35. See Clear
THIRTY-FIVE
See Clear
Harry
E arly the next afternoon, Harry was returning to the station from talking to the staff at the bookkeeping firm where Cheryl Ballard worked.
She hadn’t called in sick that day, she was just a no-show, and her boss and co-workers were getting worried about law enforcement visits and Cheryl’s continued absence.
Harry made it worse, because the sheriff coming to call was a strengthening sign things were really not good.
He’d learned what Sean had learned when he’d come out days earlier.
Cheryl Ballard was liked. She was a good employee. Dependable, normally.
Though, one woman who Harry deemed as closer to Cheryl than the others, and as such, she was someone who was cottoning on to the situation, shared Cheryl had very bad taste in men.
This wasn’t news to Harry, and it, along with everything else they weren’t getting meant they were no closer to anything on any of what they were investigating.
The cops in Idaho hadn’t found Sonny’s purse or Avery’s wallet.
Jason and Jesse had been poking around, but along with their inquiries, and those of the police in Coeur d’Alene, they’d been unable to find anyone other than the motel owners who remembered them. Jason and Jesse decided that well had run dry and they were going to return to help dig into things in MP.
No word from the Dietrichs.
Because of this, Rus started putting more pressure on the son in DC, and in return Gerald Jr. started getting nasty, claiming police harassment and throwing barbs “because I know how you all work in Fret County.”
Fortunately, Rus didn’t easily get his feelings hurt, and he didn’t hold back about how choppy the water was where his parents were wading, and if they didn’t do themselves a few favors, the riptide would carry them away.
Unfortunately, what made up his job was nine parts hard slog paperwork, running down leads that came to nothing, filtering through what they had to see if they had anything (and often finding they didn’t), painstakingly going through data and information, and waiting, with only one part being them getting their man (or woman)—that was, if they ever did.
They were neck deep in that shit now, working old cases which made all of it worse.
They just had to have patience and persevere.
The fortunate part was, Harry had a good deal of experience with both of those.
It was on this thought a call came in.
It was from Polly.
He took it. “Hey, Polly.”
“Heya, Harry. Karen just briefed me, she’s off somewhere with Rus now, so she wanted me to touch base with you. They ran down that credit card number. The card belongs to a woman named Tamara Barbeau. She lives up in Vancouver. Karen gave her a call, and Tamara had a lot to say.”
“And what’s that?”
“She said her husband just upped and left a few days ago. The thing is, he took a bunch of stuff when he did. Her emergency stash of money. Some necklace her granny gave her that she treasures. But it’s also worth some cash. Even swiped the money out of her purse, along with her credit card.”
From what Trey said, it sounded like Jenna had run that purchase, so obviously the card hadn’t been reported yet.
Even so, he queried, “Did she report this stuff stolen?”
“She said he could get into pickles. She thought he was maybe just in another pickle, he’d figure it out like he normally does and come home. A little girl talk with Karen, this seems to be a thing with her man. Taking money, precious and valuable items would go missing, he’d get hold of her ATM card and make withdrawals. Karen obviously was a little surprised Tamara put up with this, but Tamara said she loved him, and once he got his life sorted out, it’d all be good. We can say she wasn’t really happy when she heard he was using her card to buy his ex-wife flowers and gifts.”
“One guess, her husband is Willie Zowkower.”
“No, her husband is John Berringer. But when Karen asked for a description, John sounded a whole lot like Willie. So Karen sent a photo of Willie, and whaddaya know? Her husband married her under a false identity. We can just say Tamara wasn’t thrilled to learn that either.”
Jesus, what was Willie up to?
“Karen run down John Berringer with the Vancouver police?” Harry asked.
“She said she’s going to get on that when she gets back.”
Maybe instinct, maybe just practice in taking in his surroundings at all times, Harry turned his head, and at what he saw, he lightened his foot on the accelerator.
“Right, I’m headed back to the station,” he told Polly, even if he had just decided on a detour. “I can’t touch that investigation either, so let Karen know you’re going to keep some fires burning while she’s out in the field, and you call Vancouver and see if they’ve had any run-ins with a John Berringer. Be sure to link it with our earlier inquiries about Willie Zowkower.”
“Will do, Harry. See you soon.”
“See you,” Harry said as he swung into a spot at the side of Frick Park.
This park was going to be one of Megan’s many lasting legacies.
At the end of Main Street, the site had once been a thriving department store, which had gone out of business when Harry was just a kid. Nothing really took there, because the space was so vast. There were murmurings of a variety of different projects, turning it into apartments, or condos, or breaking it up and making it a kind of mall.
Nothing ever came of it, and in the meantime, the building became derelict and was eventually condemned.
It didn’t look bad from the outside, but it was a ghostly reminder of a once thriving local business that had been edged out by chains and eventually online shopping.
With Megan’s magic, she got the property transferred to the town, the building was demolished, a public vote had been instigated, and the people of Misted Pines decided to honor Eliza Frick, Misted Pines’s illustrious suffragette, who also happened to be a staunch prohibitionist.
Prohibition had been an epic fail, but the results of Eliza’s efforts cleared Main Street of the bars and bordellos that had been their main feature since the West was being won, opening it to shops, cafes, tea rooms, and eventually their cinema and more.
In the end, Eliza was the architect of what became of Misted Pines, which had once been a den of sin frequented by trappers, hunters, gold and silver prospectors, and railroad workers. To that day, there wasn’t a single bar close to the town center, and that meant it was peaceful in the evenings, and sleepy in the late evenings, and for the most part, safe.
Now that park had a border of low hedges, lawns of thick grass, graveled pathways to a center feature of a fountain surrounded by flowers and urns, this ringed by benches that had been donated by local businesses and prominent families.
Misted Pines’s infamous coven unsurprisingly maintained it, clipping the hedges, de-weeding and fertilizing the lawns, and planting the flowers. Come March, hyacinths and daffodils poked through the retreating snow. Tulips came next. Through the summer months, there were riots of flowers in the beds and hanging from the lampposts.
MP citizens picnicked there. They fed the birds there. They walked their dogs there.
But now, the foliage had been cleared and Harry knew they were preparing to decorate it for Halloween.
Also now, Ronetta sat alone on a bench by the fountain.
Harry debated whether to get out of his cruiser, but remembering what Shane said, he did.
He walked up to her and was standing beside her before she started and peered up at him.
Tears were tracking down her face.
“Didn’t mean to startle you,” he said quietly.
She dabbed at her cheeks with a hankie, and that almost made Harry smile, because Ronetta was the only woman he knew who carried a hankie.
“Lost in thought,” she replied.
“I can leave you to it, if you like,” he offered. “I can also stay.”
It took her a moment to decide before she patted the bench beside her.
Harry sat down.
The fountain was still gurgling. They’d turn it off soon and drain it, so the freeze wouldn’t ruin the pipes. It’d eventually be filled with pumpkins and corn stalks or some Halloween/Thanksgiving/autumn design scheme, those being replaced by Christmas decorations.
But right then, even with the traffic going by on Main Street, the sound of the water made the space tranquil.
Harry kept his eyes on it.
Ronetta did too.
“I have a very good marriage,” Ronetta shared. “God smiled down on me when He pushed George in my path. But a marriage is always a marriage.”
He knew what she was saying.
Harry’s marriage had lasted only a year before Winnie broke her neck in that fall from her horse.
In the intervening time, he’d enshrined what they had, so in his memories, every second of it was light and laughter and love.
The truth of it was, Winnie had a foul temper. She sometimes wasn’t good at communicating and was terrible with confrontation, until she was ready to explode, and then she let loose.
On his side of things, Harry got pissed she let it go so far rather than just being honest with him about shit that bothered her. So his response wasn’t remotely healthy either.
They’d been young. They’d find their way eventually. Harry knew it down to his bones.
It didn’t make their marriage any less strong or loving.
It just wasn’t perfect.
“I’m the middle, have an older brother, and a younger one,” Ronetta told him. “No sisters. Until Avery.”
Damn.
He knew it, but there it was.
He took her hand.
Her fingers curled tight.
“She loved George completely,” she went on. “So anything I could say when I complained about the little, stupid stuff, it didn’t bother her a bit. It didn’t turn her mind on George. She just listened. She was a safe place for me to let stuff go. She was a safe place for George that I could do it. I gave that same back with her and Sonny.”
Harry said nothing.
“When my momma used to work my nerves, because she could be bossy,” Ronetta continued. “When Shane and Sherise would get up to mischief. She was my sounding board. She was my touchstone. And I had the honor of giving that back to her.”
Harry remained silent.
“It wasn’t just having someone to complain to. I cannot tell you how much she used to make me laugh. We shared recipes. She helped me in my garden. I showed her how to bake bread. We had a tradition at Christmastime. She and Sonny and Lillian would come over and we’d eat and trim the tree, then George, Shane, Sherise and I would go over, and we’d have dessert and trim their tree. They’ve been gone so long, but Christmas has never been the same. Nothing has been the same. And now, even though I always knew in my heart they’d never go without keeping in contact with Lillian, George, me, so I knew something was terribly wrong, and it had to be something like this, I know nothing ever will be.”
Harry kept hold of her hand and remained silent.
“Lord, I miss her,” Ronetta whispered.
Harry let her hand go and wrapped an arm around her.
She melted into his side and rested her head on his shoulder.
They sat that way for long minutes before Ronetta spoke again.
“I’ll tell you what, George and I were beside ourselves when Lillian got mixed up with that Zowkower boy. George especially. He thought he’d failed Sonny. Shane was livid. Sherise was worried. It was torture, living next door to Lillian making that big of a mistake. Will say, that boy had stars in his eyes every time he looked at her.”
Harry was careful not to react.
Ronetta kept going.
“But he was bad news. No backbone. That family strayed far away from the straight and narrow, and more often than not, it walked right up to our girl’s door, and he didn’t do a thing about it. I cannot tell you the relief we felt when she got shot of him. We should have expected it, one thing Lillian always had was a good head on her shoulders. Both her parents gave her that. But there was relief all the same.” She gave Harry’s knee a squeeze. “We haven’t had any of those feelings recently.”
“I’m not certain I can express how much that means to me,” Harry murmured the god’s honest truth.
“No need, son,” she replied. “You get stars in your eyes, you can’t see. You’re not a man who gets stars in his eyes. You see clear. That’s the hallmark a relationship will work. You can’t make it work if you don’t see your partner clear.”
Having said that, she straightened from his shoulder, tucked her hankie in her sweater sleeve and sniffled, indicating her moment of mourning and leaning on someone had passed.
“You’re the bedrock of all of them,” Harry pointed out. “But you’re allowed to have a reaction to all that’s happening.”
She finally looked at him. “Oh, I know.”
“What I’m saying is, they’re strong too, and they all worry about you.”
A small smile hit her lips. “I know that too. That’s family, Harry. All of it is. I suspect you know that as well as me, what with your dad and brother coming at such short notice to be sure someone was seeing to you while you see to Lillian.”
“So Dad grumbled about that to you,” Harry observed.
Her smile got bigger. “Nothing left when our kids are grown, and we’ve raised them right, but to find little things to moan about. Just serves to remind us how little those things are, and what good jobs we’ve done in raising our kids.”
Harry smiled back. “So that’s how it goes.”
“That’s how it goes.” She gave his knee another squeeze and her face got very serious. No, stern . “And I hope you figure that out sooner rather than later so I can hold some babies in my arms before I’m too old to open a can a soup, which will already be indication I’m too old, if I can’t make my own danged soup.”
Now he and Lillian were going to get it.
He didn’t mind in the slightest, which was why he chuckled.
She stood and he came up with her.
She then took both of his hands and tipped her head back to catch his eyes.
And she dealt an unexpected blow when she stated, “My heart clean broke for you when you lost your wife.”
“It was a long time ago,” he reminded her.
She gave his hands a squeeze. “I know, honey. Just saying, I’m not the only bedrock around here. I thank God every day I found a good man and he’s been mine for a long time, and if God keeps smiling on us, he’ll stay that way. I don’t know what you’re going through, finding your love, and then years down the road, running into the next one. I just know it all has to be a lot for you, especially how it’s happening.”
“I stopped to give you a shoulder to cry on, not the other way around,” he quipped.
That got him another smile, then she said, “Just know, Harry, I see you. George sees you. Shane and Sherise see you. And in case you’re not getting it, I’ll make it official and welcome you to the family.”
That meant so much to Harry, he released her hands so he could hug her.
She relaxed into his embrace and hugged him back.
When they stepped away, he asked, “You walk here?”
“Yes. Needed a constitutional.”
“You want a ride home?”
Her gaze warmed, or he should say it warmed more. “No, darlin’. I want to pop into Kimmy’s and see what Halloween stuff she’s put out.”
Harry nodded, bent and kissed her cheek.
When he straightened, she lifted a hand to lightly pat his.
“Stay warm,” he bid. “And see you later.”
“That you will, Harry. That you definitely will.”
He smiled at her again.
And then Harry left Ronetta in a park that memorialized a strong, honest, honorable woman who made a difference in her life.
Which seemed fitting.