The Truth Lies Here

by Lindsey Klingele

  I made my way over to the bar and hoisted myself up on one of the stools. The bartender was a man I vaguely recognized, though I couldn’t remember his name. He was older, with silver sideburns and a handlebar mustache. His muscles practically busted out of his faded Zeppelin T-shirt.

  “Diet or regular?” he growled.

  “Uh, excuse me?”

  One bushy eyebrow rose a half centimeter. “I know you ain’t twenty-one, and our kitchen’s not open yet. If you sit at the bar, you gotta order. So will it be diet pop or will it be regular?”

  “Oh,” I said, swallowing hard. I darted my eyes past the bartender to the door leading off to the kitchen, wondering if Julie might pop her head out at any second. “I’m actually here to see Julie. . . . Is she at work yet?”

  The bartender blinked but didn’t move.

  “And I’ll have a diet, I guess.”

  The bartender reached for a glass in a steady, unhurried movement and started to pour my drink. Over his shoulder, he said, “Julie’s balancing the books. I’ll tell her you’re here.” He pushed a full glass of pop across the bar at me. “One fifty.”

  I put two dollars on the bar, and the bartender scooped it up and pushed through the door leading into the kitchen. The anxiety in my stomach was growing by the second, and the pop tasted acidic as it slid down my throat. I couldn’t forget the last time I’d gone through that door behind the bar, even though I’d tried. Many times.

  It was the summer after seventh grade, and I was supposed to be spending the night at Reese’s house. But after ordering pizza and watching movies, we’d gotten bored and decided to take our bikes for a midnight ride. No one was there to stop us or tell us it was too late to ride around the empty streets; Reese’s dad was working late and her mom was closing down the bar.

  So we got on our bikes and started riding around the neighborhood in our pajamas, giddy to be doing something we weren’t supposed to be doing. We were rounding the corner onto the nearly empty Main Street when Reese bounced off the curb and toppled onto the pavement. If she’d been wearing a T-shirt and jeans, she might have gotten off with a few light scrapes, but her thin nightgown didn’t provide any protection. Every part of her skin that hit pavement—elbows, hips, knees—was torn.

  Reese screamed with the shock of the fall, but after that she went silent. I could see her pain in the ghostly whiteness of her face. Blood trickled through the newly formed holes in her skin, and I didn’t know what to do. So I set Reese on the curb and ran to where I knew I could find the nearest adult—Vinny’s Bar.

  The bar was dark and empty, and all of its chairs were flipped over on top of the tables as if someone had walked away in the middle of mopping. But the kitchen light was still on, and I heard a woman’s laugh. I wove my way behind the bar and through the kitchen, past wiped-down stainless steel counters and cardboard boxes full of bottles. The sound of the woman’s laughter got louder as I neared the office.

  I put my shoulder against the door and pushed it open without thinking. But when I crossed the threshold, I froze.

  Julie was standing in front of her desk, her back to me. Her blouse was untucked and her hair tumbled wild down her back. Her face was pressed up against a man’s, but she pulled back and turned at the sound of my entrance, and she gasped. I did, too.

  The man she was kissing was my dad.

  The three of us stood silent for a moment, our mouths all hanging open. I remember waiting for them to give me an explanation for what I was seeing, waiting for them to say the words that would put the image to rights in my mind. It’s not what it looks like. Or, Wait, just let me explain. . . .

  But neither of them said anything. Julie backed away, wiping smudges of lipstick from her mouth with the back of her hand. My dad sighed and put his hands to his temple.

  The first thing I was able to feel after shock was the hot rush of betrayal. But it wasn’t betrayal at their actions, which my brain was slowly beginning to process. It was betrayal at their lack of a reaction. They were the adults. They were the ones who were supposed to say something in this moment, something that would make everything make sense. But they didn’t, and the seconds dragged on.

  Finally, my dad stood up straight and looked me in the eyes for the first time.

  “What are you doing here?”

  I felt something heavy falling down through my chest as I looked at my dad then, something that I hadn’t felt since that day a couple of years earlier when he’d tried to pass off a black bear as Bigfoot. Disappointment so total I didn’t have a word for it.

  “Penelope? Why are you here?”

  “It’s Reese,” I said. “She crashed her bike outside, and she’s bleeding.”

  “Oh my God,” Julie said. “Where is she?” She was tucking her shirt back in as she ushered me out the door. I didn’t even spare my dad a backward glance as I followed her through the bar’s kitchen.

  After telling Julie where she could find Reese, I biked back home alone, let myself into the darkened house, and went straight to my bedroom. I tossed and turned. I wondered what I would say to my dad, whether or not I should tell my mom. I hated the thought of lying to her, but I was terrified of where the truth might lead. If Dad was kissing Julie Harper, did that mean my parents would split up? Then what would happen? I was still awake as the sun crept out over the edge of the tree line through my window, and suddenly I knew what I had to do. It was so clear, so blindingly obvious. I had to talk to the one person in the world who knew me best, the one person who would help me understand what to do next. I had to talk to my best friend.

  Reese was lying propped up in her bed when I got to her house the next morning. Her right arm and right leg were heavily bandaged, and there were even some angry red rash marks against the right side of her face. She looked miserable and hot, lying on top of her comforter and sucking on a red Ring Pop, strands of her thin blond hair matted to the sides of her face.

  “How are you?” I asked, as I sat gingerly on the edge of her bed.

  Reese shrugged. “Crappy. But I look worse than I feel. That’s what my mom says, anyway.”

  For a second, Reese looked so small and vulnerable lying there on her bed that I wondered whether or not I should tell her what I saw. But then she pulled the sucker out of her mouth with a popping noise and grinned.

  “Way to leave me in the middle of the road, by the way.”

  I smiled back, and my confidence returned. This was Reese—strong, capable Reese. If anyone could help me figure out what to do, it would be her.

  So I cleared my throat and started talking. Reese was both riveted and horrified, her eyes never leaving my face as I explained what I’d seen in the office of Vinny’s Bar. When I was done, she swung her legs over the edge of her bed, wincing only slightly as she did so.

  “I have to tell my dad. Right now.”

  I gulped. “You think?”

  “Absolutely. Are you kidding? And you have to tell your mom, too. This is ridiculous. How could they just . . . ? Ugh.”

  Reese’s face twisted up into disgust. That’s when we formulated our plan. She’d go to the bar and confront her parents together, and I’d go home and talk to mine. We’d meet back up later that night to discuss how it went. That was the plan.

  But things didn’t exactly go down that way.

  When I told my mom what I’d seen, she stood absolutely still for three seconds before her whole face tightened in anger. But I didn’t know if her anger was because the affair was news to her, or because I had seen it. I think she might have suspected that something was going on—or maybe even known—but I never had the guts to ask her, not that day or since.

  It was, my mom said, the final motivation she needed to get out of Bone Lake once and for all. When she told my dad that, the two of them started to fight—really fight—in a way I hadn’t seen before. It was as though they didn’t care that I was there and could hear every word they were saying. They didn’t go down into the basement or the backyar
d to try to put distance between me and their words.

  At first, they argued about me. My dad said there was “no way in hell” she was taking me away from him, and my mom responded that he hadn’t really been there for me in years, anyway. He was always off researching a story or on one of his camping trips. He accused her of jumping on “a nothing kiss” as an excuse to finally abandon him and leave for somewhere “better,” something she likely would have done years before—if it hadn’t been for me.

  I sat on the front stoop of our house, covering my ears lightly with my hands. My stomach curled up in knots, and I wanted more than anything else to not be hearing the things they were saying. I pulled myself up off the wooden stoop and rode my bike fast to Reese’s house. When Reese opened the door a couple of inches, and her light blue eyes stared at me through the cracks, I could tell something was wrong.

  “Reese, are you okay? What happened?”

  Reese just stared at me for a moment. The right side of her face was still scratched up, red and angry. It had started to scab.

  “I thought you were my best friend,” she said, even and cool.

  I shook my head. “What? I am. What do you—”

  “How could you do that to me, if you’re my best friend? I just don’t understand.” And that’s when I heard it, the hitch in her voice, as though she was swallowing back tears.

  “Do what?”

  “So you’re going to deny it? That you just made up this humongous lie and tried to hurt my family for no reason?”

  My brain spun as I tried to make sense of her words.

  But Reese was just picking up steam. “What is wrong with you, anyway? Why would you do that?”

  I shook my head. “I didn’t do anything. I saw your mom and my dad. . . . Didn’t you talk to your mom?”

  “Yeah, I did. And she said nothing happened. And I didn’t believe her at first, you know? I thought, you’re my best friend, and why would you lie to me?”

  “I didn’t,” I said, and my voice sounded small to my own ears.

  “But my mom wasn’t alone at the bar that night. She was there with my dad. He remembers you coming in, too.”

  My mouth opened, but no words came out. I thought back to what I’d seen the night before. It had been awful but clear. I hadn’t gotten it wrong.

  “That’s not true; I saw—”

  “Stop lying!” Reese screamed, and I took a small half step back. Her voice was screechy, almost crazed. Her cool demeanor had completely cracked.

  “Why did you do it, huh?” she asked. “Just because your parents are messed up and your life’s miserable, you thought mine should be, too?”

  I sucked in a breath. I couldn’t believe these words were coming out of Reese’s mouth and that they were directed at me. I was always on her side, in her corner. And she was in mine. Now she stared at me with eyes that burned.

  “Get away from me,” she said, “and don’t ever come back.”

  She slammed the door closed. I waited a few moments before I just got on my bike and rode, not paying attention to where I was going. And I followed Reese’s orders completely—I never went back. At the end of the summer, my mom made good on her threats and moved us to Chicago, where she’d found a job at Northwestern. The divorce was finalized at the end of the year, and as per the custody agreement, I was to spend three weeks every summer with my dad. During those summers, I’d avoided Reese almost completely, and Julie, too.

  But I couldn’t anymore.

  So as I sat at the bar stool and sipped on my Diet Coke, I felt my stomach curl up in familiar knots. I hated that feeling, the nervousness and anxiety. You just have to ask a few questions, I told myself. Asking questions was easy.

  But the thought of seeing Julie again twisted me up, pushed my insides back through time. Like I was twelve years old again, waiting for an explanation that wasn’t coming, no matter how much I wanted—needed—to hear it.

  The kitchen door swung open and Julie shouldered her way into the area behind the bar, flinging a hand towel over one shoulder. When she saw me, her steps faltered for a moment. But then she smiled and moved forward as though nothing had happened.

  “Hey, Penny, long time, no see,” she said, sounding too upbeat. “What brings you by?”

  “I came to talk to you, actually. I wanted to ask you a question.”

  A flicker of alarm briefly crossed Julie’s face, and then it was gone. She gave another forced smile.

  “Shoot.” Julie raised her eyes expectantly, and I once again thought about how to phrase what I wanted to ask her. But the question that kept trying to push its way to the tip of my tongue wasn’t about my dad at all. Suddenly, I knew exactly what I wanted to ask Julie Harper.

  Why did you lie to your own daughter? Why did you make her hate me?

  But that’s not what I said when I opened my mouth. Instead, I said, “It’s about my dad.”

  Julie’s features hardened, and her eyes darted down. She opened her mouth to respond, but before she could speak, the front door of the bar opened. Julie looked upward with a grateful expression, which soon turned to controlled panic.

  I turned to see who’d entered the bar, and felt a little bit of panic rise up in my throat as well. Walking into the dim light, dressed in his freshly pressed uniform, was Julie’s husband.

  The sheriff.

  Ten

  SHERIFF BUD HARPER had a much better poker face than his wife. He put on a tight smile as he stepped forward and shook my hand.

  “Back for the summer, Penny? Little young to be hugging that bar, aren’t you?”

  I managed a smile in return. “Hi, Sheriff Harper.”

  The sheriff leaned over the bar and planted a quick kiss on Julie’s cheek before taking a seat on the stool next to me. He was only a little bit taller than Julie, really not that much taller than me. His dark hair was combed neatly over his head, revealing a perfectly straight white line of scalp at its part.

  The sheriff nodded down at my drink. “Hope it’s just pop and ice in there.”

  Julie swatted him lightly in the arm with a towel. “Of course it is. What kind of establishment do you think I’m running here?”

  The couple smiled at each other, but I thought I noticed a tenseness in his eyes, in her smile. Their words and actions felt a bit exaggerated, like they were putting on a show.

  “Penny just dropped by to ask me a couple of questions,” Julie said. “About her dad.”

  The sheriff swiveled in his seat. “Oh?”

  I suddenly felt outflanked, with Julie standing in front of me and the sheriff sitting to my left. But I decided to charge ahead anyway.

  “He’s been missing for a couple of days,” I said, trying to get the words out quickly. “I know he comes to this bar sometimes, so I was just wondering if maybe he told Julie anything. . . .”

  “Huh,” Julie said, furrowing her brow. “Wish I could help, but I don’t think I’ve seen your dad in more than a week or so.”

  “I think I can help you out,” the sheriff said, keeping his eyes on me. “I’ll tell you what I told your little neighbor Dex yesterday. Charlie Randall down at the army surplus said Ike came in about a week back and picked up some propane. Said he was planning a camping trip.”

  I exhaled a breath I didn’t even know I was holding. I felt a flash of irritation at Dex for keeping that detail from me. What the sheriff said made sense. My dad went camping all the time . . . except, except . . .

  The image of the burned body floated through my mind once again. I knew the sheriff would laugh off my dad’s conspiracy theories and stories, just like everyone else in town did, but what my dad had found was genuinely disturbing.

  “The thing is,” I said, looking the sheriff in the eyes and trying again, “I guess my dad had been looking into a new story, one about that hiker in the woods.”

  The sheriff gave a grim nod. “Awful thing. Your dad was real shook up over that.”

  “He was?”

  �
��Of course. Finding a body like that, it can be a real shock. Especially for someone like your dad.”

  My head turned sharply at the sheriff’s words. “What do you mean, someone like my dad?”

  The sheriff took a deep breath and exchanged a quick look with Julie. “Well, I’ve known Ike all my life. And he’s always been a bit . . . goofy when it came to weird stuff. Paranoid, almost. Heck, Penny, you know what I mean.”

  I pursed my lips together. I did know what he meant. But hearing those words come out of someone else’s mouth made my fists involuntarily clench.

  “He was a bit of a mess after that hiker,” Julie put in. “He came in here almost every night for a couple of weeks.”

  “Then he started going out in the woods, setting up cameras, taking pictures. . . .” The sheriff trailed off and gave a little shake of his head, as if to say, Isn’t it a shame? “I couldn’t exactly stop him,” he continued. “It’s not against the law or anything to set up a camera in the woods. And it’s not even deer hunting season, so it wasn’t like he was putting himself in danger.”

  I nodded as the sheriff continued, “I bet that’s where he went this time, too. Out there playing with his camera. Course, if you’re feeling worked up enough to want to file a missing persons report, you just come down to the station and let me know.”

  I looked down at my half-drunk glass of pop. The ice was all melted, and it had gone flat. The facts bounced around and around in my mind—my dad hadn’t picked me up, he’d been taking weird pictures of the woods, he was planning a camping trip, he’d found a dead body, his truck was missing. Was it possible he’d gotten so caught up in a potential story that he’d completely forgotten about me? Yes. I could see him out there in the woods, taking photo after photo, so focused on his work that everything else in the world faded away. But if there really was someone dangerous out there, like whoever maybe killed the hiker, and my dad was after them . . . how long should I let him investigate on his own before getting really, really concerned?