The Good House Page 29

  Rob was one of her few classmates in Sacajawea who had always been intact, turning out to be almost identical to what he’d always been. Even in high school, he’d been serious and aloof, as if he were preparing for unpleasant tasks. Today, his beige uniform was pressed, his western-style hat was slanted at an angle, and his badge, shoes, and leather holster shined. If Sheriff Rob Graybold couldn’t rattle Sean, Angela thought, no one could.

  Rob had called first, so Sean was expecting them. He met them outside his front door, guiding them to a picnic table under a cedar tree beside the trailer. His white-blond hair was neatly combed, gelled away from his forehead this time, not falling into his eyes. He answered every question without hesitation, calling Angela “ma’am” and Sheriff Graybold “sir.” He brought out a pitcher of iced tea and served them politely. Watching him, it would have been easy to believe Sean had been conducting himself admirably in interrogations half his life.

  When Angela spread the index cards on the table, Sean barely registered any emotion.

  “Yeah, I’ve seen those,” he said. “Like I told Mrs. Toussaint before, those were Corey’s. He thought they could do spells.”

  “Andyou thought they could do spells, too,” Angela corrected.

  “Maybe a superstitious thing, like you don’t walk on the sidewalk crack or you break your mother’s back. I’ve never seen any real-life magic, just stuff on TV.”

  He was lying! Angela had expected Sean to be evasive, but she could hardly reconcile the calm boy sitting before her now with the quivering wreck she’d seen just two days ago. “Sean…,” she prompted, a warning.

  Sheriff Graybold tapped her knee under the varnished wood tabletop, silencing her.

  “Sean, why do you think Corey shot himself?” he asked.

  Sean shrugged. “I don’t know, Sheriff. I’ve thought about that, but I just can’t say. It’s crazy. It was a shock and everything.” He hung his head, which Angela cynically decided was a move for sympathy before she scolded herself for the thought.

  “Of course it was, son,” the sheriff said. After a sensitive pause, the sheriff pressed on. “Corey wrote something in his notebook we thought you could help us interpret. He wrote the wordsWe have fucked up big. Do you have any idea what he meant by that?”

  “Yes, Sean—do you remember what you said about the land being tainted? Something you’d done with Corey to taint the land?” Angela could no longer keep silent.

  “No, sir,” Sean answered, ignoring Angela. “I don’t know anything about that. He never showed that notebook to me. He wrote poems in it, I guess. He was private about it.”

  “Yeah, I guess a kid would be private about a thing like that,” the sheriff said. His green eyes flashed Angela a quick but plain message:Keep quiet . She folded her hands in her lap, sighing. In the long silence, they heard agitated whinnying of horses in the stable.

  “Still got Sheba back there?” the sheriff said.

  “Yessir. My aunt sent the other ones back, the studs we had.”

  “You think you’re gonna sell Sheba, you let me know. Melanie’s looking at an Andalusian on the Internet now, but they’re a fortune,” Rob said, his voice sounding breezy, as if they were ready to leave. He even closed his notebook, and they had just gotten started!

  “Andalusians are great horses. But I don’t think I’m gonna sell Sheba, sir.”

  “You find a good horse, you keep her,” the sheriff said, and he hardly paused before he went on. “What do you know about a kid named Beaumont Cryer, Sean?”

  There. Sean kept his expression carefully in check, but all color seeped from his face. He looked ill, suddenly.

  “Who?” he said.

  “You don’t know who Beaumont Cryer is?”

  “Well…” Sean hesitated. “Yeah. Of course. Everyone called him Bo.”

  “What else do you know about him?”

  Sean’s hand wandered to his forehead, looking for hair to flick from his face, a habit. “Didn’t he…run away or something?”

  “He vanished that same summer you met Corey,” Rob said. His notebook was open again, his pen poised to take notes. Sean looked at Angela, as if for assistance, but Angela was lost. She’d never heard of a kid named Beaumont Cryer. Apparently, Sheriff Graybold had his own agenda today. “Didn’t Bo spend a lot of time at The Spot? You and Corey hung out there, too. When you ran into Bo there…did he ever say anything about leaving town? Anything that could help us out?”

  Sean opened his mouth to speak, then hesitated. He was weighing what to say, and not hiding it well. “I’m not sure I remember running into Bo Cryer at The Spot,” he said finally. “I don’t have any memory of that.” To Angela, he sounded like a senator testifying at a Congressional hearing.

  “You sure, Sean?” Sheriff Graybold said gently. “No little disagreement?”

  “That was at Pizza Jack’s,” Sean blurted, then slowed down. “I mean, it wasn’t a real disagreement or anything. No big deal. Bo said some things Corey didn’t like, trying to start something. That’s how Bo was. But nothing came of it.”

  That was all news to Angela, but as much as she’d tried to monitor Corey’s whereabouts, the life teenagers shared with other teenagers was known only to them. Corey had mentioned some local boys making snide comments and giving him hostile looks, another of the reasons he hated spending summers in Sacajawea. Remembering that, Angela felt pangs of remorse. She’d been so bent on trying to recreate the experiences of her adolescence for Corey, she’d uprooted him every year and isolated him in a place where he felt like an outsider. Since his death, that seemed unreasonable in a way that horrified her. Tears pricked at Angela’s eyes. She should never have brought him here. What would she give to have that one summer back?

  “Yousure, Sean?” Sheriff Graybold said again. “You’re sure nothing came of it?”

  Sean was looking at Rob Graybold as if he knew it was useless to lie, but it was too late to start telling the truth. “Yeah, nothing came of it. Then we heard he’d vanished.”

  “And how long after that did Corey shoot himself? Do you remember?”

  Sean swallowed hard, his Adam’s apple fighting his throat. “A couple days, maybe. I dunno.”

  Angela could no longer keep quiet. “Rob…I don’t know what you’re getting at here, but you’re missing the point. Sean, you need to tell us about what you told me. The spells.”

  Sean looked at her with sad, exasperated eyes. “I don’t know anything about the magic, Mrs. Toussaint,” he said. “Swear to God. Corey was into it, that’s all.”

  “But you said the land is tainted,” Sheriff Graybold said. “Isn’t that right? Didn’t you say that to your dad all the time? That’s what I hear from folks. You said not to go near it.”

  Sean blinked. He was close to tears, and Angela suddenly pitied him. She hadn’t expected Rob to push this hard. “I said it was bad karma, because Corey died there,” Sean said.

  “Corey died in thehouse, Sean. I understand that. But there’s fifty-odd acres of land back there. Why would you warn your dad and anybody else who’d listen to stay away from the land?”

  Sean looked at Angela again, this time with fierce eyes. “Maybeshe gets it. When something bad happens, you want to stay away from it. Don’t you? You don’t want to talk about it. You want to forget it ever happened. You understand, don’t you, Mrs. Toussaint?”

  “Yes, Sean, I do,” she said, seizing the opportunity to try to get through to him. “But sometimes we can’t stay away. We have to go back. Because if we don’t, other people get hurt. I can’t think of any good that’s ever come out of a secret, even if you made a promise to a friend to keep one. Even if you promised a friend who died.”

  Tell us,Angela thought, wishing she could control Sean with her mind.Please. But Sean’s eyes had narrowed as he drew more deeply into himself, escaping to his own contemplations.

  The sun was low in the sky. It must be nearly five o’clock, Angela realized. She could hardly remember ho
w she’d spent her day, except making phone calls and this conversation with Sean. Days were too precious to waste, and she wasn’t looking forward to the drive back to Longview and the confinement of her hotel room. This close to Gramma Marie’s house, she almost felt tempted to stay here at home. Almost.

  The squawk from Sheriff Graybold’s radio was so loud, Angela jumped beside him. Rob pressed the radio to his mouth. “Graybold,” he said.

  “Rob? There’s a report of a possible homicide over by the pier, near the historical museum. Gunnar Michaelsen’s waiting there with his grandson. Tommy made the call.” A woman’s voice.

  “What the hell would Tommy know about a homicide?”

  “That’s the call, Rob. He sounded frantic. You best go check it out.”

  “Roger that,” Rob said, and Angela noticed his body sag. His eyes had gone cold in a way they might have when he was in Skamokawa that day, right before he squeezed the trigger. “That sounds like a shitstorm. Tommy and some friends playing a prank, I’ll bet. But I gotta go.”

  Sean looked relieved to have lost Rob’s attention, but Rob had a stern tone for him. “Don’t disappear yourself until we’ve talked again. You got that?”

  “Yes, sir,” Sean said, already halfway back to the front door of his trailer.

  “Rob, we need to talk,” Angela said.

  “Then you’re gonna have to ride with me, Angie.”

  It began to drizzle as Rob set off for the pier in his Sacajawea sheriff’s vehicle, a silver Ford Bronco with a bright blue stripe painted along its body. He drove without his siren and in no apparent hurry, his windshield wipers whining as they made their slow, dragging passage back and forth across the glass. The sight of Toussaint Lane, and Gramma Marie’s house perched above it, disappeared in the rearview mirror.

  “What was that all about?” Angela said.

  “That Cryer kid disappeared around the time Corey died, and it seemed clear as a bell to me just now that Sean knows something about that. And, I guess…” Rob didn’t have to finish.

  “Corey never said anything to me,” Angela said. Rob shrugged, noncommittal, and she felt a surge of anger as she realized her son might be under suspicion for a crime. “You never thought there was any credibility to what I told you, did you?”

  “Sorry, Angie, but I follow leads. Spells and curses don’t hold water with me—facts do. There are a lot of facts tied together with Sean Leahy. If you follow it your way and I follow it my way, maybe between the two of us, we’ll figure this out. Like you, I want to know what happened that summer. That was a bad summer in Sacajawea County. We lost two of our boys.” His eyes were suddenly intent on the road before him. “Let’s hope we haven’t lost someone else.”

  Angela’s left arm tingled so badly, she clutched it close to her chest.Dammit . What now? “I don’t think this call is a hoax, Rob,” she said softly, thinking aloud.

  “Know what? You could be right. I’m breaking regs bringing a civilian with me without calling it in, Angie—so when I pull in, stay close to my car.”

  Laney Keane waved them down in front of the huge maritime bell and mounted antique schooner on display outside of the historical society, which abutted the riverfront. She ran to Rob’s window, breathless. Angela hadn’t seen Laney since the Fourth of July party.

  “Tommy’shysterical . Everyone’s around back, on the pier.”

  Rob thanked her and bumped his Bronco up onto the curb to drive across the muddy grass leading to the pier—cops’ privilege, and definitely faster than walking. A second sheriff’s vehicle was already parked several yards ahead of them. Only now did Rob turn on his flasher, which flamed in red against the historical society’s rear wall and the water’s edge. When Angela opened her car door, a strong wind from the river whipped across her face, tousling her hair. She smelled rotting sea life. Someone was feeding a flock of seagulls nearby, and the birds’ cries bothered her ear. Seagulls always sounded like they were in distress.

  Eight people were huddled on the pier in light jackets, waiting. Angela forgot Rob’s instructions to stay near his car, following him stride for stride. A young child stood at the center of the crowd, wrapped in a police-issue orange blanket while Gunnar Michaelsen stood over him with both hands planted on the boy’s shoulders. The child’s face and hair were streaked with sandy mud, a sight that stopped Angela in her tracks. There was no hysteria in the crowd, not the way Laney had described it, but the quiet was more unsettling.

  The muddy boy’s neck was craned upward, his head pivoting back and forth as the adults spoke over him. A lanky deputy Angela didn’t recognize pointed out an inlet with a muddy, rocky shoal to Rob, about forty yards from them. Angela saw someone’s blue jacket, a tackle box, and fishing poles on the sandy bank across the way, which was littered with tiny clam-shells that seagulls had carried into the air and broken on the rocks below. Next, the deputy pointed out the tied fiberglass rowboat bobbing in the water alongside the pier. There was another fishing pole in the boat, a rod and reel that looked expensive.

  Even standing a few feet from Rob, Angela heard only snatches of what was said. “…All three of them over there at about four-thirty…,” said the deputy, reciting for Rob with precision. “…says he held his face under the water and strangled him…shook him violently…then when he stopped moving, he carried the body to the boat, rowed it back…saw him put the body in his car…. Tommy had to take the path…. He ran screaming to Laney, and she called 911 for him.”

  The crowd listened like a funeral party. Rob nodded and took notes, gazing out at the boat and then toward the shoal, which was accessible either by the water or a rocky, circuitous path winding along the riverbank. He gazed at the path, probably replaying what the deputy had said in his mind. “Colin,” Rob said to the deputy, “get me the mayor’s law office on the phone.”

  “He’s not there!”the boy said, screaming, the first words Angela had heard him speak.

  “We already tried his office. He did leave early today,” the deputy said.

  “He’s already home by now. That’s where he said he was goin’!”the boy screeched, and Gunnar rubbed his shoulders to try to calm him. Gunnar’s cheekbones above his beard looked tight enough to crack if he spoke. He looked haunted. It was hard to believe that only yesterday he’d been romping on the rooftop of her house, enjoying his friends.

  “Get them at home, then,” Rob said. “Let’s talk to Liza.”

  As the rowboat in the water floated closer to the dock, Angela made out the bright red lettering painted lovingly at its pointed helm:HIZZONER , it said. That was Art’s boat. Had something happened to Art?

  Her heart leaping, Angela made her way closer to the sheriff as he took the cell phone his deputy had already dialed for him. “Liza? Hey, this is Rob. Is Art there?” Angela, like everyone else, listened during the ensuing pause. For an instant, there was silence except for the moaning of seagulls and indistinguishable traces of Liza’s chipper voice on the phone.

  “No, no need to pull him away from that,” Rob said. “How about Glenn? Is he there, too? He all right?” The sheriff nodded, indicating to the onlookers that she had said yes. Thank God, Angela thought. Thank Jesus, Allah, and everyone else. But she noticed that Tommy looked more confused than relieved, and Gunnar’s face was no less haunted.

  “No, nothing’s wrong,” Rob said. “I’m just gonna swing by there in a few minutes. There’s a little something I want to ask Art about. I’ll tell him when I get there.” He clicked off. Rob summoned his deputy closer to give him private instructions, then he kneeled down until he was at eye-level with Tommy. “I think maybe there was a misunderstanding, Tommy. Do you feel like taking a ride with me in a real police car?”

  Despite his tears, Tommy’s face brightened and he nodded. Rob led Tommy and Gunnar back toward his haphazardly parked Bronco and opened the back door for them. Without a word, Angela slid into the passenger seat. Rob would probably like to leave her behind—her car was parked outside his
office only two blocks away, easy enough to walk to—but she wanted to go with him to make sure Art and Liza were all right. Rob started his engine without glancing at her.

  Spruce Street, where Art and Liza lived, was on the other side of the Four, half a mile from downtown, toward the white-tailed deer preserve between Sacajawea and Skamokawa. It was a short ride, made interminable by the silence in the car. Angela glanced at Gunnar’s face in the rearview mirror; he didn’t look as brittle as he had before, but he was not at ease. Neither was Tommy, who was sitting with his eyes closed, rocking back and forth, singing a quiet song to himself.