Chapter 12 #2
Ariel nodded. Marlowe could tell she already knew his name, had read and internalized whatever Brierley had written about Nora and Marlowe, had weighed his thoughts and impressions against her own.
They stood side by side, both facing the Gallagher barn, backs to the road.
Ariel stepped forward and turned to look at the Gray House.
“Nora Miller vanished mere yards from this house. Harmon Gallagher was killed just over a mile from it, after sending threats to half your family, claiming he knew what they had done to Nora and the Gallagher brothers. I know all this is hard for your family, and you especially, but the circumstances are puzzling. You have to grant me that much.” Marlowe remained silent, listening with as much patience as she could.
“Ben and I have talked to your neighbors, Harmon’s family and friends, as well as other locals. We’ve been asking about Harmon and this place, but no one seems to be able to explain the Gallaghers without bringing up the Fishers.” Ariel’s tone was clipped and frank.
Marlowe huffed. “If you’re going where I think you’re going with this, then you’re wrong.”
Ariel held up a hand, a conciliatory gesture.
“I’m just explaining our progress. I can see that you’re already aware of the rumors that your family was involved in Nora’s disappearance.
We’re not making any assumptions. But what we want to know is if Harmon was inspired to write those threats based on general rumors, or something more specific, possibly passed to him from a relative. ”
Marlowe hesitated for only a heartbeat before she took the opening Ariel was offering.
“The Gallagher brothers were dead before Nora went missing. Anyway, I looked up Harmon and his father, Peter Gallagher. I’m not sure how they were related to Tom, Dave, and Leroy, but I know they couldn’t have been close. ”
“Why do you say that?” Ariel’s question rang with curiosity, not judgment. It gave Marlowe confidence.
“From the age of five onward, I spent all summer and every holiday here,” Marlowe said.
“I never saw any family visit those brothers on Thanksgiving or Christmas Day. Not once. No cousins came to help out with the hay. We helped. I’m not saying that makes us their family, but they asked Nate, and it was fun for us, and they had no one else.
If any relatives were poking around here after the brothers died, they didn’t make themselves known to us.
It would have been too little, too late, anyway. ”
“So you’re saying it’s very unlikely that Harmon could have known anything about Nora at all,” Ariel mused. “Or even if he thought he knew something, it couldn’t have been based on firsthand knowledge from a relative.”
The tension was dissolving between them. Marlowe suddenly felt as if she were Ariel’s partner and they were bouncing ideas off each other, crafting and comparing theories, the way she and Nora had once composed pretend histories for Dave Gallagher’s lost love or Mr. Babel.
“I just keep wondering how often Harmon camped out around here without us knowing about it,” Marlowe said. “And if other Gallagher cousins might have been doing that.”
“Back when Nora vanished.” Ariel finished the thought for her.
This was the part the detective loved, Marlowe could tell by the way she nodded, her nose twitching, as if she were catching the scent.
That pulled Marlowe up short. Ariel was a hunter, and Marlowe didn’t yet know Ariel’s preferred prey.
“We spoke to Damen Miller,” Ariel continued.
“He claims he didn’t know Harmon Gallagher and was surprised when we asked if Harmon or anyone else had ever approached him about Nora.
But Damen also told us he doesn’t think he’s ever known the whole truth of what happened that night he lost his daughter. ”
“From us, you mean. Did he say that? Does he think I would have lied to him?” Marlowe frowned. Damen deserved her sympathy, but she felt only annoyance.
“You don’t strike me as a liar,” Ariel said. “But if you did, you were a minor and it was twenty years ago. You wouldn’t be culpable.”
Marlowe went still, and the detective held her gaze. This was what Ariel had intended to ask her all along. It wasn’t about the Gallaghers or Harmon. Ariel wanted to see if Marlowe would change her story about Nora. If Marlowe would react to Damen’s insinuation.
“I didn’t lie about anything, and neither did anyone in my family,” Marlowe said. “I don’t know why Harmon Gallagher was bringing up Nora, and I don’t know why he was out in that field. But I want you to find the answers. I’ll tell you everything I can. About the Gallaghers and about Nora.”
“I appreciate that.” Ariel flashed a gentle smile, and Marlowe’s shoulders loosened with relief.
Ariel believed her. “It’s a muddled situation.
Nora’s case has a lot of dead ends; that’s what I’ve gleaned from Brierley’s notes.
” Ariel paused. “Do you know that one local actually suggested that a wolf got her? As if this were the seventeenth century and packs of wolves still roamed the woods.”
Ariel chuckled, but Marlowe remained stone-faced. She couldn’t act casual. Not about Nora.
“And another lady who lived in town, she thought that Nora might have been a changeling,” Ariel said. “That the witches or elves or whatever came and claimed her back. She was an old woman, probably a little off her rocker, but still.”
“This region is old.” Marlowe tried not to reveal that at one time she had been seduced by similar theories. “The old stories about this place. Some people haven’t let them go, I guess.”
“Tell me about it,” Ariel said. “My mom lives in Kinderhook, near Ichabod Crane High School. Their mascot is literally the Headless Horseman.”
The snowflakes whirled down in dizzying spirals. Damp clumps clung to the grass. The Gray House’s windows glowed across the street, beckoning them, as if to say, Come back here, to where it’s warm and safe. Glory had put the wreath up on the front door.
“Marlowe.” Ariel’s voice had a dry rasp to it. “What do you think happened to Nora?”
“I don’t know,” Marlowe said. “At the time, I thought someone from her school or someone local had taken her. Maybe some sort of stalker. Someone who was never suspected or looked at closely. Maybe he got her in his car and drove away before Nate and I went out looking for her.”
“Interesting you say he.”
“But Brierley thought she ran away.” Marlowe shook her head. “He didn’t explore every option, and he didn’t have all the tech and the forensics that exist today. He had a few bloodhounds that never caught a real trail, and that was it.”
Marlowe didn’t know she was still angry about it, but standing under that chestnut tree, where the Gallagher house once stood, she found some of the rage that had filled her teenage heart.
Brierley had never listened to her. Marlowe had told him the truth, and he hadn’t believed her.
He hadn’t even sufficiently questioned her.
He had spent most of his time grilling Nate and then Henry, hammering him with questions until he cried.
He’d gone so far as to collect DNA samples from the men in the house—a desperate attempt to reassure a restless community that he was doing everything he could to bring a local girl home.
They’d all obliged voluntarily, but it didn’t matter. No tangible evidence was ever found.
“All that stuff the bio experts can tell us, that’s useful, sure.
But the way we solve a case isn’t through forensics.
It’s through talking to people, asking questions, until something or someone sticks out.
Something doesn’t add up. The forensics and DNA and all that—that’s just for the judge, jury, and executioner.
It’s important. But it’s not how we catch them.
” Ariel took a long breath before continuing.
“So that’s why we’re talking to you, and Harmon’s family and friends, over and over.
That’s why I’m asking about Nora; there’s a connection there.
I have a hunch that some long-forgotten detail might lead us to answers about Harmon, and if we’re good enough detectives, it could also lead us to answers about Nora. ”
Marlowe stared at Ariel in stunned silence. She almost felt pity for the woman and her hubris. Ariel believed she was going to figure it all out—the mess that no one had untangled for decades. She thought she was that good.
Still, a foolish hope glimmered to life in her heart.
“You want to know what happened, right?” Ariel pulled her hands out of her pockets and adjusted her gloves.
Marlowe’s head spun at the possibility. What would it feel like to finally know?
Would it bring her any peace? Would she want vengeance?
Or would this whole affair be another disappointment, possibly more of a torment than the initial tragedy?
She had a sudden need to lie down, to breathe, to be alone.
“I want Nora back.” Marlowe turned and started walking back toward the Gray House at a faster pace than before. Ariel had to scurry to catch up.
As Marlowe’s boots smacked the pavement of the road, Ariel tapped her elbow. Marlowe’s arm jerked at the physical contact.
“Why don’t you think she ran away?” Ariel asked. “At her age—it seems like the most reasonable explanation.”
Marlowe’s words were heavy in her throat, but she forced them out. “If she had run away, she would have taken me with her.”