Fifty-Two
Reece
When Diana and I were done being interviewed by McCabe, we stopped by Heffernan & Sons, where they were still holding my father.
It seemed like a hundred years ago that I’d dropped off his suit at the funeral home, but it had only been yesterday.
I told them my mother would be joining him. When the police had finished the autopsy on her, the body would be sent here.
We figured a joint funeral made the most sense, and we set it for a week from now. We promised to come by the next day to
sort out all the arrangements. Did we want a private service, or one that was open to the public? We didn’t know which way
to go. My parents had a lot of friends in Yorkton Hill, especially my mother, with her friends on the arts council. But given
the circumstances, would people even come? Or, equally concerning, would we be looking at a record turnout? And if the latter,
did we really want to make small talk with all of them?
I was relieved when McCabe said I was unlikely to be charged in the death of Dalton Crane, but I was still pretty shaken by
what had happened. Heffernan’s would have had a lot more business today if I hadn’t done what I did. My brother, Diana, Gage,
and me. It seemed clear Crane was intent on killing all of us. Too many of us knew the truth, and the truth was ultimately
very damaging for him.
Diana had already suggested I talk to someone. A counselor, psychologist, somebody like that. Maybe I’ll take her up on that. Hell, we probably all need counseling. Maybe Sharnwood helped people with problems other than addiction. We could ask for a group rate.
My immediate concerns were for Diana and Gage, but my heart ached for Holden. A witness to what Mom had done, silenced by
a threat of withdrawn love. He’d told our mother in her last moments that he forgave her, and maybe he was telling her the
truth. I’m not so sure I would have.
I felt badly for Gage. His faith in his grandfather’s sense of decency had been undermined by McCabe’s conclusion that our
initial take on what happened was right. Dad shot Leah Kennard and then himself. Diana was shaken too. She’d come around to
Gage’s way of thinking, that my father was not capable of such horrible acts.
When we got back from the funeral home we filled our son in on what the detective had told us. Alicia couldn’t have been the
shooter. It made no sense that she’d have had the same gun that had killed Evelyn Corby. She was still in her teens when Corby
died. Alicia didn’t know Mom, had never crossed paths with her, had no connection at all with our family.
Bottom line: Grandpa did it.
Gage listened. When we were done, he said nothing and walked out of the room.
The next day was a Monday, and as far as our family was concerned, it was a holiday without celebration. Diana didn’t go to
work, and Gage, with our blessing, skipped school. We all needed a few days before we resumed our normal lives, if they would
ever really be normal again.
Diana set up her easel in the kitchen and tried to paint a landscape. I busied myself puttering around the house. I tidied
my workbench in the garage. Not that much had been happening there. I was not much of a do-it-yourselfer. I didn’t tackle
household projects on my own. When a pipe burst, I called a plumber. When the lights flickered, I brought in an electrician.
When I was done in there, I took a partly filled garbage bag and did a run through the house. Kitchen, bathrooms, the wastepaper baskets in all the bedrooms. My last stop was Gage’s room. He was outside doing something, probably wearing a path into the pavement with his skateboard.
As I was emptying Gage’s trash into the bag, something caught my eye.
It was a crumpled piece of paper, with one word—FROM—visible in one corner. I snatched it up, uncrumpled it, and saw that
it was a sheet of personalized stationery from a notepad. Across the top it read:
FROM THE DESK OF brENT CHARTWELL
It was identical to the sheet of paper found on the bedside table in my parents’ bedroom. McCabe had shown that note to me,
asking whether the words written on it, where Dad took responsibility for killing Leah Kennard, were in my father’s handwriting.
I’d concluded they were.
There was some writing on this sheet of paper, too, in that same handwriting. If this was indeed something my father had scribbled,
this was what he’d had to say:
It’s okay. I love you, Holden. Listen to Gage. Dad
I stared at it for a long time. Sat on the corner of Gage’s bed, looking at that slip of paper, wondering what it meant.
It’s okay. I love you, Holden. Listen to Gage. Dad
Where had this come from? Why was it in Gage’s trash? I stared at it for the longest time.
It’s okay. I love you, Holden. Listen to Gage. Dad
“You seen Gage?” I said, walking into the kitchen, where Diana was putting together some lunch.
“Last I looked, he was going up and down the street.”
I went out front, and there he was. Zipping along on his skateboard. He was a bit obsessive about it today, going back and forth over and over again, but with no obvious sense of enjoyment. It was just something to do.
I walked to the end of the driveway and raised a hand as he approached. He came to an abrupt stop, one foot on the pavement,
one on the board.
“What?” he said.
“Let’s take a walk.”
He tossed the board onto the lawn and joined me at my side as we strolled.
“Where we going?” he asked.
“Just walking.”
I took the crumpled piece of paper from my pocket and handed it to him, not saying a word.
Gage stopped, looked at it, handed it back to me.
Said nothing for at least a minute. I waited.
“I was supposed to give that to Holden,” he said finally. “And I never got to it and didn’t see the point later. He knew.”
I still said nothing, waiting for more. Gage bit his lower lip, looked away, struggling with what to say.
Finally, he said, “Uncle Holden held everything in, and it fucked him up.”
“Yeah,” I said.
“But sometimes, telling everything, that can fuck you up too.”
“It can be a tough choice to make.”
Gage’s eyes began to glisten.
“You think we need to sit down someplace?” I asked.
He nodded.
“With your mom?”
Another nod.
The following, as best as I can put it together from what Gage told Diana and me, is what actually happened on that Friday.