Thirty-six

“Clive mentioned her once or twice. Her name’s real close to mine, is I guess why it stuck. I just think it’s a shame that a woman can lose her father and be in and out of the hospital like that poor Hallie, and with her mother no longer around to comfort her. She died giving birth to Hallie. I’m sure her stepmom did just fine, but there’s nothing like your real mom when life gets hard.”

I’d tuned her out after I heard the name. Catherine, Tom’s ex, hadn’t been certain of the name of the girl who had been raped. Carla, she’d thought. She’d been real close. Clara. Tom had married his victim and raised her child as if she were his own. Clive said Tom tried to buy his way into heaven every day after that, whatever the hell that means.

Monty was at my side. “What is it?”

“We have to go.” Numb, I wandered outside. The air smelled a bit like steel, and the icy edges of plummeting flakes scratched at my cheeks. There was a total hush in the jaws of the snowstorm, an absence of sound that raised my hackles. Tom had told Catherine part of the truth, which is the main ingredient of all good lies. Clara had been pregnant by the rape, and a man had married her and raised the daughter. What he hadn’t told her, of course, was that he was the man.

Monty followed me, making sure that Carla’s front door closed tightly before jogging ahead to start the truck.

When I climbed into the vehicle, he told me he felt bad about her door. I didn’t care. “Monty, I had it all wrong.”

“It was an honest mistake. I’ll come back out tomorrow and fix it, when the snow lets up.” He started the truck and steered us onto the back road.

“No, I know the identity of the woman who was attacked. Her name was Clara, not Carla. Tom Kicker’s first wife and Hallie’s mom.”

An icy shoulder caught the truck and began pulling it into the ditch, but Monty fought back with a sharp turn of the wheel. “Tom Kicker married the woman he raped?”

“We don’t know whether or not he raped her. You heard Carla. Clive said Tom wasn’t in on the worst of it, although it appears he didn’t do anything to stop it, either.”

“Holy terror,” he said. “What men will do.”

I rubbed my mittened hands together. It had grown cold in the cab. “The others must know that Tom married Clara, and that one of the three of them has a daughter.”

“That’d be a difficult fact to hide. So why kill Tom and Lyle now?”

Why is it that the truth is so obvious once you know it? “I told you Hallie’s in and out of the hospital.”

“Right. Kidney problems.”

“Yeah. She said she’s in the early stages of kidney failure.”

Monty closed his eyes in understanding. “She needs a kidney.”

“I’m guessing. And if I’m not mistaken, family is the first place you’d look for a donation.” I wanted to smack my own head. “She’ll find out soon if she doesn’t know already that Tom isn’t her birth father.”

“Not her birth father, but the man who raised her. If he loved her, he’d need to tell her who her other potential matches would be.”

“Which explains the fight Hallie overheard between Tom and Clive, right before Clive shot Tom.”

Monty picked up the thread of my story. “Clive must have gone to Frederick and Mitchell to let them know what was in the pipeline. They pool their money and convince Clive to shoot Tom and then Lyle, leaving only the victim as their weak link. Clara. But she’s already dead.”

“You think they’ll stop there?”

“I wouldn’t. Not if I’d come this far. Hallie may know about the incident, or find out one day. As long as she’s alive, she’s walking DNA proof of something three men have already killed to keep silent.”

“How fast can we get to Hallie’s place?”

“I’m on it.”