She leaned back against the wall, listening to the drone of the party. Floating above it all, snippets of imagined conversation crept up the pipes, drifted in through the air vent.
Dakota Roark.
The door knob jiggled.
Naked pics.
Someone knocked.
Dakota Roark.
And knocked again.
Naked pics.
“I really need to use the bathroom.”
Dakota recognized the voice. She left the cold tile and walked to open it. Hannah rushed inside, straight for the toilet, pulling up her blue jean skirt, without even noticing her. Dakota shut the door, locked it again, and spoke to her own reflection in the mirror.
“Hannah, I wanted to talk to you.”
“Jeez. Really, Dakota? Have you ever heard of privacy?”
The irony burned and bubbled under Dakota’s skin. She stepped nearer to the mirror, half-expecting her face to be blistered. An outbreak of indignation.
“Privacy? You mean like taking that photo down when I asked you to?”
“Oh, whatevs. That photo is the least of your problems. You’re just mad because now everybody knows you’re not the total goody-goody you pretend to be.”
“I wasn’t naked,” she repeated. It sounded even worse this time.
“Close enough,” Hannah muttered. “You know, I don’t think we even should be talking. My mom said—”
“Since when do you listen to your parents?”
Hannah stood and fixed her skirt. She joined Dakota at the sink.
“Since my mom told me your dad is a dirty old man.”
“And you believe her.”
“Is that a question?”
“I just—I’m not saying she’s lying . . .”
Hannah froze, her tube of cotton-candy pink lipstick poised at the center of her mouth. Their eyes met in the mirror.
“But? It sounds like there’s a but.”
“But I saw something. On prom night, at your after-party.”
Dakota watched that tube of lipstick. It seemed critical to her fate. Hannah swiped it across her top lip and smacked. The pop so loud and obnoxious it might as well have been her middle finger. “What is it that you think you saw?”
“Remember how your dad was out of town and my mom had an early morning work thing and my dad said he’d come over and help your mom chaperone?”
“Uh, okay. I guess. Prom was, like, forever ago.”
That they could agree on. Because it felt like forever that she’d been keeping this secret. “Well, the party was kind of wrapping up, and everybody was outside sitting around the fire pit. I came inside to use the bathroom, and I noticed the basement door was open.”
Hannah stirs the air with her hand, impatient. “And? Just tell me already.”
“I saw your mom and my dad making out.”
A sudden burst of laughter escaped Hannah’s newly pinked mouth, but the rest of her face appeared unmoved. “Is that why you’ve been acting weird?”
Dakota shrugged. “Do you believe me?”
“I believe you believe that’s what you saw. But Mom says your dad forced himself on her that night. It’s all in the complaint she filed at the hospital.”
Hannah tucked the tube of lipstick into the back pocket of her skirt and turned away from the mirror. End of conversation.
“I wasn’t supposed to tell you that,” she said, scooting around Dakota to the door. “So don’t repeat it.”
“Then why did you?”
“Because I think it’s sad. You thinking that. You should know the truth. We’re best friends, you know?”
Dakota felt a familiar tug in the center of her chest, remembering fifth-grade Hannah, presenting her with one of those cheesy BFF necklaces. Two halves of a heart cracked down the middle. They’d worn them until the chains turned their necks green. “Were. We were best friends.”
****
On the drive back home, Dakota listened as Liv filled the silence. Talking took energy, and she felt bone tired. Waterlogged. Like she’d spent the night in the ocean, swimming against the current, and not hiding out in the Hummer, waiting for Liv. And her endless stream of questions.
“Did you know Tyler’s dad represented Jay-Z?”
“Do you think Kristin wears too much makeup?”
“Are you going to try out for cross-country this year?”
“Were you, like, birthday-suit naked?”
Dakota gave her answers one word at a time, holding back the rest.
“Yes.” Tyler’s dad tells everyone that story, because he’s desperate to be cool.
“Yes.” She takes all her advice from Hannah’s vlog, so . . .
“No.” I’m not even sure I want to swim this year. Much less run three miles on a Saturday morning.
“No.” But close enough, apparently.
Finally, Liv turned off Ridgecrest and stopped short of Dakota’s driveway—just in case her parents were watching—idling on the shoulder of the road. She’d saved a question. Dakota could tell.
“So is it true about your dad?”
“What do you think?” She meant it sarcastically. But literally too. Because she had no idea. Not anymore. She didn’t trust her own memory.
Liv shrugged. “I guess I don’t really know your dad that well. Not as well as your mom. Do you think your parents will get a divorce?”
“Maybe.”
“Well, it’s not the end of the world. Mine are way happier.”
Dakota climbed down from the Hummer and waved goodbye. She trudged up the driveway and mounted the steps slowly, carefully, listening for the sounds of angry voices and contemplating the end of life as she knew it.
When it seemed safe, she went inside, heading straight for the stairs, where Gus waited at the top.
“How was the movie? Suicide Squad, right?”
Dakota stopped halfway and turned to her father, half-asleep on the sofa. She wanted to lie to his face. She almost hoped he knew.
“It was a little dark and angsty, but Liv and I liked it. Harley Quinn has pink hair. Pink and blue.”
“Does she?” He studied her, skeptically. “And Liv’s mom drove you home?”
Dakota charged ahead, unconcerned. No way he’d seen Liv in the Hummer. And she’d had the whole night to memorize the entire movie synopsis. To watch and rewatch the trailer. To read the spoilers online.
“Yeah. There’s kind of a twist at the end. Because you think the Joker died, but he really didn’t.”
“I’m guessing you didn’t fall for it.”
“Not for a second. C’mon, Dad. I’m no amateur.”
The subtle raise of his eyebrows told Dakota her father understood they weren’t just talking about the movie. Especially when her eyes fixed on a pack of cigarettes protruding from his pocket. For the first time in months, she didn’t have to force herself to smile at him when she said goodnight.
Chapter
Twenty-Four
(Sunday, August 7, 2016)
Dakota didn’t think of it as lying. Not if she had a good reason. And she did. Several good reasons, actually.
One, she’d never been to Mol’s Junkyard, the place named for her mother. Which she supposed might’ve been a nice gesture if it had been a hotel or a deli or a bookstore. It said something about Grandpa Krandel that he’d name a junkyard after his only child.
Two, the unfortunately named Mol’s Junkyard happened to be near Putah Creek Road, where victims fourteen and fifteen had gone missing.
And three, if her parents happened to find out, they’d definitely be riled.
So maybe they weren’t the best reasons. But still, there she was, riding shotgun in that dilapidated hunk of steel her grandfather thought he could sell for the newly discounted price of $350.
She’d biked to the library, typical Sunday routine, telling her mom she’d planned to spend the whole afternoon finishing Mindhunter. In truth, she’d finished it weeks ago and reread it for good measure. She’d even decided on a favorite line: To understand the “artist,” you must study his “art.” Kinda creepy when blood and bones are your go-to medium.
“So whaddya do for fun up there in Napa?” Grandpa Krandel made it sound like a foreign country.
“I’m on the swim team.”
“You any good?”
“I won district last year in the 200 free. The first freshman in school history.”
He smacked the steering wheel. “Well, hot damn. We got a regular Michael Phelps in the family.”
“The thing is, I don’t know if I’m even gonna swim this year.” She hadn’t said that out loud before. Not to anyone. It sounded strange. Like an alien had invaded her body. She didn’t quit things. But the thought of it—the grueling early morning practices, the weekend meets, the impossible expectations—seemed exhausting.
“What do your parents think about that?”
She shrugged. “They don’t know yet. But they probably won’t let me. They like that I’m good at it. Mom thinks I could get a scholarship.”
“Well, it’s gotta blow your hair back. Like hunting. Give me a gun and a critter to stalk. That’s all I need.”
Even if the thought of a gun-toting Grandpa Krandel unnerved her, Dakota understood. She was a hunter too. She thought of telling him. I’m hunting Shadow Man. But it sounded silly.
Just then, he swerved off the road, his breath quicker than before. He waited until the car behind them rumbled past, his Adam’s apple jumping in his throat like a bouncing ball.
“Did you know that car?” she whispered, afraid the sound of her voice would spook him.
He stared after it. “Yes. No. Oh hell if I know. I just had a bad feelin’ about it. That ever happen to you?”
Dakota watched his dark eyes dart like squirrels across a highway. “Whenever I freak out, Mom always says I can trace it back to a thought. A thought always comes first. Next, a feeling. Then finally, an action.”
“A thought, huh?”
She nodded.
“I suppose I was thinkin’ about hunting. That made me think about guns. And about Nam. And him.”
“Who?”
A car whizzed by them, the air whooshing in through the window, shaking the truck, and rattling Dakota’s nerves, hard as a slap from her mother. She turned to Grandpa Krandel, certain he’d be wide-eyed and white-faced with fear. But he looked off into the ditch and beyond, to a place Dakota couldn’t see, had never been. His own space face.
Minutes later, he eased the truck back onto the highway. “You mind if we make a quick stop? I’m runnin’ low on ammo. Can’t let them damn squirrels think they got the best of me.”
****
Dakota craned her neck, gaping at the sign hanging above them. Deer horns sprouted from the head of a giant fish. It should’ve been funny, but the paint peeled strangely around the fish’s gills, drawing its mouth into a devilish grin.
“Welcome to Whitetails and Whoppers.” Grandpa Krandel held the door open, ushering her inside. At least he was smiling again. “This used to be your mama’s favorite place.”
“Mom hunted?”
“Sure did.” Dakota couldn’t picture it. Not the mom she knew. The mom who got squeamish at the meat counter at Whole Foods. “In fact, her horns are hangin’ in the Hall right next to mine.”
He pointed toward a long corridor at the back of the store, its walls covered floor to ceiling in horns of various shapes and sizes, displayed as proudly as a serial-killer’s trophies. At its end, a dilapidated screen door, mottled with tears and holes. Like something had clawed its way in. Or out. Beyond it, a lonely card table, where a few men her grandfather’s age played dominoes and guzzled from their longneck bottles.
“Go have a look-see.”
Dakota didn’t want to look or see. But she channeled her inner Lisa Ling and felt her legs move beneath her. She plucked a Whitetails and Whoppers business card from beside the register and stuck it in her pocket. Then she made her way past the aisle of fishing line and lures and beyond two racks of camouflage. She imagined herself years in the future. As a hotshot investigative journalist in pursuit of a lead, a camera crew in tow.
She planted herself in the middle of THE HALL OF HORNS—a sign on the wall proclaimed it so—and listened to the men chattering on the porch outside.
“Hey man, ain’t that Crazy Krandel?”
The name stopped her breath.
“Nah. He ain’t showed his face since he—”
Dakota pushed the screen door open, its tinny squeak announcing her before she stepped across the threshold. The men stopped speaking, their mouths shut tight as clamshells. The only sound the soft clink of the dominoes against the tabletop.
Finally, one of them looked up at her. He rubbed his bald head like a wishing lamp and frowned. “You lost?”
Dakota shook her head and smiled. “I’m here with my grandpa. I’m working on a school project about an unsolved murder—well, a bunch of murders—that took place around here a long time ago.”
She studied their grizzled faces, any one of them old enough to be Shadow Man.
“You got one of us figured for it?” Baldie asked, smirking.
The men twittered, exchanged glances, gulped their beers. Each laid another domino down.
“Should I?”
Dakota surprised herself with that one. And not in a good way. It felt more Nancy Grace than Lisa Ling. She backtracked toward the door, plotting her escape.
“I didn’t mean it like that. I just thought—”
“It’s a fair question. You gentlemen are playin’ with bones there.” The voice came from the man at the end of the porch. Dakota wondered how she’d missed him there, leaning against the porch railing. Like he could hold it up with the strength of one shoulder. When she looked at him, he tipped his black cowboy hat. She couldn’t decide whether to be flattered or offended.
“Yep. Got our very own boneyard.” Baldie’s friends guffawed as he gestured to the pile of unused dominoes.
“I just thought maybe one of you remembered the Jessica Guzman case. She disappeared around here in 1992.”
Their laughter petered out, and Baldie shrugged at her. The others avoided her eyes, and she couldn’t even bear to look at the man in the black hat. Instead, she slunk inside, defeated, and returned her attention to the Hall of Horns.
She found her mother’s contribution easily enough—a small set of whitish gray antlers belonging to Mollie Krandel of Allendale, who’d made the kill at Putah Creek. It hung adjacent to a war memorabilia display case, tagged with her grandfather’s name. Inside it, an old military-style knife, its handle so worn the plastic cracked at the base.
M7 BAYONET, VIETNAME ERA
DONATED BY PRIVATE FIRST CLASS VICTOR KRANDEL
BRAVO COMPANY, THE 4th BATTALION OF THE 10th INFANTRY, GROUND ASSAULT DIVISION
Dakota imagined her grandfather gripping that handle, his knuckles blanched with fear and desperation as he plunged it into flesh. Human flesh. No wonder he was the way he was, chained to a place on the other side of the world. How could you ever come home after you did something like that? How could you be anyone but Crazy Krandel?
At the front of the store, her grandfather hunched over the front counter, oblivious, studying a box of ammunition. She felt a surge of fresh anger at Baldie and his merry band of old-timers, smack-talking behind his back. But mostly at her mother for abandoning him, for holding the war against him. Her mother, the supposed bastion of empathy, turned out to be a heartless . . . bitch.
With that word stuck on repeat, Dakota rifled through the front pocket of her backpack until she found the black Sharpie marker
Hannah had used to graffiti Taylor Roland’s locker last spring, after she’d called Hannah’s vlog amateur. At the time, Dakota thought Hannah was being petty. But now, it made complete sense. The desire to immortalize a single word, to hurl an insult she couldn’t say out loud.
She uncapped the marker, its smell as potent as her outrage, and extended her hand toward the wooden base.
“Ya know why they’re different colors?”
Dakota jumped and the marker tumbled from her hand, making a small black mark on the baseboard. It laid there, a silent accomplice, until she nudged it aside with her shoe. Next to her sneakers, a pair of long legs that ended in snakeskin cowboy boots. She lifted her eyes to the man they belonged to, certain he’d seen the whole thing. Certain he’d deduced the secret badness of her heart. But she could barely make out his face beneath the shadow of that cowboy hat.
“Uh, I’m sorry,” she muttered. “I was just—”
“The horns,” he said, stepping in closer. He tapped a long finger against the tip of an antler. “Did you notice the colors? Some dark, some light.”
“Oh. Well, now that you mention it . . .”
“Amazin’, ain’t it? Every year these fellas get a new set. Pretty soon, they’ll be going through the velvet shedding just in time to impress the ladies.”
Dakota frowned, suddenly and inexplicably self-conscious. She wished Grandpa Krandel would call to her. Or at least hurry. But when she glanced over her shoulder, he had his back to her, stacking his ammunition box by box beside the register like a child’s unsteady block tower.
“The velvet is somethin’ like a skin.” As he spoke, he touched his sun-spotted hand, and Dakota withdrew her own, shoving them down in her pockets. “It helps the horns grow big as they do. But the blood left over mixes with all kinds of plant juices and gives ’em a darker color. It stains the antlers.”
The man craned his neck and pointed at the wall, to a large set of horns hanging near the top. “That old buck is mine,” he said. “See how dark they are?”
Dakota nodded without looking too close. The Hall of Horns was bad enough. But the Hall of Bloody Horns? No thank you. “I don’t know much about deer. But these horns are my mother’s.”
Shadows Among Us Page 28
