What the River Knows (28 page)

“Any prints?” Bates had drawn out his notebook, pen poised.

“I already lifted a few from the door, but it’ll be hard to sort through. The little old lady that lives here had a stroke three weeks ago, and her family stayed here a week. Her oldest boy has been out a few times since to check on the irrigation pump, but not been inside the house. Hard to say when this happened. He found it when he came out to check on the pump today.”

“Did you get to talk to him much?”

“A bit. He had to get to town to help move his mom to a rehab unit. He was gonna go get her insurance policy to see if anything is listed.” Nash sighed. “So we may never know what items were stolen to be able to identify them if they turn up anywhere.” He glanced at Bates and then at Scott. “You ready to see the inside?”

“Not really,” Bates responded. “But I guess we need to.”

Together they followed Nash through the back door into a utility room that had once been a back porch later enclosed. There a large upright freezer stood open, with packages of meat rotting on the floor beside cartons of what looked like homemade stew and garden bounty. Both sides of the door showed dark smudges where Nash had dusted it with fingerprint powder. The prints Scott could see were indistinct and smeared.

They stepped through a doorway into a kitchen that looked like a meal had exploded inside. Dishes and canned goods littered the floor, mixed with cereal, flour, and broken jars. Beyond the kitchen, the dining room stood nearly empty. Imprints on the area rug showed where a massive dining table and eight chairs had once been. On the far wall, a light shadow on the paint indicated a china hutch had been removed. Papers dumped from a drawer littered the floor.

As they made their way through the first survey of the house, they saw continued evidence of the same lack of regard. The thieves had prepared some of the food from the kitchen, carried it with them through the house, and then dropped what they didn’t want wherever they stood. In the first bedroom, which apparently had been used by the occupant, they found pieces of a fragile lace wedding dress, a chili footprint ground into it.

Scott shivered. “Good thing she was in the hospital when this happened.”

“Yeah, but that seems to be the MO, just like yours in town. They find out when no one will be home for a while, then clean out what they want.” Nash shook his head.

“And how long before their intel fails them and they crash into a house with someone’s grandma asleep in her bed?” Bates gritted his teeth. “Then we might be investigating a homicide.”

“Exactly,” said Nash. “So let’s see if we can get them this time.”

Scott shivered again and raised the department camera.

Chapter 60

At 5:30 p.m., Scott moved toward his recliner, weary mentally and physically. Working up the burglary had taken all day. The complete ravaging of a family’s history bothered him. Had his mother not sold most of her possessions before she moved in with his brother, it could have been their house. He flipped open his phone and scrolled through his contacts until his found his brother’s home number. Alicia picked up the phone on the third ring.

“Hi, Scott.” Her voice, though cheery as always, sounded out of breath. “How’s my favorite brother-in-law?”

“Tired, Alicia. Is Mom around?”

“Of course, she is, Scott. If we’re here, she’s here.”

“Yeah, I guess that makes sense.”

“It’s not that bad, Scott. She’s making friends at church. She’s gone to lunch with a couple of the ladies while we were at work.”

Scott swallowed hard. “That’s good. Is she getting around okay now?”

“She takes her time, especially on stairs or slopes, but she’s doing very well, Scott.” He heard Alicia’s heels clicking on their hardwood floor. “But why don’t you ask her yourself.”

“Scott?” The excitement he heard in his mother’s voice lifted his spirits at the same time as it bathed him in guilt. “How have you been, son? It’s been ages since we talked.”

“I know, Mom. I’ve worked a lot of long days lately on some cases. It was late when I got off, and I didn’t want to wake the house.” His excuses sounded lame even to himself.

“Well, it’s good to hear your voice now.” She paused. “Will you and Rica be up for Thanksgiving?” Her excitement seemed to rise with the prospect.

He swallowed hard. She had no idea that things between them had been tough since long before she fell. “Probably not, Mom. You know how her extended family makes a big deal of every holiday.”

“Well, you wouldn’t have to come Thanksgiving weekend. You have some vacation time, don’t you?”

“Yeah, and maybe some other weekend would be easier to get away, not as many shifts to cover.” He really needed to go up to see her. No way he could tell her over the phone that his marriage had failed.

“Oh, boy.” She covered the mouthpiece with her hand, but he could still hear her call to Alicia. “Scott and Rica may be up around Thanksgiving.”

“Can I talk to Rica?” He heard his niece Vanessa in the background. Twelve-year-old Nessa wanted to be a nurse and loved talking shop with Rica.

“I don’t know, honey, I’ll ask.” His mother spoke directly to Scott. “Is Rica home?”

“She’s—she’s working a double shift tonight.” His throat almost closed with the lie. He didn’t know what shift she was working, or even if she was working anywhere. He knew nothing about Rica and her life now. “Mom, I gotta go now, need to get a run in before it gets dark.”

“Okay, son.” He heard the life go out of her voice, like the air from a balloon when no one holds the end closed. “Call again as soon as you know when you can come up.” Her voice grew soft and tender. “I love you, Scott.” As her baby, he had always held a special place in her heart; she had told him so many times after his brothers grew up and left home. And more after his father died.

“I will, Mom. I love you, too.” He flipped shut his phone and hung his head. The guilt at not being more useful to his mother weighed so heavily on him, that he almost felt he should be pressed into the floor. Trying to shake it off, he stood and went to the bedroom to change for a run.

He walked the six blocks to the running path, through the tunnel of shade made by the big trees that graced the yards of the old houses lining the sidewalks. Though the days were still warm in this Indian summer first week of October, the nights had begun to chill. He needed to put in for the time off if he wanted to go to Ohio for Thanksgiving, now just six weeks away.

He reached the path and stretched well. Now he faced a choice: run north as usual, or turn south toward the spot where the path ended and he found Delia. With one last stretch, he started south. At first, he ran slowly, just a jog until he could feel the blood coursing through his entire body. Then he picked up the pace, to where he could feel his hair ruffling a bit from the speed. Often, a run helped him flee from thinking about his problems. Today it worked, and he got relief from worry about Rica, his job, and life in general.

A mile from the end of the path, he looked to the west. The clouds that brought the heavy dew, which lately had turned to frost, spread low against the horizon. They absorbed the colors of the waning sun and spilled them into the sky as splashes of wine and honey.

He watched the sunset display as he ran. Before he realized it, he had to make a choice at the end of the path: hop the two-foot high barrier and proceed in the dark to where he found Delia, or turn back the way he had come. He shook his head, not ready to face that yet, and turned back to the north.

Chapter 61

Charlotte put down her pencil when she heard the tone of a new email delivered. Life had settled into an uneasy routine of smiling her way through designing the ad campaigns at work, dodging customers at the Dragon, and tiptoeing her way around Devlyn’s wrath at home. After so many years of practice, functioning as if nothing troubled her was an act she could pull off with little effort.

She glanced at her computer. The email was a birthday reminder.

“Charlotte?” Her supervisor popped into Charlotte’s office.

Charlotte turned to face her. “Almost got the preliminary sketch done, Erin.” She held up the pad for Erin to see.

“That looks great, honey.” Erin picked up the pad and turned it so the light from the window illuminated it. “I like the art-deco feel of it. Will be super in full-color.” She set down the pad. “Is something wrong, honey?”

Charlotte brushed away the tear that had crept down her cheek. “No, but today would have been my mother’s sixty-fifth birthday.”

Erin came around the desk to hug her. “Oh, sweetie, I’m so sorry.”

Charlotte leaned into Erin’s comforting shoulder, glad of the warmth but wary of the desire to let down her defenses and bask in it. “It’s okay, Erin. She’s been gone five years, but sometimes…”

Erin leaned back, her hand still on Charlotte’s arm. “I know, sweetie, you wish you could still call them.”

Charlotte nodded. “For so many years, it was just Mom and me.” She dabbed at her eyes and nose with a tissue. “But her last months were so difficult, with the chemo and radiation and all. Then finally, they said there was no need to do anything more. She just wasted away.”

“Take the day off, if you want, honey.” Erin stepped back to the other side of the desk. “I can show the client the concept with what you have here.”

Charlotte shook her head. “If I go home, I’ll just think too much.” She ran her hand over the drawing. “This campaign is intriguing me, helps take my mind off it.”

Erin turned to leave. “Okay, sweetie, but if you change your mind, just give me a jingle.”

“I will.” Charlotte looked down at the drawing and picked up her pencil again, only to put it down as Erin’s heels clicked down the hallway. Her mother’s last months had been agony for the both of them. Mom had feared how Charlotte would navigate without her there as a beacon, while Charlotte had just wanted to ease her suffering in any way she could. And yet, even in death, her mother had cared for her. Charlotte hadn’t known how large an insurance policy that her mother had maintained payments on throughout her last days. In death, Mom gave her the gift of transformation.

Chapter 62

Eight o-clock Friday morning found Scott in the waiting room of the psychologist, nursing the coffee he had made at home. For once, instead of running out of time to make it in the morning, he had set it up to brew the night before. Dr. Warren appeared in the open door of her office, leaning against the door frame.

“Well, Scott, what’s new?”

He looked up. “Not much, doc.”

She studied him for a few seconds. “Ready for your appointment?”

He stood. “Ready as I’ll ever be.” He followed her into the room, as she moved behind her desk and he took a chair facing her.

She consulted the file on her desk. “How was the past week for you?”

“Better, I think.” He shrugged. “Kind of in limbo.”

“How so?”

“Waiting on more paperwork from Rica about the divorce.”

“How long has it been since she told you she wanted a divorce?”

“Five weeks ago today.” He knew how many hours less it was, but didn’t want to share that information.

“Anything else happen?”

“We helped SO work a farmhouse burglary.”

Her body appeared relaxed, but Scott noticed that the focus in the doctor’s eyes appeared to sharpen. “Was this different than the usual procedure?”

Now cautious, he leaned back in the chair. “Well, they called us in because the MO was similar to the ones we’d worked in town—isolated house, no one living in the home at the moment. Plus there was a lot of evidence to document.” He smiled. “Truthfully, it was better than searching Twitter for clues.”

“You like to be moving about, don’t you, Scott?”

“I guess. My dad always said idle hands were the devil’s playground.”

“You looked up to your dad?”

Scott hesitated. “Yeah, I guess every kid does. When I was little, I thought my dad was the biggest guy in the world, and he could fix anything.”

“And when you were not so little?” she asked softly.

“Well, my dad died when I was fifteen.” In truth, how he had let down his dad by losing his marriage was never far from his mind.

“That must have been hard.” She let the silence lie there for a moment. “Was it sudden?”

Scott nodded. “I found him. In the field, on his tractor.”

The day his childhood ended, he had come home from school and noticed his dad’s tractor nudged up against the trees at the end of the soybean field. He ran into the house. “Mom, how long has Dad been in the soybean field?”

Her hands in dishwater, she looked toward the field through the window. She couldn’t see the field because of the row of trees between the house and the field. “I don’t know, two or three hours, I guess.”

“I’ll go give him a hand to finish.” Once he was out of sight of his mother behind the trees that separated the house from the field, he had run for all he was worth toward the tractor a half-mile away. As he got closer, he could see that it was idling. Though he yelled for his dad, he got no response, and when he climbed up to the cab, he found his dad resting on the steering wheel, his left arm dangling almost to the floor of the tractor cab. Scott had shaken his shoulder, calling for him, and then checked the cold wrist for the pulse he knew wasn’t there. Mindful from birth not to be wasteful, Scott turned off the tractor. Then he sat on the floor of the cab next to his father and wept.

“They said it was a heart attack.” He had dried his eyes on his shirt and run back to the house to break the news to his mother and call for an ambulance to make it official.

“And you had to tell your mother?”

He nodded. “And call the ambulance and my brothers.” He drove his mother to the hospital behind the ambulance. By the time they made it back to the house after the paperwork was done, friends and neighbors had arrived to help. Scott slipped out of the house, jogged back to the tractor, and finished planting the field by the tractor headlights. He knew there wouldn’t be time to finish it tomorrow, and it needed to be done for the beans to come up in good time.

It was just the first of many farm management decisions he made alone for the next three years, until he began applying to colleges, and his brothers convinced his mother to lease out the fields to another farmer. Then he went to college and took the job at the city, and his mother grew frailer without him noticing.