“My friend’s running a DNA test. I’ll know soon enough.”
“We could know sooner than that, Charlie,” Julian says. “This case went cold years ago, but from what you’ve uploaded so far for me to listen to, you have enough material for a teaser. Let’s release something. You never know who’s out there, sitting on a secret.”
We could harness the true-crime community and follow the leads that come to us. “Give me the day to think about it,” I say.
And to warn people about what’s coming.
“I’ll touch base tonight,” Julian says. “In the meantime, talk to your mother. If anyone’s lying, it’s probably her.”
He clicks off the call, leaving me drifting in the boat. Julian’s words echo Freya’s from earlier: The wife is usually a prime suspect in a homicide. Maybe the answers to my questions do lie with the woman who fought off her knife-wielding husband and then crawled through the woods to safety.
When I pull the boat along the dock at Idlewood, the sun glints off the yellow Volvo’s windshield in the parking area. A thought skips across the back of my mind, too fleeting to capture. I try to find the thought, knowing it’s important, but it’s gone.
Inside the cottage, the rooms on the main floor and the back deck are empty. “Jane, are you here?” I shout, but my mother doesn’t answer.
In the kitchen, I stand at the same stove my father cooked at on the day he killed Isaac Haviland, imagining the scene all over again: twelve-year-old Reid at the table doing homework, my mother by the back door, me in my bassinet. I imagine my father’s rage simmering alongside the Bolognese as my mother listened to the wall phone and checked her reflection in the mirror. I remove a chef’s knife from the butcher block, the steel sliding on wood. This isn’t the same knife my father used—that wasn’t recovered—but it probably has a similar weight and feel.
I step out onto the wraparound porch. In the quarter century since the murder, the trees have probably grown in, but I have a clear view of the parking area a hundred yards away. I picture my mother out here, Reid beside her, as my father confronted her lover. That thoughtI had on the dock flares up. This time I nearly pin it down before it flits off again.
Knife in hand, I march down the steps and onto the path. I charge through the trees, across the footbridge, and emerge where Mr. Haviland would have stood by his truck. Even in playing the role of my father, I forget to hide the knife behind my back. Instead, I grip the handle in a fist, the steel blade glinting in the sun. As Freya said earlier, the knifeshouldhave alerted Mr. Haviland to danger.
I start a new recording on my phone. “Earlier,” I say, “Freya Faith told me audiences were smart, that they can spot holes in a plot. Here in the parking area on the shore beside Idlewood, in the place my father stabbed Isaac Haviland, I can see the porch on the house where my brother observed the crime as it unfolded.”
I envision my mother approaching, her hands extended, her voice soft. I wonder if she understood that my father had the capacity to kill. “Even with the knife,” I say, “my father would have been outnumbered two to one. Mr. Haviland was tall and strong. My mother runs a construction firm. She’s hardly a shrinking violet. They should have been able to put up a fight.”
I cross the footbridge again. As I pass the dock, raised voices sound from the other end of the island. I follow the noise through the woods, toward the firepit. When I catch notes of anger, I start to run, recognizing Vance Moodey’s voice. “Pay up,” he says. “It doesn’t get any simpler.”
“I need a week,” Reid says. “It’s not as though I planned on a fire.”
“What good will another week do?” Vance asks. “Did you think I wouldn’t find out?”
I burst from the trees, my breath ragged. Reid spins to face me, then stumbles back, hands raised. “We’re fine,” he says. “Just a friendly conversation.”
It didn’t sound friendly to me.
“Come on, son,” Vance says, rising to his full height. “Drop it.”
I look at the knife in my hand—forgotten—before letting it fall to the ground.
“That’s better,” Vance says.
“I didn’t see your truck,” I say to him. “I heard you arguing.”
Vance holds his palms out. “It’s business. Nothing more. And I parked at Burkehaven, but there were cops all over the place. I decided to walk over here and see if I could get a straight answer.” He holds Reid’s gaze. “You have a nice view of the lake. It’d be a shame to lose it, son. You’re lucky your mother and I have an understanding, but maybe I should fill her in anyway.”
“Don’t call meson,” Reid says. “And leave my mother out of this.”
“One week, Reid,” Vance says. “Then it’s on to plan B.”
He brushes by me, leaving along the path. Reid waits until he’s out of earshot. “What’s with the knife, Charlie? You looked like you were in a slasher film.”
“What was Vance talking about?” I ask.
“Nothing for you to worry about,” Reid says, adjusting his glasses and making his way along the path toward the cottage. I grab the knife from the ground and follow.
“I deal with assholes like Vance Moodey every day,” Reid says. “It’s part of the job. You should stay in radio, where everyone’s nice. It suits you.” He punches my arm. “And I heard about your misadventures with Freya last night.”
I feel my face turn red. “Are you jealous?”
