Crooked Little Lies (20 page)

Before the accident, Drew would have smarted off about the bacon; Kenzie would have turned up her pert nose and said she wasn’t having any. But these days, they never said such things. They never gave a moment’s trouble, and Lauren deplored it—how nice they were, how careful of her feelings. She’d heard Jeff admonish them: Don’t talk back to Mom. Don’t fight with each other. Don’t yell in the house, slam the door, run the stairs
. Don’t, don’t, don’t.
Ever since she’d come home from rehab, the family walked on eggshells.

She wanted her regular, mouthy kids back, the ones who could be brats, who could shove and sass each other, who could argue and laugh and shout uproariously. She wanted the loud clatter of their feet on the wood floors, their incessant nattering and arguing.

“I heated the syrup, so be careful,” she said.

“Where’s Dad?” Drew cut a huge bite of waffle, poking it into his mouth.

“On the phone.” Lauren brought her mug of coffee to the island and sat down across from her children.

“Mommy, are you okay?”

Lauren could have cried on seeing the gravity of her daughter’s expression. The worry etched onto her sweet brow belonged to someone older, a person with a world of trouble on her shoulders, not an eleven-year-old child. “I’m fine, honey,” she said, and it was an effort to lift her voice and the vestige of a smile above the well of sorrow that felt permanently wedged under the floor of her heart. No matter how clean and sober she got, the past was there. She’d never be able to undo it.

“You don’t look fine,” Kenzie said.

“You’ve got that mug in a death grip,” Drew pointed out.

Lauren loosened her grasp, feeling the blood flow into her cramped fingers. She settled her breath. Still, she jumped at the squeal of brakes that announced the school bus.

Kenzie scrambled off her stool, grabbing her backpack.

“Don’t forget your lunch.” Lauren retrieved a small pink nylon tote she’d packed earlier with yogurt, a banana, and Wheat Thins—Kenzie was already conscious of her weight—from the kitchen counter and handed it to her.

“You’re picking us up after school, right? Me and Amanda? We have ballet, and it’s your turn to drive.”

“I’ll be there,” Lauren promised.

“You won’t forget?”

“Three twenty, right?” Lauren smoothed Kenzie’s brow.

She nodded, but her gaze was somber and riddled with apprehension.

Lauren reached for her, hoping to reassure her, but just then Drew called to her from outside, and she wheeled from Lauren’s grasp, bolting through the back door and running down the driveway, Lauren following in her wake.

When Kenzie reached the bus door, she paused and looked back, and Lauren smiled and waved, the way she always did. Maybe her smile felt more adamant and her wave foolishly large and of longer duration, but never mind. The important thing was that she was there for Drew and Kenzie—for all the neighborhood—to see she was a sober and responsible parent. And no matter what else happened today, she would be at the school this afternoon, front and center, first car in the line.

She was rinsing the syrup from the breakfast plates when Jeff came into the kitchen, carrying his briefcase. “There are waffles leftover,” she said. “I can heat one up for you.”

“I wish, but no time. Can I have a rain check?”

“Maybe.” She was glad for his easy manner. “I put the Waller-Land folder in your briefcase.”

“I saw it, thanks,” he said. “I damn sure don’t need an inspector on my ass today. Kaiser’s nervous enough as it is.”

“He didn’t seem nervous to me.”

“Well, I guess you haven’t seen him since we found the asbestos.”

“Asbestos?” Lauren hadn’t remembered the inspector finding asbestos in the building. She hated for Jeff to work around it.

“Yeah. I had to tell him you can’t just shovel that shit into a landfill, you know? He wasn’t too happy.”

“I thought it was marginal—” Lauren was guessing, pretending she knew. It wasn’t necessary. Jeff was on to the kids.

“You’re picking Kenzie and Amanda up for ballet, right?” He shrugged into his jacket.

“I told her I was.” Affront rode in Lauren’s voice. She couldn’t help it.

“Hey,” Jeff said, “don’t shoot the messenger. She asked me, okay? She’s worried. You know.”

Lauren looked down at the towel, fighting the thrust of her resentment. It was as if she was the child and Kenzie the mother.

“Do you want to ride with me?” Jeff asked. “I’ll wait.”

She looked at him. “I don’t need a babysitter.”

“I didn’t mean—”

She cut him off. “I’m going into town first anyway. I want to see how Annie’s doing, if she’s had any news.”

“No! Lauren, for God’s sake. You were there all day yesterday. You made yourself—”

Crazy.
She wondered why he didn’t say it.

“That isn’t why I went off the deep end—” Lauren clamped her jaw. She didn’t want to talk about the mix-up with the car. She didn’t want to even think about it. “I’ll be at work as quickly as I can, Jeff. I promise.”

“The search effort’s being shut down.”

“But the police are still looking. Annie, other people—no one’s giving up.”

“Don’t do this, okay?” he said. “Don’t get yourself involved in this other family’s business any further.” He waited, and when she didn’t respond, he brushed by her without another word or the rote kiss.

Lauren readied herself in anticipation of hearing the door slam, but he closed it behind him so gently she heard almost nothing at all, and it seemed all the more ominous that he should be so upset with her and yet make so little noise in leaving her.

She turned to stare at it, wondering what he might do, what he could be planning.

After a moment, she pulled her cell phone from her purse, dialed Tara’s number, and walked to the window, twitching the curtain to one side, watching Jeff back his truck down the driveway while Tara’s phone rang four times, five, then six before rolling to voice mail.

Tara had probably turned off her phone and was sleeping, Lauren thought.

“If you’d like to leave a message
. . .
”
the canned voice said.

“I don’t know what to do,” she said in response. “I’m scared,” she told the waiting silence, and she listened for a moment to the blood in her ears, the ticking of her pulse.

“Where are you?” she whispered.

18

T
hey’d been calling veterinarians for close to a half hour on Thursday morning when Annie caught the lilt of what sounded like cautious excitement in Lauren’s voice. Their eyes connected. Lauren held up a finger even as she continued speaking. “Yes, that sounds like the woman we’re looking for,” she said, then, “Would it be possible for you to give me her name and phone number?”

The reply caused Lauren to frown. Annie held her breath.

“I understand your policy of not handing out personal information, but in this case, I wonder if you can make an exception. The young man who’s missing was seen getting into her car.”

Pause.

“Yes, actually I am with the police. I suppose we could get a court order.” Lauren shrugged at Annie, making a face that seemed to say
Whatever it takes
.

Annie smiled, mouthing,
Yes!

And when Lauren wheeled her chair around, picked up a pen and began writing, Annie went to look over her shoulder, watching as Lauren wrote down a name: Charlotte Meany and an address, and next to that she wrote a number, seventy-eight. Charlotte Meany’s age? Annie was guessing.
Meany
, she thought, looking at the
M. Ms. M.

Lauren added another number, a phone number this time, and finding Annie’s gaze again, she grinned, thanking her contact profusely. Annie nearly laughed out loud, hearing Lauren use the words
civic duty
and
helpfulness in an ongoing police investigation
.

“I’ll probably be arrested,” she said, ending the call, “but we got it!” She held her note out to Annie.

“You really think it’s her?” Annie studied the details.

“Janie, the girl I spoke to, knows the lady and her dog. They’re neighbors, if you can believe the luck. Charlotte lives about a half mile down the road from her, and her dog’s named Blue Sky. She even knows who Bo is. She’s seen him with Charlotte a few times.”

“Are you kidding?”

Lauren said she wasn’t, and when she pointed out that Meany started with the initial
M
, the same initial Bo included in his last-known text message, Annie said, “It could be a coincidence.”

“Maybe, but we won’t know until we talk to her.” Lauren took her car keys from her purse and pulled it onto her shoulder. “Shall we go?”

“Now?” Annie was unsure, not about going to see Charlotte Meany but about going with Lauren. Who wasn’t her mother no matter how much she reminded Annie of her mother. Who wasn’t anyone Annie knew at all. Who only hours ago had seemed very unstable.

“Something tells me we’re better off not to give her any warning.”

Annie didn’t say anything.

“You aren’t thinking we should tell the police, are you? They never took this lead seriously before, why would they now?”

“Let me tell Madeleine and Carol where we’re going.” Maybe it was stupid to go along with Lauren, but the lead she’d found was all Annie had.

Cedar Cliff was northeast of Hardys Walk and small at less than half the size, and while the interstate bisected the heart of Hardys Walk, Cedar Cliff was miles from the highway, tucked into a pocket of the piney woods like a half-forgotten souvenir.

“We could be in the middle of nowhere,” Annie said after they’d gone several miles in silence down a narrow, gravel-edged ranch road. Bare-branched trees overhead cast bony shadows that danced like throngs of skeletons on the pavement. The effect was eerie, isolating.

Lauren said if Annie thought this was nowhere, she ought to see the farm.

“You have a farm?” Annie asked.

“My sister and I inherited it from our grandparents. It’s not far from here, actually, but talk about the boonies. It makes Cedar Cliff look like Houston. Well, not quite.” She smiled. “We’re trying to clear the place out now so we can sell it. It’s so remote, not much to do.” She paused, then added, “We’ll miss it. At least I will. Tara, too.”

They drove another few miles before Annie mentioned Bo, that he might have gone to California to see his mother.

Lauren glanced at Annie in consternation. “That’s so far. What makes you think he would attempt a trip like that?”

Annie told Lauren what she’d found out, beginning with the phone message from Constance McMurray and her revelation that Bo’s mother was alive. “Even my own mother knew, and it’s hard for me to believe because I thought we told each other everything.”

“She might have been trying to protect you and Bo.”

“That’s what JT said, but having things out in the open, in the light of day—telling the truth, no matter how hard it is—” Annie broke off, picking at her thumbnail, feeling some combination of hurt and confusion along with the warmth of Lauren’s concern, her presence—that seemed so normal and ordinary. So motherly. “It’s what my mom preached,” Annie said, “but I guess it’s not what she lived by. She didn’t walk her talk.”

Lauren didn’t respond for so long that Annie thought she wouldn’t, but then she said, “It’s easy to say the words, to say what you should or shouldn’t do, or the way you should be or not . . .”

It sounded as if Lauren was speaking in more than generalities. “JT said they went back and forth.” Annie offered this in the face of her silence.

“Well, it’s difficult when a parent is unstable, especially if drugs are involved.”

Something sharp and raw in Lauren’s tone drew Annie’s glance, raised the rate of her pulse.

The canned voice of the GPS announced the need for a left turn, and Lauren did as instructed even as she said, “Can this be right?”

They bumped along a rutted single lane that was more serpentine path through a heavy mixed growth of oaks, towering pines, sweet gums, the occasional oak or redbud, and bright-berried yaupons. Annie was glad they weren’t in her old BMW.

Lauren said, “Let’s hope Charlotte Meany isn’t waiting for us with a shotgun.”

Annie’s laugh was strained. It was Texas after all, where folks had strong ideas about their right to bear arms, especially in the boonies. They’d shoot their gun at somebody for no more reason than the look in their eye. They’d shoot their gun to celebrate good news or just because they felt like it, and sometimes that thoughtless shooting killed somebody.

The house came into view, a small white bungalow with a deep, columned porch across the front. It looked old but well maintained.

“That’s the car I saw Bo getting into,” Lauren said. “I remember the license plate.”

Annie looked at the carport, at the black Lincoln parked there. The specialty tag was adorned with a spray of bluebonnets, the Texas state flower. She traded a glance with Lauren, excitement and trepidation brimming in the air between them.

It was her, the woman Lauren had seen. Annie knew it the instant Charlotte Meany opened the front door in answer to Lauren’s knock. Not because of the older woman’s white, white hair that was swept into the exact French twist Lauren had described nor even because of the blue-eyed dog that stood beside her, a tail-wagging but otherwise quiet companion. No. Annie knew this was the woman because of the sharp intake of Lauren’s breath.

“May I help you?” the woman asked.

“Yes, I think you certainly may,” Lauren said. “You’re Charlotte Meany, is that right?”

The woman gave a tentative nod, as if she wasn’t sure of her identity, or maybe she wasn’t sure she wanted to own it. In fact, she looked bewildered, even a little frightened, but Annie only registered these details subliminally.

“You know my brother, Bo Laughlin, don’t you.” Annie wasn’t asking. “You know he’s disappeared, that the police are looking for him.”

“You aren’t friends of my daughter’s?” Charlotte looked from Annie to Lauren. “She didn’t send you?”

Lauren said no. “We came to ask you about Bo.”

“You’d better come in, then,” Charlotte Meany said, and she was grave, very grave, in a way that made Annie’s heart slide hard against her ribs.

Charlotte opened the screen door.

The dog stepped out.

“Hey,” Lauren said, smiling down at him.

“This is Blue Sky,” Charlotte said. “Sky for short. Go on, boy, it’s all right,” she told him, and they watched him go down the steps, out into the yard. Annie thought how she would like to follow him; she thought how much Bo would have liked him.

She and Lauren followed Charlotte into a small front room that was cluttered with furniture: a silk-upholstered love seat was pushed against one wall, and an assortment of chairs was clustered around a low table of some vintage style Annie couldn’t name. But she thought the chairs were French. There were so many that she decided, as she picked her way among them, Charlotte must collect them. All of them were old; some had arms and some didn’t, but all were gracefully made, with turned legs and touches of gilt paint gone chippy with age. Most were cushioned in needlepoint bouquets of faded flowers. It wasn’t a look Annie would have for herself, but she could admire it. She sat gingerly on the edge of the love seat.

“I was just going to make myself a cup of tea,” Charlotte said. “Would you like some?”

“Where is my brother?” Annie said. “What have you done with him?”

“What? Nothing. I’ve done nothing with him.” Charlotte looked alarmed; she darted a glance at Lauren.

“I think a cup of tea would be lovely,” Lauren said soothingly, keeping her glance on Charlotte. “If it’s no trouble. It was a bit of a drive up here from Hardys Walk. I was just telling Annie on our way that my grandparents’ farm isn’t far.”

“Oh?” Charlotte answered. “Whereabouts is it?”

Annie understood what Lauren was doing, making small talk, but she longed to run through this house, to throw her glance against every wall, fling open every closet door.

“I’ll just be a minute.” Charlotte left through an arched doorway that Annie assumed led to the kitchen. “Make yourselves at home,” she called over her shoulder.

Lauren settled between the gilt arms of one of the small parlor chairs and looked meaningfully at Annie, commanding her attention, her silence. They could hear Charlotte moving around, the soft clink of cutlery and china, a brief shriek from the kettle before it was lifted from the burner. Now there was the gurgle of water as it was poured into a teapot.

When Charlotte reappeared in the doorway, Lauren rose quickly to retrieve the tray she carried.

“If you’ll just set it there.” Charlotte indicated the low table in front of Annie’s knees.

Lauren did as she asked. “Would you like me to pour?”

“No, dear. I can do it.” Charlotte settled into another of the gilt-armed chairs, one that was adjacent to Lauren’s. “I’m old, not helpless nor hapless. Not that you mean to imply that,” she added, cutting off Lauren’s protest.

There was a suggestion of apology in Charlotte’s tone of voice, but Annie caught a bitter note, too, as if Charlotte had been regularly saddled with those very labels and had grown tired of it.

“It’s almost too beautiful to touch.” Lauren was looking at the tray.

Feasting her eyes, Annie thought. It was a beautiful presentation, laden with delicate cups and saucers, a sugar bowl and creamer, and what Annie thought was a pink Depression-glass plate arrayed with perhaps a dozen crisp-edged cookies. There were even cloth napkins, tiny embroidered squares edged in a fine webbing of lace.

Lauren was clearly enchanted by the sight. From the look of her, she was as filled with delight as any child at a party, and in that moment, Annie, unreasonably, ridiculously, almost hated her.

Charlotte thanked Lauren, and they went on like two old hens at a gabfest, talking about china, German, Bavarian, French, oohing and aahing over its artistry, and when they got around to discussing the beauty and intricacy of table linen, Lauren unfolded her napkin and examined it as if it were a freshly unearthed and exceedingly fragile treasure.

“Have a cookie, dear.” Charlotte Meany held out the plate for Annie.

“Where is my brother?” she asked, and this time, she minded her tone, keeping it soft.

Lauren set down her cup. “I did see you with Bo last Friday, I believe,” she said gently to Charlotte. “Am I right? Wasn’t it you I saw driving the car he got into, the one parked under the carport outside?”

Charlotte closed her eyes, briefly revealing lids that were shaded in pale lavender and as lined and translucent as worn tissue. She set down her cup with a sigh. “I know I should have called the police, but in my defense, I really don’t know anything helpful.”

“My brother was in your car. You took him somewhere, and you didn’t think you should tell the police?” Panic made Annie sound disbelieving and harsh. “Where is he? What did you do to him?”

“Where did you take him?” Lauren asked, and by contrast, her tone was calm and deliberately kind, and Annie knew the reason why, yet it only further provoked her. An urge to scream at both women seared her brain, and she clenched her teeth against it.

You can snare more bees with honey than you can with vinegar.
Annie’s mother’s voice drifted through her brain.

“We bought sandwiches and went to Hermann Park and had a picnic. Afterward, we walked Sky around and then went to the library.”