The Truth We Bury: A Novel
Barbara Taylor Sissel
1
Lily saw the gray sedan the moment she turned the corner. It was parked across the street from her condo, but instinct warned her that the occupants, a couple of beefy-looking men, were cops, and they were waiting for her. Lily drove past them as if she lived elsewhere, in a different life. As if the street she lived on didn’t loop through a series of lush, artfully planned medians that would eventually lead straight back to her own driveway near the entrance to her gated community, where the men—detectives, if her experience was any teacher—waited. She backed her foot off the accelerator, glancing in the rearview mirror. Would they follow her, force her to the curb, demand she exit her vehicle? She remembered, although it was long ago now, how the road grit bit into her knees. Eyes front, she circled the cul-de-sac. She needed a moment to gather her composure.
She wouldn’t tell them anything, she decided. Whatever they asked, she’d play dumb. They’d fall for it, in all likelihood. She was blonde after all. Steeling herself, she headed back in the direction she’d come from, hitting the remote for the garage door, watching it rise, knowing the men saw it, too. They exited their car on cue, as if a trigger had been pulled, waiting in her driveway while she parked in the garage. She thought of lowering the door, barricading herself in the house. But such tactics would only delay the inevitable. She got out of her BMW and joined them in the driveway.
“Can I help you?” she asked, sounding far more certain than she felt.
“Lily Isley?” The taller of the two men addressed her.
She was in the process of confirming her identity, but he talked over her.
“I’m Detective Hatchett, and this is my partner, Detective Lawlor. We’re from the Dallas Police Department.”
The two produced their identification, their movements efficient and precise.
Lily caught a glimpse of their shoulder-holstered weapons. Her pulse tapped lightly in her ears.
“Axel Jebediah Isley—that’s your son, right?” Hatchett asked. “Goes by AJ?”
There it was. AJ’s name, his full legal name. She had anticipated hearing it, but still her knees weakened, and a dark, long-held sense of the inevitable collapsed inside her. This was it, the other shoe. Dropping with the weight of a stone, an anvil, cleaving her chest.
“Yes,” she said. “AJ is my son. What is this about?”
“Is he here?” asked Lawlor. He was shorter than Lily, and round, with a belligerent jut to his chin.
“No.” Don’t answer more than the question, instructed a voice in her brain. Was it Edward’s advice she was remembering, his caution from before?
“When was the last time you saw him?”
“Last week. He came for dinner. What is this about?” Lily asked again.
“Have you talked to him recently?” Hatchett asked.
“Do I have to answer your questions? Don’t you have to have a warrant—” Lily broke off. What if AJ was already sitting in a cell, and these men—these cops—were playing mind games with her? “I’m not saying another word until you tell me what this is about.”
Glancing around, Hatchett said maybe she wanted to go inside. “You could sit down,” he suggested.
Was the news that bad? Lily turned without asking and led the detectives through the condo’s front door rather than through the garage. These men were not casual visitors. They wouldn’t be settling themselves on the bar stools at her granite-topped island while indulging in lattes and idle chatter. She ushered them across the vaulted foyer and into her formal living room, where a pair of white leather–upholstered sofas with a matching ottoman flanked a marble fireplace. Her white baby-grand piano, a gift from her husband, Paul, on their twenty-fifth wedding anniversary three years ago, sat in front of tall bay windows, overlooking a carefully manicured landscape.
This time of year, ahead of the baking Texas heat, the lawn was as lush as velvet and meandered through an arrangement of perennial beds filled with globe-shaped boxwoods, the freer forms of azaleas, and clumps of agapanthus, irises, and daylilies. A crew came twice a week to tend the grounds. It was one in the package of perks that came with living in a condominium development. Paul had neither the time nor the inclination to do his own yard work. Besides, as he would point out, he owned the place. How would it look if he were to be seen out there in his shirtsleeves pushing a mower? It was a joke. His joke. Lily smiled for every new audience to whom he posed the question. She always smiled.
But not now. Not for these cops. She saw how they looked around. The one named Lawlor had his petulant rosebud of a mouth quirked into a kind of sneer. It was the sort of expression people wore when they were envious and didn’t want it to show. She set her purse, a tiny pocket of finely stitched blue, yellow, and hot-pink suede, on the ottoman. The bohemian pop of color looked somehow wrong against the white leather upholstery. Who had chosen it—the white leather, the creamy linen accent pillows, the silk drapery, the lovely impressionistic art on the walls, all of it done in such good taste? The room might have been found in a magazine spread from Southern Living. Who lived here? Lately, she was unable to imagine the couple, the family—
“Mrs. Isley? Can you tell us where your son is?” Lawlor was studying her and not his surroundings now.
“He’s twenty-five, for God’s sake, and he lives across town. I can’t possibly know where he is every minute.” Alarm made her shrill. If Paul could hear her . . . Lily caught her torso in her arms. “Have you contacted my husband?”
“Do you think he knows where your son is?” Lawlor asked.
“What is this about?”
“When did you last speak to AJ?” Hatchett’s voice, sounding more reasonable, drew Lily’s attention.
“Yesterday afternoon. He wanted me to remind his father they were to meet this morning for the final fittings of their tuxedos. AJ’s getting married on the twenty-first.” Lily named the date two and a half weeks away.
“Where were they meeting?”
“Manheim’s in the Village.” It was an upscale gentleman’s boutique near Turtle Creek.
“Not AJ’s apartment?”
“No, they were going to have lunch after—where is Paul?”
“Mrs. Isley, according to your husband, he waited for AJ at Manheim’s for half an hour this morning, and when your son didn’t show up, he went to his apartment. After no one answered the door, your husband let himself in. He has a key?”
“Yes.” Frightened now, Lily lowered herself to the sofa’s edge, feeling the air-conditioned chill from the leather bleed through her slacks.
“Your husband found a young woman in your son’s apartment, Mrs. Isley. She was dead. Apparently, she was strangled and stabbed numerous times.”