Chapter 5 #2
But the reason I can't shake it is that I have my own theory as to who Dad was investigating: Jeremiah Beasley.
He's really the only possibility. Dad investigated as far as the evidence would take him.
And he was thorough. He canvassed, spoke to anyone and everyone who could have possibly known anything, and kept meticulous notes.
He fucking looked. And he kept coming up empty—no clues. Not one.
Which means the perpetrator knew exactly how to avoid leaving evidence. Dad even took his theory to the FBI, but got shut down because he had no evidence. No murder weapon, not one witness, not even circumstantial evidence.
Amber’s cold case was his obsession, and now it’s mine—because to my mind, Dad’s death is a cold case, too.
He was killed by whoever committed the murder, which means Dad must have uncovered some clue or piece of evidence that was solid enough to implicate someone. And that someone made sure Dad couldn't finish the investigation, and managed to make his death look like an accident.
Beasley is still around, the stubborn old fuck. He lives in Peaceful Meadows Retirement Home right here in town.
I'd love nothing more than to put his geriatric ass in prison.
Not for the first time and not for the last, I pull out the last photo in Dad's file—his official departmental photo in his dress uniform with that stupid pointy-crown flat-brimmed hat.
A neat mustache frames his upper lip—I never once saw him without that 'stache, except in pictures from his Army days.
He's stern and serious and unsmiling, but there's a hint of the twinkle that anyone who knew him would recognize.
Dad was just a happy guy. People say I'm charming, so friendly, so easy-going.
But Dad? God, Dad was the kind of guy who filled a room with his big booming laugh, who could make anyone laugh.
He could charm water out of stones. If you were in his presence for more than five seconds, your day was better.
He wasn't just a cop; he was the cornerstone of the community. Literally, the entire town showed up for his funeral. The wake lasted four days because no one wanted to stop celebrating his life.
Everyone has always just assumed that the official story of his death is the truth—a freak car accident.
I know better. I just can't prove it.
Yet.
I will, though. Someday, somehow, if it's the last thing I do.
The end of the workday rarely comes before six for me, and usually more like seven or eight.
Today, because I went down the cold case rabbit hole—something I only allow myself to do occasionally rather than risk it becoming an all-consuming obsession—my real work piled up, and I had to stay in my office sorting out the usual end-of-the-month scheduling SNAFUs.
Connors needs time off for his wife's surgery, and Aimes needs time off at the same time for a vacation, which means I'm down two deputies when Belwether is already scheduled out for maternity leave.
By the time I metaphorically punch out, it's nine, and the guys have all called and texted trying to get me to meet up at the Borderline for drinks, but I'm just not in the drinking headspace right now.
I'm awash with memories of Dad, half-lost in the obsession with who ran him off the road and why…
and oh yeah, I still feel weird about the not-breakup breakup with Heidi, and Lacey is back in my life, and I have all sorts of massively confusing and seriously intense feelings on the topic.
I told the guys I needed some time to myself, and they get it, which I am grateful for. I seriously don't know where I'd be without my boys.
And of course, thinking about the guys sends my stupid brain down another guilt trip rabbit hole, because I'm so fucking hard on myself it's not funny.
I pull into my driveway, hit the clicker for my garage, park my truck, and then just sit in it for a few minutes in silence, breathing and trying like hell to clear my head.
Eventually, the growling and grumbling of my stomach reminds me I haven’t eaten since lunch, which was at eleven-thirty and it's now nearly ten.
I live in the same house I grew up in, the house where my father was born, and where Mom had me; it's a small classic farmhouse northeast of town on fifty acres, mostly wooded and hilly with ten acres cleared around the house—those acres once fed a small herd of horses, but now it’s just overly long grass and old fence posts.
The house itself was built in the late 1800s by my great-great-grandfather.
Two stories with a rusting green metal roof and paint-matched shutters on the upper gables, it has a wraparound porch with a porch swing that is my favorite place on earth.
The white siding is badly in need of replacing, and the interior hasn't been updated since the Carter administration—and some fixtures are original to SuperGreatGrandPappy's construction.
Felix and Riley have been jonesing to get inside and remodel it since I was a deputy, but I just haven't been ready to pull the trigger on that change. Maybe the time has officially come.
I groan in exhaustion as I clamber out of my truck and trudge from the detached garage across the grass-and-gravel driveway to the house.
The boards of the wraparound porch thunk under my boots as I ascend, each step squeaking; back in high school, when I was sneaking in, I'd stretch upward to skip the middle of the three steps because that's the one that squeaks the worst.
I hear another squeak from around front; a funny feature of the property is that there are two ways of approaching the main house—from the south via the actual driveway and numbered mailbox, but if you know the area, you can also come in from the east via a narrow two-track that cuts through the wooded section of the property and wraps around the back of the barn.
My family used the east approach as much as the main one for decades, but the tricky part of it is that if you use the east approach, you can park on the far side of the house from the garage and driveway without being seen from the house itself.
Another feature I used to use frequently to avoid detection, although now I think Dad always knew when I was coming and going, he just pretended not to.
And dear god, I wish he were alive to tell me. I miss him every fucking day.
These days, the only people who know about the eastern approach are Felix, Riley, and Nyx.
Lacey used to use it back when we were dating, but I find it hard to believe she'd show up here unannounced via that side road, assuming she even remembers how to find it, which isn't easy as it's just a pair of tracks that diverge from a numbered county dirt road more than two miles from the main highway.
I peek around the corner and see a pair of boots crossed ankle-over-ankle, one boot heel pushing the swing to creak softly back and forth. An orange dot flares, and I smell cannabis. "Riley?"
"Yo." His voice floats to me with that tight quality of someone speaking while holding his breath. "Come sit and hit this with me, bro."
I unbuckle my utility belt and hang it on the railing of the porch, tug up the zipper of my jacket, and pull on my knit cap as I sit beside Riley on the bench.
He hands me a thin joint, and I take a small puff.
"Why are you smoking pot on my porch at ten o'clock at night in December? " I ask him, after exhaling.
"Well, your door's locked or I'd wait inside," he says. "I'm distracting myself from freezing my ass off waiting for you to get home."
"I thought you were at The Borderline," I say.
"I was. But it's not like you to not come out for at least a beer or two, since The Borderline is less than ten minutes from here." A pause. "Felt like you needed a friend."
My emotions are raw, and I was just thinking about the man beside me, and the cannabis has gone straight to my head already, so my tongue is looser than usual.
"Yeah, maybe," I say.
Riley laughs. "That's as good as a plea for help from you." He takes another hit, gives me one, and then pinches off the cherry, withdraws a tiny Ziploc baggie into which he deposits the remaining half of the joint. "Colder than a brass monkey's ballsack out here, man. Invite me in, wouldja?"
I chuckle at his turn of phrase as I unlock the front door and let us in.
The foyer is dark, lit only by the light from the window in the adjacent formal room.
Stairs lead up directly opposite the front door, the formal room on the left, the parlor on the right, and a narrow hallway leading past the stairs to the kitchen and den.
Riley toes off his boots, shucks his jacket, and beelines for the den, where he flicks on the gas fireplace and stands in front of it, warming his cold-reddened hands.
I fill my electric kettle and set it to heat while I shuck off my own jacket and boots, hang my utility belt with them, and stow my gun in the fingerprint lockbox beside my bed before changing into sweats and a hoodie.
When I come back downstairs, Riley is already pouring the boiling water over the cheap instant hot cocoa we both have a weird love affair with.
We take our mugs to the matching easy chairs in front of the fire. Since I so rarely partake in cannabis, which Riley generally prefers to alcohol, while I try to eschew both for the most part, the two small hits I took have my head feeling floaty and words bumbling around my brain.
"I don't wanna talk about Lacey," I murmur. "I haven't talked to her in any kind of depth yet, so there's no point."
"Fair enough," he says. "Then what's buggin' ya, bub?"
"Fuck, bro, everything. I went down the who-killed-Dad rabbit hole again."
Riley sighs. "Man, you've been puzzling over that for ten fuckin’ years. No matter how many times you go through all that shit, you're never gonna find any new evidence."
"I know."