by Raven Snow
The word that immediately came to Rowen’s mind was “con artist.” She resisted saying that out loud, though. “And you?” she asked, looking to Coreen.
“Well, I-”
“She’s a bit like my secretary,” said Desmond, interrupting Coreen and answering for her.
Coreen rolled her eyes. “Yeah, sure. I’m something like that.”
“You didn’t come to town for business, though. Right?” Rowen thought back to the night Desmond had shown up on her aunts’ doorstep.
“Right. I… Well, I really hate to talk about it over dinner, but—”
“You came for a divorce,” Rowen said, blunt. “You can say it. I never knew you as a parent. It doesn’t actually matter to me.”
“Right.” Desmond took another bite of his burger, shrugging his shoulders as he did so. “That’s all there is to it. I came here looking for Tiffany. She isn’t around, so…” He shrugged again and ate a fry.
“I didn’t even realize the two of you were still married.” Rowen had assumed they weren’t. She thought her mother had gotten married again after Desmond. Though, there was a good chance that they were only married in Tiffany’s eyes. Her mother was definitely the sort to have a ceremony only witnessed by herself, the groom, and a few pretty trees and call that official. “What are you going to do now?”
“That’s hard to say. I guess I’ll hang around here for a little while, wait and see if she comes back. You don’t happen to have any way of reaching her, do you?”
“I can get in touch with my mom about as easy as I can get in touch with you.”
“Fair enough… Maybe this is for the best. It gives us some bonding time. We can, you know, catch up with one another.”
“Sure,” said Rowen, and she meant it. “Sounds good.” She didn’t mean that part. No, she wanted to meet with her father again because she still didn’t trust him. Something was going on here. She didn’t believe for a second that his arriving on the night his adoptive mother passed away was a coincidence. Lainswich wasn’t a place for meaningless coincidences. No, he had almost certainly been brought here for a reason. It was Rowen’s job to find out why, more so now than ever. This wasn’t just anyone. This was her father. Like it or not, she was connected to him by blood. Like it or not, she couldn’t shake an odd sense of obligation.
Chapter Seven
Shane arrived to Bertha’s house for his interview with the Lainswich Inquirer right on time. Rowen was already there, parked on the curb even though she had permission to park in the driveway. It just didn’t feel right. Bertha might technically be related to her the same as Shane was, but it didn’t feel like it. It also didn’t feel right that she had to get permission from a father she barely knew in order to do this.
“Keep an eye on him,” he’d said when she asked. “Make sure he doesn’t steal anything and get his key to the house before he leaves.”
Rowen wasn’t going to take Shane’s key from him, nor was she going to stop the man if there was something from the house that he wanted to take. She didn’t doubt for a minute that Shane had already gone in and snatched up anything of value. It was lucky he hadn’t gotten around to changing the locks yet. “Ready?” asked Rowen, glancing over at Willow sitting in the passenger seat.
In turn, Willow looked to her boyfriend in the back. “Ready, Benji?”
“Yep, ready to go.” Benji said, raising his camera bag so that both women could see it. Benji worked for both Channel 2 and the Lainswich Inquirer as a cameraman. The Inquirer didn’t have as much of a need for video as Channel 2 did, of course. It was uncertain they even needed Benji around today. Needing him was more an excuse so that she wouldn’t have to go alone. A camera was also conveniently distracting. Rowen had ulterior motives for coming to this place. She hoped to reach Bertha, to come to a better understanding of what might have happened. She still hadn’t managed to shake that uneasy feeling that maybe, just maybe, foul play was involved.
“You can pull into the driveway,” said Shane as Rowen and the others walked down the sloping drive toward him.
“That’s all right,” Rowen assured him. “I think we’re plenty out of the way where we are.”
“Suit yourself.” Shane fumbled with his keyring as he walked to the front door.
Ty climbed out of the car, his eyes on his phone. He looked up and spared Rowen a half-hearted hello when she greeted him, shoving his phone in the pocket of his hoodie after that. He went to stand behind his father.
Rowen looked at the car. No one else appeared to be inside. “Is it just the two of you today?”
“Afraid so.” Shane found the right key and pushed the door open. He held it wide so that everyone could enter before him. “My wife has work, and my daughter didn’t want any part of this. I didn’t want to force them to come here. Seemed wrong of me.”
“Not a problem,” Rowen assured him, entering the house behind Ty. It was terribly cold inside. With Bertha dead there had been no reason to run the heat. It made things a little awkward. It would have been even colder the night that Bertha passed away. Rowen wondered if that’s what Ty was thinking. Given how quickly he moved to adjust the thermostat, it probably was. “So, did you grow up here?” asked Rowen, trying to put Shane at ease.
“I did.” Shane stepped back from the thermostat. A faint smile showed at the corners of his mouth. “It was a lot different back then. There weren’t rooms closed off. We actually had to use them all. The house was a lot… livelier.”
“I know how that is.” Rowen glanced back at her cousin.
“I don’t miss it,” said Willow, helping Benji unpack his camera.
“It was cramped sometimes, but nice.” Rowen motioned to Benji. “Do you mind if we record things? We don’t have to use the footage, but some still shots of you and your son here would be handy.”
Shane nodded like he had expected the camera. “Sure, yeah. I don’t mind. Where do you want to do this?”
“Wherever you’re most comfortable.” Rowen would have mentioned the den, but she knew that was where Bertha had passed away. It might not be Shane’s first choice.
“The living room should be fine,” said Shane. He looked to his son. “Are you all right with that?”
Ty shrugged, his hands stuffed in his pockets. The look on his round face was impassive, like he had no strong opinion one way or the other. He led the way to the living room.
“This was the last place we talked to her,” said Shane with a sigh. He motioned to a square on the floor where there were still indentations and discoloration in the carpet. A chair had been there, the one she had died in no doubt. It had been disposed of already. “It feels so weird to be here without her.” Shane shook his head slowly. “It’s like she’s still around, you know? Like she’ll come in here any minute and scold me for not calling her before I came by.”
“You dropped in on her a lot?” asked Rowen, waiting for Shane and Ty to select their seats before she sat down herself.
“Pretty often,” Shane confirmed with a nod. “I always called beforehand, though. She had a tendency to forget a lot toward the end there. She wouldn’t always remember I had called. She didn’t always answer the phone either. I’d swing by anyway then. You know how it is. You get worried.” Shane took a seat on one of two plastic covered sofas in the room.
Rowen really didn’t know, but she nodded anyway. She had been fortunate enough in her lifetime not to have a relative whose mind had begun to fail them. She dreaded the thought of such a thing happening to her aunts or uncle. She swallowed that fear and sat down on the vacant sofa. She opened her mind as she did so, trying to be receptive to any spirits that might still be there with them. If Bertha was still in this house, she was determined to find her.
“Mind if I set up?” asked Benji, holding his bag up again.
“Go ahead,” said Shane. He looked back to Rowen. “I don’t suppose you’ve talked to your father about this place. Did he say if he had any plans for it?”
“So, you think he’s going to sell the place.”
“That’s my best guess. Like I said, he hasn’t actually spoken to me about it. I do barely know him, so maybe I’m wrong.”
“No, I’m sure you’re right. I probably know him better than you do.” Shane looked down at the floor and shook his head slowly. “I guess it was too much to hope that he had changed over all these years, that he might do the right thing.”
“What did you want to do with the place?” asked Rowen, craning her neck this way and that to take in the room around her. “Did you want to move in here?”
“No. I’m comfortable where I am. I wanted to keep this home in the family, though. I’d always hoped one of my kids would move in here, I guess. It’s a shame to see it go.”
That Rowen could fully understand. She imagined she would have a problem with the Greensmith household she had grown up in being sold. “Have you gone to Desmond about this place?” Rowen knew he wouldn’t just hand the home over, but he might sell it for a reasonable price.
“No,” Shane said with a sigh. “I’m afraid I would lose my temper.”
Ty snorted. “Like that would be anything impressive,” he mumbled, eyes down at his own phone again.
Shane frowned at his son. “No good ever comes from being hostile with someone, not even someone who might deserve it.”
“Whatever.”
Shane’s gaze lingered on his son, like there was something he wanted to say but didn’t dare to in his present company. “I’m sorry about him,” he said, addressing the rest of the room instead. “He’s taking the death of Bertha hard.”
Ty raised his shoulders in a half-hearted shrug. It didn’t look like he missed her terribly. His eyes remained on his phone at any rate. It was difficult to tell if he was completely disinterested in what was going on around him or if he was just trying to keep himself distracted so as to better control his own emotions.
“Were you close to your aunt?” Rowen asked, addressing Ty directly.
It took Ty a moment to realize he was being spoken to. He looked up after a few seconds, doing a double take when he realized all eyes were on him. “I dunno.” He shrugged again. “We weren’t really all that close.”
“Yes, you were,” Shane snapped at his son, like he knew better than Ty would. “We visited her all the time.”
“Yeah, but she didn’t really do much with us. She didn’t even like us coming over.”
“Ty!”
“What?” Ty’s eyes had gone wide. “It’s the truth.”
Rowen didn’t say anything. She watched, waiting for Shane and Ty to resolve whatever this was on their own. Beside her, Benji had finished setting up his camera. He seemed uncertain about what to do with it next.
“It’s not that she didn’t like us coming here,” said Shane, turning his attention back to Rowen. “She only thought that we checked up on her too often. She was very adamant that she could take care of herself on her own.”
Ty opened his mouth like he was going to disagree with his father. He seemed to think better of it after a stern look from Shane. With a long, annoyed sigh, the teen turned his attention back to his phone.
***
The remainder of the interview was standard fare. Rowen didn’t want to press Shane for answers. She might have her suspicions about the death of Bertha Trainer, but she didn’t have enough to go on that she was willing to pin a murder on Shane. Not that she was sure Bertha had been murdered. The whole thing still looked and felt like an accident. Rowen just couldn’t help but suspect that there was more going on than met the eye—even if she didn’t know what that might be.
They were wrapping up, Benji trying to get a worthwhile still of Ty and Shane when Rowen’s phone rang. “If you’ll excuse me,” she said, walking from the living room and into the hall. The face of her phone said that it was Rose calling. That was enough to get Rowen’s pulse racing. Rose knew she was doing this interview today. She wouldn’t call and interrupt it unless she had something incredibly important to say. “Rose?” Rowen answered, keeping her voice down so as not to be heard in the other room.
“Did you interview the Trainer family already?” asked Rose.
“I’m wrapping it up now. Why?”
“Did they give an interview to Channel 2 before they met with you?”
“I don’t know. I didn’t ask.” Rowen looked down the hall and toward the den. “I don’t think so. If they did, they didn’t say anything about it. Why?”
“Channel 2,” Rose said those words like it should explain everything. In a way, it did.
“It’s just the father and son here,” said Rowen. “That leaves the mother and daughter, I guess. He didn’t say anything about them going to Channel 2, though. I think he mentioned the mother having to go to work. I have no reason to believe that’s not true.”
“Well, Channel 2 is claiming to have spoken with someone from the family,” Rose said with a sigh. “And they have plenty of nasty things to say about you.”
“Me? You mean us, right?” Rowen was used to the Greensmiths being on the wrong side of most of Lainswich’s drama.
“Us to an extent. They used our last name. But no. Most of this seems to be directed at your father and, by extension, you.”
“You have to be kidding me.” Rowen swore under her breath. “I don’t have anything to do with this.”
“You don’t have to tell me that.”
“I shouldn’t have to tell Julia that.” Rowen was already thinking about what she was going to say to the co-director of Channel 2 once she was off the phone with Rose and completely finished with her interview.
“That’s not the only thing to take away from this.” Rose’s tone was weary, like she had more bad news to reluctantly bear. “Have any of the Trainers been openly hostile toward you?”
“Not really.” Rowen hadn’t gotten a sense today that there was any large amount of animosity aimed toward her. “I’m sure they’re upset about how all this has turned out, but I got the impression most of those feelings are aimed toward my father. At least that’s been the case with the father and son.” Rowen thought back to her time at the funeral home and then how the memorial itself had gone. “I guess the daughter didn’t like me much.” She recalled the girl storming outside. That also brought back a memory of the mother. Lacie Trainer’s demeanor toward her had been icy at best. “The mother might not like me either. I don’t know. I didn’t talk much to either of them.”
“They might have been in contact with Channel 2 then. You might want to bring that up with Shane if he’s still there with you.”
“He is. I will. Thanks for the heads up.” Rowen hung up. Before she headed into the next room she brought up Channel 2’s website on her phone. Sure enough, the top story was a link to a video and article about the death of Bertha Trainer. It was framed to present the house as a historical landmark and how unfortunate it was that the Trainer family was being robbed of their heritage. It mentioned Rowen’s father but not in a favorable light. The house would be sold, Channel 2 theorized. No one knew what would happen after that.
Rowen didn’t watch the video but in skimming the article she didn’t miss the mention of herself in relation to Desmond. Even without Rose’s warning that probably wouldn’t have been a surprise. Of course Channel 2 would mention her. It added a whole new layer to the story. A Greensmith always made for an easy villain. She would go have a word with Margo later, see if she couldn’t talk Julia into being at least a little more fair about all of this. In the meantime, Rowen hea
ded back toward the living room.
“Is something wrong?” asked Shane only a few seconds after Rowen reentered the room.
Rowen’s annoyance must have shown on her face. “Channel 2 did a story on this whole mess.” Rowen frowned down at her phone one last time before going to the sofa and shoving it down into her purse. “I don’t suppose you went through with your Channel 2 interview before you came here?”
“What?” Shane’s eyebrows rose. He glanced over at his son as if he might have an answer. “No,” he said, his gaze returning to Rowen. “This is the only place Ty and I have been today.”
“What about your wife and daughter?”
Shane gave a short and mirthless laugh like that very idea was completely ridiculous. “I think they would have mentioned something to me.”
Ty didn’t say anything, but Rowen saw him roll his eyes. He clearly had other ideas on the matter, not that Rowen was going to call him out on it right then and there. “Mind if we get a picture of just you in front of the house?” she asked Shane.
Shane shrugged and stood. “Sure, that’s fine.”
Willow stayed sitting right where she was. Like Ty, she was once more preoccupied with her own phone. At least Benji was paying attention. He took his camera from his tripod and led the way out the door. Shane followed. Fortunately, he didn’t seem to think much of leaving his son behind with a couple of Greensmiths who were also reporters. Rowen took note of that. Shane probably wasn’t the most observant fellow. It gave a considerable amount of credence to the idea of someone in his family doing things he was unaware of right under his nose.
“How are you holding up?” Rowen asked Ty as soon as their father had left them alone.
Ty shrugged his shoulders, sparing Rowen only a brief, disinterested glance. “I dunno. Fine, I guess.”
“You guess?”
“I’m fine. Like I said, we weren’t really close. I don’t think she even liked us all that much.”
