“No,” he said. “I don’t drink when I need to. I drink when I don’t.”
She looked at him with plenty of understanding, but with so much fatigue, and he said, “Go to bed. We’ll talk tomorrow. And—Jennifer.”
“Yes?”
He put out a hand and brushed it over her cheek. “Thanks for coming.”
The next day, he wasn’t doing any of the things he ought to be doing.
He wasn’t taking Annabelle to buy another suitcase, and helping Jennifer shop for something better than his sweats to wear. Something that wouldn’t be loose, because she thought she had to wear that, because she was ashamed to enjoy feeling beautiful. Something that would show off what he now realized was a pregnancy-ripened figure. Not much belly yet that he could see, but a whole lot of breast. He wasn’t sitting on the Boyfriend Chair telling her to try the next size down and having her get all sassy at him. Giving Annabelle something to laugh about, too.
He wasn’t thinking about which way he wanted that DNA test to turn out, either, because he couldn’t. That part of his mind was a tangled mess. It was what she’d said, maybe. Nothing had settled down enough for him to think about it.
He wasn’t talking to his sister Alison, after her interview with Detective I’m-not-nearly-as-relaxed-as-I-look Johnson. He hadn’t even seen Alison yet, in fact. He also wasn’t meeting Vanessa’s flight. Jennifer and Annabelle were doing that right now.
What he was doing was sitting in the kind of room he’d only seen in the movies. The kind with scuffed paint that must once have been white but now just looked dirty, with a white table bisected by a ceiling-to-floor Plexiglas divider, and a telephone receiver mounted on either side of it.
The door opened on the opposite side of the barrier, and he tensed. The figure who came through it was nothing like the hale, hearty, red-faced salesman he would’ve been yesterday. He looked shrunken, his graying blond hair wispy and unkempt, the traffic-cone-orange shirt and pants loose around him.
If that was supposed to make Harlan feel sorry for him, it wasn’t working. He waited, his hands held loosely in his lap by an effort of will, until his father sat down at the table and picked up the receiver. And then he picked up his own.
His dad said, “Hi. Thanks for coming.”
Harlan said, “You said you needed to see me. You said it was urgent. I’ve got Annabelle, and I’ll be taking her home with me, so if you’re worried about her, you don’t have to be. I’ve got her.” His body felt heavy with unsaid words, his hands and mouth clumsy with restraint.
His dad said, “That’s good. But I need you to get me a lawyer.”
Harlan had been blessed from birth with the kind of reflexes that got you chosen for fighter-pilot duty, and he’d honed those reflexes with twenty-five years of hard work. He was a quick thinker, a quick talker, and a quick actor. Right now, though, he was sitting in a bolted-down plastic chair, looking at one of the first faces he’d seen in his life, and he was blank.
Finally, he said, “They must be letting you use the phone. Get a lawyer yourself.”
“I tried. They want twenty thousand just as a retainer. It could be a hundred thousand, in the end. Two hundred. All up front.”
Harlan picked the words up like stones. “You have a house. You have a business. You probably have a retirement account.”
“I’d lose them. I’d lose everything. It could take two years. And how do I work with this hanging over me? How do I make a living?”
“Guess you’d better go with the public defender, then.”
“Son.” His dad never called him “son.” Never. “It’s more than that. I need bail, too. It could be a million bucks. How am I going to pay that? I can’t.”
“There’s such a thing as a bail bond.” This was actually happening. His dad was asking him to bail him out for killing his mom.
Who did that?
“Another hundred thousand,” his father said. “A hundred fifty, even.” He tried a smile, a ghost of his great-guy persona. “What’s that, a quarter of a game for you? Ten minutes, with that new contract?”
“It’s five minutes,” Harlan said. “Which doesn’t mean I’m spending it on you. And they don’t always grant bail for murder. So cheer up. Maybe you won’t have to worry about it.” A question he’d asked the detective yesterday.
“It’s a mistake,” his father said. His face entreating now, sincere. The face of a salesman who was telling you that he’d be losing money on this deal, that he had kids to feed. That this was his very best effort, because he was scraping the bottom of the barrel for you. “You don’t understand, son. This is all a big mistake.”
Harlan looked down at his hand, which was lying on the table now. He had to, because he had to make sure it was there. He couldn’t feel his body anymore. “Yeah?” he said, when he could. “How?”
“You think I killed your mom?” his dad said. “That I planned to kill her? I loved that woman.” The tears filled his eyes. “Why would I do something like that? I need your help to prove it. Please. I can’t stay here.”
Harlan asked, “What are you saying? Somebody else did all that? Who?”
“Anybody else could have done it.” His dad was leaning forward now, urgent with it. “Listen. They break into the office, take the keys. Get a Bobcat, put it on a trailer. That land wasn’t fenced. All they’d have had to do was drive back behind the trees where they’d be out of sight, and then dig the hole. They had all night to do it. Who’s going to see them out there in October?”
Harlan’s scalp was prickling, the hair standing up on his arms. He said slowly, trying to sound confused, “Why would somebody kill Mom?”
“Why do you think?” His dad laughed, the sound harsh and jarring, and Harlan had to control himself not to leap forward and … what? Maybe the barrier wasn’t just there to keep the prisoner in. Maybe it was also to keep the visitor out, because if it hadn’t been there, he’d have been across the table.
“You saying somebody else was sleeping with her?” he asked. “And that he killed her? Who?”
“That bookstore guy,” his father said. “I’ve always known that was who she went off with. Looks like I was right after all, except that she didn’t go far, did she? Right there under my feet the whole time. Maybe she wanted to go with him, and he didn’t want to take her. Maybe she told him she was pregnant. Or maybe she told him it was over. Maybe they were fighting about it, and he lost his temper and was, I don’t know, shaking her. He probably grabbed her neck just to shut her up. He probably didn’t even mean to do it. How the fuck do I know why?”
Harlan was going to be sick. He said slowly, “She was pregnant?”
“No. I don’t know. Whatever. It wouldn’t be the first time she used that line, though, would it? You’ve got to believe me, Harlan. It wasn’t me.”
Inside Harlan’s mind, pieces were starting to fall into place like the wooden blocks in a Jenga game. Click-click-click-click-click. He said, “If you want a lawyer, hire one. Maybe you’ll have to choose between that and the bail bond, I don’t know. I guess that’s your choice. Like you always say, it’s your money. You worked for it. Spend it however you want.”
“Harlan.” His dad had his hand on the Plexiglas now, was leaning forward like he was trying to get through it by sheer force of will, and it was everything Harlan could do not to lunge forward himself and shove him back. Which he couldn’t do, because he couldn’t get through.
His dad’s face. His dad’s hand, coming at him. It was like a horror movie, but you couldn’t turn it off.
“I’m asking you,” his dad went on. “For Annabelle’s sake. What’s it going to do to her to have me in here? You’ve got to help me hire those … expert witnesses, or whatever. There’s no proof I did anything to her. It’s a mistake. I’m your father. You know I wouldn’t do this. So you’re pissed at me. Fine. Everything I did, I did for your own good. I toughened you up, and it worked. You were a mama’s boy, and you’d have stayed one without
me. You can’t be soft and make it in this world. Twenty million a year, that’s how much I did for you. Twenty million. When I get out of this, we’ll talk. I’ll explain.”
Harlan said, “Explain it to the judge.” And hung up.
34
Battle Scarred
Jennifer was just pulling up to the house when she got the call. She fumbled the phone out of her purse, looked at the screen, and said, “Harlan?”
“Could you come meet me at the jail?”
“Uh … of course. I just got back with your sister. Or two of your sisters. Annabelle and Vanessa. But I can come, if you want.”
“I could use you here.”
“I’m on my way.”
She hung up the phone and told Harlan’s sister Vanessa, a tall blonde who was as Viking-beautiful as Harlan himself, “I need to go pick Harlan up at the jail.”
“I thought you said he took a car,” Vanessa said with a lift of her eyebrows.
“He did. But …” She was itching to put the car into reverse. She hadn’t turned it off, and she didn’t do it now. Something was wrong. Or something was important. Harlan’s voice hadn’t held the weary strain of last night. It had been filled with something else. She couldn’t tell what, but that voice was dragging her across town.
It was rage, probably. Grief. How could you not feel that?
She couldn’t believe he’d gone to see his father. He’d said, “Who knows why he wants to see me. Doesn’t matter, really. Maybe I feel like I need to face him. I want to ask him why. I know it’s stupid. What do I expect him to say? But I still need to ask him.” His Norse-god face looking so troubled, all she’d wanted to do was put her arms around him. How could she, though? He wasn’t even the father of her child, not for sure, even though he felt like it. Or even though she wanted him to be. She wasn’t sure which.
Annabelle said from the back seat, “Maybe I should have gone to the jail, too. Harlan shouldn’t have had to do that alone.”
“No,” Vanessa said. “You shouldn’t have.”
Jennifer tried to think what to say, how to put this. “Harlan didn’t want you to,” was what she came up with. “He needs to feel like he’s protecting you now. It matters to him, because he couldn’t do it before. If you really want to see your dad, though, you should tell Harlan so.”
“I don’t,” Annabelle said. “I can’t stand to. I feel like I should, though. I feel like …”
Her voice wobbled, and Vanessa said, “Let’s go in the house. We’ll make lunch and talk about it. You can tell me what happened. What’s been happening.”
She hadn’t been home for years, Harlan had said, but she was picking up the big-sister role all the same. And finally, they were out of the car, and Jennifer could leave.
She had to consciously keep her speed down as she drove, the turns announced in the preternaturally calm, robotic voice of the navigation system. She had time, though, to wonder why he had asked her to come instead of Vanessa.
Because he was protective, that was why. Because she was separate from it, and he wouldn’t be dragging her into confronting too much, the way he’d have been doing with his sisters. He was a big brother all the way, and if that just made her like him more, well … it was better than being attracted to a jerk, right?
Her mom had said, one Sunday morning after Mark had dropped her off at home and headed out again to go fishing, “You know, you can ask for more.”
“I don’t think Mark has more,” she’d answered.
“Then that’s your answer,” her mom had said. “Don’t you think?”
You could ask for more, she guessed. That didn’t mean you’d get it. Maybe you didn’t ask because you were afraid you wouldn’t get it, and it would hurt too much to admit you wanted it. So much safer to settle for less.
The drive was only ten minutes, but once again, she’d left the city behind, because the Detention Center was the definition of “in the middle of nowhere.” A slab of gray, windowless concrete set back from a lonely intersection, the land around it so flat, there weren’t even ditches. The road just stopped and the ground began, and it went on forever. There were hardly even trees, because this was the tallgrass prairie. Just with no tall grass.
Maybe it had felt like limitless possibility to those Norwegian settlers, but she wondered. She’d done a school project on Norway once, back in the fourth or fifth grade. She’d paged through library-book pictures of neat, multicolored houses, red and yellow and orange, bright and cheerful, set side-by-side next to a harbor. Spectacular mountains and summer valleys that looked like something out of a fairy tale. And fjords. Lots and lots of fjords. She’d never seen a fjord other than in those pictures, but she knew the word. She’d etched the jagged back-and-forth of the coastline with a knife in salt dough, building up the ridges of mountains down the center and painting them brown with white at the tops, because they’d be covered in ice and snow.
Surely, some of those Norwegian farm wives had stood in this cutting April wind, looked at their new home, and despaired, knowing they’d never see those colorful houses again, or the deep green of evergreens, the icy peaks of mountains, the blue of the sea.
You could farm more easily here, though, she guessed. No need for a sidehill combine, no circular patterns left on the hills after the laborious harvest. Up one row and down the next with no need to slow down, precise and neat.
Maybe if you were Dutch.
When she pushed open the glass door to the reception area, Harlan was sitting on a black plastic chair, his elbows on his knees and his fingers laced together, his gaze on the floor. She thought he didn’t see her, but when she got close, he looked up and tried to smile.
“Hey,” he said. “Sorry to drag you out again. How are you feeling? Getting enough rest? After this, I’ll take you out for lunch.”
She sat down beside him and took his hand, not worrying anymore about what this was between them. Right now, what he needed was somebody to hold his hand, so she did it. “Other than last night,” she told him, “when I hit the wall about three hours before bedtime, which you noticed, I’m fine. Bought some new clothes, see? Purple sweater. It’s not even navy blue. Dyma would be proud. Annabelle’s a fun shopping date. Also, I don’t have to wear your underwear anymore. Talk about awkward.” Trying to smile herself, to remind him that there was more than this moment.
“You look good,” he said. Another half-smile. “I was thinking about sitting on one of those chairs they have, watching you come out of the dressing room, telling you to go find a smaller size. That would’ve been a way better time.”
“Ha,” she said. “I’ve been trying to do what somebody told me. Embracing my curves. Telling myself they’re my superpower.” She abandoned that and asked, “Are we waiting for somebody?”
His face sobered. “Detective Johnson. Sorry I had to call you. I just …” He dragged a hand through his hair, probably messing up his extensions. He hadn’t even done the elastic today, and the wavy golden mass fell around his face. He wasn’t looking too-handsome anymore, and he definitely wasn’t looking pretty. Still a Viking, but a battle-scarred one. A man who’d seen too much and was sickened by it, who longed to lay his sword down but knew he couldn’t, because there was more to be done. “I don’t want my sisters to have to do this with me,” he said. “Or maybe I do, but I can’t handle thinking about anybody else’s—feelings.” Another attempt at a smile. “Sounds bad. I’ll try to think about your feelings.”
“No,” she said. “It doesn’t. Sounds completely reasonable. Did you see your dad?”
“Yeah. I don’t want to tell you now, though. I’ve got to sort of stumble through it with Johnson, I think.”
“All right.” She looked around. “Can I say—this is about the least cheerful place I have ever experienced. I’ve never been in a jail before. I’m depressed, and I just got here. I’m also related to nobody in the place.”
Except, of course, there was Danny. Dyma’s father had spent two years
someplace very much like this. She shivered. He’d brought it on himself, and she knew it. That didn’t make it any less horrible. What would it be like, to make the kind of wrong choice at nineteen that you had to pay for in a place like this? To have nightmares about it the rest of your life, probably, and have it follow you just that long?
“You think this is bad,” Harlan said, “you should see the visiting room.”
His expression changed, then, got hard again, and he was on his feet, still holding her hand.
Detective Johnson looked even more casual today. He was wearing the sport coat and jeans and cowboy boots, but he hadn’t shaved. He said, “Interesting spot for a meeting. What’s up?”
Harlan said, “Is there someplace we can talk? Someplace official? Where you could record me, or whatever?”
The detective’s gaze sharpened. “You want to be recorded?”
Jennifer could tell he thought it was a confession. She said, “Not for what you think. You’re dreaming. Do you really not see what’s going on here? What kind of detective are you?”
Harlan said, “Jennifer. Baby. Hey,” and she subsided.
Johnson said, “Maybe the two of us should have this talk alone.”
Harlan said, “No. It’s a voluntary talk. I’m volunteering information, and you’re going to want it. We can have it with Jennifer there, or I’ll find somebody else to talk to.” Sounding not one bit easygoing. He still had hold of her hand, too, and his grip was tight. He must have realized it, because he relaxed his hold and asked her, “You OK with this?”
“Yes,” she said, and meant it. “I’m right here with you. All the way.”
Bleak or not. Nightmares or not. All the way.
She remembered when he’d said he needed something he could do, some way he could help somebody, because he couldn’t do enough. Right now, she needed that, too.
Shame the Devil (Portland Devils Book 3) Page 27
