Chapter 10 #3
“He was a hard man. And he was never slow to use a belt when I disappointed him. Which was ninety percent of the time.” The very lack of emotion in Clint’s voice revealed how painful the relationship was with his dad.
“But I was more worried about my mother. I didn’t want to see the disappointment in her eyes. ”
“I get that.”
Clint shuffled his feet, his shame hanging heavy in the humid air.
“Adam promised all I had to do was sign a piece of paper saying that I saw Mac Hudson at the crash that night. He never said anything about using my statement to arrest your dad, or getting up in court and swearing on a Bible. Not that it matters what he promised.” He clenched his hands into tight fists. “I was a coward to agree.”
Jesse laid her hand on his arm. There was a time when she’d hated this man. She’d been so horrified her dad would go to jail that she didn’t consider how frightened he must be. Now she understood why her dad had refused to be angry.
“That’s not true,” she insisted. “You were scared, and Adam took advantage of his position of authority to bully you into lying. And in the end you did the right thing.”
“I couldn’t let your dad go to jail.”
Jesse lowered her hand, glancing back to the tree. If only Clint had climbed down from the loft to check on Victoria that night. Or if he’d stayed up there to watch what happened after the truck arrived. Or if he’d called 911 as soon as he’d heard the crash.
So many if onlys.
She heaved a sigh, the scars on the tree matching her wounded heart.
“Are you okay?” Clint asked.
“No.” It was an honest answer. She glanced back at the man studying her with a worried gaze.
“I’ll never understand why Adam was so determined to blame my dad for murder when there was no proof that Victoria or Tegan were even dead.
Maybe it was weird that they’d disappeared, but there was nothing to suggest that they’d been hurt beyond the original crash.
Especially considering Victoria had just stolen a large chunk of money from my dad and she had every reason to cover her trail.
” Clint looked surprised at the mention of Victoria taking off with Jesse’s college fund.
It wasn’t information Mac had wanted to share.
“And even if they had died, why did Adam insist on pointing the finger at my dad? As far as I know, he’d never done anything to make Adam his enemy.
He obeyed the law, paid his taxes, went about his business without bothering anyone. ”
She expected Clint to shrug aside her question. Trying to decipher what made Adam Tillman tick was a creepy proposition. But her companion slowly nodded, as if he’d given Adam’s motivation some thought over the years.
“At first I thought he wanted to be the center of attention,” he said. “You know how he liked to strut around.”
Jesse made a sound of disgust. “Jerk.”
“What better way to show off than by solving the only murder ever to happen in this boring town?”
“There’s no proof there was a murder.”
“It wouldn’t matter to Adam.”
“That’s true.” Jesse considered the possibility. She wouldn’t put it past Adam to use a tragedy for his own gain, but putting an innocent man in jail seemed like a stretch. “You said ‘at first.’ Was there another reason you thought he might have accused my dad?”
He nodded. “My mom was friends with Rosemary Jacobs.”
“Who?”
“She worked at the courthouse up until she died last year.”
The memory of an older woman in her polyester suit and pearls assuring her that her dad had left the courthouse seared through Jesse’s mind. “I know who she is. I’m sorry for your loss.”
Clint shrugged. “I didn’t really know her, but she told my mom she’d seen Victoria arguing with Adam. And she insisted that it was more than a mild disagreement. She said they were yelling at each other.”
Jesse jerked in shock. Victoria had never mentioned Adam or an argument. Which was weird. She loved complaining about the locals, and anyone who had the misfortune to piss her off was the center of her conversation for endless days.
“When was the argument?”
“Two nights before Victoria disappeared.”
“What were they arguing about?”
“She didn’t know. Rosemary said that she’d been to her daughter’s house for dinner and was walking through the park on her way home when she overheard raised voices.
I guess she was worried, so she went to check out what was happening.
That’s when she saw Victoria standing in the small gazebo near the back parking lot with a man she thought was Adam. ”
“Wait.” Jesse grudgingly reined in her imagination. She was ready, willing, and eager to jump to conclusions, but what was the point if they led her in the wrong direction? “Rosemary thought it was Adam? She didn’t see him?”
“Apparently, he had his back to her, and before she could get close enough to the gazebo to get a good look, Victoria called out for her to mind her own business,” Clint explained.
“That sounds like Victoria,” Jesse muttered. “Did Rosemary hear anything before Victoria sent her away?”
“She told my mom that she overheard the man telling Victoria that she had twenty-four hours to get out of town or he was taking matters into his own hands.”
“Seriously?” Jesse blinked. “Twenty-four hours to get out of town? That sounds like a line from a cheesy movie.”
Clint shrugged. “That’s what she heard. She also believed it was a real threat, since he was grabbing her arm in a super tight grip. That’s why she remembered seeing them together.”
“Why would Adam tell her to leave town?”
The question was more for herself than Clint as she inwardly debated the potential explanations.
Was it possible Adam had discovered Victoria was an imposter? But if he had, why not expose her? Maybe he’d blackmailed her? She knew where to get her hands on some ready cash. But if she’d paid to keep him quiet, why leave town?
“I have no idea,” Clint interrupted her futile attempts to make sense out of the latest twist.
“Did Rosemary tell anyone besides your mom about the meeting?”
“After Victoria disappeared she went to the sheriff.”
A sour frustration curled through the pit of her stomach. “Of course he did nothing.”
“Actually, I think he did check into her story,” Clint surprised her by insisting.
Her opinion of the previous sheriff wasn’t much better than of the current one.
He wasn’t dishonest, just lazy and incompetent.
“Adam claimed he’d spent that particular evening with some buddies playing poker, and they backed him up,” Clint continued.
“Plus, the morning of the crash he was on duty at the sheriff’s station.
Eventually, Rosemary had to admit she didn’t get a good enough look to swear it was Adam in the park. ”
Jesse snorted. She didn’t doubt that Adam had the sort of friends who would lie to cover for him, but it was also possible the older woman had made a mistake.
“Who else could it have been arguing with Victoria in the park?” She forced herself to ask. “Not my father.”
“No, there’s no way to mistake those two. Your dad was half a foot taller than Adam.”
“And twenty years older.”
“There’s that.”
Jesse tried to imagine who else had the same shape as Adam only to give a shake of her head.
She’d try to make a list later. Right now, she was still wrapping her brain around the fact that Rosemary had accused Adam Tillman of conducting a public argument with a woman who went missing only days later.
“You know, even if Adam wasn’t in the park, he wouldn’t want rumors getting around that he was involved in Victoria’s disappearance,” she pointed out, determined to find some way to blame the deputy for what he’d done to her father.
“Not when he was obviously desperate to become the next sheriff. What better way to squash any suspicions than by having my dad arrested for the crime? I don’t doubt for a second he’d throw an innocent man in jail just to protect his own reputation. ”
“I suppose he could have used Mac to take away attention from himself, but we don’t know anything for sure.
” Clint abruptly looked uncomfortable, as if he was remembering the last time he’d been pressured into accusing someone without evidence.
“Sorry, but I should be getting on with my chores. Good to see you again, Jesse.”
“Thanks, Clint.”
With long strides, he was climbing back onto the tractor and heading up the hill. Jesse watched him disappear before she returned to her truck to make a U-turn.
On her trip out to this spot she’d been concentrating on whether there would be adequate time for her father to have followed Victoria, dispose of the bodies, and be back at the bar before she came downstairs. Although she hadn’t eliminated the possibility, it seemed highly unlikely.
And while she wanted to believe that Adam was the one who’d followed Victoria out of town and caused the crash that morning, she’d never seen him driving a pickup, and he’d supposedly been working that morning.
If neither were responsible for following Victoria, then how had she disappeared with her young daughter?
Crawling at a snail’s pace, Jesse concentrated on the narrow access roads that split off to cut through the fields and pastures that surrounded Canton.
They were secluded enough they could have been used to hide a couple of bodies, but it was hard to believe that they wouldn’t have been discovered in the past nine years.
After all, the land was owned by local farmers.
Most acres were planted with crops, and others were used for pastureland and paddocks for livestock.
Even the wooded areas were used to collect firewood or rented out to hunters and fishermen.
Not to mention the wildlife and stray dogs that dug up everything in the area.
It would be hard to keep two graves from being discovered.