2. Denial
TWO
Denial
Lillian
I sat on the short end of the sectional, and Sheriff Moran sat in the middle of the long end.
He took another sip of his coffee before he set it down on a coaster in the large tray I had on the cream square ottoman with navy pinstripes, which did double duty as a place to rest my feet and the coffee table where I set my drinks.
“That coffee is really good,” he said quietly.
Oh God, he was totally setting me up for bad news.
I knew it, but for sixteen years, I refused to believe it.
“Probably makes it worth the money,” he went on, still going softly.
“And they recycle the pods,” I replied in a monotone, forgetting in this day and age any mention of climate change and doing things to alleviate it to a stranger put your chances at fifty-fifty that person would get up in arms about it. “Unlike the other pods, which are really bad for the environment.”
“Gotta admit, I prefer our lakes and firs like they are, not consumed by fire or ravaged by drought,” he said.
I liked his remark, a whole bunch, but I didn’t like the look on his face a whole bunch more.
He started it. “I’ve had occasion, Lillian, to audit Sheriff Dern’s files.”
“I know. You mentioned it at a town council meeting.”
His eyes sparked with surprise, and I had no idea what that was about. I also didn’t have it in me right then to try to analyze it.
“One of those files was the Dietrich robbery,” he told me.
I knew this was about the Dietrichs.
And that total dickhead, Dern.
As I had to direct all my attention to shoring up my defenses, I said nothing.
“Do you know the Dietrichs?” he asked.
“My dad worked for them,” I said through stiff lips.
“Do you remember hearing about the robbery?”
Oh, I remembered all right.
I nodded.
“First, I want to say that the statute of limitations expired on that crime years ago, Lillian.”
I didn’t care.
Okay, sure, there was a possibility—a slim one—my dad committed that robbery.
Robbery was bad, I knew it. Totally bad.
That said, our illustrious sheriff was making things worse for my parents well before the robbery occurred.
I just never believed ( ever ) my parents had one thing to do with that robbery. What happened after, I knew they thought they didn’t have any other choice.
But right then, that wasn’t important.
“The information in that file gave me some concerns,” he admitted.
“What concerns are those?” I asked.
“Your parents were suspects.”
I closed my eyes.
Sheriff Moran kept talking. “I can’t be certain, but it seems the jump to them as suspects was… suspect .”
I opened my eyes, feeling something outside dread for the first time since he asked me to sit down. This being shock.
“Sorry?” I queried.
“Neither of your parents had a record. They were both well-liked in the community. I wasn’t a police officer then, but in looking at the file, I vaguely remember a good deal of anger in town that Dern was investigating them.”
“My mom had an in-home daycare. She charged peanuts,” I whispered. “She loved kids. She hated how much daycare cost. One of the reasons they only had me was because they couldn’t afford more kids. So she took in a few kids for folks who had to work, but could in no way afford anyone kind and loving and responsible to look after their children. And Dad could do anything. Plumbing, electrical work, he was great with computers, had a green thumb. I think he was handyman to half of Misted Pines.”
“Right,” Sheriff Moran said softly.
“He didn’t charge an arm and a leg either,” I went on. “They weren’t…” I tried to find a way to describe all that was them and came up with, “Like that. They had each other. Me. This house. This amazing place where we live. They were both outdoorsy, active people. They didn’t need any more.”
“Okay,” he murmured.
“Sheriff Dern, he…he was close to the Dietrichs,” I said like I was admitting something, when it was not me who had something unscrupulous to admit.
“I’m aware,” he replied.
“And he had a…well, a… thing for my mom. Dad was…is a pretty laidback guy. But that upset him.”
“Is?” He jumped on that. “Do you know where your parents are?”
I shook my head trying really hard to keep the emotions blazing under the surface from erupting. “That Dietrich thing came up. Dern was being,”—I shook my head again—“it was a little scary.” Make that a lot scary. “And they, um…took off.”
“Have you heard from them since?”
I very much did not want my eyes to fill with tears.
But my eyes filled with tears.
“No,” I said so quietly, even I could barely hear it.
Something warm and kind hit his gaze, even as he asked, “So they left sixteen years ago, and you haven’t heard from them since?”
Left unsaid, And you didn’t tell anyone about it? Like law enforcement?
I straightened my shoulders, took a deep breath, and pulled myself together.
“Okay, I think I need to explain something,” I announced.
Sheriff Moran reached for his coffee cup, sat back in my sofa and encouraged, “Please do,” before he took another sip.
“Well…”
How did I even begin?
“First they were…” I couldn’t stop the small, sad smile that hit my mouth.
I was also descending into memories, the happy kind, so I didn’t notice Harry Moran’s attention dropping to it or the way his long frame stiffened when it did.
“They were really in love,” I said softly. “Like, I’ve never seen anyone that in love.” I looked at him, but I didn’t really see him as I shared, “They’d move the furniture in the living room just so they could dance. And they’d dance . It might be ballroom. Or disco. Or slow dancing. They’d go for it, whatever mood they were in. They’d sit out on the porch, just talking, but they’d be holding hands. I was, um…a little kid, then a teenager, and erm…we can just say the walls are thin in this house, and I couldn’t help but hear… certain things …and hear them… a lot .”
“Right,” he said hurriedly to get me past that.
“At the time, that being the time the Dietrich thing was happening, I just thought they’d gotten scared, and they’d run.”
“Scared?”
“Of Dern. Of being investigated for the robbery.”
“So they took off, leaving you behind?”
“I was nineteen, Sheriff Moran?—”
He interrupted me. “Harry.”
“Okay,” I said, feeling bashful (for goodness sake!). “Harry.”
Something flickered in his eyes when I spoke his name, but he just nodded to prompt me to go on.
“I was working at a gas station to save money to get my own apartment. Dad didn’t like that. Not the apartment part, working at the gas station. He didn’t think it was safe. I usually did nights, because it paid more, and he’d do nights too, driving by to check things out, coming in to hang with me. Eventually, he understood my need to do it. Mom really understood it. She’d sing The Chicks’ ‘Wide Open Spaces’ and say to Dad, ‘We know what that’s all about, don’t we, Sonny-mine?’”
I took in another breath at that treasured memory, because Lord, did I love to hear my mother sing…and call my dad “Sonny-mine.”
I let my breath out before I finished, “I was also taking online college courses to get my English degree. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to be a teacher or a librarian.”
Neither of those happened, because suddenly, I needed to figure out how to keep a house, pay utility bills and feed myself on a gas station attendant’s salary.
“So, in other words, they didn’t take you because they didn’t want to interrupt your life,” Harry boiled it down for me.
“Yes, I think so.” I hoped so. “They planned. They took care of me. Like, they deeded this house to me.” I drifted a hand in front of me. “They put my name on the car. They gave me power of attorney to get to their bank accounts. There wasn’t much in them, but it helped when they…” I hated to say it, but I said it, “disappeared.”
“And they didn’t come back.”
“They didn’t come back,” I confirmed.
“And you never heard from them?”
Oh God. Oh God. Oh God.
I was beginning to feel sick.
“No, I never heard from them,” I told him.
“And you didn’t report them missing?”
Oh God. Oh God. Oh God .
“Until recently,” I began to remind him, “you weren’t the sheriff, Sheriff Moran.”
Understanding dawned on his face.
“They were being framed,” I stated. “I know it.” I didn’t, but I was pretty danged sure of it. “Dern had a thing for Mom. Mom only had eyes for Dad. I don’t know if he ever tried anything with her, but I sense he did, because she was really afraid of him. Dad was super ticked about it, but he was a handyman, not the county sheriff. And Dern was the kind of man you didn’t pick a fight with, even if you were in the right. He was also the kind of man who got what he wanted, even if he had to deal dirty to get it.”
“I know, Lillian,” Harry said soothingly.
“I think,”—I lifted my chin—“I know that they’re good no matter where they are because they’re together. They might not know Dern isn’t sheriff anymore. They might not know it’s safe to come back.”
This was all lame, and I knew Harry knew it by the look he was trying to hide on his face.
“And I’ve never had the money to hire a private investigator to find them,” I declared.
That was an outright lie.
I didn’t want to know what such a person would find.
My parents…they’d call.
They’d write.
I was in denial.
Epic denial.
Today, I had a feeling, I wasn’t going to be able to inhabit that space any longer.
“We did it before,” I said this defiantly, determined to hold on to hope until the bitter end. “We lived in LA before we moved here. We loved it there. Mom and Dad, they’re both from the Midwest. They met when Mom accidentally rear-ended Dad. They got out of their cars, took one look at each other, and they were married a week later. They call it instalove these days. And it was. Mom would dig that term. She’d get a T-shirt with it and Dad’s face on it, she’d loved it so much. After they got married, they moved to LA , had me, and it was all Disneyland and Knott’s Berry Farm and Mom always getting excited because we could go see a movie in the Chinese Theater like it was any ole movie theater.”
“That’s sweet, Lillian, but I’m not sure what you meant when you said, ‘we did it before,’” Harry noted.
“Upped stakes and left,” I explained. “One day, in LA, we just upped stakes and left. Came up here. Dad almost immediately sold our car. I think they bought this house in cash. I was ten. They said it was time to slow down, find the quiet life. They didn’t want to raise their daughter in the mean city.”
“But you suspect different?”
I shook my head, but said, “I don’t know. It was just so sudden. At first, I was mad about leaving California and my friends. But then we were here and it’s so beautiful here, and they were so happy. It was impossible not to be happy with them.”
Harry said nothing to that.
“What I’m trying to get at is, this isn’t out of the norm for them. To decide to go and then just go.”
Again… lame!
“And leave you behind,” Harry said quietly.
I pressed my lips together before asserting, “If they have each other, they’re fine.”
Harry again was silent.
“Why are you asking about this now?” I demanded. “Especially if the statute of limitations has run out.”
“The Dietrichs reported quite a bit of their property was stolen in that robbery. Guns, valuables, even vehicles,” he told me.
It was my turn to be silent.
Harry shifted in his seat, and I did not at all like how uncomfortable he looked doing it.
He finally settled and stated, “One of the guns reported missing was recently found in Idaho.”
“Okay…” I said, not getting it.
“Lillian…”
He didn’t finish that.
A chill glided over my skin.
“What?” I whispered.
“I need to ask you for a DNA sample.”
Ice flooded my veins.
“Why?” I pushed out.
“I’m so sorry, Lillian,” he said gently. So, so gently, my stomach roiled. “The gun was found buried with two bodies.”
I shot up and raced to the bathroom.
I landed on my knees in front of the toilet.
And I got sick.