“I’m so sorry,” Harry said. “We don’t . . .” He trailed off.
Caitlin looked up at him, took a deep breath, and said, “No, it’s fine. I get these waves, almost like I realize all over again that she’s really gone, and they just, they just . . .”
“I know. I get the same thing with my father. Like how is it possible that I’ll never speak to him again? It doesn’t make any sense.”
“No, it doesn’t,” she said, her voice back to normal.
“I can’t imagine what it’s like for you. At least with my father . . . he was older. I didn’t expect him to die, but we always assume our parents will die before us.”
The waitress appeared, refilling Harry’s coffee and asking Caitlin if she wanted anything. She didn’t, really, but asked for a cup of tea.
“Thanks again for meeting me here,” Caitlin said, wanting to get the conversation back on track.
“It’s fine. I know you’re probably going to want to hear if I know how Grace died, and I really don’t.”
“You found her, I heard.”
“I did. I’d seen her the night before, and the next morning I went back to the house she was staying at to check on her, and . . . I was the one who called the police.”
Caitlin wondered, not for the first time, why Harry, who had seen her last, and who had found her body, was not being held as a suspect. Although seated across from him now, seeing the gutted look in his eyes, she didn’t think he had had anything to do with Grace’s death.
Her tea arrived. Caitlin added sugar and took a sip. She said: “The detective seemed to think that whoever killed your father also killed my sister.”
“Is that what he said to you?”
“He did. What do you think?”
“I guess that’s what I think, too. But I don’t really know, and, honestly, I feel like I’ve been in shock since coming back up here to Maine. I believed Grace, though. She was convinced that my stepmother had something to do with my father’s death. That’s why she was here.”
“I know. You think she was right?”
“Well, no. When I said I believed her, I guess what I meant was that I believed that she really believed my stepmother had killed my father. She was sure of it. I don’t know what to think myself.”
“How’s your stepmother now?”
Harry scratched his jaw. “She’s upset. I’m still staying with her. She says that there’s a woman my father was involved with—another woman besides your sister—and that she was the one who killed my father, and now she thinks she killed your sister because she was with my father as well.”
“Who’s this woman?”
“I don’t know if I should tell you her name. Only because I think that she’s still being investigated.”
“That’s okay. I understand. Look, I didn’t really want to meet with you to pump you for information. I really just wanted to know about my sister, and her last few days. She liked you. She sent me an e-mail that said so.”
“I liked her, too. I felt bad for her. I think she really loved my father.”
“Is that what you two talked about?”
Harry told her about seeing Grace at his father’s funeral, and then how she came into the bookstore and asked about a job. He said they’d gone out for a drink together, and the last time that Harry saw Grace alive he’d told her about the other woman, a local woman that Bill Ackerson had also been involved with, and she’d been upset.
“She believed it?” Caitlin asked.
“No, she didn’t believe it at all. She was upset because she thought Alice—that’s my stepmother—was trying to mislead the police. And also, she just seemed jumpy that night, agitated. She seemed different.”
Caitlin nodded, picturing it. She said, “She could be like that.” And then she found herself telling Harry, this stranger, the story of their father leaving, and how Grace had reacted, going to his new house and vandalizing it.
“So it sounds like maybe her affair with my father had something to do with your own father.”
“You think?” Caitlin said, and laughed a little.
Harry smiled back.
“Actually,” Caitlin said, “I don’t think it’s that simple. I don’t think anything’s that simple. People aren’t just defined by a single moment in their life, even if it’s this huge moment.”
“You don’t think so?”
“I don’t. I’m sure Grace was susceptible to an older man because she felt betrayed by our dad, but it’s not like she would have wound up with just any older man. I think she was in love with your father, probably because of who he was, and not just his age.”
“I guess so. I don’t know anything anymore. I thought I knew my father better than anyone, and now I find out that he was having at least two affairs behind his wife’s back. It’s hard for me to imagine.”
“You don’t know that he was having two affairs. Grace was sure that he wasn’t.”
“I know she was, but think about it: if he was willing to deceive his wife with your sister, then why wouldn’t he deceive your sister and be with another woman?”
Caitlin sipped her tea. She’d left the tea bag in too long and it was bitter. She added more sugar, while saying, “You’re right, of course. Grace could be stubborn. If she wanted to believe something, then she’d keep on believing it.”
“I’m sorry she ever got involved with my father,” Harry said. “If she hadn’t, then none of this—”
“I know.”
They were quiet for a moment. The diner’s front door swung open, and a loud group of young girls in soccer uniforms entered, escorted by a few parents. Caitlin watched as a hostess seated the group in three adjacent booths.
“What are you going to do now?” Caitlin asked Harry.
He shrugged, frowning, and for a moment Caitlin thought he was going to start to cry. Instead, he said, “I don’t really know. I guess it depends on what happens next. Since the second murder, since what happened to your sister, Alice is terrified. She doesn’t want to be alone, and I guess I feel some responsibility toward her.”
“Just some?”
“She’s all that’s left of my family, and I don’t want to just abandon her. I’m sure she’s freaking out, right now, that I’m not home.”
“But she is a suspect?”
“No one has said that to me except for your sister.”
“What do you think?”
“The night your sister was killed, I was home, and so was Alice. She couldn’t have killed Grace.”
Caitlin watched Harry shift in his seat, itching to leave. She opened her mouth to ask another question, but Harry placed both hands on the table, and said, “I should go, I think.”
“Okay.”
“When are you leaving?”
“Either tomorrow night or the next morning, depending on when Grace’s body is getting shipped back to Michigan. She can either go in a cargo plane and the funeral director will pick her up at the other end, or she can also go on a passenger plane, and I can ride with her. Not with her with her, but on the same plane. I know it doesn’t make a difference, but I kind of want to be on the plane with her.”
“I think it will make a difference.”
“You do?”
“Sure. Maybe you’ll feel better.”
“My mom will feel better, that’s for sure. It’s silly, I know.”
“I think you should travel with her.”
Caitlin felt something loosen in her chest, hearing from this stranger what she’d been hoping to hear. “Okay, I probably will. That means I’m here for at least another whole day, though. That’s what they said.”
“Do you know anyone here?”
“What, here in Kennewick?”
“Is anyone here with you?”
“No.”
“Maybe we could see each other again. I mean—”
“Yeah, I’d like that,” Caitlin said.
They exchanged phone numbers, and Harry got up to leave. She watched him through the greasy window of the diner as he walked to his car. In her head, she spoke to Grace. He’s not your type, she said, and Grace laughed.
Too young, right?
Far too young.
He’s all yours, Caity. Besides, as you now know, I’m dead. She laughed again, and the sound was perfect in Caitlin’s head, exactly how Grace laughed, loud and breathless, and usually at something she’d said herself.
Chapter 25
Then