Crooked River: A Novel (24 page)

“Yeah. Right. Thanks,” I mumbled and returned to the truck.

I tossed the newspaper on the floor at Ollie’s feet. She bent, picked it up, and stared at Bear’s picture for a few seconds. Then she spread it out flat and laid it on the seat between us, keeping her fingers on the newsprint close to Bear’s face.

I drove back onto the highway and headed toward Terrebonne, keeping the speedometer steady at fifty-five. Ollie, still holding the Ouija board in her lap, leaned her head against the door. Now was as good a time as any to tell her what I had learned about Bear, about his accident and Delilah Roth, about how he’d fought with Taylor Bellweather the night before she died and maybe he wouldn’t ever be coming home.

I glanced over at her. Her eyes were closed. A car passed in the opposite direction and the headlights swept through the glass, brushing gold over her face.

“Ollie?” I whispered.

Her eyes stayed shut. Her mouth was open a little, something that always happened when she fell asleep in a car. Turning my attention back to the highway and the double yellow lines rolling on for miles, I let Ollie sleep.

When we finally got back to Zeb and Franny’s, it was closing in on three in the morning. The lights were still on, and before I even had a chance to shut off the engine, the front door of the house opened. Franny hobbled across the porch, stopping at the top of the steps and leaning one hand on the railing. Zeb followed her, taking his time. They were both dressed, though Franny had on house slippers and her hair was pinned in curlers. I turned off the truck and took the keys out of the ignition.

Zeb went down the steps slowly, pausing at the bottom to rub his hip and tug at his belt before going on.

I nudged Ollie’s shoulder. “We’re back.”

She shifted and raised her head, saw Zeb coming toward us, and turned to look at me. There was still sleep in her eyes. She rubbed at it with knuckled fists.

“I’ll tell them it was all my idea,” I said, because it was. “I’ll tell them I made you come with me.”

She started to shake her head. I reached for her hand and squeezed it gently. “It’ll be okay.”

Zeb tapped on my window. I opened the door, and he took a step back.

He crossed his arms over his chest. “Where in hell’s blazes have you two been?”

I climbed out of the truck. Ollie climbed out after me, holding the Ouija board under her arm. We left the newspaper crumpled on the seat.

I said, “We went to see Mom.”

From the porch, Franny shouted, “Are they all right, Zeb? Is everything okay?”

“They’re fine, Mother.” He never moved his eyes from me.

“Do you know what time it is?” he asked.

I stared at the ground and scuffed my shoe in the gravel.

He said, “I would have taken you, if you’d just said something.”

“We wanted to go alone.”

He shifted his attention to Ollie, taking in the board game tucked under her arm. “Is that right?”

“We didn’t want to bother you.” I reached for my wallet in my back pocket. “I have my learner’s permit. And I know how—”

He waved the card away. “We were this close to calling the police,” he said. “You could have been hurt. Or killed. You could have killed someone else.” He pinched the skin between his eyes and exhaled sharply. “Both of you. Get inside.”

When Ollie got to the front porch, Franny gathered her under one arm and took her into the house. I started to say something about paying for the gas I used, but Zeb just shook his head and held out his hand.

“Keys,” he said.

I handed them over.

Just before he pulled open the front door, Zeb stopped and turned and said, “What were you thinking?”

The floorboards overhead groaned as Franny and Ollie shuffled down the hallway. Franny’s muffled voice drifted downstairs, but I couldn’t make out the words.

If Mom were here she’d know what to do, how to fix this mess we’d gotten ourselves into. She’d be the one to decide. But it was just me and Ollie left now, so I had to do what I thought best. I had to make the decision for both of us.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “Really, I am. And I won’t do anything like this ever again. I promise.”

O
llie and I slept in the next morning and missed breakfast.

When we finally came downstairs for lunch, Zeb didn’t say one word to us. The three of us ate our ham and cheese sandwiches in silence, while Franny rattled on about one thing or another. When Zeb finished, he laid his napkin over the crumbs on his plate, pushed back in his chair, got up, and, leaving his dirty dishes on the table, went out the back door. He didn’t look at me the entire time, not even a passing glance.

I picked at my sandwich, eating a few bites before pushing the plate away from me.

Ollie ate half her sandwich and poked holes into the other half with her finger. We were both slouched in our chairs, frowning at nothing in particular.

“Well, aren’t you two a lively bunch,” Franny said, getting up and clearing our plates from the table.

“Did my grandma call yet?” I asked.

“About an hour ago.” Franny left the dishes in the sink and came back to the table. “Their flight arrives in Portland tonight, around eight thirty. They wanted to rent a car and drive straight here, but I convinced them to get a hotel, get a good night’s rest, that you and Ollie were safe with us. They’ll be here to get you sometime before lunch tomorrow.”

“Guess we should pack,” I said.

Ollie got up from the table and left the kitchen. Franny and I listened to her footsteps on the stairs and then overhead. The bedroom door slammed shut.

Franny leaned her chin on her hand and stared at me. “What happened last night, Sam?”

I shrugged and crossed my arms over my chest.

“It’s just, you’re usually so responsible. Especially when it comes to Ollie.”

I stared at the ceiling.

Franny sighed and leaned back in her chair again. “I suppose we shouldn’t be surprised. Not really. Not after all that’s happened.”

“Did you tell my grandparents?”

Franny shook her head. “No one was hurt, praise the blessed Lord, so there isn’t any reason to go and make a fuss about it.”

I relaxed a little and settled more comfortably into the chair. “Thanks, Franny.”

She clicked her tongue on the roof of her mouth. “Now don’t you go thanking me, young lady. I was all ready to tell your grandma exactly what kind of trouble you two girls had been up to until Zeb told me to hold my tongue. He said since you were in our care and it was our truck and our house, then that made it our business and no one else’s.”

“I’m sorry, Franny. I really am. I’ll pay you for gas or rent or whatever.”

She snorted and flapped her hand in the air. “It’s all right. I know you’re not going to go and do something like that again. Won’t really have much of a chance to, I suppose.”

We sat quietly together.

Franny cleared her throat. “ ’Course, we can’t just close our eyes and pretend it never happened. That wouldn’t be the right thing either.”

I rearranged the salt and pepper shakers so they sat side by side in the middle of the table.

“We decided that the best thing would be to ground both of you girls for the rest of your time here.” She paused, as if waiting for me to put up a fight.

I stayed quiet.

She continued, “Until your grandparents arrive, you and Ollie are not allowed to leave the house. I want to know where you are and what you’re doing every single second, okay?”

I nodded.

She seemed surprised that I was agreeing to her punishment so easily, but the truth was, I was done. I quit. I was giving up. Bear had, so why couldn’t I? Last night, seeing Ollie standing in the dark in her pajamas and slippers, seeing how worked up she got over that stupid Ouija board, then seeing her sleeping so peacefully with the headlights moving over her face, all of that reminded me that the other stuff I’d been so focused on—finding out what really happened to Taylor Bellweather, trying to save a man who didn’t want saving—none of it mattered as much as making sure Ollie was happy again. Happy and safe.

Franny sighed, then stood, went to the sink, and started filling it with hot water.

I reached for a folded-up newspaper that was sitting in the middle of the table and opened it to read the headlines:

OVE
RTURNED LOG TRUCK CA
USES FOUR-HOUR TRAF
FIC JAM

ONE-HUNDRED
-DEGREE HEAT WAVE P
REDICTED FOR NEXT WEEK

Nothing about Taylor Bellweather or Bear or the pending trial.

And so life goes on.

I laid the paper down again and started to get up from the table.

Zeb poked his head through the back door. “Seems like you’re gonna want to get your shoes on, Sam, and come on out here with me.”

Franny turned toward him, wiping her hands on her apron. “What’s going on?”

“It’s the hives,” he said. “Somebody took it upon themselves to come in and smash things up a bit.”

“Oh no,” Franny said, touching her fingers to her cheek. “Oh, that’s just awful. How bad is it?”

With all that had happened last night, I’d forgotten about the bees. But Zeb seemed to understand by my reaction—or lack of one—that none of this was news to me. He gave me a pointed look, like I’d let him down, and then just shook his head.

“There are a few worth saving,” he said. “But I could use Sam’s help.”

Franny said, “We agreed they aren’t to leave the house.”

“I’ll be with her the whole time,” he said, and then he waved me to follow him out the door. “Come on, then. I haven’t got all day. Plus, if you’re planning on leaving these bees here for me to take care of until your daddy gets out of jail, I’m gonna need some instructions on how to keep the little buggers happy.”

I said, “I don’t have my gear.”

“I’ve got my old suit in the barn,” he said. “You can use that.”

“What about you?”

“This’ll do just fine.” He gestured to his long-sleeved flannel shirt and overalls. “Your daddy once said bees won’t sting if you move slow. Figure that should be easy enough for me.”

Franny sighed and shook her head and reached under the kitchen sink for a bottle of dish soap.

I pulled on my boots and hurried outside.

28
ollie

I
’m supposed to be in the guest room packing. That’s where I was an hour ago when Nana Fran came in to check on me and said I couldn’t leave the house. I’m supposed to be grounded. I hand the librarian a slip of paper.

He squints at the name I scribbled down and then looks at me with eyebrows raised, lips curled in amusement. “Roth, huh?”

I nod.

“Getting an early start on next year’s homework?”

I nod again.

He laughs and says, “Well, let’s see what we can find, shall we?”

This library is smaller than the one I normally go to, but I like how close I am to all the books here. How, as I walk between the shelves, I can reach my hand and brush my fingers along their spines, and we are connected. I feel safe with all these stories around me.

I feel invincible.

The librarian shows me to a round table near the reference desk.

“There aren’t any books written solely about Billy. His career was just getting started when the accident happened. Though, now that I think about it, even back then he was never much for the spotlight. He’s only included in one or two art books, a few paragraphs, nothing substantial. But there are certainly a lot of articles and newspaper clippings that discuss his life at length, his art, the accident. His head injury and ongoing recovery, his rise and slow fade into obscurity. More than enough to keep you busy for a few hours, I should think.”

He pulls an oversize book from the shelf and lays it on the table. The cover is brown leather, and inside are pages and pages of newsprint bound together with string. The librarian opens to the first article, dated January 1, ten years ago. Something about Bend’s annual New Year’s Eve Party ending in fireworks and a barn burning to the ground.

“If you can’t find what you need here, let me know and I’ll see what I can find in the basement.”

I pull the book closer and scan the first page, but there is nothing here about Billy Roth. I pinch the bottom corner and turn to the next page.

The librarian bends over my shoulder and whispers, “The good stuff starts in February.”

I flip forward and snag on the front-page headline from February 19:

LOCAL ART
IST INVOLVED IN DEAD
LY COLLISION NEAR SUTTLE LAKE

Here I see Billy Roth’s name and his daughter’s, Delilah. Here I see my father’s name, too. His real name, Frank McAlister. I run my fingertip across the letters, wonder what he was doing so far from home that night. Wonder how much of this my sister knows. If anything.

“I’ll leave you to it, then,” the librarian says. He claps his hands together, straightens his shoulders, and in a voice too loud for the library says, “In addition to the
Bulletin,
we also maintain collections of the
Register-Guard
as well as several other major newspapers. The
New York Times,
the
Washington Post,
the
Oregonian
. . .” He ticks them off on his fingers.

I smile at him, then bend my head over the newsprint.

“Good luck, then,” he says and goes.

In the next dozen articles, I learn everything there is to know about Billy Roth and Frank McAlister, the man who became Bear.

Husbands.

Fathers.

College graduates with such promise, each moving along his own path to greatness, their families still young, their futures stretched out in front of them, the wide world waiting.

And then Bear went to a bar and got drunk.

A moment of bad judgment. A split second. Blink. That’s how long it takes for whole lives to fracture and souls to collapse into shadow and screaming.

On the wall nearby, light weeps, dripping down the beige paint like tears, pooling gold on the red carpet beneath. The one who follows me is crying, and so am I. I ask her to stop.
Please,
I think. Her tears, her sorrow, it feels too much like drowning.

I close the book. I don’t remember when Bear left us. I was too young. And I don’t remember him coming back, either. But I’ve read enough to know now why he stayed in the meadow away from us and what needs to happen next. When I leave, the librarian is nowhere to be seen. On the street, no one tries to stop me.

If I go to my sister with only the news clippings, she will say, “So what? So Bear and Billy knew each other? What does that have to do with Taylor Bellweather? What does that have to do with anything?”

Everything,
I would say if I had the words.
It has everything to do with everything.
And I would tell her, too, that I know how to fix it. How to bring Bear home. And then I would say,
Don’t give up on us.

If I had the words.

Without them, I need something more. Proof my sister and Nana Fran and Papa Zeb and Deputy Santos and everyone else can see with their very own eyes.

T
he basement door of Delilah’s Attic is propped open with a piece of broken concrete. I peer through the crack.

The light is on, but no one’s down there. There’s no movement, no sound, no shuffling or rattling or thumping. I open the door a little wider.

The one who follows me waits at the bottom of the stairs. I feel her impatience like a stone in my throat, and I know that whatever it is she wants me to find is still here and whatever I find, I will show my sister and she will understand and say the right things and Bear will be released. The proof is down those steps, in that basement.

Somewhere.

I go straight to the desk and search through the papers on top. Receipts, inventory lists, business cards of other shops and antique dealers, brochures from New York art galleries, news clippings reviewing recent and upcoming shows in all the major art cities around the world. Words and names have been circled and highlighted. Notes written in the margins.

I don’t know what I’m looking for.

A connection where one plus one equals one. She was there and he was there and they were there together. Then she washed up dead.

The papers shift under my fingertips. I dig. And dig. The layers shift and underneath I find a calendar. I push everything else aside. August 27 is circled and starred and exclamation-pointed. Inside the box, the words
Opening Night! Resurrection!!
Other dates are marked with reminders like
Bonny Moliere’s Estate Sale, Pick up Dry Cleaning, Dentist Appointment, Register Travis for Fall Classes
. Things so everyday and unimportant and written in black ink.

I stare at Monday, August 1.

Red ink and capital letters:

7:00
P.M., BILL
Y’S INTERVIEW

The night before my sister and I found a woman dead and drifting.

Or another way: the night before she found us.

Attached to the edge of the calendar beside this date is a business card. Taylor Bellweather’s name curls across the top and beneath it,
Journalist
.

Here, a single thread.

It’s not enough, but maybe it’s all there is. I tear off part of August and stuff it into my pocket between
Alice
’s pages.

The one who follows me sparks around the handle of the bottom drawer. I pull it open. The wood squeals like last time, but there are no rushing footsteps overhead, no voices calling down, asking who’s there. The door leading into the store stays closed.

But something is different. Something has changed.

The gun.

The gun is gone.

And for a second, I want to run as far from this place as I can. For a second, shadows press too close, and the air fills with whispers. The birdcage swings side to side. The dolls sit up and turn their heads. Green eyes blink down at me from a dark top shelf. The one who follows me tells me it’s all right, I don’t have to be afraid.

Look,
she says, in a voice I recognize.

And I do. I look.

And the shadows retreat. The birdcage is caught in a breeze coming in through the open door. The dolls stare up at the ceiling. That gray tabby cat that’s always hanging around here jumps down from the top shelf, meows, and comes over to wind around my legs.

I take a sketchbook out of the drawer and flip through pages filled with someone I recognize. Billy Roth’s pale girl. Delilah. A few of the drawings are complete, her head and shoulders and face sketched with loving detail, but more of the pages are filled with bits and pieces, as if he was having trouble seeing her, as if he was trying to remember.

Halfway through the book, the drawings change from profiles and portraits to sharp angles and bolted parts, carved wood and twisted wires. Art imitating life, and piece by piece by terrible piece, he tries to put his daughter back together again.

I slam the sketchbook closed and shove it back into the drawer.

Keep looking.

I open another drawer, push aside more papers, a calculator, a box of broken crayons. Way in the back, wrapped in baby pink tissue paper, I find a purse. It’s small and soft and tan with a metal clasp and a long, thin strap to go over your shoulder. Blood drops stain the front. And there’s another smudge, a thumbprint maybe, where the strap connects with the bag. I know it’s blood because there was blood on her jean jacket, too, and the color, the texture, look the same. And I know this purse is hers because inside I find her wallet and inside that, her driver’s license.

This is it. This is what I came here to find. I start to wrap the tissue paper around the purse again.

The one who follows me is exploding, bursting red and yellow and orange, but I do not listen to her.

I do not listen.

And when someone grabs my arm and says, “What the hell are you doing here?” I drop the purse and take a breath to scream.

Travis clamps his other hand hard over my mouth, and I choke. The gray tabby at my feet screeches and leaps away, disappearing into the shadows under the desk.

“Be quiet,” Travis says into my ear and drags me backward. “You have to leave. Now. If she knew you were down here snooping around . . .”

But it’s too late.

She’s at the top of the stairs looking down at us and smiling.

She says, “Oh. Hello again,” and takes a step down. “You really should come through the front door next time, dear. The basement isn’t a safe place for kids. Too many jagged corners and rusted bits of metal.”

“She was just leaving.” Travis pushes me toward the back door.

“Please,” she says, cocking her head to one side. “Stay.”

And somehow she has come all the way down the stairs and crossed the room to where Travis and I are standing, though I didn’t see her move. She was there at the top of the stairs. Blink. Now she’s here in front of me.

Smiling with only her mouth.

Her eyes are mist and vapor, shape-shifters and phantoms. They are grief and they are fear. They are dark and light, half empty, half full. Confused and, at the same time, determined.

“Are you down here all by yourself?” She looks around the basement and sees the desk drawer open and the purse on the floor close by.

Her eyes narrow on me again. All crackle and heat and panic. She knows I know what I shouldn’t, what she has tried so hard to hide. She knows I know the truth. And she knows, if given the chance, I will tell everyone.

“Well, now.” She bends, picks up the purse, and sets it on the desktop. “You and your sister are quite the little detectives, aren’t you?”

“Mom,” Travis says. He’s taken his hand away from my mouth, but he’s still holding on to my arm, pushing me behind him, blocking me with his body. “Mom. Just let her go. Let’s just . . . She isn’t part of the plan.”

Mrs. Roth smiles at her son like she’s disappointed she even has to say it. “Plans change.”

And then she takes the cowboy gun from behind her back.

Travis says, “Mom, no.”

Mrs. Roth reaches around him and grabs my arm, pulls me to her. Though she keeps the gun pointed at the floor, her grip is firm and steady, her impatient finger hovers over the trigger.

The one who follows me licks like fire across the ceiling, but I am the only one sweating, the only one choking on smoke. There’s nothing she can do to help me now.

Mrs. Roth holds me against her body with one arm and speaks to Travis over my head, “Go find Sam and bring her to the house.”

Travis shifts his feet. “Why?”

“You know why.” When Travis doesn’t move, Mrs. Roth says, “Travis. Go.”

“Are you going to hurt her?”

“Of course not,” she says. “It’s just time we had ourselves a heart-to-heart. So she knows what’s at stake here. With all of this.” She waves the gun, bringing it too close to my head.

“And Ollie?”

“I’m not going to hurt either one of them.” But when she says this, she squeezes tighter, bruising my ribs and keeping me still. “She’s just a bit of insurance. In case Sam decides she doesn’t want to cooperate.”

“And after? When Sam agrees to keep quiet about everything? To stop snooping around? You’ll let her go? You’ll let both of them go?”

Mrs. Roth gives me another squeeze, like we’re buddies this time, and says, “Of course I will.”