“Nice outfit,” he said.
“Yeah. When I was ten. I really need to bring some decent clothes over here.”
“Why don’t you do that?”
She lowered her gaze, but not before he saw the sadness in her eyes. “Because I don’t want to.”
Matt knew it was because she didn’t want to admit this was still her bedroom, still the house she’d grown up in, still the place where they’d once been a family. “Don’t you ever sleep?” he asked.
“Not in this house. Not anymore.”
“Why do you hate it here so much?”
“It’s the way Dad protects his image, the perfect husband and father. That’s why he makes me sick. He’s such a fake. Such a—” She lifted her hair and flipped it to one side. Little flecks of glitter from the eye shadow she’d worn to the wedding glistened on the white skin of her neck. “Such a dweeb.”
He was too tired and sad to defend their father. “Look, I’m sorry about last night. I was mad at myself. But I shouldn’t have taken it out on you.”
“You’ve been mad at yourself for six years.” She moved over on the bed, patted the space beside her. “I miss Justin, too.”
It was a blow he hadn’t expected.
His body felt liquid and loose. He sat on her bed and leaned back against the pillow for a moment, waiting for the dizziness to pass so he could tell her Crystal was dead.
She reached into her bedside table and pulled out a cigarette.
“What are you doing?”
She lit it and inhaled deeply. “I’m smoking. What’s it look like I’m doing?”
“You’re thirteen. Nicotine is a drug. You promised you’d never do drugs.” He’d smoked a few cigarettes himself, even tried marijuana a couple times, but this was different. This was his little sister.
She held the smoke for a moment, then exhaled, a white cloud curling above her head. “Oh yeah,” she said, between coughs. “That promise. Well, I broke it. Breaking them runs in our family. A gene we inherited from our Garrison side.” She made a throwaway gesture with her right hand. “I found a half pack on the school playground. Are you gonna have me arrested?”
If anyone deserved to be arrested, it was Matt. The smell of the cigarette smoke brought back images of Crystal at her kitchen table. He pushed them away and thought about the past two years, wished he’d spent more time with his sister—another childish attempt to punish her and their mother for leaving.
Sedona replaced the Dépêche Mode lyrics in her cassette case and snapped it shut. “Sometimes I get so sick of being your sibling. It makes me gag when I watch the teachers’ faces. Oh, you’re Matt Garrison’s little sister. They think I’ll be brilliant and well behaved. Dorky, but perfect.”
“I’m about as far from perfect as a person can get.”
“Yeah, right. Whatever you are, I’m not like you. I’m like me. And I just want that to be good enough.”
He opened his mouth to tell her about Crystal, then something burst inside him and his shoulders began to heave. He leaned into his hands, and though he felt as if he sobbed, no tears fell.
“If you’re gonna go ballistic on me, I’ll stop. I’m not addicted or anything.” Sedona crushed the cigarette out on a saucer that still held the crust of a peanut butter sandwich. “Besides, it’s not like I’m free-basing cocaine or dancing with Mr. Brownstone.”
“About last night,” Matt said.
“Oh my God, that’s right. Is Travis okay?”
Matt shook his head. “His mother is dead.”
“Holy shit,” Sedona said, tears already welling in her eyes. “What happened?”
He told her she’d been found dead in their house, leaving out the bathtub, the blood, the whacked off hair and the razor blade, though he was sure she’d learn about it from someone else.
“Did she kill herself?”
“She would never do that to Travis,” he said. “I think the cops are treating it like a homicide.”
“Where’s Travis?”
He told her Travis was with Mom and Nate. How they’d canceled their honeymoon.
She leapt to her feet. “Drive me home. Please.”
“You are home.”
“This will never be home to me again. Please. Travis is my friend, too.”
“Fine. I’m going over in a little while. But you have to try harder with Dad. Stop acting like Nate took his place.”
Sedona snapped to attention, cupped her right hand over her eyebrow and saluted. “Only problem is, I really like Nate. And you would, too, if you gave him a chance.” She studied him for a moment. “But you can’t let yourself like anyone Mom loves.”
He thought about the way Nate had comforted him in Catalina. “I like you. Most of the time.” He glanced at the clock on her dresser. It was 9:50am. He stood, but before he left her room, he turned to her again. “I need you to understand something,” he said, waiting for her to look at him. “No way I’m a saint. Not even close.” He looked away, the remainder of his words directed at her pink gingham bedspread. “I’m not what everyone thinks. You want to know the truth?”
“Sure. Tell me Ted Bundy was just falsely executed for your crimes. Or you rob 7-Elevens and beat up old ladies on street corners.”
He held up a hand to stop her. “I don’t do any of those things, but I’m a lousy person who goes around pretending he’s somebody special, somebody who does the right thing.”
Sedona laughed.
* * *
Matt poured himself a bowl of Fruit Loops and sat at the kitchen breakfast bar, postponing seeing his mother and Travis. Outside in the pool, he heard the steady slapping of the water as his dad swam his hundred laps, a weekend ritual. Matt checked the kitchen clock. 10am. His father was as reliable as an alarm clock.
The doorbell rang.
Sedona rushed to answer.
Within seconds, Matt heard the garage door open.
“Who was that?”
“I took care of it,” she said. “Some dude from Anderson’s Garage Doors—We Do It Up and Down.” She paused and smiled. “No kidding, that’s what was painted on the side of the truck.”
“You should be more careful about letting in strangers.”
“Because of what happened to Crystal?” She pinched his cheek. “Don’t go all paranoid on me.”
“I’m not paranoid. I just want you to be safe.”
Sedona sighed. “When can you take me home?”
“Later.”
“What’s wrong with now?” She picked up the telephone and dialed their mother, asked if Nate could pick her up. She listened for a moment. “Oh. Okay. Well, as soon as he gets home.”
“What’s the matter? Your personal taxi driver quit?”
She told him what he already knew. Nate had taken their aunt and uncle to the airport. After Justin died, Aunt Kelsey and Uncle Bryce had buried him in the family plot in Delaware, then sold their house in Tucson and moved back. “Mom doesn’t want Travis to wake up and find nobody home. It wouldn’t kill you to drive me over there.”
“I’m not ready yet.” Matt returned to his cereal.
Sedona stomped into her bedroom and slammed the door.
The cereal had turned the milk in his bowl pink, like the Strawberry Quick powder Crystal used to put in their milk. She’d claimed it was fruit and surely better for them than chocolate. He picked up the bowl and dumped the cereal into the garbage disposal.
He needed some time away from Travis to figure out what really happened last night. Matt shuddered. Someone could have planted a razor blade to make it look like suicide.
Once again, he forced himself to remember everything he could—drinking beer and dancing with Crystal, their lovemaking, the argument about telling Travis, her anger, and then her insistence he sleep before driving home. He had a vague memory of water running and assumed it was Crystal running her bath. He’d been confused, but was certain he’d heard the sound of two cars. One at 10:38 and the other at 11:20. The second
time he’d heard the front door open and close and a car door slamming across the street, which he’d confirmed by looking out the window. The sound of a motor turning over. He’d watched both cars drive away, only the glow of their tail lights recognizable. One of those cars must have held Crystal’s murderer.
Crystal’s neighbors were mostly old people. And Mrs. Lawrence, the woman in the house across the street, went to bed early. She had for years. It didn’t make sense she’d have visitors leaving so late.
His sister would be pissed when she learned he’d left without her, but he wanted her to spend some time with their father.
And Matt needed to ask Mrs. Lawrence a few questions.
Chapter Thirteen
It was nearly 11am on Sunday when Radhauser stopped by the Safeway and picked up a bouquet of yellow roses, Laura’s favorite. His wife and son had been dead for three hundred and sixty-five days. He should head out to The Silver Spur to interview Baxter and the two waitresses Travis had mentioned, but Radhauser had something important to do first.
With the scent of roses filling the car, he drove through the arched gates into Hope Lawn Cemetery. He took the winding asphalt drive to the left and parked his Bronco in front of the row of graves where Laura and Luke were buried.
He opened the tailgate and lifted the weighted lariat with the rawhide Hondo Lucas had spotted at the Grange Co-op a few weeks before the accident. The boy had looked up at him and grinned, the braces on his teeth glinting under the fluorescent lights. Please, Dad. I’ll wash your car for the rest of my life.
Radhauser shook his head, as if that gesture might clear the memory. The new lariat would be stolen before the day ended, but it didn’t matter.
The air smelled of mowed grass, which had been cropped as close as a golf course. Like green confetti, small, damp blades stuck to his boots as he walked. The sky was bright blue and the wind played in the Desert Willows, sunlight bouncing off their leaves.
He’d chosen burial over cremation because he knew there would be days like this one when he needed a grave to visit, someplace where his family felt tangible—within arm’s reach, just six feet beneath his hands.
During the past year, the ragged edges of sod had knitted together in a green carpet as thick as velvet. The headstone, large enough to cover three graves, had the name Radhauser carved in block letters across it.
Though he’d come bearing gifts, he didn’t intend to get sentimental. He wasn’t the kind of man who’d convinced himself his life with Laura had been perfect. She could be a pain in the ass, especially about the overtime hours he spent on the job. But they’d had moments of real happiness he hadn’t questioned while living them.
He looked away. Moments. Maybe they were the secret of love.
A family of three quail strutted single file along the paved walkway.
His car radio bleeped.
He ignored it, placed the lariat on top of Lucas’ grave and struggled to remember his son’s face. But each time he tried, it was Travis Reynold’s face Radhauser envisioned.
His hand trembled as he arranged the roses in the copper vase in front of the gravestone, using the hose at the end of the row to fill the vase with water. When he finished, he sat on the grass and stared at his wife’s name. Laura Jane Radhauser. “It was a good idea to start that college fund for Luke,” he told her. “You’d be surprised by how much it’s grown.”
The radio squawked again. It seemed louder this time. He heard Lottie’s voice. “Where the hell are you, Wind?”
Radhauser scrambled to his feet. “Shut up, dammit! Can’t I have ten fucking minutes with my family?” Then he felt bad. He was glad Lottie couldn’t hear him. It wasn’t her fault. She was just doing her job.
He patted the headstone above his son’s name. “I miss you, cowboy,” he said, then headed back to his car to take Lottie’s call.
Ordinarily, he’d stop by another grave. Tyler Meza, a six-year-old who’d been abducted from the Dennis Weaver Little League Park in 1980. Tyler was Wind’s first kidnapping case and it had come down all wrong. After the funeral, Wind had Tyler’s name tattooed on his wrist beneath the face of his watch. A hidden reminder to never forget the mistakes he’d made.
But he didn’t have time to visit that grave today. There was another boy, a seventeen-year-old living boy, depending on him to find the person responsible for his mother’s death.
* * *
Matt parked in Mrs. Lawrence’s driveway. To his relief, Radhauser’s Bronco was nowhere to be seen.
He rang the bell.
No one answered.
He rang again.
Finally, the old woman made her way to the door. She looked through the peephole. “I’m not dressed for company.”
“I want to talk to you for a few minutes, Mrs. Lawrence. It’s Matt Garrison. I’m Travis’s friend. We used to pick up groceries for you, remember?”
She opened the door. Mrs. Lawrence wore a blue cotton robe snapped down the front. Yellow buttercups dotted the hem. The old woman looked as if she’d shrunk a few inches since the last time Matt had seen her. She invited him inside.
Her blue slippers made a shuffling sound as they crossed the hardwood floor, her movements slow and labored, but her face was perfectly made up, her hair permed into little white ringlets that bounced when she talked. She sat on the sofa. Matt took the rocking chair across from her.
“You’re the boy who drives the Mustang.” She batted long, dark eyelashes that were obviously false, as if she wanted to make sure Matt noticed them. “I get the groceries delivered from the Casas Adobes Market now.”
“I’m not looking for a job,” Matt said. “I wanted to ask a couple questions about last night.”
She nodded, her curls bobbing. “A terrible thing. Poor Travis. And he’s such a nice young man. Imagine him getting that scholarship. Henry, he lives next door to Crystal, went over to check on things. The back door was unlocked so he went on in. Let me tell you, he was white as a ghost this morning when he told me about it. It must have been awful for that boy.”
“You’re right. Travis didn’t deserve any of this,” Matt said, his words tripping over each other like someone running away from a crime scene.
She fiddled with the hem of her robe, swishing the buttercups. “Where is Travis? He’s not staying in that house, is he? I bet it will never sell. Something like that happening taints a place, you know?”
He told her Travis was staying with his mother and stepfather. “Did you have visitors last night? Someone who left about 10:38pm, then someone else who left about an hour later?”
“Heavens, no. I go to bed at 8pm. And you will, too, when you’re my age. Mark my words.”
“Did you hear anything? A car starting or a door slamming around that time?”
“I take my hearing aids out at night. But I did hear Crystal having a terrible fight in the driveway with some man. I looked out the front window. He was good-looking. Dressed real nice, like a lawyer or something. When he left, she chased him down the road and threw a rock at his car.”
“What time was that?”
“Aren’t you a little young to be working for the police? Besides, I already told that nice detective in the cowboy hat all about this.”
“Do you remember anything about the car? How about the shape of the taillights?”
“Son,” she said, batting her eyelashes again, “I don’t even remember my own birthday anymore.”
Matt asked her again about the time.
“It was definitely after my supper. I eat around 6:30. So maybe it was around 7:00 or so.”
He thanked her and headed to The Silver Spur Steak House to talk to Crystal’s co-workers, see if one of them knew who drove her home last night.
* * *
Matt crossed the creaky wooden plank floor and stood for a moment to let his eyes adjust to the dim light. The inside walls were covered in old barn wood and decorated with lassos and bridles, horseshoes, and fringe-trimmed suede chaps s
pread out into the shape of bowed legs. Patterns from dozens of branding irons had been scorched onto the wood. He’d been here with Travis enough times to know the waitresses.
He headed toward an oak podium where Gracie stood, wearing the same outfit Crystal had worn last night. Grief crept up his throat, tightened it. He looked away, swallowed back the memory.
“Matt,” she said, looking toward the front door. “Is Travis with you? I can’t wait to hear about his dance.”
“No. But something terrible has happened. And I really need to talk to you.”
She led him to a small table near the front of the restaurant. “Is Travis okay?”
He told her Crystal was found dead in her home last night, leaving out all the details.
Gracie’s face scrunched up like a child’s. A moment later, she started to cry. “I can’t believe it. She was so happy when I saw her yesterday. Where’s Travis?”
He told her Travis was staying with his family, and assured Gracie his mom would take good care of him.
“That poor kid. He doesn’t have anyone now.”
Matt looked away. “He has me. And my family. Do you have any idea what Crystal was so happy about?”
“I never pegged Crystal as the type to have enemies that would…” She trailed off.
“Why was she so happy?”
“I don’t exactly know. But she said she’d gotten some good news and needed to share it with her boyfriend.” There went Matt’s theory she’d gotten bad news at her doctor’s appointment on Friday afternoon. If she was happy on Saturday when Gracie saw her, then something changed between the time Crystal left work at 6:00 and the time Matt saw her around 7:45pm. Maybe the so-called boyfriend didn’t think her news was good.
“Wasn’t she supposed to work last night?”
“She asked me to cover for her.”
“Do you know this boyfriend’s name?”
“She was so proud of Travis getting that baseball scholarship. She planned to go to every single game.”
Redemption Lake Page 9
