'Hi,' she said finally.
There was a long silence as she waited for Jen Bone to sift through her memory and unearth a face and a name from her long-ago past. 'Tresa?'
'Yeah, it's me.'
'Oh, my God. How are you?' 'OK.'
it's been forever.'
'I know. I'm sorry. I didn't want to bother you. You know, new life and all. I wasn't sure you even wanted to remember me. I mean, because of everything.'
'Yeah.'
'I ask Mr Hoffman about you all the time,' Tresa said. 'He keeps me posted on what you're doing, sends me the school newspaper sometimes, that kind of thing.'
'I ask him about you, too.'
'Oh, yeah? OK.'
'Listen, I heard about Glory on the news,' Jen said. 'The girls at school were talking about it. I'm really sorry.'
'Thanks.'
'Your mom must be a wreck.'
'Yeah, she is.'
'Are you back at River Falls?'
'No, I'm taking the term off. Mom needs me here.'
'That's good.'
Tresa wondered how to say it. How do you say to a girl who was once your best friend: If anyone knows where your father is, you do. She struggled in silence, until it was awkward between them.
'The papers said the police have a suspect,' Jen continued, when Tresa said nothing, it sounded like you had some kind of relationship with him. Is that true?'
'He didn't do it.'
Tresa heard the hesitation on the line. 'Sure, OK. Whatever you say.' 'It's true.'
'I believe you.' She added, 'What do you want, Tresa? Why are you calling me?'
Tresa began, but she stumbled over her words. 'It's about Glory.'
'What about her?'
'Actually, I guess it's not really about her. Listen, I have to know.'
'What?'
Tresa swallowed hard. 'Have you heard from your father?'
'My father? Are you kidding? Why?'
'I just wondered.'
'No, of course not. He wouldn't contact me. Oh, Jeez, you think he did this, don't you? That's what this is about.'
'Well, I mean, him being missing and all. The police are still looking for him. I thought if Glory saw him in Florida—'
'That's crazy, Tresa.'
'Is it? I don't know.'
'He wouldn't do this.'
'How do you know?'
She could hear her friend breathing and feel her indecision. Even after all these years, they still had a connection. They'd been as close as sisters. 'Look, Tresa, can you keep a secret?'
'You know I can. How can you say that to me?'
'Swear it.'
'I do, I do.'
'Then listen. My father didn't do this. So don't go spreading rumors like he did, OK? Stop it. I mean, maybe you're trying to help your boyfriend, but I don't need this all thrown in my face again. I've spent too much time getting past it. I'm a different girl now.'
'Yeah, but you don't know, do you? I mean, it's possible.'
'It's not. Really. The thing is, I know where my father is. He called me last year. He's living in Mexico. He's safe, and I'm safe. I don't want this thing splashed all over the news again and have someone turn him in. You know? So for me, Tresa, please, let it go. My father didn't kill Glory.'
* * *
Chapter Twenty-Six
The bar owned by Troy Geier's father sat at a deserted intersection on County Road T, miles from any of the coastal towns. The low white building needed a fresh coat of paint, as did the two-story farmhouse behind it. Cab parked in the dirt of the highway shoulder and headed for the front of the bar. As he did, he spotted a teenage boy hauling two bulging trash bags through the side door. Troy Geier hiked to the rear of the building, breathing loudly, and Cab followed. He heard the clang of metal as the boy threw the bags into a dumpster, and as Troy barreled back around the corner, he nearly collided with Cab and stopped in surprise.
'Hello, Troy.'
Troy adopted a who-cares attitude, but Cab knew it was fake. 'I heard you were in town,' the boy said.
'Got a minute?'
'Yeah, I guess, but my dad will get pissed if I'm too long.'
'It won't be long.'
Cab wandered into the middle of the empty road with his hands in the pockets of his dress pants. His tie blew over his shoulder. Troy trailed behind him, his feet shuffling. Cracks ran through the asphalt in the county road. There were no cars in any direction.
Troy smelled of frying grease and stale beer. He wore a Woody the Woodpecker T-shirt and blue jeans, and his hands were dirty. His bulging cheeks looked like a squirrel eating nuts.
'What do you do at the bar?' Cab asked.
'Whatever my dad tells me to do.'
Cab nodded. Troy's wavy hair was flat where he'd been wearing a hat, but Cab figured it could have been the giant thumbprint of Troy's dad squashing his boy. Whether it was his father, or Glory, Troy did as he was told.
'I heard you got a witness who can help you nail Mark Bradley,' Troy told him.
'Who told you that?'
'Mrs Fischer talked to the sheriff.'
'Well, we've still got a lot of work to do,' Cab said. 'In the meantime, I need to clear up a few things with you, Troy.'
'Like what?'
'Like the argument you had with Glory on Saturday night.'
Troy moved his jaw as if he was chewing gum. 'I already told you, it was stupid. I wanted Glory to come back to the room with me, and she wouldn't go. So I left.'
'I heard it was more than that,' Cab said.
'What do you mean?'
'I heard Glory was coming on to other boys in the pool.'
'It wasn't like that.'
'No?'
'No, Glory was playing games. She wasn't serious.'
'If my girlfriend was grabbing cocks under the water, I think I'd be pretty mad,' Cab said.
Troy's face reddened. 'She didn't do that!'
'We talked to a girl who said you were so mad you were ready to go off like a bomb.'
'I was just - that's not what happened. I told you, Glory had been acting weird all day. I was frustrated. It was our last day, and she was ruining it.'
'So you left her at the pool with the boys.'
'She wasn't doing anything crazy. She was just being Glory. I was mad at first, but I calmed down.'
'Did you go straight back to the hotel room?'
Troy nodded. 'I watched a movie. I already told you that.'
'Then what happened?'
'I fell asleep. That's it. I got up when Tresa woke me in the morning and said Glory wasn't in the room.'
'What did you think?' Cab asked. 'Did you think she was with another boy? Did you think she'd spent the night with someone?'
'No!'
'Are you sure you didn't wake up overnight and realize Glory was gone?'
Troy shook his head fiercely. 'I didn't.'
'Would you have gone to look for her?'
'I don't know. Maybe. I don't know. That's not what happened.'
'What if you saw her on the beach with Mark Bradley? That would have made you mad, wouldn't it? Particularly if you saw them kissing.'
Troy crumpled the collar of his T-shirt in his fist. 'Glory wouldn't let him touch her.'
'But what if she did? What if you saw her?'
'I didn't! You're trying to make it out like I killed her, and I would never hurt her, never.'
'I hear you, Troy. I do. You can help us prove it.'
'How?'
'Someone from the sheriff's office is going to pay you a little visit and stick a cotton swab in your mouth.'
'What? Why?'
'To get a DNA sample to match against Glory's fingernails. We think she scratched the person who killed her.'
Troy's eyes widened. 'Yeah, but she was my girlfriend. I don't know, what if she scratched me accidentally that day?'
'Did she?'
'I don't think so, but I don't know. I don't remember.'
'Give us a sample.
We'll check it and see.'
He hesitated. 'Yeah, I guess. But it doesn't mean—'
'Troy!'
Cab heard a shrill voice from the side door of the bar, which hung open. Delia Fischer stood in the doorway with her hands on her hips. Her face was worn, with suspicion etched in her bloodshot eyes. She shouted again. 'Troy, your dad wants to know where the hell you are.'
'I have to go,' Troy said.
'Sure.'
Troy looked relieved to have an escape. He jogged for the bar and squeezed past Delia, who stepped outside and closed the door behind her. She waited for Cab. Her bottle-blond hair hung limply at her shoulders. She wore a roomy polo shirt with the bar's logo on her breast and an apron tied round black jeans. She looked like a woman who had shrunk over the years and was growing smaller.
'How are you, Mrs Fischer?' Cab asked.
'How do you think I am?'
'I'm sorry, I know how hard this must be.'
'What do you want, Detective? What are you doing here?'
'I'm doing everything I can to find out what happened to Glory,' he told her.
Delia's hands were damp, and she dried them on the apron. 'Why were you talking to Troy?'
'I just had some more questions for him.'
'What kind of questions?'
Cab shrugged. 'It's routine.'
'The person you should be talking to is Mark Bradley,' she snapped.
'Mr Bradley isn't talking.' He added, 'It looks like people around here are trying to take matters into their own hands. Someone tried to kill him and his wife.'
'Am I supposed to feel bad about that?'
'If something happens to Mr Bradley, we'll probably never know the truth about Glory's death.'
'People will do what they do. I don't care. That's the sheriff's problem, not mine.'
Delia wore her bitterness like a shroud around her tense shoulders. He knew there was nothing he could do to change how she felt. Her mind was made up. She'd settled on one explanation for her grief, and that explanation was Mark Bradley. He'd become the symbol of every wrong turn in her life.
'Do you work here?' he asked, nodding his head at the bar.
'Yes.'
'You wait tables?'
'That's right. I wait tables, and at home I sell metal jewelry. I scrape by.' She eyed Cab's expensive suit with disdain. 'I guess you don't know what that's like.'
'You're right, I haven't lived that kind of life, but I respect it.'
'I don't need your respect or your pity. Some Door County natives, they do pretty damn well. They bought up land decades ago when it was cheap. My parents weren't able to do that. I was just lucky that they paid off the mortgage on their house, so I have somewhere to live. Then I lost my husband, and he didn't have any life insurance, so it was just me and the girls. Now it's just me and Tresa.'
'How's Tresa holding up?' he asked her.
'Why? Do you want to interrogate her, too? Do you think she killed her own sister?'
'I just wanted to make sure she's OK.'
'That's my business, Detective, not yours. I wish you'd do your job. Instead, you seem to be looking at everyone except the man we both know is guilty. You're badgering Troy, who wouldn't lift a finger against Glory. You're even chasing ghosts.'
'You mean Harris Bone?'
'Yes.'
'I have no reason to think Harris Bone has anything to do with this case, but I can't ignore the possibility.'
Delia shook her head. 'Listen to yourself. You're doing exactly what Mark Bradley and his wife want you to do. You're playing their game. If Harris was in Florida, someone would have recognized him.'
'Maybe someone did,' Cab said gently.
'You mean Glory? If she saw him, she would have called the police. Or she would have called me.'
Cab cocked his head with curiosity. 'She didn't call you, did she?'
'No.'
'But you knew Harris Bone pretty well, right?'
'Of course.'
'I'm a little surprised that you stayed friends with him after the car accident that killed your husband.'
Delia's mouth tightened, and her lips turned white. 'Harris wasn't to blame for what happened any more than the rest of us. We were stupid. It was a tragedy.'
'Were you surprised by what he did to his family?'
'I was sickened. Wherever Harris is, I hope he sees the faces of his family every time he tries to sleep. I hope he sees Glory's face, too. But that doesn't mean I believe he was in Florida.'
'I understand how you feel,' Cab told her. 'Mark Bradley is the prime suspect, but he's not the only suspect, and if I disregarded other theories of the crime, I'd make it easier for him to get an acquittal at trial. I don't want that to happen.'
Delia pressed the heels of her palms against her forehead, as if she was fighting a migraine that throbbed inside her skull. 'I know how it works, Detective. He'll walk away. The people from the city, the ones with money, they hire lawyers, and they get off.'
'Not if I can help it,' Cab said.
'I've heard it before, Detective,' Delia told him wearily, 'so don't waste your breath trying to convince me it will be different this time. I'm not waiting around for justice. The police don't do anything. The prosecutors don't do anything. The guilty walk free.'
She turned and went back inside the bar and slammed the door.
* * *
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Peter Hoffman parked at the end of Juice Mill Lane, where a rusting metal gate stretched across the old road that led into the forest. He was on the border of Newport State Park, which sprawled across the eastern edge of the NorDoor and jutted into Lake Michigan like the profile of a monster's chin. He still owned several acres of undeveloped land here that had been passed down from his grandparents to his parents over the course of half a century. He rarely visited now. Coming here carried too many memories of time and people passing away.
He was drunk. He knew he shouldn't have been driving, but no one was around to stop him, and the vacant land was only a few miles south on Timberline Road from his own home on the northern coast. He got out of his car. Around him, he saw nothing but winter fields and the tangle of forest behind the gated road. The sun was almost down. The world was getting darker minute by minute.
Hoffman took his half-empty bottle with him. He squeezed past the gate with its No Trespassing sign and limped down the old logger's road. A ridge of dormant grass made a racing stripe between the tire ruts, but no vehicle had traveled this road in years. There were Private Property signs posted on tree trunks every twenty yards or so. He'd nailed them there himself. He didn't want hikers in the park drifting on to his land and getting curious.
When he reached the trail that led to his grandfather's hunting cabin, he tried to remember when he'd last been here. Three years, at least. The shack was hidden behind an army of hardwood trunks that were green with moss. He'd spent countless nights and early mornings inside, before the walls had rotted and the roof had caved in during a snowy winter. He'd tasted his first beer there. He'd listened to his grandfather rail against Kennedy. He'd smelled the blood of animals they'd killed. He'd toasted dead friends with Felix in the years since the war.
He'd taken Harris and the boys here once for a man's night in the woods. That had been more than a decade ago. He remembered how content he had been with his life then, surrounded by family, with a wife he loved at home, in a beautiful part of the world, where he had history and friends.
It was all gone now.
He stared at the ruins of the cabin in front of him, and it felt like the ruins of his life. The wilderness was reclaiming it year by year. The windows had long ago been punched out by vandals. Its wooden beams were warped and popped, and the frame, which his grandfather had built by hand, would collapse altogether in another season or two. He didn't plan to be around to see its final demise. It was already a haunted place, and he was ready to become one of the ghosts.
Hoffman uncapped the bottle and dran
k, not noticing the burn in his throat. He had trouble standing. The cold and wind swirled around his body and picked at his skin. Darkness grew deeper, making the forest a nest of shadows and hiding places. He smelled the wood decaying. As he stood in the clearing, memories stormed his brain. There were good ones and terrible ones.
It would have been easy to kill himself right here. Death had no fear or mystery for him. He'd considered bringing a- shotgun and carrying it down inside the musty storm cellar and using his toe to reach the trigger. Eventually, someone would have stumbled upon the ladder in the ground and found him. Eventually, they would all know what had happened.
That was the coward's way. Hoffman had never been a coward. He owed a debt to Delia Fischer and to Glory, and he couldn't run away from it. It was time to face the truth.
The bottle slipped from his numb fingers and landed in the soft ground without breaking, but he didn't pick it up. The amber liquid ran out like a river on to the dirt-covered lid of the storm cellar. He turned, leaving the cabin and all its memories behind. His boots left dents in the earth. He felt at peace for the first time in a long time.
He thought that he would be able to sleep tonight, which was something that usually eluded him.
He hiked back along the rutted road until he could see the metal gate at the dead end fifty yards away. The last flicker of daylight made the hole in the woods bright against the gloomy interior of the forest. Sunlight gleamed against something. A mirror. A window. A pair of binoculars.
Hoffman heard the engine of a vehicle. He didn't see it, but he heard it. It was loud but got quieter as it disappeared down Juice Mill Lane with a roar of thunder on the gravel. When he reached the gate, where his own car was parked, he saw nothing but a trail of dust billowing out of the dirt road. The car had come and gone in the time he'd been inside the woods.
Someone had been watching him. Following him.
It didn't matter. He didn't care about the consequences for himself or anyone else. He knew what he had to do.
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