“Maybe I should hire him.” I return the phone to Barb.
“He’s the wrong kind of lawyer.” She taps a bit more. “Sits on the boards of several foundations. Member of some church. Blah blah blah. You need a high-powered defense attorney—or maybe the consigliere for a mob boss.”
I stick my tongue out, then finish my wine. It’s had no effect on me. The gray jay, perhaps realizing we have nothing worth stealing, flies away over the house.
“If he’s got skeletons, they’re not the kind I can find in two minutes with a cell phone.” She shrugs. “The family lawyer thing at least fits with his claim about working for the dead kid’s parents.”
“Yeah.” Though it doesn’t explain him collecting bullet casings like he’s investigating a crime. Good thing, I guess, since otherwise, we wouldn’t have been loitering at the crossroad at the right moment to spot the carrion birds fighting over a boy’s remains.
With that thought, a vague feeling of recognition tugs at me. “What did you say the name of the law firm was?”
Barb looks at the phone. “Anders, Harper, Milton, and Pride.”
“Nathan Harper.”
She taps. “No, it’s Howard Harper.”
“Nathan Harper is the dead boy we found.”
“Oh?” One eyebrow arches. “But when Pride came into the Whistle Pig—”
“He was there for Trae Fowler.”
“Then the next day you find a second dead kid who is what? His law partner’s son?”
I gaze into the empty air between us. “I suppose.”
“Be a hell of a coincidence otherwise.” Her eyes gleam as she works the phone again, tapping and humming. “Here you go—a Facebook page for a Nathan Harper from Gresham.”
“Is that near Portland?”
“Suburb.” She studies the screen. “A lot of his info is set to private, but you can see his profile pic. Looks about the right age.” She holds out the phone. “Is that him?”
The muddy snapshot shows a boy in what looks like a family room, laughing and flipping off the photographer. Late teens, with short brown hair and a wide jaw. “Might be. By the time I saw him, he’d been dead half a day and gnawed on by vultures.”
“Gross.” She goes back to tapping the screen. “He doesn’t mind us knowing his favorite movies are the Fast and Furious series and that he goes to Centennial High School. But his feed is private and so’s his friends list.” She shakes her head. “How did Kendrick Pride react to the body?”
I picture the juniper, the basalt outcropping, the vultures taking flight.
“He wasn’t surprised.” I remember Pride crouching, chin in hand. “I wonder if he expected to find him.”
Barb hands me my phone. “When solving for x, start with what you know.” Her knitting needles begin to click.
What I know isn’t much.
Kendrick Pride is a family lawyer who gathers evidence like a cop. He’ll talk to John Lennon, but not Omar Duniway. He’s cautious, volunteering almost nothing, including his likely connection to Nathan Harper’s father. Only the locket seemed to rattle him.
But why? And why is he still here?
Nathan’s body left yesterday. Trae is ash and scorched bone, undifferentiated from the other two men from the crossroad. By Pride’s own account, no one here knew either of those two boys. If he wants to learn why they came to Barlow, he’d have better luck talking to their friends back home.
Could he be looking for something else?
I think about his self-possession as we came upon Nathan’s body, then the white figure I saw near the same spot. An image of the Cadillac driver’s disembodied head chases the ghost away. Those boys weren’t alone at the crossroad.
My phone still displays Nathan Harper’s grinning face. He remains a cipher. But there are other names to search—names I bet Pride has already investigated.
Maybe I should hire him.
The front doorbell sounds. “Expecting someone?”
Barb lowers her needles. “Probably the deranged scold from the home owners association who likes to bitch about my petunia baskets.” She tips the last few pathetic drops from the bottle into her wine glass. “She thinks they’re too leggy.”
“Sounds like I should have brought two bottles.”
“Two bottles of what?”
I flinch and my phone clatters onto the deck between my feet. Barb and I spin in our chairs.
“I rang the bell,” Jeremy says from the corner of the house. “But no one answered.”
TWENTY-TWO
Skip the Coffee
“You’re driving around looking for me now?” Not that Jeremy would need to check many spots. Old Mortuary and New, Whistle Pig. The possibilities taper off pretty damn fast after that.
He closes his eyes, and I wonder if he’s counting backward from ten like I do. But when his lids rise, he doesn’t look angry. “I know you’re avoiding me,” he says, “but we really need to talk.”
Barb and I exchange a look. “I’ll go low and you go high,” her eyebrow semaphore seems to say. Tempting, but as long as I’m part of Bouton Funerary Service—however long that lasts now—I’ll have to face him sooner or later.
“It’s okay, Barb.”
She glares until his chin drops. “Fine. I’ll be inside binging Orange Is the New Black.” She tucks her yarn bag and knitting in one arm and the wineglasses and bottle in the other. An instant later, the sliding door shuts with a pneumatic whoosh.
Jeremy is dressed for work in gray and green. Uniforms do nothing for me, but when he climbs the steps onto the deck, the play of dappled sunlight on his face reminds me why I was first attracted to him. Hard to believe it’s been less than two months since we met at the site of a single-car crash on Route 55 outside Antiko. A driver had lost control and slammed into the concrete footing of a billboard. No seat belt. His two daughters, strapped into booster seats in back, survived. Jeremy was comforting them in the ambulance when I arrived in the Stiff to take their father away.
Later that day, I saw him again at the Whistle Pig, eating alone. He looked at me then like he does now, sad and lonely. I suppose his melancholy attracted me. I joined him and ate tots while he talked about the injured and dead he’d pulled from other mangled vehicles. His voice was quiet and soothing, and his dark eyes never left my own. Fitz stayed quiet. A few hours later, we went to Jeremy’s apartment in a rundown complex south of the highway. I silenced his apology about the mess by helping him add to it.
That was then.
“Not here.” This space belongs to Barb and—in a small way—me. Before he can argue, I grab my phone and dart off the deck. He follows me around the house to the front, where I find his patrol car parked nose-to-nose with the Stiff at the end of the driveway. I lean against the van’s passenger door, in full view of the house.
“Okay,” I say when he catches up. “I’m listening.”
He glances at the nearby houses, only partly hidden by trees. “We could go somewhere private. I’ve got some time until my shift starts.”
A shadow moves in the window behind the hanging petunias. Barb standing sentry. “This is fine.” At least he’s guaranteed me an out: start of shift, the girl escapes.
He nods, resigned. He seems to be chewing on his thoughts.
“The other night,” he says at last, “after I dropped her friends off, I tried talking to Paulette.”
A band tightens around my heart. Jeremy continues, oblivious.
“I told her it wasn’t too late to do something about Landry. We have a witness, after all.” He nods at me, as if I need reminding who he means. “I tried to let her know people had her back.”
I swallow a bitter laugh. Sheriff Turnbull claimed it was all just a misunderstanding. Paulette’s mother called her a slut. No one who matters has her back.
I force myself to look at him. “So what did she say?”
“Nothing.” He laughs without humor. “She got out of the car and went into her house.”
/> After what she said at Cuppa Jo, I’m not surprised. The desire to call Helene swells in my chest. To listen as the distant ringing goes unanswered. Leave a message after the tone. Hey, it’s me. I’ve made a real mess of things here. I tried to be you, but only you can be you. I hope you’re—
“—okay.”
Somewhere, Fitz snorts. I didn’t realize I’d spoken aloud.
A crease appears between Jeremy’s eyebrows. “That’s it? Just … okay?” He begins to pace side to side, his gear belt squeaking. “I’m not a magician, Mel. I just don’t know what you want.”
I want to believe he spoke with Paulette out of a desire for justice. But he seems more worried about what I think.
“Thanks for trying.” I push off the van, ready to be anywhere else.
“Damn it, Mel. Wait.”
Nearby, the gray jay shrieks.
A war rages behind Jeremy’s dark eyes, hurt and frustration fighting against—I don’t know. Whatever he thinks he feels for me? I don’t want to know. He inhales, exhales. Inhales again. Then he tilts his head back and I contract, worried he’s going to start shouting. Instead, he gazes into the sky.
When he speaks at last, Jeremy’s voice is soft. “Do you ever wonder what they see in this place?”
For a long moment, the only sound is the whisper of hot air through the pines.
“Who?”
“Them.” He points up at a small jet making its approach, the second one today. “They fly in from all over. For this?”
He gestures at the chalets and cottages on the slope below us, at Dryer Lake and the country club on the far shore.
“Maybe they like the isolation.”
“I guess.” He sounds as if the concept is alien to him. “Do you remember the big fight over extending the runways so jets could land here?”
“Not even remotely.”
“I guess that was before your time.”
“Everything was before my time.” I steal a glance at Barb’s front window. “Jeremy, was there something else?”
“I’m just …” He licks his lips. “I’m worried about you is all.”
“Well, you can fucking stop.”
His sudden, wet gaze stings me. I can tell he’s remembering those postcoital confessions of his dreams and aspirations. Bachelor’s degree, big-city police gig, maybe even law school.
I only ever responded with silence. He’s probably thinking about that too.
“Damn it, Jeremy.” The shine in his eyes makes me want to punch him. Or take him back to his apartment. I can’t do either. It occurs to me Paulette was an excuse, an easy, obvious reason to walk away. “You know I can never be what you want.”
He puts a hand on his forehead, a gesture I associate with my mother. A tremor runs through my legs. I suppress the urge to bolt by grinding my heel into the gravel at my feet. He saves me the trouble by walking up the driveway, gait stiff and shoulders hunched. The soles of his shoes scrape against concrete.
As he paces, I stare down the hillside. Out on the lake, the fishing boats have moved away from the dam. High above the water, a bird tips and banks on the thermals. The wobble of its flight tells me it’s a vulture—one of Nathan Harper’s, maybe.
Jeremy returns down the driveway and stops in front of me—half a step too close. He’s smiling now with his old, familiar sadness.
I reach behind me, one handed, for the Stiff.
“I know I’m just a diversion, Mel. I never expected some great romance.” His voice has gone husky. “But I hoped you’d at least let me be your friend.”
Christ.
“They don’t listen,” Helene once said. “They hear the one word or phrase that fits the little love story they’ve cooked up, and everything else is white noise.” Back then, before Geoffrey, I didn’t understand what she meant. She’d had actual experience with relationships. I had fuck buddies.
But now I get it.
I meet Jeremy’s gaze with blunt anger. “Which part of what happened at Dailie’s was being my friend?”
He looks away, but in shame or guilt I can’t tell. “I didn’t know he was going to ambush you.”
“Bull. Shit.”
His eyes dart around as if seeking a lifeline. “Mel—”
“He stuck me in the puke-smelling backseat of his goddamn Tahoe. He threatened me with jail.”
Before I can add, And you helped, all the air goes out of him.
“Duniway pinged me and said you weren’t answering your cell. He said your van was parked over near Jo’s and asked me to look around. I knew you wouldn’t respond if I called or texted.” He laughs a little. When I don’t react, he continues. “Anyway, I stuck my head in the Pig, then worked my way around the square. But, hell, I never even saw you in Dailie’s.”
“He never tried to call me.”
“What can I say, Mel? I think he’s kinda making it up as he goes.”
“You expect me to believe that?” Duniway’s actions have seemed damn well choreographed—from Quince to the search warrant on the New Mortuary credenza.
But Jeremy presses his point. “This just isn’t the kind of thing we deal with. DUIs and bar fights, domestic calls, drug stuff, maybe a tourist gets ripped off—that’s what we’re used to. Body snatching? Not so much.”
“So somehow I’m the mastermind behind Barlow County’s crime of the century?”
“When you put it that way …” His shoulders rise and fall. “It’s just—everybody was chalking it up to a motor vehicle collision. A bad one, sure, but an accident. Then the bodies walked away and turned up out at Bouton’s, and Quince came in and …” His voice tapers off.
“I’m the common thread.”
“Well, think about how it looks.”
“Pretty damn convenient.” Unless you’re me.
“It’s all Duniway’s got, Mel.”
I glance at my phone, but instead of checking the time, I think about Barb’s internet search. And the search I was contemplating when Jeremy arrived.
Jeremy can tell me things I won’t find with Google.
“Start with what you know, little sis.”
What I know is that if someone hadn’t taken the bodies, my part in this farce would be over. There might be details for the cops to sort out, but I’d just be the girl who called it in and transported the remains. Even when the bodies disappeared, the worst that could be said was that I was negligent—the dumbshit who didn’t lock the door. It took finding bones and ash in the Old Mortuary retort to make it all about me.
Melisende Dulac, first on the scene. Found and all but fled from the damn baby. Transported the remains, and even discovered another body the next day. But Crazy Melisende wasn’t driving the pickup with the horse trailer. Have the cops stopped to wonder why two adult men were in an apparent midnight standoff at the crossroad with a couple of teenaged boys when Zach Urban plowed into them?
I look at Jeremy, thinking of Dr. Varney’s DME report. “Tell me about the guys from the crash. Tucker Gill and Uriah Skeevis. Dr. Varney said he confirmed their IDs by fingerprint. Did they have records?”
“Mel, I can’t really—”
My lips compress. “You want to be my friend or not?”
He grimaces. “The thing is, I don’t know anything.”
“Why not?”
“I’ve been on Duniway’s shit list ever since the sheriff moved me from jail to patrol a year ahead of department policy.” His hand goes back to his forehead before dropping to his side. His fingers start drumming the seam of his uniform pants. “He’s got me doing civil forfeitures and interviewing backpackers about food stolen from their campsite. Like I can arrest a bear.”
“I thought you were canvassing the neighborhood around the New Mortuary for witnesses.”
His twitchy hand goes still. “Did Kendrick Pride tell you that?”
The question is like the clatter of stones ahead of an avalanche. “What makes you think he told me anything?”
“You had coff
ee with him.”
“Wait.” A sound like rushing wind fills my ears. “You’re spying on me now?”
He breaks eye contact. “No one is spying on you.”
I can’t tell if he actually believes that. Danae’s round face pops into my head. “No secrets in Samuelton, sweetie.”
“What the hell do you call it, then?”
He ignores the question. “What do you really know about the guy, Mel?”
Not as much as I’d like, I think, despite Google. But I won’t give Jeremy the satisfaction of knowing his question was on the mark. “You brought him up. What do you know about him?”
“I know he’s been all over the county asking questions and stirring the bees, but no one knows why.”
“What does that have to do with me?”
“There’s something off about him. Hell, for all we know he took the bodies.”
I stare at him. “And then stuck around all week ‘stirring the bees’? Why would he do that?”
“I don’t know. Some kind of misdirection, maybe.”
“Who’s he supposed to be misdirecting? The crack investigators of the Barlow County Sheriff’s Department?”
Jeremy scrubs a hand over his face and scalp before dropping it to his side. “I’m just saying next time you run into him, maybe skip the coffee.”
The sky darkens, as if a cloud passed before the sun. “Do not think for one second,” I say, jabbing a finger at his chest, “that because I fucked you, you get to tell me what to do.”
I turn away, but he grabs my arm. The glare I throw at his hand is hot enough he lets go immediately. “Goodbye, Jeremy.”
“Where are you going, Mel?”
There’s a note of warning in his voice. I glance back at Barb’s window, but only for a second. I won’t use her as a human shield. Not that she’d mind, but I’ve got questions piling up around my feet like cremated ash and bone, and I won’t find the answers here.
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