In the Waning Light (9 page)

What he craved with every molecule of his being was to come clean before his marriage, his new start in life. But in doing so he could lose everything. The irony was not lost on him.

Between a rock and a hard place. The saying was so overused it felt trite. Between the devil and the deep blue sea. Between Scylla and Charybdis . . .

“Everything okay?”

He tensed, spun around. Nate stood in the doorway, drafting pen in hand, sleeves rolled up. His smiled faded as he saw something in Geoff’s face.

“What did your brother want?” Nate said.

“Just to catch up. I . . . I’m going home, I think.”

Nate regarded him steadily for several beats, then said, “I could do with a break. Some wine? Out here on the deck?”

Geoff snorted and forced a smile. “Be great.”

They sat side by side, overlooking the ocean, glasses of chilled Sonoma pinot grigio and a plate of organic cheeses between them. The light was odd. Coppery-purple, like before a storm. Streaks of rain formed along the horizon. They could see the cloud band moving toward land. Wind began to stir, but it was warm.

Geoff loved this place. He’d found freedom here for the first time in his life. He could be himself. But was he truly free if he couldn’t take who he was, and go anywhere? Even home? Back into the past? Was he truly free as long as this thing continued to fester black inside him? He sipped his wine, thinking of something he’d read about criminals, how sometimes they just confessed because it was so cathartic. They
needed
to tell someone what they’d done. It was probably the idea behind the Catholic confessional. It cleared things off the chest so that believers could begin afresh again.

But how could he even begin to amend his past, come clean, without the risk of losing Nate? Without totally destroying someone else he’d once cared deeply for? That’s why he’d run away in the first place. Avoidance.

And now this call, this tentacle from the past, sticky and tricky, and, yes, dangerous. Reaching into his life down here.

“So?” Nate said, finally. “Why go home now?”

He met Nate’s eyes. They were a soft brown, turned down slightly at the corners, giving him a sad, but kind look. When he smiled, they turned liquid and mischievous. Gentle, was his Nate. Yet rock solid. Geoff’s stomach churned in an oily roil of conflict.

“I’d like to tell my brother about us, about the wedding. In person. Invite him and Noah.”

Nate’s brows crooked up.

“I want to come out in my own hometown. I’m sick of goddamn half-truths, old deceptions. I . . . I just need to do this. Sort some things out in my life . . . before the wedding.”

Find a way to wipe clean the slate so I can move peaceably, rightfully, into my new life . . .

Nate’s eyes held his. “You sure?”

Geoff looked out over the ocean. “Yeah. I’m sure.” He blew out another chestful of air. “Besides, the last time I saw Blake and Noah was for my dad’s funeral. Noah was just six years old. And I was only there for the day—my nephew probably doesn’t even know his uncle exists. I feel kind of shit about that, about Blake trying to run that decaying old marina, a single dad.”

Nate nodded, but concern darkened his features. He sipped his wine in silence for a few moments. The distant susurration of the ocean carried up to them on the salt breeze. Wind suddenly ducked, swirled, and darted over the dune scrub, making it ruffle as if stroked by an invisible hand. The wind chimes on the deck
chinkled
. Geoff felt an eerie sense of sentience, of time, snaking in, shifting a paradigm, ever so slightly.

“Want me to come with you?”

He smiled. “Thank you but, no. I’ll be fine. Honest. I need to do this on my own. I need to pave the way for my family to meet you.”

Another intense silence as Nate held his eyes. In them Geoff saw a flicker of worry. Fear even. He broke the gaze, took a deep sip of wine, the sick oiliness in his stomach slithering toward his bowels—he could lose this. Nate. All of it. He could lose it by doing nothing, just sitting here waiting to see if Meg’s memory returned, or if she managed to dig up the truth with the help of his brother’s confession.

Going back to Shelter Bay he might stand a chance . . . he could try and stop Meg. He could try and convince Blake to keep his silence. Or, if shit hit the fan . . . he had no fucking idea what he’d do if shit hit the fan.

Meg entered Sherry’s old room. Cobwebs wafted with currents of air made by her movement. Irene had kept this room permanently locked after she’d moved in to care for Meg, and stepping into it now was stepping back two decades in time. Sherry had been into purple. Purple and green walls. Lavender bedding. Jon Bon Jovi poster on the wall, pictures of track stars. Her Doc Martens still waited for her in the corner, never again to move with the rhythm of Sherry’s feet.

Meg ran her finger softly along the rows of old CD cases. Thick with dust.

She stilled at the bed.

This bed where she’d found her mother on May first, twenty-
one years ago—spring, supposedly a time for new beginnings. Tara had been on her back, mouth agape, a slime of yellowish vomit dribbling out of the corner of her mouth. Meg’s stomach folded at the memory. She glanced at the bedside table where the pill container had been left. Empty.

Her mother had chosen this place, of all places, to take her life, while Meg, fourteen, had slept down the hall.

Emotion clawed at her throat. But her mouth tightened. She refused to give in to it. Refused to be the “victim” that Blake had called her. She was never a victim. He was full of crap. For a moment back at Irene’s care facility she’d conceded the self-indulgence part—
she’d seen where he might have drawn the analogy. But her so-called self-indulgence, her cutting everyone out of her life, had been an act of survival, not the act of a victim. It took courage. Not cowardice.

She yanked back the drapes. Dust motes exploded into the air and floated softly down around her. She sneezed and opened the window. Cold, fresh air flowed in.

Meg lowered herself onto the edge of Sherry’s bed and, hunkered in her damp coat, her mother’s journal in hand, she stared at the framed photograph of Sherry and Tommy Kessinger, taken on his dad’s yacht. Eighteen and nineteen they’d been that summer, on the cusp of the rest of their lives. Laughing. Golden. Sun browned and lean limbed and filled with zest and promise.

Inhaling deeply, she pushed back a tangle of damp-frizzed hair, and opened the journal to the last entry. Surprise blossomed through her—it had been written April 30, the day before her mother committed suicide.

It’s getting dark now, and from the back window I can already see the SUV parked at the end of the road again, beneath the broken streetlight, behind the cherry tree. I’m sure it’s the same one. But it’s hard to be sure in the dark and shadows. I called Ike Kovacs earlier. He said to lock the doors—he’d come around in the morning. I told him I thought I’d heard someone trying to break into the house three nights ago. He said it was probably a raccoon or a bear. They were really active right now. He said I needed to relax, that the medication I was taking for stress might be unsettling me. He was being kind. He surely meant to say paranoid, irrational, and I do feel overly anxious, my heart palpitates. My mouth is perpetually dry. But when I spoke to Dr. Armano about it, he said I was not sleeping enough. He gave me sleeping pills for the insomnia. Now I have pills for this and pills for that, and what next? The only thing that is going to put this right for me is to find the truth. Maybe then, finally, I will sleep.

I worry that I’m not giving Meg enough attention through all this, but I have only so much energy, and I want her to live her life. I’d love to talk to her about this, but she’s too young. She took it so hard when Jack was arrested. Even harder when he was denied bail. And we still have his trial to face come December, which is why I
cannot
rest. I need answers before then. Whatever I can find
might
help ameliorate his sentence.

Oh, my dear Jack, I only wish you would talk to me and tell me who tipped you off to Ty’s location, tell me who and what riled you so, and drove you to do this. Yes, I know that you bear the blame as yours, and yours only. And yes, possibly that person who told you where Ty Mack was hiding meant no harm, and yes, I know the knowledge won’t get you out, but it could help lead me to the missing link, to a bad, bad man who still walks free, who could kill again. Who could rape and strangle another Shelter Bay daughter, while you live out your days in a small, square cell with no sight of the sun . . .

That was it. Where it ended. Her mother’s last words, as if her pen had just run out of ink. What did this mean?

A bad, bad man who still walks free, who could kill again . . .

Had her mom come to believe Tyson Mack was actually innocent? And Sherry’s killer was still out there? Had Tara Brogan closed her diary on this last entry, and locked the journal into her safe, replacing the books in front of it, then gone to bed? And what of the next day? What led to her overdose the next night? Because this sure as hell did
not
sound like a woman ready to give up and take her own life. It sounded like a wife and mother in love, on a fierce mission to help her husband. And she’d had a ticking-clock deadline to the December trial date.

Meg lurched to her feet, paced the room. It didn’t make sense.

She held the journal tight against her chest. Her mother had
not
forgotten her—not in the way Meg had always believed. She’d been fighting for Sherry, Dad, the family. Truth.

She’d been doing the things I would have done, if I were in her position. Fighting for answers, not giving up . . .

And what of this SUV down the road, watching the house? Her mother’s fears about someone trying to get in? Ike Kovacs brushing it off.

Her mother was not who Meg had believed her to be at all. Emotion stung Meg’s eyes. She breathed in deep, controlling it. But in her gut a hot coal began to burn, a coalescing of will to get to the bottom of this. Shit. She was going to do this story come hell or high water now. She owed it to her mother. To Sherry. Dad.

Herself.

Jaw tight, she marched downstairs and out to her truck. She got her laptop, and she carried the boxes inside. She put on more lamps, wiped the dust layer off the dining room table, and started laying the files out across the table between making calls to contractors about power washing and repainting the house walls, and replacing broken windows.

She was going to take this diary, all these files, transcripts, crime scene photos, and go through it with a fine-tooth comb, retracing every inch of her mother’s steps.

And Dave Kovacs be damned. His father was right at the top of her list—she was going to grill retired Sheriff Ike Kovacs, gimpy heart or not.

CHAPTER 8

“Noah, would you like to tell your dad what you did yesterday?” said Ellie Sweet with a touchy-feely tone that made Blake’s skin itch. She’d phoned and asked him and Noah to meet with her after school today. Blake was now seated beside Noah on a kid-size chair at a blue table in Miss Sweet’s happy, shiny, yellow-walled classroom. He looked down at his pale son, his little head bent forward. He’d driven Noah to school himself this morning, and arrived to pick him up. Ellie Sweet eyed his kid over the top of her fashionable plastic-framed specs, and Blake felt himself siding instantly with his boy no matter what he might have done.

“It’s okay, champ,” he said gently. “You can tell me.”

Noah glowered at some groove in the table.

“Noah?” he coaxed.

Silence.

A spark of irritation spat through Blake.

“You hit Alex with your backpack, didn’t you, Noah?” Miss Sweet said.

Noah’s mouth tightened. His knee started to jiggle.

“Is that right, champ?”

He cast a sideways glance up at his dad.

“Why’d you do that?” Blake said.

His son returned his attention to the table groove. His knee jiggled faster.

“I tell you what, how about you go wait in the truck for me. I want a word with Miss Sweet, alone.”

Noah looked up sharply, a range of expressions chasing through his face, from fear, to anger, then hope. Blake’s chest crunched.

“Go on,” he said gently. “Here are the keys.”

He waited until the door had closed behind his son.

Blake said to Miss Sweet, “There must have been some provocation. Noah is not an aggressive child. He’s the opposite. Empathetic to a fault. So much so that I worry about him.”

“No matter the reason, we cannot condone violence of any kind, Mr. Sutton. Our students need to understand that there are better avenues to resolve conflict—discussion. Arbitration. And this is not the first time we’ve had one of his classmates report a physical outburst from Noah.”

“Did
you
see what happened?”

“No, but—”

“So, some kid snitches on him, and you take it at face value? Did you happen to notice that he also has a cut on his head? Maybe this boy hit him first. Why aren’t we talking to this Alex kid and his parents, too?”

“Her.”

“Excuse me?”

“Alex is a girl.”

“He hit a
gir
l
?
”

“You need to speak with your son, Mr. Sutton. I’ve already spoken to Ryan and Peggy Millar, Alex’s parents. Possibly she did provoke Noah, but violence as a response is not tenable. We will not stand for another incident like this.” She paused. “It’ll be the principal you’re speaking to next time. And the consequences . . . well, let’s not go there, shall we.” She smiled. Sweetly.

Blake cleared his throat, feeling a sudden and surprising affinity with his own father, and the struggles Bull had with Geoff. Noah was sensitive, artistic, like his uncle. Like his mom. He also harbored the dark and secret places of an imaginative introvert. “Look, he’s struggling with the loss of his mother—”

“I know.” Ellie Sweet bowed her head slightly. “We understand. We understand that
both
of you might be having a rough time coping. But it’s been a full year since Noah lost his mother, Mr. Sutton.” She hesitated, color rising prettily into her cheeks. “Have you and Noah perhaps considered talking to a therapist? We could provide you with some recommendations that—”

Blake surged abruptly to his feet. “I’ll speak to him. I’ll handle it. Thank you.”

He shoved out of the school doors, hot with adrenaline and burning with emotions he had yet to articulate. A fine Pacific Northwest rain kissed his face as he crossed the parking lot. He saw Noah’s little shape in the passenger seat of his truck, and he clenched his jaw, turning all the fire inside him toward thoughts of Ryan Millar. He’d never liked that guy, not even in elementary school—never trusted him. Not one bit. He’d clobbered Ryan once or twice in his life, and had been clobbered back twice as hard.

Oh, the vagaries of a small-town life, he thought as he reached his vehicle. The old patterns of behavior, the family grudges just kept cycling back.

“Alex Millar must have said
something
to upset you, Noah. I understand that. But unless you tell me what it was, I don’t know how to help you. And if that Millar kid goes and messes with your head again, and you lash out again, they’re going to need to take action. If they kick you out of school, then what?”

“I don’t care.”

Blake’s hands firmed on the wheel. Noah sat beside him, three
boxes of fresh pizza stacked on his lap. Lucy stretched out on the back
seat. He’d taken his son on his errand run after their school meeting,
reluctant to leave him home alone. The bed of his pickup was loaded
with the paint and the rest of the supplies he needed to continue his
renovations on the Crabby Jack. It was getting dark. Rain beating
down harder now, the pizza scent mingling with the smell of wet dog.

Blake drew up to a T-junction at the coast road, wipers clacking. He felt so goddamn alone right now. No manual for this shit. His thoughts turned again to his dad and Geoff, and how he himself had tried to protect his older brother against his father’s machismo frustration with his artsy son who’d had zero taste for the marina life. Bull Sutton had been driven by old Victorian attitudes probably beaten into him by his own dad. He’d always been quick to resort to the physical, be it to reprimand, or fix something with his bare hands. Bull could have done with the softening touch of his wife, and in retrospect, Blake suspected his mom’s death had been incredibly rough on his father.

But he’d have learned nothing from his own childhood if he hadn’t learned that bullying his boy into line was not going to work. He needed to earn Noah’s love. To do it he must stay calm, receptive, open. Kind. Patient. He inhaled deeply, fighting his urge to drive directly to Millar’s garage.

He glanced at the three pizza boxes on Noah’s lap, then at the clock on the dash. On impulse he turned left instead of right, heading up toward the southwestern subdivision that ran along the forest fringe.

“Where are we going?” Noah said, suddenly sitting up straighter.

“You going to talk to me, now?”

But Noah turned his head to glare out the rain-streaked window.

Blake punched on the radio to fill the void. A music jingle sounded, and the program cut to the host.

. . . this is KCYJ-FM, your eyes and ears, the voice of the coast. And in today’s town buzz, a little bird tells us that our own Shelter Bay celebrity, Meg Brogan, has returned to take up the gauntlet laid down on air several weeks ago by Seattle-based
Evening Show
host Stamos Stathakis, who challenged her to write the Sherry Brogan story. Her arrival has rekindled an interest in the old murder, and the
Coast Gazette
tweeted this morning that its lead reporter is working up a feature on the old crime that once shattered this town . . .

Shit. She was already stirring things up.

Noah looked at the radio, then up at his father, a subtle shift in his energy. “Are you going to tell me where we’re going?” he said.

“You going to talk to me yet?”

Sullen, Noah turned away again.

Blake wheeled into the last street and drove along the row of houses that pushed up against the woods. “I’m going to see if an old friend is home.” He hesitated, then thought it might be good for Noah. “She used to know your mother. They were in the same class at school.”

Noah scratched at the sticker on top of the pizza box. “What’s her name?”

“Meg Brogan.”

Noah’s eyes flicked up.

“She had a really rough time as a kid growing up here in Shelter Bay. She lost her mom, like you, when she was young.” He slowed as they neared the Brogan house. “Her sister and father died, too.”

“How did they all die?”

Bingo. He’d found a window in. Blake went for it, figuring a degree of honesty was the best policy in regards to a story that was clearly going to be at the top of the local news. He cleared his throat. “Her sister, Sherry . . . she was attacked by a bad guy—”

“A bad guy
killed
her?”

“Yup, then her dad, who was really angry, went after the bad guy. And—”
Shit, why did I start this . . .
“And he shot him.”

“Dead?”

“Yup.”

Noah stared at Blake, his mouth open, intrigue lighting his eyes. “Was that who they were talking about on the radio—Meg Brogan, and her sister, Sherry?”

Blake stole a glance at his son. Then he said, “Yes.”

“And you knew Meg at school, too, as well as Mom?”

“I knew her most of my life. From when I was even younger than you.”

“Did you go out with her?”

Where’d that question come from?

He cleared his throat. “I did. She was my very good friend. In lots of ways. She used to spend a lot of time at the marina with me and your uncle Geoff.” Blake turned into the Brogan driveway. The gates that had been chained shut for so long stood open wide. The house brooded under heavy trees in the mist and rain. He stared at the lurid graffiti as he drove slowly in.

“What about Mom?”

“Meg was long before your mother, champ. Meg left Shelter Bay almost the day she graduated from school.”

“Why?”

“To get on with the rest of her life.”

He pulled in behind Meg’s camper, along the side of the house that was mostly in darkness. The front living room windows were still boarded up. A rush of anxiety, and something darker, trickier, chased through Blake, as if taking a step with his son into the old Brogan house might be crossing a point of no return. Was there such a thing, if a person had free will? He turned off the ignition.

Noah was staring at the side wall, which had been tagged with red spray paint. “Who wrote that stuff?”

“Vandals. The house has been standing empty for a long time. It happens.”

Noah looked at him. A small link had re-formed between the two of them. Blake said a silent prayer of thanks, and took a deep breath. “You okay sharing some of that pizza, bud?”

TRANSCRIPT: Part I of recorded interview, TYSON MACK

Date: 8/12/1993

Duration: 41 minutes

Location: Chillmook County Sheriff’s Office

Conducted: Sheriff Ike Kovacs and Detective Jim Ibsen

Present: Lee Albies, defense counsel

Meg scanned quickly through the transcript preamble, paused, and pulled the lamp closer to the document. It was prematurely dark inside the living room with the boarded-up windows. She read more slowly.

TM: I told you, I brought her home. Sherry was fine when I brought her home.

SK: Home? Like, to her door?

TM: Um, no. Almost home. I—

SK: You did, or didn’t bring her home? Which is it now?

TM: I dropped her at the far end of the street, at the trailhead to the path that runs along the forest, behind the last row of houses on Forest Lane. She was fine. She was laughing.

JI: This is Detective Jim Ibsen, badge ID 439, entering the room.

SK: Why on the forest path? Why not outside her house?

TM: She didn’t want her parents, her father, to see me with her.

SK: And why would that be?

TM: She . . . um . . .

SK: Because you have a bad rep with women, Mack, is that why? Because Jack Brogan knows your type?

LA: My client can’t speak to Jack Brogan’s state of mind.

TM: It’s not like that—

LA: Ty, you don’t have to answer that.

SK: What is it like, then?

LA: Ty—

TM: I dropped her off! She was fine. It was all consensual, fun. I went home. She was fine.

SK: We going to find your DNA on her, Mack? Under her
nails? In those condoms? Did you strangle Sherry Brogan after
you fucked her, or while you fucked her? We going to find your semen inside her body, Mack? That pretty girl Sherry all
twisted and dead in the dunes. What did she say to upset you?