The keeping place, p.6
The Keeping Place, page 6
“Sergeant McCain.” Jimmy hooked the basketball under his arm, snug to his chest. “Um… something wrong?” He sucked on his bottom lip. Beside him, Henry paused in the middle of scrolling through his cellphone.
“No.” Vin smiled to put them at ease. “Good game?”
“Huh?” The younger of the two, Henry had thick blond hair and deep dimples but wasn’t always quick on the uptake.
“Basketball.” Vin hooked a thumb over his shoulder. “I figured you came from the park.”
“Oh… yeah.” Relaxing, Henry tucked his phone into the pocket of his shorts. He used the bottom of his t-shirt to wipe sweat from his cheeks.
“I used to be pretty good.” Vin extended his hand for the ball. When Jimmy tossed it to him, he did a couple of dribbles, bouncing it back and forth, then mimicked a shot without releasing it. He twirled the ball on his finger. “I guess you guys are glad school’s out.”
“Yeah. We got all summer, and next year we’re kings.” Jimmy grinned at Henry. “Seniors.”
“Must feel pretty good. And you’re kind of minor celebrities now, too.”
“Huh?” This time it was Jimmy who sounded confused.
Vin tossed him the ball. “That write up by Chelsea Reinhold in the Hornwood Herald.”
The two boys exchanged a glance, the murmur of traffic from Main Street filling the sudden silence.
Henry palmed sweat from his forehead. “You saw that, huh?”
“When I interviewed you two, there was no mention of Lettie Boone’s ghost.”
Jimmy shuffled his feet. “We, uh… didn’t think we should say anything. Didn’t want people to think we were whacked.”
Interesting. There hadn’t been alcohol or drugs involved, but both had been scared witless that night. Vin had chalked their nerves up to the discovery of Janie Seabrooke’s body. He didn’t believe in spirits, but kids could weave shadows, trespassing, and one hell of a fright into something sinister without much effort.
“What changed? Why’d you come clean to Chelsea?”
Henry cleared his throat. “I told my girlfriend what happened… with the ghost.” The words stuck to his tongue. “She thought it was cool, not stupid. Before I knew it, she shared it with some of her friends, then word started to get around.”
“We thought we’d better be upfront about the whole thing.” Jimmy picked up the slack.
“Okay, so let’s hear it.” Vin looked from one to the other. When neither spoke, he arched a brow. “I’m waiting.”
Jimmy rubbed his forehead, his mouth twisting into a frown. He had a pliable face, skin stretching like taffy with every minor nuance and twist. Right now, all that elasticity telegraphed restlessness. “Dude, this sucks.”
“What’s the big deal? I already know you were trespassing, that you found the remains.”
“Of some little girl. You think I like remembering?”
“You don’t have to go over that part again.” It was hard enough pulling words from teens, worse when they didn’t want to talk. “I know you both went in there for something to do. You think I never poked around in the Boone Rail shack when I was your age?”
That brought Jimmy’s head up, his eyes round.
“There’s not a whole lot to do in Hornwood, especially on a Friday night.” Vin shrugged. “Malls, movies… they’re all in Bottleneck. Around here, kids have to make their own fun, sticking on the right side of the law. Every now and then someone gets it in his head to dig around in that old shack and see what’s there. Toss in the legend about Lettie Boone—”
“But we saw her.” Henry shot a glance at Jimmy before refocusing on Vin. “We were there like you said, looking for something to do. It was kind of a dare. Someone at school started rehashing the old legend—how Prosper Boone banished Lettie to the rail shack when he found out she was pregnant. Then the baby was born dead, and she hung herself from the Hornwood Oak.”
“We didn’t really expect to see anything.” Now that the story was out, Jimmy appeared eager to contribute. “The place reeks of piss and animal shit. We had to cover our noses and breathe through our mouths to keep from getting sick. We’d just about had enough when we saw her.” His Adam’s apple bobbed when he swallowed. “She was standing under the loft.”
Vin kept his expression and voice neutral. “What did she look like?”
“Um… no real features. Just a white form.”
“Transparent.” Henry jerked his head in agreement. “But you could see some of her hair—kind of long—and a bit of her dress.”
“What did you do?”
“At first, we weren’t sure what was happening, like maybe it was a trick of the moonlight.” Henry’s eyes grew wide, his voice spiking in excitement. “We both realized what we were seeing about the same time and got ready to bolt.”
“But she pointed.” Jimmy lifted his hand, index finger extended to mimic the ghost. “She stood like that for a few seconds—hell, it seemed minutes the way my heart was hammering—then she vanished.”
“She never spoke?”
Henry shook his head.
Vin didn’t need further translation to connect the dots. “You want me to believe Lettie Boone is the reason you discovered Janie Seabrooke? That she pointed you to that dead girl’s skeleton.”
“Yes, sir.” Jimmy swallowed audibly. “The only reason we poked around in all that trash and garbage was because of the ghost. I wanted to hightail it out of there, but Henry said we should see what it was about. He was sure something had to be hidden under all the junk.”
“I thought we’d find part of the Boone fortune.” A tinge of red flushed Henry’s cheeks. “That maybe Lettie had buried money, waiting for that dude who got her pregnant to come back and take her away. I never thought we’d find a body.” He squinted into the sunlight behind Vin’s head. “Can we go now? That’s all there was to it. Really.”
Jimmy nodded agreement.
“Yeah, guys.” Vin waved them on. “Thanks.”
They’d only taken a few steps when Jimmy turned back.
“You don’t think we’re whacked, do you?” He seemed sincerely worried.
“No. I don’t know what you saw up there.” He’d have to think about that. A trick of the light? Joint hallucination? Stranger things were possible. “All I know is you brought Janie back home, and for that, I’m grateful.”
When the boys continued down the street, Vin veered from the parking lot. He could go home to an empty house and make dinner or grab something in town. The evening tended to the warm side, but after the racket of construction in City Hall, it was good to be outdoors. Even if he was still nursing a headache.
He waited for a few cars to pass then jogged across the street to Boone Park. A sidewalk led him beneath the canopy of several red oaks and a lone elm tree. Off to the left, a guy in a ball cap tossed a neon green Frisbee for a chocolate lab, and a brunette jogged past, her hair swinging from a high ponytail. He knew both by sight and first name. When the guy waved, Vin returned the gesture, then continued around a central fountain, aiming for several benches positioned off the sidewalk. The sound of laughter drifted from the right where two swing sets and a jungle gym kept a handful of children entertained while their mothers chatted nearby.
The benches were empty, except the closest. A woman he didn’t recognize was seated with her back to him, shiny black hair tumbling over a pale blue blouse. As he drew closer, he slowed, something about the set of her shoulders triggering a memory.
Can’t be.
Yet he’d reached out to her. Sent her a pathetic one line note about Janie, never believing it would lead anywhere.
Vin halted, his mouth dry. “Nicole?”
She whipped her head around, the startling violet eyes he remembered so well widening in shock.
“Vin.” Her voice wavered, recognition washing over her face. “I was trying to work up the nerve to see you.”
Nicole wasn’t proud of the way she’d left Hornwood. She’d told Vin it was for a short time until she got her head together. For a while, she’d even believed the lie. But college followed, and they drifted apart. She’d kept in touch with Chelsea for a short time the summer she left, but their friendship had grown strained, Janie’s death driving a wedge between all of them. She couldn’t face Chelsea or Vin any more than she’d been able to face Glory back then. And if she were honest, she’d harbored resentment for each of them. Especially Vin.
Which was why when she’d left her mother’s house and driven to Hornwood, she’d ended up in Boone Park instead of City Hall. Even though Vin had sent her the note about Janie, telling her to come home, she couldn’t just stroll into Hornwood PD and announce herself. There was bad blood between them that would make any reunion hard. For the last ten minutes she’d been trying to convince herself she wasn’t that teenage girl any longer. That she could talk to Vin as an adult without old wounds rushing back. Seeing him now, she swallowed hard and stood.
“You, um… you look good.” His hair was shaggier than she remembered, butting against his collar instead of the short crop he’d worn in high school, but the brown eyes, dark like coffee, were unmistakable. His shoulders were broader, his waist still trim, charcoal uniform perfectly fitted to his lean frame. For a moment she felt dizzy, uncertain if she should embrace him or shake hands. All those plans they’d made. His future, her future, their future, gone in one tragic summer night.
He saved her the awkwardness by offering his hand. “You look good, too.”
She clasped his fingers, drawing away much too quickly. She probably looked a wreck… the long drive, the strain of seeing her mother, the Hornwood heat doing its best to plaster her hair to her neck. She reclaimed her spot on the bench, much too awkward to stand.
“I see you went ahead with your plans.” She motioned to his uniform. “I hear you’re a detective sergeant and work under Jude Beck.”
“He’s the chief now.” Vin appeared as awkward as she felt. “My dad retired, and he and my mom moved south. They wanted a warmer climate.” When she didn’t comment, he stepped closer. “What about you? Medical law, right?”
That had been a pipe dream, especially after Janie’s death. She hadn’t had the wherewithal to concentrate, so she’d put off college another year from her original start date. By the time she was ready, her plans had changed. “I gave up on that. My field’s medical administration, but I’m currently between jobs.” She grimaced. “Downsizing.”
“Sorry. We don’t have that problem in Hornwood. Mainly because there’s no big business to begin with.”
“I guess a lot of people still commute to Bottleneck.”
“There or Codswell.” Vin glanced away then back, seeming to reach a decision. “Would you like to grab coffee or something? Maybe dinner if you haven’t eaten? I just came off shift and could use something. We could catch up. Talk about… Janie.”
She drew a breath, let her eyes drift shut. The ball of nerves in her stomach eased slightly. There was no way she intended to have dinner with Glory, especially after seeing the shrine her mother had made of Janie’s bedroom while erasing every trace Nicole had ever lived there.
“Okay.” Hooking her purse onto her shoulder, she stood. “But I’d rather skip Glory’s Place if it’s all the same to you. I’ll even settle for pizza. I don’t care, just somewhere else in town.”
“There’s a café that does sandwiches, salads, and craft beers one block off Eight Street.”
“That works.” She fell in beside him as he headed down the sidewalk, making a loop around the fountain. For a time, they walked in silence, Nicole adjusting to the reality of seeing him again. It was something she never expected to happen.
“Have you seen your mother?” Vin asked.
“I have.” She resisted the effort to clench her teeth. “Let’s save that conversation for dinner.”
Still on standby for official duty, Vin ordered a soft drink instead of the craft beer he would have preferred. Nicole followed suit, and silence lengthened between them as they waited for their food to arrive. The Red Bird Café was comfortably full, not too crowded, but with enough diners to make the lull in conversation less noticeable. Several called out a greeting, and Vin answered with a wave or a nod.
“Same small town.” Nicole unwound the bundle of flatware from her napkin, a half-smile playing on her lips. She settled the knife and spoon to her left, the fork to her right. “Most everyone knows you. I must stand out like a sore thumb.”
“You don’t look that different.”
“Even worse. People will think I’m a vulture, circling back over Janie’s remains.”
There was no vinegar in her voice, but the jab stung all the same. “Is that how you think of Hornwood?” Damn if he was going to mince words. “Your problem is with your mother and me. Maybe Marshall. Chelsea to a lesser degree. No one blames you for what happened. They never did.”
Her spine stiffened. “I remember the gossip. How I should have been more responsible. Should have known better than to take a twelve-year-old to a senior party.”
“I’m the one who convinced you to do that.”
“I remember that, too.” Her words were clipped, broken off like pieces of ice. There was nothing remotely familiar in the cool violet of her eyes. As if the summers they’d spent together, amounted to nothing but detritus left in the past. Had she even realized he’d tried to protect her, shoulder the blame himself?
“I wasn’t sure you’d come.”
Her glance was sharp. “You could have said more in your note.”
Vin shrugged. He’d imagined Nicole trashing the note the same way she’d trashed their relationship. What did you say to someone you’d once envisioned a future with? Sorry about the past. Sorry you bailed. By the way, they found your sister.
He was saved from thinking about it further when their server arrived with their meals. Ham stew with potatoes and green beans for him, a turkey club wrap for Nicole.
“Anything else I can get you or your guest, Sergeant McCain?” The kid was short, with dewy skin and a rooster tail of pimples across his jaw. He barely looked old enough to work.
“I’m fine.” Vin lobbed a glance across the table. “Nicole?”
“No, thank you.”
He dug into the meal once the server left, needing to fill his gut. His head still pounded from the hammering and sawing at City Hall. Talking to Nicole amplified the edge, but there was no avoiding the discussion. “Earlier today, I ran into the kids who found Janie.”
A furrow plowed across her brow. “I heard she was found in the Boone Rail shack.”
“She was.”
“That doesn’t make sense. The last person to see Janie was Marshall. He told the cops she headed to the creek to get away from him. Marshall saw her fall into the water.”
“He heard her fall.” Vin added a few shakes of pepper to the stew, soured by the memory of his then fourteen-year-old friend drunkenly blubbering how Janie must have drowned. “No one actually saw it happen. Think of all the people who were there that night. The cops interviewed each of us individually.”
She rubbed her temple, the turkey club untouched. “You don’t know how many times I’ve gone over that night in my head. We’ve all assumed for so long that Janie died in Elderberry Creek. It’s hard to think otherwise.”
Vin grew aware of the ding of a register in the background—the hostess cashing someone out, laughing as she gave them change. “Whatever happened that night, there’s no accounting for how Janie ended up in that old rail shack.”
“What about the boys who found her?”
“A couple of teenagers braving the legend.”
“You mean Lettie Boone?”
“Yeah. They’re convinced Lettie’s ghost pointed them to Janie’s remains.”
Nicole stopped in the process of picking up her wrap. “What?”
“Crazy, right? They think they saw something they didn’t.” Vin thought back to the first time he’d talked to Jimmy and Henry. How they’d fidgeted on the roadside, too frightened to venture anywhere near the rail shack after calling nine-one-one. “I interviewed those kids the night they found Janie, and they were scared. Finding a body would shake anyone up, let alone a couple of teenagers in a supposedly haunted shack. I think their imaginations got the best of them.”
“The ghost might not have been real, but Janie—”
“I know. Either she drowned and someone moved her body, or she never fell in the creek.”
Nicole sat straighter. “I want to talk to Marshall.”
“Jude already did.”
“I don’t care. She was my sister, Vin. I’m not leaving Hornwood until I find out what happened to her.”
Chapter 6
Little traffic occupied the road leading to Glory’s home. When she was a child, the lane was narrower, bordered by open fields that sloped into the setting sun. At least, that’s what her grandma used to say.
You can see forever out there, Glory Faye. All those fields run straight down into the sun. It’s why your Grandpa and I built this house where we did.
But time brought change. The road was wider. A strip of lined asphalt replaced the dirt and gravel she remembered from childhood. Rooflines jutted against the horizon where once there’d been nothing but uncluttered space. Fortunately, the haphazard sprinkle of rural homes did little to obstruct the view from her front porch.
Glory had tried her best to retain its old-fashioned charm, choosing furnishings that would have met with her grandmother’s approval—a painted white swing, four high-backed wooden rockers with paddle arms, scattered wicker tables, potted plants, hanging baskets. During warm weather, she spent most of her evenings on the porch, accompanied by a glass of wine. Sometimes Jude would join her, and they’d sit side by side, listening to the breeze slip through the grass, waiting for twilight to spool from the sky. Once, it had been Nicole and Janie with her, and she’d shared her grandmother’s vision. How the fields had no end but flowed like water into the sun.
