Chapter 3 #2
Marlowe kept her head down. Until Henry mentioned it a few hours ago, she hadn’t heard about any of this—not about the call, the cousin, or an offer from a Gallagher to buy back some of the land.
Then again, it wasn’t unusual. Secrets weren’t premeditated in this family so much as habitual.
The conversations left unfinished and details innocently falling through the cracks of their separate, busy lives, though Marlowe always felt slightly less busy than everyone else.
“Did he call just that one time?” Ben asked.
Ben was the one speaking, but Marlowe couldn’t keep from examining his partner instead. Ariel sat with her eyes trained on a blank page in her notepad, pen at the ready, but she wasn’t taking notes.
“No, he called several times.” Frank sighed, his throat pushing against his tight collar.
He may have been in the waning years of his life, but he’d left not a single button undone, and his maroon sweater was smooth and spotless.
“He called my office in the city every few weeks. I’m semiretired, so I’m not there often, but he kept leaving messages with my secretary.
After the fourth or fifth call, he got testy with her. Frightened the poor thing.”
“What did he say?” Ben asked. “Specifics would be helpful.”
Frank’s white eyebrows drew together, a deep line splitting his forehead. Marlowe knew that look. It was the face he gave his children when they interrupted him.
“I couldn’t say word for word,” Frank said. “I believe he raised his voice, accused her of not passing on the message. I figured it was best to give him another call.”
“And you did?”
“Yes,” Frank said. “I once again made it clear that I wasn’t selling. And to be blunt, I doubted he had the money to buy the land in the first place.”
“You think he was just trying to harass you, then? Get a rise out of you?” Ben asked, as if he truly valued Frank’s opinion on the matter, as if Frank’s words would be instrumental.
Frank considered his answer. “I can’t guess at his motives, but it seems his family’s history meant a great deal to him. I didn’t know the man, not really.”
“What made you think he didn’t have the money?” Ben kept his tone upbeat, almost childlike in its curiosity.
“I looked him up after the first call,” Frank admitted. “He was living with his mother and working odd jobs, from what I could tell. If he had the kind of money to buy that much property, he must have come by it in some odd way. But like I said, we didn’t get that far. I wasn’t selling.”
Marlowe chewed on her lower lip. Her father was all but accusing Harmon of dabbling in shady activities.
“What land specifically was he interested in?” Ben asked.
“The farm across the street,” Frank said. “As I said, Harmon appeared to be related to the three Gallagher brothers who once owned it.”
“Not far from where he was found,” Ariel interjected. This caught the attention of the rest of the family, who seemed attuned to the new speaker in a way they hadn’t been with Ben.
“Near there, yes. I presume you’ve been out there already. From the road all the way back to across the river once belonged to the Gallaghers. It now belongs to me,” Frank said.
Marlowe watched Ben and his partner exchange a look, and Ariel’s eyes fell back to her blank notepad.
“Dave Gallagher, the youngest brother, passed on in ’97,” Frank continued after an uncomfortable pause. “Another cousin inherited the land. Caroline Rodine. She sold it to me. She was no farmer.”
“But Harmon was?”
Frank shook his head. “Not that I know of. He was just another young man who felt something was owed to him.”
Ben bobbed his head at this information. “So how did you let him down, finally?”
“I met him in town for a drink last winter,” Frank said. “And I told him, in so many words, stop calling. It was never going to happen. He got frustrated, but I told him to pick a fight elsewhere.”
“Where in town?”
“Vera’s.”
“We’ll need the exact date for that meeting,” Ben said.
Frank nodded. “I understand. I’ll have to check my daybook.”
“And you never saw or heard from him again?”
“He called again in the spring, but I didn’t call back,” Frank said. “That was the last I heard from him. I saw someone walking in the woods around that time, and I figured it was him. Can’t say for certain.”
“Why didn’t you call the police?” Ben asked.
“I don’t know,” Frank said. “I guess I pitied him.”
Marlowe studied her father as he spoke. The carefully measured pauses.
The friendly lean toward his interlocutor, hands clasped.
These weren’t simply answers; Frank was performing his own morals and sense of justice.
He had not given the detectives facts. He had given them a story.
A truthful story. But a story nonetheless.
Ben broke eye contact with Frank and slowly regarded the rest of the group.
“Okay, thank you, sir. If it’s all right, we’ll take your individual statements now. It’s standard procedure.” Ben smiled. “It will be more comfortable here than at the station. Is there a room we could use for that?”
“The study,” Frank said. “It’s just down the hall.”
Both detectives stood up. Ben and Ariel traded a look of recognition. She uttered one word: “Henry.”
“We’d like to talk to Henry first,” Ben confirmed.
Marlowe examined Ariel Mintz with renewed interest. Her face remained blank under her tightly pulled-back hair, but it suddenly became clear that she was the one with the plan. They looked over at Henry, who hadn’t moved from his chair.
“We understand this is an inconvenience,” Ben said. “We really do appreciate your help.”
“Of course,” Henry said, standing up.
Frank plastered an unruffled smile on his face, but he remained seated. Glory stood up and led the detectives toward the study. Henry patted Constance’s shoulder once as he followed.
The rest of the family busied themselves around the kitchen and living room. Stephanie walked to the refrigerator and began heating up some leftovers while Glory told the kids to set the table. Constance put the baby in his high chair.
Marlowe kept her eye on the clock. She was waiting for someone to make sense of what had just happened. For Frank to give the family a quiet reminder to keep any explanations simple, to answer only what they were asked.
No one spoke. Nate sat in sullen silence, as if frustrated with his own thoughts: Why wasn’t he the one called first by the detectives? Or perhaps he was thinking, like Marlowe, of the last time they were questioned in this house, one by one, all those years ago.