Dead Right

“Why not?”

“Because it’s a miracle folks around here haven’t poisoned her against me.”

“She’d never turn on you.”

“She could if this P.I. comes to town.”

“Which is why you have to convince her not to bring him here,” she pointed out.

“I doubt that anything I say will change her mind.”

“It’s worth a try,” Allie insisted and handed him the phone.

The phone in Madeline’s office had been ringing all morning. It seemed as if everyone in Stillwater had something to say about the discovery at the quarry, which came as no surprise to her. People in this town had been talking about her father’s disappearance for years, and the knowledge that his car had been found renewed public interest.

Fortunately, most were well-intentioned calls, friends and acquaintances who, after hearing the latest, wanted to give Madeline a kind word or a little encouragement. But there were a few who used this latest development to try to undermine her faith in the Montgomerys.

Madeline would rather have skipped every one of those calls in favor of some peace and quiet. It was difficult enough writing about her father without so many interruptions. But she was anxious to hear from Chief Pontiff, to learn if he or any of his deputies had managed to glean some evidence during their more thorough search of the Cadillac. She knew they must be finished by now, couldn’t imagine why he hadn’t contacted her. So when a call came in just as she’d settled down to work, she grabbed the receiver, despite the blinking curser on her computer screen that seemed to mock her lack of progress.

“Hello?”

“Madeline?”

Madeline paused, confused by the M. Ziegler that had appeared on her caller ID. It wasn’t Chief Pontiff, calling her from some remote location. If she’d guessed correctly, it was Ray Harper. Before the falling out that had left him and her father estranged, he’d been Lee’s best friend. When Madeline was little, Ray had even worked for them, doing odd jobs around the farm.

“Hello, Ray. How are you?”

“Good as ever. And you?”

“Hanging in there.”

“I heard about the Cadillac.”

Word traveled fast in Stillwater. “Can you believe it was right there all these years?”

“Who put it there?”

“I have no idea.”

“That’s got to bother you.”

It did. But she preferred some development to nothing at all. Besides, she and Ray had both experienced a deeper kind of pain—she’d lost her mother and, a few years later, he’d lost his sixteen-year-old daughter, both to suicide. “I’m okay.”

“Did they find anything—any answers?” he asked.

“No, not yet.”

“That’s too bad.”

“I’m not giving up hope.” He didn’t say anything more, so she filled the silence. “I don’t see you around town much anymore, Ray. What’ve you been up to?”

“I’ve been spending half my time in Iuka. My mother fell and broke her hip and she can’t live alone anymore. I’m with her now, moving her to my sister’s place.”

That explained the strange name on her caller ID. “I’m sorry to hear about your mother,” she said.

“She’ll be okay now that she’s with Patti. Anyway, I should be home later in the week. Let me know if anything changes, okay? Your father and I weren’t on the best of terms when he disappeared. But I think about him often.”

“I appreciate that.” Her telephone indicated that she had another call coming in. “Good luck with your mom,” she said and switched over. But this caller wasn’t Pontiff, either. According to caller ID, it was Clay. “What’s up, big brother?”

“Nothing new,” he replied. “Just checking in.”

She finally pushed away from her computer and swiveled her chair to look glumly out the large front window of her office, which revealed an entire block of Stillwater’s most prominent businesses—L & B Hardware, Town & Country Furniture, Cutshall’s Funeral Home, Lambert’s Auction Service and Let The Good Times Roll Billiards and Bar. A corner of the police station was visible, too. Her eyes zeroed in on it as if she could see through brick and mortar.

“I’m fine, just tired of the rain.” And growing more impatient by the minute, waiting for Pontiff to call.

“You took yesterday pretty hard, Mad.”

“He’s not coming back,” she said distantly. “I thought it’d be easier for me to know if he was…gone for good. But it isn’t. It makes me angry. And it makes me feel guilty, as if I haven’t done enough for him.”

“You’ve published every possible lead, posted rewards to encourage people to come forward with information, followed up whenever and wherever you could. You’ve hung on, and you haven’t let anyone forget. You’ve done your best.”

She knew her dogged persistence had created problems for Clay and his sisters and mother. They’d had to constantly defend themselves, suffer two police searches of the farm, endure the distrust of almost everyone in town and tolerate whispering behind their backs. But what else could she have done? What else could she do now but pursue whoever was responsible? Lee Barker was her father, the only parent who’d planned on sticking with her.

Besides, if she could get to the truth, wouldn’t the Montgomerys ultimately be better off?

“I should’ve hired a P.I. a long time ago,” she said. “Maybe it would’ve brought me some peace—and saved you from what happened last summer.”

He didn’t comment on the murder charges that’d been brought against him. Clay never made a big deal of his own difficulties. “Allie feels bad,” he said. “I hope you don’t think she let you down with her investigation.”

“No. I’m the one who let the two of you down. I can’t believe I…” She toyed with her paper-clip holder. She tended to avoid any reference to what had occurred at Allie’s dad’s fishing cabin the night she hired Hendricks. They all did. But she felt the need to address it today, to apologize once again. Clay could’ve died, and it would’ve been her fault. She shuddered at the thought. “I’m so sorry for what I did.”

“Don’t mention it. Hendricks was only supposed to rattle a doorknob or two. I know that.”

“But you wouldn’t have been hurt if I hadn’t sent him there in the first place.”

“You had no way of knowing he’d take it so far. Or that I’d even be around that night.”

It was true, but she’d never be able to forgive herself for resorting to the tactics she’d used. If she hadn’t allowed her hopes to soar so high when Allie returned to Stillwater and promised to look into her father’s disappearance—or felt so damn helpless when Allie lost interest—maybe she would’ve been thinking more clearly. But her desperation and impatience had simply gotten the best of her. When she felt Allie’s commitment and enthusiasm beginning to lag, she’d tried to shore it up by trying to convince her that someone out there was still a threat.

It had seemed like an innocent enough plan. But it had cost Hendricks, who’d been a member of the Stillwater Police force, his job, a year in prison and probation after that. His wife was struggling to support their family without him and, had Hendricks’s aim been more accurate, Clay could’ve paid an even higher price. Madeline had only escaped prosecution because she hadn’t intended any harm. Stealing Allie’s gun—and using it—had been Hendricks’s idea.

She got up and paced the room. “Sometimes I think about it and—”

“Don’t think about it,” he said. “We all make mistakes, do things we regret.”

She managed a tired smile at his generosity. “You’re a good brother.”

He immediately moved forward with the conversation. “Grace tells me you’re hiring a private investigator. Someone from California.”