"One thing, though. What happens if Weld is right about Jeremiah's gun? What if the ballistics report shows that the bullet that killed Connor came from it?"
"It won't happen," Gage said.
"Weld might be telling the truth," Quinn said. "We've still got him for the other murders, but maybe Jeremiah was the one who set this whole thing in motion by killing his friend. If that's the case—"
"It won't happen."
"How can you be so sure?"
But Gage didn't have an answer to that. He just knew, deep down, that Jeremiah Cooper was not guilty of murder. That was the truth. Sometimes he just knew the truth because it felt right, and this was one of those times. Eventually, when all the smoke had cleared, the evidence would come around to this point of view because it had no choice. The evidence would reflect the truth.
"Just wait," Gage said. "You'll see."
* * *
Two days later, they did. The ballistics report showed that the bullet used to kill Connor Fleicher did indeed come from Jeremiah's gun.
Chapter 23
It was the kind of Thanksgiving dinner that only Eve Cortez could host, a feast of both the eyes and the stomach.
As might be expected from a Greek woman who was thoroughly Americanized, the spread before them was a unique mixture of Mediterranean and American cuisine. There was a turkey, of course, a splendid one, brown and glazed and mouthwatering just to look at, but there was also strawberry baklava, crisp on the outside, tart on the inside, like only she could make it. There was mashed potatoes and gravy, but there was also red-pepper hummus, balsamic chicken, and a tangy tzatziki dip to use with pita bread. They hadn't even eaten a bite yet and already Gage felt full.
Even better, the dining room was awash with the warm glow of the setting sun shining through the windows in the Turret House's dining room. Gage wasn't taken to sentiment all that much, but he couldn't imagine being anywhere else.
"I'm glad it finally stopped raining," Zoe said. She'd surprised them all by showing up in a burnt-orange sweater patterned with brown oak leaves instead of her usual all-black attire. When Gage had asked her about it, she'd said she was being ironic, whatever that meant, but Gage caught her admiring herself in the hall mirror.
"I'll agree to that," Karen said. When everyone glanced at her, she self-consciously touched the scar on her right cheek. It was a nervous habit he hoped she would soon break, though he was glad to see she'd finally given up wearing that bandage all the time. In fact, the surgeon had said that far from being a terrible scar, when it finally healed, it would be fairly faint—a beauty mark, he'd called it. And Gage didn't think it made Karen any less attractive. "It's nice to see the sun for once," she added.
"For the time being," Alex said.
"In Oregon—" Zoe began.
"Oh, I know," Alex said. "We'll take it. What do you think, Berry? It's nice to have a little break from all the storms, isn't it?"
Gage looked at Berry Fleicher, who was seated between Zoe and Gage. She stared down at her empty plate as if she were trying to divine some meaning there, and she didn't react to Zoe's question. She wasn't wearing black either, her pink cashmere and tan slacks all but the opposite in their tasteful perkiness, but she might as well have been wearing black for how the color seemed to hang over her like a cloud.
"Berry?" Zoe said.
She jumped a little as if she'd been pricked, then looked around the room like a doe that had just hopped onto a busy road. When this passed, any energy in her face disappeared right along with it.
"Hmm?" she said.
"The rain," Zoe said. "It's nice that it's not raining."
"Oh, right." She nodded.
There were concerned glances exchanged between Zoe, Gage, Karen, and Alex, an unspoken worry for the woman who'd lost her son, but what could they do? Inviting her to Thanksgiving had been Alex's idea, and Gage, when he'd passed the invitation along to her, had never expected her to accept. Didn't she have other family she wanted to spend a holiday with, especially after everything she'd been through? But no, like Gage, she didn't.
It had been two weeks since her son was murdered, and while the multiple murders that followed had shaken the inhabitants of Barnacle Bluffs, life in the town was slowly getting back to normal. After a week's closure, the community college reopened. Both the local and statewide news turned their attention to other tragedies. Jeremiah had been transferred to the county lockup, awaiting his trial, and though Gage had asked to see him, Jeremiah was refusing all visitors—even his own parents. Gage still couldn't believe the boy had actually killed Connor, but it was hard to argue with the evidence.
It still gnawed at him, though. And knowing himself, it always would.
"Where's my wife, anyway?" Alex called into the other room. "Eve, are you going to join us here?"
"Coming!" came her reply. "Just getting some more lemon tea, dear!"
A moment later, she came bustling in wearing one of her patented radiant smiles, the yellow teapot she was carrying trailing steam from its spout. She hardly looked the like a woman who'd had a double mastectomy only two weeks earlier, her green eyes bright, her black hair, pulled back in a ponytail, long and lustrous and bright. The blue satin blouse and pleated tan pants looked as if they'd just been bought at Nordstrom's. Except for the occasional wince when she lifted something heavy, which Alex rarely let her do, perhaps the only sign she'd had the surgery at all was that underneath her cotton apron, her chest was truly flat where once she'd had a fairly ample amount of cleavage. That she'd opted not to have reconstructive breast surgery, and that she made no attempt to hide this fact, either with padding or even baggy clothing, Gage found both brave and not surprising of Eve at all. She was always about getting on with things.
As were they all. These people, they were survivors. They got on with things. That's why he couldn't imagine being anywhere else on Thanksgiving. Everyone in the room had, at some point in the past few years, survived something terrible—and yet here they were, giving thanks.
"Well now," Eve said, depositing the tea on the table, "I suppose we better eat before it gets cold."
"Thank you for inviting me," Berry said, and her voice was so sad and lonely that even she must have realized how out of place it was in such a warm setting, because she quickly added, "I know I'm probably not fun to be around right now."
Eve reached across the table and patted her hand. Her skin, with that Mediterranean complexion of hers, was several shades darker than Berry's. "Nonsense, dear," Eve said. "I love having you here."
"Do you have children?" Berry asked.
"Alex and I have two daughters," Eve said, as if afraid to admit it, and then hurried through the rest. "Both grown, both with kids, and both spending the holiday with their husband's side of the family this year, alas. Shall we say grace?"
Before Berry could respond, Eve bowed her head and started in on the Lord's Prayer. It was good she did, because Gage could see the moisture forming in Berry's eyes. Maybe it was because of this that they all dug into the food with such fervor. Berry was a bit slower, nibbling here and there, but a little white zinfandel seemed to relax her, even if it didn't make her more talkative. Her shoulders, as straight as a coat hanger, began to relax, as did the muscles in her face. Her eyes took on the distant cast of someone peering far into the distance. Still, she smiled and nodded now and then, so Gage stopped worrying about her until she suddenly blurted out to everyone.
"You could have invited them, you know," she said.
They all looked at her.
"Who?" Alex said, a butter knife coated with tzatziki in one hand, some pita bread in the other.
"The Coopers," she said. "You could have invited them. I—I wouldn't have minded them being here."
"Oh, we never even—" Eve began.
"I just didn't want you to think it would have bothered me," Berry continued, talking right over Eve. "I don't blame them. It's not their fault."
And they all just looked at
her, because what could anyone say to this? Even Berry didn't have a follow-up. She merely stared at them, blinking, for a few seconds, before picking up her fork and prodding the edges of her mashed potatoes. They followed her lead. There was a long moment of silence in which nobody spoke, then Karen, mercifully, asked how much busier Barnacle Bluffs got in the summer. There were lots of opinions about tourists, of course, so the conversation soon turned lively. The voices grew loud and overlapping, not in disagreement but in passion, and Gage couldn't help but think they'd released some dammed-up reservoir of energy that had been tamped down by their hesitation around Berry.
Zoe thought the town would be better off without tourists at all, to which Alex agreed, surprising everyone, including Eve, since both of his businesses survived on tourism.
"Don't all jump on my case," Alex said. "I've just never liked tourists all that much. I know it's an odd thing for me to say."
"While I agree with you," Gage said, "I have to say that bookshop of yours would be a pretty expensive hobby without making any sales."
"Oh, I'd still have you picking up those Harlequin romances you like so much. Stacks of them! I could survive on that alone."
This got quite a laugh out of everyone, and in the middle of the laughter Berry suddenly bolted to her feet. It had the effect of tossing a bucket of water on a fire, smothering all the mirth in a second. She stood there swaying. They waited expectantly. Gage noticed that while she had barely touched her food, her wine glass was empty.
"Excuse me," she said, and fled from the room.
"Berry—" Karen began, rising.
"No, let me," Gage said.
By the time he reached the kitchen, she was already gone. He started for the back door, thinking maybe she'd gone out to look at the beach, then heard a muffled sob from the living room. She stood in front of the window, her back to him, her shoulders hunched. She was so small and thin, an insubstantial figure, the bumps of her spine jutting through her sweater. He approached cautiously, stopping a few steps behind her. The ocean, visible above the boxwood hedge at the edge of the grass, was a vibrant turquoise, the sun a golden orb hanging low in the western sky. It was a good view, but certainly not the best in the house.
"Connor liked those," she said, surprising him. He hadn't even known if she realized he was in the room.
"What?" he said.
"Those romance books. He never admitted it to me. I just—I'd find them under his bed. Stacks of them. I think he picked them up from the used bookstore down the road."
"Oh," Gage said.
"I know he was gay."
"He was?"
"I'm sure you knew. I knew from an early age. I know about … I know about him and Jeremiah. That's why I always found his love of romance books so funny. It didn't really make sense. But I guess—I don't know, maybe none of us are that simple."
"You got that right."
"I didn't even think of it until Alex made that joke. It just made me so … sad. You know? Sad that he's gone."
A million clichés popped into Gage's mind, but he was wise enough not to speak any of them. Instead, he thought about the view, about its power to make people forget about their own pain, if only for a moment.
"Let me show you something," Gage said.
"What?"
"Come on, follow me."
He held out his hand. With some hesitation, she took it, her fingers so small and limp that it felt like holding a string. Without his cane, stepping carefully, he led her back to the narrow hallway that joined the kitchen and the living room. There, next to the coatrack now weighed down by a rainbow array of their coats, was an unadorned door that most people took for a closet. He opened it, and there was the metal winding staircase leading up into the darkness.
"Where—?" she began.
"Just wait."
Still holding her hand, he turned on the light and led her to the door at the top, using his other hand to grip so that he didn't have to put too much weight on his bad knee. The air felt cooler in the stairwell, slightly dank, but once they'd opened the door and stepped into the little octagonal room, it was just as warm as in the main house.
"Oh, my," she said.
That was the reaction most people had to the little room at the top of the stairs, and for good reason. He didn't bother turning on the light; with the sun so low in the sky, the three westward windows were filled with the soft orange and yellow hues of the sun. The dark-stained hardwood floor, the oak bookshelves, the books themselves, the well-worn leather chairs, the beaded lamps—they were all laid out before them just as the Thanksgiving meal was earlier, like an invitation. And the view? Unless you stepped nose-to-glass to the window, there was nothing visible but the endless sweep of that turquoise ocean.
"This is the reason it's called the Turret House," Gage explained.
"It's beautiful. So cozy. You don't think Alex minds us being up here?"
"Are you kidding? He would have suggested it."
"He lets guests up here?"
"Only special ones."
He smiled. She smiled back. For a moment, they were just two people enjoying a very special place, and they could forget about all the tragedy that had swirled around them the past few weeks. The reprieve didn't last long, as Gage knew it wouldn't, the serenity glimpsed in her face a fleeting thing, the dark clouds returning.
"I hope I didn't spoil things downstairs," she said.
"Don't worry about it."
"I just, I don't want people to think I'm just full of hate all the time. I don't hate the Coopers. They suffered too. Whatever happened between our sons … they were only victims."
Gage wasn't sure he believed that—it hewed too close to a blameless view of society that he abhorred—but he didn't think it was time to argue the point either, especially since he still couldn't convince himself that Jeremiah had pulled the trigger.
"She sent me a Bible, you know," Berry said.
"What?"
"Jeanie Cooper. She sent me a Bible."
"Oh. That seems a bit—"
"I thought it was nice of her, actually. I'm not all that religious, though I do think of myself as somewhat spiritual. Are you religious, Garrison?"
"No."
"Spiritual?"
"Afraid not. Not unless you count the reverence I hold for a fine glass of bourbon in the still hours of the evening."
"Hmm. Anyway, she wrote a little note inside. ‘There's hope in here for all of us.' It was nice. I didn't think it was preachy. I think she was reaching out to me. We're kindred spirits, you know. We've both lost our sons. We've both suffered. I think she wants me to forgive her son. I think that's what she wants. I thought maybe, you know, if I could do that, if I could … but I'm not sure I can. I thought if she was here … but I'm not so sure. I just don't know if I can do it. So maybe it's good she isn't here. Is that awful of me? She's reaching out to me, trying to connect, but I'm not sure I can do it. What do you think? Does that make me a terrible person? I don't want to be a terrible person. I want to be bigger than that … but it's so hard …"
She'd been looking out the window, her face shaded by the wooden hues of the room, and as she turned, the sunlight gleamed like a diamond in her eyes. He wished he could tell her that this hurt she felt would go away, but he knew from experience that it wouldn't. He could tell her that there would come a point when she would be glad that the hurt didn't go away, strange as that sounded, but it wouldn't mean anything to her now.
"You're not a terrible person," he said. "You just love your son."
Then, all at once, he knew what he had been missing.
Chapter 24
The Coopers were still eating their Thanksgiving dinner. When Arne opened the door, Gage spotted Jeanie at the table in the other room, a bountiful buffet spread out on the tablecloth before her that rivaled the one he'd just left at the Turret House. The smell of turkey and baked bread and mashed potatoes drifted out to greet him. Jeanie was the only one at the table, though
three places had been set. One of the plates was empty, the water glass full, the silverware untouched.
"What are you doing here?" Arne snapped at him.
Following Gage's stare, Arne stepped to the side to block his view. For once, Arne wasn't dressed in a green windbreaker and blue jeans, but judging by the wrinkled chinos and the tightness of his pinstriped blue shirt, this wasn't something that happened often. Gage looked up into the man's face and saw that Arne, though just as big and broad as always, had aged in the past few weeks. The crow's feet at the corners of his eyes had extended, and his hair, what little he had in his buzz cut, sported a bit more gray around the temples.
"Can I come in?" Gage asked.
"Are you kidding?"
"Just for a few minutes. It won't take long."
"Are you here to take my gun away again?"
"Do you want me to?"
"Listen, pal—"
"Arne, let me in. I have to say something I think you need to hear."
"Oh yeah? My son is in jail for murder. So is my best friend, Paul. Turns out he's some kind of twisted monster who was carrying on having sex with my son for years right under my nose. And you think there's something else I need to hear? Man, I can't wait."
"Five minutes," Gage said.
"You need to leave."
"It's what really happened, Arne. It's the missing piece."
"I don't—"
"It's what really happened to Connor Fleicher. And your son, why he confessed. Don't you want to know?"
He watched something flare up in Arne's eyes, the kind of rage that could have led to violence, but before anything could happen, Jeanie spoke softly behind him.
"Let him in, dear," she said.
At first, Gage wasn't sure Arne had heard her, since his face didn't change, but then, with a huffy shrug, he stepped aside. For all the anger seething from Arne, there was nothing of the sort from Jeanie, only a sad emptiness. Like her husband, she was not a small person, but sitting there in her white cardigan and blue silk dress, he got the sense that there was nothing there but clothes. The person inside them had been hollowed out and removed. Gage, careful where he put his cane on the vinyl entryway, stepped into the house.
The Lovely Wicked Rain: An Oregon Coast Mystery (Garrison Gage Series) Page 24
