Chapter 4
FOUR
By the time Henry emerged from the study, Nate was pacing in the living room. Marlowe knew it was driving him crazy to have his younger brother get the first word. “What did they ask?” Nate had all but pinned his brother to the wall of the kitchen.
“Just stuff about the family and the landscape of the farm,” Henry said, nudging his brother a few steps backward. “They had me draw a map.”
A footfall announced Ariel’s arrival in the kitchen.
“Marlowe,” she said. “We’d like to speak with you now, if you don’t mind.”
Everyone turned to Marlowe.
“Of course,” she said, following Ariel back through the living room to the study.
Marlowe sank slowly into one of the matching armchairs in front of her father’s desk, but she did not allow herself to lean back. She didn’t often come in here anymore, and memories of all the times she had retreated to this dark-paneled room to read or draw as a girl flooded her.
“We’d like you to tell us about this morning,” Ben said. “In your own words.”
Marlowe nodded. “I was in my bedroom until around nine. Nate and Henry and I went out for a walk, just the three of us. It’s something we often do on family holidays; we hike to a spot on a river where we went swimming when we were younger.
But before we got there, we spotted the tent. And, well, you know the rest.”
“And how long did it take you to walk from the house to where you saw the tent?” Ariel asked.
“About half an hour,” Marlowe said. “It’s more than a mile.”
“Almost two, your brother said.” Ariel folded her arms and smiled with her lips pressed together. Friendly or cross, Marlowe couldn’t tell.
“I guess it’s hard to say, because of the hill. If you run it, you can do it faster.” She wanted to be useful, but she had nothing to add besides a pointless observation. “We used to run all over this land when we were kids.”
“Of course,” Ben said. “Your father bought the property when you were a child, right?”
“Yes, the Gray House when I was five,” Marlowe said.
“And then the Gallagher land?” Ariel asked. “How old were you then?”
“I was in ninth grade,” Marlowe said. “Fifteen.”
“Lucky,” Ariel said. “To have all this as a kid.”
Marlowe had long since accepted the tacit bitterness toward her family’s wealth.
She was certain the detectives looked at her and saw nothing but a stiff snob.
Marlowe had learned that instead of resenting her own cold brand of beauty and the judgment it prompted in others, she could use it.
She had been born with money, a straight nose, thick hair, and willowy limbs.
But she had not been granted a winning personality in addition.
She wasn’t warm or bubbly, and she was never charming. All Marlowe had was her composure.
“Yes,” Marlowe said. “I’m very lucky.”
“Do you remember the Gallaghers much? Harmon’s relatives?”
“Yes.”
There was a pause, and Marlowe stared over Ariel’s shoulder, at the black night framed in the window.
Marlowe didn’t try to fill the silence. Anything she said about the Gallaghers would surely sound fake.
To her, they had been like characters in a storybook, the three farmer brothers tending to their cows.
But Marlowe had known them, and Ben and Ariel had not.
“Sad, what happened to the three of them, dying so close together. Your brother told us the long and short of it,” Ariel said. “Must have been pretty difficult for Harmon.”
The admission surprised Marlowe. Henry hadn’t mentioned anything about this line of inquiry, and she didn’t know why he would volunteer that information.
“I didn’t know the Gallaghers had other relatives nearby,” Marlowe said. It was true enough. She had always thought of the Gallagher brothers as alone, except for each other.
“I guess Harmon preferred it that way,” Ariel said. “Until he didn’t.”
“How do you mean?”
“Harmon reached out to your father, but did he ever reach out to you?” Ariel asked.
“No,” Marlowe said. “I’d never heard his name before today.”
“How often are you up here?” Ariel asked, each question following quickly after the previous one.
She was making up for her silence in front of the group.
Ben had a passive bearing now, leaning back in his chair and flipping through his notes, as though completely at ease with Ariel taking the lead.
They had a kind of shorthand that was indecipherable to Marlowe.
How nice it was to know someone else so completely, to read a whole speech in the tilt of their head, the raising of their brows.
“I’m here for a week or two out of every month,” Marlowe said. “Sometimes longer in December or in the summer.”
“What do you do for work?” Ariel asked.
“I’m an illustrator,” Marlowe said. “Mostly children’s books. I can work from here or the city.”
“Ah, anything I would know?” Ben asked.
Marlowe cocked her head. “I don’t know. Do you have kids?”
Ariel’s chuckle was brief but genuine, and it relaxed Marlowe somewhat.
“No, not yet,” Ben said, and then paused. His mind seemed to go elsewhere.
Ariel collected the reins once again. “Last night, you had dinner with your family, and then what?”
“I stayed up talking with my brothers,” Marlowe said. “I went to bed around eleven, maybe a bit later.”
“And you didn’t hear anything? See anything?” Ariel asked.
“No.” Marlowe shook her head. “Nothing unusual. Just some coyotes howling around two. I woke up for a few seconds, but I didn’t get out of bed.”
“What about since you’ve been back from the city? Have you seen or interacted with anyone besides your family?”
“Not that I can think of,” Marlowe said. “There are hunters with permission to come and go in the early hours, but I’m typically not around to see that. And I’ve only run into neighbors on the road.”
“Who?”
“Charlie Beacon. He’s out with his dogs often,” Marlowe said. “There’s a weekender family at the top of the road too. The Hopewells. They sometimes take walks with their three young daughters.”
The Hopewells had the second-largest Dutch colonial house on the road, the first being the Fishers’. Marlowe thought their renovations looked out of place, far too shiny. But Frank and Glory had fully embraced Mrs. Hopewell, who was British and charismatic and always threw a Boxing Day party.
“And who lives on the property across the river?” Ariel asked. “I’m a bit turned around. GPS isn’t very strong out here.”
Marlowe nodded in acknowledgment. “Sarah and Bob Chase have a house on that land. I couldn’t say exactly where the property line is, but my dad would know.”
“Thank you. We’ll be talking to your neighbors tomorrow,” Ariel said. “Harmon’s friends and family as well.” She paused and made a point of refocusing her attention on Marlowe. “It’s awful what happened. But don’t worry, we’ll piece it together.”
She wasn’t sure exactly what her face had betrayed to Ariel, but for a moment Marlowe felt like they were the only ones in the room.
“Thank you, Marlowe, that’s all.” Ariel and Ben stood. They looked absurd together; Ariel was so much shorter. Marlowe could hear her mother’s voice in her head: A woman of that height ought to wear heels, if she wants to play at a career.
Marlowe nodded and rocked herself up from the chair, pulling down the hem of her sweater as she rose. She smiled, as if to thank the detectives for their time spent in the comfort of her own home, and reached for the door handle.
“Oh, before you go, I wanted to ask you one more thing.” Ben’s voice came from behind her, as if this incidental thought had just occurred to him.
“Of course, anything.” Marlowe looked over her shoulder, her fingers still resting on the brass knob.
“A girl went missing around here a while back. Isn’t that right?”
The question felt almost inevitable. It had been carving its path toward her since they saw that tent, like the river finding its twisted way through the swamp and flowing out to the basin, relentless in its own course.
But the shock of it still caused Marlowe to stagger.
Her hand tightened around the handle, and then she let go, turning all the way around to see Ben and Ariel, their chins raised, more engaged than they’d been at any point before.
“Yes, that’s right.”
Ariel and Ben waited. It was going to hurt to say the name, but she forced her mouth to form the sounds.
“Nora Miller,” Marlowe said, finally. “She lived up the road.”
“And you were close?” Ariel pressed.
“We were best friends.”