Chapter Twenty-Nine #3
And what, I ask myself, did he do about it?
“Hey,” Zelda says, interrupting my spiraling thoughts. “What’s wrong?”
I push away from the table, my mind whirling. I’d come to this town hoping to find answers to Katie’s questions about her father. What happened, really? Who killed him, really? Who was he, really?
My emotions about my father are conflicted.
That’s what she’d said. And I’d felt the words as deeply as if I’d uttered them myself.
I need to understand him so I can understand myself.
This case had stirred up all kind of old questions, old memories, old hurts, just as Leo had said it would. I’d come here looking for a father. And, mired in the desperation of my past, I found one.
You only have to want to believe it for it to feel true.
“Goddammit,” I mutter, rising to my feet. “Thanks for the food, Zelda.”
“Sure,” she says, reaching for the plate. “You sure you’re okay? You look … not okay.”
“Yeah,” I say. “When you’re a PI, you get used to being lied to. The danger tends to be in becoming so cynical you never believe anything anyone says. You become jaded, bitter.”
“That doesn’t sound like you,” she says. “At least not from what I’ve seen.”
“Yeah,” I say. “And maybe it’s finally got me into trouble.”
I leave the Dairy out the back door, walk across the parking lot, and climb into the Bronco. Leaning my head against the steering wheel, I find myself wishing for the familiar feel and smell and sounds of Honey’s interior.
Ezra was a bad guy, I tell myself. All Dishman did—if it was him—was throw a punch.
I close my eyes.
It’s possible he didn’t mean to, Dishman had said. It’s possible he just lost his temper, threw a punch …
And I’d agreed. It was possible.
Every man has his breaking point.
I feel myself grimace, eyes closed, while my heart thrums.
Suddenly, I’m back in the car with my own dad.
He’s laughing. We both are. We speed up the next hill, briefly catching air as we crest, and the bottom drops out of my stomach.
It’s just like the carnival. But worse. And better.
I’m terrified, I realize. And thrilled. There are tears in my eyes. And yet we keep going. Faster. Faster.
Faster, I think.
I open my eyes, stare at the Bronco’s dials. Try not to think about that night in the car with my dad.
If it was Dishman who found Ezra in the church this morning, it was also Dishman who knowingly let another man take the fall.
And Dishman who was now driving a van full of forensic evidence—the bodies of Roman Bradley, Ezra King, and Nathaniel Nickels—to Frankfort.
And what happens when he gets back? Will things just go back to normal while Diana Bradley goes on believing her husband killed a man before he killed himself?
Will Roman Bradley’s daughter grow up believing that?
Grow up with the weight of it on her shoulders?
“Damn it,” I mutter, considering what to do.
I could just return to the motel, wait for Tina, ride home with her.
Go back to my regular life. Forget any of this happened.
Forget what I know about Dishman and Janey-Beth and Ezra.
It’s all just conjecture anyway. Just a theory. I’ve got no actual proof.
I lean back in the seat, cover my eyes with my hands.
I have a surprise for you, Annie-Girl, he’d said. My father’s voice. When we get home …
There were tears in my eyes.
Things’ll be back to normal soon.
And there are tears again now. I squeeze my eyes even tighter, angry at my own tender heart. The tears are hot on my hands. A child’s tears, angry and frustrated and trapped.
I let out a growly grunt and sit back, scrape the moisture from my face. I pick up my phone and look at the screen. My thumb hovers over Dishman’s number.
And what will I say if he even answers? Hey, did you kill my client’s father and let another man take the fall and run off with a van full of evidence?
And what would he do, run even farther away? Disappear as Ezra had planned to do? Cross the border and never come back? Desert the town that’s depended on him for the last twenty years?
I could put a call in to the state police, tell them everything I’ve uncovered so far—including Dishman’s lie—and let them handle it from here.
But I have no proof. Only a theory. The only person who knows for sure whether Chief Dishman was in that church with Ezra before I got there is Chief Dishman himself.
Annie-Girl, my father’s voice says, echoing out of my memory. Annie-Girl, let’s go for a drive …
I start the engine and I’m about to head back to the motel when my phone buzzes. It’s a local number, one I don’t recognize. I let it go to voicemail and the phone immediately buzzes again. Same number. Finally, I answer.
“Annie Gore? This is Madison Baker. I’m Joel Shepherd’s attorney. Would it be possible for you to come to Mr. Shepherd’s residence?”
“Joel Shepherd wants me to pay him a visit? Why?”
“Because he wants to hire you, Miss Gore. And before you say no, I can confidently assure you that you’re going to want to hear what he has to say.”