Lie in Plain Sight (21 page)

She waited until the sound of the truck's engine died out to start down the side of the hill, sliding on her ass most of the way, ripping her pants in the process. Never really sure what she was doing, but always sure of why, she grabbed an errant branch here, an outcrop of rock there and managed to make it to the bottom before looking up and thinking, But how am I going to get out?

She didn't spend time worrying about that, getting out of holes becoming just something else that she needed to do lately, opened the door to the porta-potty that she had seen Barnham go into and poked around the desiccated wads of toilet paper and clumps of dirt that lived at the bottom of it, avoiding looking at the toilet and trying even harder not to breathe.

“There's nothing here,” she said out loud, thinking that if the odor of cinnamon had followed her everywhere before, it would be the odor of old, baked-in sewage that would follow her now.

Getting up the hill proved less challenging than she'd thought it would be, but she added a ripped Comfort Zone T-shirt to the torn pants to complete her ensemble. Once in the car, she opened all of the windows and drove through town with the chilly, morning wind whipping through, thinking that a shower with the special gel was in order if she had any hope of not offending every single person with whom she came into contact.

At home, in the shower, she realized that she wasn't ground zero for the disappearance, as she'd thought previously, but she couldn't figure out who—or what—was.

The shower did wonders and she felt well enough to open the store and start her Founders Day preparations; she figured the exhaustion would hit later. That was the life of the small businessperson; you opened when you felt like shit and you put a smile on your face, lest people think that you weren't reliable, weren't open to deliver to them exactly what they needed when they needed it. That birthday cake that you forgot to order? She'd have it for you in two hours and it would be the best birthday cake you'd ever eaten. Need a quiche for a brunch that your wife is dragging you to? Here you go. Just out of the oven.

The store was a bit of a mess when she arrived, the kitchen even worse, but she chose to ignore it for the time being. She went into the front and made a small pot of coffee for herself, looking at the clock. Six thirty. She had had a text from Chris the night before asking if they could have dinner, and she had agreed. It was a full twelve hours until they were to meet, and the thought of it exhausted her. She wasn't sure if it was what had happened with Cal or just the general ennui that is sure to set into a relationship that lasts more than a few months, but her relationship with Chris—Chris, really—was wearing her down. The light, boyish qualities that he had brought to the early days of their relationship, that adorable twinkle in his eye, had turned into a sometimes wooden, heavy demeanor that she just didn't need right now, not when she felt as if everyone looked at her as if she were personally responsible for the disappearance of a girl in town. She knew that she was imagining a lot of that, but it was the way she felt. She realized that she had stopped making eye contact with many of her usual customers, not wanting to engage them for fear they'd look at her with that curiosity, the one that said, “Why did you let that poor girl go home?”

The swinging door that separated the front of the store from the kitchen fluttered slightly, indicating that someone had entered the prep area from the back parking lot. Again, she could hear her father admonishing her to lock the door after herself; did she want to end up a “dark stain on the floor”? It was too early for Jo, but it wasn't too early for Cal, who was always out of coffee and usually on his way home from the gym at this time, or Chris, just about to start his day and eager to see her before he did. She prayed that it was one of them and not someone who had gotten wind of the fact that sometimes she didn't cash out at the end of the day, leaving a few hundred dollars in the register because she was too lazy or too pressed for time to go to the bank and make a deposit.

She looked through the round window in the door, and of all the people she expected to see, the one she saw would never have crossed her mind.

David Barnham.

He saw her before she could really focus on him, and rather than give her a little wave to let her know that he was just a guy in need of a muffin, he glared at her from across the kitchen, standing in a tense posture at the end of the big prep area. She took a deep breath and went through the swinging door, a smile on her face.

“Coach,” she said. “Fancy meeting you here. Out of coffee? Need a muffin?” She wasn't afraid of him, but she didn't want to tell him that—or the fact that he should be a little afraid of her.

“No. None of those things,” he said, one hand wrapped around a melon baller, his hand flexing and flexing, as if he thought he could do some serious harm with a cooking implement he didn't realize was broken and was on its way out before he showed up.

“So what is it, then?” Maeve asked, even though she knew the answer.

“Why are you following me, lady? What do you want?” he asked.

“I'm not following you,” she said and that “truth,” if it could be called that, was as flimsy as one of her crepes when it came off a hot pan. She was also no lady, but he didn't need to know that.

“What do you call it?” he asked. “First you were at the field. Then you came to my house. You weren't lost,” he said, holding up his free hand before she could dispute that. “You weren't. Don't lie.”

She noticed that he left out the most recent place she had seen him. “And I saw you kayaking in the dark. Don't forget that.”

“No. You didn't,” he said, and while he didn't seem confused by the statement, he didn't seem clear either. He didn't mention that very morning. He must not have seen her. To her, it seemed like he was trying to figure out how to play this, despite his consternation at her repeated presence, her showing up at places she didn't belong. He had rehearsed. “What do you want?”

She tried honesty; it hadn't been her stock-in-trade of late, and she wondered how it worked. “I'm looking for Taylor.”

“So are the police,” he pointed out unnecessarily. “Why do you think you can find her?” Disdain was not a good look on him.

Did he really want to know? Did he have that kind of time? Did she? She had found her sister, Evelyn—that needle in a haystack—because as good as she was at keeping secrets, it turned out she was even better at finding things, even better than that at getting to the truth, the heart of the matter. Should she take the time to explain that to him, or would that be a waste of breath? “You wouldn't understand,” she said.

“Try me.”

“I don't need to,” she said. She watched his hand flex on the melon baller. “Put that down,” she said, a mother scolding a child. The baller made a clanking sound as it hit the counter. “I understand you're very close to your team. To certain girls,” she said, going for broke.

“I'm a coach. A mentor. It's part of my job,” he said.

“Is it?” Outside, she could hear the traffic becoming heavier as commuters made their way to that popular early-morning train that started in Farringville and shot like a bullet to the city, making only one stop before it hit Grand Central. People were at the front door. Probably wondering why the store hadn't officially opened. “From what I understand, you're very close to certain girls, closer than a mentor would be. Were you close to Taylor? Was she a special player?”

He didn't respond directly. “And who told you that?” he asked, his face getting red. “Heather? Rebecca?” He shook his head. “I thought she was better than that. That she didn't care. That all she cared about was getting out of here. Getting away from you,” he said. “From what Rebecca told me, you were a little pathological with the overprotectiveness.”

She tried not to wince, the blow hitting its intended target: her heart. After reading Heather's essay the night before and now this, she wondered if there was enough time left to right the ship that was her relationship with her girls.

Maeve stood her ground at her end of the counter. “Why were you out there?” she asked in the same tone she would ask if the lemon poppy seed or the chocolate chip muffin would be preferable to a customer.

“I'm going to tell you what I told the cops: I was not kayaking. I was in bed.”

“Yes, with a Farringville cop, from what I understand.” She smiled. “We have something in common, then.”

“Lady—”

“It's Maeve.”

“You've got a screw loose.”

“Maybe so.” Behind her, the oven timer went off. “But I know what I saw.” She put on oven mitts, her back to him, and pulled out the two trays she had put in earlier. “Muffin?” she asked, sweeping her hand over the tray as if she were displaying precious goods.

“No, I don't want a goddamned muffin,” he said. He leaned across the counter as if he wanted to start toward her but had forgotten about the obstacle in his path. “Don't do this,” he said, waving a hand around. “Don't go down this road.”

“Or what?” she said, wondering just how far she could push him before he lost it completely; he was certainly close by the looks of it.

“Just. Stop.”

“Or what? You won't play Heather? I'm sure that's not even a consideration. She hasn't played soccer in over ten years. Frankly, I'm not even sure why you took her on the team. Is she that good?”

“No.”

“What, then?” She turned the muffins over onto a large cookie sheet.

“We're shorthanded.”

“So you take girls midseason?”

He shrugged. “Why not? It's not like we're going anywhere. Might as well let as many girls play as want to.”

Maeve had forgotten: This was Farringville. Everyone was a winner. Everyone got a trophy. Everyone played if they wanted to.

She focused on her muffins. “See, here's the thing you don't know about me: I don't stop. I can't stop. Not until this is resolved.” She looked up at him in what she thought was a kindly way, a way to make him feel better about her and her intentions. But he blanched when he met her eye and turned tail quickly, leaving the store.

Maybe what he had said had been correct.

Maybe she did have a screw loose.

 

CHAPTER 27

Jo stopped in later that day, even though she had the day off thanks to Maeve, who wanted to repay Jo for running things the day before. The purpose of her visit? To complain about motherhood. Again. Maeve wanted to tell her that the baby slumbering in the stroller wasn't really all that challenging as babies went. She reached into the cold case and wiped away a smear of grease that had appeared some time during the day, hoping that by putting her head into an enclosed space, she wouldn't have to listen to more of this. Had she been like this, complaining to anyone in earshot about the “witching hour,” the hour when children start to fall apart, their naps being too long or not long enough, their blood sugar plummeting, a time when it was too early for wine but too late for more coffee? It felt good inside this case, Maeve thought, Jo's voice muffled by the glass on three sides.

“What are you doing now?” Jo asked.

Maeve removed herself from the case and held up the bottle of glass cleaner. “Cleaning.”

“No. I mean now. After work.”

“I was supposed to go out with Chris later, but he canceled,” Maeve said, trying not to let Jo see that she was secretly relieved. He was working overtime, something about the case requiring his attention. She made an attempt to sound disappointed, but even he had remarked that she didn't sound terribly upset. He chalked it up to her exhaustion, the bump on her head.

Whatever he wanted to believe. She had other things to do. Something had occurred to her while she put the finishing touches on the Rotary Club's sheet cake, the process of snapping little florets onto its edges giving her time to think. “You want to help me with something?” Maeve asked.

Jo rolled her eyes and pointed at the baby.

“You can bring the baby,” Maeve said. “And I'll tell you everything that happened yesterday on our way to where we're going, because I know you're just dying to know.” Maeve had been cryptic, citing a migraine as her excuse for not opening, but Jo knew her well enough to know that she was lying, the truth a much juicier tale that Jo would have loved to hear first thing. But there was work to be done, and Maeve had hung the story out as a carrot to get Jo to complete what she needed her to do before Maeve would give her one little detail of her excursion and the real reason she hadn't come to work the previous day.

Jo rubbed her hands together excitedly. “A good story plus I don't have to go home with Prince Poops-a-lot?” She jumped up and down. “This day just got a whole lot better. We'll take my car.” Maeve started to protest, preferring the silent Prius, but Jo held up a hand. “Baby seat.”

Jo's car was a used Honda CRV, a car that ate up a lot of gas, spewed a lot of exhaust, and smelled like its previous owner, a guy who had run a short-lived cigar shop in town. Jo had been desperate to find something cheap and reliable for chauffering baby Jack, and this car had fit the bill. The owner was a customer and had asked Maeve if she knew of anyone who needed a car like the one he was selling. Jo had jumped at the chance to have her own set of wheels; her husband used their staid Taurus as his commuter car.

“Does it still smell like cigars?” Maeve asked as they exited the store and went into the parking lot.

“It does,” Jo said, opening the driver's door and unlocking Maeve's. “Hold your nose.”

But the smell wasn't entirely unpleasant, bringing Maeve back to a time when Jack would host his cop friends as well as some neighborhood guys and they would play poker, poker being a convenient excuse to get together, drink, smoke, and eat large Italian sandwiches from the deli around the corner, sandwiches Maeve heard more than one guy say his wife wouldn't let him eat often. Maeve would hang around and collect the loose change that the men would throw on the table and lose after a bad hand, making neat piles for all of the men who attended, garnering a couple of dollars in dimes and quarters by the end of the night, enough so that she could make her own trips to the avenue to get candy the next day. Here in Jo's car, she put her seat belt on and took a deep breath, the memory of those Friday nights curling over her in imagined, smoky tendrils and bringing back the names of the guys in attendance: Tommy Mulcahy. Eddie Martin. Gene Washington. Marty Haggerty.