Just then the waitress arrived. “Would you ladies care to order now?”
Realizing that she’d mistaken Helen for her expected lunch partner, Clare sputtered, “Uh well, no thanks. She’s—”
“I’m leaving.” Helen reluctantly got to her feet, glaring at the waitress for interrupting. Then she turned her attention back to Clare. “You want to know who’s to blame for my wrecked life? For all the crappy things that have happened to us?” She moved closer, standing next to Clare, and bent down. “Rina Thomas. That’s who.” Then she wheeled around and marched out the diner.
Stunned, Clare watched her leave. Vaguely aware of the waitress hovering nearby, she summoned a faint smile. “I think she’s having a bad day,” she said. The waitress gave a doubtful nod and moved off to another booth. Clare shakily picked up her water glass and sipped. She was debating leaving herself when Gil walked through the door. It was all she could do not to run to him.
As soon as he sat opposite her, beaming a smile that carried her instantly back to last night, Clare mentally pushed Helen Wolochuk aside. She’d spent most of the night trying to paint a picture of Gil in her mind’s eye as he lowered his mouth to hers, but all she came up with was the sensation of his lips on her skin. The confident but light sweep of his fingertips at the nape of her neck and skimming up through her hair. A memory of seventeen-year-old Gil Harper had surged through her and for a moment, she’d convinced herself she’d actually gone back in time. That really she was curled up on his lap in the back seat of his father’s car.
But the Gil of last night was new to her. His ardor was just as intense, but more restrained and he skillfully built her own desire for him to a point where she was about to invite him up to her room. Until someone strolling along the dark street came upon them and Clare froze. There’d been a flurry of whispers and even an apology but the magical moment had vanished.
“Sorry I’m late.”
He still hadn’t taken his eyes off her and Clare felt her face heat up under his almost raptured gaze. “That’s okay,” she said, reaching for her glass of water again. Then casually, she asked, “Did you get the file?”
He nodded. “It’s in my car. I was thinking this isn’t the best place to read through it. Shall we go back to my place now or do you want another coffee?”
“Let’s go now. I’d like to get out of here before Helen comes back.”
Gil frowned. “Helen?”
Clare told Gil about the confrontation with Helen Wolochuk minutes ago. “She sounds like she’s going off the deep end. Maybe we should keep our distance from her.”
“She’s definitely wound up about all of this. Her reactions seem out of proportion to what happened, though. I mean, she’s bound to be upset by what Jason did but she ought to be grateful we didn’t simply report him to the police. We could have.”
“Exactly. The other thing I don’t get is that comment about Rina Thomas being the person responsible for all the Wolochuk troubles.” He thought for a long moment.
“The Wolochuks don’t have anything to do with the Thomas case, as far as I can see.”
“They must know something about the Thomas case. That’s got to be what’s bothering them. There’s no other explanation for all the fuss they’ve been making—all three of them—about me and my book.” Clare shivered. “They’re involved somehow and they’re afraid of public scrutiny about Rina’s death.”
Gil smiled. “I can see why you’re the writer and I’m not. That’s quite an imagination. But I think we need to read the file first, before we continue with all of this speculation.”
Clare knew her blush stemmed not from the compliment, but from the expression in his eyes. In spite of what he’s saying, his thoughts are on last night, too.
“Shall we go, then?” she quickly asked.
The file lay on the passenger seat of Gil’s car and Clare had to pick it up before sitting down. She resisted peeking inside, though. She wanted to give it her full concentration, which would be difficult with Gil sitting inches away from her. She sneaked a few glances his way, focusing mainly on his hands as they rested on the steering wheel. Imagining those fingers stroking her face as he had last night occupied her thoughts on the short ride to Gil’s place and when he helped her climb out of the car, she almost jumped at his touch.
“You okay?” he asked.
“Hmm? Maybe a bit stressed from…you know…Helen Wolochuk.” She accepted the hand he held out to her and walked with him up the sidewalk.
Memories flooded back. She and Gil, hand in hand and burdened by backpacks, going to the Harper home to do their homework together. When she reached the front door, Clare was certain she was trembling all over.
But he seemed not to notice. As soon as they were inside, he said, “Make yourself at home. I just want to check the voice mail on my cell phone. I’ve got things set up in the kitchen,” and proceeded into the living room.
She wandered along the hall, risking a glance into his old bedroom where they’d spent many an afternoon playing music, talking or kissing. Kissing. Snap out of it, Clare. She entered the kitchen and sat down.
“The place really looks empty with all those boxes gone,” she commented.
“For sure. The truck came first thing this morning.” He brought coffee mugs to the table. “Got your book with you?”
“Here in my bag.” She dug into her canvas carryall and set her novel onto the table next to the file folder. She watched him, fascinated by the methodical way he had organized the table.
“What?” he asked suddenly, glancing up and catching her stare.
She flushed. “Nothing. Just wondering when you became so…so…”
“Anal retentive?”
Her flush deepened. “I was going to say orderly.”
He grinned. “You’re being polite. I think my tendency to organize increased after I left home to go to college. It was a way for me to have control over something in my life. That—” he paused a second “—that…uh, seemed important after what happened.”
He didn’t have to spell it out. Clare knew at once he was referring to the night he spent in custody. She stared at the papers in front of her, unable to meet his gaze. Then, as soon as it had happened, the moment had passed. Gil sat down and opened up the file folder.
“How shall we do this? Split it in half, then tell each other what we’ve read? Or shall we both read everything?”
“I think the last idea,” she said. “In case one of us misses something.”
“Good point.” He deftly thumbed through the papers and handed her a sheaf.
What struck her immediately was the paucity of information in the file. “There’s not a lot to go through,” she said.
He looked up from the paper in his hand. “I agree. I would’ve thought a murder investigation file would be a lot thicker than this.”
“Maybe there’s another file. Or a book. Don’t police put together what they call a Murder Book?”
Gil shrugged. “Yeah, but I don’t know what they do here in Twin Falls.” He began to read.
Clare picked up the top sheet of her portion. It was a form completed by the officer who responded to the first emergency call at the scene. “Did you know that Rina’s death was reported by an anonymous caller?”
Gil’s head shot up. “No, I didn’t. Is there a time given?”
She skimmed through the report again. “Yes, here it is. 5:10 p.m. The call was made by an unknown person from an unknown location. When the officer got to the scene, some man walking his dog in the ravine had also spotted Rina and called police. His name is here—if you think it’s important.”
Gil shook his head. “Nah, but who was the officer who responded?”
Clare read the bottom of the report. “Kyle Davis. Isn’t he the current sheriff?”
“Yes. Maybe worth a visit to see him.”
“Except how will we explain where we got this information.”
Gil raised an eyebrow. “Got me there. We’ll think o
n it.” He resumed reading.
Clare went on to the next sheet of paper—a transcript of a statement from Rina’s parents. She skimmed over it. They’d expected her home late that day because she’d told them she had to see a teacher about a mark. They thought she was referring to her chemistry teacher, Mr. Wolochuk. Rina was supposed to call for a ride home if she missed the school bus.
Clare recalled Gil’s assertion that he’d been walking Rina to her friend’s house on the other side of the river. She’d missed her bus and needed to call home. Clare shivered. For the first time, she had a mental picture of Rina confronting her attacker. What if she hadn’t missed her bus? Clare took a deep breath and continued.
The next witness statement was her own. She rushed through it, already knowing what it contained. Then she stopped, her eyes caught on a couple of sentences. She went back, read them again. “Gil?”
“Hmm?” He raised his head and looked across at her.
Clare noted a slightly stunned expression in his face. As if he’d just been aroused from a bad dream. “Last night I decided to skim through my book again, to look for anything I might have missed in my recollection of the day Rina—or Marianne, in the book—died. I did find something that puzzled me and now, in this witness statement I gave, there’s a reference that corroborates what I’d overlooked.”
His forehead crinkled. “Oh?”
“It says here that after I saw you and Rina walking toward the ravine path, I ran around the corner of the school and saw someone on a bicycle riding onto the playing field.”
The lines in his brow deepened. “Yeah?”
“The person seemed to be heading toward the ravine, too. But he—or she—was quite a ways behind you and Rina.”
“Do you remember anything about this person?”
“Not really. I’d even forgotten about seeing him until now. I think he was too far away.”
“Sure it was a he?”
“No.”
“Put that sheet of paper aside,” he said. “We’ll keep separate anything that looks especially important.”
Clare set the paper down on the table and went on to the next report. It was the statement taken from Gil that night. She glanced quickly at Gil, but he was staring into space, deep in thought.
The time on the report form was 9:00 p.m. She suddenly remembered that they’d had an English test the next day. Instead of studying, Gil had been sitting in an interrogation room in the sheriff’s office. Later, he was in a cell. Tears prickled the corners of her eyes. He’d been seventeen years old. Alone and, Clare imagined, frightened. To top it off, he was there because of what she’d said in her own statement to police two hours earlier.
She forced her way through the rest of the report, noting that it corresponded in every detail with what he’d told her the other day. Except for one thing. She raised her head. “Gil?”
“Hmm? Something else?” He looked across at her.
“It’s…uh…your statement. You saw the same person I did.”
“What? The person on the bike?”
She nodded. “Here’s what you said. You were standing on the bridge and had turned back to wave goodbye to Rina. It was about 4:35, because you’d both left the field at 4:20 p.m. Rina was sitting on a tree stump and had her back turned to you. She was looking down the path leading to the school. You thought you saw someone on a bicycle riding up that same path, but couldn’t tell who it was. The person was too far away.” He didn’t move for a long moment. Clare wondered if he’d heard everything, but then she realized he was synthesizing it. Putting it into context with his present memory.
“So we both forgot this person on the bike. Maybe we were thinking he—or she—was simply another student on the way home.” He massaged his forehead. “This is important, Clare.”
“He could have been the last person to see Rina alive.”
“The very last,” Gil emphasized.
Clare dropped the paper onto the first one. She was almost afraid to continue. The final witness statement in her pile was from Stanley Wolochuk. “Here’s Stanley’s statement. He says that Rina burst into his office about four o’clock, very upset about her chemistry grade. They discussed it…” Clare glanced up and muttered, “He’s definitely sanitized what really happened. Anyway, he says she left about four-fifteen.”
“That’d be right,” Gil said. “She bumped into me on the field less than five minutes later.”
“But he makes the whole scene sound so normal, when it wasn’t at all. And there are no other witness statements,” she added, “except for the one given by the man walking his dog. You’d think there’d be more.”
Gil picked up his coffee and drank slowly.
“The police should have questioned other people, like students.” Clare went on. “Rina could have made plans to see someone else that day. Someone else might have seen her leaving with you. And why was there no attempt to locate the unknown bike rider?”
“They did talk to Rina’s girlfriend. I’ve got that report here. She just said that Rina often came to wait there if she missed her bus.”
“Did that happen a lot?”
Gil searched for the paper and scanned it. “Looks like it did. She said Rina came over at least once a week—almost every Thursday—to wait for her father to pick her up.”
“What was Rina doing in town every Thursday? I mean, she didn’t belong to any clubs, did she?”
“I don’t think so.”
“And she obviously wasn’t working on her chemistry.”
“Not likely,” he murmured. His eyes never left her face.
Clare had a feeling he guessed where she was heading. Finally, he said, “She wasn’t with me, either, Clare.”
Heat rose up into her face. She lowered her eyes to the papers in her hands. “I wasn’t implying that,” she whispered.
“Just so you know,” he said.
She heard him shuffling through papers, but kept her eyes down. There’s no hope, she thought, of ever having a normal relationship with him. Every other word or sentence is fraught with some unintended meaning or reference to that day. We simply can’t put it behind us. The realization stung as she remembered her exhilaration after his kiss last night. She furtively dabbed at her eyes and got back to reading.
But the heading on the next piece of paper caught her breath. The autopsy report. She was tempted to shuffle it back into the pile, but knew she couldn’t. Time of death, she noted, was between four-thirty and five o’clock, based on status of the body and witness reports. No wonder Gil had been a suspect, since he’d said goodbye to her at about 4:35.
Clare read on. Cause of death was a blunt trauma injury to the head. Part of a bloody tree branch had been found a few feet away. No fingerprints taken from it. She skimmed across a lot of medical terminology until she came across a phrase that shocked her. Victim was carrying a six-week-old fetus at time of death.
HE HAD NO WARNING and had scarcely registered the sharp intake of breath when two stapled papers were slapped down on the table in front of him. Clare was on her feet. Gil’s head jerked up.
“You’d better read that,” she snapped.
Her face was bright red and her eyes looked teary. What the hell, he thought. He placed his index finger on the papers and slid them closer. The autopsy report. Hands trembling, he picked it up and skimmed through it. Much he’d already heard from the police. Even the last part, at the very bottom. He looked up but she’d already left the kitchen. Gil jumped to his feet and swore. He should have mentioned it himself.
“Clare?” He went into the hall and thought he heard her crying somewhere. Not in the living room, nor the bathroom. Inexplicably, she’d chosen his old bedroom. He found her sitting cross-legged on his bed, hands over her face.
“I wasn’t the father,” he said from the bedroom doorway.
She ignored him. Gil perched on the edge of the narrow bed. “That’s why the police kept me in custody for a night,” he said. “They wanted
to hold on to me until they got the autopsy results. Then, when they learned Rina had been pregnant, they asked me to take a blood test. When that came up negative, they checked my alibi. If I hadn’t bumped into a guy on the baseball team shortly after I left Rina, I might have stayed in jail longer. Even still they kept hounding me for days afterward.” The old emotions rushed back. He tightened his jaw, reining in the frustration and anger that surfaced every time he thought about what happened.
She was sitting upright now, eyes big in her tearstained face. “Why didn’t you tell me? Not now, but back then. The night we met in the park. It would have made all the difference.”
Because you would have jumped to the same conclusion you just did, seconds ago. Only then it would have been worse. Then you would have really believed it. After a moment’s silence, he had to speak. Some perverse inner voice wanted her to know exactly what he’d endured that night in custody.
“It wasn’t like television, you know, shows like Law and Order. The police didn’t let me make any phone calls for almost an hour. I still remember the sound of my mother’s voice—the fear and panic in it—when I told her where I was. And there was no good cop, bad cop kind of thing. They both believed that I had killed Rina.”
Gil closed his eyes for a minute, replaying the sneers and cold voices of the two police officers. Intimidating him with their calculated and brutal description of how Rina had been killed and what she’d looked like in death.
He took a deep breath. “I was only seventeen.”
She didn’t speak for a long time. “Do you blame me for what happened to you?” Her voice was shaky.
There it is, he thought. Out in the open. Good question. Did he? At first, definitely. But by the time he was back home the next evening, he only wanted to hold on to her. To have her wrap her arms around him and tell him everything would be all right. Except it didn’t happen. He saw the misery in her eyes and knew he couldn’t say any of that.
She got up from the bed and for a wild second he thought she was going to embrace him now, the way he’d wanted her to years ago. But she kept walking to the door and was out of the room before he clued in to the fact that she was leaving.
Past, Present and a Future (Going Back) Page 18
