Fifteen Years of Lies

by Ann Minnett

  How could he want to run away and yet be stuck to the spot? The giant deputy had x-ray vision. Zane sweated. He smoothed his hair off his forehead for something to do. "I'd better get to work."

  "Right." The man continued to stare. "What's your last name, Zane."

  He spelled it out.

  "How old are you?"

  "Fifteen. Sixteen on Wednesday."

  "Happy Birthday." He scribbled in his notebook. "Mind giving me your address?" And when Zane thought it was about over, the deputy asked, “Do you know anything about a shooting?”

  Zane kept his mouth shut and tried to look stupid. Anything to make the deputy go away. He succeeded because the big man waved him away. Zane couldn’t bust through the front door fast enough. Out on the sidewalk, He kept his head down and swept the same spot until Sorensted finally stepped out of the store holding a sack.

  The deputy held it up and said, "Animal lover myself." He disappeared around the corner.

  Zane ducked inside to text his mom.

  Sherriffs coming

  * * *

  Zane's text sent Lark into a sluggish tailspin when she read it Saturday afternoon. Her fever had broken, but the medicine left her thick-headed and drowsy. She checked the time stamp. 9:22a.m. Had the deputy come by to talk to her, what… nearly four hours ago?

  Crap!

  She showered for the first time in three days and sank onto her bed for a few minutes, exhausted from the effort. Neither Dee nor Nora responded to her phone calls or texts. She fumed. She could see Dee's red Corolla parked on the side street next to the Blue Heron. Dee worked on Saturday.

  One more rest period after dressing, and Lark started to leave to speak with Dee at the salon. When she opened her storm door, a card fluttered to her feet. Sam Sorensted, Deputy, Flathead County Sheriff Dept. On the back, a handwritten note asked her to call him Monday morning.

  His note relieved some of her worries. Sure, we expected it, she thought, but the deputy considers this a routine matter because look, it can wait until Monday morning. Right?

  She calmed herself by the time she stepped into The Blue Heron. However, the owner frowned as Lark made a hasty path toward Dee, shampooing a man at the first sink. He had his eyes closed, moaning with each stroke of Dee's scalp massage. He remained blissfully unaware of Lark hovering near his splayed cowboy boots.

  Dee noticed her and shook her head, not now, not here.

  Lark mouthed, "I have to talk to you." She raised her eyebrows in exclamation points.

  Dee sighed and cocked her head toward her station. "Wait there."

  The place rocked on Saturday afternoon. Lark found a chair next to the manicurists' tables and grabbed a Montana Woman Magazine from the stack. A young manicurist meticulously cleaned and shaped an elderly client's curved nails. Lark noted the care and attention those smooth soft hands showed to gnarly, arthritic fingers. Her own roughened hands, spread across the magazine on her lap, her nails an embarrassment. When had she stopped caring about her feminine side?

  The manicurist smoothed lotion into swollen knuckles and fragile skin. Lark imagined the relaxing human connection. If I—no, if we—survive this mess, I will take better care of myself. She removed a tube of hand cream from her bag and squirted a double dollop into her palm.

  Dee’s client kept his head down, weaving his way behind her to her station. He tugged at the neck of the cape, snug against his Adam’s apple. His towering height made him stand out regardless. Lark watched them from a distance, torn between the manicurist's concentration and Dee's forced chatter with her handsome client. Dee coughed, blew her nose, and washed her hands before taking scissors and comb to the man's auburn hair.

  The salon's light shone like a beacon on his emerging bald spot. Lark liked him better for it, and she grew even more fond of him realizing his style resembled her own. The difference? His hair curved where Lark's spiked. He slipped Dee some cash, smiling down at her, and Dee didn’t shy away.

  "Someone like him," Lark muttered to herself. A man who cares about his appearance yet appears uneasy in the fussy salon. On second thought, she could not be attracted to any man who got his hair cut in this place. It was all she could do to support Dee as a client in the girlie atmosphere.

  Lark watched Cowboy leave.

  "Good looking, eh?" Dee shook the charcoal cape he had worn.

  "Oh. Right. Who is he?" Lark slid the unopened magazine onto the pile and stood too fast. Dee caught her arm and helped her wobble to the station.

  "Don't get any ideas," Dee said, looking at Lark in the mirror. "He has a gorgeous wife and three teenagers."

  "Just curious." But Lark felt a wistfulness she rarely experienced. With the possible threat of prison, she longed for what she hadn't known she lacked. Given a reprieve, what would she cram into two months of life?

  "Hello in there." Dee rapped on Lark’s skull. "Tom Scot from Lethbridge." She absentmindedly ran practiced fingers through Lark's short hair. "Almost time for a trim if you want to look hip."

  "Letting it grow,” Lark said. She couldn't think of anyone less hip than herself. What did it matter?

  Dee spoke to a passing woman and her little girl. "Go on back. I'll be there in a minute." She turned to Lark in the mirror. "What did you want?"

  "A sheriff's deputy visited Zane and Ozzy this morning—"

  Dee shushed her, swiveled the chair, and bent to listen to Lark face to face.

  "—and then came by the condo, but I was asleep." Everyone talked at high volume in the place. Hair driers roared. Background dance music. No one heard their conversation.

  "Have you talked to Zane yet?"

  "No. He gets off at five." Lark checked her phone for the time. "Thought I'd walk over and catch him before he splits for Katie's."

  Dee's perfect eyebrows twisted above her cat’s-eye make-up.

  "I've hardly seen him since… Wednesday evening." It seemed like a month ago, rather than four days.

  "I have this little girl's haircut and blow dry, which won't take long." Dee took the broom from its stand and swept the Canadian Cowboy's hair into a dustpan. "Wait for me, and I'll walk over with you." She coughed from deep in her chest and left for the shampoo sink.

  Nearly four o'clock, and the salon traffic tapered off. The elderly woman had vanished, so Lark found a chair near Dee to people-watch the mom and daughter.

  Lark thought she could have raised a daughter, someone like Katie, and done a better job of it than she had with a boy. What the hell did she know about boys?

  Dee combed out the eight-year-old's light brown hair, and Mom, an athletic thirty, asked, "You're sure you want to do this?" The little girl nodded, looking excited and scared. Mom smiled, and so did Dee. Lark grinned along with them. Yes, she would have been a better mom to a daughter.

  Dee asked a question. Mom's flat hand indicated shoulder length (four to five inches off), but the little girl shook her head bravely and parked her hand at jaw level. Mom halved the distance, and all agreed. Within minutes, Dee worked the hair dryer over the child's increasingly blond bob. The girl grinned, exposing missing teeth at the corners of her lips and hopped off the foot rest. The mom and child walked into late afternoon sunshine holding hands. The whole scene made Lark's heart yearn harder for what she would never have. Hope for a future died.

  * * *

  Dee and Lark huddled like conspiring grandmothers walking along Baker toward Ozzy's. Dee coughed, had to stop and pop a lozenge before walking on. Lark simply tried not to stagger. Gunk clogged her head, making her dizzy. They linked arms to support one another for the final block.

  Zane stood behind the desk when they entered—operating the cash register for crying out loud. Ozzy trusted her son more than she did. Dee must have thought similarly when they exchanged incredulous glances. He took care of another customer in line before noticing them.

  "We'll meet you next door." Dee guided Lark outside and into Sweet Peaks Ice Cream.

  Lark would rather have had
hot tea, but they both ordered double scoop waffle cones and waited for Zane. Traffic slowed, in between the day's tourist shopping frenzy and the evening's restaurant and bar crawl.

  "I wonder what's happening at McCord's," Dee said between licks.

  The ice cream clogged Lark's throat, but that didn't stop her. "Have you been in since…?"

  Dee shook her head.

  "I've tried to reach Nora, even Kirk, but no answer."

  "They took the twins camping in East Glacier for a while." Dee coughed vampire style.

  "Without telling me?"

  "She knew you were sick."

  Lark said, "What the hell's going on?" Nora's absence felt like a betrayal. "We're all going to have to deal with it."

  "They're dealing with it the best they can." Dee wiped her lips. "Ice fishing."

  "Ice fishing." Lark shook her head.

  "And no phone reception for a few days."

  Lark tossed her ice cream cone into the trash as Zane ducked into the store. The door allowed many inches to accommodate his height, but he ducked anyway.

  Dee gestured with her cone. "Get yourself something. My treat."

  He ordered and stood beside their corner table in the otherwise empty shop. He shifted his weight side to side with hands in sagging jean pockets.

  "I didn't get your text until this afternoon," Lark said. Dee dropped some bills in Zane's palm. The teenager behind the counter called him by name and handed over a bowl of ice cream. He returned and sat next to Lark who asked, "So what did the deputy say?"

  Zane filled them in, emphasizing that the deputy had obtained Rob's photo.

  "That's not so bad," said Lark.

  "But Ozzy told him you guys had dated."

  "Why would he think that?" Lark held a tissue over her runny nose.

  Dee chomped her waffle cone, speaking with her mouth full. "Because of the money he gave you, or he saw all of us at McCord's or …"

  Zane shook his head. "No, the deputy didn't know about the money, but I said something about Rob being hot for you, Mom."

  Appalled, Lark almost fell off the rickety stool. "Huh?"

  "Rob gave you those shoe strings." Zane's index finger twirled like the curly-cue laces.

  "Oh, for heaven sakes." Lark blew her nose.

  "Don’t worry, Mom. I told him you knew the guy a little."

  Lark put her face into her open hands on the table.

  "You did the right thing," Dee said.

  "You mean by lying?" Zane’s confrontational tone shut them up.

  Lark had endured his teenage surliness for months and guessed it came with maternal territory, which now included Dee. Lark kept her head down but patted Zane's arm, like cool it.

  "I suppose so." Dee's soft voice showed she had been chastened. "More than that, you protected your mom."

  "Mom made me tell the truth about the swords to those rich Canadians. What I want to know is when will the rest of you do the same?" Zane stood and left them without a goodbye. He turned to the right, obviously headed toward Katie's house.

  Lark's seeping eyes peered at Dee who sadly watched Zane cross the street a block away.

  Dee rarely swore but said, "What a shit storm."

  * * *

  Sheriff's Deputy Sam Sorensted put in an otherwise uneventful Saturday and went home that night at a decent hour to his embarrassingly dreadlocked son. Kyle was a good kid, but his appearance caused major teasing in the office. A deputy with a son who looked like the Ganja King was a constant source of irritation in Sorensted's life.

  He hung his hat in the mudroom and bent to untie his boots, remembering the awful picture of Kyle that Ozzy put up in his store as a joke. There stood Kyle, wearing a serape or some damn thing and fondling their old cat Hilda. Ozzy did it to secretly taunt Sorensted.

  Sam Sorensted halted.

  "Is that you, Dad? You're home on time on a Saturday. Wow."

  The deputy took off his boots and aligned them under the bench. Zane Horne. Horne family. He’d played football in high school with Sky Horne. Didn’t he have sisters? "Do I smell curry?"

  Kyle stirred a pot on the stove.

  Oh yeah, and Kyle wanted to be a chef.

  CHAPTER 25

  Monday morning came, and Lark’s schedule included two offices and a house to clean by noon. She decided to skip afternoon classes, unable to face her Essay 201 class again today. She hadn't written a word since those ridiculous newspaper ads—the letter to a rapist—and now saw no point in continuing with school and her stupid dream of a career in journalism. Or any plans for a future, for that matter. She'd investigate withdrawing and getting registration refunds when she got home.

  After she phoned the deputy.

  She stood in the quiet kitchen vestibule of Stanhope & Stanhope offices with phone and Deputy Sorensted’s card in hand.

  Keys rattled in the back door. Alice's husband unlocked it and stomped his feet outside before entering. Tall and thin to Alice's short and plump, Chet ignored Lark as usual, walked straight to his clean office, and shut his door. Alice had warned her about small talk first thing in the morning (Don’t even try.) and she no longer took his moody silence’s personally. She vacuumed the reception area, focusing attention on the trail of mats through to the kitchen. A quick mop of kitchen tiles, and she scooted out of Stanhope & Stanhope before Alice arrived to slow her down.

  Not even a mile away, Lark parked on the street in front of a small Victorian house, her final job for the day. The lavender cottage with cream colored period detail beckoned her inside, but first, she telephoned Deputy Sam Sorensted.

  He answered on the first ring with a brusque, “Deputy Sorensted.”

  Startled, she explained she’d be home around one this afternoon and warned that she had been sick (cough cough). “Do you still want to come over?” Sweat moistened her armpits.

  “I’d like to clear up loose ends about Rob Whalen.”

  “All right,” she said. “I’ll see you at one o’clock.” She disconnected and slipped her phone into her bag's side pocket. She had practiced what she’d tell him a hundred times.

  The bent corner of a manila envelope peeked from under the passenger seat. The plain, bumpy envelope she had grabbed from Rob's closet quaked in her trembling fingers. Worries about Zane and the others, especially what they might divulge, had preoccupied her, had made her sick and crazy since Wednesday night. She simply forgot about the envelope she found in Rob’s closet.

  "I am the damn weak link," she muttered, hesitating to bend the simple brad holding it closed. "I'm so damn concerned about the others, yet I keep evidence of the crime." Her thoughts flashed to the four-by-four swatch of her bloody shirt, preserved in a baggie and pressed between pages of her Thrift Store copy of Better Homes and Gardens Cook Book. Someday the Dirty Half Dozen might need Rob's DNA for more than Zane’s paternity test.

  She returned the envelope to her purse. For the moment, she knew what she knew about Rob Whalen. The contents of the envelope could only change that, for better or worse, and they scared her. She and the others had killed this man and she ran a DNA paternity test on him. The envelope’s contents would only implicate her further.

  She allowed herself a few minutes of freaking breakdown on the icy steps of the Victorian. Her bleak future materialized under gloomy cloud cover, surrounded by muddy snow slush. A son who wouldn't trust her. Decades in prison.

  A diesel pickup passed and shook her out of a stupor.

  If I'm acting like this, what must Mason and Zane be doing? Or Dee?

  She used a key to enter the quiet jewel box of a home, so very grateful to be left alone for a couple of hours before the deputy sheriff called on her.

  * * *

  Sam Sorensted visited Rob in the hospital before his official medical release Monday morning. He asked the man to stay in the area, but really, what could he do if no crime had been committed? Rob Whalen had frightened the volunteers at the shelter and become belligerent when they wouldn’t
release his dog. They didn’t want to press charges. He swore he shot himself accidentally and damaged his home. No law against stupidity.

  Sam had enough real cases to work. Bad guys everywhere. He’d meet with the Horne woman to close out the file.

  * * *

  Deputy Sam Sorensted arrived right on time. Lark invited him into her home and offered coffee, which he accepted.

  She had showered and changed clothes after working, and the steam cleared her stuffy sinuses. She never wore shoes inside her condo but wished she'd worn something with a heel when she saw how tall Sorensted stood. His head ducked inside the door frame and it needed to, as opposed to Zane's affectations.

  Before he sat down and while she poured, Sorensted said, "I wanted to ask you about Rob Whalen."

  Here goes nothing. She set the cup and saucer in front of the large man. Why, he'd dwarf Kirk. He certainly intimidated Lark.

  "Sure. What can I tell you?" She sat on her left leg at the table. Casual.

  "Few people seem to know him." Sorensted slurped his coffee. "How did you meet him?"

  "Strange story," Lark said. She dabbed her dry nose with a tissue. "We had a float—"

  "We?"

  "Friends and I walked in the Winter Parade in mid-December."

  "The Whitefish parade?" His pale green eyes looked completely without guile.

  "Yes." She waited for him to ask another question, but he didn't. His left hand curled around a pen, covering the entire notebook as lefties do when they write from the top down as opposed to left to right. She focused on his hand so her nerves might settle. She had taken Benadryl before he arrived to staunch the inevitable hives that would redden her neck and give her away, if she got nervous. Now she felt drowsy.

  "You met him at the parade?"

  One front tooth angled over the other. His full lips parted. She liked his looks.

  "Rob said he remembered me from college, but I didn't know him." She fiddled with the hem of her denim skirt under the table so as not to fidget in the deputy's sight line. She desperately needed a cigarette.