Page 61 of Nowhere Good

Traditionally, Sullivan would have Marty’s last name, but Marty, as Seth had heard, had taken Clementine’s name when he married her. Which for all intents and purposes made Sullivan a Dyer. Now that Seth thought about it, Marty was the one person in the Dyer crew he’d seen in passing, but had never talked to.

Seth’s focus landed on a color photograph of Celine holding a toddler, a little girl with a tuft of blonde hair on her head. Claire, or maybe Clementine. There was a gangly boy beside them, maybe eight years old, staring into the camera with doleful brown eyes.

“Who’s this boy here?” Seth asked.

Ron peeked over his shoulder. “Huh, didn’t know I still had that up. That’s one of the little farmhands who came and went. Some parents like to have their boys learn about work ethic young. Nothin’ too serious, the odd chore around the farm.”

“You’ve had quite a few helpers over the years.”

“When you’ve only got two girls, you’ve gotta look outside for some help.”

“That’s how Marty and me met,” Clementine chimed in, dropping the glasses on the table. “Daddy had him working on the farm when he was a teenager. We didn’t fall in love till I was much older, ’course, but when we did, we fell in love fast. Now we get to raise our son together on the farm.”

Claire had said something similar about her and Dillon. Not that they’d fallen in love fast, but that Dillon worked at the farm as a teen before they became an item. As archaic as it sounded, it almost felt like Ron had hand-picked these men for his daughters.

Clementine plucked a novel off the counter—a romance book with a half-naked man on the cover—and slipped out the sliding door to the backyard, leaving them alone. Ron eased himself onto one of the chairs, gesturing for Seth to join him. Everything about the Dyers’ house felt from another era, but not in the way Norm Stanfield’s did. It felt classic, paying homage to the farmers who’d made this place; some of the décor had changed, modernized, but the foundations stayed the same.

“You like to keep family close,” Seth noted.

“Yep, ain’t no better place for a kid to grow up than where I grew up, right here on this farm,” Ron replied, taking a sip of his sweet tea. Seth did the same. The light sweetness eased the remnants of his hangover. “Clemetine loved it here as a girl. Claire, too, though she likes to deny it. She’d be back there, chasin’ ’er sister around in those corn stalks, gigglin’ her little face off. Music to my ears, it was.”

Seth glanced out the kitchen window, topped by curtains with strawberries on them. The cornstalks out back swayed in the wind, golden under the late-afternoon sun. He could picture that memory; Claire must’ve been born with that infectious smile.

“What’s this really about, Detective?” Ron asked. “I know you didn’t come here to grab a barn cat and gab about the farm’s history.”

“Right.” He straightened up. “Full disclosure, Chief Wells advised me not to bring this to you, but at this stage in the investigation, I need to explore every avenue. It’s about your wife, Celine.”

Ron’s cool blue gaze darkened. “Go on.”

“Is it true that people in town have told stories about your wife? Local legends, that type of thing.”

“Sure, I’ve heard that before. Claire and Clementine used to say kids at school would tell ghost stories. Stuff about a woman in blue appearin’ in the woods. Cruel stuff when that’s your actual mama.”

“Right. With that in mind, it’s probably nothing, but we got a strange call on the tip line the other day. It’s most likely a prank, but I wanted to hear what you think.”

On his phone, he readied the recording. Ron nodded, his face unreadable. Seth pressed play.

That calm, reedy voice filled the kitchen. Seth watched Ron’s reaction as the call played out, but he gave him nothing.

When it ended, Ron let out a breath. “I’ve got nothin’ to say about that. Guy sounds like a lunatic, bringin’ my wife’s name up like that.”

Seth put his phone away. “I’ve been trying to figure out why the killer chooses his victims. It seems to be about their appearance, which means there’s a blueprint somewhere. The original person the killer is fantasizing about.”

“And you think that person could be my wife? Son, she died twenty years ago. A little late to drudge up the past now.”

“That’s true, but on the off chance, did she ever have any stalkers?”

“No, she did not have any stalkers. And I know where you’re goin’ with this. It was your pal, Detective Haylock, who worked that case twenty years ago. He sat right there where you’re sittin’ and asked me question after question. He interviewed the whole damn town tryin’ to find who might’ve killed Celine, but in the end, an accident made the most sense. People are too comfortable in today’s world—they like to forget we’re still in the wild. Celine was idealistic like that. I’d been tellin’ her for years that trail she went down in the woods was too far from town, but she was convinced the animals were her friends. They tell you they found bear tracks near her blood out there?”

Seth nodded. He’d seen the photos; they were real.

“Bears happen to be good at makin’ bones disappear. No body, no crime, right? Point is, my wife had no enemies. The thing that got her killed was her bleeding heart. I loved my wife, Detective. Twenty years she’s been gone, and I never so much as looked at another woman. If I thought a man was walkin’ among us who’d taken her from me, you and I would not be havin’ this conversation. Like you said yourself, that phone call was some sort of prank.”

Seth let Ron’s words settle like dust in the room. He had no reason to disbelieve him, yet something felt off.

Either way, Ron clearly wanted this to be the end of the discussion. Seth stood. “You’re right. Thanks for your time. I’ll let myself out.”

“Don’t forget your goodie bag,” Ron said with a cheeky laugh.