Bitter Falls

by Caine, Rachel

  She’s looking at me oddly now. Frowning a little, with an intentness to her stare that means she’s actually taking me in as a person instead of a placeholder. “You seem really familiar. Don’t I know you?” she asks.

  “We’ve never met,” I say. I know where she’s going. I just don’t want to help. I take another bite of the mourning cookie. “Ruth, never mind about me. Did Remy have a car?”

  “A car? Yes. It’s here. In the apartment garage. The police went over it, didn’t find anything at all. He didn’t drive that night.”

  “Okay. Who did he go out with?”

  She lists names as easily as if they were her own lifelong friends. A kind of mantra, really. I make sure the recorder catches all of them, but the list sounds the same as what was in the files; I just like to be sure.

  “Did Remy mention anything odd happening in the weeks before he disappeared?” I ask her. “Phone calls, emails, anything strange on his social media?”

  “No. Nothing. He kept some old letters and cards from friends and girlfriends. Do you want those?”

  “Yes,” I say. “I can just take photos of them, that way you can keep them. And anything about this Carol he was helping.”

  She nods, but I can tell that she’s still thinking about me instead of her son. Maybe that’s better. I don’t know. “I know I’ve seen you somewhere,” she says, and shakes her head. “Well. Let me get those things for you.” She stands up. I stand up too.

  “Would you mind if I took a look around?” I ask her. “Just to get a sense of things.”

  “Oh. Of course, you go right ahead.”

  I take the coffee with me—it’s good and fresh, and I long ago learned that life is better with it than not. I sip it and stare at what’s in the living room first. He’s not much of a reader, Remy, but he does love his sports. Most of the books in the one bookshelf are either textbooks, what look to be old favorites from high school, or sports-related biographies. I flip through idly, and find a couple of notes used as bookmarks, but they don’t seem important. I photograph them anyway.

  By that time Ruth is back with correspondence. I take photos of them and the envelopes, but don’t read them; doing that in front of her will feel too intrusive. I can study them later.

  I head for the bedroom. I’m unsurprised to find he has a futon for a bed.

  Mom’s influence is stronger here, as I suppose it would be; her book on the nightstand, her hand cream, her clothes hanging in the closet next to his. I push her hangers aside and look at what he left behind. Jeans, T-shirts, a couple of sport jackets, one good suit, probably only for formal occasions. A pair of flip-flops on the closet floor, a pair of nicer lace-up shoes he probably wears with the suit. With the sneakers abandoned by the couch, I wonder what shoes he was wearing when he disappeared.

  I discover sex toys in a box up on the shelf. It’s a relatively small collection, nothing too radical. Fluffy handcuffs, yawn. A couple of vibrators his ladies might like.

  I put it back where I found it, and continue on.

  I’m looking in his medicine cabinet when Ruth’s voice from the doorway says, “I do know you.”

  There’s a brand-new tone in her voice. I recognize it. I take a photo of the contents of the medicine cabinet before I say, “Oh?”

  “You’re that killer’s wife.”

  “Not anymore,” I say. “I divorced him. And then I killed him in self-defense.” I close the door and turn to face her. “I’m also trying to help you.”

  “I don’t need your help,” she says. There are stiff lines bracketing her lips now, and a dull fury driving out her grief. I’m toxic by association. A reminder that not everything works out for the best.

  I try not to sigh as I reply, “Mrs. Landry, you’re more than welcome to ask J. B. for another investigator, but I’m the closest, and frankly speaking, I have a better idea of what you’re going through than you realize.”

  “Just because your husband stole those girls away from their families, you think you understand what this is like?”

  “No,” I tell her quietly. “I understand because my own children are constantly under threat. Ruth . . . my children have gone missing before, and I thought I would die. I got them back, thank God, but those hours they were gone felt like eternity. I’m on your side. Please let me help.”

  She doesn’t like it. She’s afraid of the violence that surrounded me and still does. And maybe she’s right to be afraid, but she should also be reassured.

  Nobody else is going to take this as seriously as I do.

  She takes her time before she finally, stiffly nods. “You got what you need?” The subtext is that I’d better.

  “Yes,” I tell her. “I’d like to also talk to your husband—”

  “If you can get him to do that, I’ll be amazed,” she says. “Joe doesn’t like talking about Remy. He can’t face the fact our son’s gone.”

  Hearing the word gone, I instinctively know that some part of her has accepted the likely truth: her son is dead, beyond even a mother’s desperate reach. But as if she realizes what she’s said, she quickly rejects it again. “I know he’ll be back,” she says, and lifts her chin as if daring me to correct her.

  I don’t. This woman is fragile, frightened, clinging to a lie she’s telling herself, but I won’t break her heart. Not until I know for sure I have to.

  I say, “Thank you for your help, Mrs. Landry. I’ll be in touch as soon as I know anything.”

  She’s reluctant to say it. My history and infamy are weighing on us now, but she finally says, “Please find him for me. Please.”

  I don’t promise. I can’t.

  But it’s hard for me not to recognize the despair and horror in her eyes. She’s living a nightmare but pretending everything is just . . . normal. For so many years I lived with Melvin, struggled to please him, to pretend that everything was fine. I pretended so hard that I thought it really was okay. All that changed the day a drunk driver opened up a wall of our house and revealed all of Melvin’s evil, horrible secrets. The sight of that poor dead woman—Sam’s sister—will haunt me forever.

  The knowledge that if I’d only been more curious, maybe I could have done something . . . that’s even worse. I’ll do anything I can to finally end Ruth Landry’s nightmare . . . one way or another. Maybe I’m doing it for her. Maybe for myself.

  But either way, I’m committed.

  7

  GWEN

  As I idle in the parking lot at Navitat and wait for the kids to finish their last zip line run, I try to focus on the case, the clues. I can’t shake the unsettling truth that is Ruth Landry. Baking cookies no one eats. Begging for a ghost to come home.

  I don’t know what I’d be if I lost Connor and Lanny.

  I’m looking things up using a bespoke app that J. B. Hall commissioned—like Google on steroids, built solely for finding traces of people by their names or other significant identifiers—when Connor and Lanny pile into the car. Instantly, they’re both talking.

  “Mom, that was great, you should have come in with us, the lines weren’t bad at all—”

  “Did you find out where he went? What happened to him?” Connor’s voice overrides his sister’s.

  Lanny glares at him. “How the hell is she supposed to solve a case in, like, two hours?”

  “It’s Mom.”

  I laugh as they strap themselves in. “Nice vote of confidence,” I tell him. “But your sister’s right. This is going to take a while, I’m afraid.”

  “Oh. So, are we going somewhere else?” My son seems entirely too intrigued by that possibility. “We can help you.”

  “Nope,” I tell him. “I’ll make some calls once we’re home. A lot of this is just making appointments and convincing people to talk to me. Honestly, it’s boring.”

  He doesn’t believe me, and neither does Lanny, but they devolve into squabbling in a few short minutes. Apparently he thinks Lanny admired another girl on a zip line, and teasing is required.
I don’t shut it down too hard. He isn’t harassing her because she’s gay; he’d have razzed her if it were a hot boy too.

  Lanny insists it never happened anyway. They lapse into a mutinous silence after I finally order the two of them to drop the feud, and that rumbles between them the whole rest of the way home.

  “Right,” I tell them as we pull into the driveway. “I want you two to make up and get to your lessons. I’m going to check your work tonight—” My voice stops hard when I see that there’s an unfamiliar vehicle parked by our house. A big, muddy truck plastered with NRA decals and a bunch of cling-film American flags. The paint job is dull jungle camouflage.

  I stop the SUV halfway up the hill and wait to see what’s going on. Lanny and Connor fall silent as they, too, register the presence of an intruder. I feel Lanny leaning closer, but I don’t look back. “Who is that?” she asks.

  “I don’t know,” I say. I put the SUV in park and leave the engine running. A million things flash through my mind, including the stalkers and trolls who regularly email in death threats. “I’m going to find out. Lanny, you get behind the wheel. Get ready to reverse down the driveway if anything goes wrong and drive straight for the Norton police station. Connor, you call 911 the second Lanny puts it in reverse. You do not wait for me, no matter what you see. All right? Everybody know their jobs?”

  My kids nod, but I can see the look in Connor’s eyes. He’s scared again. This is yet another traumatic event . . . like yesterday’s active shooter drill.

  “Connor,” I say, and he blinks. “Everything is okay. Breathe and count. Do what Lanny tells you. You can do this. I believe in you.” It’s not enough, not nearly, but I don’t have time for more. I just have to hope he can keep it together.

  I step out of the SUV, and Lanny moves to the front seat. She locks the doors without me telling her. And then I have to focus on what’s ahead of me, not what’s behind.

  I walk up the driveway, gravel crunching underfoot, and two doors on the pickup truck open with rusty squeals. One disgorges an old white man in faded, distressed overalls and a flannel shirt underneath; he’s not visibly armed, unless you count the giant bristling beard.

  The person coming out of the truck on the other side is a woman—tall, lumpy, wearing an American flag T-shirt and jeans worn so much the color’s almost gone.

  She’s got thin gray hair, a soft, wrinkled, pale face, and she’s . . . carrying a casserole dish.

  I take my hand off the gun under my jacket.

  “Ma’am,” the man says, and touches the brim of his trucker hat; if it has a logo, it’s buried deep under decades of oily grime. “Sorry to disturb you, but we thought we needed to make some amends.”

  “Amends?” I echo. I’m trying to work out who they are. “I’m sorry, I don’t know you. Maybe you have the wrong address . . .”

  “You’re Gwen Proctor,” the woman says. She’s smiling, and it looks disturbingly friendly. “Our boy accidentally shot out your truck window. Such a fuss, he was out potshotting squirrels and put one right through that glass, and he is just so sorry about that. We’re so happy to pay for that repair.”

  “Your boy.” It all seems deeply strange. Yes, it’s the South; yes, people show up to be neighborly. But not to me. I’m the pariah of the entire county.

  “Well, we’re just being rude, haven’t even introduced our damn selves,” the man says, and steps forward with his big hand outstretched. “I’m Jasper Belldene.”

  Jasper Belldene. Uncrowned king of the drug business in this county. Head of a twisted family tree that includes several militant relatives who aren’t above killing to make a point. I’ve never met the man, or even seen a picture. Sam’s met one of his sons, unfortunately. That little confrontation kicked off this whole strange feud. It’s odd to think that for once, it isn’t my past that’s driving all this. Just a fistfight between Sam and a drunk man acting the fool at our local gun range.

  I shake Belldene’s hand, because it’s the only real option. He’s got a firm, businesslike grip. I hope mine is the same. “Mr. Belldene.”

  “Oh, don’t go calling me mister. Jasper’ll do just fine. And this here’s my better half, Lilah. What you got in that pan, Lilah?”

  “It’s a Tennessee meatloaf, just like Nanaw used to make,” she says. “Made with pork we raised ourselves, and that secret ingredient is oats, not bread crumbs. Gives it some real texture. I hope your family takes this as a peace offering, Mrs. Proctor.”

  My knee-jerk reaction is to correct the honorific to Ms., but I don’t. I don’t know what’s going on here. They seem so incredibly down-home genuine, but that’s not who the Belldenes are, and I know that. They’re hardened criminals.

  And they brought meatloaf.

  “Thank you,” I say, and accept the heavy Pyrex dish from her. Close up, the illusion of the kindly older lady fades; her eyes are too sharp, too emotionless.

  The meatloaf smells of sage and tangy sauce. I’ll bet it’s delicious.

  “I’ll let my partner, Sam, know you stopped by,” I tell them, and I don’t miss the little flicker of anger that disrupts Jasper Belldene’s cozy smile, like a flash of static in a signal. “He’ll be sorry he missed you.”

  “We’re real sorry we missed him,” Lilah says, and I hear the not-so-sly double meaning. I want to be my usual bitchy, confrontational self, but this isn’t the right moment. They’re putting on a show. And I need to find out why.

  Besides, they’ve very effectively tied my hands in holding the damn casserole dish.

  I realize that whatever they intend, this isn’t just a covered-dish exchange. They want to talk. The meatloaf is the food equivalent of a white flag, and I admit it: I’m curious what they really want. So I wave to the kids to let them know everything’s okay, and then I walk to the door and open it, turn off the alarm while I balance the dish, and aim what I hope is a radiant smile on the two Belldenes. “Can I ask you in for coffee?”

  “Well,” Jasper says. “Can’t turn down good coffee. Don’t mind if we do, do we, Mother?”

  Mother. I shudder a little. I could have accepted the gift and sent them on their way, but that isn’t southern polite protocol, and from the smooth, instant way Belldene accepts, it’s what he wanted.

  Lanny drives our SUV up and parks it beside the big, muddy truck. She and Connor get out and head inside, and as I set the dish down on the kitchen counter, I see the look that the Belldenes exchange as my children enter the doorway. It’s like two robots exchanging information, and it feels eerily dispassionate. Then the smiles are back, and Jasper gives a hearty chuckle and says, “Well, well, and who are these fine kids now?”

  They don’t introduce themselves. They look to me. “My daughter, Lanny, and my son, Connor,” I say. “Say hi, kids.”

  “Hi,” they say in unison. Unenthusiastically. Lanny looks at me with an obvious question in her eyes: Are you okay? I don’t honestly know right now, but one thing I’m absolutely sure about: I don’t want them in the middle. Connor’s doing a good job of keeping a blank expression, but I’m very mindful of how he reacted to his last crisis.

  “Kids, you’d better get to your rooms and do those lessons,” I tell them. “You’ve got four hours of school time to log today.”

  “Yes, Mom,” Lanny says, which is the easiest agreement I think I’ve ever heard from her. Connor follows her into her room, and the door closes behind them. I can’t hear it, but I imagine they’re furiously whispering to each other, trying to figure out what to do. I hope Lanny’s conclusion is to do nothing, at least until she hears some sign of trouble. And then if something pops off, I hope her decision will be to grab her brother, get out the window, and run for the SUV. She’s kept the keys, I notice. Smart girl.

  Once the door’s shut, I turn on the coffeepot. Hot liquid can be a weapon. I get down cups that could break into jagged pieces for cutting instruments. When you’re in fear of your life, everything around you can be useful. Everything.

&nb
sp; And it all looks so outwardly normal. I’m aware of the Belldenes sitting in my living room like land mines, and I make enough coffee to fill two mugs and bring it out on a small tray with cream and sugar.

  I settle in the chair nearest the door and watch as they adjust their coffee—she takes cream and sugar, he only takes sugar—and smack their lips appreciatively. “Sorry I don’t have any snacks,” I tell them. “I didn’t expect you. Well, not to show up so politely, I mean. I was looking for something more direct. Shooting up the house, maybe. Or a brisk round of firebombing.”

  The good manners stay, but the smiles disappear on both of them. “Now, now, Mrs. Proctor,” the Belldene patriarch says reproachfully, and stirs his coffee some more. “If I’d wanted any of you dead, you’d damn well be dead.”

  I let the hateful Mrs. go this time. “You left a rattlesnake in my mailbox last year!” I’m angry now that the gloves are off, and I’m not shy about it. “One of my kids could have been bitten!”

  “Awww, just a timber rattler, and it was milked first. I been bit by the damn things a dozen times, ain’t no big deal. Hospital’s got plenty of antivenin.”

  “And it wasn’t our idea anyway,” his wife chimes in. “That was our boy Jesse’s bright notion. He ain’t got no damn sense. We just told him to send y’all a warning.”

  “Warning for what?”

  They exchange a long look. “I knew city people were dumb, but this fills up the whole bucket,” Jasper says, and articulates the next two words very precisely. “To leave. We’d like you to get the hell out of our county, pretty please. Our state, if you can manage. We want y’all gone.”

  “Not personal,” Lilah puts in crisply. “But you stir things up like mud in a pond, and worse, you brought all those reporter people poking around. People just love to see themselves on TV and in the papers, so they say things they shouldn’t. Your family moves on somewhere else, things will settle.”

  “Bad press,” I say, and they nod. “You think I’m bringing you bad press?” I have to hold in a wild laugh. “The drug dealers don’t approve of me?”