Surviving the Truth

by Tyler Anne Snell

  Deputy Carlos Park shook his head in greeting.

  “Smart to use the back door. Did you see the line that’s out there in the lobby?”

  Kenneth shook his head but hadn’t missed the more than usual number of cars in the parking lot.

  “Is it the same as last week?”

  Park nodded. “Ever since the press conference, you, my dude, have stirred up a lot of chatter in town.” He pointed at the wall, in the direction of the department’s lobby. “Now that chatter has turned into a roomful of people sure as spit simmering on a sidewalk in summer they have information that can solve one of these cold cases.”

  Kenneth sighed. “If only it was that easy, I wouldn’t have this job in the first place.”

  They each took a moment to glance around the room. Kenneth had known Carlos for years, but just as a passing hello, a quick conversation in the bank line or a how’s-it-going while closing out tabs at the bar. But Kenneth had heard of Carlos’s feats of excitement over the last two to three years and how the guy had gone from a sour-faced, angry man to a more calm and caring one. As the deputy’s gaze swept over the papers and boxes, he wondered if that new side of compassion helped him see what Kenneth saw instead when he looked around.

  People.

  A void that couldn’t be filled but could be stitched closed to make a scar instead of a wound.

  However, that was a deeper conversation for another day. No sooner had Carlos’s gaze moved across the space did it travel to Kenneth’s desk. Or, really, the bright-eyed pup beneath it.

  He cracked a grin. “I know you’re having some work done on your house but I still think the sheriff will lose it if he sees Delilah here.”

  Kenneth wasn’t that worried.

  “That press conference didn’t just put me in the public eye, it pushed him out there, too,” he reminded the deputy. “I haven’t seen the sheriff for more than a few minutes here and there, and that’s usually in the break room.” He paused and looked at the dog in question. Delilah must have sensed the new thoughtful attention. Her tail started to wag. “That said, give me a heads-up if you see him around.”

  Carlos laughed and agreed. Then he was back to annoyed. “You going to the conference room for another round of conspiracy theories?”

  “I am.”

  Kenneth sighed, took some of his sinus meds, gave Delilah a pat, and followed the deputy out and to the room next door. Carlos didn’t enter, but there was sympathy now written across his face. Someone was already seated at the end of the conference table. Carlos lowered his voice so only Kenneth could hear him. “Good luck, Detective.”

  Kenneth didn’t say so but he didn’t believe in luck when it came to Kelby Creek.

  Not after what had happened.

  Not after Ally had died.

  Murdered, not died.

  Carlos didn’t seem to note the anger and resentment that had burned through Kenneth at the thought. Instead he went off down the hall, unaware the rising frustration that went along with the familiar emotions was only about to be stoked by Kelby Creek residents who liked drama a little too much.

  He took a small beat, pulled on a polite smile, and settled in the chair opposite his first of, he assumed, many locals who wanted a piece of the new cold case task force and the only man heading it.

  That polite smile nearly slipped off altogether as Kenneth met the gaze of a woman who was not at all what he’d expected would make his life a little more difficult that Monday morning.

  Sunshine.

  It was the first descriptor that came to his mind as he quickly took her in.

  Shoulder-length, big blond hair, freckles across her face, dark lipstick along her polite expression, and bright green eyes that seemed to be smiling, too. She was petite yet there was no doubt by her curves and demeanor that she was late twenties to early thirties. Her outfit helped drive that conclusion home. A dark red blazer with a blouse tucked in. A gold locket around her neck. Her nails were also immaculately kept. She didn’t just care about her appearance, it was most likely a requirement for a job or career.

  There was also the other thing that made Kenneth place the woman older than what he might have had they met under different circumstances.

  Something was weighing on her.

  Something, he guessed, having to do with the wooden box placed on the table between them.

  “Good morning,” he greeted, keeping his gaze locked on the almost-lime green of her stare until he knew more about why she was there. “I’m Detective Gray. How can I help you?”

  The woman’s smile went megawatt. She extended her hand so fast he almost flinched.

  “Nice to meet you!” Her voice was surprisingly chipper for someone who seemed troubled. Then again, this was the South, and Southern women had a sneaky way about them. They only let you see what they wanted you to see and, right now, the woman wanted to act like she wasn’t in a sheriff’s department. “I’m Willa. Willa Tate. I actually already know you, or of you. I saw that news story they did last week. The one where you wore the tie. You know, the one with the stripes.”

  Kenneth knew the press conference. He also knew the tie.

  He’d only expected her to bring up one of the two.

  “You should have seen the Bugs Bunny tie I almost wore instead.” It was a joke. And, boy, did Willa laugh. But there was a nervousness in it.

  And then, like he’d flipped a switch, that laugh slid all the way down into the reason why she was there.

  The heaviness became physical as she put her hand on top of the box that had seen much better days.

  “A month ago I found this.” Even her voice had hardened a little. No longer bright and chipper. She made no move to push the box over to him. “I unearthed it in a construction site and after seeing what was inside I... Well, I decided to take it home.”

  Despite himself, Kenneth leaned in a little closer.

  “After everything that’s happened with Kelby Creek and this department, I thought that maybe it was better to try to figure it out myself. Or, maybe get a clearer idea of what happened before I brought it in. But I’ve hit a dead end and I think it’s time I ask for help.”

  “With what?” Kenneth pushed his pad of paper and pen to the side. The last round of locals he’d seen had sprouted instant conspiracy theories about dirty cops, bizarre and unlikely cold cases reaching back decades, and the ever-popular “I know what really happened to Annie McHale.” None of the information had led anywhere other than to a cluster headache for Kenneth, but now he found himself intrigued.

  Maybe because Willa Tate was herself intriguing.

  She hesitated but answered with conviction.

  “Solving a thirty-five-year-old murder.”

  Chapter Two

  Detective Gray was a good good-looking man. Willa had almost forgotten her words and her thoughts when he’d sat across from her, slightly lost in her surprise.

  Willa had seen the man before on the local news and in the paper more than once—it had been big news that a cold case unit was coming to the sheriff’s department, even more so by a man who had returned to the job years after he’d left it behind. Then there was what had happened to his wife all those years ago that had made a news cycle or two in town. But there was just something about being close to him that changed her perspective from the man she’d never met but seen on TV.

  He didn’t much look like a small-town detective, lead of a task force or not. Instead he favored an actor playing the part of some big-time FBI agent in New York or Chicago. His brown hair was cut and groomed close and nice, just as his goatee beard made a controlled dusting of hair that took a good good-looking man and added some spice. His eyes were dark and blue and rested beneath thick eyebrows that expressed a seriousness she bet extended outside of work.

  Then there was the jaw and the sun-kissed tan and the lean
body and tall height, and Willa couldn’t help but mentally stumble when he’d introduced himself.

  But then, her reason for being there had come back and she’d pushed any and all attraction out the metaphorical window.

  Now she watched as one of his eyebrows rose with concern and not physical interest.

  “A thirty-five-year-old murder?” he repeated.

  Willa kept her hand firmly on the box’s lid. She nodded.

  “I know it sounds out there, but yes, I think I got really close to figuring it out,” she said. “Because of this.”

  Willa didn’t want to slide the box over but knew it was the right thing to do. For some reason, she’d grown protective of it. Or, at least, some of its contents. She hadn’t lied to the man, she’d squashed her first instinct to go to the sheriff’s department when she’d found the box because she hadn’t trusted that whatever was inside could be taken care of. So, she’d done some investigating on her own...and in the past month had become attached to a story she wasn’t even sure was true.

  Now it almost felt like giving the box over was her abandoning that hope.

  Abandoning the woman in the photograph.

  But you ran out of the story, she told herself. It’s time to get someone else to help you find the rest.

  Willa upped her smile in the hope that Detective Gray couldn’t see the very real cracks beneath it. She carefully pushed the box across the table.

  He took it when it was within reach.

  Willa let out a small breath. It shook with relief, concern, and excitement.

  Detective Gray’s dark eyes met hers once more before focusing on the main reason for her being there. He was just as careful as he opened the container.

  Willa knew exactly what he was seeing yet still listened with rapt attention as she listed off the contents.

  “A ring box. A photograph of a young woman. One bullet casing...” He paused. Willa listed the last item currently in the box for him.

  “A piece of ripped fabric. With what appears to be blood on it.”

  No matter his intensity or looks, Willa didn’t like the skepticism that stretched across his face.

  “Whose blood?”

  Willa shook her head.

  “I have no idea,” she said. “I was hoping you’d be able to help me with that part.”

  Detective Gray took one last sweeping look across the box’s contents. Then those dark eyes were on her. The skepticism still whirling around in them.

  “And you found this at a construction site? How’d you know where to look?”

  She’d been ready for this question but knew the answer sounded made up.

  “A coworker had gone MIA and his wife called all concerned about him,” Willa answered. “I offered to go look for him at the site he was working earlier that day. He wasn’t there but I thought he might have dropped his phone. I found the box instead. Dave, the coworker, was fine by the way. He said he’d gotten wrapped up in a conversation with another worker about football. I suspect he got an earful when he got home, though.”

  There was a small stretch of silence as the detective scanned the items again. That skepticism stayed.

  “I’m not saying that what’s in this box isn’t interesting,” he started. “I’m just not sure how you think this pertains to a thirty-five-year-old murder. One that you want me to help you solve. If I’m being honest, this box actually looks like something for geocaching.”

  He must’ve realized she didn’t know what that was. He tacked on an explanation.

  “That’s when you have a box in a certain location and you log those coordinates on a web site and then people go and look for it. Typically, when they find the box, they either write their name down on a list or take something out of the box before putting something back into the box.” He waved his hand across the worn wood. “To me, that’s what this looks like. An assortment of random objects. I mean these don’t even look like they all come from the same time period. The picture looks like it was taken in the eighties. But this ring? It maybe looks a few years old.”

  Willa wasn’t naïve enough to think that she would be believed the second she tried to explain. She knew that there were a whole lot of people in Kelby Creek who had been trying to knock down the door of the sheriff’s department to see the new cold case unit. Her friend Ebony had been filling her in on some of the conspiracies and gossip that had been surrounding their fellow locals trying to get their piece of the newly developed unit and the former detective who had come back to be its leader.

  Yet there was a sting in his words that cut into her.

  Willa wasn’t used to not being trusted.

  Even from a stranger.

  She pushed her shoulders back, sat as tall as the chair would allow, and took great caution to keep her voice free of her swirling emotions starting up beneath the surface.

  She also didn’t want to betray the fact that, despite wanting the man to trust her, she was lying to him. At least, in part.

  “At first, that’s what I thought,” she started. “That it was just random what was in there, but then I got lucky with the picture.” Willa pointed to the box. The detective understood the motion. He pulled the picture out and glanced down at it before looking back to her as she continued. “That woman is Mae Linderman. I only was able to figure out who she was because, if you can see in the background of the picture, that’s the old grocery store. I have a friend who works there now—you know, years after the remodel, of course. She was able to find out, through the owner and a lot of gossip, that Mae’s brother worked there in the seventies. I was able to talk to him and, even though he was not a fan of discussing anything, he and the few people that I showed the picture to confirmed that that’s Mae.”

  The detective nodded. Willa appreciated the gesture. At least it meant that he was paying attention and staying quiet long enough to let her tell the whole story.

  “After I found out that it was, in fact, Mae, I learned that she passed away in ’81 from a car accident.”

  The silence didn’t last long.

  “And you think it was murder? Something staged to look like an accident?”

  “No,” she replied a little too quickly. It was the first time Willa had said any of this to anyone. She hadn’t told Ebony of her discovery or theory, and she hadn’t told her sister Martha, either. It was exciting to tell someone finally. Exciting and frustrating. Especially when they were giving her a look like Detective Gray was giving her now.

  “Once I learned about Mae, I learned about Josiah Linderman,” she continued. “He was her husband and they married young. They had two kids and, despite the two of them working long hours, they didn’t have much. They did, however, have each other and, from the few people I’ve talked to who actually knew them, their love was something else.” Willa couldn’t help but smile. She wasn’t a stranger to love, falling into it with a partner or seeing it displayed by her family and friends, but a special love? True love? She didn’t know if that was real. All she knew for sure was that she hadn’t had it with Landon.

  And if she hadn’t had it with him, a man she’d been with for years, who was to say she would have it with anyone?

  Across from her, the detective moved in his seat. It was subtle and... Maybe it was just a part of her imagination, but Willa thought the man had gone from scrutiny to discomfort. She kept on with the story and her theory so they wouldn’t be bogged down in what was and instead find out what had happened after.

  “A year after she died, Josiah said he was going to the store to get some groceries,” she continued. “They lived in the house close to town limits, out near the creek. From his house to Main Street, it should’ve taken about ten minutes or so at a good pace to get there but Josiah’d been known to take the long way ’round to get to town. Instead of taking the paved roads, he detoured to the dirt ones that ran
next to the woods, the creek, until finally he made it to Main. I mean, who doesn’t prefer the long way around on a nice day? Especially us locals.”

  Detective Gray didn’t comment, even when Willa had left him the space to do so if he wanted. She wasn’t used to having a conversation so one-sided, even if she was explaining something. That might have had more to do with the fact that her sister could go a mile a minute when given the proper topic. Plus, as per her curse, Willa was trying to be polite.

  She decided that this truly was the wrong place and the wrong time, so she finished the story without pausing again.

  “Josiah never made it to the store and he never made it back home. According to Mae’s brother, he just disappeared. A search party of friends was formed that night. They looked everywhere, but no one found a thing. He just was gone. Like snapping your fingers.”

  Willa motioned to the picture. “Like every town, there were, of course, people who said such bad things about him. A father consumed with grief overwhelmed at being a single parent leaves his kids to fall into foster care since they had no other family, apart from their uncle who refused to take them, and other such nasty things, but the few people I’ve talked to seemed to genuinely think the man cared about his kids. Even more so after his wife passed. He knew he was their only family. I don’t think, at least from what I know about him, that Josiah would willingly abandon them.”

  Willa let her eyes wander to the photograph in the detective’s hand. It was yellowing with age and there were worn marks from where it had been folded and unfolded many times.

  “Though, to be honest, if it wasn’t for that picture, I think I’d be inclined to believe that that box is just filled with random mess. Some scavenger hunt that maybe never got found. But rumor has it that ever since that picture was taken, Josiah had it on his person every moment except when he was sleeping.

  “Whether it was in his pants’ pocket, his wallet, or in his hand because he was showing someone his lovely wife, Josiah treasured that picture. So to find it in the box with a bullet casing and a bloodied piece of fabric? I don’t think Josiah Linderman just disappeared. I think someone took him. And I think someone killed him, put the evidence in that box and buried it, hoping no one would ever find it. I think Josiah was murdered and I would very much like you to help me figure out by who.”