In the Waning Light (21 page)

Blake pulled out of the school lot. Kids on foot and on bikes and skateboards were flooding down the sidewalks toward the school. They looked like colorful jelly beans in their winter jackets. One bounced a basketball. Meg’s mind went back to Noah, walking alone. With the image came an acute memory of herself in high school and how she’d felt the day she’d finally returned after her sister’s death. A teen with a murderer-father in prison. She’d felt fragile, unreal, like a thin specter of the kid she’d been before Sherry was killed. As if people could see right through her to the other side.

“You’re having a rough time with Noah,” she said.

He snorted.

She turned in her seat. “You want to tell me about the other night?”

“Not really.”

His comment rankled. “You need to be careful with him,” she said crisply.

His eyes flared to hers. “Like I don’t
know
that?”

“Look, clearly this is personal for you, but I don’t want to be part of the problem. Perhaps it’s better if I—”

“What, Meg, if you what? Noah is more upset about his uncle being hauled off by the cops than he is with you being in the house right now. Until Kovacs arrests those guys, or until you get some . . . bodyguard to look after you, I’m it, okay? That’s just the way it’s going to be.”

Her jaw tensed. Her blood pressure rose. She held her mouth, watched a mother pushing a baby in a stroller. The mother was yelling after two girls, sisters, she guessed, who were wheeling down the road ahead of her on bikes. Jonah’s words from that day in the corn maze rustled through her mind.

Are you happy, Meg . . .

“You know when I was happy?” she said, staring at the sisters.
“When I was Noah’s age. I was happy at this same elementary school.
I was happy in my own skin—when I was nine, ten, eleven, maybe even when I was twelve. I had the innocence of a child, yet I was old enough to take the boat out myself, ride my bike anywhere I wanted
in town, not lock it up. I was free. Before the hormones kicked in,
and all the girl-clique nastiness. And the inconvenient dawning that you’re not pretty enough. Or popular enough. And with that aware
ness comes the self-restriction, self-consciousness. Self-hatred.”

“You were always beautiful,” he snapped. “That’s just crap.”

“But it’s
real
crap. It’s the stuff of bullying crap. It’s the kind of crap that causes kids to kill themselves, be shamed on the Internet.”

He glanced sharply at her. “What are you saying? Is this about Noah?”

“Kids should be happy, Blake.”

He stared at her, almost crossing the center line before his attention shot back to the road and he corrected the truck.

“If I’m going to stay in your house you need to tell what was behind that bombshell Noah dropped the night we were having pizza. Tell me about Allison,” she said.

He moistened his lips, took the turn that led to her subdivision a little too aggressively, hands tight on the wheel.

“Fine. What Noah said was true, if framed a little harshly. It was rebound sex with Allison. She got pregnant after what we both thought would be a one-night stand. Doesn’t mean I don’t love him.” He took a deep breath. Exhaled.

“So that’s why you married, because Noah was on the way?”

“I came back to see my dad for Christmas, during a stint between tours, after Iraq, and I guess I was looking for something I couldn’t find once I got home. I missed what we had, Meg. You were gone. The place felt hollow. I was struggling. I ended up morose at the High Dive, that old bar down in Chillmook. Allison and some of her friends were there. We all got drunk. She’d just come off a nasty relationship and we commiserated. We ended up together that night, and the next I knew, our boy was on the way. So yeah, we decided to tie the knot for the kid. I stayed with the army, and she stayed here in Shelter Bay. She moved in with my dad at the marina. She and Bull kind of split the house in two.”

“She didn’t want to go live with you on base, or off?”

“No. She was not interested in the military-wife life. She hated the idea of living somewhere away from the sea and her family while I was deployed. Besides, I think Allison was relieved to have me gone for long tours, quite honestly. She had my name; Noah had my name. And I think she was seeing someone else very discreetly. She pretty much took over the running of the marina, and truly enjoyed it. Bull, of course,
loved
it, loved her. She cooked his meals. I didn’t feel as though I was abandoning her. She was better off here than on some anonymous base. Noah had his granddad. And I convinced myself that I was doing something noble, serving our country. War. Medic. Helping soldiers hurt in battle. Brutal shit—but it was concrete. Guys got blown to bits and were bleeding out, and I could fix them enough to keep them breathing, to fly them out. Get them to hospitals, home. I could see,
feel
, that I made a difference.”

“And it continued like that, until Bull died?”

He nodded. “Then came Allison’s diagnosis. It was fast.” His voice hitched. He swallowed, turned down her road. “I quit the army, came home to get to know my son. To try and make a family with him.” A soft snort. “Never thought I’d be a single dad raising a son at the old marina.” He was quiet for a long pause. “Funny how history repeats itself. How it lies in wait. No matter how you try to outfox it.” He cast her a look. And the subtext hung: Now she, too, was back here. Digging up the past and all the raw feelings and complications associated with it.

“Oh shit,” he said as they neared her house. “Cops are still here.”

“It’s not unusual for men to look at porn, LB.”

“
That’s
not porn.” She wagged her hand at his computer, two hot spots turning violently red on her cheekbones, her eyes shining bright and wild. “That’s . . . sick. How
could
you? You’re sick, you know that? You’re disgusting, a deviant. I can’t believe that I let you touch me.”

“You don’t.”

“Oh, oh, so
that’s
your excuse? Is
that
your justification? You can’t have sex with your poor paraplegic wife who can’t get turned on, so you must resort to that filth? Is this who you really are?”

His pulse thudded against his eardrums. A buzzing was starting in his head. Perspiration prickled his skin. He needed to get out. Get away. He needed to get the hell away. He couldn’t. He couldn’t run. He had nowhere to turn. Prisoner. Trapped.

“Is that why you married me, Henry? I’m some sort of placeholder? A cover? Is that where you went the other night—to indulge your sick inclinations? Those are
boys
in those photos and videos on your computer. How old are they? Eleven? Twelve? What you’ve got on there is criminal.”

He took an abrupt step toward her. She cringed back into her chair, suddenly silent and wide-eyed in shock. Scared.

“And you,” he said, his voice low, very quiet. “Why did
you
marry
me
, LB? Because of my apparent low sex drive? Because I never
bothered
you with my needs? Because I was
safe
? Because, believe me, no other man was going to waste
his virility, his youth, on someone like you, some needy woman with a host of weird insecurities, with a whacked-out spinster sister who hovers over you like some guilt-ridden raven because she happened to be driving drunk all those years ago and caused the wreck that put you in that chair, and now I have to tolerate her in my own house. She’s always damn here, lurking and snooping about. I can’t stand it!”

Blood drained from her face. Her knuckles whitened as her fingers clawed the armrests of her chair. She began to shake.

“You want that baby?” he said, eyes lancing hers. “Then you shut your mouth, understand? You don’t tell a soul what you saw. Or you know as well as I do that Holly and her family will renege on their adoption deal.”

She wheeled her chair closer to him, her eyes crazed. “No. Let
me
tell you what’s going to happen, Henry. I’ll keep quiet, and we’ll get baby Joy. And then, when she’s a little older, you will agree to a divorce, and you will get the hell out of our lives.”

He stared at her, his meek Lori-Beth, all iron-willed in her desperation. “And how are you going to raise a child on your own?”

“I have Sally. You will pay child support.”

“Get out of my office.” He locked the door behind her. He paced. It was falling apart. It was all finally falling apart. And it could all be traced back to that day—that’s when it all went wrong. Meg Brogan should never have come back. She was picking at the delicate threads that had bound into a tight and solid web over the years, and she was unraveling their lives, one by one. He had to do something. A half plan began to form in his mind.

He deleted all the files LB had found on his computer. He’d need to get rid of this system to be sure, but for now it was the best he could do. He set his briefcase on his desk, opened it, and then took his gun cabinet keys from the top left drawer of his desk. He went to his gun cabinet to get his pistol.

Shock washed through him—his cabinet was unlocked. He never left it unlocked. He flung open the doors, and his mouth turned dry.

His .22 hunting rifle and scope were missing.

Blake pulled up behind the cop cruiser parked on the street. Meg felt color drain from her face as she saw the blood-painted words in daylight.

Go Home Bitch. Fuck off, Bitch
.
Killer’s daughter!! White trash. Gonna kill you, Bitch.

The blood leaking down her walls was stark, even more visceral in the bright light of day. Crime scene tape across her gate billowed slightly in a fresh breeze.

She grabbed her tote, flung open the truck door, dropped down to the road, and marched up to the cruiser parked in front, her hair drying into wild spirals and lifting in the wind.

A male deputy got out of the cruiser. “Ma’am, s’cuse me, you can’t go in there.”

“This is my house. I need to fix up this damage, repair the windows before the next storm front, or at least get the holes boarded up. When can I get back in?”

“I’m sorry, I can’t say. We’re not done yet with the scene, ma’am.” His eyes were unreadable behind reflective shades. Blake came up to join them. He touched Meg’s elbow, bringing her down.

“All we need is the truck and camper, okay?”

The deputy hesitated.

“It’s not part of the scene,” Meg snapped. “Kovacs was willing to let me take it last night.”

“Hold on one second.” The deputy got into his cruiser, made a call. When he got back out, he said, “You’re clear to take the rig.”

“Well, thank you. If you could remove the tape over the gate?” Meg said curtly, digging into her tote for her truck keys as she marched toward the gate. But as she reached it, her phone buzzed. She fumbled for it. “Meg Brogan.”

“It’s Dave Kovacs. You have thirty minutes?”

“Excuse me?”

“My father. He’ll be ready for you in thirty minutes. He’ll talk on the record.” He gave the address for a house in Chillmook. “I’ll be waiting outside.”

“What about Geoff—what’s happening with him?”

The call went dead.

Her gaze shot to Blake. “Ike Kovacs—he’ll see me in half an hour.” She fiddled for keys.

“What are you doing?”

“I’m going to see Ike—”

“We.
We
are going to see Ike. You’re not doing this without me. Come. I’ll drive.”

“My camper.”

He hesitated. “Okay, we’ll back it out of the drive, park it on the street. We can pick it up on the way back, when we fetch Noah from school.”

“I have an appointment at noon with Lee Albies, also in Chillmook.”

“We’ll have time.”

She wavered. She was being sucked into an undertow.

“Meg, we had a deal.”

CHAPTER 16

Meg set her recorder on the coffee table, in the center. Ike Kovacs eyed it. Ruddy faced and corpulent under a shock of white hair, he was crammed into an overstuffed sofa beside his wife, Phyllis. The sofa was covered in a cabbage rose print that made the retired sheriff look comical, and uncomfortable. Blake sat in a chair to Meg’s right. Dave, in uniform, leaned against the wall, almost out of her line of sight, crossing his arms over his chest, as if physically declaring his contempt.

Outside, clouds boiled puce over the sea. Nice view. Nice retirement house. Ike and his wife were clearly sunned out and happily weathered from their recent bonefishing trip in Florida. But tension lay thick, almost hostile, in the pretty living room. It sliced Meg. This family had once been so close to hers.

“I’m not the enemy, you know,” she’d told Ike earlier, as he’d reluctantly welcomed them into the house.

“You’re making yourself one by digging this up,” Ike had retaliated. “Wouldn’t have had your house attacked otherwise.”

Meg took a sip from the water glass that had been placed in front of her by Phyllis. The others had mugs of coffee that sat untouched. She cleared her throat, leaned forward, and pressed the record button. Heat seemed to fill the room instantly. “I’m just going to start at the beginning,” she said. “No judgment. Just questions.”

Ike shifted, looking as though he’d been strapped against his will into the floral couch.

Meg spoke for the recorder. “Sheriff Kovacs, is it customary for a sheriff, essentially an administrative position, to personally take the investigative lead on a murder case?”

Ike’s eyes flashed to Dave, his cheeks reddening with indignation. Meg waited. Ike cleared his throat. “What is this about? What are you insinuating?”

“It’s a question that has been asked, and will be asked again about the case.”

“No, it’s not common. I took the lead because I was a damn good friend of your father’s. Your family was good upstanding folk,” Ike said. “Things like that—they’re not supposed to happen to folk like the Brogans. Not in Shelter Bay. Not in Chillmook County. It was an affront, an attack on Jack and Tara. On everything that we all stood for and believed in.”

“So it was personal.”

“Hell yes, it was personal.”

“It got you fired up.”

“Megan”—Phyllis leaned forward, her brow creasing in distress—“is this really necessary?”

Ike’s hand shot up, quieting his wife. “I have nothing to hide.” His gaze bored into Meg’s. “She’ll see that I did everything in my power to charge Ty Mack and have him put away. I deeply regret that I was not able to do it before your father took the law into his own hands, Megan. I tried.”

She took another sip of water, feeling Blake’s attention keenly. She’d asked him to remain silent during the interview, but she could see him fidgeting.

“You were all members of the same church.”

“What’s
that
got to do with anything?” Phyllis said, her voice going high.

Again, Ike’s hand shot up to still her. “You know that we all went to the same church, Megan, but your father’s view on justice, an eye for an eye, was his interpretation, not mine.”

She met his gaze. “You also attended the Oregon state police academy with him.”

“When he was twenty. I was two years older. We graduated together. He was hired on by the Portland police. I started as a rookie right here, in Chillmook County. Been here ever since.”

“Why did my dad leave the Portland police?”

Ike cursed softly under his breath. “You can find that out for yourself—got nothing to do with me, or Sherry’s case.”

“But you do know why?”

“Hell yes.”

“Because he was a hothead? Because he lost his temper and got violent with a suspect on more than one occasion?”

“Some people have their hearts in the right place, but are not suited to law enforcement.”

Meg rubbed her brow, making notes as questions rose in her mind. She looked up. “My dad was also drinking pretty heavily during his Portland period.”

Ike’s face darkened. “And it’s why Jack stopped drinking when he came here. He knew it triggered his temper. He moved to the coast and started fresh here. Before Sherry was born.”

“So you knew all this about him.”

“Where in the hell are you going with this?”

“Who else knew this about my dad?”

“I don’t know. A couple of people, I suppose.”

“So if someone was aware of this propensity in my father, and riled him up by telling him that Ty Mack would likely be acquitted if he was in fact charged, based on the evidence in hand, and then told him where Ty, the man who raped and strangled his daughter, was hiding out in a cabin—”

“Whoa! Enough right there.” Dave pushed off the wall, looming between Meg and his dad. “We had a deal. The file boxes.”

“I’m getting there.”

“Not with this line of questioning you’re not.”

She held his glare. “Okay. Okay, I’ll move on.” She cleared her throat. “My mother secured interrogation transcripts, copies of the autopsy report, and crime scene details from Ty Mack’s defense counsel, Lee Albies.”

Ike and Dave stiffened. Dave seated himself slowly on the small chair to Meg’s left.

“She stored these files in boxes in a wall safe behind the bookshelf. It was discovered when my aunt, Irene Brogan, set fire to our living room.” Meg took another sip of water. “From the evidence in those reports, my mother came to believe that Ty Mack might have been innocent.”

Phyllis’s hand flew to her mouth and her gaze shot to her husband. Ike stared unblinking at Meg. Not a muscle in his body moved. He didn’t seem surprised. Rather he seemed coiled, guarded, ready to attack.

“According to the report, there were several other sources of unidentified DNA found on scene—”

“It was a make-out spot,” Ike interjected. “The unidentified DNA was found in discarded condoms. There were also beer cans and a spirit bottle with DNA. This evidence was incidental to our case.”

“Yet one of those unidentified DNA profiles also matched hair found in Sherry’s pubic area, and it came from a condom that bore trace evidence of Sherry’s blood.”

“That condom was found in a muddy pool that Sherry had bled into,” said Ike. “We could not rule out the strong possibility of cross contamination”

“And the hair evidence?”

“Same. High probability of cross contamination. We had our guy. His semen was all over Sherry. Her skin was under his nails.” He leaned forward, breathing heavily. “Look, I’ll be the first to admit the scene was not adequately secured. Mistakes were made. We had members unfamiliar with murder scene protocol arrive first. There was confusion with the search-and-rescue volunteers tramping all over the place, and the rain and gale-force winds severely hampered our efforts. Three times the uniforms tried to erect cover. Three times the storm tore the tent away.”

“Cross contamination,” Meg said quietly. “Yet, the existence of other DNA, a condom with Sherry’s trace on it, could suggest another perpetrator, no?”

He glowered at her.

“Which in turn would likely hamper securing a murder conviction in court for Ty Mack, wouldn’t it? Because in the eyes of the jury there could have been grounds for reasonable doubt.”

“Which is exactly why we didn’t charge Tyson Mack right away. Which is why we were continuing our investigation.”

“But Tyson Mack remained the prime suspect.”

“The only one. We knew he did it.”

She let that hang a moment, turned the page in her notebook, looked up. “So, no other suspects? No other possible motive? No other avenue of investigation was pursued?”

“I told you. Tyson Mack was our guy. His DNA was on Sherry. He admitted to rough intercourse. She had his skin under her nails. He had scratches on his back, consistent with the skin under her nails. You yourself saw her climbing onto the back of Tyson Mack’s bike. Emma Williams, Sherry’s best friend, said Sherry called her to say that she was going with Mack to the spit.”

“What about the pregnancy?”

Ike’s face darkened. The room fell silent. Nothing moved. Tension swelled thick between them.

“Sherry was several weeks pregnant. You never told my parents.”

“Ike?” Phyllis said, eyes wide. “Is this true?”

“It would have hurt them, Megan,” he said softly, but a vein was swelling purple on his temple. His breathing had quickened. “It would have served no purpose other than hurt. Your father had already killed Ty. It could also have cost him at trial, too, if the pregnancy had been made public.”

“It would have hurt his case, yes, because it would have raised serious questions about Ty Mack’s guilt. It would have put another unidentified suspect into the picture—one you never found, or investigated—”

“Right. I’m done here.” Ike made to get up.

“One more question. My mother wrote in her journal that she was being followed, and that our house was being watched.” Meg spoke quickly. She was losing Ike’s cooperation. “She detailed several instances, including someone trying to break into her house, and a vehicle following her too closely, trying to run her off the road, and a vehicle watching the house from down the street. She called you to report it, didn’t she?”

Ike glanced at his wife, who’d paled. “It wasn’t an official report,” he said.

“But she did phone you the night before she died. She told you she was scared.” Meg turned her page, making as if she was consulting her notes. “What did you say to her? Oh, right.” Meg looked up. “You told her that her medication—medication she apparently overdosed on the next day—was making her paranoid?”

Ike’s face turned beet red. He lunged to his feet, knocking over his untouched coffee. “You—” He pointed at her face. “You get out of my house. Now.”

“Dad.” Dave grabbed his father’s arm. “Relax. You’re working yourself up. You gotta keep your heart rate down.”

Phyllis scrambled for a cloth to start mopping up the spill, her neat hair bun coming undone, silver strands spilling over her eyes. “Is it true, Ike? Did Tara call you for help?” she said, wet cloth in hand. “Is it true, Meg?”

“It’s what my mother wrote in her journal the night before she died.” Meg got to her feet. Blake took her cue and rose as well. Meg could see the fire in his eyes, the tension in his muscles, and she loved him for restraining himself because she knew how tough it was for an impulsive man like Blake.

She picked up her recorder, the red record light still glowing, and said, “Is it possible, Ike, that my mother did
not
take her own life?”

He went dead still. Sweat beaded his brow. His face was a disturbing shade of purple now. “What . . . on earth . . . do you mean?”

“I think my mother might have been getting too close to Sherry’s real killer. I think someone might have wanted to silence her. Did you not consider looking into that possibility after my mom’s death,
especially
since she reported her concerns to you?”

“Murder?” Phyllis said, her voice tight. “You think someone
murdered
Tara?”

“Get. The. Fuck. Out. Of. My. House.” Ike turned, stormed toward the door. But he stalled in the doorway, and spun around, breathing heavily. “You wanna blame someone for feeding your dad’s temper, for winding him into killer mode? You go visit that public defender bitch. If anyone is to blame for any of this, it’s her.”

“Ike!” Phyllis snapped.

“I’m done. I’m done here.” He swung the door open wide. “Get out.”

“Why did you sit on the fact she was pregnant?” Dave said to his father as Meg and Blake went down to their vehicle. He watched them from the window.

“You heard me. I was trying to protect that family. And
this
is the thanks I get? What’s it going to be now? In a book? For the whole damn nation to read?”

“It’s not right,” Phyllis said. “None of this is right. You should have told Tara and Jack right away.”

“What’s not right is her writing that book. Jack was in prison. Tara was a wreck, grieving her daughter, coming to terms with the brutal murder of her beautiful child, her husband about to stand trial for killing the rapist. What good would it have done anyone at that point? I knew Tara would be able to get her hands on that report when she was ready, and she did.”

“And look at what happened—now she’s dead.”

“This is not my fault, Phyllis. None of this is my fault. I did my best by that family. And whether Sherry was pregnant or not, Tyson Mack was my man. He did it. I have not one question of doubt in my mind.”

“
This
is why you should have let one of your detectives take the lead,” Phyllis snapped. “And the least you could have done is given Tara some protection.”

He poured a stiff whiskey, took a deep pull, sunk into his chair, and cursed.

“You shouldn’t be drinking that.”

“Let me die in peace, woman—if I’m going to kick the bucket I’d rather do it drunk.”

Dave said, “Do you have any idea who the father of her baby was?”

He looked up at his boy and held his eyes for several beats. “No.”

“And it wasn’t Tommy’s, or Ty Mack’s?”

“No.”

Dave’s gaze locked on his father’s. Silence, tension, swelled.