Thirty-Nine

Lola drove with the windows open, hoping the cold would slap some sense into her.

But nothing made sense.

She’d gone to Melena’s thinking Bryce had killed Sariah, and left with her suspicions fixated on Galon. But why would he kill his wife? And try to put the blame on Trang? And then, why the attack in the park? Somehow, unwittingly, she must have stumbled across something that pointed toward him. What?

Her head ached, bewilderment and exhaustion bubbling in a toxic brew. She longed for the motel, a bed, the relief of sleep. Maybe, upon waking, all would become clear. Even though she was pretty sure it wouldn’t. Besides, Mai was waiting in the room, would turn toward her with those too-old eyes that went young and hopeful whenever she spoke of her brother. Lola couldn’t face the prospect of watching the darkness cloud them again, herself the cause.

Her phone vibrated, a welcome distraction. For the first time in history, she thought as she checked the screen, she was glad to hear from Donovan Munro.

At the house, he texted. Can’t wait to hear.

Lola’s brief burst of enthusiasm faded. When she’d thought Bryce was the killer, she’d also assumed that after her visit to Melena, she would be able to present Munro—and, as she’d reassured Charlie, the police—with evidence.

Maybe, she thought, Galon had found out about the affair. And, as fearful of the stain of divorce as Bryce, had arranged to have his cheating wife killed, punishing his best friend for his betrayal and neatly freeing himself to remarry someone far more suitable.

But was she too quick to switch her fixation from Bryce to Galon based on an instant’s whiff of aftershave? She needed to consider all the possibilities. What about Malachi and his pill pushing, and the repeated anonymous phone calls about her own habit? Maybe Galon ran some sort of ring, with a bunch of teenage minions doing the dirty work. Could be that story about raising money to help Trang get to Vietnam was just a smokescreen.

“Get a grip,” she muttered before Charlie could beat her to the punch. The most obvious solution was almost always the right one, and she’d strayed very far from obvious. Which brought her back to Bryce. It didn’t get more obvious than the lover. But if Bryce killed Sariah, why did Galon attack her in the park?

In any event, at least she’d taken the precaution of warning Melena not to say anything.

“Lola’s brought us the most interesting news,” Melena had started to say. Stopped when Lola shook her head.

“I’m, uh, going back to Montana,” she’d said in answer to Bryce’s unspoken question. Had that been relief on his face? On Galon’s?

She’d added some embroidery, quickly stitching what she hoped was a reassuring design. “Obviously, there’s no story, at least not the one I planned to write. You’ve been so kind to talk with me, given everything you’re going through. I wish you the best of luck.”

Backing toward the door as she spoke. Melena following, walking with her to the car, taking Lola’s arm against the buffeting wind that had arisen just in the short while she’d been in the house. A hug, Lola forcing her arms up and around the smaller woman. “Melena, I wouldn’t say anything about Mai to anyone just yet. I probably shouldn’t even have told you. It seems cruel to get everyone’s hopes up about Frank.”

A Hail Mary if ever there was one.

Melena dropped her arms, stepped back, locked Lola’s gaze in her own, more intense even than the hug. “You’re so right. Between us.” She raised her hand and drew a line down her chest. Crossed it, the childhood promise. “But I can’t wait to hear more. Maybe we can catch up tomorrow. You’ll bring Mai, won’t you? To think that she’s alive! She could have been with us all this time.” Her breath caught. “Well. No use looking back.” She shook her head and thrust her little chin forward, and Lola caught a glimpse of the kind of women who walked away from all the comforts they had known to follow their husbands on foot across a desert.

“Best to focus on what it could mean now,” she continued. “For Frank. For all of us. Your hotel is downtown, right? I think there’s a café in the lobby. We could meet there.”

“I’m actually a couple of miles from there now, at the motel just off the interstate. I think there’s a Starbucks a block or two away.”

Tomorrow. That would give her time to think. Under the circumstances, a gift. No way was she going to bring Mai. But she would probably have more questions, this time with far greater detail, for Melena. She’d make an excuse in the morning as to why the girl hadn’t joined them.

“I know that place. Ten o’clock?”

Perfect.

Lola flipped her phone over, too late to avoid seeing Munro’s guilt-inducing text. On your way?

The problem with pimping a story before it was nailed down was the possibility that said story would go straight to hell. This one was headed for perdition. Better to present Munro with her suspicions that his son might be involved, if only tangentially, with Sariah’s murder. Let’s talk about Malachi too, she texted back. That ought to distract him.

She checked the time. Barely an hour since she’d left Mai in the room. Spending some time with Munro would let the girl sleep a little longer before she returned to quiz her about whatever it was she knew about the man she called American Father.

But first, more procrastination. Lola pulled over and scrolled through her phone, checking on the condition of the cop who’d been attacked in the park. “Off the ventilator! Charlie, did you hear that?”

And the cop wasn’t talking, not yet, which was also good news. At some point, he would remember the tourist he’d encountered earlier in the park, the one he’d mistakenly accused of prostitution. Maybe. Sometimes the drugs they gave people caused a sort of amnesia, hell for investigating officers, but for Lola’s purposes, it would be a godsend.

Next up, Jan. This time calling rather than texting. Her fingers could never keep up with Jan’s rapid-fire questions.

“Looks like I’ll be coming home soon. Really.”

“What about the story?” Jan’s priorities were nothing if not predictable.

She had to fake it. Any hint that the story had disintegrated yet again and Jan, that traitor, would be on the phone with Munro before Lola was halfway to his house. “It’s good. Strong.” She rattled on. The story would play out over weeks, though. The reunion with Mai was an important element, but whether it affected Trang’s case remained to be seen. She’d try to persuade Munro to let her write a wrap-up piece down the road, something she could do in Magpie. In the meantime, though, “I just want to see Margaret.”

Saying it made it so. All those months she’d avoided her daughter, ostensibly sunk in grief. Not ostensibly. Truly. Grief shaded by something even darker, the inescapable fact that to resume her old routine with Margaret—the unthinking daily drill of school and chores and meals and bathtime and before-sleep reading—would be to acknowledge Charlie’s absence. Her stubborn immersion in mourning, while keeping Charlie close, had locked Margaret out. Now it hit her what she’d missed: Margaret’s burbling laugh at Bub’s ongoing battle with the flock of chickens, her fiery defiance when confronted with the most reasonable request—yes, she had to wash behind her ears; yes, she had to pick up her clothes from the floor and put them in the hamper; yes, she had to feed the horse right now. Lola directed mental apologies to her daughter.

Jan pushed her advantage. “Then you’d better get your butt home before she changes her mind about wanting to see you.”

Lola forgot about Bryce, forgot about Galon, forgot about Malachi. She was halfway to Munro’s house before she identified the lightness in her chest as happiness.

A follow-up text from Jan as she pulled up to Munro’s house afforded her a final few seconds of delay.

The aunties are going full fry bread. You’ve been warned.

Lola groaned. The private reunion she’d envisioned with her daughter would have to wait. The aunties had other plans, ones that probably involved half the reservation, enough food to end world hunger, and of course a fry bread production line in Lena’s kitchen. Much as she hated being the center of attention, her mouth watered at the thought of the puffed pieces of bread, fresh off the griddle, hot enough to burn the tongue, the shake of powdered sugar—so bad, with its delivery of lard and white flour and sugar, but oh, so good.

Almost as good as sex. Again, the hackneyed comparison arose unbidden. Where had that come from? Lola told herself she was delirious from lack of sleep. Mai had been the smart one, insisting upon rest and recovery.

She looked toward Munro’s arched oak door, flanked by lights that cast a welcoming golden glow across the steps, and ordered herself to get it over with. When she rang the bell, Malachi answered.

“What are you doing here?” she asked. More accusation than question.

“I live here. Why are you here? What happened to your hair?”

Like father, like son, Lola thought. Could be she was doing them both a favor. Maybe forcing them to face up to harsh facts would temper that attitude. Except that Malachi’s demeanor didn’t match the challenge of his words. He hung back, shoulders hunched, his slight body swallowed up within baggy pants and a sweatshirt that hung nearly to his knees.

“Wicks!”

Munro appeared in the doorway. He grasped her hand and pulled her in, talking too loud, too fast.

“Great to see you. Can’t wait to hear about your trip. Sounds like we’ve got a lot to talk about. Come on into the kitchen. Sorry, but it’s pizza again. Neither of us has quite figured out cooking yet. Nice haircut, by the way. What’d you use, hedge clippers?”

Lola wasn’t sure who followed him more reluctantly—herself or Malachi. They shuffled along behind Munro, leaping apart as if burned when they accidentally brushed elbows. The last time she’d seen him, other than on the ice at the hockey game, they’d been fleeing the sight of the wounded cop, a memory that seemed to have weighed at least as heavily on Malachi as it had upon her. The kitchen’s bright lighting, wholly unwelcome, drew attention to the shadows beneath his eyes, the red lines radiating across the whites.

Munro pulled plates from the cupboard and loaded each with two slices of pizza. He poured two beers, one for Lola and one for himself. “Sorry, Malachi,” he said. “Water for you.”

He sat, one foot jiggling so fiercely the table shivered. “Eat up.”

Lola took an obedient bite. The pizza, pepperoni this time instead of mushroom, tasted of cardboard.

Munro waited until he’d finished his first slice and was halfway through the second before he finally asked. “You said you wanted to talk about Malachi. So, I thought he should be here. What’s this about?”

He hadn’t asked about the story at all. Which meant his concern about his son ran deep. Lola thought of the occasional messages from Margaret’s school, noncommittal voicemails that left her with palms sweating and heart racing. Even though they almost always turned out to be something innocuous, a form she’d forgotten to fill out or a request to take a shift for a room parent who’d had to cancel. Room parenting, by the way, being one of Lola’s least favorite activities, although she was always so relieved at the bland nature of the request that she agreed.

“Yeah.” Malachi picked a piece of pepperoni from his pie, dropped it into his mouth, and spoke around it. “What’s this about?”

Like he really wanted to know. Lola took a long swallow of beer.

“Spit it out.” This was the Munro she knew, irritation flashing across his face.

Lola pushed a bit of crust around on her plate. “I’d hoped to talk with you in private.”

Donovan rose, retrieved the Scotch from the cupboard, and poured himself a healthy slug. He held the bottle out to Lola. She resisted an urge to drink directly from it and shook her head.

“Say it.”

Malachi’s glance was unreadable. Start with the easy stuff, Lola told herself. Even if she implicated herself in the process.

“Your son, ah, I think he has a drug problem.”

“Look who’s fucking talking.” Malachi’s voice skidded high and broke.

Munro’s knuckles whitened around the glass of Scotch. He’d brought the bottle to the table with him. Lola remembered the way he showed up at her motel room, already drunk, and the way he’d kept drinking, hard. As to what else had happened in that room—she reddened. No need to think of that now. Or ever again.

“What are you—each of you—talking about?”

“He sells pills in Pioneer Park.”

“She buys them!”

They spoke nearly at once, Malachi’s accusation coming a beat behind Lola’s.

“Whoa.” Munro held up his hands. “One at a time. Malachi, what were you doing in Pioneer Park?”

“He was selling pills. Like I just said.”

“Pills that you were buying.” Their glares clashed like swords, each of them seeing in the other’s eyes the knowledge of what had happened to the cop, the secret they shared, never to be revealed despite their dueling accusations. Something in the set of his jaw, the defiant fold of the arms, reminded Lola of Margaret. Dear Lord. Was this what she was in for?

“Wicks.” Munro dealt first with the less personal of the two problems facing him. “I got a phone call about this. And I saw pills in your Dopp kit—” He broke off and glanced toward his son, who fortunately seemed too sunk in his own misery to grasp the implications of his father’s having been in the same space as Lola’s Dopp kit. “Do you have a problem?”

“The phone call to you was the least of it. And no, I don’t have a problem. Those pills you saw—I just use them to sleep. Anyway, I got rid of them.” Only a slight deviation from the truth. No matter how it had happened, she no longer had the pills.

“What do you mean, the phone call to me was the least of it?” Munro seemed to have forgotten his query to Malachi about Pioneer Park. Malachi sat back in his chair and watched Lola stew.

“Somebody tried the same shit while I was in Vietnam. Except that this time, I almost ended up in jail.” She turned to Malachi. “What’s your beef with me? Because it’s almost like you don’t want me around. Not around here, and definitely not in Hanoi.” Lola took a breath and went for broke. “Maybe because I was asking too many questions about how Sariah Ballard died.”

She expected an immediate denial, another high-voiced protest. Malachi’s struggle to control his voice was obvious. “You think I had something to do with that?”

“Jesus Christ.” This from the man who had warned her about her language. Donovan’s glass jumped when his fist hit the table. “This has gone way too far. Are you seriously accusing my son of murder?”

“It has gone too far,” said Lola. “I should have said something about this a long time ago. And I’m not accusing. I’m asking. I think he knows something about it. Let him answer.”

“I’m not a murderer,” Malachi blurted. “I’m gay.”