“I know.And I’ve been chewing on it.”I looked out the window as the water passed us by.“I don’t think I lie.Not in that way.When you asked about my life before I moved to Grimm Island.About Patrick.His death, or what came after.I didn’t make any of it prettier than it was.”
“No,” he said.“You didn’t.”
“So I’m curious.”I kept my eyes on the road.“What is it that you’ve left out?In the name of not making yourself look bad?”
A beat of silence.
“That’s a very specific question for this early in the morning,” he said.
“I’ve had a lot of coffee.”
He didn’t answer right away.We passed a gas station and a Waffle House and one of those strip malls that appears just outside every small Southern city like it was ordered from a catalog.I watched it slide by and let the silence be what it was.
“The past is the past,” he said finally.“What matters is who we are now and where we’re headed.What’s behind us is always clouded through our memories and the choices we made.I don’t know what answers you’re looking for.I don’t think about what I haven’t told you.”
I looked at him.He was watching the road, easy and calm, like he’d just said something perfectly reasonable.Maybe he had.I couldn’t decide if that bothered me more or less than if he’d gotten defensive about it.
“Okay,” I said.
But it wasn’t okay, not exactly, and we both knew it.I’d watched this man sit across from a dying confession and not flinch, and he deflected the one direct question I’d asked him.I thought about the kitchen drawer back home.The manila envelope Bea had pressed into my hands at the end of the Pickering case, thick and accusatory, that I still hadn’t opened because I’d told myself I’d rather hear it from his mouth.In his voice.In his own time.
His own time, it was becoming clear, might never come.
We drove the rest of the way without talking.
The deputies were already staged two blocks over when we turned onto the quiet street off Rivers Avenue.Dash had texted them when we hit the city limits.The street was just starting to come alive—a man walking a Lab, a sprinkler going in someone’s front yard, the morning paper still in its plastic sleeve on a porch two houses down.Normal.Ordinary.
The white vinyl-sided bungalow sat at the end of the block exactly as I remembered it.The wind chimes were tinkling in the morning breeze.The ceramic rooster stood watch by the front door.
He looked at me for a moment, assessing me, and said, “You ready?”
“Of course.”My voice came out more strained than I’d planned.
He nodded and we got out of the car and headed up the front sidewalk.
Noreen answered before Dash knocked a second time.She was already dressed for the day and had her lipstick on, which most Southern women did first thing in case company dropped by.She looked at Dash first, then at me, and something in her eyes held a knowing that made me uncomfortable.
“I wondered when you’d find your way back to me,” she said, stepping back.“Come on in.”
She led us through the living room with its photographs and figurines and the rooster collection on every surface, through to the kitchen at the back of the house.Light came through the window over the sink, warm and yellow.There was a crossword half finished on the table, a pen laid across it.She moved around pulling out mugs without asking, unhurried and easy in her own space.
She poured coffee into three mugs, set them on the table, and sat down with her own hands wrapped around hers.
I wasn’t about to drink coffee from a woman who’d potentially drugged Henry Wainwright.
“Well,” she said pleasantly.“What can I do for you?”
“We’ve been going back through boxes of documents,” Dash said.“Henry’s personal papers, files from the clinic and his home office, as well as foundation records.We’ve learned a great deal about what was going on in the months before he died.”
She nodded slowly, her expression open and helpful.“Well, I hope I can fill in any gaps.I was there for all of it, of course.Twenty-two years.”
“You were,” Dash said.“That’s actually why we wanted to talk to you.”He paused.“I’m not sure if you heard, but James killed himself yesterday.”
Her hand came to her mouth, and her eyes watered.“Oh, no.That’s terrible.Why ever would he do such a thing?Poor Edie.”
“Some people aren’t able to live with their sins as well as others.”
“What do you mean?Are you saying James killed Henry?I don’t believe that for a second.They were as close as brothers.”
