by Rick Treon
“I figured. We were real sad, too. Mom put flowers on her grave, but I went out later to pick them up, just like you said.”
“Good girl.” He opened the bottle again and took a drink.
“You could go out to her grave right now. I would go with you.”
Heller finally looked at Verna. Her eyes were wet. He sometimes forgot how young she was. Though Verna was not his daughter, he was as close to a father figure as she was ever going to get.
Verna needed to mourn her sister with him. Even a drunken asshole like Heller could see that.
“Okay,” he said. “Let’s go. You want to drive or walk?”
“You’ve been, quote, drinking. We better walk.”
Verna uncrossed her legs and hopped out. She walked quickly and shouted at Heller to hurry up.
“I’ll catch up with you in a minute,” he said.
Heller did not want to catch up with Verna. He hated the idea of being near his buried daughter. Candy and Verna still called her by the name they’d picked out, but Heller couldn’t. By not remembering her by her name, Heller hoped he could also forget the memory of that night. Parts of it, anyway. He couldn’t forget Ruth Ann Beck’s death. Even when he was close, Summer would remind him. And if it wasn’t her, someone would. Ruth Ann’s death had been a major event in these parts.
The baby’s death, however, had been easily contained.
To start with, there was never a birth certificate or any record of Candy’s pregnancy. They’d never been to the doctor, and she had no family to tell, other than Verna. Heller had given Candy money to get through her pregnancy and had stolen prenatal vitamins and other necessities from a local pharmacy. It had truly been a secret pregnancy. The birth had been no different, with Heller giving her the prescription pain pills instead of an epidural and delivering the baby in Candy’s bathtub.
But Heller hated having a secret family, and Candy hated having a baby. She was a wonderful mother to Verna, but the girl trying to rush Heller toward her sister’s grave had been born out of love.
Candy had a boyfriend years ago. He died in a construction accident, but not before V’s birth. The boyfriend had known Candy was a prostitute, and she knew he ran around on her. But it worked for them, and they’d once lived in a happy home.
After his baby was born, Heller had desperately wanted the same feeling with Summer.
On the night Ruth Ann Beck died, Heller had decided to merge his two worlds and create a beautiful new reality. The alcohol—the same cheap stuff he was drinking as he walked behind Verna down County Road K—had clarified things. Heller would take the baby and introduce her to Summer. It would be hard at first, but Summer wouldn’t throw too big a fit with the baby there. Heller would explain how much he loved them both, and how badly he wanted them—along with Sammy—to be a family.
Candy was fine with the idea, though she would miss the self-enforced child support Heller had been paying. She never bought a car seat. Verna’s had been pawned long ago and Heller had no reason to take the baby anywhere. Candy only left when Heller was there, or she left Verna to babysit. Heller did his part by bringing mountains of non-perishable groceries, diapers, and other baby essentials, purchased from stores at least one county over.
Without a car seat, Heller had instead taken the seat Verna used to feed her baby sister—a jumbo, a Dumbo, something like that—and secured it in the back of the cab of his truck with a seat belt.
Heller was still not sure why his first reaction after the collision had been to check on the other driver. It should have been to check on his own daughter. What Heller saw when he finally checked the back seat of his pickup made him drop to his knees.
He had still been sobbing next to the dent in his fender when Verna tapped him on the shoulder.
She had been playing outside and ran up to the truck when she heard the crash. She did the little kid thing and asked rapid-fire questions. Heller hadn’t been able to answer through his sobbing until Verna asked if she could help.
Though Candy’s nearest neighbor was at least two miles away, the trucks were in the middle of a highway. Somebody would come along soon enough, and Heller knew he could be arrested for two counts of manslaughter. What happened next was terrible. But, in the moment, it seemed like his best option.
Heller got a spade out of the toolbox in his truck. He told Verna he was going to walk out into the field across the highway and dig a hole. He asked the girl, who was only eight years old at the time, to carry her baby sister out to him.
After it was done, Heller had told Verna she could never tell anyone. Not even her mother. He reserved that hell for himself. He said Verna could never come back out to where they’d buried her sister, either. But knowing Candy would at some point, Heller told Verna that she had to look over every day to make sure nobody had left anything there.
“See, no flowers,” Verna said as Heller approached the shallow grave, which now had some grass and other plants growing on top. It had caved a bit, and he wondered if the dent would attract attention.
“Very good, V. I am glad you’re taking good care of her.” Heller polished off the bottle, then carefully screwed on the lid and slipped it into the back pocket of his jeans.
“Yeah. I miss her sometimes.”
Verna sniffled.
That sound, so soft he barely heard it, was somehow too much. Heller lowered his face into his palms and began weeping.
It began as a normal cry. But Heller couldn’t stop the momentum before it turned into an uncontrollable sob. He fell to his knees, re-living the pain. He began screaming her name, repeating Jeannie, Jeannie, at least a dozen times.
Heller felt weak and dropped onto all fours. He opened his eyes and stared through the ground to his daughter. He saw the life they never had together. He yearned for the joy of seeing Jeannie take her first steps, walking from him into Summer’s open arms. He missed the family dinners he’d never have with Jeannie and Summer, discussing how Sammy was doing in college. He could smell Jeannie’s perfume as he hugged her on graduation day and feel her tears of joy as they danced at her wedding reception.
The visions faded when Verna reached down and put her hand next to his. Heller took it and squeezed.
40
Veronica flipped open her computer.
“Do you want to put on some clothes?” I asked. She ignored my comment and scrolled through the document. I looked over her bare shoulder and realized it wasn’t a news story. It was a manuscript.
“There never was a Summer Foster story for the Ledger,” I said. “You’re writing a book. Fiction, obviously.”
“Oh, I’m writing a news story, too. I have to get Butch out of prison. Then there will be a major audience for the book.”
I stared at her. I hoped she would wink, or laugh, or do anything that indicated this whole thing was a practical joke. I got nothing. “I still don’t understand what the hell is going on. Why are you trying so hard to convince people that Heller didn’t kill Summer?”
“Because I know he didn’t.”
It had been years since I’d felt this panicked. I tried to hide it by looking angry, furrowing my brow and forming fists I wouldn’t use. “I beg to fucking differ,” I yelled. “Are you dense, or do you keep forgetting that—”
“Look, we both know you didn’t see Butch kill her.”
I turned around and walked toward the sink. I didn’t vomit, choosing instead to continue the angry routine. I tried punching the wall beside the mirror but missed and shattered my reflection.
Veronica laughed as I turned on the faucet to wash the blood off my knuckles. “And that lie is based on what?” I asked. “That idiot on the Free Butch Heller website who claims he was with him that night?”
“Yes, actually.”
I dried my hands on a white towel. “Give me a fucking break. Some crackpot obsessed with a twenty-year-old murder posted some absolute bullshit on a message board.” I looked down at the ruined towel. “You, your boss
es, and your publisher are going to get sued. Maybe by me.”
“First, you should know that I run that website.”
I spun around. “Do your editors know that?”
“No, but it doesn’t matter. At least not for our current conversation.”
Veronica paused, giving me a moment to piece things together. “Okay, so you have access to the identities of the people who post on your website. You know who claims to be Heller’s alibi for that night.”
Veronica shook her head. “That’s not how it works. I do know who it is, but not because I have their web information.” Veronica looked back down at her screen. “Okay, here it is. I’m going to read you something.”
“Are you sure you don’t want to put some clothes on?”
“You know, I’ve thought about you nonstop for all these years, but I never pictured you as such a prude.”
Veronica cleared her throat. “As he was bludgeoning Summer Foster to death, the man who would be set up for her murder was a thirty-minute drive away, holding the hand of a little girl who had just turned nine years old. Her name was Verna McDonough.”
Veronica emerged from the bathroom wearing a T-shirt and shorts. “You happy now?”
I nodded. She’d been scrolling in her document trying to find the correct paragraph to read for her big reveal when I told her I was going to leave and ruin her theatrics if she didn’t put on some clothes.
“Why don’t you search the document for a few words from whatever chapter you’re looking for?” I asked. “It would save you time.”
“I’ve spent years writing this. It’s not like I can remember it word for word.”
I could remember my manuscripts, but I kept that to myself. I needed her to get to the damn point.
“All right, here it is.” She cleared her throat again. “After the little girl graduated from college, she decided to use a different name for her chosen career, a nom de plume to hide her identity. The girl liked it so much that she legally changed her last name a few years later.
“She didn’t have to choose a new first name, just ditch the nickname her prostitute mother had always used. The girl’s new surname was both an homage to the Texas German community in which she grew up and a metaphor for how solidly she was committed to her life’s goal—freeing the man she still saw as a father figure. The German translation is, quote, rock.”
Veronica looked up at me expectantly. Did she expect me to speak German just because I grew up in Hinterbach?
“Idiot,” she whispered before continuing to read. “The girl knew having a pen name would be important when she found a job that allowed her to report on Heller. Though she believed in journalism’s ideals and what it means for American democracy, she’d known for some time that she would have to use that job to advance her own agenda. Though she was not aware of any known ties between Heller and her mother, having a byline with the last name McDonough was a chance she couldn’t take.
“But she saw no problem having the byline Veronica Stein above such reports.”
It wasn’t technically a blackout because I didn’t lose consciousness. I had been standing behind Veronica and reading along, but I’m not sure what happened after I read her name. The next thing I remembered was sitting on my bed, reciting back to Veronica the secret she’d shared.
“You were with Heller that night,” I said. “You do know he’s innocent.”
I still had one more secret, and I prayed she hadn’t figured that out, too. “Do you have any evidence against Franklin Jones?”
“I do,” she said. “But, once again, it’s not evidence that’s relevant to our current conversation.”
Veronica didn’t wait for me to seek clarification. “Tell you what, I’m going to find that section and let you read.”
I slapped her laptop shut. “For fuck’s sake, Veronica—or Verna, or whatever your goddamn name is—just tell me what you need to tell me.”
Veronica huffed, but quickly relented. “I know at the time you were busy making news and not reading it, but not long after Butch was arrested there was a big story about a Kerrville banker being arrested on fraud charges?”
I closed my eyes. It took me a moment, but I did recall something. “Yeah. He was retired but got caught stealing cash from his own bank and depositing it somewhere else.”
“Right,” Veronica said. “That man was related to Jones, who was the bank’s president. The old man they arrested was its chairman.”
“Okay.”
“Jones wasn’t arrested at the same time because he gave up his uncle in exchange for immunity.”
“And I assume you have proof of that?”
“No, I make stuff up like you.”
I was past the point of putting up with her shit. “Will you get to the fucking point already?”
“After giving up his family, Jones went into hiding. But he was still obsessed with Summer. He would send for blonde prostitutes to live out his fantasies.”
“And your mother was a prostitute, so she knew Jones.”
“Almost,” she said. “Jones did this for a long time. Hell, he probably still has blonde girls driven over to his mansion. My mother did know about that job opportunity, but she was a redhead and refused to dye her hair and piss off her regulars. But the man in charge of rounding up the girls did come over from time to time. I followed him outside one day during my senior year of high school and told him I was willing to dye my hair and play the part.”
I tried to swallow, but my throat was too dry. She was with Heller that night. She’d spoken to Franklin Jones.
I knew what was coming next. But I needed her to say it.
“What did he tell you about that night?”
Veronica smiled. “You know what, I’m running late. I figured I’d need to get away from you to finish the story, so I told Jameson I was going to stop by his place. He probably thinks I’m coming over to Netflix and chill.”
She packed up her computer and grabbed my keys off the nightstand. “So you don’t follow me. Just stay here and let it happen. I’m sure the stories will be posted in the morning.”
I should’ve stood up to confront her. Instead, I used every bit of strength I still had to stay upright on the bed. “Can you please answer my question?” I whispered.
She dropped the keys into her computer bag and leaned down to my ear.
“He told me the truth.”
41
Excerpt from Cold Summer
With no confession or other witnesses, the only account of Summer Foster’s murder is the one provided by me, Bartholomew John Beck.
42
Summer Foster
July 4, 1999, 8:47 p.m.
Summer wasn’t sure what else to say to the Beck boy. She thanked him as soon as Frank was out of earshot, then wondered if she should scold him for drinking. Summer had caught a familiar scent in the air, the one she’d loved on Ruth Ann after a shot of pineapple rum.
Part of Summer wanted to reminisce about the loss she and the young man shared. She opened her mouth, but snapped it shut after realizing she wasn’t ready for that, even after all this time.
Fortunately for Summer, he spoke first and offered to help clean up. Bernard and his wife knew how to raise kids. Summer lit a cigarette and they began throwing away paper plates, red cups, and plastic cutlery. It was pleasantly silent as they waited for the show.
“You know, I’ve never been a big fan of fireworks,” Beck said. “I don’t care about all the colors, and I’m not a pyro like my friends.”
Summer blew out a long drag. “I’m kind of the same. Especially this year.”
“Why’s that?”
“I don’t know,” she lied. “I guess I’m not in the mood to celebrate.”
They worked for another minute or two without talking, but Summer decided she should at least see where he was on his summer reading list. His interest in books had been obvious since he was a freshman.
“Have you read anything new lately?�
�� Summer asked.
Beck leaned over to pick up a paper plate that had missed its target. “I finished something a few minutes ago, actually.”
“Oh yeah? Fiction or nonfiction?”
“Nonfiction. Sort of a memoir, I think.”
Summer stopped working and turned to face him. She was interested, especially since she didn’t carry memoirs in the library, only biographies. “Those can be amazing, but teenagers usually don’t read memoirs. Who was it about?”
“It was about this ambitious woman whose plans were put on hold by a bad relationship.”
Summer couldn’t recall a memoir like that, though Beck had given her a description so vague it could’ve applied to anyone. Hell, it could’ve been about her, back when she wanted to run in the Olympics but got pregnant instead.
“I’m not sure which one that is. I know you’re on summer vacation, but why don’t you give me a little book report on it while we work. I’ll tell Mrs. McBride to give you some extra credit next semester.”
“Sure, Ms. Foster.” He leaned against the edge of one of the picnic tables. “So, this girl has, like, everything going for her. She’s smart, she’s good at sports, her parents and little brother love her, and the boys are all crazy about her. You know, the typical All-American girl.”
Summer nodded. “But then something bad happens.”
“Right,” Beck said. “Well, first she starts having some problems with her father. He was this big jock in high school, the same high school she’s going to, but he was never good enough to play football or basketball in college. But the girl, she could be great, and he wants her to be a college athlete so he can live that dream through her, you know?”
“I do.” Summer returned to cleaning. “That’s called living vicariously through someone else.”