by Jessa Archer
“Do you think he might have confided in Ms. McBride?” Ed asked.
“No,” Wren said. “I mean, he liked her well enough, but I don’t think she’s someone he’d have sought out. He was in the same grade as Kenneth, but they weren’t really close either. And we didn’t even mention what happened within the family. Gran said we were to let it go. Pretend it never happened. The one time my dad alluded to it, when the three of us were driving down for James’s wedding back in 2009, she gave him the side-eye and turned up the radio. End of discussion.”
“Do you think James would be willing to talk about it now?” I asked her.
“Maybe. But I have a dentist appointment in half an hour. How about I call you when I get back? Oh, and take those brownies home with you. I made extra.”
Ed’s phone signaled an incoming text as Wren was leaving. He typed something back and then looked up at me. “Blevins left out one little detail. The body in the driver’s seat wasn’t Tanya Blackburn. She was the one in the trunk.”
I just stared at him for several seconds. “So, that’s new information, right? Results that just came in from the lab that Blevins didn’t know about yet?”
“You must be a psychic, Ruth. That’s the very question I just texted to Billy.” Ed’s phone buzzed again. “And the answer is…no. They don’t have any results from the lab, but the body was female. Plus, Tanya’s purse was in the trunk, and the driver’s license was still legible.”
I frowned. “But why? Not why she was in the trunk, although I definitely want to know that, too. Why would Blevins just tell me about the driver?”
Ed raised his eyebrows. “That’s an easy one—at least for anybody who’s worked with the guy. We were deputies together for nearly a decade, and he was always looking for a way to one-up me. He was the world champion at trying to take credit for things I’d done. When I ran for sheriff, I kept him on for the first couple of years and saw him pull the same stunt with Billy. That wasn’t the reason I let him go, but let’s just say it was one of many things that factored into the decision. Right now, Steve Blevins is scared that you’re going to make him look stupid again, just like he did when the whole Edith Morton story broke. He’s planning to sit on this for a few days until you’ve published a print version with a story that’s not entirely wrong, but far from complete. Then he does his big reveal, with a press conference if he can get one of the reporters interested.”
“And yet he was so very worried yesterday about how this would affect the tourist season,” I said wryly.
“He probably is a little concerned about that,” Ed admitted. “But the car has been in the river thirty-two years. It’s not like we’ve got a killer roaming the streets of Thistlewood. And even if we did, I doubt it would outweigh the fact that he has an election coming up next year. Blevins will go for the free publicity. And…” He grimaced. “You’re probably not gonna like this part, but I really need you to find another source for the information I just gave you about the body in the trunk.”
“Why?” Cassie asked.
I had started to ask the same question, but then it hit me. “Billy needs cover.”
Ed nodded. “He’s got a wife and two kids, and I’d hate to put his job at risk. I’m not sure Blevins would actually fire him, to be honest, since he shoves the lion’s share of his job onto Billy’s shoulders. But you never know.”
I sighed. “Are they using the TBI Lab in Knoxville?”
“Yeah, but I doubt you’ll be able get anything out of them.”
He was probably right, unfortunately. The Tennessee Bureau of Investigation has forensic labs in Knoxville, Memphis, and Nashville. I’d actually had two regular sources at the Nashville lab when I was a reporter with the News-Journal, one of the largest papers in the state, and they might have still talked to me if the body was there. But without previous contacts at the Knoxville lab, it would probably be hard to find anyone who would give me the time of day, especially now that my business card bore the logo of the Thistlewood Star, with a circulation that barely edged into triple digits.
“Well, I guess I’ll be sticking with the vague version currently on the website until I can find a second source. And I’m not likely to find it hanging out in the office.”
“Speaking of hanging…” He nodded toward the paintings still propped up against the wall. “What’s the verdict? Are these still going up?”
“Eww,” Cassie said.
I had to agree. “No. They go back into the box. But first, I’m going to take some pictures of them. And then I’m going to hunt down Kenneth McBride, because I have a few questions I’m really hoping he can answer.”
“You do know you’re going to have to tell Blevins, right?” Ed said. “This is…evidence.”
I grimaced. He was right, though.
“Can we hold off at least until I talk to Wren’s brother?” I asked him. “This involves him, too. And Wren.”
He shrugged. “Tanya’s disappearance has been unsolved for thirty-two years. And to be honest, I doubt he’ll know what to make of it anyway. So, yeah…I don’t see what holding off for a few hours will hurt.”
✰ Chapter Twelve ✰
“Do you think he’s still in town?” Cassie asked as we turned onto Poplar Avenue. “You said before that he seemed like he was in a hurry to get back to California.”
At the estate sale, Kenneth McBride had seemed in a hurry to get everything wrapped up. I was fairly certain that he’d spent at least most of his childhood in Thistlewood, since Lucy McBride had been teaching when Ed was in school, and he’d graduated almost ten years before I had. Kenneth might even have been born in Woodward County, since Ms. McBride had some family in the area. So he’d probably have been considered from-here by the town natives back then. But thinking back to his expression as he’d stood in the living room, selling his mother’s belongings, I realized that you could lose that designation over time. Yesterday, he had seemed very much like an outsider.
“I suspect that he is ready to get back home. But when Wren went back to pick up the books she’d bought, he told her that he’d timed things so that he could handle the estate sale and the closing on the house in the same trip.”
And sure enough, a generic-looking car that was almost certainly a rental was parked in the driveway. We got out of the Jeep and rang the bell. Music was playing inside, something classical and dramatic. Beethoven, maybe. I rang again, and the music cut off. Kenneth opened the door and looked from me to Cassie.
“Good afternoon,” he said, looking a little puzzled.
I fought the urge to check my watch. Was it afternoon already?
“You’re the girl who bought those paintings,” he said to Cassie.
I extended my hand. “I’m Ruth Townsend. We actually went to school together, although I was a few years ahead of you. I spoke to you briefly after your mother’s service.”
He nodded. “I thought you looked familiar. I saw a lot of people that day. Yesterday, too. You were friends with Bud and Tanya across the street, right?”
I said yes, even though it was probably stretching things to say that Bud and I were friends.
“If you’re wanting to return the paintings,” he said, “I’ll give you your money back and you can just donate them to Goodwill. I’m trying to clear everything out, not bring things back in. How much did you pay?”
I shook my head. “No. It’s nothing like that.”
Cassie grinned at him. “And you shouldn’t be offering me money back. You gave them to me.”
He laughed softly, and I realized it was the first time I’d seen him smile. “Thanks for being honest. Everything has been a blur the past few days, and I’m still on California time. My brain doesn’t kick in until around one. Is there something I can help you with?”
“I hope so,” I told him. “I had a couple of questions about the paintings.”
He moved out of the doorway. “Come on in. I’m not sure that I can be much help, though. I don’t even r
emember what they looked like. Well,” he added, nodding toward Cassie, “except for that one you showed me with the blue tree.”
We followed him into the house, which was now stripped almost entirely bare. Everything was gone except for a card table and a chair in the dining room. Four large boxes with DONATION scrawled across the front were stacked in the corner.
“I’m still trying to figure out where that box even came from.” His voice echoed in the bare room. “I didn’t think there was anything in the garage aside from the holiday decorations. Mom really didn’t have a lot of artwork. As you probably could tell, she decorated with books. There were a few pictures of me as a kid upstairs, but…”
“She never hung any of her own artwork?” Cassie asked. “That seems odd.”
I shrugged. “I don’t know. A lot of artists are like that. It’s a shame, though. They’re really good.”
“Wait…what do you mean, her artwork? You don’t think Mom painted those, do you? She couldn’t even draw stick people.”
“But…she signed them,” Cassie said.
I pulled out my phone and opened the photo of the one with the blue willow. Then I zoomed in on the lower right-hand corner. “See? L. McBride.”
“Okay, I was already confused about where these came from, but now I know something is wrong. Someone is playing a joke on you. Mom never painted anything. She didn’t even paint these walls. I took care of it because she was already having trouble using her hands, even when I was in high school. You knew she had arthritis, right?”
I shook my head, but then I remembered the oversized pen she’d used to sign the guestbook at my parents’ funeral. “Was it severe?”
“It wasn’t too bad until she was in her sixties. But the last few years of her life, she could barely even hold a book. She got an e-reader, and that made it a little easier. And audiobooks. Otherwise, she’d have gone crazy.” He sighed and his features softened. “I’m sorry, Ruth. Mom didn’t paint those pictures. I don’t know who did but it wasn’t her. It’s just not possible. But…why is it so important? I mean, they seemed pretty good, but…”
“Did you hear about the car they pulled out of the river yesterday?” Cassie asked.
“Um…no. I’ve been kind of busy.”
“It was Tanya Blackburn’s Mercury,” I said, opening the painting of Lover’s Leap. “That green splotch is right where they found the car. She disappeared—”
“Fourth of July,” he said. “1987. Yeah. I remember. Bud and I weren’t really close or anything. But he’d come over and we’d shoot hoops sometimes. They had a trampoline in their backyard when we were in elementary school, and I’d go over to jump sometimes with him and Tanya. Anyway, I didn’t see him much after that summer. Always got the sense that he was angry at Tanya for skipping town and leaving him here. Which I get. I didn’t exactly stick around after graduation, either. But…you’re saying Tanya didn’t go to Nashville?”
“She was in the—” Cassie began, but I gently cut her off.
“We think she was in the car they pulled out of the river yesterday. The lab hasn’t issued a report yet. And we believe the other three paintings are connected to another incident that happened that same night. Do you remember James Lawson?”
“James? Sure. Kind of hard to forget the only black kid in my class. Wicked smart. He was only here two years, though. Moved to…Knoxville, maybe?”
“Chattanooga,” I said. “He’s an attorney in Virginia Beach now.”
I showed Kenneth the images of the paintings on my phone.
“Torrance House. Yeah. We went there for my graduation dinner.”
“Did you remember hearing any talk that summer about a kid getting beaten up over there? The evening of the Fourth?” I showed him the rough painting of the three guys in front of the willow.
Kenneth gave me a pained look as he took my phone for a better look. “I don’t, but…that’s not saying anything. It’s been thirty years, Ruth. Between work and three kids, some days I’m lucky if I remember what I had for breakfast.” He glanced back down at the image on the phone and tilted his head, then shook it again. “The only thing that jumps out at me is that jacket. Or rather, the logo.”
“Did you know someone who wore one like it?”
“Not personally,” he said. “But it looks like the River Rats. A regional biker group. Most of them were in their early twenties. Stomped around in leather jackets and boots. Back when we were little, every kid in Thistlewood—well, almost all of the boys and at least some of the girls, too—would meet down in the park on holiday weekends to watch them roll through. One of them had a grandma who ran a campground just outside of Thistlewood, so he was here a lot during the summer. I don’t remember his name, but Bud might know. They hung out sometimes. He was too young to be an actual member, but he said they let him ride along sometimes. Don’t know if that helps, but…”
I glanced at Cassie. “Yeah, I think it actually might.”
We thanked him, said goodbye, and headed back to the Jeep.
“We’re going to the Blackburns’ house, right?” Cassie asked, looking a little confused. “It’s just two blocks away.”
“Yes,” I said, “but I don’t want Kenneth wondering why I left my vehicle in his driveway. And you’re going to be staying in the car anyway. Bud’s kind of skittish.”
“Um…it sounds like he was also part of a biker gang at one point, Mom. Maybe you should let the cops talk to him? Or wait until Ed is here?”
“Ed Shelton can’t follow me around all the time while I do my job, Cassie. I interviewed many, many people when I worked at the News-Journal. You never expected me to wait for an armed guard then.”
She frowned. “By the time I was old enough to really comprehend that fact, you were at the editor’s desk. I’d also never had anyone point a gun at me, like we did a few months back. That kind of changes your perspective.”
“Fine, I’ll take you home first,” I told her.
“No, you won’t.”
I sighed. “We’re already here, okay? I just want to ask him a couple of questions. And yes, Bud’s a little weird. But he loved his sister. He’s not going to hurt me.”
As it turned out, the entire discussion was a moot point. Bud’s truck wasn’t in the driveway. I knocked anyway, just to be sure, but no one answered.
“Good,” Cassie said when I got back into the Jeep. “Because next time you can bring Ed. Otherwise, I’m going to worry about you. And I know you don’t want that because you’re a good mother who would never cause her daughter distress.”
“Hey, wait a minute,” I said. “Did we just swap roles, like in Freaky Friday? Because I’m pretty sure the mom is the one who is supposed to lay down that sort of guilt trip.”
Even though I made a joke out of it, her point hit home. She had been through a traumatic experience. So had I, but for a much shorter time, and I’d had a few close calls when working in Nashville. Maybe taking a few extra safety precautions wasn’t a bad idea. It’s not like she was saying I needed to bring Blevins along.
We turned into the parking lot behind the building, and I huffed in annoyance. It was almost as if thinking the man’s name had conjured him up. Or his car, at any rate. This was a shared lot, so it was possible that he was bothering someone else.
“I’m heading over to the shop,” Cassie said. “Dean and I may grab dinner afterward, so don’t plan anything for me. And don’t go back to see Bud without Ed. Capisce?”
“Capisce.” I wasn’t going to argue with her about it right this minute. She needed to get to work, and so did I. Capisce simply meant that I understood, not that I agreed. Later, we were going to need to have a long talk, not just about any leftover issues she might have from her brief abduction, but also about my job and boundaries. I’d spent over a decade as an investigative reporter, usually without a partner. Yes, ten years at an editorial desk had probably dulled my instincts a bit, but those instincts were still there. They just needed a bi
t of sharpening.
The bigger issue for me was that I wasn’t willing to give up my autonomy again. Cassie’s father had treated me as an equal at the beginning of our relationship, otherwise there wouldn’t have been a relationship. But after Cassie was born, his attitudes seemed to shift. He clearly felt that the day-to-day responsibilities of parenthood were mostly the woman’s job. Joe began to act as though his career, his priorities, were more important than mine. I’m not sure that I’d even have accepted the editorial position if it hadn’t been for the fact that someone needed to have a steady schedule. I couldn’t be off chasing clues about a murder or bank robbery, because someone needed to be there with Cassie in the evening, and Joe simply wasn’t reliable on that count. Tanya’s parents had left an indelible mark on me—I would not be that kind of mother, even if Joe was turning out to be that kind of father.
And so I’d pushed aside the part of my career that I’d found most satisfying, because I loved Cassie more.
I still did.
But Cassie was a grown woman now, and it felt like I was falling back into a familiar pattern. If Ed and Cassie—or even Wren—would be worried, I couldn’t go alone. Ed had insisted on listening in when I went to talk to Bud Blackburn today, and I had agreed, even though my instincts told me that Bud was not a danger. I should have told Ed firmly but politely that I’d be fine. That I’d see him back at the office after my conversation with Bud was finished.
Long story short: my entire world had been upended when Joe Tate decided he’d rather be single. That was partly my own fault, because I’d gradually handed over bits and pieces of myself—my career and my autonomy. I would never let that happen again. Ed and I were clearly moving toward a closer relationship, and with Cassie here now, we were almost forming a family unit. I liked it. In fact, I loved it.
But I didn’t want to lose myself again. I wasn’t willing to have my job restricted by whether a man—even a really good one like Ed—was available for backup. I had my pepper spray. I’d taken self-defense classes. And more importantly, I had my instincts, which were getting sharper by the day. They had served me well for many years, and with any luck, they’d serve me well for many more.
