by Laura McHugh
“Are there other suspects?” I said. “Are you allowed to say?”
“We haven’t named any suspects,” Kendrick said evenly. “We don’t even know yet that a crime was committed. We haven’t found a body.”
“But her car was in the river,” I said. “In what scenario does her car end up in the river if there wasn’t a crime?”
“She could have driven it there herself. You can’t jump to conclusions every time something looks strange, when you don’t have all the facts.” She gave me a pointed look, and I knew she was making a dig about Shane. She still thought I was crazy. I wondered what it would be like to grab her ponytail and throw her down on the floor, filthy with peanut shells and who knew what else. I’d never been in a fight before and was sure she’d have no trouble beating me.
Kendrick took a napkin from the table and dabbed at her boots. I’d forgotten about spilling beer on her.
“Let me get you some wet paper towels.”
“That’s all right,” she said. “I’m gonna go clean these up in the bathroom.”
“I’m really sorry about that,” I said, but she’d already left the table.
Theo leaned forward. “I wouldn’t take it personally,” he said. “She’s pretty stressed from work, as you can imagine.”
“It’s fine.”
“We’re…uh…not here together,” he said. “Not together together, anyway. We’re friends.”
“Okay,” I said. “You don’t have to explain anything to me.”
“Just wanted to let you know,” he said, smiling. “In the interest of transparency.”
I unstacked the plastic cups that had come with the pitcher. “Do you want some of this beer? I’m not sure when Chad’s coming back.”
“No thanks,” he said. “So how did you two meet?”
“Cougar Date,” I said.
“Oh.” He nodded politely. “Seems like a nice guy.”
“I guess,” I said. “If you like doing shots and vaping.”
“First date?”
I laughed. “Did you think I was serious? We’re not on a date. He’s my friend’s cousin,” I said. “I came to see her, he was here. Your ketamine story scared me away from online dating.”
He flushed slightly, grinning. “Good. I hoped it would. Narrow down the competition.”
My face warmed from the shot or from the way Theo was looking at me, and I almost forgot what I was doing there, that I hadn’t come to the bar to have a good time.
I spotted Hannah then, waving her arms like she was signaling a plane. I waved back and she motioned for me to join her.
“I need to check on my friend,” I said, getting up. “Catch you later?”
“Yeah,” he said. “I hope so.”
Through the crowd, I thought I saw Chad standing near Kendrick, over by the restrooms, but I couldn’t tell whether they were talking to each other. When I got to Hannah, she took my hand in hers and led me to the mostly empty dance floor, clasping her arms around my neck like you would at a junior high dance.
“I’m glad you came,” she said. “Nobody else’ll dance with me.” She rested her head on my shoulder and swayed to the music. I could feel people staring. “Remember those little dance parties we used to have with Macey and Lily back in preschool? Put on that Kidz Bop CD, and they would go to town.” She sighed. “Those were good times. I wish we could go back.”
“Hannah, I need to ask you something.”
She stopped swaying, her arms falling away from my neck. Her eyes were half closed, glitter smeared beneath them.
“When Roger’s visitation schedule changed, so he could get that extra night, who knew about that besides you?”
“I don’t know.”
“Did your family know?”
“I don’t know. Maybe. Listen.” She leaned in close. “Kendrick told me something today.” Her breath tickled my neck, making the little hairs stand up. More than a few people were watching us, some disdainful, others curious. She put her lips to my ear so I could hear her over the music, her words vibrating against my skin.
“She said Roger might have been killed over a debt. See, he deposited a chunk of cash in his account a while back, money he borrowed to pay for lawyers and court fees—divorce and custody aren’t cheap, not when you’re fighting. He quit his second job so he could have Macey on weekends, and then he didn’t have the money to pay the loan back. Kendrick thinks whoever gave him that money might have killed him.” She swayed off-balance and I reached out to steady her. “Cotton Eye Joe” blared out of the speakers and more people moved onto the dance floor, but they gave us a wide berth.
“What do you think of that?” Hannah said. “My baby’s dead because of the divorce—because I wanted her all to myself. If I’d known…I would have rather let Roger have her all the time, just to know she was alive, that she was there. It comes back to me every time, no matter what happened, no matter how I figure it. I’m her mother. The one who was supposed to protect her. And I failed. I have to live with that.”
She pulled back, hands on my shoulders, her eyes unfocused. “Let’s get another round.”
* * *
—
It took all four of us working as a team to convince Hannah to leave when the bar began to close. Chad and I were in charge of bribing and cajoling. Theo carried her purse and escorted her out the door with the gentle manner of someone accustomed to dealing with squirming animals. Kendrick, who’d had nothing to drink but club soda, insisted on driving both Chad and Hannah home.
I climbed into my car and closed my eyes, leaning back in the seat, thinking I’d rest for a while until I was sure I was sober enough to drive. Theo had offered to follow me to make sure I got home safely, and I’d accepted at first, but by the time we got Hannah buckled into Kendrick’s car, I’d started to worry that things might turn awkward when he got to my house. I didn’t know whether he’d want to come in or whether I should invite him, so I told him I could get home fine on my own. I regretted it after he left and considered calling to tell him I’d changed my mind again, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it.
I’d almost drifted off when an urgent rapping vibrated the window glass. I twitched, instantly alert, and nearly screamed as a face appeared.
“It’s me,” Charlie said. He was alone in the dark, hunched over so we could see each other eye to eye.
I took a deep, steadying breath and rolled down the window. I wasn’t sure how he’d known where to find me, though it wouldn’t have taken much luck or effort. The Barred Owl was the only place open this time of night, and my car was parked in view of the highway.
“Hey,” I said. “Is everything all right?”
“Here.” He shoved a book at me. It was a journal bound in purple fabric, the pages edged with silver. “It’s hers,” he said. “Look.”
Inside the front cover, a name inscribed in marker: Henley Pettit. I flipped through the pages, crowded with the fat bubble script of a teenage girl.
“Henley’s? Where’d you get it?”
Charlie shrugged, looking out toward the road, back to the bar, a neon Budweiser sign glowing in the window.
“You can tell me,” I said.
“From her bedroom,” he mumbled. “I went to her house. I knew where she hid it.”
“Charlie? Why are you giving this to me?”
He shook his head. “She wrote about him. Jason Sullivan. It’s proof she was seeing him.” Blood rushed to his face, flushing his skin. “I was gonna show it to that cop. Raymond said she didn’t believe him.”
“Is there something in here that incriminates Jason?”
“No,” he said. “But there’s something you need to see.”
He reached out and spread the journal open to a page marked with a ribbon. I stared at it until Shane’s name emerged from the franti
c crush of letters.
“She was there,” Charlie said. “The night he died.”
Henley pulled her journal from under the floorboard in her closet, where she still liked to keep it even though Missy wasn’t around to try to read it. Flipping back through the pages, Henley noticed that she wrote in it mostly when Missy was using or gone, a habit formed years ago when her mother was in rehab and a counselor had told Henley it would help to write out her thoughts and feelings. She only did it at first because the counselor had made her, but she’d found it was useful in those times she couldn’t, or didn’t want to, talk to Missy or Charlie or anyone else. She definitely couldn’t talk to Charlie now, not about this.
She wished that Missy were here, though she knew that her mother wouldn’t be any help. Missy wasn’t good at dealing with trouble; she’d go in one of two directions: fall apart or run and hide. Henley wanted to run now, before the sun climbed up over the east field and spilled light over everything. But Junior, seeing it on her face, had clamped his hands on her shoulders, his green eyes sharp and steady. Go home, he’d said. Stay put.
Even now, in her room with the door locked, her breath came shallow. Her stomach tensed so tightly she hunched forward, wanting to get it all out, purge what she knew like a gush of vomit and be rid of it. She rolled the point of her pen in circles to get the ink going, the night replaying in her mind.
Crystle had called while she was studying the map of Idaho in Pawpaw’s atlas, tracing a route to the Seven Devils Mountains in Hells Canyon Wilderness. The peaks had names like the Goblin, She Devil, Black Imp.
You at home? Crystle asked.
Yeah.
You been anywhere or seen anybody in the last couple hours?
No. Why?
Get over here now. I need you for something.
When she got to Shane and Crystle’s place, the last strip of purple light on the horizon went dark, like a blade slicing down, the first evening star gleaming high above the house. Crystle was pacing manically on the front porch, her spike-heeled boots scritching on the concrete.
“We were at your place,” she said, “if anyone asks. You came back to the house with me. We walked in together.” She yanked up the bottom of Henley’s shirt and stuffed something into her jeans pocket, a small plastic container. “Hold on to that for me and don’t fucking open it.”
“What’s going on?” Henley said.
Crystle led her in the front door, and Shane was lying on the floor in the living room, on his back, next to his recliner. Henley might have thought he was asleep, his eyes and mouth cracked open, if it weren’t for Gravy scratching at him, whining. A shudder went through her, and she felt dizzy, like she might puke. There was a puddle of piss on the carpet at Gravy’s feet. He clawed Shane’s face, and Crystle screamed and kicked the dog in the rear, shoving him away with her boot, but he only moved around to Shane’s other side and resumed his scratching. Henley wondered how long Shane had been lying there like that, how long Gravy had been urging him to get up.
Junior burst in then and instantly lit into Crystle.
“Why’s she here?”
“You said I needed somebody to—” Crystle hollered.
“Not her!” he interrupted. “Jesus. Henley, get that dog outta here.”
Henley tried to grab Gravy, who snapped his teeth, but she managed to grasp the back of his collar and pull him out the front door just as Dex was coming in.
She stood on the porch, watching Gravy sniff around the yard, her heartbeat filling her throat, pulsing red behind her eyes. Goosebumps ridged her arms as the night chill set in, but she barely noticed the cold.
Crystle was yelling inside, Dex trying to shush her.
“You said not to let him call anybody, and I didn’t,” she said, half sobbing. “I took his phone while he was puking, and when he came back in here, he fell down.”
“What are you bawlin’ for?” Junior scolded. “You knew what was comin’.”
“I know!” she screeched. “But you didn’t have to watch it happen. You didn’t have to sit here and fucking wait.”
“How long you think it woulda took your idiot brother’s way, antifreeze in his cough syrup? One spoon at a time, just enough to make him sick? What if he went to the hospital, what do you think would’ve happened then, to all of us?”
“It’s all right,” Dex said. “It’s done. Had to be. He was too worked up over Calhoun.”
Calhoun. Henley could still picture Hannah crying on the news, begging her ex-husband to bring their little girl home. She didn’t know Macey, had never seen her in the flesh, only her large eyes and bashful smile on the MISSING posters around town.
“We need to find the rifle,” Junior said. “He’s got to have it hid somewhere, and we don’t need loose ends.”
“It’s not here,” Crystle said. “I’ve checked all his hidey-holes.”
“You got anything you need to deal with before you make the call?” Dex asked. “You got your story straight?”
“I cleaned up,” she said. “They’re not gonna poke around, are they? They’ll just take him and go?”
“I’ll do a quick sweep,” Dex said. “Don’t want ’em catching sight of something stupid like a bag of dope and making a fuss.”
“I’ll talk to Henley,” Junior growled. “Now that you done dragged her into it.”
Henley backed away from the door, and when Junior opened it, Gravy wormed his way back inside. She clenched her jaw, teeth on the verge of chattering.
“Listen,” Junior said. “You need to stick around town long enough for this to run its course. You were at your place with Crystle, you both came over here, walked in, and found him cold. That’s it. Don’t offer it up if nobody asks.”
Fear cinched her throat tight, and her head throbbed with questions her tongue refused to form. She could only nod when Junior told her to go home.
Raymond’s truck pulled up as she neared her car, and he climbed out, his face grim. “You all right?” he asked.
Her head jittered side to side, and Raymond wrapped an arm around her, the warm flannel soft against her chilled skin.
“What happened to Calhoun?” she asked, her voice wobbling.
“He’s gone,” Raymond said.
“Did Shane kill him?”
Raymond sighed. “Don’t matter now,” he muttered.
“What about the girl?”
“Nobody wanted that,” Raymond said. She felt his lungs filling and emptying as she folded herself against his chest, his breath making ghostly plumes in the night air. “She wasn’t supposed to be there.”
She looked back at what she had written, gray light seeping into the room, her hand stiff from clenching the pen. It felt like she had been staring at the page for hours, yet she had only managed three lines.
I have never seen a dead body like that before, one that was not made ready for me to see, and now I can’t unsee it. Crystle told me to say we were together when Shane died but we weren’t. He was dead when I got there and she said she watched him die.
The rest of the story coiled like a tension spring inside her, stretched tight between her heart and lungs, constricting each heartbeat, every breath.
“Where did you get this?” Kendrick asked, holding the diary in front of my face like I hadn’t yet seen it, like I wasn’t the one who’d just handed it to her. She was back to her regular clothes, her lips coated with Carmex, her demeanor about the same as it had been at the bar the night before when I’d spilled beer on her. She’d told me to come in immediately when I called, had ushered me into her office and shut the door, waving me to the chair with the duct-taped armrest and immediately launching into interrogation mode.
“A friend of Henley’s gave it to me. Charlie Burdett.”
“And how did he come to have it?”
“He said
he knew where she kept it. He asked me to give it to you.”
I waited while she read the pages I’d flagged, her face betraying nothing as her eyes scanned back and forth. She looked up at me when she finished.
“Is that enough?” I asked. “To bring him in?” I knew Charlie was hoping for more than that, though when I’d read the passages for myself I’d been surprised not to find a more troublesome picture of Jason. If anything, Henley’s account of their relationship was flush with the thrill of new love and intimacy—I had to stop reading at one point because it felt uncomfortably voyeuristic, things she wouldn’t have wanted anyone to see—though I knew she might have only written about the good parts, that love didn’t preclude violence, that the lack of fear didn’t mean that no threat lurked there. Abuse often stayed hidden, especially when inflicted by those closest to us. Kendrick surely knew that, too.
She shrugged. “It’s enough to establish the relationship. Enough that it makes sense to talk to him.”
She set the book on her desk.
“So let’s talk about Shane. Where’s the note?”
I took it from my pocket and handed it over, along with the key. I had made a copy for Kendrick, keeping the original attached to my keychain.
“So this was in with the belongings you took from his house?”
I nodded.
“But you don’t know where the gun is that he’s talking about.”
“Crystle sold all the guns, as far as I know. Right after he died. Somebody said they got hauled to the pawn shop.”
Kendrick picked up a pen and tapped it against her lips. “Did your brother have an alibi for the night the Calhouns went missing? It would have been a Sunday, April twenty-third, the week after Easter.”
“I don’t know,” I said. “I could look at the calendar, maybe. Go back through my texts.” I hadn’t known Shane’s schedule, if he had a Sunday routine.
