Home.” The word was sullen, and he crossed his arms, settling back into the seat.
“Your wish. My command.” I turned off Broadwater street, just in case Mike Van Andel had circled back around to check on the boys, and headed back up toward Austin’s house in the bluffs.
He looked out the window mournfully.
“I thought you were at your grandma’s house this after.” I put a little smile behind my words, but he didn’t even glance at me.
“I told Leo that so he wouldn’t come with me to talk to my mom. He thinks he’s some kind of big savior or something. I just want the truth.”
“And did you get it?”
“I sure hope so.” A muscle ticked in his jaw as he clenched it, and his hands fisted again. “If I didn’t, they’re all going to regret it.”
I swallowed, trying to figure out a kind, compassionate, non-judgmental-of-Claire’s-choices way to ask if he knew who is real parents were.
Because I did.
Chapter Twenty-Two
When we pulled into the driveway of his house, Austin didn’t make a move to get out of the car. I threw the Tank into park and sat for a long moment, still not sure what to say.
“Have you talked to Leo or anyone about what’s going on with you right now?” I finally ventured.
His hands had relaxed, and he no longer looked coiled for an assault, but a bone-deep sadness hovered underneath his skin. Or maybe I was projecting, because I’d thought the same thing about his father. His real father.
“I can’t talk to Leo. He doesn’t understand.”
“Well, you can talk to me, if you need to. If you don’t have anyone else to talk to.”
A tired smile crossed his lips as he laid his head back against the seat. “Everyone keeps saying that to me. But what if I don’t want to talk to anyone?”
“Who’s trying to get you to talk to them?”
“Uncle Mike. My grandma. My mom.”
“Wait. Uncle Mike…the Van Andels are your relatives?”
“Not really. Jenna and my mom were best friends growing up. I guess I just call them that.”
“You don’t want to talk to Uncle Mike?” I asked, venturing out on the shaky bridge of not-my-business.
“He doesn’t really want to listen to me. He just wants to talk.”
I had to smile a little at his description of Mike. I could so easily imagine Leo’s dad being that guy. The one who said he wanted to help, when he really just wanted to fix things. It was such a dad thing. My own father was the same way.
“And my grandma did ask me to come over after school, but she’s worse. When she thinks something’s wrong, she makes a bunch of food and tries to stuff down whatever’s going on with me. I couldn’t take any more of that today.”
A car turned on to the street behind us and I found myself looking back and expecting it to be Mike Van Andel’s truck. Thankfully, it was just a little car. I really needed to settle down.
“Say, that reminds me,” I said, trying for nonchalance, just wanting to see how he would handle the request. “That knife your grandma told me about, the homemade one…do you happen to have that here? You said you’d show it to me sometime.”
He stiffened, his fingers going stock straight against his blue-jeaned legs. After a second, he relaxed and gestured toward the house. “Um…it might be in my room.”
I opened my door without asking for an invitation inside, and hopped out onto the driveway. Two can play at that game, bud. If he could pretend it was there, I could pretend to believe him.
By the time I got around the vehicle, he was halfway to the front door, walking fast. He wasn’t going to find the knife up there, but then I could ask him about giving it to Claire without seeming like I was trying to get anything out of him.
The interior of the Krantz house looked different in the daylight. Almost the whole back wall of the living room was a plate glass window, which made it extremely bright. The hallway from the front door led straight back into the living room, through the kitchen, and I remembered Nikki and Jenna and Mike standing at the center island on Tuesday night, shrouded in half-darkness, talking about Derek and Claire and who knows what else.
Austin led the way to the kitchen and grabbed a Gatorade from the fridge. He offered me one, too, and I declined, preferring not to drink my calories. Not everyone had the metabolism of a seventeen-year-old boy.
He suggested I wait in the living room while he retrieved the knife, and I took a seat on the big, white leather sectional that faced the backyard, planning what I would say when he came down without it. Could I just tell him that I knew he’d given it to Claire? Would that be safe?
A big deck was accessible by a door alongside the windows, tucked next to a set of white-painted bookshelves. The yard sloped out from under it, and I could see almost all the way down into the gully that appeared to separate the Krantz house from the back neighbors. At the bottom of the manicured slope was a strange little formation of stones with a big American flag sticking out of it.
I walked to the windows to get a bett
er look, but the angle wasn’t quite right, so I unlocked and opened the deck door, and walked out into the cool afternoon air. At the edge of the deck, I could see more clearly. It was a white rectangle of stones with a big white hunk of marble at the end farthest from the house. There was a little white light at the base of the flag that probably lit it up at night.
Footsteps thumped on the deck behind me and I turned around to see Austin advancing, hands in his pockets. He came all the way to stand beside me, looking out over the yard, eyes fixed somewhere near the flag.
“That’s Auggie’s grave,” he said somberly.
“I thought soldiers killed in action were buried at Arlington,” I said.
His breath stopped and held for a minute, and I felt like an idiot. Of course, it was easy to talk about the theory of where someone should be buried when it wasn’t a member of your family. I looked for a way to apologize, but it seemed best to just let the awkwardness pass.
“He’s buried at Arlington, too. He was cremated, and they gave my mom part of his remains to bury here. She got an easement from the city and everything.” The hollowness of his voice sent a chill down my spine. It was the same kind of absence of emotion that Henry had shown on my last visit to the jail. Like he was numb from the weight of it.
Austin had to know the truth. He hadn’t shown this kind of oddness about Auggie when we’d spoken about him on Tuesday night. Still, I wasn’t sure how to politely ask him if his father wasn’t really his father. Maybe there was no polite way to say it.
“You seem different today,” I tried, going for the roundabout way. “Like something changed since I saw you last.”
He shrugged, leaning against the railing. “I do?”
“It feels like you’re…like you’re in pain.” I matched his stance, leaning forward so I could look down at the yard. “I know what that’s like.”
“You do?”
“Sure. Sometimes the unexpected happens, and you don’t know how to react, so you stuff it all down inside. It feels like it’ll just go away if you don’t talk about it, but it won’t.” The last words echoed deep into my own heart. A little too much truth for my own comfort.