by Willow Rose
"It's okay," I said. "It was a scary situation. It's perfectly normal for you to be afraid. Can you tell me if Lyle said anything to you or if something else happened before…?"
Austin continued chewing. His big blue eyes stared at me. I could tell that something was going on inside of him; a myriad of thoughts was rushing through his little mind. He was debating whether or not to talk to me.
"Come on, son. It's okay. You can tell me. Tell me what happened, please."
Austin swallowed the bite, then shook his head, his eyes avoiding mine.
"Please, Austin."
"I can't," he said, speaking so low I could hardly hear it.
I wrinkled my forehead. "You can't? Why not? I don't understand, Austin. Why can't you tell me? Austin?"
I grabbed his arm and then regretted it immediately. The gesture made the boy shut up completely and turn his head away from me once again.
"Austin, please, just talk to me. I promise it doesn’t matter what you say; I won't be mad."
I looked at him, waiting for a response; anything would do right now. I wondered if he blamed himself for what happened…if he maybe thought it was his fault that Lyle shot himself.
If he shot himself. You don't really believe he did, do you?
Knowing I had lost the boy once again and pushed too hard, I grabbed the empty plate and rose to my feet. I was about to walk out of the room to give my son some space when I stopped myself. I didn't want to leave the boy to himself up here all alone. It wasn't good for him.
"Say, how about you and I go for a drive, huh? I have to run an errand first, but thought maybe we could look for a donut place? They ought to have one out here somewhere right?"
Austin lifted his eyes, and his face lit up. It warmed me. Austin got down from the bed and rushed to the door, then hurried out.
I shrugged and followed him.
"I'll take that as a yes?"
31
I drove up the narrow street to the neighborhood of Riddle Cove and parked in front of the small picket fence. It wasn't hard to find out where Harry Mayer lived. The house was a small wooden three-story yellow building with a big porch on the back side, facing the creek. In the front yard, there was a snow-covered tree with an empty birdhouse, a small well, and a flagpole holding a huge flag that had been ripped at the edges by the freezing wind.
I left Austin in the car and told him it would only take a few minutes, then walked up the small trail toward the entrance. The front door was up a long set of stairs, and I climbed them, then knocked. I knew no one would probably answer, but thought I'd be polite anyway. Police tape was still dangling on the door, and I crawled underneath it as I opened it.
Inside, I was met with the familiar stench of death. It was thick and acrid, and I held my nose. Large swaths of the carpet inside the living room had been removed by the forensics team, and the exposed floorboards were stained brown from the dried-up blood. From the look of it, there had been a lot of blood.
I knelt next to where the body had been, then looked at where the forensic techs had gathered their evidence. I found the place where the gun had been lying by the wall like Winston had told me. Then I looked at where the body was placed and wondered why on earth Eliza would have left the gun right there with her fingerprints all over it. She was an intelligent woman, and if she was trying to get away with murder, wouldn't she have gotten rid of the murder weapon? Wouldn't she at least have tried to throw it in the creek where the fingerprints might be washed off?
I tried to imagine the scene, where she came in and shot him in the chest while he was still sitting in his chair. There was a lot of blood on the chair, so I assumed that's where he was sitting when he was shot. What puzzled me was the fact that the body was found on the carpet. Had he slid down from the chair?
"Or maybe she pulled him down," I mumbled and walked to the spot where they had removed big chunks of the carpet.
The body was on that carpet for quite some time, judging from how much blood had soaked into it and even reached the floor beneath.
"Why would her hands be covered in blood if she shot him?" I asked myself. "Wouldn't she just have shot him, then left him to die? Why throw the gun away; why touch him? Why pull him onto the carpet and touch him, getting his blood all over her hands?"
I sighed and thought about the night I had pulled Eliza out of the car. My hands had also been covered in blood, her blood. Because I had been performing CPR. I had pressed my hands down on her bloody chest.
Could she have…could Eliza have tried to do the same?
I tried to picture another scenario. I saw her come in and see Harry sitting there, already shot. Desperate to do something, she pulled him down and started to perform CPR, pressing on his chest to get him back to life.
But what about the gun? The gun was found over there by the wall.
"If it was in his hand," I mumbled. "To make it look like suicide. Just like Lyle had the gun in his hand. Then Eliza would have removed it and thrown it across the floor before pulling the dead man down to the carpet and beginning her attempt to resuscitate him. That's how she got the blood on her fingers and how her fingerprints ended up on the gun. Some of the residue could have rubbed off on her hands as well."
I nodded, thinking it made a lot of sense, a lot more than her killing him, in my opinion. But then another thought hit me.
Why did she run away? Why didn't she at least call for help?
"The black truck," I said, a sense of urgency swelling in my chest. "Someone was after her."
It all made sense now. Eliza came to the house—for whatever reason that I didn't know yet—and found Harry Mayer shot, then tried to revive him when she realized she wasn't alone in the house. The person who killed Harry Mayer was still there when she got here, and whoever it was chased Eliza till she crashed. He had probably thought she was already dead when seeing the smashed up car and driven away. But she didn't die, and he'd have to know that by now. It had been in the papers and even mentioned in the local news broadcast. That meant the killer was still out there, but that also meant that Eliza's life was still in danger.
32
"Hello?"
I looked up as someone came to the door. He pushed it wide open but stayed outside the police tape. His eyes landed on me.
"Excuse me, sir? You can't be here. It's a crime scene."
I rose to my feet and walked to him. He was an older man, dressed in a thick winter coat and a beanie. I approached him with a friendly smile, reaching inside my pocket for my badge.
"It's okay,” I said and showed it to him. "I'm a detective."
The man seemed to relax. His eyes grew friendly. "Oh, okay. I’m sorry then. I just saw you go in from my window and wanted to make sure that…well…you know."
"And I appreciate it. Are you a neighbor?" I asked.
He nodded. "I’m Sonny. I live right across the street. I am the one who called for help."
"So, you found him?"
"Well not exactly," he said. "I heard the shot, but to be honest, it scared me so much I didn't dare to move. I fiddle with old cars for a hobby, antiques, so I was in my garage when I heard it. I didn't even look out the window; I just grabbed my phone and called 911. I told them I was certain I had heard a gunshot. I used to work at a gun range, so I knew exactly what I had heard. I waited for a while, scared out of my pants, then finally went into the kitchen and looked across the street. That's when I saw her drive out of the driveway and disappear. I wrote down the license plate and gave it to the sheriff when they got here. They told me she had just crashed and that they had her. I was so relieved that she wasn't out there anymore, hurting anyone else or coming for me, for that matter. It was terrifying."
"Had you seen her before?" I asked. "Had you seen her car around here before?"
He nodded. "Oh, yes. She came by a few days ago, and the car stayed in the driveway for several hours."
"Did they seem like they were arguing or fighting?" I asked.
"I wouldn't
know about that. But that was the only other time I saw the car."
"What can you tell me about Harry Mayer? Did he have a lot of visitors? Was it unusual for him to have a visitor?"
"Oh, Harry never had anyone come by. He kept to himself lately. Ever since he was laid off."
"He was laid off? When did that happen?" I asked.
"Around three weeks ago. After that boy disappeared, the pastor's son. It was tough on him. He loved working with those horses."
"Horses? He worked for the Rutherfords?"
"You didn't know? He took care of their horses. They only have two, one for each of their spoiled kids."
I nodded, remembering seeing horses in the field behind their house. "But they have three children?" I said. "Shouldn't they have three horses then?"
Sonny smiled. "You'd think; wouldn't you?"
"What do you mean by that?"
Sonny shook his head. "Nothing. It's none of my business anyway. I gotta head back."
"Nice to meet you, Sonny, and thanks for the chat."
He smiled and nodded. "No problem, Detective."
I stared after him as he left, pondering his odd answer. It was the second time I had felt like there was something about the older brother, Charles Junior, that seemed out of place in that family. It wasn't like you couldn't ride horses when you were in a wheelchair; that was often something they could actually do and enjoy. Was he just not interested in riding? Why did I keep getting the feeling that he wasn't as adored as the other two? Or was there something else there I was missing?
I took one last glance around the living room, screening the area for things I might have missed when my eyes fell on a notepad on the end table next to the couch. I walked closer and picked it up. It looked like any ordinary notepad, except it wasn't. I had seen my friend Rebekka Franck with one exactly like it. As I stared at the words on it, I realized this wasn't Harry Mayer's notepad. This belonged to Eliza Reuben. She’d have to have left it here on one of her visits. I held it up to the light and could barely see what had been written on it. The pen had pressed through so hard it had left marks, and whatever had been on the page that was now ripped out also appeared on the page below. I used one of Harry's pencils to color over it, and soon the words stood out completely.
I rushed out to the car and Austin, then put the notepad in the back seat with a smile, feeling guilty. I wanted to spend some time with my son, and this had taken longer than expected.
"Okay. Let's go get us some donuts," I said as the car roared to life.
33
They were hammering on the sides of the trailer. Savannah stared at the door, her hands shaking. It had been going on all morning. Her mom had told her that they found the body of Benjamin in the creek the day before, and she had expected them to accuse her, but not this. Not them coming to her trailer and knocking on the sides of it, yelling at her.
"Killer!"
"Murderer!"
"Come on out and get your punishment!"
Savannah's mother held her in her arms while she waited for them to go away. Neither of them had dared to walk outside all morning, afraid of what the angry mob might do. Savannah was crying and hiding in her mother's embrace, wondering what she was going to do.
"They all think I killed him, Mom. How will I ever show my face anywhere again? How will I go to school?"
"You walk in there with your head lifted high, that's what you'll do. ‘Cause you didn't do a darn thing."
"Can't I be homeschooled, please?" she asked. "I can't go there; I can't face those people. Why would they think that about me? Why would they believe that I murdered someone?"
"They don't know you, baby. They're just angry. They need someone to blame; that's all."
"But why me? Why would they pick me? Plenty of people could have killed Benjamin. Why me?"
Her mother swallowed, then looked into her daughter's eyes, tears springing to hers. "Because it's the easiest. Because you were there on the night it happened."
"But I wasn't the only one there. His family was there too. And Penny's boyfriend."
"I know, sweetie. It's awful, but you're the new kid. And you were the last one that people know saw him alive."
Savannah sighed and let her mother hold her tight, fearing for what was going to happen next when there was a knock on the door, sounding different from the banging they had heard all morning. Realizing that the yelling had stopped, Savannah lifted her head with a light gasp as another voice sounded from the outside.
"This is Sheriff Franklin; please, open the door."
Savannah's eyes met those of her mother, and she tried to smile to calm her daughter down, but it didn't work. Panic was stirring inside Savannah like a raging fire, and she wanted most of all to scream.
The knock came again accompanied by yelling.
"Open up!"
"I have to open it,” her mother whispered, then let go of Savannah.
Savannah sobbed as her mother walked to the door, then glanced back at her one last second before turning the knob.
"Sheriff Franklin," she said.
His voice was heavy. "I need to talk to Savannah, ma'am. We're taking her in for questioning."
34
I was already awake when Shannon opened her eyes. She looked gorgeous in the light coming from outside the window, and part of me just wanted to stay in bed all day with her, doing nothing but staring at her, taking all of her in, every little part of her.
"Hey there," she said. "Have you been awake for long?"
I sighed and leaned over to kiss her. As our lips parted, I looked into her eyes. "Just a little while."
"It's getting to you, huh?"
"How can it not? Something is completely off. I am certain that Eliza Reuben didn't kill Harry Mayer, but the sheriff refuses to listen. I called them yesterday after going to his house, but they brushed me off. They won't even listen when I tell them I think she was just working on her story when she walked in on his dead body and that she tried to flee from the killer. They need to protect her out there at the hospital. The killer might be back to finish what he started."
"So, what do you think that this Harry Mayer told Eliza that was worth killing him for?" Shannon asked, looking up at me with her big eyes.
"That's what I really want to know. I asked Winston about her laptop when I called, but he said it was destroyed in the crash. They had sent it to a lab, trying to recover what was on it.”
"So, let me get this straight. You think that Harry Mayer knew something about the murder of Benjamin Rutherford and that he told this to Eliza for her story and that's why he was killed?"
"Yes," I said, pensively. "I also think that the killer wanted to make it look like a suicide. That's why the gun was in his hand when Eliza came in and tried to revive him."
"And you also think that Lyle died because of this? That he also spoke to Eliza and that's why he was murdered?"
I sighed and closed my eyes briefly, then opened them again. "It was his name on the notepad. Someone had written his name down on the notepad, and I’m guessing he or she did it when she came on an earlier visit to Harry Mayer's house."
"So, you're assuming that Lyle must have known something too?" she asked. "But what could he have known? What's his link to the Rutherfords? Harry worked for them; we know that now, but what was Lyle's connection?"
I exhaled. "That's what I need to find out."
"And he couldn't just have committed suicide because he was carrying this knowledge and it was too much to bear?" Shannon asked.
"It's a possibility, yes, but why do it in front of someone's kid? Why risk someone finding out you have a gun when bringing it to a school filled with children? He could have done it at home. It just doesn’t make sense. Plus, it was the exact same way Harry was placed, shot with a gun in his hand, like he had ended it himself, till Eliza came in. It can't be a coincidence. I just wish that Austin would talk to me and tell me what he saw, but he won't say a word."
I fel
t Shannon's hand on my arm. "He's scared, Jack. If you're right, then he witnessed a murder take place. We're lucky that he didn't get hurt too. If he saw who it was, then the killer could just as easily have shot him too, to shut him up."
"You're right," I said. "I didn't even think about that. He must have thought he was going to die. The boy's too terrified to tell. Maybe that's why he's still alive."
35
She was doing a little research of her own. Shannon had told Jack she was going downtown to grocery shop, which she would eventually, but she had a small errand to run first.
By snooping around on Instagram, she had learned that Benjamin had dated a girl named Colette before Savannah. She had found her on Instagram and messaged her.
Now, Shannon was looking for the small restaurant where Colette had said they could meet. It was located in a strip mall next to the main street, Soco Road.
Shannon parked in front of it, then reached over for her bag when she spotted someone else in the parking lot. At the end by the candy store stood two people, visibly in a heated argument.
Shannon wrinkled her nose and looked at them for a few seconds, wondering what was going on. Pastor Rutherford threw out his arms and gesticulated wildly, while the woman he spoke to wept. Seeing how agitated the pastor was, she grabbed her phone and took a couple of snapshots of the two of them, still observing them closely. The way the pastor was gesturing, it seemed like they were in a very intense debate, and he was the aggressive one. The woman—who Shannon had never seen before—cried and shook her bent-down head.
Is he going to hit her?
Having been in an abusive relationship for many years with Angela's father, Shannon knew the signs of a man who was capable of striking. It was the sudden movements, the anger in the eyes, and the built-up frustration that she could see in the way he moved and gestured. It made her heart start to race.