After Nightfall

by A. J. Banner

  “Thank you for staying over. I feel like crap.”

  “A good dose of caffeine will help. Look.” She hands me the newspaper, points to a short article about Lauren’s death, impersonal and objective.

  A 36-year-old woman who apparently fell off a West Beach bluff onto the beach below has been identified as Lauren Eklund of Tranquil Cove, WA, the deputy police chief said. . . . The body was sent to the King County Medical Examiner’s office, where an autopsy will be performed. Toxicology results are expected within a few weeks . . .

  “Toxicology results,” I say. “What could’ve been in her system besides alcohol?”

  “Antidepressants, maybe? There’s nothing about an investigation.”

  “They wouldn’t tell the public,” I say.

  I pour a mug of coffee, look out the open window, the cool air wafting in, every sound sharp and magnified—the wind in the trees, the chirping of towhees mingling now with the melodic ringtone on my iPhone. It’s the detective, his voice casual and friendly. “Miss Parlette, I just got your message. Next time, call my cell.”

  “I thought this was your cell,” I say. “I think I might know who broke into my cottage.”

  Julie looks at me, raising her right eyebrow.

  The detective, I mouth at her. She nods, eyes wide.

  “Would you be willing to come down to the station?” he says.

  “Right now? But it’s Sunday. Don’t you go to church or something?”

  He sidesteps the question. “We could meet. I’d like to know what you’re thinking, and I would like to ask you a few more questions.”

  I look around at my kitchen, stippled with light and shadows from the surrounding forest. There’s a chink in the wood of the breakfast table—I don’t know how it got there.

  “I’ll come to the station,” I say. I hang up, gulp the rest of my coffee.

  “What is it?” Julie says, turning the mug around in her hands. “You look pale.”

  I see the detective in Nathan’s living room, his gaze shifting to my hands, stained with dirt or blood. His pencil scratching on his notepad. The forensics team on the beach below, gathering evidence. What more could he possibly want to ask me? “It’s nothing—just, I think the detective knows more than he’s letting on.” I give her a brief hug. “I need to get dressed and go down to talk to him.”

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  On the drive into town, I’m jumpy, my breathing shallow. A mist blows in from the sea, shrouding the old brick buildings in an ominous blanket of gray. As I pass Rianne’s boutique, Afterlife Consignment, a historic storefront dating back to 1929, I see the ghosts of Lauren and myself walking past the window. I got married in a dress like that one, she said, pointing to a vintage white wedding gown adorning a shapely, headless mannequin. Unwittingly, she opened a door to my pain, but I smiled, and she showed me her diamond-studded wedding ring. She told me all about how the best man had shown up drunk, how her mother had broken down crying, how the dress had to be altered to hide the baby bump. But in the end, the ceremony had gone beautifully, without a drop of rain although the weather forecast portended a storm on that early March day. As she chattered on, I was shocked to feel a little happy for her. The buffer of years had made a difference. Thoughts of Nathan brought a smile to my face. Intimate thoughts I kept all to myself.

  Now I turn onto Overlook Road, where the Tranquil Cove Police Department looms two stories above the hillside. The paint looks new, mauve and gold, rectangular picture windows reflecting rare autumn sunlight. Steam escapes from the gabled metal roof, burning off the recent rain.

  I park in the lot, my fingers gripping the wheel. I take a deep breath and get out of the car. Detective Harding opens the door as I approach the glass entryway. He looks freshly shaven. He leads me into an open lobby, the floor gleaming in large, gray tiles that stretch away down a wide hallway lined with glass-doored offices. Nobody else appears to be here.

  “Coffee?” he says, smiling.

  “I had two cups this morning. I’ll bounce off the ceiling if I have any more.”

  “We wouldn’t want another head injury.”

  I smile, although his morbid humor gives me little comfort. I follow him down the hall into a conference room marked “Interview.” Fluorescent overhead bulbs cast a grayish light on two high-backed office chairs flanking a rectangular table.

  “Have a seat,” he says, gesturing to a chair.

  I sit and try to find a focal point, but the walls are bare. I look out the window at the alder trees swaying in the breeze. “I feel strange coming here,” I say. “I’ve never been in a police station. I’ve never had reason to be in one.”

  “Now you do.” He pulls a notepad and his signature pencil from his pocket, lays the notepad on the table.

  “Do you need to record this?” I say, looking around for a device.

  “Do you want me to?” he says, giving me an unblinking gaze.

  “Not really, no.”

  “You say you know who might have broken into your cottage?”

  “Possibly Lauren’s daughter, Brynn. But she’s grieving. I wouldn’t want to press any charges.”

  “You think it was her because . . . ?”

  “My neighbor saw a silver Honda SUV across the street. Lauren drove a silver Honda SUV. Coincidence? Maybe. And the dress is gone, a special one Lauren gave me years ago. She’s wearing the dress in a photo. It’s hard to explain.”

  “So, you think Brynn wanted the dress. Why?”

  “At dinner, I mentioned I wanted to wear the dress at our wedding. Lauren remembered giving it to me. But that was a long time ago, and soon afterward, we had a falling-out.”

  “You fought about the dress?” His gaze doesn’t waver. I wonder if he ever blinks.

  A sharp ache presses in beneath my ribs, a physical memory of betrayal. “Not the dress, no. Silly college stuff.”

  He sits back, taps his pencil on the table. “Fair enough.”

  “Recently, we started talking again, going for coffee, like I said before.” Indulge me, she told me last fall. I’ll buy you banana-nut cake at the Tranquil Cove Bakery. Let’s start again. I’ve missed you. Her eyes brightened with hope. She held her breath, as if her entire future depended on my answer. I agreed to meet her. I wanted to build a new bridge between us, and when I got home that day, I dug through old photographs—of Lauren smiling as I blew out the candles on my birthday cake, the two of us splashing in the kiddie pool, smearing her mother’s lipstick on our faces, coloring outside the lines.

  “So, you were friends again?” the detective says, urging me to continue.

  “We were working on it,” I say, taking a deep breath. “At the dinner, when Nathan announced our engagement and I showed everyone a picture of the dress, Lauren had this look on her face. Of longing. She remembered everything about the dress. She left early to pick up Brynn from a party. What if she mentioned the dress? And Brynn came over to get it?” Even as I say the words, I know my musings sound far-fetched.

  “Without proof of Brynn’s presence at your house—”

  “I wouldn’t want you to accuse her of anything.”

  “Could the dress fit her?”

  “I don’t know, maybe.”

  “Does she have any history of stealing? Shoplifting?”

  “I don’t know,” I say.

  “Does she dislike you for some reason?”

  “I’m not sure I know her very well.”

  “Seems like quite an act of aggression, to break in and steal the dress from you. All because her mother once wore it?” A fleeting look of skepticism crosses his face.

  “Lauren said everything seemed like the end of the world to Brynn.”

  “I have a teenager myself. Lives with her mom,” he says. “I can relate.”

  So, he was married once. “Do you ever see your daughter?”

  A brief sadness flickers in his eyes. “Now and then. Summers and Christmas vacation. I’d like to see her more often, but it
’s not in the cards.”

  “Does she live near you?” I ask, surprised that he has shared something so personal with me. But this is what detectives do, isn’t it? They reveal bits of their private lives, get chummy with their interviewees to tease out information.

  “Not far,” he says. “She prefers her mother’s place. They get along, most of the time. They have their disagreements, but it doesn’t lead to murder.”

  I prickle at his words. “I’m not saying Brynn did anything to her mother . . . but someone did kill Lauren, didn’t they? I want to know who did it, because the thing is, Lauren loved life.”

  “What makes you think someone killed her?”

  I tell him about my chat with Arthur, about what he saw. About Anna’s wet pajamas, her escape to the tree house. “I can’t say for sure that she saw something, but maybe she did. Someone else must have been out there. But you know this. Did you talk to Anna when you were at the house?”

  “I did talk to her briefly,” he says. “But she gave no indication that she knew anything. Do you have any idea who might want to hurt Lauren?” The detective lays the pencil on the notebook and leans back in his chair, assessing me.

  “You’re investigating, aren’t you?”

  “Lauren and her husband, how did they seem to get along?”

  “They seemed fine. She flirted, but . . .” I see Lauren leaning over Nathan at dinner, filling his wineglass. “Jensen would not have hurt her.”

  “She didn’t mention any problems with her marriage?”

  “No, not that I know of. Did Jensen tell you there were problems?” I see Nathan’s face in the night, lit by his cell phone screen. My insides flip over.

  “I’d like your impressions.”

  “Jensen seemed devoted to her. Is he a suspect in her death? He’s so sad. I can’t imagine it.”

  “He’s a pilot, leaves for days at a time, right?”

  A clawing pain digs into my forehead. “She mentioned his schedule . . . He sleeps at a crash pad in San Francisco. He’s based there, even though they live—lived up here.”

  “He flies down and stays there?”

  “In bunks with other pilots, and then he flies out of San Francisco for a few days at a time.”

  He picks up the pencil, taps the eraser end on his notebook. “How were the others at dinner acquainted with Lauren Eklund? Your fiancé, Nathan—his brother, Keith? Hedra?”

  I see Keith’s gaze disappearing down Lauren’s dress. He reaches out to hold Hedra’s hand—she pulls away. Outside, Lauren casts a furtive glance toward the dining room window, from which laughter emanates. I need to talk to you, she says. Nathan pulls on his clothes, sneaks out just after 2:00 a.m. No, at 2:05.

  “Keith and Hedra knew Lauren as a casual acquaintance,” I say.

  “Nathan?”

  “Neighbors. That’s all.”

  The detective puts the pencil on the notebook. He sits back, elbows on the arms of his chair, and steeples his fingers. “So, she and her husband bought the house next door to Nathan Black, just like that.”

  “She pushed Jensen for it—the market was tight. She loved the house.” I shift in my seat. My left leg begins to tingle, going to sleep. “We talked about it when we were kids—Lauren and I always wanted a log house. She thought if she and Jensen bought the place, we might see each other more often.”

  “You were once involved with Jensen, isn’t that right?”

  The question shoves me backward, like a sudden gust of wind. My hands break out in a sweat. I hide them on my lap beneath the table. “That was a long time ago.” How does the detective know? Jensen must have told him. But how did my name come up in conversation?

  The detective leans forward again, picks up the pencil, and jots something on his notepad. Then he looks up at me. “Were you interested in getting back together with him?”

  I clasp my hands in my lap, the overhead light glaringly bright. “Why would I be? Don’t you have ex-girlfriends? Don’t we all have relationships we’ve left behind?”

  He taps the pencil on his notebook, leans back again, a hint of amusement in his eyes. “Answering a question with more questions.”

  “The answer is, I was once intimate with Jensen Eklund, but I have no desire to be with him again. Nathan and I are getting married.” My words come out shaky. I have a sudden urge to dash out of here.

  “But you still like Jensen enough to invite him and Lauren to an important dinner. Big event—your engagement.”

  “I thought—we could get along again. I was hopeful.”

  “I see,” he says, drumming his fingers on the table. He exhales through his mouth, blowing upward, disturbing his mustache.

  “Is that it?” I say, getting up. My legs feel wobbly.

  “For now. Unless you have more questions for me.”

  I look around at the stark room, its vacant walls giving up no secrets. The detective’s eyes are just as blank. “You’re not going to tell me what you’re thinking, are you?”

  He gets up and shows me to the door. “I can’t comment on an ongoing investigation.”

  “Lauren and I . . . we were best friends, a long time ago. Even with our differences, she meant a lot to me. It’s important to me to know what happened to her.”

  “As soon as I have anything I can share, I’ll let you know.”

  I rush out to the parking lot and sit in my car, practice deep breathing. I tell myself he was only doing his job, delving into my past with Jensen. It’s not relevant, what happened in college. What matters is what Lauren was doing outside in the night, wandering so close to a treacherous cliff. I try to banish the image of her on the beach—her hair blowing in the wind, her head turned at a strange angle. I conjure a soothing picture of my piano, my plants, the view of the swaying forest from my kitchen window. I close my eyes and take steady, deep breaths, and I count in my head, One, two, three.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  As I drive away from the police station, I peer through the rain at the road ahead, trying to stay focused on the white lines. But the years unravel, and I remember running back to the apartment I shared with Lauren on the north side of campus. A bald eagle sailed through the sky above me, and I felt lightweight, too, like a feather. I was thinking of Jensen, of the way we’d curled up together, mapping out the size of our future family. If he returned to me now, asked me to travel back in time by seventeen years to marry him, I would refuse. And yet. I can’t let go.

  I pull over to the curb and call Nathan.

  “I just needed to hear you talk,” I say when he answers.

  “You sound like a bus ran over you. Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine. Just keep talking. Like you used to.”

  “When we first met?”

  “Yeah, like that.” I close my eyes and absorb the rich tenor of his voice. I feel ephemeral, as if a part of me has been slipping too far into the past.

  “Pack your stuff and come back to my place. You’re not safe at home.”

  “Are you there right now?” I open my eyes. I’m gripping my phone too tightly.

  “No, but I will be. My home is your home. You know that. You have a key.”

  “It’s not the same there without you.”

  He laughs. “What about when we live together?”

  “You’ll be home all the time, right?”

  “That’s my plan, eventually.”

  A truck roars past, and my car vibrates a little. This metal cage feels insubstantial, too easily crushed. “I met with the detective—it brought up . . . stuff.”

  “What stuff? You don’t need to answer his questions.” I hear voices, an engine running in the background.

  “It was my idea to talk to him. I’m okay. It’s just—”

  “What? What is it?” A sharpness creeps into his tone.

  “Remember the first night we spent in Seattle, when we caught the ferry on a whim and walked the downtown streets and stayed over in that seedy hotel?”

  “Ho
w could I forget?” His tone softens. “What was that nightclub called?”

  “I don’t remember. All I remember is how strong my vodka tasted. Like pure alcohol. I can’t believe I got so drunk.”

  “You were only tipsy. But I liked it. That was the most fun I’ve had in a long time.”

  “We’ve made some good memories,” I say.

  “And we’re going to make more . . . Maybe we could go back to that hotel, for old times’ sake.”

  “The mattress sagged. The pillows were flat.”

  “I didn’t notice. As long as I’m with you, a bed is a bed.”

  I smile. This. This is what I needed. “Would you sleep with me on a bed of nails?”

  “Sure, but you need a soft bed. You’re like the princess and the pea.”

  “You got me there.”

  “What’s this all about, Marissa?”

  “I just needed to hear your voice.”

  “I’m sorry your house was burglarized. I’m sorry about Lauren. I’m sorry about the dress.”

  “If I never get it back . . .”

  “You’ll wear something else, and we’ll still get married.”

  “I know,” I say.

  “I love you like crazy,” he says.

  “I love you crazier.”

  I hang up and pull the photograph out of my pocket, the one of Lauren and me and Jensen at the restaurant so long ago. Lauren in the blue dress. I took it to the police station but didn’t show it to the detective. I almost wore the dress last June, the night of Anna’s ballet recital, when Nathan and I had just started dating. But in the end, I chose a more conservative pantsuit. I dreamed of many more recitals, spelling bees, and outings with Nathan and Anna. But after the performance, when she rushed toward me with arms outstretched, she veered off at the last moment and ran to hug her mother. Rianne had been watching from a back row, keeping a polite distance from us. She’d arrived with a nondescript man, perhaps a boyfriend—I hardly remember anything about him, only the relaxed relief on her face when Anna hugged her.