“How many patrols do you have searching?” I ask Francis.
“It’s just me,” Francis says. “There was a bad car accident out west of town. The other units are over there and I was called in to cover everything else. Any idea where your dad may have gone to?”
I shake my head helplessly. “Your guess is as good as mine. But we can’t wait around for him to just come back.” I don’t want to ask for help. I don’t trust Nola or the Harpers but they are all I have by way of reinforcements and I’m desperate to find my dad. I would make a deal with the devil if it would help. I turn to Colin. “You go knock on the Harpers’ door and see if they’ve seen him or if they would be willing to help search for him. Shaun and Francis, both of you drive around and look for him. I’ll go get Nola to help look and I’ll then ask Mrs. Olhauser to wait here at the house in case he comes back.” I’m using my cop voice but inside my daughter’s heart is racing in my belly. “Call me if you find anything.”
Everyone scatters and I cross the street to Nola’s house. It’s dark and quiet. I pound on the front door. No one answers. “Nola,” I shout through the door. “Wake up!” I knock louder. I turn and face the dark street. It’s pouring now. Minutes are ticking by.
I peer through the window and see what looks like one of my dad’s slippers. This is enough of a reason for me to enter Nola’s home without her permission. I turn the knob and push the door open. I step inside and flip on another light. To my surprise, the living room looks somewhat less cluttered. The stacks of newspapers have shrunk and the path to the stairs has widened. I pick up the damp, muddy slipper. It’s definitely my dad’s. “Dad! Nola,” I call up the steps. “It’s Maggie, where are you?” Still no answer.
I get to the top of the landing and move toward Nola’s bedroom. “Nola,” I say, rapping on the closed door. “Wake up. My dad is missing.” Nothing. I push open the door and light from the hallway splashes into Nola’s bedroom. No one is here. I feel along the wall for a light switch and the room is filled with harsh light.
I bite back a gasp when I see the walls. Gruesome drawings of animals cover nearly every inch of the walls. The innards of dogs, cats, horses, birds and more are drawn with hyperrealistic detail. Pictures that would make sense in an anatomy text but on the walls of a bedroom look like the backdrop for a horror movie. These drawings weren’t here before Eve died. Nola is ape-shit crazy, I think as I back out of the room and down the stairs.
Instead of going out the front door I decide to go through the kitchen and exit through Nola’s back door in case my dad wandered into her backyard. The floor is damp with large muddy footprints. The footprints of someone who scuffed along with some difficulty. The footprints begin at the back door and end at a rug at the edge of the basement steps.
The door to the basement is standing open and a dim light glows at the bottom of the stairs. “Nola?” I call. “Nola, are you down there?” No response.
Like an invisible string is pulling me forward I move down the steps. The basement is as cluttered as ever, but I notice immediately that something is different. A table is pushed aside to reveal a pocket door, slightly open, with a wedge of light peeking through. Step by step I pick past the swollen garbage bags and overflowing boxes and bins and up to the door. “Anyone there?” I ask. I slide the door open and look inside. A heavy stainless steel table sits in the middle of the room. A small shape, covered with a sheet lies at the center of the table. It’s the size and shape of an infant. Instinctively my hand goes to my hip in search of my sidearm. Of course it’s not there.
I move toward the table. The only sound is my breathing and the crackle of electricity from the overhead florescent lights. With trembling fingers, I reach for the sheet. I pull it away and it flutters to the floor like a feather to reveal a metal tray lined with surgical tools. Scalpels and scissors and glinting silver tools with hooks and sharp points that I don’t know the names for but look terrifying.
I step backward, at once relieved and horrified. I need to find my dad and it’s clear he’s not here. I turn to leave and in front of me a cat sits as if sleeping on a shelf just above my head.
Heart pounding, I slowly move forward. The cat remains still. I don’t see its chest rising and falling. I reach my hand out to touch its tawny fur. Its jade eyes snap open and it swipes at my arm, taking a claw-full of my skin with it. I turn and trip, slamming into a tower of plastic bins beneath the stairs.
The bins crash to the ground, plastic cracking and the contents tumbling out. Glass Christmas ornaments shatter at my feet and cheap plastic garland wraps around my ankles. But there is something else that catches my eye, that renders me rooted to the spot. A human skull lolls back and forth on the concrete floor surrounded by what looks like human femurs and ulnas. I clap a hand over my mouth to stifle a scream.
I watch as the skull rolls to a stop at my feet. I lower myself to one knee to get a better look. Careful not to touch any of the bones I peer down at them. There’s no way to know how long they’ve been down here. They’ve been cleaned well. There’s no sign of blood or tissue left behind but an odd odor emanates from them.
“Nola, what have you done?” I whisper to myself. I thought by aligning myself with Nola I was protecting my baby and Shaun from what I had done decades ago but instead I’ve joined forces with the devil.
I have to get out of here. I retrace my steps, with one hand holding my belly and the other slapping at the lights, I head back up the stairs. I fall twice, banging my knees on the hard wooden steps. Once at the top, I pause, trying to catch my breath. I try to tell myself that there has to be a logical explanation. Nola is a doctor. It makes sense that she would have bones, right? She’s a vet though. I’m not an expert, but even I could see those bones were human.
My next instinct is to call for backup, to get Francis here so we can process the scene, but then I stop. I entered Nola’s house as a private citizen, not as a police officer. Technically I’m trespassing.
But I can’t unsee what I’ve seen in this freak show of a house and as a good cop I have a duty to report what I’ve seen to an on-duty police officer. But I can’t deal with this now. I need to find my dad and I don’t want Nola to have any idea that I was in her home. Once I get my dad home safe and sound I will figure out what to do next.
Using my shirt, I wipe away the smear of blood on my arm from where the cat scratched me. I stare down into the dark basement and try to steady my breathing. I don’t want to go back down there, but I have to. I hurry down the steps hoping that Nola won’t come back and find me here. I do my best to sweep up the broken ornaments and replace the items, even the skull and bones, back inside their bins. I think of the makeshift surgical setup she has in her back room, the anatomical drawings that cover her bedroom walls, and shiver.
I scan the basement and when I’m confident that I’ve covered my tracks, I head back upstairs. I step from Nola’s house and warm rain strikes my face. I need to find my dad. I don’t know what to do, where to go. The street is deserted.
Suddenly I hear shouts. Moving as fast as my heavy stomach will allow, I sprint over to the Harpers’ yard.
“Stay there! Don’t move!” I hear someone yell. It’s not the order of a police officer to a perpetrator telling them to freeze, but of a person begging someone to stay still for their own safety. I bang through the gate and race through the yard, the wet grass soaking the hem of my pants. By the time I reach the far end of the yard that opens up to the bluffs, I’m soaked, struggling for breath. I have a stitch in my side.
Cam points a flashlight and through the wobbly beam of light and from about twenty feet away I see my dad teetering at the edge of the bluff. Nola is standing just a few feet away from him.
“Dad,” I cry and move toward him but Cam pulls me back. At his touch a spasm of disgust runs through me and I yank my arm away. “Dad,” I say again, taking a tentative step toward him. “What are
you doing out here?”
My dad turns, barefoot and dressed in his pajamas. He squints through the glare of the flashlight and seems surprised to see me. “I’m waiting for Charlotte,” he says. A scruff of beard has sprouted on his face, giving him a neglected air. I want to weep. He looks frail, lost. His eyes shift from me to Nola. A crease forms between his eyebrows. “I know you,” he says.
“Dad, it’s the middle of the night,” I say, taking another step toward him. “And Charlotte’s in the hospital. She had a bad fall, remember?”
“I’m supposed to give her an update on the case. Every week I do. I’m supposed to give her an update,” he insists.
“She’d like that,” I say, inching toward him. “But Charlotte’s not out here. You’re all wet.” He looks up, noticing the rain for the first time. “Come toward me.” I stretch my hand out to him.
“No, I’m supposed to talk to Charlotte. But don’t worry, Maggie, I found it,” he says. As he takes a step backward the ground beneath him begins to crumble.
“Dad,” I scream. “Don’t move. Stay right there. I’ll take you to Charlotte. I promise.”
“No.” He shakes his head. “I’m going to wait right here.”
Out of the corner of my eye a shadowy streak bolts toward the bluff and rams into my dad, causing them to vanish from the flashlight’s glow. Next to me, Joyce screams and for a second I think they have both fallen over the edge of the bluff. Cam whips the flashlight left and right, searching for where my dad and Nola landed, scanning the rocky ground and finally coming to rest on a knotted heap of limbs.
I dart toward them, drop to my knees, jagged points of rock biting into my skin. “Get off, get off!” I shout as I pull on Nola who is atop my dad. She peels away from him, breathing hard. My dad is lying on his back staring up at the black sky, unseeing. For one terrifying moment I am reminded of Eve’s eyes the night we found her. “Are you okay? Are you hurt?” I ask, searching for any sign of injury.
Nola gets to her feet. She is sopping wet and her dyed red hair is flattened against her head and she is slick with mud. I look up at Joyce. “Call an ambulance.” This order seems to bring my dad back to us and his eyes clear.
“No, I’m fine,” he says, slowly trying to sit up.
“Lie back down,” I tell him. “Something might be broken.”
“I’m fine,” he insists. I stand and hold a hand out to help him up and Nola does the same.
I knock it away. “You could have killed him,” I snarl. “You could have taken him right over the bluff. Stay away from him. Stay away from all of us.” Tears spring to my eyes and I’m grateful for the rain.
“He was about to go over the edge of the bluff,” Nola snaps back. “I saved him.”
Cam steps forward and together we lift my dad to his feet. I don’t meet his eyes. I don’t say thank you. I just lead my dad back through the gate and through the yard until we are on the street. Shaun, who had taken the truck to go look for my dad, pulls up and leaps from the truck.
“What happened?” he asks as he helps me guide my dad up the front porch and into the house.
“I don’t know for sure,” I say though a possible picture is beginning to form in my mind. My dad wanted to talk to Charlotte and wandered over to Nola’s house. He was inside that house. I know it. I saw his muddy footprints. Did he see the same things that I did? Did he go down to the basement and see Nola and all the surgical equipment? Even in his confused state, he would know that what he saw wasn’t right, wasn’t normal. Did he run from the house or did Nola lead him away and to the bluffs?
“I don’t know what happened,” I say, knowing that I can’t relay my fears to Shaun, that I can’t tell anyone about what I saw in Nola’s basement just yet. I wasn’t supposed to be in there. I have to manage my own secret first. Then I’ll deal with Nola.
* * *
Dripping wet, Shaun and I settle my dad into a kitchen chair. Shaun makes hot tea while I wrap my dad in a blanket.
“I really need to talk to Charlotte,” he says over and over. “I need to give her an update. But don’t worry, Maggie, I found it.”
This is the third time my dad mentioned something that he found and I want to ask him what it was, but I’m afraid of the answer.
“It’s after midnight, Dad,” I say. “It’s too late for updates. It will wait until tomorrow,” I soothe. “You can tell her in the morning.” I’m hopeful that when he wakes up he will forget about everything that happened tonight.
Colin rushes through the front door. “Where is he?” Colin asks, looking around the room frantically. “Is he okay?”
“He’s fine,” I say dropping into the nearest chair, all the adrenaline seeping from my body. “He was behind the Harper house, right on the edge of the bluff. He could have fallen.” I prop one elbow onto the table and drop my forehead into my hand. This isn’t the time to fall apart, I tell myself. I straighten, wipe my eyes and stand. “We need to get him cleaned up and into bed.”
“Jesus,” Colin says, closing his eyes. “I’m so sorry. This could have gone so bad.” I know Colin is waiting for me to say that it was okay, that it wasn’t his fault. It’s true but I can’t quite bring myself to say it out loud.
“You can’t beat yourself up.” Shaun says what I can’t. “These things happen. Now we just need to make a plan so that it doesn’t happen again.”
“Well, I won’t forget to set the door alarms again,” Colin says, rubbing a hand across his face. He looks exhausted.
Our dad needs more than alarms on the door, I think. We are going to have to have some tough conversations. But not tonight. We get my dad showered and settled into bed. Colin starts to head downstairs but I tell him that I want to stay with our dad a little bit longer.
I settle into a chair next to his bed as his eyes begin to grow heavy. I should just let him be, let him sleep, but the curiosity is too much. “Dad,” I begin, “what did you mean when you said, I found it, earlier? What did you find?”
He looks sleepily up at me and I wonder if he’s already forgotten saying it. “The scarf, Maggie.” He licks his lips and speaks so softly that I have to lean in to hear him. “I found the scarf, honey. A few days after Eve died, hidden at the bluffs.” A small gasp escapes my lips and he reaches for my hand, his fingers dry and papery. “I got rid of it for you. You don’t have to worry anymore,” my dad says. His eyes flutter shut and just like that he is asleep.
I want to jostle him awake. He knew that I killed Eve. A cold sweat breaks out on my forehead. I scan my memory for any indication that my dad suspected me, but find nothing. Did he see me that afternoon running down the bluff after Eve and when he learned that she was killed put two and two together?
How did the scarf end up hidden in the bluffs? I know I didn’t take it with me. Was Eve even wearing it in the caves? Everything was so chaotic, I can’t be sure. Maybe she dropped it when she came down the bluff.
It’s the dementia, I tell myself. He doesn’t know anything. My dad is the most ethical person I’ve ever met. Would he keep this kind of secret for twenty-five years to protect me?
I sit in the dark listening to his slow, steady breathing and think about how close he came to dying.
And I think about how close my dad and Colin live to pure evil. Once I’m confident that my dad is fast asleep and not going anywhere, I rise and make my way down the stairs. I hear Colin and Shaun talking in the kitchen and instead of joining them I go to my dad’s office.
There’re no remnants of my dad’s earlier tantrum except for the shattered picture frame that I dropped into the wastebasket next to my dad’s desk. I pull out the frame that still holds some jagged remnants of glass smeared with Nola’s blood, and wrap it in an old newspaper.
I offer to stay the night at the house but Colin insists we go home.
Shaun and I say goodbye, step back out into the mi
sty night and climb wearily into the truck. On my lap is the newspaper-wrapped picture frame. “What’s that?” Shaun asks.
“My insurance policy,” I murmur. Shaun gives me an odd look but doesn’t press the question further. I see Nola sitting on her mother’s front step. I’m so pissed at her for luring my dad to the edge of the bluff. He could have died.
With Nola’s hair glowing ruby-red beneath the soft light of the porch she could be Eve. I bite at my cheeks to keep the tears at bay. How cruel Nola is. Always has been. How could she sit there, hair dyed red, in some kind of twisted Eve Halloween costume?
Nola knows exactly what she’s doing. And I think I finally know what her endgame is. Our eyes lock as Shaun’s truck drives past and she gives me a small, friendly wave. I don’t wave back.
MAGGIE KENNEDY-O’KEEFE
Monday, June 22, 2020
All weekend I waited for Nola to approach me and accuse me of being in her basement but she never did. Maybe I cleaned up well enough that she has no idea I was there. I’m sure my dad was in her house though. He got it in his head that he needed to talk to Charlotte about Eve and wandered over there in the middle of the night. I think Nola was working in her basement and found him in her house and I think she led him out and toward the bluffs just like she did with little Riley Harper thirty years ago.
At my insistence, Shaun and I spent most of Sunday at my dad’s house, keeping a close eye on things. He seemed okay. Tired but had no recollection of the night before. I kept waiting for him to bring up the scarf again, but he never did. At one point during the day, I pulled Colin aside and asked him if he could take my dad to visit his sister in Wisconsin. He balked, of course, giving all the usual excuses how it’s too far, how Dad doesn’t do well with change. In between my Braxton-Hicks contractions I managed to convince Colin to go after explaining that I thought the fire at our barn was intentional, that investigators were looking into whether I was targeted and by association, my family.
This Is How I Lied Page 24
