Down River (40 page)

“He took me shopping,” Janice interrupted.

“And Miriam stayed behind.”

“At the hotel,” Janice said.

I shook my head. “She rented a car two hours before Grace was attacked. A green Taurus. License plate ZXF-839. The police know about that, too.”

“What are you saying?” my father asked.

“I’m saying that she was still angry about Danny. She’d had eighteen days to think about Grace and Danny together, about how Danny dumped her for Grace. I’m saying she was still angry about that.”

“I don’t…” He was lost, so I drove the point home.

“Two hours after Miriam rented that car, someone stepped from behind a tree and beat Grace with a club.”

He looked at the card, looked at me. Janice squeezed his arm so hard I thought she might draw blood. “But what about Danny’s ring? The note…?”

“She probably kept the ring when she killed Danny. She may have left it with Grace as some kind of strange message. Or maybe, like the note, she was covering her tracks, hiding the true nature of Grace’s assault. The ring implied that Danny was involved in the attack, even that he was still alive. If people didn’t buy that, or if Danny’s body was found, then the note would steer them to people with a stake on the river. I think it was simple misdirection. Something she learned from watching her mother.”

My father looked at his wife.

“I’m sorry,” I said.

He picked up the card and our eyes met. He tried to speak, but gave up when nothing came. Janice pulled herself up by my father’s sleeve. He looked at her one last time, then turned like a very old man, and left. Janice bent her head and trailed in his wake.

I waited until their footsteps died away, then reached for the morphine trigger. I pushed the button and warmth gushed into me. I kept my thumb on the trigger, even after the morphine ceased to flow.

My eyes glazed.

The button clicked in the empty room.

   Robin returned as the sun fell through the earth. She kissed me and asked how it went. I told her everything and she was silent for a long time. She opened her phone and made some calls. “He hasn’t called,” she said. “Not Salisbury P.D. Not the sheriff’s office.”

“He may not.”

“You okay with that?”

“I don’t know anymore. I hate what Janice did to me, but Miriam was her daughter. She did what she felt she had to do.”

“You’re kidding.”

“I’ve never had a child, so I can only imagine, but I’d lie for Grace. I’d lie for you. I’d do worse, if necessary.”

“Sweet talker.” She stretched out on the bed with me, put her head on the pillow next to mine.

“About New York,” I said.

“Don’t ask me about that yet.”

“I thought you’d made your choice.”

“I did. But that doesn’t mean that you get to make every decision for the rest of our lives.” She was trying to keep it light.

“I really can’t stay here,” I said.

Her head turned on the pillow. “Ask me about Dolf.”

“Tell me.”

“The D.A. is close to dropping the charges. Most people think he has no choice. It’s just a matter of time.”

“Soon?”

“Maybe tomorrow.”

I thought of Dolf, pictured the way he’d turn his face to the sun when he walked out.

“Have you seen Grace yet?” she asked.

“She’s still in ICU and they’re limiting visitation. But that’s okay. I’m not ready.”

“You’ll confront your father and Janice, but you’re hesitant to talk to Grace? I don’t understand.”

“She’ll need time to get her head around this. Besides, it’s hard.”

“Why?”

“I have something to lose with Grace. I had nothing left to lose with my father.” She stiffened beside me. “What?” I asked.

“Not very long ago, I’d have said the same thing about you.”

“That’s different.”

She rolled onto her side. “Life is short, Adam. We don’t get many people that truly matter. We should do whatever it takes to hang onto the ones we have.”

“What are you saying?”

“I’m saying that we all make mistakes.”

We lay in the darkened room and at one point I drifted. Her voice startled me. “Why did Miriam agree to marry George Tallman?”

“I talked to him this morning. He was pretty messed up. I asked him how it happened. He’d been in love with her for years. They went out, but she would never say yes. She called him on the day before she left for Colorado. She told him to ask her again, and she said yes, just like that. He already had the ring.

“It was Janice’s idea, I think. If the body did turn up, few would suspect a cop’s fiancée. She didn’t plan to go through with it.”

“Why do you say that?”

“The first thing she did when she got back was send him shopping with her mother so she could sneak back here and beat the hell out of Grace. He was cover. That’s all he would ever be.”

“It’s sad,” Robin said.

“I know.”

Robin closed her eyes, pushed closer. She slipped her hand under my shirt. Her palm lay cool on my chest. “Tell me about New York,” she said.

   I got out of the hospital on the same day that Dolf got out of jail. He picked me up and drove us to the edge of the quarry outside of town. The granite was gray in the shade, pink where the light touched it. Crutches dug into my arms as I stood and looked down on clear water in the bottom of the quarry. Dolf closed his eyes and held his face to the sun. “This is what I thought about while I was inside,” he said. “Not the farm or the river. This place, and I’ve not been here for decades.”

“No memories here,” I said. “No ghosts.”

“And it’s pretty.”

“I don’t want to talk about my father,” I said, and looked at him. “That’s the real reason you brought me here. Isn’t it? So you could do his dirty work for him.”

Dolf leaned against the truck. “I would do anything for your father. Would you like to know why?”

I turned and started limping down the hill. “I’m not going to listen to this.”

“It’s a long way back to town.”

“I’ll make it.”

“Damn it, Adam.” Dolf caught my arm. “He’s human. He messed up. It was a long time ago.” I pulled my arm away, but he kept talking. “Sarah Yates was young and beautiful and willing. He made a mistake.”

“Some mistakes you have to pay for,” I said.

“I asked if you’d like to know why. Well, I’m going to tell you. It’s because he’s the best man I’ve ever known. Being his friend has been a privilege, a goddamn honor. You’re blind if you don’t see that.”

“You’re entitled to your opinion.”

“Do you know what he sees when he looks at Grace? He sees a grown woman and a lifetime of memories, an amazing human being that would not be here without the mistake you’re so ready to damn him for. He sees the hand of God.”

“And I see the death of the finest woman I ever knew.”

“Things happen for a reason, Adam. The hand of God is everywhere. Haven’t you figured that out yet?”

I turned, started walking, and knew that he was right about one thing. It was a long way back to town.

   I spent the next four days at Robin’s place. We ordered in. We drank wine. We did not talk about death or forgiveness or the future. I told her all that I could about New York City.

We read the papers together.

The shooting was big news, and articles ran across the state. Red Water Farm was described as a North Carolina landmark. Three bodies in five years. Six towers. Billions at stake. It did not take long for the wire services to pick it up. One enterprising reporter wrapped the story into a larger piece about nuclear power, rural desecration, and the price of unstoppable growth. Others spoke of obstructionism. Editorials ran hot in all of the major papers. People clamored for my father to sell. Environmentalists protested. The situation escalated.

On the fourth day, the power company announced that it had settled on a secondary site in South Carolina. Better water supply, they claimed. Just as convenient. But I had my own suspicions. Too much controversy. Too much heat.

In the wake of the announcement, a stunned silence rippled across the county. I felt the pop of vacuum as imaginary wealth was sucked back into the ether. That was the day I called Parks. The day I decided to put the problems aside and do what I could to help. We met for coffee at a restaurant ten miles down the interstate. After a few cautious words, he asked me to get to the point.

“How deep is my father’s debt?” That was my question.

He looked at me for a long time, trying to figure me out. I knew that he and my father had spoken. He’d told me as much.

“Why do you want to know?”

“The farm has been in my family for two centuries. Much of the vineyard has burned. My father is in debt. If the farm is at risk, I want to help.”

“You should be talking to your father,” Parks said. “Not going through an intermediary.”

“I’m not ready to do that.”

He drummed long fingers on the table. “What do you propose?”

“He bought me out for three million. I’ll buy back in for the same price. It should be enough to see him through.”

“You have that much left?”

“I made good investments. If he needs more, I have it.”

The lawyer rubbed his face, thought about it. He looked at his watch. “Are you in a rush?” he asked.

“No.”

“Wait here.”

I watched him through the window. He stood in the parking lot, cell phone to his ear, and argued with my father. His face still held the heat when he came back to the table. “He said no.”

“Did he say why?”

“I can’t talk about that.”

“But he gave you a reason?”

The lawyer nodded. “A pretty good one.”

“And you won’t tell me what it is.”

He spread his hands and shook his head.

   It was Dolf who finally explained it to me. He showed up at Robin’s the next morning. We spoke in the shade of the building, at the edge of the parking lot. “Your father wants to make things right. He wants you to come home, but not because you have a financial interest. Not to protect your investment.”

“What about the money he owes?”

“He’ll refinance, leverage more acreage. Whatever it takes.”

“Can he do it?”

“I trust your father,” he said, and the statement had layers of meaning.

I walked with Dolf to his truck. He spoke to me through the open window. “Nobody’s seen Jamie,” he said. “He hasn’t been home.” We both knew why. Miriam was his twin, and our father had shot her down. Worry filled Dolf’s eyes. “Look for him, will you?”

   I called my broker in New York and arranged to transfer funds to a local branch. When I went looking for Jamie, I had a cashier’s check for three hundred thousand dollars in my pocket. I found him at one of the local sports bars. He sat in a booth in the back corner. Empties stretched from one end of the table to the other. As far as I could tell, he had neither shaved nor bathed in days. I limped to the table, slipped in across from him, and propped the crutches against the wall. He looked destroyed.

“You okay?” I asked.

He said nothing.

“Everybody’s looking for you.”

When he spoke, he slurred, and I saw in him the kind of anger that had all but destroyed me. “She was my sister,” he said. “Do you understand?”

I did. As different as they had been, they were still twins.

“I was there,” I said. “He had no choice.”

Jamie slammed a bottle on the table. Beer shot out and spattered my sleeve. People stared, but Jamie was oblivious. “There’s always a choice.”

“No, Jamie. Not always.”

He leaned back, rubbed giant, callused hands over his face. When he looked at me, it was like looking into a mirror. “Go away, Adam. Just go away.” He put his head in his hands and I slipped the check across the table.

“Anything you need,” I said, and hobbled out. I turned once at the door and saw him there. He held the check in his fingers, then put it down. He found me across the room and raised his hand. I would never forget the face that he showed me.

Then he looked down and reached for another beer.

   When I went to see Grace, it was easier than I thought. I did not see my mother when I looked at her. In that, at least, my father had been right. It was not her fault, and I loved her no less. She looked worn, but the truth rested more lightly on her than it did on me. “I always thought my parents were dead,” she explained. “Now I have two, and a brother.”

“But Dolf’s not your grandfather,” I said. “You lost that.”

She shook her head. “I couldn’t love him any more than I already do. Nothing will change for us.”

“What about you and me? Is that weird?”

It took her a minute to answer. When she did, I felt the confusion in her. “Hope dies hard, Adam. It hurts. I’ll get used to it because I don’t have a choice. I’m just glad you didn’t sleep with me.”

“Ah. Humor.”

“It helps.”

“And Sarah Yates?”

“I like her, but she abandoned me.”

“Almost twenty years, Grace. She could have lived anywhere, but chose a place three miles upriver. That was no accident. She wanted to be near you.”

“Near is not the same.”

“No, it’s not.”

I guess we’ll see where it goes.”

“And our father?”

“I look forward to walking that road.” Her gaze was so level that I had to look away. She put her hand on mine. “Don’t leave, Adam. Walk it with me.”

I withdrew my hand, moved to the window, and looked out. A canopy of trees spread above the neighborhood behind the hospital. I saw a thousand shades of green. “I’m going back to New York,” I said. “Robin’s coming. We want you to come with us.”

“I told you before. I’m no runner.”

“It’s not running,” I said.

“Isn’t it?”

   They buried Miriam on an unseasonably cool day. I went to the funeral and stood with Robin at my side. My father was there with Janice, both of them looking sleepless, weathered, and bleak. Dolf stood between them like a rock. Or a wall. They did not look at each other, and I knew that grief and blame were chewing them down. Jamie lingered on the fringe, sunken, with splotches of red on his cheeks. He was drunk and angry, with no forgiveness in his face when he looked at my father.