Never Look Away (22 page)

TWENTY-SEVEN

Ethan ran into my arms as I walked through the front door of my parents' house. I hoisted him into the air and kissed both his cheeks.

"I want to go home," he said.

"Not yet, sport," I said. "Not yet."

Ethan shook his head. "I want to go home and I want Mom."

"Like I said, not right yet."

He squirmed angrily in my arms to the point that I had to put him down. He strode forcefully down the hall and out the front door.

"Where are you going?" I asked.

"I'm going home," he said.

"The hell you are," I said and went out after him, grabbing him around the chest and swinging him up into the air. I brought him back inside, plunked him on the floor, gave him a light swat on the butt, and said, "Go find something to do."

He vanished into the kitchen, where I heard him open the fridge. Ethan usually enjoyed his time here, but he hadn't been in his own house since early yesterday morning. And as much as my parents loved Ethan, he was probably wearing out his welcome.

"Sorry," I said to Mom.

"It's okay," she said. "He just misses her. David, what's going on? Why did they take your car away?"

Dad, who'd just come in, said, "You should see what they're doing at his house. Tearing the goddamn place apart, that's what they're doing."

I steered Mom outside onto the porch where Ethan couldn't hear. "The police think I did something to Jan," I said.

"Oh, David." She was more sorrowful than surprised.

"I think they think I killed her," I said.

"Why?" she said. "Why would they think such a thing?"

"Things are ... things seem to be pointing in my direction," I said. "Some of it's just coincidence, like the fact that no one's actually seen Jan since I took her to Lake George Friday. This mix-up with the online tickets--"

"What mix-up?"

"But then there's other things, things that don't make sense, where people have been telling lies. Like up in Lake George, whoever runs that store up there."

"David, I don't know what you're talking about. Why would people tell lies about you? Why would someone want to get you in trouble?"

"The boy needs a lawyer, that's what he needs," Dad said through the screen door.

"I need to go up there," I said. "I need to find out why that person's lying."

"Is anyone listening to me?" Dad said.

"Dad, please," I said.

"Your father's right," Mom said. "If the police think you had something to do with whatever happened to Jan--"

"I don't have time now," I said. "I have to find Jan, and I have to find out why things are being twisted to look like ..."

"What?" Mom asked.

"Reeves," I said.

"The councilor?" Mom said. "Stan Reeves?"

"I was thinking he only just found out about this when I ran into him at the police station. But what if he's known about it for a while?"

"What are you talking about?" Dad asked.

"And Elmont Sebastian," I said. "I can't believe--I know they've got it in for me, but they wouldn't ..."

My mind raced. It didn't take long to connect the dots, but what sort of picture did they form, really?

If something happened to Jan, and if I could be framed for it, I wouldn't be able to write any more stories challenging Star Spangled Corrections' bid for a prison in Promise Falls.

There wouldn't be any more attempts by me to get stories into the paper about how Sebastian was bribing councilors--at least Reeves--to see things his way.

Was that possible? Or was I nuts?

Was it worth going to that much trouble to silence one reporter? I did work for the only paper in town, and despite its decline, the
Standard
still wielded some influence in Promise Falls. And I was the only one at the paper who seemed to give a shit about this issue. Not just whether for-profit prisons were a good idea, but what Star Spangled Corrections was willing to do to get its way.

And while taking me out of the picture wouldn't solve all of Elmont Sebastian's problems, it sure wouldn't hurt.

But even if it was true, and Elmont Sebastian was manipulating things behind the scenes to have me neutralized, how was I to explain what I'd learned in Rochester? About Jan's past, or lack of it?

"I need a glass of water," I said suddenly.

Mom led me into the kitchen, where Ethan was lying on the floor, his head pressed sideways to the linoleum, running a car back and forth in his field of vision, making soft, contented engine noises. Mom ran the tap until the water was cold, filled a glass and handed it to me.

I took a long drink and then said, "There's something else."

My parents waited.

"Something about Jan."

I led them out of the kitchen so Ethan wouldn't hear what I had to say.

I hit the road half an hour later in my father's car. Now, having done it, I wasn't sure telling my parents about what I'd learned in Rochester had been such a good idea. Dad had gone into a rant about incompetent civil servants who'd probably issued Jan the wrong birth certificate.

"I'll just bet," he said, "she sent in her particulars to get a birth certificate, and they gave her one for some other Jan Richler, and when she got it in the mail she never even looked at what it said. They pay these people a fortune and they have jobs for life so they don't care how good they do them."

But Mom was deeply troubled by the news, and spent much of her time looking out the window into the backyard where Ethan was now whacking croquet balls all over the place. At one point, she said, "What will we tell him? Who are we supposed to tell him his mother really is?"

I floated my theory about the witness protection program, which Dad found plausible enough that it distracted him from his tirade about government slackers. (It never seemed to occur to him that he had been a municipal employee himself.) His willingness to embrace the theory made me doubt its validity.

Dad was still going on about how I needed to get a lawyer even as I got behind the wheel of his car. On this, I had to admit he was talking sense, but I couldn't bring myself at this point to explain everything that had happened in the last two days to someone new.

I had too much to do.

To placate him, I said, "You want me to get a lawyer? Go ahead and find me one. Just not someone who handles driveway disputes."

I kept watching my rearview mirror all the way up to Lake George. I wasn't expecting to see the blue Buick Jan had spotted the last time I'd driven up here, but I did have a feeling that Detective Duckworth, or one of his minions, would be keeping an eye on me. If Duckworth truly believed I was a suspect, it didn't make sense for him to let me out of his sight.

If I was being followed, they were doing a good job of it. No one car caught my eye the entire drive up. I pulled off the road and into the parking lot of Ted's Lakeview General Store shortly after three in the afternoon.

The place was far from jumping. No one was pumping gas, and there were only a couple of cars in the lot. Assuming one belonged to whoever was minding the store, that meant maybe one customer inside.

The door jingled as I went in. A thin man in his late sixties or early seventies was behind the counter. At first I thought he was standing, then saw he was perched on the edge of a tall stool. He gave me half a nod, and half a smile, as I came in.

A plump woman already in the shop reached the counter before I did and set down a bag of Doritos, a king-sized Snickers bar, and a bottle of Diet Coke before him. He rang up her purchases, bagged them, and sent her on her way.

Once she was gone, I said, "Are you
the
Ted?"

"That's me," he said. "What can I do for you?"

"I'm a reporter for the Promise Falls
Standard,"
I said. "The police, Detective Duckworth, he told me he was speaking to someone here about that woman who's gone missing. Would that be you?"

"One and the same," he said with a lilt in his voice. The suggestion that he was about to be interviewed had brightened him.

"So this woman, Jan Harwood, she was in here?"

"I'm as sure it was her as I am that you're standing right there," he said.

"And you called the police? Or were they in touch with you?"

"Well," he said, slipping off the stool and leaning across the counter, "I saw her on the news the night before, them saying she was missing, and right away I recognized her."

"Wow," I said, making notes in the pad I'd taken from my pocket. "But how could you recognize someone who was just in here for a minute?"

"Normally, you'd be right about that," he said. "But she was pretty chatty, gave me a chance to get a good look at her. Nice-looking lady, too."

Jan? Chatty?

"What did she have to say?"

"That she was up here for a drive with her husband."

"She just came out and said that?"

"Well, first, she said how beautiful it was up here, that she'd never been to Lake George before, and I said are you staying somewhere up around here, and she said no, she was just up for a drive with her husband."

That all sounded plausible. Some friendly conversation. Why was Duckworth trying to make that sound like more than it was?

"So then what?" I asked. "She bought something and left?"

"She bought some drinks, I remember that. Can't say what they were off the top of my head. An iced tea, I think."

"And then she was gone?"

"She asked me if there was any interesting things to do around here. Something fun."

"Something fun?"

"Aren't you going to write all this down?" Ted asked.

I realized I hadn't been taking notes. I smiled and said, "Don't worry, I'll remember the good stuff."

"I just don't want to be misquoted or anything."

"Don't worry about that. So what did she mean, something fun?"

"She wondered if there was something to do around here, because her husband had brought her up on a little car trip, and she was wondering why. She thought maybe he was planning to surprise her with something."

"Did she give any other reason why they were up this way? Like, I don't know, that they were meeting someone?"

Ted thought about that. "I don't think so. Just that her husband had brought her up this way and wouldn't tell her why."

I set my notepad and pen on the counter and didn't ask anything else for a moment. Ted was confused.

"There a problem?"

"Why are you lying, Ted?" I asked.

"What's that?"

"I asked why you're lying."

"What the hell are you talking about? I'm telling you the truth. I'm telling you the same thing I told the police."

"I don't think so," I said. "I think you're making this up."

"Are you some kind of nut? She was here, standing right where you are. Only two days ago."

"I believe she was here, but I don't believe she said those things to you. Did someone pay you to tell the police those things? Is that what's going on?"

"Who the hell are you, anyway?"

"I told you. I'm a reporter, and I don't like it when people try to jerk me around," I said.

"For fuck's sake," Ted said, "if you don't believe me, get the police to show you the tape."

"Tape?"

"Okay, I call it tape, but it's on a disc or digital or some kind of shit like that. But look." He pointed over his shoulder. A small camera hung from a bracket that was bolted to the wall. "We got sound, too. It's not great, but you listen close you can hear what people say. I got robbed pretty bad here back in 2007, asshole even took a shot that went right past my ear and into the wall back here. That's when I got the camera and the microphone."

"It's all recorded?" I said.

"Ask the cops. They came up here earlier today, made a copy of it. Why the hell are you accusing me of lying?"

"Why would she say those things?" I said. But I was talking to myself, not Ted.

I grabbed my notepad, slipped it back into my jacket, and started heading for the door.

Ted called out, "When's this going to be in the paper?"

I was shaking my head, looking down as I went out the door, trying to come up with a reason why Jan would have told someone she didn't know why I'd brought her up here. Why she would have said I was planning some kind of surprise for her. It made sense that Jan wouldn't have told a stranger we'd taken a run up here so I could meet a confidential source. That would have been just plain dumb. But to actually start up a conversation for the purpose of saying those things--what the hell was that about?

Maybe, had I not been so preoccupied, I would have had some inkling that Welland, Elmont Sebastian's ex-con driver, was waiting to ambush me the moment I came outside.