There was the snap of the dishwasher closing in the kitchen, the rush of water. Diane laughed at something Jamie said.
“It’s been twenty years,” Garrett said softly. “You think Jamie doesn’t tell me?”
Fiona felt her dinner turn in her stomach, a rush of acid up her throat.
“Wandering around on Old Barrons Road,” Garrett said. “Climbing the Idlewild fence. Deep down, you wonder about it just the same as I do. You’re a mess, sweetheart.”
His gaze was fixed on her, the same gaze he’d used to pin liars and wrongdoers in thirty years of policing. “I was one of the first called out to that field,” he told her. “Some kids called it in. I had just come on shift. The only other cop on shift was Jim Carson, and he was barely twenty. No way would I let a kid like that be the first at a body. I took him with me, sure. But I knew it had to be me.”
Fiona was silent now, unable to look away.
“Everyone remembers,” Garrett said. “Everyone remembers, but no one remembers it quite like I do. Before the circus descended, when it was just Jim and me and the crows in the quiet of that field, looking down. I looked at her and thought, Whatever this is, this will be the worst thing this town has ever seen. This will be the beginning of the end.” He blinked. “It really was, wasn’t it? It really was. Tim’s life was over. The Christophers left. People locked their doors after that.”
“You told Richard Rush to lie,” Fiona said. The words were hard, but they came. The idea she’d had since she’d read the article and talked to Mike Rush about his father. “You went into his shop and you made him do it somehow. You told him to say that Tim Christopher was there at nine o’clock. And he did. But he must have retracted it for some reason, because it never made it to court.” When I saw that article and asked Dad about it, he got angry, Mike Rush had said. My dad only ever gave me the belt three times in my life, and that was one of them. He told me never to ask about it again.
“Are you going to do this?” Garrett asked her, his eyes on her, never leaving her. “Are you going to do it, twenty years later? Those are serious words, Fiona. I suggest you take them back.”
But she wouldn’t stop, not now. “Why did you make him lie?”
“What’s going on here?”
Jamie stood in the doorway, watching them. His gaze flickered to his father, then to Fiona.
“Thanks for coming, son,” Garrett said, his voice cold. “I think the evening is over.”
Jamie was quiet the entire drive home, his jaw tight. Fiona looked briefly at him, at the lights of passing cars washing over his profile, and then she looked away, watched out the window.
He didn’t speak until he pulled up in front of her apartment building, and then he put the SUV in park without turning it off. “It was something to do with Deb, wasn’t it?” he said, still staring ahead. “What you and my father were arguing about. It was something to do with this obsession of yours that won’t go away.” He paused. “You made him angry. What did you say to him?”
She stared at him. “No one is allowed to make the great Garrett Creel angry—is that it?”
“You have no idea what you’re talking about,” Jamie said, and his voice was almost as cold as his father’s. “What did you say to him, Fiona?”
And suddenly she was angry, too, so furious her hands were shaking. “I told you this was a bad idea. I warned you it wouldn’t work.”
“You said you’d try. A couple of fucking hours. You didn’t even try to get along.”
“Is that what everything is about with you?” she asked, lashing out at him, taking out all the anger she couldn’t unleash on Garrett. “Just getting along?”
“Those are my parents.” His voice was rising. “That’s my dad.”
“Jamie, you’re twenty-nine.”
He stared at her. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
“He baited me. He started when we walked in, and he twisted the screws when he was left alone with me. He defended Tim Christopher, Jamie. This was what he wanted to happen.” And she’d given in to it. She’d walked right into the trap. What did that say about her?
“Dad wouldn’t do that,” Jamie said. He ran a hand through his hair. “Maybe you misunderstood. God, I don’t even know what I’m doing anymore.”
“You’re dating a journalist,” she said. “You’re a cop, and you’re dating Malcolm Sheridan’s daughter. Your family hates it. I’m sure your fellow cops hate it. Your sacred brotherhood. And I didn’t misunderstand anything. Tell me, do you and your dad ever sit around over beers and shoot the shit about my sister’s case?”
Jamie went still and said nothing.
“You knew,” she said to him. “That night we met at the bar. You knew who I was. You knew more about my sister’s case than I did. Your father was the first on the scene with my sister’s body. How did you think this would work, Jamie? Why the hell did you talk to me at all?”
“Don’t put this on me,” he shot back, furious. “You’ve always known, Fee. From that first night, you knew who my father was. He was chief of police in 1994. You knew he worked that case. You sat through the entire fucking trial, all the testimony, read the papers. So why the hell did you talk to me?”
The silence descended, heavy and tight.
This is why, Fiona thought. This is why I haven’t done this, ever. Not with anyone. Why I’ve always said no.
Because there was always Deb. And there always would be. Easy or no easy.
She looked at Jamie and wanted to tell him that his father had made Richard Rush lie about Tim Christopher’s alibi. There was no way to prove it. Garrett would deny it, and so, she was sure, would Richard. There was only Mike Rush’s word, and Mike had already said he wasn’t interested in invoking his father’s anger. Mike hadn’t known he was talking to Deb Sheridan’s sister when he told the story, because Fiona had lied to him. She had lied without a second thought, and if she had to do it over again, she would do it without a second thought again. And again.
But she wouldn’t tell Jamie. There was no point. He was a cop; his father was a cop; his grandfather was a cop. There was no need to make him believe. There was just hurt and anger, and confusion. Even if they patched it up, she’d hurt him again. Or he’d hurt her. Again.
“Jamie,” she said.
“Don’t.” He scrubbed a hand over his face, then dropped it again. “Fee, we can’t do this. Just . . . for now, okay? There’s too much shit going on. Just for now.”
She stared down into her lap. The anger had gone as quickly as it came, and now she felt shaky and a little ashamed. But Jamie was right. She couldn’t do this right now. Not even for Jamie.
Still, the idea of getting out and going home alone made her ill. For the first time, she wondered: When will this be over?
But she already knew the answer to that. So she got out of the car.
When he drove off, she stood watching for a moment, her hands in her pockets.
When his taillights disappeared, she turned and climbed the stairs to her apartment.
Chapter 19
Barrons, Vermont
November 2014
Malcolm had given her a phone number, of a woman in England who was at the helm of a research project focusing on Ravensbrück concentration camp. The woman answered after the phone rang for nearly a minute. “Ginette Harrison,” she said in a clipped upper-crust accent.
“Hello,” Fiona said. “My name is Fiona Sheridan. My father, Malcolm, referred me to you?”
“Yes,” Ginette said. Fiona heard the whistle of a teakettle in the background, as if she’d just dialed the direct number into a BBC show. “Fiona. I remember.”
“Is now a good time?” Fiona asked. “I have some questions about Ravensbrück, if you have a moment.”
“Well, yes, I do,” Ginette said. She sounded a little bemused. Fiona tried to guess her age from the sound of her voice, but with that dry English accent, she could have been anywhere from thirty-five to sixty. “Pardon, I know I sound surprised,” she said. “It’s only that it’s just after nine o’clock in the morning here, and Malcolm told me you live near him, in Vermont.”