I sat on my bed. Remy stood in the doorway.
“Come here, girl.” I patted my thighs.
Her ears moved but she remained where she was.
With a sigh, I glanced at the shelves dad built into one wall. Several sets of comic books, action/adventures, and horror stories filled the space. A few framed photographs of me and dad, and my friends from high school sat among the books. There, at the top, almost to the ceiling were several stuffed animals. A Pound Puppy with big doe-eyes. A tiger stuffed with packing pellets. A cat that played a tune when a little crank was turned in its back. And a giraffe with button eyes and a bow around its neck.
My heart went still. That had been Zoe’s.
I crossed the room and took it from the shelf. It smelled of dust and very faintly of Zoe’s strawberry shampoo. Or maybe that was just my imagination. Remy’s tail wagged, her eyes on the stuffy.
“This isn’t for you,” I said with a smile. Holding the giraffe close, I returned to the bed and grabbed my phone. I punched up the messaging app.
I’m back in town, I typed to Zoe. Don’t know if you heard about my dad.
I waited several minutes, watching for the small indicator to flash green, signifying that she was active. When it didn’t come, I hugged the giraffe and listened to the silence of my dad’s house.
Chapter 6
No one ever tells you what it’s like the morning before a funeral. How weird it is to put on your nice clothes, spritz your perfume, do your hair. Your body believes you’re prepping for a night on the town; your heart knows otherwise.
I went through the motions, fighting back tears in the shower, where dad’s body wash and shampoo still sat on the shelf, their tops left open, awaiting his return. As my wavy brown hair dried, it poofed to epic propositions in the humidity of the Northeast. Flyaways and frizz were the name of the game. With puffy eyes, I applied mascara, only to have to redo it after opening the fridge to find a plate of leftover enchiladas that were quickly reaching their past-due date. My dad was never much of a cook. After mom left, we ate Hamburger Helper and frozen Costco meals for months before he decided to start watching cooking shows. He never morphed into much of a chef, but his enchiladas were always superb.
From the living room, Remy let out a tiny whine. I peeked around the doorway. She sat staring at the front door.
“Oh,” I said, “You probably need to go pee.”
I opened the door, but before I could grab her, she charged past and bounded off.
“Remy!”
I watched as the damn dog bolted around the side of the house.
Crap! I slipped on my tennis shoes and gave chase.
Remy’s head was low, her tail high as she sniffed and snuffled across the back deck, no doubt looking for dad. I hesitated, my mind flashing back to when I’d found him. Icy fingers ran the length of my spine.
“Remy. My voice sounded funny. The dog ignored me and continued her sniffing. She paused behind the picnic table and I could hear her nose working overtime. I ducked under the crime scene tape.
“Remy,” I said again. Then I saw it: the blood stain.
In your mind, blood stains are always as red as Kool-aid, but in the gray light of the overcast morning this one looked brown. And if I didn’t know any better, I might have thought it was wood stain.
The stain was darker in the middle, faded out along the edges. I saw dad again, lying there in his own blood, staring at the sky through blank eyes.
A branch snapped in the trees. Remy’s head snapped up. She gave a short bark and leapt from the deck, charging for the trees. I looked up in time to see the flash of a deer’s white tail.
“Remmmmy!”
Dad’s house was surrounded by trees on three sides. On the other side of the trees was another neighborhood of well-acred lots and just beyond that, the Projects, Beacon Falls’ most notorious trailer park.
I ducked under the tape and ran for the shadows of the forest. I crunched across leaves and twigs, slapping at mosquitos as I continued to call for Remy. I could see something moving up ahead.
“Remy!”
She ignored me, snuffling through the leaves. She stopped to dig and I snuck up on her slowly. Just as I dove for her collar, she darted away with a playful bark and took off running again.
“Remmeeee!” My voice hitched. I glanced at my phone. I couldn’t be chasing the damned dog through the woods all day, I had to get ready for the funeral. “I’m going home,” I shouted, but all I could see was her tail darting here and there in the overgrowth.
I called to her again before giving up with a resigned sigh. I returned to the house just in time to see Mitch’s Jeep pull into the driveway. He’d arrived to pick me up for the funeral.
“Remy’s run off,” I said, an edge of panic in my voice. Morning dew soaked through my tennis shoes, my forehead wet with sweat. I could only imagine what my hair looked like now.
Five minutes later, we found Remy rolling in deer poop in a small clearing. When she saw Mitch, she ran right up to him, tail wagging.
“You’re going to need a bath,” I told the dog when we returned to the house. I wiped off what I could of the poop, but a dark smear still scuffed her fur. Remy ignored me as Mitch scratched her behind her ears.
“We have to go,” Mitch said. “We don’t want to be late.”
I was grateful to Mitch for offering to drive me to the funeral home so I wouldn’t have to show up alone. I had no family left, and while a small part of me hoped my mother might come, I knew in my heart she wouldn’t. I hadn’t heard from her in almost twenty years — why would she return to bury a husband she despised?
As we pulled away from the house, I stared at the shrubs my dad had planted, and marveled at how big they’d grown in the years I’d been away. I remembered going with my dad to buy that lilac bush, and now look at it. It was huge.
And that’s when I caught a glimpse of the beige sedan, parked just out of sight from my house.
My heart went cold.
I swung around to look through the back window.
“Forget something?” Mitch asked.
The sedan’s lights clicked on and it pulled slowly from the curb. Blood pounded in my ears. I squinted, trying to make out the driver but couldn’t see more than a dark silhouette. The sedan gained on us.
“You okay?” Mitch said.
The car turned down a side street and was gone.
I turned back around, heart thundering. Grangeway was a public street. Just because there was a car where Davis Dempster used to park didn’t mean it was him.
“Mady?”
I glanced in the side mirror again.
I was overreacting. Still, I couldn’t shake the feeling that there was a reason that car had been sitting there.
Vasalia Funeral Home is halfway between downtown and Elm Street in a white stone building. Behind it, just out of sight from the road, is a park where I’d spent many nights meeting up with friends before we were old enough to drive and could escape the stifling atmosphere that was our hometown.
The funeral parlor circulated stale air that smelled like the ghosts of flowers. Troy Vasalia, dressed in a tailored suit and looking a mini version of his dad, smiled sadly and shook my hand with a soft, cool grip.
“Everyone is waiting,” he said, after the perfunctory greeting and condolences were out of the way. It was hard to reconcile this professional-looking man with the kid who used to fart on command growing up.
Mitch and I followed Troy to a grand set of double doors with stained glass windows. Behind the doors came the low murmur of voices, the restless creak of wooden pews.
“Chief Mitchell.”
A woman with white-streaked dark hair, wearing long mom-shorts and an ill-fitting t-shirt, came toward us. Her eyes were distant and red-rimmed, her face bloodless, the pale ghost of grief etched into every line. Her expression was what I could only describe as haunted.
Mitch stepped forward. “Mrs. Ernst, you know you c
an’t be here.”
Then Mrs. Ernst saw me, and recognition bloomed in her vacant eyes. “You’re his kid. Graves’ daughter.”
My heart clenched. What was this woman doing here? What connection did she have to my father?
“You should know,” she said, a defiant note in her voice, “That your father did nothing—nothing to find out who killed my daughter.”
“Tammy—“ Troy said, but Mitch cut him off.
“Mrs. Ernst,” Mitch said, his voice a warning, “I really must insist that you leave.”
“He deserved what he got,” Mrs. Ernst said. Then she added, her voice cold with hate, “My only regret is that he didn’t suffer more.”
I stared in shock as Mitch escorted Mrs. Ernst outside. Troy’s firm but gentle hand guided me through the double doors and into the parlor. He sat me down in the first pew. I was vaguely aware of the faces of the mourners watching me, so many of them, all of dad’s friends, here to see him off. Detective Ingress and some of his cronies were there too, watching everyone with vague suspicion.
My nerves clanged, my muscles taut.
Someone touched my elbow, and I looked over to see Mitch had returned to my side, his face a mask of concern.
“Forget about her,” he whispered, “Your dad was a good man.”
In honor of dad’s favorite football team, I’d gotten a brown and orange urn for his ashes. It sat on a pedestal next to a picture of him in a backwards baseball cap, laughing at the camera. My grandmother had taken the picture one summer while me and dad threw water balloons at each other in the sweltering heat.
I don’t know if I believe in heaven, but I hoped wherever dad was, he was with her.
As people filed past, taking my hand, offering condolences and words of sorrow, Mrs. Ernst’s words rang through me. He did nothing.
Her daughter was killed? In Beacon Falls? How come dad hadn’t told me? Why hadn’t Mitch? A murder in Beacon Falls was big news. The last time a murder had occurred, it had been all the town could talk about for months.
And what did she mean he did nothing?
The ache in my heart grew and expanded until it swallowed my entire chest. I had done such a good job of shutting out my past that I hadn’t even glanced at the news headlines from this part of the world in years. And I never asked dad anything.
A soft hand fell upon mine. Anna St. James, smiling sadly, said, “I am so sorry, Mady.”
The woman’s appearance here, so suddenly after my thoughts of Beacon Falls’ most notorious murder, momentarily baffled me. Allison St. James, Anna’s eleven-year-old daughter, had been murdered when I was in junior high. Dad had played a critical role in finding the murderers, working tirelessly day and night, seeking witnesses, tracing clues, until he found an old man who had seen a group of girls Allison’s age on their way to the creek where Allison’s body had been found.
Turns out, it had been these girls who killed Allison in a fit of jealous rage. The senselessness of the murder haunted Beacon Falls for many years, prompting the school to institute anti-bullying programs and hire two additional counselors.
For a moment I let the warmth of Anna’s grasp envelope me. No matter what Mrs. Ernst believed, my father was a good man, and a good cop. The Allison St. James case had proven that.
The wake—is that what you call it?—was held in the basement of the funeral home. Trays of fried chicken and mashed potatoes and corn on the cob dripping with butter lined a narrow table at the head of the hall. Somber funeral-goers lined up for food and cold Budweisers that Troy agreed to allow despite the parlor’s usual stance against drinking. However, as soon as the cops and firefighters from several neighboring counties arrived, the somber mood shifted into something akin to celebration. Even Mitch loosened his tie and had a beer with the boys.
Those who knew me from growing up told story after story about my dad, revealing a side of him that I rarely got to see: the work-a-day professional with a penchant for doggedness unmatched in the small department.
Even though I felt like I didn’t deserve their friendship, dad did, and so I drank alongside them and listened and laughed as they opened up about the man I hardly knew at all.
“Vince would pull these people over,” one of the part-timers, Officer Augent, recalled, “And they’d start accusing him of pulling them over ‘cause they’re black or a teenager or whatever—and he’d—in his Vin way—“ he pointed at me with his beer—“you know the way, Mady—and he’d say he wasn’t even paying attention ‘til the radar gun flashed that someone was speedin’. The bastard was always readin’ some book or magazine or something.”
The room broke into laughter.
I was feeling rather tipsy after three or four beers, when I saw Elly Williams enter the hall, clutching the hand of a small red-headed boy. She looked different than she had at Red’s, more put-together in a button-down blouse and dark slacks. Her movements were jerky but restrained, her skin flaccid. I wondered if she was high. And if she was, what nerve it must’ve taken to come into this den of police officers and lawmen under the influence.
When she saw me, she straightened her spine and pushed through the crowd.
I tried to ignore her. “Dale,” I called to a red-faced firefighter who’d clearly had too many. “You need another?”
“Mady.” Elly’s voice was barely audible over the raised voices.
Elly and I had played soccer together and had a short-lived friendship during my junior year, which is how I met Davis Dempster. After that, we drifted apart, and frankly I forgot she existed until dad—
“Mady.” Up close, I could see the thick layer of makeup she wore, the heavy eyeliner. Her short blonde hair was greasy, and she kept fidgeting as though keeping herself still hurt in some way.
I held out a beer. “Want one?”
She frowned. “No, thank you. I’d really like to—"
“No, thank you,” I said, my voice going cold. “For giving my dad a little pleasure in his remaining years.”
Elly’s jaw fell open. “I can’t believe you just said that.”
“What?” I popped open a beer. “It’s no secret that you fucked him.”
That’s right. Elly and my dad dated. Sure, it was years after we graduated, but that didn’t erase the fact that she was younger than me, and he was, well, old enough to be her father.
Elly’s eyes welled with tears. Her son stared at her, confused. “You okay, mommy?”
Elly grabbed his hand. “Forget it. Let’s go.”
I raised my beer in salute before tipping it back in one long swallow.
Chapter 7
After the confrontation with Elly, I kept drinking, the alcohol a salve against to the raw ache in my soul. I’d lost count of the number of beers I had, and so it came as a bit of a surprise when the reception hall emptied out.
I helped Mitch fit aluminum lids on the leftover trays of food and stack them into his Jeep. Then together we carried the nearly empty beer coolers to the curb to dump the ice water down the gutter.
“So, did whoever killed my dad show up?” I asked.
The cooler slipped from Mitch’s grasp and dumped over, its lid snapping off. “What?”
“You know,” I said, “The killer comes to the funeral. It’s a classic killer move. Don’t tell me that never crossed your mind.”
Mitch flipped the cooler over and picked up the broken lid. “It doesn’t always work that way.”
“Yeah, but you were watching, right? With Ingress? Checking everyone out?”
He fitted the lid back in place. It sat lopsided, one hinge busted. “There were a lot of police here, I don’t think…" He trailed off.
“And where is Zoe?” I asked, a burp bubbling up. It tasted like beer. “I thought she’d be here.”
Mitch lifted the cooler. “I’ll get the last one.”
“Good,” I said. “‘Cuz I gotta pee.”
When I was finished, I came around the corner to find Chris Savine looking unbearably h
andsome in his police uniform, talking to Mitch. Chris had been on shift during the funeral so hadn’t been able to attend.
When Mitch saw me, he stopped talking.
“Busy day?” I asked Chris.
“I’m really sorry, Mady. I wanted to be here.”
I shrugged. If anything, it was easier with him not here. Chris’s presence had always had a way of drawing my attention.
“Here.” Chris held out a bottle of water. “I thought you could probably use this.”
“You think I’m drunk?” I’d meant it to come out angry, but the words slurred and I giggled. “You wanna go outside?”
Mitch begged off, saying something about having to talk to Troy, so Chris followed me to the small park across from the funeral home. It was empty except for two benches and an old rusty swing set.
“How come they didn’t replace this one like all the others?” I asked. Every rusty scrap of metal playground equipment in Beacon Falls had been replaced with that new, much-less-fun plastic crap.
“This is the site of the future District Attorney’s office,” Chris said.
I raised my eyebrows. “In Beacon Falls?”
Chris shrugged. “We bid for it and got it.”
“Wow.” Beacon Falls never got any of the county stuff.
“Well anyway,” I said, sitting on a swing, “Mitch doesn’t think whoever killed my dad came to the funeral.”
“He doesn’t, huh?” There was something off about the way he said it, but I was too drunk to tell what it was.
Across the parking lot, Mitch loaded the last of the leftovers into his Jeep. He glanced at us before returning to the building.
“It was all cops, though,” I said, defeated. “And firemen. And—“ I gasped. “Do you think it was Elly Williams?”
“What?” Chris smiled. “You’re drunk.”
“No,” I insisted, “Well. Maybe. But no, hear me out.” I dropped my voice to all seriousness. “She and my dad dated, right? What if she didn’t want to break up because—because my dad’s her baby daddy?”
The Things We Keep Page 3
