Finn, Jimmy, and I spent the next hour digging deep. I put Jimmy on tracking down Debbie Black, while Finn and I tossed around ideas. The thing was, not only were Debbie and Casey Black the only known connections we had to Josiah Black, they were also both potential suspects in the recent killings. Debbie would be in her late sixties; if Casey had been a toddler or infant in 1983, that would put him or her in their mid-to-late thirties.
Just a few years older than me.
Debbie and Casey Black.
Finn tossed a rubber stress ball up in the air and caught it, over and over, from the chair at his desk. “Josiah Black testified during his trial. But instead of focusing on an alibi or excuses, he used his time to talk about the suffering Amelia Black had endured since the moment he was arrested.”
“Yes. That’s why she fled town; she was practically chased out by crazed neighbors with pitchforks and torches. Can you imagine what kind of stories Debbie and then Casey grew up with? What resentments they might harbor toward this town?” I flipped to a section in Black’s trial notes that I’d earmarked and read aloud: “‘My wife has done nothing wrong. And yet she can no longer go to the market, or walk with her parents in the park. Perhaps worst of all, she has been let go from her position at the elementary school. Her life has been ruined.’”
Finn threw the ball in the air one last time, then caught it and slipped it in a drawer. “I feel for her, but Josiah, her husband … he caused all of this. He brought this down on the family himself. No matter what Ives Farmington believed, Black was the only suspect. Any pain that his actions caused his family rest with him.”
“But Amelia didn’t do anything.”
Finn shrugged. “Collateral damage. Gemma, we see it all the time. Dad or Mom is incarcerated and generations suffer.”
I started to respond when Louis Moriarty and Lucas Armstrong arrived. Moriarty slipped his jacket off and wiped his brow. “Why can’t this shit ever be easy? Mike Esposito’s grow house wasn’t a house at all—it was an old Quonset hut that was locked from here to eternity. Took us an hour just to get the front door open. Not only that, but the house was a quarter-mile walk in off the main road. Need an ATV to get in there. Did we have an ATV with us? Of course not. So we hoofed it in, then back to get the bolt cutters, then back to the house, and so on. My feet are killing me.”
Jimmy, still deep in his research on Debbie Black, said in a low voice, “Maybe you should think about retiring.”
What Jimmy hadn’t yet learned was that Moriarty’s hearing was excellent, the best on the squad. The older cop turned a black eye to Jimmy and said in a low voice, “Maybe you should think about keeping that big mouth of yours shut, kid.”
Jimmy’s head snapped back to his computer, his eyes wide.
“What Lou is saying is true. Hell of a mess getting in. But, once we were inside … Esposito was supplying someone, somewhere, with a heck of a lot of weed. He wasn’t dealing himself; town this size, we’d have known about it. It was a slick operation; generators for power, top-of-the-line lighting system. There’s a lot of money in cannabis growing. I heard wholesale can get up to four grand a pound.” Armstrong slipped off his own jacket, loosened his collar. Half-moons of sweat stained the armpits of his otherwise immaculate white dress shirt. “Esposito’s murder might have been a hit after all.”
I shook my head. “That doesn’t explain the comic book connection. And we know that Josiah Black also targeted First Pillar for his second crime.”
Moriarty and Armstrong wore identical looks of confusion. I started the whole story over again, beginning with my email to Aimee Corn and ending with the latest: that while Josiah’s wife had passed, there was a chance both their child and grandchild were still living.
Armstrong went to the board and tapped first the photograph of Caleb Montgomery’s burned body, then the photograph of the pool of scarlet blood on the pink marbled floor of First Pillar Bank and Trust. “You’re telling me this has been done before?”
At that moment, Maggie Armstrong enter the squad room. “Hey, Dad.”
Armstrong moved quickly, hoping to intercept her before she got too close to our murder board, but he wasn’t quite quick enough. She gaped at the crime scene photographs, fixating on the bloody holes in Mike Esposito’s back.
“Ah, Mags, you should have waited up front.” Armstrong put his hand on her shoulder, tried to turn her away from the gruesome images, but she was rooted in place.
“I had to use the restroom,” she said in a low voice. “These are … horrible. What kind of a monster could do this to another human being?”
Armstrong yanked at the curtains that hung from the ceiling, in place specifically for this reason, but the fabric got stuck on the rod, and did little to cover our notes.
“No, don’t try to protect me. If I’m going to go into law, these are the sorts of things I have to get used to seeing.” Maggie’s big brown eyes widened. “How do you live with it, all of it?”
She looked around at us, stopping at me. “How?”
I thought about the cases I’d worked over the years, the victims and their families, their friends. The loved ones left behind. I swallowed and gave her the only answer I had. “One day at a time, Maggie. One day at a time.”
On the way home, I decided to pay another visit to Bull. I owed him an update on the case and it would be good to get his insight on the Josiah Black angle. I found him in his study, sipping from a tumbler of whiskey, an old black-and-white murder mystery on the television, a photo album in his lap.
He was happy to see me, though the room had an air of melancholy about it and I knew we weren’t alone. Bull was sitting amongst the ghosts of old friends. Maybe he was on his way to becoming one himself; his eyes were tired, his face pale in the reflection of the television.
I told him about the Josiah Black crimes, the robbery and killing at First Pillar. My sense that somehow, an evil presence had been summoned to our town.
Bull sighed. “Perhaps it never left. There’s something wrong with Cedar Valley, Gemma. I think most people know it; they just don’t like to dwell on it. Much easier to turn a blind eye and go about the day, never acknowledging the terrors that run beneath our feet like sewer water.”
“Isn’t it like that in most places? All the towns in the valley were built by greed and heartache; pillage and murder. I’ve heard it said that as the buildings on Main Street went up, the blood of miners and builders ran down the streets like so much rainwater. And all the while, the founders, those old men we’ve all so quaintly taken to calling the Silver Foxes, smiled and counted their coin.” I sat back, took a sip of Bull’s whiskey. “Anyway. How are you holding up? I didn’t get to talk to you very much at Caleb’s memorial service.”
Bull shrugged and drew his thin red cardigan tighter against his chest. “I’ve been thinking about France.”
“France? As in Paris, France?”
“Provence, specifically. After your grandmother passes, which God willing won’t be for many more years, I think it would be a good idea to get out of the country. I’ve always wanted to visit Provence, ever since I was a little boy and read about it in a history book. There won’t be much keeping me here at that point, Gemma. Oh, I know, you and Brody and Grace are here. But you’re busy with your own lives. You don’t need to spend your precious free time entertaining an old coot.” Bull paused, finished his whiskey, glanced at me. “I didn’t even offer you a drink.”
“Don’t change the subject. Bull, this is the first I’ve heard of your plans. We enjoy seeing you. I’d like Grace to grow up knowing you.” Though I tried to hide it, I was shaken. My grandparents had been the grounding force in my life for years. As a child and teenager, it was them I’d always aimed to please; it was their smiles and praises I’d loved to earn.
And as an adult, it was to them that I went for wisdom and advice, for reassuring hugs no matter how bad it got, how gravely I messed up. The thought of Bull and Julia no longer being nearby was deeply unsettling.
They were both still here and I was already grieving.
I thought of something important. “You hate foreign food. You’ll starve to death in France.”
Bull chuckled. “I’m fairly certain that if push came to shove, I could survive on bread and cheese and wine. You know, you could come visit. All of you. I’ve been looking online at rentals; they’ve got these gorgeous old farmhouses for pennies on the dollar. Grace would love the lavender fields.”
“You’re really serious, aren’t you? I can’t deal with this right now. Listen, there’s something else I wanted to ask you about. I met Rose Underhill the other day.” I paused, watching for his reaction. To my surprise, he went pale.
“Now there’s a name I haven’t heard in a long time.”
“She insinuated that at one time, you two were quite close.”
Bull massaged the back of his neck. “I suppose you could say that. We were … friends.”
“The sheriff said I should ask you about Red Dalton.”
Bull suddenly stood, the photo album in his lap falling to the ground with a sharp thump. “What else did she say?”
Startled, I leaned back. A look of fury, and something else, something that appeared to be panic, had risen in his eyes. “Nothing. That was it. She had sort of a funny smile on her face and just said to ask you about it.”
Bull sighed and clicked off the movie. He moved slowly to the study door. “I’m tired, sweetheart. I think I’ll lie down for a while. I haven’t been sleeping well.”
“That’s it? That’s all I get?”
He gave me a brief, sad smile. “Good night, sweetheart. Drive safely. And if you see Rose Underhill again, please, don’t trust a word she says.”