The Dead Season

by Tessa Wegert

  I didn’t have to think on that for long. Russell Loming had admitted he talked privately with Brett at the drive-in. I could see him using that time to make a last grab at the money he was owed, and getting angry when he failed. I told Harmison as much.

  “Good,” he said. “That helps. Loming already admitted to dealing drugs; it’s just a matter of time before he fesses up about Brett, too. There’s no hiding anything now—the whole town’s already talking about him. Word travels fast.”

  “Sure does,” I said.

  I thanked the police chief for the update, and flexed my fingers on the steering wheel. My nails were short, the cuticles ragged. Russell Loming. I should have been relieved. No more worrying about Felicia’s potential involvement in my uncle’s murder, or agonizing over what else my brother might be hiding.

  The receptionist’s account was strong, Loming’s behavior unarguably suspicious. As I absorbed Harmison’s theory and called Loming’s face to mind, though, I no longer saw a womanizer past his prime, but a man whose kitchen table had been set with colorful plastic dishes for his grandkids. I shook the picture from my head. Be grateful, for Christ’s sake. Brett’s killer had been found, and my family had nothing to do with the crime—at least, not this one.

  With an hour to go and my brain in overdrive, I called my mother. She answered right away.

  “Hi, sweetie,” she said. Dishes clattered in the background. She was cleaning up the kitchen. “I was hoping to see you before you left again. Blink and I miss you these days.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said, and I was. My mother and I hadn’t talked one-on-one since that awkward conversation with Felicia, and I wasn’t sure she’d forgiven me for insinuating her sister’s guilt. “We had an emergency up at the river.”

  “The river? But isn’t your evaluation today?”

  “I’m on my way.”

  “Good. That’s good.” I waited for her to ask how I was feeling, if I was ready, but she let it alone. “I owe you an apology,” she said instead. “I shouldn’t have gotten angry with you the other day when you asked those questions about Fee. It’s always been my job to defend her. I take it too seriously sometimes.”

  I suspected that was true. I wasn’t sure I’d ever make sense of how much my mother overlooked about Felicia’s condition back then. Maybe she, like me with Abe, hadn’t wanted to see the ugliness we knew instinctively was there.

  “I get it,” I said. “I was out of line—and way off base. I guess you heard about Russell Loming?”

  She clicked her tongue. “Can you imagine? Russell was a miscreant, but he and Brett were friends. Inseparable.”

  “That’s the thing about money,” I said. “It can come between anyone. How does Felicia feel?”

  Her sigh was heavy, a full body release. “Grateful, I think. She’s just happy to put this behind her. We all are. Your father and I are helping her organize a memorial for Brett. You’ll come, won’t you?”

  Where would things stand with Bram by then? When my family learned who he was, there would be no public gathering to celebrate Brett’s life. Shame and fear would send them into hiding from friends and neighbors. From him. I didn’t know how to answer my mother. It didn’t matter. In the background, voices spoke in low, urgent tones. “Hang on,” said Mom. “Something’s happening here.”

  The line went quiet. Before me, the road stretched over a hill so steep I couldn’t see the other side. On the line, I heard my mother yip like a dog in pain.

  “Mom?”

  Like a camera coming into focus, my parents’ kitchen sharpened in my mind, and what I saw hit me like a bucket of icy water. Bram had left Trey’s tooth in my parents’ mailbox. In A-Bay, he’d gone a step further and broken into Mac’s cottage to take Whiskey. What if his need to violate the lives of the people closest to me had driven him back to my parents’ place?

  What if he was in their house right now?

  “Mom?”

  Trembling, I slowed my speed and pulled over onto the shoulder. Doug and my father were with her, I recognized the pitch and pattern of their speech, but the inflection was off. What I picked up in their voices now was alarm. I was hours away from Swanton. If Bram was there, I’d never arrive in time. Not them. Not my family. The hysteria I felt was blinding. I was about to hang up and plead with Harmison for help when Doug came on the line.

  “Felicia just called,” he said. “It’s Crissy.”

  My heart seized. Crissy. I saw her full face and midriff-baring shirts, gum cracking between candy-scented lips. But no, that was Crissy at almost sixteen, the girl at the drive-in who dwelled in my memory.

  In the background, a muffled sob. “What is it?” I said. “What happened?”

  “She’s at the hospital.” Dismay bled through the cracks in Doug’s voice. “She was found unconscious in her living room half an hour ago. It looks like an overdose.”

  THIRTY-FOUR

  It was early afternoon when I got to St. Albans. I’d done the drive to Vermont and back so many times over the past few days it had become rote. That left me with nothing to do but worry.

  There were times when I hated my mind for refusing to power down, and this was one of them. I’d missed my evaluation by hours, hit decline on three calls from my counselor. I would reschedule or . . . something. If they didn’t reinstate me . . .

  Don’t think that way.

  Focus on Crissy.

  Eager as I was to get inside Northwestern Medical Center, I did a five-minute meditation session via Gasko’s app before leaving my car. I’d been hospitalized after my abduction, checked over for physical injuries while the benzodiazepine in my blood was analyzed and recorded in my patient file, and the dichotomy between clean white sheets and unimaginable gore still sends my body into full revolt. As I approached the front desk for information, I held my breath against the odor of disinfectant spray, cafeteria food, and bodily fluids. It assaulted my senses anyway, and within minutes, a familiar woozy, weak-kneed sensation was back.

  The elevator opened on the waiting room with a ding, and I spotted my parents sitting with Doug. Felicia stared blankly at the TV on the wall. The Food Network was playing on mute. My parents clambered up when they saw me, hugged me so hard it hurt. Doug did the same, and undeniably felt me stiffen in his arms. When I pulled back, he looked down at me with despair.

  I turned to Felicia. “How is she?”

  My aunt clasped my mother’s hand.

  “We’re waiting to hear,” said my father. “The doctors don’t yet know what she took or how long she was unconscious.”

  A parade of potential side effects marched through my head. Respiratory failure. Brain damage. Death. “Who’s got the boys?”

  Mom’s eyes drifted to her sister, and I regretted the question at once. “They’ll go to a neighbor’s after school,” Dad said. “Standing plans for a playdate, thank goodness.” I inferred the rest from the look on his face. Not to their grandmother’s. Crissy wouldn’t allow it.

  Behind me, I heard the sound of the elevator again. This time, the doors opened on Suze and Robbie. Robbie held a paper carrier warping under the weight of several to-go coffees and wore a sympathetic smile.

  “It was Suze who found her,” my dad said under his breath. “They’ve been here for hours.”

  Poor Suze. She had mentioned she’d be visiting Crissy today, must have walked into the house and found her unresponsive. My friend looked pale and shaken, and she placed a hand on her baby bump as she and her husband walked toward us.

  “It was good of you to come,” I said, hugging each of them in turn. It wasn’t really my place to say it, given my superficial relationship with Crissy, but I didn’t want Felicia to have to concern herself with doling out niceties.

  “Any news?” Robbie asked as he distributed the coffees and urged everyone to sit down. When he got to Felicia, he gave her b
ony shoulder a quick squeeze.

  “Not yet,” said Dad.

  “What happened?” I asked.

  Doug said, “Nobody knows.” But they did know. I could see it in the crinkle of their mouths and the creases under their eyes.

  Based on my last two discussions with her, I’d already concluded that Crissy’s blasé attitude about Brett’s murder had been an act. Disaffected as she was, she’d been quick to dismiss her father’s death, quicker still to deny any knowledge of the events leading up to it, when in fact she possessed more information about his last night than anyone save perhaps his killer. That secret had bubbled up in recent days, until she found herself drowning in guilt. I should have spotted it. I was intimately familiar with guilt myself.

  “Felicia,” I said, rousing my aunt from her torpor. “I know you don’t see Crissy much these days, but was there any indication she was using again?”

  “No.” She said it with a note of surprise. “Crissy was clean, had been for years.”

  “It’s true,” said Suze, sweeping a strand of gleaming dark hair from her cheek. “She goes to an addiction support group every week—oh no, oh here, it’s okay.” Suze slid out of her chair and dropped to her knees before Felicia, whose shoulders had started to heave. In the seat next to her, Mom rubbed her palm in slow circles over Felicia’s arched back.

  “She doesn’t even drink wine, right, Suze?” said Robbie. “But isn’t this how it is with addiction? Even with a whole recovery plan, outpatient treatment, and behavioral counseling, stress can trigger the cravings. What is it they say? You’re never an ex-addict, just an addict who hasn’t used in a while.”

  A relapse, then. It happened, even to those with the best of intentions. “Has she slipped up before?” I asked.

  “Never,” Felicia said. “Once she made the decision to stop using, she swore she was done. How could she do this to herself? To the boys?”

  A doctor in his sixties who walked with long, determined strides approached our group. As one, we got to our feet.

  “I wish I had more news.” His ID badge read Dr. Richard Klingemann, and in the photo under his name, he was grinning. “We’ve flushed the toxins from her system, but we won’t know the extent of the damage until she regains consciousness. Brain injury is a very real concern. The blood work came back, and I can tell you the overdose was caused by opioids. A prescription drug is the most likely culprit.”

  “Was Crissy on any medication, Suze?” I asked. If anyone knew what Crissy was taking these days, it was her. “Any recent injuries she needed painkillers for?”

  Suze shook her head. “Not that I know of.”

  “I don’t get it,” I said. “All those years without using, and now this? Crissy never had a problem with opioids, did she?”

  Before Felicia or Suze could answer, Robbie said, “Drugs are drugs. In a negative emotional state, if they’re desperate enough, an addict will take whatever they can get. The woman just lost her father for the second time. If anything was going to steer her off course, it’s this.”

  I met his sad gaze, and held it. “I’m sure you’re right,” I said. “Hey, is your mother at home?”

  “Sure. She’s watching Erynn so we can be here.” Robbie reached for his wife’s hand.

  “I’m going to Swanton,” I said. “I’ll be back in a bit.”

  “Seriously?” said Doug. “Now?”

  Every neck twisted in my direction. They would think me heartless if I left, an ice queen of an investigator who sees cases in terms of losses and wins with no regard for human life. Already, I felt their expectations collapsing. Too late now. “Loming’s in custody, but he hasn’t been charged. It’s going to take some effort to build a case against him after all these years. If Crissy did this because of the stress caused by Brett’s death and this case, I can’t just sit here doing nothing. I want to help the local police in whatever way I can.”

  “You won’t get anywhere with my mother.” Robbie’s tone was apologetic. “She knows less about the night Brett went missing than anyone.”

  “You might be right, but I have to try.” I shook my head. “I just can’t believe Crissy would do this.”

  “Ah,” my dad said, “but she did, poppet.”

  Felicia and I locked eyes, and hers began to fill with tears.

  Maybe, I thought.

  Then again, maybe not.

  THIRTY-FIVE

  You’re really racking up the miles,” Tim said with undisguised awe when I called him from the hospital parking lot. “Isn’t your car on a lease?”

  “Just listen,” I said, and explained what I needed him to do. He didn’t say a word about last night, or cross-examine me about my missed evaluation, and for that I was grateful.

  Erynn was napping when I arrived at Cheryl Copely’s house. I’d interrupted her lunch, but she didn’t seem to mind the company, so I sat with her while she ate a spinach salad and the vestiges of Erynn’s neon orange boxed mac and cheese.

  “I’m sorry about your cousin,” she said. Suze had filled her in on what had happened when she’d asked Cheryl to babysit. I explained it was too soon to tell how Crissy would fare. While her stomach had been pumped, there was always the risk of long-term side effects. Upon hearing that, Cheryl lowered her eyes, and I knew she was thinking about Crissy’s boys, just a few years older than Erynn.

  I said, “I need to ask you some more questions about Brett.”

  Cheryl stabbed a cherry tomato with her fork and watched it ooze. “Be my guest. I’m not sure how much more I can help.”

  “You can start by telling me everything you know about Brett’s involvement with drugs.”

  Cheryl set down her fork. “I don’t know anything about that.”

  “I don’t think that’s true. You told me you insisted he quit gambling, and he did—but he traded one transgression for another, and you had to be aware of it. You were in a serious relationship, spending time at each other’s homes. There’s no way he could have hidden regular trips to Montreal from you, or the outings he took to Burlington and St. Albans. This is important, Mrs. Copely. Did you ever see anyone you know in possession of drugs that you believed came from Brett?”

  “Oh, God.” With trembling fingers, Cheryl reached for her glass of water. At that same moment, my cell phone rang.

  “I need to take this,” I said. “I want you to think very carefully about your answer. Can I borrow a room?”

  Cheryl showed me to a guest room, and I closed the door behind me. I’d asked Tim to look up the Swanton Chamber of Commerce online and get a list of its employees. He’d called the business and spoken to its manager. “Left the office at ten and wasn’t back until after noon,” Tim said. “Which apparently is unusual for him.”

  “Call Harmison. Tell him to get some officers to the hospital right away.”

  “Will do.” Tim paused. “And Trey?”

  “I’m still working on that,” I said, feeling my elation stutter. “I’ll call you as soon as I know more.”

  Tim hung up, and I was left sitting on the guest bed in a room wallpapered in rosebuds, trying to process what I now knew to be true.

  There was a part of me that felt Russell Loming could, in fact, be culpable, but I’d been too preoccupied with how he managed to pull off the murder to fully accept it. Between Brett, Crissy, and Doug, there was a lot of activity out at the refuge that Saturday night, and lots of comings and goings meant an enormous amount of risk. Loming could easily have been seen. If Brett confided in him at the drive-in about his intention to take his kids to Philly, Loming had to have known there would be witnesses at the fishing access. How had he executed such a perfect crime under such slippery circumstances?

  When I talked to McIntyre about my frustration with Brett’s case, she’d tried to allay my doubt in my abilities by reminding me the killer had a head start, and loads o
f time to prepare should they ever be questioned. Loming wasn’t an idiot—yet he’d confessed to dealing drugs with Brett knowing full well Harmison and I would pursue that lead. It was just as Mac said: whoever killed Brett had years to prepare their response, nearly two decades to devise an escape plan. They’d be cool. Unflustered. And that described the individual I believed to be Brett’s killer to a tee.

  The playing card Bram left in Sam’s studio had exposed the aspect of Brett’s life I needed to examine, and that, in turn, led me to the person who had the most to gain from his demise. Someone who I believed was at the drive-in that night, who could easily lure Crissy into the woods, and who’d be able to persuade her to ingest a dangerous, highly addictive drug.

  A tough conversation awaited me back in Cheryl’s kitchen. I pulled open the door and plodded down the hall. But the kitchen was empty now and Cheryl’s salad had been abandoned, curling leaves of spinach still on her fork. It was in the living room that I found her, sitting ladder-backed on the sofa. She wasn’t alone.

  The sight of him stopped me in my tracks. “I should have known you’d come,” I said.

  “Just checking in on Erynn.” Robbie Copely’s smile didn’t reach his eyes. “What are you ladies talking about?”

  “Just tying up some loose ends.”

  He nodded and rubbed his blond beard. “Poor Crissy. That’s a hell of a thing. Who’d have thought she had it in her?”

  I held his gaze. “To take all those pills, you mean?”

  “Sure. What else?”

  “You seem to know a lot about addiction. Recovery, too. When did you first start using drugs, Robbie?”

  There was a chill in his eyes when he said, “What the hell kind of question is that?”

  I turned to Cheryl. The woman’s face had gone white as snow. “You need to be honest with me, Mrs. Copely. I’m pretty sure the motive for Brett’s murder was related to the dope he sold. The person who killed him knew he was dealing, and either threatened to expose him or wanted a piece of the action. Do you know anything about that?”