Smoothly, she shifted sideways out of her crouch to sit on the carpeted step. Eddie, still purring, jumped up onto her lap and all but burrowed inside her jacket. She smiled, gave him long pets that wafted stray bits of Eddie hair into space, and kept talking.
“I was thirteen, Brad was nine, and Mia . . .” Her voice faltered. “Mia was only seven.”
Julia and I didn’t move; I was barely breathing from not wanting to interrupt what was so obviously hard for Leese to talk about.
“I don’t even remember where we were going,” Leese said. “You’d think I would; it was unusual for the four of us to be together without Carmen, but I really have no idea what we were supposed to be doing.”
There was so much tension in the air, I could almost see it floating around with the Eddie hair.
“It’s been years since I’ve talked about this.” Leese flicked us a glance. “Everything is clear in my memory, but I haven’t had much practice putting it into words.”
“Take your time,” Julia said, using all her stage powers to sound encouraging and comforting.
Leese snuggled Eddie into a hug, something he didn’t particularly care for. He eyed me over the top of her arm, but made no move to escape.
“Brad was in the front seat,” she said, “because it was his turn. Mia sat behind Dad, which put me behind Brad, and there couldn’t have been a worse arrangement.”
Her faint smile was brief. “We started fighting. I’m sure I started it. I was that kind of kid. It didn’t take long before all three of us were arguing. He this, she that, it wasn’t me, you know the kind of thing. Dad told us to be quiet, but we escalated. I started kicking the back of Brad’s seat; he started thumping backward, trying to do I don’t know what, and Mia was pinching me. All three of us were yelling, Dad was yelling, and then . . .”
She closed her eyes and the words fell out of her, one after another.
“And then Dad turned he was yelling at me at Brad at Mia at all of us and he wasn’t watching the road and the car started to swerve and I saw what was going to happen I could see it and I screamed but he didn’t know why I was screaming and he swerved and he crossed the centerline and we hit that car head-on it was just a little car and—”
The torrent of words came to a sharp halt. It should have been quiet in the bookmobile, but I could hear the horrendous echo of that long-ago crash, the rubber screeching, the metal crunching, the glass breaking.
After a long, terrible moment, Leese drew in a shuddering breath and opened her eyes. The noise of the accident faded away and was replaced by the sound of Eddie’s purrs.
When Leese started talking again, her voice was long and thin. “Dad was driving a big SUV. We hit a little red convertible. A man was driving, and he wasn’t wearing a seatbelt. He was thrown out of his car, and—” She stopped and buried her face in Eddie’s fur. “I can still see him hitting the ground,” she said shakily. “I dreamed it again last night, I . . .”
She sighed and rubbed at her face with the heels of her hands. “Anyway, that’s why Brad and Mia and I have a different kind of relationship than most half siblings. We haven’t had a single argument since the day of the accident.”
The car crash hadn’t been their fault, and on some level I was sure she knew that, but I also knew nothing I could say would convince her that she didn’t deserve part of the blame. So instead of wasting my breath and her time, I moved to sit on the step beside her and put my arm around her waist.
After a while, she stopped crying, but my mind kept on whirring and went in a whole new direction. Could this accident be the reason for Dale’s murder? Could there be a connection?
Then the rational part of my brain started working again. No, that didn’t make any sort of sense. The poor guy had died, and it had been more than twenty years ago. What connection could there possibly be at this late date?
Most of me was convinced, but there was a small part of me that went on wondering.
Chapter 13
A bare minute after Leese had finished her story, a mother and her three homeschooled children jumped aboard the bookmobile, all three filled with boundless energy and enthusiastic questions about their current project of learning about the constellations. Julia shepherded the group to the appropriate section as Leese wiped her eyes with the tissue I offered.
“Sorry I came apart like that,” Leese murmured, pushing herself to her feet. “I don’t, usually. Thanks for listening.”
“What happens on the bookmobile stays on the bookmobile,” I said. “And I’m glad we were here.” I also thought her mini-breakdown had probably been overdue. Even if she and her father hadn’t had much of a relationship, Dale had still been her father and some grief would have to be worked through.
“And now,” Leese said, tapping her pile of new books, “I need you to play librarian so I can go home and drown my sorrows in fiction.”
“An excellent way to spend a weekend,” I said.
She smiled. A weak version, but still a smile. “Is that what you’re going to do?”
Not exactly. “Fiction is always a priority in my life,” I told her, which was true, though it didn’t exactly answer her question. Luckily, she didn’t notice that particular detail and went away with her books.
Julia, who’d overheard my last exchange with Leese, gave me a look that was Oscar-worthy in its complexity. One glance, and she clearly communicated sympathy, skepticism, and curiosity, along with a small dollop of exasperation. “Let me guess,” she said. “You’re not planning on reading tonight.”
I grinned. “Eventually, sure.”
My coworker rolled her eyes, but Eddie, who had remained sitting on the step after Leese had deposited him there, came over to bump me on the shin.
“Mrr,” he said.
I took his reaction as a clear indication that my plans for the post-bookmobile afternoon were good ones, so after work I dropped him off at the boardinghouse, kissed him on the top of the head, and headed out again.
This time I drove to a construction site on Janay Lake. My discussion with Mitchell about Ron Driskell, the building inspector, had got me thinking. The man himself had certainly seemed to harbor ill feelings toward Dale Lacombe, and I wondered how many people were aware of that fact.
Thus, my next step in learning more about the relationship between Dale and Ron Driskell was to trespass on a building site. Howard Upton, according to my local sources (Kristen, Rafe, Donna, and Aunt Frances) was one of the most reputable builders in the area. He was also one of the most expensive. One Friday phone call to the county’s building department provided me with the location of Upton’s current construction projects, and the chatty staff person also told me that Upton was behind on the biggest house.
“Saturday?” the guy said. “Oh, I’d lay money he’ll be working Saturday. Sunday, too. He promised the owner he’d have it done in time to host the family Thanksgiving dinner and they’re still roughing in the plumbing.”
Through hanging around Rafe’s fixer-upper, I’d learned what that meant in a limited sort of way, and what it meant for certain was that Howard Upton had a lot of work to do in the next five and a half weeks.
The building department staffer gave me enough information to locate the house. (“Address? Well, I don’t know if I can give you that. But it’s past the gas station and across the road from that farm with the fieldstone barn. You know what one I mean?”)
I did, and it didn’t take me long to drive the few miles out of Chilson and locate the site. The raw dirt and bare foundation were big hints, as was the driveway that was filled by half a dozen pickup trucks with open tailgates and in-bed toolboxes with the covers raised high.