by Jen Blood
I supposed not. Still, he was definitely high on my list of people to talk to while I was in Black Falls. While Sarah made her phone call, Luke and I occupied ourselves picking burrs out of the dogs’ fur and Diggs studied the photos on the walls. When Sarah hung up, he nodded toward the prints.
“These are all Luke’s?” he asked.
She nodded, her eye on her brother. “Oui. There are many things he can’t do. Neither one of us was nothing much in school, mais there are things he takes to. God’s way, I like to think. There is balance, always.”
Except for Erin Lincoln, of course, raped and murdered at twelve years old. And Ashley Gendreau. And any of the other victims of the monster we were trying to find.
Sarah walked us to the door. We said brief goodbyes, but I was so stuck on her revelations about my father that she might as well have gone back to French. We were on our way out when Diggs stopped for one last question.
“What about Hank Gendreau? Did you know him, too?”
“Oui. We know his sister Bonnie, bien sur. Hank was friends with Jeff, though,” she said. She didn’t look happy about that. “Pis Will Rainier. We didn’t spend lots of time together.”
“So what happened with his daughter… You know about that.”
It’s not like everything we’d been talking about had been a walk in the park, but this was the first time I saw a genuinely emotional reaction. Her eyes swam with tears. She brushed them away and nodded. “Mais oui. Everybody remembers here.”
“Do you think it was a coincidence that Ashley died the same way Erin Lincoln died?” Diggs asked.
“Non,” she said shortly. “Coincidence… I don’t believe in that. Hank left after Erin and Jeff went missing; we thought then he must know something. Apres Ashley… Non. No coincidence,” she said again.
“Do you think Hank and my father were both responsible for Erin’s death, then?” I asked.
She shook her head. “Je ne sais pas. Everybody’s thought about it, everybody still thinks about it. Nobody knows, mais Jeff pis Hank pis Will. Mais ton pere wasn’t the only monstre in this town. Hank was just wild—too many drugs. But Will was just mal.”
She took my hand at the door and held it tightly. “There are some things it is better not to know. This may be one, oui?”
I didn’t say anything, not sure what kind of response was required in that situation. When she let me go, I joined Diggs on the front step. We were silent the entire trek back to the Jeep.
Chapter Seven
Diggs and I rented a couple of rooms at a Budget Inn on Route 1 a few miles shy of Black Falls, stopped long enough to dump our stuff, and within twenty minutes were on the road again.
Black Falls was an old mill town built on the Fish River, with railroad tracks running clear through town to connect it to the rest of the country. Now, the mills and the railroad were shut down, the economy had tanked years ago, and as far as I could tell all that was left were a few potato farms and a main stretch through town with more FOR SALE OR RENT signs than actual businesses.
Red Grivois lived in a little house in the heart of town, an old pickup on cement blocks in his well-groomed front yard. When we pulled in, he sat at a pine picnic table with a half-full bottle of Black Label and a twelve pack of Bud beside him. He had thick white hair and thick white eyebrows and a red nose that suggested this wasn’t the first night he’d knocked a fifth back on his own. Diggs looked at me before we got out of the Jeep.
“This should be fun,” he said.
“Yup. How do you wanna play it?”
“This is your story… I’m pretty sure he’ll want to talk to you a lot more than me, anyway. You’ve got nicer legs.”
“Don’t sell yourself short, Diggs,” I said.
I grabbed my bag and put Einstein on his leash without waiting for a reply. Then, I strolled across the lawn and took a seat on the bench opposite Grivois without waiting for an invitation.
He looked up, grimaced at the sight of me, and looked back down at his red Solo cup of whiskey, clearly remembering another girl, another time. As superpowers went, I’d take flying or invisibility over the ability to freak out the locals just by showing my face, any day of the week.
“So, what do you want to know?” he asked. There was no trace of the Acadian accent; I could barely detect a Maine one. He lit a Camel and pushed a warm beer toward me, which I accepted.
Diggs came over and sat down beside me. Grivois didn’t offer him anything, which was just as well. Better to be left out than forced to refuse.
“You were the one who found Erin Lincoln’s body,” I said. I took the file from my bag and set it on the table between us.
“Well, you’ve got me there. Is that it?” he said.
“Not quite. I just have a few questions about that day. And about the investigation afterward.”
“I’ll tell you all I can,” Grivois said, “but I can’t make any promises. My memory isn’t what it used to be.”
Diggs glanced at the half-dozen empty beer cans beside him, but didn’t say a word.
“How long had you been looking before you found the body?” I began.
“That’s not in the file?”
“I just want it in your words, if that’s okay.”
He frowned. “Six days. We got a call about coyotes showing up closer to the camps than we like out at Eagle Lake, so I went to look. There was enough woods then that they usually kept to themselves; if they were coming that close to the camps, I knew there had to be a reason.”
“And what did you find?”
He took the cap off the Black Label and dumped the rest of the whiskey into his cup. His frown deepened.
“You know what I found,” he said quietly.
I glanced at Diggs. He shrugged, his meaning clear: This was my play.
“I understand you not wanting to think about it,” I said. “But if my father did this, I’d like to know. I need to.” It was a naked admission I hadn’t intended to make, but it did the trick. Grivois eyed me speculatively before he nodded.
“She’d only been there a day, maybe,” he said. “The coroner said she’d been alive up to then—running for maybe the full week before he caught her and killed her. Broken bones were healing; cuts had scabbed over.” He stared at the table, stone faced. “She’d been raped. Strangled to the point of death, then brought back.”
It was all information I’d read in the coroner’s report, but it didn’t make it any easier to hear.
“And what about the brother—Jeff?” I asked. “Did you find any trace of him?”
He hardened at mention of the name. When he met my gaze this time, there was a righteous fury I’d seen in cops before—the look of someone who’d seen the worst, and had no qualms about demanding justice in its purist form for the evildoers. Someone else who wanted Jeff Lincoln dead, then.
“You mean besides his belt wrapped around her throat? The same belt that was used to whip her backside ‘til it was raw? Besides his initial carved in her chest? Or the fact that he disappeared the same time she went missing? Besides what we know happened later?”
“What do you mean by that?” I asked. “What happened later?”
“The nut house in Michigan,” he said impatiently. “And now the bodies on the border… You need more than that?”
“But you don’t have any hard proof that it was him,” I said. “I mean—there’s no witness who actually saw him do this. Everything else… There could be an explanation for that.” I sounded like a delusional kid, intent on believing a fairy tale the rest of the world had given up on years ago.
Grivois set his cup down. He straightened in his seat, folding his hands in front of him on the table. He looked at me calmly.
“I know he was your father,” he said. “But I knew Jeff Lincoln was trouble the day he set foot in this town. He was mean. Spiteful. It was his daddy’s fault—we all knew that. But he was dark in a way young people shouldn’t know to be dark. I wish I could tell you somet
hing else, but those are the facts. There wasn’t any doubt in my mind then that Jeff Lincoln did this, and there’s no doubt now.”
“What about alternate suspects?” I asked stubbornly. “There must have been someone else you looked at, right? Summer in a popular spot, there has to be someone other than my father who could have done this.”
Grivois looked at Diggs like he was hoping for some kind of intervention, but Diggs stayed quiet.
“What about G?” I asked suddenly, recalling Bonnie’s warning to me. “Does that name mean anything to you? Or just the letter?”
He looked genuinely perplexed. Diggs spoke up. “When Bonnie said that to you, was it with a soft jh sound to it?”
I nodded. Based on the look on his face, I was guessing that wasn’t a good thing.
“Jhee is French for the letter J,” he explained. “It would make sense, considering the J on Erin Lincoln’s chest.”
I took barely a second to digest that before I moved on, refusing to be thrown. “What about Hank Gendreau? Seventeen years after Erin Lincoln is raped and murdered, his own daughter is tracked in the woods and killed in almost exactly the same way? You really think that was coincidence?”
“Some people still think Hank didn’t get a fair trial in that case,” he said.
“And you’re one of them,” I said, recalling both Hank and Bonnie’s words to that effect. “What do you think happened?”
He didn’t say anything for a while, staring into his whiskey. “It was too much like another girl I found—I knew who did that one. There was every reason to believe the bastard who killed Erin Lincoln killed Ashley Gendreau, too.”
“Except for the fact that the bastard who allegedly killed Erin Lincoln had been missing for seventeen years,” I said. “And Hank Gendreau was right there.”
“He saw somebody in those woods that day.”
“Jeff Lincoln,” I said with a nod. “According to his story. You really believe that?”
The look in his eye made it clear that he did, as a matter of fact. My guess was he’d go to his grave believing it.
“This alibi Hank had for Erin Lincoln’s murder; can you tell me what that was? I haven’t been able to get access to those files yet.”
He took another drink. “He and a couple of his buddies were up in Quebec that weekend. We double-checked at the border—he wasn’t at Eagle Lake. Your father was. It’s as simple as that.”
I started to argue with him, but Diggs wrapped his hand around my arm and stood. “We should go,” he said. “Thanks for your time.”
I knew he was right. The sun was down and Givrois was obviously done talking. I got up reluctantly. “Do you mind if I contact you with anything else?”
Givrois tipped the last of his whiskey back, cracked open a beer, and looked around. I wondered if he had any family. There was no sign of someone inside the house: no curtains in the windows, no toys in the yard. Not even a dog prowling around somewhere, with the exception of my own mutt. He blinked bloodshot eyes and stared back at the table.
“Go ahead. I’m not going anywhere.”
◊◊◊◊◊
It was after ten by the time we finally got to the motel for good that night. That far up north, Route 1 is a ribbon of hills and dense woods, where locals share the road with deer and moose, black bear and coyotes. The Budget Inn was on a stretch with one other hotel, but just behind both of them was a stand of trees so thick it seemed like they were just waiting to creep closer the second your back was turned—like some primeval game of red light green light. The woods were definitely winning.
Diggs bumped my shoulder when he noticed me staring at the tree line.
“Relax, Sol. I won’t let Sasquatch get you.”
I thought of what Red Grivois had described of Erin Lincoln’s final week on the planet. I shivered despite the warm night air.
“I’m not worried about Sasquatch.”
Diggs walked me to my room, though the fact that he was right next door made it seem a little silly. It didn’t matter, though—I was grateful for the company. I hadn’t said much since our meeting with Luke and Sarah, and even less since talking to Red Grivois. Diggs tipped his head sideways and studied me while I tried to make my key card work. Half of me wanted him to just go and leave me to stew. The other half had never wanted to be alone less in my life.
The light turned green and the door buzzed. I pushed it open. Einstein just about knocked me over to get inside, while I stayed in the doorway with Diggs.
“You’ll be okay?” he asked.
“I think I can handle a motel room, Diggs. Compared to the rest of the day, this should be a cake walk.”
He still made no move to go. “We got some good information today.”
I laughed. “Did we? I guess if what we were shooting for was confirmation that my father was a monster…”
He didn’t say anything to that. A baby cried in a room down the hall. Next door, someone was watching baseball with the volume too high; the Sox were up by two.
“We should get some rest,” I said. “I’m just gonna hit the showers. And I imagine Andie’s waiting for an update.”
He nodded guiltily. Stepped back. “Yeah, you’re right. I’ll see you in the morning, I guess.”
“I hope so—otherwise it’s gonna be a hell of a long walk back to civilization.”
He turned and started to walk away. I stood there debating for a second before I went after him and grabbed his arm. It was warm and strong and when he turned to look at me, there was something dark in his eyes—like a war was waging in that pretty blond head of his. I let go, wishing I hadn’t stopped him.
“What?” he asked.
“I just wanted to thank you.”
“Stop doing that,” he said irritably. “You don’t have to thank me for this… For being here. This is what we do. If it were me, you’d be here. Why would you think it would be any different for you?”
“Well, I still appreciate it. I just don’t want you to think it doesn’t mean anything.”
“I know that.”
Then we stood there for another six or seven days, staring into each other’s eyes. I raised my eyebrows. This was when being half in the bag would really come in handy.
“Should we hug it out now?” I asked.
He kicked up a little smile, blue eyes sparkling. “I’m good. You?”
“I think I’m okay.”
“Okay,” he said. “I’m just gonna go scrub some of this road dust off. Give a shout if you need anything, though.”
I told him I would, and went inside my room alone. A few minutes later, I heard his TV come on next door. The shower followed. For a few seconds I just stood there, my hand on the wall separating us. I’d been sleeping alone a lot lately; it turned out it didn’t come as easily as I would have liked. I looked at Einstein, who had already settled himself on the bed.
“I know,” I said. “It’s not gonna happen.”
He looked fleetingly concerned, but that vanished as soon as I opened my pack and started rooting around for treats. I gave him one and found a half-melted Hershey bar for myself, and went into the bathroom to drown my sorrows in the tub.
I went through the case files while I was soaking in tepid bath water. The bathroom fan was broken—it sounded like a DC-10 was landing in the next room, which proved to be too much for Einstein to handle. Between his whining and the content I was going through, I finally gave up on the idea of a relaxing bath and got out.
I turned the TV on, foregoing the local news in favor of a Firefly marathon on Syfy. I was half-dressed and just starting to lose myself on Serenity with the rest of the crew when Einstein bolted up from a seemingly dead sleep and started barking like a banshee, all his fury directed at a picture window on the other side of the room.
The drapes were drawn and the air conditioner was going, but that didn’t stop him. I glanced at my phone. A call to Diggs would be not only cowardly but also too easily misconstrued as something else
; I dismissed the idea outright. Instead, I opened the drapes. The glass was thick and both windows were locked securely.
“We’ve talked about this before, Stein.” He looked at me guiltily. “I can’t bring you if you’re gonna freak out over every little bump in the night.”
I stared through the glass into the night outside, waiting for the face of some deranged killer to appear in front of me. The only deranged face I saw was mine, however, so I closed the curtains and silently directed my heart to get a hold of itself.
I spent the next hour trying to convince Einstein that he didn’t really need to go out for the final pee of the night, but that was a wasted effort. Eventually, after Stein had been dancing at the door shooting reproachful glances my way for half an hour, I surrendered. At eleven that night, I grabbed the dog’s leash, my jacket, room key, and phone, and headed for the door.
Despite whatever scary-movie vibe the night may have had, it was still undeniably gorgeous out. The moon was full, an expanse of stars and the pale blur of the Milky Way overhead. The air had that summer smell to it: pine and earth, the cool, fragrant clean of a world in bloom. It wasn’t like the stories I’d been hearing all day hadn’t made an impression, though—I could have been in heaven itself and I don’t think I would have strayed too far from a cell tower and a helping hand. I stuck as close to the motel as possible without actually encouraging Einstein to relieve himself on someone’s doorstep. Even then, most of the windows in the place were dark, and between the trees and the stars and the silence, the whole scene had a very end-of-the-world quality to it.
When Einstein started getting more insistent about heading toward the woods, I drew the line and redirected our course toward the single-lane stretch of highway running past. An eighteen wheeler sped by, kicking up dust in its wake. Across the road at another cheap hotel, a couple got out of an SUV with two bikes strapped to the back and a canoe on top. The woman hauled a car seat from the passenger’s side; I heard a baby start to cry. Einstein and I kept walking.