Copper River (16 page)

“She has a good reason. When we find her, we’ll ask. Okay?”

Ren let it roll around in his head a moment, then he gave a sober nod. “Okay.”

“I’m heading back in.”

Ren said, “Me, too.”

Cork worked his way to his feet while Ren gathered up his things. They started back together.

The phone was ringing as they came through the cabin doorway. Jewell answered. “Hello?” She nodded. “Yes, Sue.” Cork, as he hobbled to a chair, saw her face go ashen. “Thanks, Sue.” She hung up.

She stared at the floor a moment, then raised her eyes, but avoided looking at anyone directly.

“Sue Taylor,” she said. “She and her husband own a hotel that overlooks the harbor. Ren and I saw a commotion down that way as we came into town.”

Ren had stopped in the middle of the room, his sketch pad wedged under his arm, his paper plate in his hand. Dina sat in a rocker near the fireplace. She stopped rocking.

“Sue thought we ought to know.” Jewell ran a hand, thoughtless and swift, through her hair.

Ren stood rigid as a stick of chalk. “Know what, Mom?”

She said the last of it in a breathless rush and Cork heard the heartbreak in every word. “The police pulled a body from the water. Sue didn’t know much except that—I’m sorry, Ren—it was a teenage girl.”

Y
ou live in a place your whole life. You know it. It’s as familiar as the mole on your left wrist or the flatness of your nose or the way your tongue rests in your mouth. You stop noticing.

Then something happens, and it all changes. You step through some unexpected looking glass of tragedy
—
the murder of your husband, say
—
and although everything around you appears the same, nothing really is, not at all, not ever. You wait for a day that feels normal, when the sun is a reason to smile, when the sight of a couple holding hands doesn’t make you want to cry, when you walk without dragging a coffin behind you.

You pray for even a moment of letting go. But it never comes.

She shook her head, clearing those thoughts, preparing for death again and wishing there was a way to prepare Ren, who’d insisted on going with her into Bodine. He sat pressed against the passenger door, cringing like a dog that had been kicked and was waiting to be kicked again.

God, you bastard, if that girl is dead…

She let it go. What good was railing at the deaf?

The Taylors stood on the steps in front of the Farber House. They both wore jackets. Sue had her arms crossed. Ken, tall and angular, looked a little like a dead tree leaning in the wind. They stared across the street at the pier where the remnants of a crowd still lingered. Jewell parked in an open space in front of a yellow fire hydrant. She and Ren got out.

“Where is she?” Jewell called above the rush of the wind off the lake.

“They took the body away a few minutes ago,” Sue replied.

Ren walked to the Taylors. His hands were buried in his pockets and his eyes were deep beneath a furrowed brow. “Was it Charlie?”

“We don’t know, son,” Ken answered. “It was hard to see. They kept people back.”

“How do you know it was a girl?” Ren demanded.

“People who got a closer look told us,” Sue replied gently. She clasped her hands; her small fingers flushed red. “Ren, we heard about what happened after you left this morning. We’re so sorry you had to see something like that.” Her eyes were wet as she looked to Jewell. “We heard Charlie was missing, then they pulled this poor girl from the lake, and we thought…well, we thought you’d want to know.”

“Thank you, Sue,” Jewell said. She moved next to Ren and put her arm around his shoulders.

She looked toward the long pier. It had been a commercial enterprise for decades, a place for big ships. Now it was a tourist walk lined with planters, a place for a stroll on a beautiful day, a spot for snapshots to remember. There was a break-water a quarter mile out, but the wind was strong enough to push the normally calm water of the harbor into high waves that crashed against the pier pilings and the rocks along the shoreline in eruptions of white spray. The clouds had thickened. Where their shadows fell on the lake the water had a dark, brooding look. Normally on a Sunday afternoon, the bay would be full of sailboats and cruisers, but the strong wind and the whitecaps had driven them in and the lake was deserted. There were two Marquette County Sheriff’s cars parked at the pier entrance. Several deputies stood near them, talking.

“I don’t see Ned Hodder,” Jewell said.

“I saw him go back to his office.” Ken Taylor leaned into the wind and seemed ready to curse the lake. “What a tragic day. I can’t remember one like this since…” He thought a second. “Well, since that whole Tom Messinger thing.”

“In a town like this…” Sue said, making it sound unthinkable and immeasurably sad.

Jewell and Ren hiked up the street to the constable’s office. She noted how rigidly Ren moved, like an old man stiff with arthritis. Ned Hodder sat inside, his long left arm poised above his desktop, his right hand gripping the phone. He was making notes on a pad, and when he saw them enter he used the pencil to wave them toward chairs.

“Uh-huh,” he said. “That’s right. Charlene.
C-H-A-R-L-E-N-E
. Last name Miller. Want me to spell that one? All right. Thanks, Sam.” He put the phone in its cradle.

Jewell tried to keep her voice even. “Was it Charlie?”

He swiveled in his chair to face them. Jewell had always thought that he had a boyish look to him, a big kid who’d never quite grown up. Now he looked every bit as grim as any grownup she’d ever seen.

“What did you hear?” he asked.

“That it was a teenage girl,” Jewell replied. “That’s all.”

His eyes shifted to Ren, and a look of deep sympathy softened every feature. Jewell wanted to save her son from what was about to happen, from this great, heartbreaking fall.

“You can relax, Ren. It wasn’t Charlie.”

Jewell heard a deep, quivering breath from Ren. Or had it come from her?

“It was a young girl, yes. Early teens. It may have been a suicide.”

“Do you know who?” Jewell asked.

“Unidentified at the moment. The sheriff’s people will be working on that.”

“Not from Bodine?”

“I’d know her if she was. I’d know that tattoo for sure.”

“Tattoo?”

“A long snake down her arm. Huge for such a small girl. Kids.” He shook his head. “It wasn’t Charlie, though. It definitely was not Charlie.” A can of Dr Pepper sat on his desk. He took a drink, finished it off, and dropped the can in the wastebasket next to his chair. “Ren, I wonder if I could talk to your mom alone for a few minutes.”

Ren shrugged. “Okay.” He glanced at Jewell. “I’ll wait outside. Like on the sidewalk or something.”

He ambled out.

Ned sat back and let out a deep sigh. “Two bodies in the same day. That’s a little more than I’m used to.”

Jewell wondered coolly if he was looking for sympathy. She’d known him forever. In high school, they’d dated for a while. She’d gone to college, met Daniel. Ned had gone into the Marines, where he’d been an MP. Afterward, he used his educational benefit to attend MSU in Lansing. He’d married a girl from Okemos who died a few years later of leukemia. No children. He’d returned to Bodine, where, for the last seven years, he’d been the town constable. People liked him. These days, Jewell avoided him.

She reached into her purse and pulled out a pack of Newports and a lighter. “Mind?”

“I thought you quit.”

“Yeah, well, sometimes a cigarette is the only thing that relaxes me.”

He nodded as if he understood. “How’s Ren holding up?”

She lit up and dropped the cigarettes and lighter back in her purse. “He’s scared for Charlie.”

“We all are. She’s a good kid.”

“Who you think killed her father.”

“They’ve already run the prints on that baseball bat. There were only two sets. Hers and Max’s. And Max didn’t kill himself.”

“So it had to be Charlie?”

“I didn’t say that. It just doesn’t look good for her.” He threw his hands up uselessly. “I’ve never worked a homicide investigation. The most I’ve ever been involved with here are a couple of suicides, and that’s different. I mean, things like this just don’t happen in Bodine.”

“No? What about Tom Messinger?”

“That was twenty years ago. But I get your point. The unthinkable can happen anywhere, anytime, to anyone. Right?”

She saw it in his eyes, the unspoken
Daniel
.

After her husband’s murder, when the allegations arose that law enforcement officers were responsible, something happened in Jewell’s thinking. Police—all of them, every one—became deadly snakes to be watched for and avoided. The sight of the uniform itself was enough to send her anger spiking. She understood how irrational this was, but that’s how she felt.

She looked for a place to tap the ash from her cigarette. Ned dug into his wastebasket and handed her the empty Dr Pepper can.

“You know Charlie didn’t kill her father,” she said.

“I don’t. And neither do you.”

“If she did, she had a good reason.”

“That may be. The important thing is to find her. If you or Ren hear from her, you need to let me know. I’ll deal with the sheriff’s people.” He leaned toward her again and his voice had an odd edge to it, sharp but not vicious. “Jewell, this is a case of murder. If you know where Charlie is, or if you find out and don’t say anything, it could get you into a lot of trouble. I’m serious.”

“I’m sure you are.” She glanced outside and saw that Ren had been joined by one of his friends. “Why suicide?”

“What?”

“Why do the sheriff’s people think the girl in the lake was a suicide?”

“For one thing, she wasn’t dressed for the weather. No shoes, no coat. So probably not accidental. Also she had no identification. I guess that’s something suicides do, remove anything that might identify them. And she’s a teenager with piercings everywhere and tattoos.”

“What’s that got to do with anything?”

“Seems to matter to Olafsson.”

“Any marks on her body?”

“The waves battered her pretty badly against the rocks. The ME’ll be able to determine if any of the damage came before her death. Why does this interest you?”

“Just curious how a cop’s mind works. Me, I deal with horses and cows. Simpler creatures.”

“And smarter?” He tried a smile, but gave up quickly. “It feels good to be talking to you again, Jewell.” He waited in a silence that got long and awkward.

“Are we done?” she finally said.

She saw the flicker of disappointment in his face, but she didn’t care.

“Yeah, pretty much.”

She dropped the butt of her cigarette into the Dr Pepper can, handed it to him, and left.

Outside on the sidewalk, Ren had run into Stash, who was carrying his skateboard under his arm.

“Dude, I heard about Charlie’s old man. That must’ve been, like, seriously fucked. You hear from Charlie yet?”

“No,” Ren said. “Nothing.”

“This sucks royally. I heard they pulled somebody out of the lake. I heard it was a chick.”

“It wasn’t Charlie.”

“Man, that’s a relief. Hey, what about that body we saw in the river?”

“You saw.”

“Maybe it was the same body.”

Ren hadn’t really believed in what Stash claimed to have seen. Now he wasn’t so sure. “Maybe,” he said.

“Shouldn’t you tell the flatfoot?”

“The what?”

“The constable.”

“I don’t know. I’ll think about it. Right now all I can think about is Charlie.”

“Something else, dude. Some douche bag stole my weed from the picnic shelter.”

Ren remembered the previous night when he’d kicked the cigar box under the leaves before he and Charlie fled.

“Probably the wind,” he told Stash. “Maybe it fell. Did you check under the leaves?”

“I checked everywhere. Zippo.” He squeezed his eyes together as if he’d felt a sudden pain. “My name was on that box.”

Ren considered pointing out how many times he’d told Stash it was a stupid thing to do, but it didn’t seem worthwhile. He also felt responsible for the loss and wanted to get off the subject as soon as possible.

“You’ve got more.”

“I was just thinking of going over to Dunning Park, make sure I’ve still got weed there. Want to come?”

“No, thanks. My mom’s inside.” He tilted his head toward the constable’s office.

“ ‘I killed him for the money and the woman. I didn’t get the money and I didn’t get the woman.’ Fred McMurray,
Double Indemnity
. Catch you later, dude.” Stash dropped his skateboard, gave it a push with the Doc Marten on his right foot, and rolled off toward Dunning Park.