Coe’s complexion, already sickly, had become ghostly pale. He looked on the verge of tears.
“Kimi was still alive,” Tracy said. “She didn’t die in the clearing.”
Coe looked up, and for the first time met and held Tracy’s gaze.
“Whoever hit her with the truck didn’t kill her, Mr. Coe. She was still alive when she was thrown into the river. Tell me what happened. You’ve been a solid citizen for forty years. You’ve never committed a crime. People are forgiving, Mr. Coe, but they want accountability. I get a sense you do too. You’ve been carrying this around for forty years. It’s time you unburdened yourself and got it off your chest. Tell me what happened in the clearing that night.”
“Nothing grows in the clearing. Everything dies,” he said, and he turned and directed the wand to the next tree in the row.
CHAPTER 24
As Tracy left the nursery, Jenny called.
“Looks like Hastey Devoe is getting a head start on celebrating the reunion. He’s drinking his lunch at a restaurant bar near Vancouver. I suspect he’ll be getting back in his car soon enough to drive home.”
“Jail is as isolated as it gets,” Tracy said.
“That was my thought exactly. I’ll tell my guys to pull him in before he reaches Stoneridge and give you a call when they do.”
“Stall him if he asks to make a call.”
“Will do. What did Coe have to say?”
“Not much, unfortunately.” She summarized her conversation with Archibald Coe as well as her impressions of the man and what she thought it could mean in light of Darren Gallentine’s own emotional fragility and suicide. “I’m sure he was the person I saw in the clearing that night and that he’s been planting things in that spot for years. I found dozens of dead plants discarded in the woods.”
“A memorial,” Jenny said.
“A would-be memorial. Nothing grows there. Everything dies. That’s what he said. We’re on the right track now, Jenny. I know it. And I got a very strong sense Coe knows what happened and that it still bothers him. I just have to find a way to get him to talk to me. If I can get him to tell me what happened, then all the circumstantial evidence becomes not just relevant, it becomes corroborating, and possibly damning.”
“I can speak to the DA about it; maybe we can offer Coe some sort of deal in exchange for his testifying.”
“I don’t think that’s the issue,” Tracy said. “He’s not being recalcitrant. He’s emotionally fragile. It’s like going back to what happened is a door he can’t open or talk about. I’m going to have to think about this and be cautious about how I approach him. We can discuss it more when your deputies bring Devoe in.”
“Where are you going now?”
“To look at some more old newspapers.”
Sam Goldman greeted Tracy with a smile. “You must have been driving the Batmobile,” he said.
“I might have broken a speed limit or two,” Tracy said.
“Perk of the job, right?”
“It isn’t the pay, the hours, or the praise.”
Goldman roared. “You said it, friend. Teachers, newspaper reporters, and police officers—the most underpaid professions on the planet.”
Goldman stepped aside to let Tracy in.
“You said you wanted to see the newspapers again?”
“If it isn’t too much trouble.”
“No trouble at all, chief.” Goldman was already moving through the kitchen to the mudroom. Adele sat at a small table positioned beneath the window, a pencil and a Sudoku book in hand and the same half-troubled, half-curious expression, as if she were uncertain about this continued break in their retirement routine.
“Back to the Future two, Adele,” Goldman said.
“Nice to see you again,” Adele said to Tracy. “Can I get you a cup of tea?”
“Not today, but thank you. I promise not to take much of Sam’s time.”
Goldman was on a roll. “Places to go and people to see, Adele. She’s a woman on a mission.”
They stepped out the back door, and Goldman repeated the ritual of unlocking the padlock that was securing the shed doors, then placing the five-gallon bucket at the corner to keep the door from swinging shut. Inside, he turned on the light and weaved his way to the stacks of boxes containing his life’s work.
He found the box Tracy had looked at previously and pulled out the issues. Tracy opened the first paper.
Reynolds’ Arm, Legs Take
Stoneridge to the Brink
The front-page article carried over to an inside page containing additional articles and photographs. One photo depicted Eric Reynolds jogging off the field after the game with his helmet raised overhead and the broad smile of a kid with a bright future beckoning. Having taught high school in a small town, Tracy knew that wasn’t the case for everyone. Behind Reynolds the football field was filled with teammates celebrating, girls in cheerleading outfits, and parents and students in knit hats and coats, holding pennants and handmade signs.
“That’s the game that really put him on the map,” Goldman said, adjusting his glasses and looking over Tracy’s shoulder. “Up until then, only the smaller schools had been recruiting him, but everyone came calling after that game. He threw for more than two hundred yards and two touchdowns and ran for two more scores. When UW came knocking, that was all she wrote. The old man wanted Eric to go there, and that was it. They didn’t have the big circuses back then like they do now, but we wrote a story on his decision. He signed his letter of intent at the newspaper and used our machine to fax it over to the U.” Goldman thought for a moment. “That would have been February.” He set the box aside and lifted the lid on the box beneath it, thumbing the papers again until he found the edition he was looking for.
“February 17, 1977,” Goldman said, unfolding the newspaper. “A day that will not live in infamy.”
The photograph was on the front page, Eric Reynolds seated at a desk, pen in hand. Ron Reynolds stood at his son’s side, one hand braced on the desk, the other clasping Eric’s shoulder. Both men looked up at the camera with broad smiles. They shared a passing resemblance. Eric had inherited the strong jawline and the smile that inched just slightly higher on the left side. Unlike Ron, who wore a crew cut and had the hard features of a drill sergeant, Eric had shoulder-length blond hair and softer features. His eyes were likely blue, though the photograph was black and white, and unlike his father’s, which burned with intensity, Eric’s sparkled. This was a high school kid who melted girls’ hearts with just a passing glance.
“I was standing on a desk to get that shot,” Goldman said with some pride.
“The mother didn’t get to join in the fun?”
“The mother died before they moved from Southern California. It was just the two of them.”
“No siblings?”