Chapter Fifteen
FIFTEEN
The Miller house had never been much to look at, bordering on dingy, but there was a time when a lived-in warmth made it feel welcoming. Now it was weathered and left to decay. One more thing Marlowe had to feel guilty about.
She tapped on the glass panes of the front door and then leaned over to squint through the window. She could see into the hall, which was lined with Damen’s boots, a few pieces of car equipment, and—she could hardly believe it—Nora’s dirty Converse sneakers.
There was a stirring from within, and then Damen’s stooped frame appeared.
He opened the door and regarded Marlowe with a cool gaze.
“Hello, Mr. Miller.” Marlowe forced a smile.
“Marlowe.” Damen opened the door wider and led Marlowe down the hall and into the cramped kitchen. A few mugs and dishes were piled in the sink. Through the door to the living room, Marlowe could see a corner of the lumpy brown couch, a coat tossed over the arm.
Marlowe set a Tupperware container of brownies on the counter. Damen looked puzzled by the gesture, as if the paper-thin facade of kindness was beneath her.
“I know it’s been a while, but I just wanted to check in with you, what with the unfortunate news of the last couple days,” Marlowe said; she saw no point in beating around the bush.
Damen raised his shaggy head, and instead of looking him in the eye, Marlowe gazed at the gray hair that hung behind his ear, and his belly straining against his flannel shirt. He seemed a lifetime away from the neat, well-mannered mechanic he once was.
“Tragic,” he said, considering his words. “But if you’re here to talk about Nora, I’m not interested. I know better than to get my hopes up.”
“Well, let’s talk about you instead. How have you been?” Marlowe suddenly felt stupid. She and Damen hadn’t spoken in ages, and the detectives’ line of questioning made that painfully clear.
Damen threw his arms wide, gesturing around the kitchen, indicating the state of it. “I’ve been alone,” he said curtly.
She could picture his nightly routine: a frozen meal, a cheap beer, and whatever swill was on TV. Or maybe he sat in silence, muttering to himself.
Marlowe hung her head, staring at the chipped linoleum. She felt like bolting out the front door at that very moment but found the resolve to try again. “The detective who spoke to me, Ariel Mintz, she seemed competent. And she believes this Gallagher situation could lead to answers about Nora.”
“I only want justice,” Damen said. “Is that too much to ask?” He gazed out the window. When the glass was that dirty, it made the whole countryside appear stained. “And, anyway, I mostly talked with the other one. Vance.”
Marlowe waited for him to continue, but he just kept staring. As awkward as the conversation was, she needed to know what he thought about Harmon—and any theories he was harboring that he might have shared with Ben Vance.
“Well, what do you think happened to Harmon Gallagher?”
“Those dogs ran straight toward that barn,” Damen said. “I always remembered that.”
“The bloodhounds,” Marlowe said.
“They were brought in the day after, right before the larger search party started. The police claimed it was best to give the dogs a go, before a load of people stomped all over the land and confused the scent. You remember that?”
“I remember.” She had the specific memory of Damen holding out Nora’s pillowcase to the dog handlers.
It was the greatest moment of hope she’d felt since Nora vanished.
Here was something finite and scientific.
These dogs had been trained. They would track her.
They could detect things humans could not.
After sniffing the pillowcase, they ran toward the trash bins and circled the area, and then one of the hounds lifted his snout to the air and howled.
As a unit, they tore across the street, looped around to the open barn doors, and dashed up and down the aisle, pausing to sniff, occasionally running outside and then back in again.
“But it amounted to nothing,” Damen said. “There wasn’t a damn thing in that barn.”
He continued staring out the window, eyes glassy, like an old sage waiting for a revelation. And then his lolling head snapped to attention.
“Tell me, Marlowe,” he said. “How much time did you two spend in that loft?”
“I’ve already told you this,” she said.
“Tell me again.” He smiled placidly. “I’m getting old.”
“A lot.” Marlowe twisted her hands together. “We started when we were twelve. We used to go up there every weekend.”
“What did you do?”
“We just talked.” Marlowe chewed her bottom lip. “Sometimes spied on the Gallagher brothers when they were still around.”
It had been embarrassing to confess to their childish tricks in front of Detective Brierley all those years ago, and it wasn’t any easier now.
“Did your brothers know about this? Did they ever hang out with her up there?”
“It was our place.”
“Of course it was.”
All the hours they spent up there, running down the aisle, scraping their knees on the rough rungs of the ladder. Skin, hair, blood, secrets. They had sprinkled pieces of themselves all over that barn.
“You and your family,” Damen said, his voice turned low. “Messing around on land that wasn’t yours.” Marlowe tensed at the throb of fury in his words. “Stirring up trouble with those Gallaghers, getting Nora caught up in it. And if that boy knew something, now he’s dead too.”
Marlowe had her answer now. Damen had told a deluded, jumbled version of this story to Ariel and Ben. Her chest tightened, but she pushed back: “The Gallaghers wouldn’t have done anything to Nora. They were never angry with us.”
Damen scoffed. “You were just a kid.”
“Mr. Miller.” Marlowe was treading on dangerous ground, confronting him like this. “What exactly do you think happened?”
He grunted and turned his body away from the question, shaking his head. Marlowe’s pulse hammered against her throat.
“I don’t know,” he said at last. “But someone does.”
He kept her sneakers waiting for her in the hall, but he was beyond hoping that his daughter would return. That loss had hardened in his mind. What still haunted him was that he didn’t know why.
“I wonder what Nora would look like,” Damen said. “Sometimes I see you, Marlowe, and it’s as if you’ve barely aged. It’s only when I look at the old pictures that I see all the changes.”
He believed she had changed for the worse. He didn’t have to spell it out for her. In the beginning, when they grieved together, Damen would tell Marlowe lots of things. His favorite stories about Nora, and she would share hers. Jennifer would join in with anecdotes.
“I bet she would have looked just like Jennifer,” Marlowe said.
Damen flinched, and Marlowe felt a jolt of anxiety.
“I’m sorry.” She reached out her hand but stopped it in the middle of the counter. “This is hard for you, I know.”
Damen straightened up and swung his head back toward her. “Tell the detectives everything this time. Tell them everything.”
It was Marlowe’s turn to wince.
“I will. I have.” She refused to suggest that maybe he was the one who had hidden something.
“I’d better go.” Marlowe turned back toward the hall.
Damen followed her to the front door.
She walked down the steps, past the pile of cordwood that reached her shoulder.
If the wind blew north that night, she’d be able to smell the smoke from Damen’s fire.
Damen stood in the doorway as she pulled away, and Marlowe wondered if he was thinking of another car and another day; she wondered if he cursed the moment her father pulled up to introduce himself to the neighbors, with Marlowe in the back seat.
She hadn’t been gone long enough to complete any errands, so she pulled over before the road curved home.
The memory of the bloodhounds was dulled and warped by time and nerves and, possibly, the couple of drinks she had every evening.
In this case, how different was she from Damen, really?
Images of those chaotic days started rushing in as Marlowe sat on the soft shoulder of the road.
The hounds on point. Henry kneeling beside one that the handler said he could pet.
Marlowe heard him whispering into the dog’s soft spotted ear: You’ll find her, you’ll find her.
The inconsolable tears that began each day at dusk—the moment Marlowe realized her friend would be gone for another night.