All the Beautiful Lies

by Peter Swanson

  Chapter 26

  Now

  Unable to sleep any longer, Caitlin got out of the motel bed at just past six in the morning. She hadn’t brought her running clothes or her good sneakers, but she did have sneakers with her, and a pair of khaki shorts that weren’t really for exercising but would have to do.

  She desperately wanted to go for a run, to exhaust herself physically. She’d slept some the night before, but only in short, troubled bursts, her skin itching with tension and her body aching with grief.

  It was cool outside, the sky a flat, milky white. She was vaguely aware of where the ocean was and headed in that direction, not even stretching first. She spotted a sign that pointed her toward Kennewick Village. It was up a hill on a road without a sidewalk that was lined with pine trees. She ran on the gravel embankment, her lungs starting to hurt a little, her muscles stinging. By the time she reached the top of the hill, a thin layer of sweat covered her skin. In the distance she could make out a strip of the ocean, a hazy, half-shrouded sun above it. She passed the few shops and restaurants of the village, then started downhill toward the shore, not stopping even when she felt that familiar pinch in the joint of her left knee.

  She stopped only when she reached the beach, a long crescent that ran along a road. It was empty except for one distant figure on the far end, hurling a tennis ball for a dog. She sat on the edge of the stone wall that overlooked the sea, and took deep, ragged breaths. The sun was burning through the thin layer of cloud and causing spots to swim in Caitlin’s vision. She was light-headed, and she thought about how little she had eaten in the previous twenty-four hours. Still, she felt better after the run than she’d felt in the past few days.

  When her heartbeat had slowed down, she turned and began to walk back toward the motel. She’d made up her mind on the run. She’d travel back with Grace on the plane the following day, if she could still get a reservation. It meant another day in Maine, another day alone in the town where Grace had died, but she could handle it. She’d call her mother as soon as she got back to the motel.

  Once the decision was made, she felt relieved. And now that she had a day to kill, she thought about Harry. She wanted to see him again. Talking with him at the diner the previous afternoon had helped her. Some of that had to do with how grief-stricken he seemed, not just by his father’s death, but by Grace’s as well, and some of that was because she’d felt so instantly comfortable with him. She thought of Grace’s last e-mail, in which she’d written how cute Harry was, although Caitlin assumed that she was simply transferring whatever she felt for his father onto him. Caitlin and Grace had never been attracted to the same men. Grace, since their father’s abandonment, had always fixated on older men, or, if not older, then men who were quiet and distant, men who were challenging. Caitlin, less assertive, had always been drawn to gregarious boys, sporty types who told jokes, and treated her like one of the boys.

  Reaching Kennewick Village, Caitlin spotted a bakery that appeared to be open. She bought a large coffee and a maple scone, then sat outside on a bench and ate the scone while waiting for the coffee to cool down enough to drink. The sweat had dried on her skin, and her legs and arms had broken out in goose bumps in the cool air. She crossed the street to a bench that was in the sun, which had now entirely broken free of the clouds. From her new position she could see a row of shops, including one that had books in the window. It must be Bill Ackerson’s store, she thought. After warming up in the sun, she walked over and looked through the window. It was Ackerson’s, and it was dark inside, not surprising this early in the morning. She watched as a bushy cat padded toward the glass front door, looked up at her, and opened its mouth. She couldn’t hear the meow through the door. Something about the plaintive look on the cat’s face made her feel a sudden stab of emptiness. She thought again of Harry.

  She walked the rest of the way back to her motel room, and once she was there, before she did anything else, she sent him a text: What’s the cat’s name in your father’s bookstore? I saw him this morning.

  When she got out of the shower, he’d texted back: Lew. You leaving today?

  No. Tomorrow.

  Can I see you?

  I’d like that.

  They made plans to meet that afternoon for a drink at the Livery bar in the Kennewick Inn. Caitlin was happy that she wouldn’t have to spend the entire day alone. She got dressed, then called her mother.

  They started on a second round of drinks, and Harry said, “Can I tell you something?”

  “Of course you can.”

  “It might freak you out.”

  “Okay,” she said, suddenly fearful.

  They’d met at three in the afternoon in the basement bar, long and narrow and decorated to look like the sleek interior of a yacht. Harry had ordered a bourbon with ginger ale, and she’d gotten a pint of Harpoon. They’d brought the drinks to an alcove near an unlit fireplace. She’d told him about her decision to accompany Grace’s body back to Michigan, and he’d told her all about the bookstore, and how it seemed as though his stepmother, Alice, and the man who worked at the store, John, wanted Harry to take over the business. They’d finished their drinks, and then Harry had gotten two more, paying for them at the bar and bringing them over. Caitlin had just been realizing how much you could read on Harry’s face, his anxiety, his sadness, and then she’d seen indecision flit across his features right before he asked her if he could tell her something.

  “No, maybe I shouldn’t,” he said.

  “You can trust me,” she said.

  “Okay,” he said, taking a sip of his drink, then rubbing at the edge of his lip with a finger. “Alice, my stepmother, is interested in me, romantically, sexually, whatever you want to call it.”

  “Oh,” Caitlin said. It was not what she had expected to hear.

  “I think it’s the way she’s processing grief, or something like that.”

  “Oh,” Caitlin said again. “It’s strange. Is it new? I mean, did she act this way before your father died?”

  “No, but I also didn’t know her all that well.”

  “Is she coming on to you?”

  Harry rubbed at his jawline. There was a little more stubble there than the day before. “Yeah, it’s pretty obvious, and now, with what happened with Grace, she’s convinced she’s in danger, and that I’m in danger, and she wants me to be in the house all the time, or else down at the bookstore. She made me promise that I wouldn’t leave her.”

  “What do you mean, wouldn’t leave her?”

  “That I won’t leave right away. She doesn’t want to be alone.”

  “You can’t be with her forever. Even if she was your actual mother. You need to have your own life.”

  “I know that. I get it. But that doesn’t mean that I should just up and leave before the police figure out what happened to my father and your sister. I owe something to her.”

  “No, I understand,” Caitlin said. “I wasn’t talking about now, I was talking about long-term.”

  “I won’t be here forever, although I have no idea where I’ll go. It’s not like I have somewhere to return to. College is over, and my friends are all going to different cities. At least here I have some purpose. I can take care of the things my father left behind. Alice and books.”

  “Do you like books?”

  “I do, but not like my father did. But no one liked books as much as he did.”

  “You don’t need to take over his business.”

  “I know.”

  “And I don’t know why I’m about to tell you this, but I think that Alice is manipulating you. I don’t know why. It might just be because she’s scared of being alone, and that makes sense, but it might be for other reasons. You said you didn’t really know her that well.”

  “She was my father’s wife, but no, I don’t.”

  “Was she married before? Does she have her own kids?”

  “No. She was my father’s real estate agent when he decided to move to Maine. Sh
e doesn’t have family, or if she does, she doesn’t see them.”

  “Your father chose her. You didn’t. I don’t know if you owe her anything beyond what you’ve done already.”

  Harry didn’t immediately say anything, and Caitlin felt bad about what she’d said. It had sounded callous, like she was the type of person who figured out who she owed and who she didn’t. She was about to apologize when Harry said, “I don’t know what to do or think.”

  “Tell me about this other person your father was having an affair with.”

  “Annie Callahan. I saw her at the police station. It was the day I found your sister. I was in the station all that morning, and I watched her being brought into one of the interview rooms to be questioned. She looked terrified, and when she was being led out of the station, she looked over at me where I was sitting and stared. I think it was because I look like my father.”

  “How did you know it was her?”

  “I just knew, somehow. Later, I asked Detective Dixon about it and he said that it was, and that they’d be questioning her husband as well, but he was out of town.”

  “That sounds suspicious.”

  “I don’t know. It doesn’t make sense to me that either of them had anything to do with what’s happened. It could be that Lou Callahan killed my father out of jealousy and anger, but why kill your sister?”

  “I don’t know,” Caitlin said. They were both silent for a moment, Caitlin staring into the fireplace as though there was a fire in it. She found herself suddenly saying, “Do you know that the first time I ever saw the ocean was when I was fifteen years old?”

  “Which ocean did you see?”

  “The Atlantic. I’d gone to Washington, DC, for a school trip, then went to visit an aunt who lived in Ocean City, Maryland. She took me on a whale watch. And this is the first time I’ve been to Maine, even though I’ve been living in Boston since college.”

  “Sorry that you had to come up here for the reason you did,” Harry said.

  “Me too.”

  “There’s a pretty walk right near here. Along the cliff. It’s actually where my father was killed.”

  “Let’s go,” Caitlin said with mock enthusiasm. They both laughed.

  “I’ve already been out there. Someone left a bouquet.”

  “Where your father died?”

  “Yeah, I guess. Maybe it had nothing to do with him, but . . . we can walk there if you like, I don’t mind. Even though it’s where my father died, it was still his favorite place.”

  “Okay,” Caitlin said.

  They left the bar and crossed the road to a bluff that overlooked a small half-moon beach, then cut north and picked up a path built into a cliff. Harry took Caitlin’s hand to help her over a wide, slick slab of shale, and then held on to it as they continued to walk. It was a perfect day, the air crisp and the sun warm, and no one else was on the path. They ducked to go through a tunnel of stunted trees that had been twisted by the wind, and when they emerged on the other side, Harry bent and picked up a bouquet of berry-covered branches tied together by a strand of grass.

  “See?” he said.

  “Is this where your father—”

  “I’m pretty sure. It’s the highest point, and I know that he went over the edge and landed down below. Someone hit him first, though.”

  “That was how Grace was killed as well. Someone hit her on the head.” Caitlin looked out toward the shimmery line where the ocean met the sky. “They didn’t suffer, I guess,” she said.

  “I don’t think so.”

  They walked a little farther, Caitlin taking Harry’s hand again. The path twisted inland around another copse of wind-gnarled trees, and Harry turned to Caitlin and they began to kiss, only stopping when Caitlin realized she had begun to cry.

  “I’m so sorry,” Harry said.

  “No, don’t be. It’s just confusing, but the kiss was nice. It was intense.”

  “It was, but maybe we shouldn’t be doing this.”

  “I’ve heard it’s a reaction to grief. To feel—”

  “To feel horny?”

  “Yeah, I wasn’t going to say it, but—”

  They kissed more, their bodies pressing together, and Caitlin knew that if they’d been alone in a room their clothes would already be off. The feeling unnerved her, and she pulled away fractionally. He immediately did, as well.

  “Should we keep walking?” he asked.

  “Okay.”

  They continued to the end of the cliff walk, then turned and walked into the wind back to the Kennewick Inn. There, at her car, Harry kissed Caitlin again, but briefly. He put a hand on the side of her neck.

  “What now?” she asked.

  “Maybe I could come see you at your motel room later? I could say good-bye.”

  “Okay. I’m in 203.”

  “It might be late. Alice is making dinner, and like I said, she likes to have me in the house.”

  “Whatever. I’ll be there.”

  Back in her room, Caitlin lay on the freshly made-up bed and stared at the ceiling, striped with the low sun coming in through the motel’s cheap venetian blinds. She wanted to talk with Grace and found that she couldn’t, that the words in her head weren’t coming. The thought that she’d never talk with Grace again swept through her, and she cried again, then napped, waking in the dark. She was hungry and remembered that there was half a Monte Cristo in the minifridge from one of her meals at the diner. She ate two bites of the cold, congealed sandwich, then threw it out. Her stomach felt as small as a hard rubber ball.

  She switched on the television, found a station that was playing a Modern Family rerun, and left it there, the volume turned low. She answered texts from friends, from work, and from her mom and brother. She saw that her father had called and not left a message. It pissed her off. Why wouldn’t he leave a message after his daughter, her twin sister, had died? Why wouldn’t he tell her to call him immediately? She could hear his voice—I didn’t want to upset you more, Caity. I know what you must be going through—and decided to not call him back.

  The Modern Family episode ended, and another one immediately began. She was tired again, and almost texted Harry to tell him not to come over. But no, she did want to see him one more time. But she wouldn’t let him in. That thing that had happened on their walk now seemed like lunacy to her. Was she drunk from two beers? Yes, he was handsome, and sweet, but her sister had just been killed, and he was somehow involved. When and if he came by, she’d say she was exhausted (not a lie) and just say good-bye.

  She dozed some more, the television on, and woke to the sound of knocking on her door. She sat up, and looked at the alarm clock on the bedside table. It was eleven o’clock. For a few seconds she was entirely disoriented. The room was dark, except for the illumination of the wall-mounted TV, now showing a weatherman in front of a map of New England. She remembered that Harry was going to come over. She went to the door, ready to tell him that he shouldn’t come in. The kiss from earlier flashed through her mind. His hand on her neck.

  She opened the door. In the exterior yellow lamplight he looked pale and young. He was wearing a hooded sweatshirt, and he was breathing hard, a hand pressed against the side of his head as though he had a headache.

  “Hey, Harry,” she said. “Sorry, I’m—”

  “You should leave,” he said.

  “I should leave?” she repeated back, confused.

  “You should leave right now. I think you’re in danger.” The words sounded clipped, like he didn’t have enough breath to say them fully.

  “What’s going on? What happened?” She reached a hand toward him, and he flinched backward a little. He took his hand away from his head, and a trickle of dark blood ran down his cheek.

  “You’re bleeding,” she said.

  “Am I?” He looked at the palm of his hand, streaked in blood. “Oh,” he said, then his knees buckled, and he fell into the motel room.

  Caitlin reached out, trying to break his fall,
but he hit the carpeted floor hard, his head bouncing. And then he was still.

  Chapter 27

  Now

  “Do you know where Kennewick Hospital is?”

  “I don’t,” Caitlin said.

  “You can follow us if you like.”

  “Okay, sure,” Caitlin said to one of the very young, very unconcerned EMTs after Harry had been strapped onto a gurney and wheeled into the back of the ambulance outside her motel. Two preteens a few units down had watched the whole ordeal from just outside their door, their parents occasionally poking their heads out to take a look.

  After Harry had collapsed into her room, Caitlin rolled him over, and he’d come to, his eyes wide with surprise and confusion. She took a look at the side of his head. His hair was dark and sticky with blood; there was an inch-long gash just above his right ear, the area around it puffing up.

  “I’m calling 911,” she said.

  “It’s okay. I just fell and hit my head,” Harry said, beginning to sit up.

  “Yes, that’s why I’m calling 911.”

  While they waited for the ambulance, Caitlin crouched and talked with Harry, now sitting against the wall.

  “What happened?” she asked.

  “There was a man. He was watching you.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Harry’s brow creased, and his eyes seemed to empty out, as though he’d forgotten what he was about to say. Then he lightly shook his head, and said, “I came here to see you. I walked, actually, because I didn’t want Alice to hear me start the car, and when I got here there was a man standing”—he pointed straight up with the index finger of his left hand—“a man standing over near the woods.”

  “Where? On the other side of the parking lot, by the picnic tables?” Caitlin could picture what Harry was talking about. It was really just a cluster of pine trees that separated the parking lot from Route 1A.

  “Yeah, he was by the picnic tables in the dark. But I could see him, and he was watching your window.”