River Bodies (Northampton County Book 1)

by Karen Katchur

  “Hey,” she said.

  “Hey,” Jackie said, pausing for a second. “They came for your dad a couple of hours ago.” She continued organizing clothes, putting them into the suitcase as she spoke. “It was getting late, and I didn’t know where you were. I hope that’s okay. You’ll still be able to see him again if you want.”

  “Okay. Thank you for taking care of it.” She leaned against the doorjamb. “I didn’t expect to be gone so long.”

  Jackie waved it off. “Everybody handles these things in their own way. You did what you needed to do under a tough circumstance. I’m not one to judge.”

  “Thank you.” There wasn’t anything more she could think to say.

  “He wants to be cremated.” Jackie shoved a pair of shoes into the case. “I hope you’ll respect his wishes.”

  “Of course.” She didn’t know what his wishes were, and she was glad at least Jackie had been made aware of them. It was one more thing she’d never talked about with him. She would find over the next several weeks, months, and eventually years, there was so much more she’d missed saying, talking, sharing with her father. Sometimes it would be important things like whether he was proud of her or angry that she’d talked with Parker and the retired detective. Other times, she would think of silly things she’d wanted to ask him, things with no consequence at all.

  The questions she would have for him would come to her in time, questions that would forever remain unanswered.

  Jackie pulled open the dresser drawers, double-checking all of them were emptied. The closet door was flung open, and most of the clothes were still on hangers. Next to the bed was another suitcase waiting to be filled.

  Jackie continued. “Your mom should be here tomorrow,” she said. “Her flight was delayed, but I told her there was no need to rush.”

  “You don’t have to leave.”

  Jacked stopped packing and turned to look at her. She smoothed her frizzy hair. A loose strand fell onto the V-neck sweater she often wore, the one with the plunging neckline. “It’s not my home,” she said. “We both know if your dad hadn’t been sick, I wouldn’t be here.”

  Becca opened her mouth to protest, but she knew that it was true. He wasn’t the sort of man who stuck with one woman for long. It was his way.

  “Look, I think your dad loved me as much as he could love anyone. And I loved him. I did. Very much. But if it wasn’t for the illness . . .” She shrugged. “Well, we both know his track record with women.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be. I wasn’t blind to who he was.”

  “Then why did you stay? Why didn’t you pack up and leave and, I don’t know, find someone who would be good to you, who wasn’t . . . wasn’t . . . you know.”

  “Dying?”

  “Yes.”

  “Oh, Becca.” She sat on the edge of the bed. “There were a lot of reasons. He needed me, for one. He was all alone. There was no one else.”

  “He wasn’t your responsibility,” she said. “He was mine.”

  “No.” Jackie shook her head. “Don’t do that,” she said. “Don’t carry that guilt. We both know he was as much to blame as anyone for the troubles between you two.” She shoved the suitcase to make room on the bed next to her. “Come here. Sit.”

  Becca sat.

  “I’m not as innocent in all of this as you might think. And I’m certainly not a martyr. You see, I owed your dad in a way.”

  “What do you mean?” Becca asked.

  “Do you know how your dad and I first met?”

  Becca shook her head.

  “I was a stripper in one of the clubs farther up Route 611.” She lifted her breasts. “It was how I ended up with these.”

  Becca looked at the floor. She wasn’t surprised to hear her father had hung out in strip clubs, but it wasn’t something she wanted details about either.

  “It was how I paid for nursing school,” Jackie said. “I’m not ashamed of it.” She paused. “Well, maybe I am a little. But anyway, your dad came into the club one night asking some questions. The owner of the place knew your dad. He said he was one of the better cops in the area and said it was okay if I wanted to talk with him. So I did, because, you see, I had danced for the guy your dad was asking about. And your dad, he talked to me like I was a person and not just some stupid girl who took her clothes off for money. Oh, I don’t know. He showed me respect, if that makes sense. It’s the best way I can explain it. So I told him what I knew, which wasn’t much. I found out later that same guy your dad was asking about turned up dead. And it was possible I was the last person to see him alive.”

  Becca thought about the sheet of paper she’d found in her father’s lockbox, the one in his handwriting, the notes he’d taken and buried from an unknown witness. The same sheet of paper she’d given Parker, thinking it was evidence. She looked at Jackie. “You’re the one my dad interviewed in the first river body case. You’re the one who didn’t want to be identified.”

  She smiled. “I didn’t want anyone in the nursing program where I was enrolled at the time to know I was stripping to pay my tuition. And as luck would have it, your dad didn’t want me talking to the detectives anyway. So we struck a deal.”

  “And he buried your statement.” And mine, Becca thought. “But that doesn’t explain how you two ended up together.”

  “I don’t want you to think I was involved with him when he was married to your mom. It was nothing like that,” she said, shaking her head. “We kept in touch, a phone call here and there, but no funny business. Like I said, your dad was a respectful man. Or maybe it was because I was still so young. But then one day, we bumped into each other and started talking. By then I was a registered nurse and working in a hospital. He told me he’d been divorced for a few years and that he’d retired. And he was sick.”

  “So you came to live with him as his nurse?”

  “We’re talking about your dad here.” She laughed. “I did a lot more than play nurse. Your dad was a lively man up until the last year or so.”

  “Did he ever tell you why he didn’t want you to talk with the detectives?” Becca asked.

  “No,” Jackie said. “And I never asked him either. I figured if he wanted me to know, he would’ve told me.”

  “But don’t you feel guilty about not telling the detectives what you knew? What if your statement would’ve helped them in their case?”

  “Listen.” Jackie held both of Becca’s hands. “That guy that turned up dead, the one your dad was asking about, he came into the club that night. I remembered him because the place was empty except for a couple of those motorcycle guys you see around town. They happened to shove a wad of bills into my hand, paying me to give that guy a lap dance. I’m not sure why they did it, but I got the feeling they were messing with him in some way.” She shrugged. “So I gave him a lap dance. It was my job. But let me tell you something about that kind of work: you get to know people real quick. And you learn to listen to your instincts. I could sense there was something rotten inside of that one. And that he was a very bad man. The way I figured it, he probably got what he had coming to him.”

  Becca nodded; if she didn’t completely agree with Jackie’s decision, at least she understood it.

  Jackie released Becca’s hands. She stood and smoothed her frizzy hair again before turning back toward her suitcase.

  “You don’t have to go,” Becca said. “You can stay here as long as you like.”

  “Thank you,” Jackie said. “I really appreciate the offer. But I already stayed much longer than I ever intended.”

  Becca sat at the kitchen table, Romy’s head in her lap. She’d just hung up the phone with Matt after telling him she wouldn’t be returning to the condo and that she’d be picking up her things. She would be taking Lucky with her, after learning the only reason he’d brought the cat home with him in the first place had been to get to know Becca better. But Matt had promised he’d been taking good care of Lucky in Becca’s ab
sence.

  “Why are you doing this?” he’d asked. “Why are you leaving me?” He’d begged her to reconsider. She’d said there were things about him she loved, but she wasn’t in love with him, not the way she should be. The truth was no matter how many good qualities he had, she couldn’t overlook his one big flaw. She couldn’t trust him.

  “How many women were there, Matt?”

  “I don’t know, Becca. They were just there, you know. They just threw themselves at me. I swear they meant nothing to me.”

  “I want to know how many. I have a right to know.” She’d told him about Parker then, believing he also had a right to know about what she’d done. He’d been angry.

  “There had to be a dozen women,” he’d bragged. “Maybe more,” he’d said. “Are you satisfied now?”

  “Yes,” she’d said, shocked to learn there had been so many. In ways, she’d lost her father to other women. And she’d thought she’d lost Parker all those years ago. When she thought about it, which she did at length, the only reason she’d stayed with Matt was because she hadn’t wanted to lose him too. But it no longer mattered. Matt had never been right for her, and if she was honest, she’d never been right for him either.

  She decided to stay at her father’s house until she figured out her next step. The clinic was a short fifteen-minute drive, and she could easily commute. She was eager to get back to work and to the animals she loved.

  The upstairs toilet flushed. Her mother was getting ready for the small ceremony they’d planned. George had flown in with her. He stepped into the kitchen, fussing with his tie.

  “Let me help you,” Becca said. George was a tall man, and she had to stand on her tiptoes to tie a knot around his neck.

  “I’m not used to wearing these things,” he said about the tie, pulling at his collar. His skin was bronze, and his cheeks were permanently flushed, a trademark of working outdoors in his vineyard.

  “You didn’t have to get dressed up,” Becca said.

  Her mother walked into the kitchen wearing a long black skirt and sweater. “But he looks so handsome, doesn’t he?” She kissed him on the cheek. She hugged Becca.

  “Thanks for coming,” Becca said. “Dad would be really glad you’re here.”

  “I’m here for you,” her mother said.

  They hugged again. And then George hugged them too.

  “Shall we do this?” her mother asked.

  Becca picked up the urn containing her father’s ashes. They walked outside to the backyard. A breeze stirred the trees, scattering yellow and orange leaves across the lawn. Weeds poked through patches of crabgrass. Romy was busy digging away at a groundhog’s hole. Her father’s yard was a disaster by his standards, but somehow Becca believed he wouldn’t mind. His family was here, and as imperfect as they were, they were together.

  When the breeze picked up and she believed the wind was strong enough for the job, she opened the urn and let her father go.

  Becca parked her Jeep alongside Parker’s cabin. She got out of the car and grabbed the carved pumpkin from the back seat. Romy circled Becca’s feet.

  “This is not for you,” she said to the dog and set the pumpkin down on the porch next to the others. Parker was going to hate the big toothy grin on her jack-o’-lantern.

  She’d learned of John’s death a few days after leaving Parker’s place with Rick Smith. She’d heard it from Parker and then later in the news. She’d been numb at first, not feeling anything at all. But as the days had passed, she’d found herself walking to his barn, searching for him, feeling like a stranger in the woods, by the river, without the weight of his stare resting on her shoulders. What she hadn’t told anyone, not her mother or Parker or the therapist she’d started seeing to help with her recent night terrors, a symptom of PTSD, was the emptiness she felt at his absence in her life, the ache for something lost. She’d lived with his presence for so long she didn’t know how to live without it. But she was learning.

  “Come on,” she said to Romy and pulled her jacket collar tight around her neck, feeling the first signs of winter in the early-morning air. Romy followed her down the stairs to the dock, where Parker had finished casting a line. It was the first she’d seen him since she’d shown up at his door after the morning John had pointed his rifle at her. He’d been buried in paperwork, spending much of the last two weeks working. She’d been okay with the distance. She’d been using the time to come to terms with her past mistakes where men were concerned, taking the time to sort herself out.

  Parker kept his back to her, concentrating on the river in front of him. He was wearing jeans and a heavy fleece pullover, a knit hat on his head. Romy stuck her nose into a bucket that was on the dock, sniffing the two fish Parker had already caught.

  Becca sat in one of the chairs, noticed a thermos and two mugs.

  “You were expecting me,” she said.

  “I was hopeful.” He glanced over his shoulder at her.

  She picked up the thermos and poured them coffee.

  After a few minutes, he put his fishing pole down and sat next to her. Romy lay on the dock between them. “We found the bullet from the Ruger lodged into the trunk of a tree.”

  “I never hit him?”

  Parker shook his head. “He died from a single gunshot wound to the chest. The bullet was fired from John’s rifle.”

  “Okay,” she said. She could live with that. She handed him a mug. They sat quietly for a while, listening to the water lap against the shore.

  Parker was the first to break the silence. “About Matt.”

  “It’s over,” she said. “We broke up.”

  “Really? That’s too bad.”

  She noticed he didn’t bother trying to hide his smile, and this in turn made her smile too. His phone went off. He checked the message, stared at the screen.

  “What is it?” she asked.

  “I’m getting a partner,” he said.

  EPILOGUE

  Becca stuffed a dog bone inside the front of her coat and zipped up. She grabbed a shovel from the garage and headed to the backyard. The rain overnight had made the ground soft and moist. Digging should be easy despite the chill in the air. The temperatures had been unseasonably warm the last two days, although the weatherman warned winter would return as early as tomorrow.

  Romy ran ahead and doubled back, sniffing the ground, following the scent of a rabbit or quite possibly a squirrel. Who knew, really? She trotted to Becca’s side, jumping, nudging Becca’s coat with her nose where the bone was hidden inside.

  “I’m going to have to show you where to dig if we’re going to be staying here for a while. You can’t be digging up his yard,” she said with a smile. She planned to live in her father’s house through the winter months at least. Come spring, well, she just didn’t know.

  Romy ran circles around her until they reached the edge of the woods. Becca spotted the oak tree where she’d spied Russell and her father making their fateful deal, the same tree not far from where she’d buried Sheba’s toys. She stood at the base of the trunk, and instead of going right to bury the bone where she’d hidden all of the other dog toys before, she counted twelve steps to her left.

  Late last night, she’d woken to the sound of thunder and a bad dream that hadn’t been a dream at all but a suppressed memory, the one that had brought her here to this spot. It had all been fuzzy, the edges of her recollection dull and blurry, a feverish consciousness entwined with the kind of fear she hadn’t felt since she’d been a kid.

  Her therapist had warned her that there might be more memories from her childhood that she’d repressed. She’d tried to prepare Becca for all the ways trauma could have an impact on an individual, especially one who had been so young.

  After taking the twelfth step, she stopped. The rock was there, the one she’d carried in dreamland. It had felt so real; her arms had shaken with exertion when she’d sat up in bed. She put the shovel down, gripped the stone with her hands. It wasn’t as big as sh
e remembered. Everything seemed so much larger when you were a child. She braced herself with her legs and pushed. She shoved it off to the side inch by inch. When she was satisfied she’d moved it far enough out of the way, she picked up the shovel and started digging. Romy sniffed the pile of dirt that was accumulating, the twigs and leaves and debris.

  Becca dug until the blade of the shovel hit what could’ve been a rock, but it wasn’t. It was metal. She dropped to her knees.

  Ten-year-old Becca listened for any noise coming from downstairs. All was quiet. She double-checked her bedroom door was locked. When she thought it was safe, she reached under the bed, wincing from the pain where her father had gripped her arms, leaving them sore and bruised. She pulled out the shirt she’d rolled like a sausage, hiding it in a place where not even her mother would look. Her mother didn’t clean underneath the bed—not on a regular basis anyway.

  Becca paused, listening again. Not hearing anything, she unrolled the shirt, revealing the knife she’d tucked inside. She’d returned home with it the day the Doberman had attacked Sheba. She hadn’t meant to leave with it. She’d only wanted to take it out of John’s hand. And then she’d panicked, not knowing what she should do with it, how much trouble she’d be in. So she’d hidden it.

  Later, when she’d tried to tell her father, he wouldn’t listen, no matter how much she’d begged. Tell no one, not even me, he’d made her promise.

  The blood had dried on the blade and handle. So much blood.

  What was she supposed to do now? This was the stuff of grown-ups, the kind of thing her father should take care of. But he wanted no part of it, no part of her. She rubbed her eye. Sheba jumped onto the bed, sniffed the shirt, the knife. Quivering, she took a small step back. The dog gave Becca an idea.

  She wrapped the knife up again and tucked it under her arm. She snuck through the house as best she could with Sheba nipping at her heels. Her mother was in the kitchen. The small TV on the countertop was turned on to a late-afternoon talk show.