Down River (24 page)

“I know the man.”

“That’s not enough, Adam—”

My control slipped. “I’ve known him my whole life! He all but raised me!”

Robin kept her calm. “You didn’t let me finish. That’s not enough if we’re going to help him. We need a crack in the story, some place to start chipping.”

I studied her face. There was no reticence in her. “I’m sorry,” I said.

“Let’s talk about what we can do.”

She wanted to help, but I was in possession of material evidence, a crime, maybe the first of many. “Not we, Robin. Just me.”

“What are you saying?”

“I’ll do whatever it takes to get Dolf out of there. Do you understand what I’m saying? Anything. If you help me, your career might not survive. Other things might not survive. I’ll do what I have to do.” I paused so she could think about what I was saying. Obeying the law was not one of my priorities. “Do you understand?”

She swallowed. “I don’t care.”

“You chose me, not Dolf. I don’t want you getting hurt. You owe Dolf nothing.”

“Your problem is my problem.”

“How about this? You help me in ways that don’t put you at risk.”

She thought about it. “Like what?”

“Information.”

“I’m off the case, remember. I don’t have much.”

“How about motive? Grantham must have some theory on that. Have you heard anything?”

She lifted her shoulders. “Just chatter. Dolf didn’t give a motive in his interview. They tried to pin him down, but he was vague. There are two theories. The first is simple. Dolf and Danny worked together. They had a falling-out, an argument that went too far. Happens all the time. The second comes down to money.”

“What do you mean?”

“Maybe Dolf was the one killing cattle and torching outbuildings. Maybe Danny caught him doing it and got killed for his trouble. It’s thin, but a jury will listen.”

I shook my head. “Dolf has nothing to gain one way or another.”

Puzzlement twisted Robin’s features. “Of course he does. Same as your father. Same as Zebulon Faith.”

“My father owns this place. The house, the land. All of it.”

Robin leaned back, put her hands on the table’s edge. “I don’t think so, Adam.” She tilted her head, still confused. “Dolf owns two hundred acres, including the house we’re sitting in.”

I opened my mouth, but no words came. Robin spoke slowly, as if I were not quite right in the head. “That’s six million dollars, based on the latest offer. One hell of a motive to squeeze your father into selling.”

“That can’t be right.”

“Check it out,” she said.

I thought about it, shook my head. “First of all, there’s no way Dolf owns a piece of this farm. My father would never do that. Secondly”—I had to look away—“secondly, he’s dying. He wouldn’t care about money.”

Robin understood what that statement cost me, but she refused to back away. “Maybe he’s doing it for Grace.” She put her hand on mine. “Maybe he’d rather die on a beach some place far from here.”

   I told Robin I needed to be alone. She put soft lips on my face and told me to call her later. What she had said made no sense. My father loved this land as he loved his own life. Guarding it was his special trust; keeping it for the family, the next generation. Over the past fifteen years, he’d given partial ownership to his children, but that was for estate planning purposes. And those interests were merely shares in a family partnership. He kept control; and I knew that he would never part with an acre, not even for Dolf.

At eight o’clock, I went to the house to ask my father if it were true, but his truck was gone. He was still out, I thought, still after the dogs. I looked for Jamie’s truck, but it was gone, too. I opened the door to a cathedral silence, and followed the hall to my father’s study. I wanted something to put context around what Robin had said. A deed, a title policy, anything. I pulled on the top drawer of the file cabinet, but it was locked. All of the drawers were locked.

I paused, considering, and was distracted by a flash of color through the window. I walked to the glass and saw Miriam in the garden. She wore a solid black dress with long sleeves and a high collar, and was clipping flowers with her mother’s shears. She knelt in the wet grass, and I saw that her dress was damp from having done so many times. The shears closed around a stem, and a rose the color of sunrise fell to the grass. She picked it up, added it to the bouquet; and when she stood I saw a small but satisfied smile.

She’d piled her hair upon her head; it floated above a dress that might have come from another age. Her movements were so fluid that in the silence, through the glass, I felt as if I were watching a ghost.

She crossed to a different bush, knelt again, and clipped a rose as pale and translucent as falling snow.

As I turned from the window, I heard a noise from upstairs, a sound like something being dropped. It would be Janice. Had to be.

For no reason that I could articulate, I still wanted to speak with her. I guess we had unfinished business. I climbed the stairs, and my feet were quiet on the thick runner. The upstairs hall was bathed in cold light through tall windows. I saw the farm below, the brown drive that cut through it. Oil paintings hung on the walls; a wine-dark carpet ran away from me; and the door to Miriam’s room stood ajar. I stood at the crack and saw Janice within. Drawers were pulled open and she stood with hands on her hips, studying the room. When she moved, it was for the bed. She lifted the mattress and apparently found what she was looking for. A small sound escaped her lips as she held the mattress with one hand and scooped something out from underneath. She dropped the mattress and studied what lay in her palm; it glittered like a shard of mirror.

I spoke as I stepped through the door. “Hello, Janice.”

She spun to face me, and her hand closed in a spasm; she whipped it behind her back, even as she bit down in obvious pain.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

“Nothing.” A guilty lie.

“What’s in your hand?”

“That’s none of your business, Adam.” Her features calcified as she drew herself up. “I think you should leave.”

I looked from her face to the floor. Blood was dripping on the hardwood behind her feet. “You’re bleeding,” I said.

Something in her seemed to collapse. She slumped and brought her hand from behind her back. It was still clenched shut, white at the knuckles in spite of the pain; and blood had, indeed, channeled through her fingers.

“How badly are you hurt?” I asked.

“Why do you care?”

“How badly?”

Her head moved fractionally. “I don’t know.”

“Let me see.”

Her eyes settled on my face, and there was strength in them. “Don’t tell her that you know,” she said, and opened her hand. On the palm of it lay a double-edged razor blade. Her blood put a sheen on it. It had cut her deeply, and blood welled from perfectly matched wounds on each side of the blade. I lifted the blade and placed it on the bedside table. I took her hand, cupped mine beneath to catch the blood.

“I’m going to take you to the bathroom,” I said. “We’ll wash this off and take a look.”

I ran cold water on the cuts, then wrapped her hand in a clean towel. She stood rigidly throughout the entire process, eyes closed. “Squeeze tight,” I said. She did, and her face paled further. “You may need stitches.”

When her eyes opened, I saw how close she was to breaking. “Don’t tell your father. He can’t possibly understand, and she doesn’t need that burden, too. He’ll only make it worse.”

“Can’t understand what? That his daughter is suicidal?”

“She’s not suicidal. That’s not what this is about.”

“What, then?”

She shook her head. “It’s not your place to hear about it, no more than it’s mine to tell. She’s getting help. That’s all you really need to know.”

“Somehow, I don’t think that’s true. Come on. Let’s get you downstairs. We’ll talk about it there.” She agreed reluctantly. As we passed the tall windows, I saw Miriam driving away. “Where is she going?” I asked.

She pulled up. “You don’t really care, do you?”

I studied her face: the set jaw, the new lines, and the loose skin. She would never trust me. “She’s still my sister,” I said.

She laughed, a bitter sound. “You want to know; fine, I’ll tell you. She’s taking flowers to Gray Wilson’s grave. She does it every month.” Another tight sound escaped her. “How’s that for irony?” I had no answer, so I kept my mouth shut as I helped Janice down the steps. “Take me to the parlor,” she said. I led her into the parlor, where she sat on the edge of the fainting couch. “Do me one last favor,” she said. “Go to the kitchen and bring ice and another towel.”

I was halfway to the kitchen when the parlor door slammed shut. I was still standing there when I heard the heavy lock engage.

I knocked twice, but she declined to answer.

I heard a high sound that may have been keening.

   Miriam was where her mother had said she would be. She knelt, folded into herself, and from a distance it looked as if a giant crow had settled upon the grave. Wind moved between the weathered stones and shifted her dress; all that she lacked was the sheen of feathers, the mournful call. She moved as I watched. Deft fingers sought out weeds and plucked them from the earth; the bouquet was positioned just so. She looked up when she heard me, and tears moved on her skin.

“Hello, Miriam.”

“How did you find me?”

“Your mother.”

She pulled out another weed and tossed it to the wind. “She told you I was here?”

“Does that surprise you?”

She ducked her head, wiped off the tears, and her fingers left a trace of dark soil beneath one eye. “She doesn’t approve of me coming here. She says it’s morbid.”

I squatted on my heels. “Your mother is very much about the present, I think. The present and the future. Not the past.” She studied the heavy sky and seemed oppressed by it. The tears had ceased, but she still looked sunken and gray. Beside her, the bouquet was brilliant and stark and weeping fresh. It leaned against the stone that bore the dead boy’s name. “Does it bother you that I’m here?” I asked.

She grew suddenly still. “I never thought you killed him, Adam.” She put a tentative hand on my leg; a gesture of comfort, I thought. “It doesn’t bother me.”

I moved to place my hand over hers, but, at the last second, laid it on her forearm instead. She jerked back and a small hiss of pain passed though her lips. A dark certainty filled me. The same thing had happened at the hospital when I’d touched her arm; she’d told me that I startled her. I doubted that now.

She canted her eyes at the ground, held the arm against her body, as if afraid I might reach for it again. Her shoulders angled away from me. She was frightened, so I spoke softly. “May I see?”

“See what?” Defensive. Small.

I sighed. “I caught your mother searching your room. She found the razor blade.” She rolled her shoulders in, made a ball of herself. I thought of the long sleeves she wore, the sweeping skirts, and the long pants. She kept her skin hidden. At first, I’d thought nothing of it, but the blade put everything into a different light.

“She should not have done that. It’s an invasion.”

“I can only assume that she’s worried about you.” I waited before I asked again. “May I see?”

She denied nothing, but her voice dwindled even further. “Don’t tell Daddy.”

I held out an open palm. “It’s okay.”

“I don’t do it much,” she said. Her eyes were soulful and afraid, but she held out her arm, half-bent. I took the hand, found it hot and damp. Her fingers squeezed as I pushed up the sleeve as gently as I could. Breath hissed between my teeth. There were fresh cuts and those that had partially healed. And there were scars, thin and white and cruel.

“You weren’t at a health spa, were you?”

She shrank away, almost to nothing. “Eighteen days of inpatient treatment,” she said. “A place in Colorado. The best, supposedly.”

“And Dad doesn’t know?”

She shook her head. “It’s for me to fix. Me and Mom. If Dad knew it would only make it harder.”

“He should be involved, Miriam. I don’t see how hiding this can help anyone.”

She lowered her head further. “I don’t want him to know.”

“Why not?”

“He already thinks something is wrong with me.”

“No, he doesn’t.”

“He thinks I’m twitchy.” She was right. He’d used those words.

I asked the biggest question, although I knew that there was no simple answer. “Why, Miriam?”

“It takes away the pain.”

I wanted to understand. “What pain?”

She looked at the gravestone, caressed the hard-edged letters of Gray Wilson’s name. “I really loved him,” she said.

The words caught me off guard. “Are you serious?”

“It was a secret.”

“I thought you were just friends. Everybody thought that.”

She shook her head. “We loved each other.”

My mouth opened.

“He was going to marry me.”

   Miriam had never been what my father thought she should be; she was right about that. She was beautiful in a pale and subdued way, but so reticent at times that one might easily forget that she was in the room. She’d been like that from the earliest days: sensitive and small, easily lost in the shadows. The rest of us were too outgoing perhaps. Maybe her mother wasn’t the only one who’d smothered Miriam. Maybe it had been a group effort, unintentional but cruelly effective. And I knew how weakness could compound over time. When she was twelve, some girls at school had been unkind to her. We never learned what the unkindness had been, something typical of girls that age, I’d always imagined. Whatever the slight, she’d gone three weeks without speaking to anyone. My father had been patient at first, then grown frustrated. There was an explosion near the end, harsh words not easily forgotten. She had cried and fled the room, and his apologies, later that night, had been to no avail.

He’d felt horrible about it, but dealing with women had never been his strong suit. He was gruff, spoke his mind when he spoke at all; and there was no place for delicacy in the man. Miriam was too young to understand that. She withdrew further over subsequent years, built the wall higher, salted the ground around her. She confided in her mother, and in Jamie, perhaps. But not in my father, and certainly not in me. It was a small sadness that began easily and grew until we barely noticed it.