by Lia Farrell
The sheriff called everyone and said it was time to celebrate. Dory ordered pizza. His two deputies, George and Rob, left to go to the liquor store. Detective Nichols lumbered through the door just as the deputies returned.
“Hey, man, how’re you feeling?” Ben asked, noting Nichols’ limp and the white dressing on his upper arm.
“I’ve had worse.”
Ben turned to the deputies. “Beer?” he asked, throwing up his hands. “That’s all you got? I’ve got some real stuff in my desk. I’ll get it.”
He returned shortly after with a half empty bottle of Jim Beam, poured some in paper cups and passed them around.
“Here’s to my team; I salute you all.” The sheriff held his glass up in the air. “Dory, you’re officially included in briefing meetings from now on.”
“What about me questioning suspects?” she asked, walking over to Wayne. Dory looked up at him and winked. “Seems like you needed my help to get Covington.”
“Hey, hold on. What about me?” Deputy Rob Fuller asked. “I’ve been the one studying for the detective exam and I’m set to take it in a few months. Dory has no training at this,” he insisted, running hands through his hair and pinching his lips together.
“Time out, guys,” Ben said. “I’m going to have to give this some thought. However, right now we’re in the enviable position of having Tom Ferris’ killer in a cell. I’m in the mood to party with my pretty lady. The Ferris funeral is tomorrow morning. It’s at All Saints Episcopal on First Street at nine a.m., if any of you can make it.” Ben took a huge bite of pizza.
An hour or so later the group broke up. Deputy George Phelps sauntered out, saying he and his wife were headed to his mother’s place for a family reunion. Deputy Rob Fuller said he had a date. When Ben closed the office door behind him, the only people still drinking were his detective and Dory. On his way to Mae’s, the sheriff called Detective Pascoe. The old man didn’t answer, so Ben left a message.
“We arrested the bastard,” was all he said.
Chapter Thirty-One
Detective Wayne Nichols
Despite the pain in his leg, Detective Nichols had joined the office party in full swing, enjoying the flush of victory, even though he sensed the case was far from over. Once everyone else left, Wayne and Dory were alone in the office.
Wayne was grabbing his jacket from the rack when Dory said, “There’s something about this case that’s still eating you, isn’t there?”
“There is.” Wayne shrugged his shoulders, shaking off whatever still bothered him. “Maybe I’m just having a hard time letting it go.” He put on his jacket but stayed put.
Dory finished her drink but lingered, picking up the pizza boxes and napkins.
“It’s nothing,” the detective said, shaking his head. “I’m out of here.”
“Wait.” Dory put a hand on his arm. “It’s something personal, isn’t it? Sit down a minute, Wayne.”
“No, it’s nothing.” Wayne stood by Dory’s desk looking out the window of the office, but he didn’t leave. He felt his leg muscles tighten, as if he was getting ready to run. His shoulders were tight. He had the sensation of things moving too fast to process.
“You can tell me.” Her voice was almost a whisper. “They say confession is good for the soul, you know.”
Finally Wayne sighed deeply and said, “When I was a teenager, I was in foster care in the UP. I ran away when I was seventeen. There was a younger kid there, about ten years old. We weren’t brothers, but he was the only family I ever had.” This case, with Bethany Cooper and Miranda both wanting to cherish Tom Ferris as a brother, brought the kid back. “Truth is, I’ve always felt guilty about leaving him.” He bit his lip. He felt frozen to the spot. He was staring at the walls, but not seeing. As if talking to himself, he continued, “I told him when he got a little older, he could come and live with me, but it never happened.” He felt the wall of ice he had built around the past start to crack.
Dory touched his arm. “I can see why this case was a gut-wrencher. You’re such a private guy, Wayne, sometimes I forget that there’s a human side of you. You’re a detective, so of course you need answers, but you’re human too.”
“I want you to keep this to yourself, Dory Clarkson.” Wayne’s voice was full of menace. “No one else can know. It was hard enough for me to tell you.”
He swallowed hard. He felt like he had opened a vein by talking about his past. He feared the wound would never heal, now that he had shared it with another person. He avoided eye contact with her, looking at the floor.
“When I give my word, I keep it.”
“If I ever find out you told anyone, you’ll be very sorry.”
Dory rested her arm on his. There was a long silence before she said, “I’m hitting the town with my new girlfriend, Evangeline Bontemps, tonight. Would you like to come with us?”
Wayne shook his head, dragging his palms down his pant leg, wiping off sweat.
“Was it that hard to tell another person a little bit about yourself?”
Wayne grabbed her upper arm and then just as suddenly released it. His hands trembled. Without another word he hobbled to the exit, slamming the door behind him.
Driving to his apartment, Wayne picked up his phone. He pushed the letter “L” on his Contacts button. Lucy Ingram’s phone number popped up, along with an image of her winsome face. He didn’t push the ‘send’ button.
When he had seen her at the ER the night before, all the months since their break-up seemed to vanish. His profuse bleeding got him to the front of the triage line. A nurse recorded his blood pressure, which was elevated, and took his temperature. Dr. Lucy Ingram came into the cubicle a few minutes later.
“What have you let yourself in for this time, Detective?” she asked. She cut away his pant leg and said something to the nurse that he didn’t catch. Wayne felt anxious when the nurse returned with a long, silver-bladed instrument.
“This is going to hurt,” Lucy said, but her eyes were warm.
She was right. Once she removed the bullet and tended to the wound, Lucy bandaged his leg, cleansed the scrape on his arm, and put on a dressing.
“Looks like you’re going to live. I figured you would. You’re too tough to die. Come see me some time, Wayne, but not at the hospital.” Still slim as a reed, she slipped out through the drapes.
When Wayne Nichols reached his apartment after the impromptu party at the office, he grabbed a beer and looked around. He had a sense of the past colliding with the present. He was breathing in short bursts, the back of his throat ached, and his chest was so heavy he wondered if he was having a heart attack. Telling Dory about the foster brother he left behind brought to the surface the pain that always rode beneath his skin. Had it really been that hard telling Dory he felt guilty about leaving his young brother? Would it really be so hard to tell Lucy?
He and Lucy had stopped dating a few months before the Ruby Mead Allison case began the previous spring. On one of their last dates, they had gone horseback riding. She was in the lead on the trail. Her long brown hair streamed behind her in the sunshine. When they stopped in a meadow, she set out a blanket and food. He could still feel her lips on his as she bent to kiss him where he lay in the tall grass. She smelled like lemons.
He groaned, remembering the pain in her face the night they broke up. He heard her say, “It’s not enough anymore Wayne. You want to know everything about me, but you won’t tell me anything about yourself. I want to really know you, down deep. I want all your stories.” He hadn’t been able to share anything with her then.
“You’re an idiot,” he told himself. “Man up.” He dialed Lucy’s number.
She wasn’t home and for a moment, he almost hung up. Then he took a deep breath and left her a message.
“Lucy, it’s Wayne. If you’re still interested, I’m ready.” He walked to his bedroom and sat down on his bed. Then he stood up and opened the safe he had installed in the wall. He pulled out a St. Ant
hony’s medal and draped it around his neck. Its metallic coolness helped a bit. He lay down on his bed and tried to close off his mind.
When after midnight the phone rang, he reached for it automatically, barking out, “Nichols.”
“It’s Lucy.”
“I need to see you.” His hand clasped the medal.
There was a pause and an indrawn breath. “I want to see you, too, Wayne, but only if you want a relationship, a real relationship, not just a roll in the hay. When you’re ready, come over.” She clicked off.
He sat up, putting his feet on the cool wooden floors. The air conditioner hummed. This was harder than anything he had ever done. Feeling like he was going to his hanging, he walked naked into the shower and let the hot water steam on his back and shoulders. Half an hour later, he was on his way to Lucy’s house on Little Chapel Road.
As he drove into Lucy’s driveway, all the memories came flooding back. She was the smartest, sexiest woman he had ever been with. He turned off the car and sat there for a few minutes. Lucy’s porch light was on. She came to the front door and opened it, looking out, silhouetted by the light. She was wearing green hospital scrubs; she’d obviously just finished her shift. He felt his leg. It still ached, but the swelling was going down.
Lucy didn’t walk off the porch toward him, and he didn’t get out of his car. They looked at each other across the distance as the moon came out from under the clouds. Lucy crossed her arms in front of her chest, hugging herself. He turned off the car, his fingers sweaty on the key. As he opened the car door, he realized he was trembling.
You’ve got to do this, he told himself as he got out of the car and headed straight for her door. When he reached the porch, he took her in his arms and murmured, “It’s you I’ve wanted all along. Nobody else, just you.”
She took his hand and led him into the house. Neither of them spoke as Lucy took him into her bedroom. He sat on the edge of her bed as she pulled her scrubs off. She sat down and started unbuttoning his shirt. When she saw his St. Anthony’s medal, she gasped. Her fingers touched her parted lips.
Her voice both shaky and soft, she said, “In all the times we slept together, I never saw this.”
When they were both naked, lying side by side, Wayne leaned over and kissed her passionately. He ran his hand up her body to touch her breast.
“I want you,” he whispered, his voice raw.
Lucy sat up in bed and said, “Not yet, my friend. You have things to tell me. Begin at the beginning.” She touched the medal around his neck.
He felt the wall of gray ice sliding, breaking in chunks and falling away.
“The medal belonged to my foster mother,” he said. He took a deep, shaky breath and groaned quietly as the words poured out of him like water over a broken dam. He told her about the fear and rage he felt when he listened to his foster father beat his wife. The sick thud of his fists hitting her. The anger he felt when his foster mother showed him the bruises. His frantic departure when he realized there was no other way to keep from killing his foster father. The tears on the face of his little brother as he pleaded, “Don’t go.” The mist that took him that morning. When he was finished, he stopped, panting as though he had just run a race.
Lucy got out of bed, walked to the kitchen and padded back, carrying two drinks, ice clinking. “Go on,” she said, and he did.
“I went back there three years later,” he told her, again seeing the dingy ranch house on the gravel road. “It was getting dark by the time I found the house. His pick-up truck was parked in the yard. Broken whiskey bottles were everywhere. I opened the screen door and called her name—Jocelyn. She came into the living room and cried out. She didn’t recognize me.” He stopped, breathing hard.
“ ‘It’s Wayne,’ I told her. ‘Wayne Nichols.’ She screamed, ‘You’re too goddamn late. I always thought you would save me, but you never came. I had to end it myself. I stuck the pig with a knife.’
“I felt cold all over and I nearly fell against the wall. I asked her if he was dead. She said she didn’t know. We walked out to the pick-up and opened the door to the truck. His body fell out onto the gravel. He was still warm, but when I touched his neck to feel a pulse, there was none. He was dead. The smell of his blood made me sick.”
Wayne took a long hard swallow of the whiskey, feeling it stabilize his nausea.
“Shhhh,” Lucy said. “Enough. That’s enough for tonight.” She laid her long trim body on top of him, feeling his shuddering breaths. He was cold, almost in shock. She waited until he warmed and started breathing slowly. Her compassion enveloped him. Blanketed with her care, he felt something in his core melt.
Later Lucy moved off him and sat up on the edge of the bed. She reached for the soft, extra-large T-shirt she slept in and pulled it over her head. The rain had cooled the air, banishing the heat of the summer night. When she slid back under the sheets, Wayne sat up. “I have to say the rest,” he told her.
“It can wait,” she said, her voice warm and slow. She reached for him.
“No. It has to be now. If I don’t say it now, I never will.” He was shuddering.
Lucy sat up beside him and hugged her bent knees.
“I asked Jocelyn about my brother. ‘I found his body a week ago,’ she told me. ‘Was there an accident?’ I asked her. ‘No, he’d done it,’ she shouted. ‘It took me weeks to find the boy. He’d buried him without even wrapping him in a blanket. Not even his blanket. That’s why I stabbed him.’ She was shaking so hard her lips were blue. I realized then that she was still holding a long butcher knife in her hands.
“I’d been shadowing a detective and I asked her if there was any evidence that her husband had killed the boy. May God forgive me for asking her that question. I disgusted myself. Asking her for evidence. She knew!”
Wayne took a deep, raggedy breath. The story dragged itself into the present, tearing and ripping, like a wolf chewing off its foot to escape a trap. Lucy didn’t move; she hardly breathed.
“We dragged the man’s corpse to the place where she found my brother’s body. We laid them side by side in the dark, under the shadows of the trees. ‘We need to inform the police,’ I told her.
“‘I’ll kill you first,’ she screamed. I knew she meant it. She was so little, standing furious next to me. I held her arms tight to her sides. ‘It’s okay. I’ll help you,’ I said. ‘Let me have the knife.’ She gave it to me. We got a shovel and buried them. At dawn we drove his truck to a nearby gravel pit and sunk it. ‘You need to leave here and never come back,’ I told her. I gave her the keys to my truck. She hugged me and said good-bye.
“I cleaned myself up and waited two days. Then I walked over to the neighbors’ farm. I said I had come back to see Jocelyn and the family but they had cleared out, all three of them.” Wayne was exhausted, enervated. He lay back on the bed, choked with harsh sobs.
“Lucy, I’ve lived a lie. I’m a counterfeit detective who never got justice for the only person I ever really called family. My little brother lies in a nameless grave.”
“It’s over now,” Lucy said and kissed him, gently tasting his lips with her tongue.
“It will never be over,” he murmured, but he took the peace she offered. The pain in his leg had lessened. They made love with a ferocity that surpassed anything he’d felt before. He had to have her, the clean warmth of her; the pure hard release.
Chapter Thirty-Two
July Powell
At least it’s not raining this morning. July was outside, sitting at the picnic table, still wearing a robe over her pajamas. The kids were sitting with her, wearing their bathing suits, the remains of breakfast in front of them. The nine-year-old identical twin boys were thin and lanky in their red swim trunks, tan with sprays of freckles on noses and shoulders. With their shirts off, they were easier to tell apart—Parker had a mole on his left shoulder and Nathan was slightly more muscular. Olivia was paler, having inherited her father’s blond hair, blue eyes, and milky comp
lexion. Her arms and legs were starting to thin out, but she still had an endearing chubbiness to her torso. Six years old already. That baby fat won’t last much longer.
Nate asked, “Can I take the kayak out by myself?”
“If you wear your life-jacket and stay in sight of our dock you can.” She held her hand up to forestall the inevitable whine from Parker. “You get a turn after Nate. But all three of you need to carry your cereal bowls into the kitchen and make your beds before you get near the water.”
“Amberleigh never has to make her bed,” Olivia informed her mother, “or clear dishes.”
“I’m your mother, not Amberleigh’s,” July replied. “The chores we do in our family may not be the same as the family of your best friend.” All three of her children regarded her with wide eyes. “Seriously, get a move on.”
She stood up and grabbed the milk carton, cereal box, and her cup of coffee. “Nate, bring your bowl in to the sink, please.”
She picked up her cellphone, which was ringing on the counter. Seeing her husband’s picture on the screen, she pressed the ignore button and put the milk and cereal away. Pouring herself another cup of coffee, she took it and her phone into the bedroom. Sitting on her bed, she looked out the window at the sparkling water in the cove and felt like she was going to cry. She could hear the kids clanking around in the kitchen, followed by muffled thumps that hopefully indicated bed-making.
After sending Fred a quick text to let him know she and the kids were fine, July blew her nose and put on what she thought of as her ‘mom bathing suit.’ It was a modest tankini with a matching cover-up. She smeared sunscreen everywhere she could reach. Her hair was a mess, but she didn’t care. She found a ball cap on Fred’s side of the closet and pulled her ponytail through it, then went outside to make sure no one drowned today.
