Dead Air
Season 1, Episode 9
Dark Horse
Rachel Caine
1.
I don’t know how to feel anymore.
I stay in bed all morning, watching the shadows of tree limbs scrape across my bed as the sun comes up and glides toward noon. I have no reason to take a shower, to figure out my day, to do anything. I haven’t been this empty, this lost in a while.
Not since Delilah’s death.
Lying there, with the aftermath of what I’ve done in ruins all around me, it’s pretty easy to see that the whole reason I took on journalism as a major was for her. I was trying to make sense of things that just didn’t have to make sense. Now I’ve fucked up my life, and Ryan’s, and Brandon McDonal is dead, and for what? For an answer that just hurts everybody? How did I find justice for Peg, when the last thing Peg would have wanted was for her son to suffer?
Fuck.
I roll over and face the wall. I can hear Kara slamming things around in the kitchen, and I’m not surprised when she finally knocks on my door and pushes it open when I don’t answer.
“Hey,” she says. I turn over, and see her taking in the state of my bedroom. Which is . . . not great. I’ve reverted back to high school sloppiness: clothes on the floor, cans and bottles littering my desk. “Uh . . . so . . . you okay?”
“Sure,” I tell her. What else am I going to say? I just can’t even.
“Well, I’ve got a brunch shift,” she says. “Hey, maybe we can do something when I get home? Binge-watch Cake Boss?” That’s a kindness. She knows I love cooking shows. Especially pastry.
“Maybe,” I say. I roll over again.
Kara doesn’t leave. “He’s not worth it,” she says. “I mean, it’s the hunky one, right? Mr. Richy Goldenwallet?”
I still don’t answer.
“Okay. Well . . . call if you need me.”
I hear the door shut, and it feels like a weight has been lifted . . . but also like the only sunshine evaporated and left me sitting in the dark. Good. I’ve had enough of dragging things out into the light.
I can’t forget the heartbreaking look on Ryan’s face. I know he never wants to see me again, ever. And I’m sure I couldn’t face him, anyway. This is my fault, all of it. I’ve been so sure that I could make things right for him, and for Delilah, and now . . . now I have to face the fact that some truths are better left hidden.
Delilah might not even be the victim of some wider conspiracy; she might have just made a bad decision, and died horribly because of it. I was so sure, so sure that the Order had her killed, but I just don’t know anymore. They’re not masterminds. They’re just rich idiots who think they’re masters of the universe.
And however I want to remember her, my cousin was just a person, as flawed as anyone else.
And Peg? I know now that Peg Graham wasn’t killed because of some crusade, or because of her husband’s affairs, or because of some secret society. She died because a little kid got access to a gun. Happens every day in this country. Nothing special about it, which was part of the horror; I read somewhere (and never thought it would apply to anything I was involved in) that more people are killed by toddlers with guns in this country than by foreign terrorists.
What that says about the USA, I don’t know, but all it says to me now is that I broke Ryan’s heart, and it’s never going to heal.
I owe my listeners an explanation. I owe one to the Reddit army I recruited and encouraged, too. Right now, I’ve just gone radio silent, and I’m sure they’re out there screaming about conspiracies and murders and doing a fine job of destroying anybody I haven’t managed to bring down myself. How long before they turn on me, now? Couple of hours, I bet. They’re not very patient.
Maybe I should just put a real end to this and tell them I found out the truth but I can’t share it. But what would that stop? Nothing. No, I’m going to have to post somewhere or do a full podcast and lie. I’ll have to tell them Brandon did it after all, that my digging and speculating got me nowhere but back where I started. I wanted to be Serial, but turns out I’m Missing Richard Simmons.
I could start a new cold case. But if I do, what happens then? Do I hurt more people for my own ego and profit? Is that what this is about? Truth. Justice. They’re just words. And I’m not really sure I believe in them anymore.
Maybe I’ll just stay in bed.
No. If I’m going to be done with this, I need to be done with all of it. That means getting rid of the files that are still sitting on the corner of my desk, the ones that have dragged me deeper and deeper into this whole mess.
I get up, dress, cram them into a messenger bag, and head out toward the police station.
I’m hoping, honestly, that Officer Matthews is off shift, but as I enter the chilly air conditioning and pause to take stock of the busy room, I realize I’m not that lucky. The receptionist with the cat-eye glasses is behind the desk, and Matthews is at the copy machine with her back to me. She’s chatting with another cop. My immediate plan is to leave the files at reception and get out before I have to talk to her . . . but as I’m fumbling them from my bag, Matthews turns and catches sight of me. She nods, picks up her copies, and drops them on her desk on the way toward me.
Damn it.
I hold on to my smile as she approaches, and finally get the files out and onto the counter. The receptionist fixes me with a cold stare while she’s still talking on the phone, as if she resents me cluttering up her work space. I edge them farther away from her as Matthews approaches.
“Hey, Macy,” Officer Matthews says. “You okay? I wasn’t sure after that last podcast. Are you really quitting?”
“I am,” I tell her, and push the files a little forward. “I’m quitting all of it. No more poking around. All it’s done is . . . is make things worse for everybody.”
“Even you?” Matthews asks. Her gaze is steady. She doesn’t touch the files on the counter. “You’re different from the girl who first walked in here. Stronger.”
I just shake my head. Maybe that’s true. And maybe it’s a load of bullshit. But either way, I’ve gone as far as I want to go. “No,” I tell her. “I’m sorry. I’m not doing this.”
She puts her hand flat on the files, but still doesn’t take them. “You don’t trust me,” she says. She sounds disappointed, but only a little. “I guess I can see why. In your position, must be hard to trust anybody. But I’m on your side, Macy.”
“I don’t have a side,” I tell her. “Thanks. I’m done.”
It sounds like a good way to leave it, and I do; I turn and walk away, maybe a little faster than I should, but I just want to get away from here. Away from all of it, for good. I want my life back. I want to keep myself together, and I know that if I continue digging, keep turning over secrets, I’m going to hate what I end up finding. Especially about Delilah.
Some mysteries can’t be solved.
I should have listened the first time Officer Matthews told me that.
I’m back in my car and trying to decide whether to get coffee or just go home and crawl back in bed when my phone rings again. Ryan, I think, but it isn’t him. I don’t recognize the number . . . It’s local, though, and I answer it on the third buzz. “Yeah?” I try to sound unwelcoming. It isn’t hard, at the moment.
“Mackenzie Walker, is that any way to answer the phone?” It’s a smooth Southern voice, warm and familiar, but I can’t quite place it. “Whatever is the matter?”
“Who is this?” I ask defensively.
“It’s Georgia, of course.”
Ryan’s grandmother. Definitely shouldn’t have answered.
“Oh,” I say, and swallow. “Hello, Mrs. Graham.”
“Georgia, please, and my question still stands. Are you all right?”
Am I? I have a weird impulse to pour everything out to this disembodied, friendly voice on the phone. She sounds so caring. I take a deep breath and say, “Yes, I’m fine.” Liar. “I’m just . . . surprised to hear from you, that’s all.”
“Well, I can understand that. Ryan gave me your phone number. I got an angry call from Curtis Cox over at Irongate Farm . . . Do you know who that is?”
“Uh . . . yes. We’ve met.”
“And you did an entire broadcast segment about Peg’s rivals in racing circles,” Georgia says. “No, I haven’t listened to it, I just got an earful about it. Apparently, you made an impression. He’s having some trouble with your faithful listeners doing their own investigating. Or harassing, it sounds like.”
“And . . . why did he call you?”
“Because you’re Ryan’s, ah, friend, and he knew better than to try to call his father. That’s how things are done around here, Macy. Influential people call other influential people. It’s the golden circle of trust.” She sounds amused now. “He wanted me to order you to drop it. As if you were some employee. I told him that he should call you directly, and that he should be honest with you. I vouched for you, so don’t let me down.”
I just told Matthews that I was done with all this, and I’d meant it . . . but disappointing Georgia? That’s something I don’t want to even think about. I like her. A lot. “So you’re just giving me a heads-up that he’s mad.”
“I’ve given you an opening to go and talk to the man, and believe me, those don’t grow on trees. Don’t waste it. Oh, I see it’s almost time for brunch. You take care now, Macy Walker. I’m counting on you.”
I’m screaming at myself. Tell her you’re done with this! Tell her! But, of course, I don’t. I was raised to do what ladies like Georgia Graham ask. “Okay,” I tell her. “Thanks for the call.”
“Anytime. Oh, and Macy? My grandson’s been avoiding me. You don’t happen to know why, do you?”
I do. I can’t imagine how Ryan feels right now, but the last thing he’d want to do is face the woman whose daughter he killed, even if she is his grandmother. Georgia doesn’t know, I can feel it. And maybe Ryan intends to make sure she never does. “No,” I lie. “I’m sorry. I have to go.”
“Of course. Goodbye.”
“Bye.”
I hang up and take a deep breath, hold it, and let it out slowly. Regardless of what I’ve told Georgia, I can still decide to kick all this to the curb, to walk away and leave the whole thing burning behind me.
But when the phone rings five minutes later, as I’m heading home, I answer it. Another local number, and I’m already braced as I say, “Hello?”
“Is this Mackenzie from the Dead Air podcast?”
I have a wild impulse to lie and hang up, but I say, “Yes.”
“It’s Curtis Cox from Irongate. You know, the guy you decided to drag into your amateur-hour pony show? You proud of yourself? You call yourself some kind of journalist? I got about fifty voicemails from assholes from all over the country wanting to know what I had to do with Peg Graham’s death. I got letters comin’ in, voicemails clogging up my phone lines . . . Somebody sent me a box of horseshoes as a gift from her! Now, Georgia Graham assured me that you were good people, and you’d make this right. So I’m going to give you the chance. You come talk to me face-to-face, and tell me how you plan to fix this.”
It’s positively the last thing I want to do, but maybe it’s necessary. Maybe this is the start of my official penance tour . . . and the first step toward closing the investigation, forever.
So I say, “I’ll be there in an hour. I’m sorry. I promise, I’ll fix this.”
“Better fix it,” he shoots back. “I’ve got lawyers, you know.”
Great. I start to reply, but he’s already off the line. Well, that settles it. No crawling back into bed. I’m dressed in jeans and a nice shirt, though I don’t think he’s going to be rating my fashion sense. As I’m heading out to the farm, my phone rings again, but it’s a protected number, and I let it go to voicemail. Probably one of the Redditors; since they already doxed my name and address once, the likelihood of it happening again is high. Getting my phone number isn’t much of a stretch. I don’t think they’re after me. I imagine my silence is just freaking them out.
You need to shut their worry down.
I do. But right now, I also need to keep myself from getting dragged into court.
On the way to the farm, I pass the now-familiar turnoff to Heart Stone. I should have texted Ryan earlier and asked how he was doing, if he’s considered booking a therapy session. Thanks to me, he’s going to need a hell of a lot of that. I should have reached out to him, but honestly, I can’t. I feel like I’m the one who brought all this down on him, and even if it’s the truth, it’s got to be destroying him. I’ve fucked up everyone’s lives in the worst possible way. Even my own.
The velvet sweep of Kentucky grass runs up over hills and down again, and the sun is bright in a clear blue sky, and I just want to keep driving, forever. But when the GPS tells me to take a left, I do, and pretty soon I see the massive wrought-iron arch that signifies the entrance to Irongate Farm. It actually is an enormous iron gate, swung permanently open and rusted in place; it’s two stories tall, and it makes a hell of an impact. The gold lettering on top confirms that I’m in the right place, and I turn through the gate and onto a paved, winding driveway that’s so very like the Heart Stone Farm path that I expect to see a fairy-tale castle rising up in the distance as I crest the hill . . . but Irongate is much more Old South Revival, one of those overdone white-columned veranda places on steroids. There’s a parking area mostly full of working trucks and trailers, and from there I can see what I assume is the stallion barn. The layout isn’t too different from Heart Stone. There’s a clear white path going uphill to the main house, but I don’t have to take it; as I walk toward it, a golf cart speeds down toward me, and I move out of the way, only to have it stop a few feet from me.
It’s Mr. Cox. I remember him from the Derby, but he looks far different now. His face is lightly mottled with red, and as he swings out of the golf cart, he says, “Mackenzie?”
“Macy,” I say. “Yes, sir. I’m sorry for all this.”
“You’d better be. Get in. We’ll talk up at the house.”
The house, like it’s some old middle-class clapboard instead of a mansion that would give the White House a run for its money. I hesitate, because the number one rule is don’t get into a vehicle with someone you don’t know . . . but then again, it’s a golf cart. I can always jump out. I climb in, but just as insurance I get my recorder out and thumb it on as the cart speeds back uphill. “Mr. Cox, can you tell me what kinds of problems you’ve had? After my podcast, I mean?”
“Told you on the phone. I’ve had a storm of calls clogging up the lines—to my office and the house. All kinds of freaks telling me to confess what I know, and they ought not to even have that number. My stable manager’s been getting it, too; they’ve filled up his emails with the same bullshit. Had to close down comments on the Irongate website ’cause it was wall-to-wall Peg Graham.” He gives me a dark look, thick silvery brows drawn down. “I had to go back and listen to the whole thing. Why you digging all this up, Macy? What’s in it for you?”
We’re halfway up the hill. We speed past a hitching post, then another one, and I see a white wrought-iron table and chairs set out in the grass with some people sitting around it, and one setting out china cups. Cox’s wife and kids, I guess; his two sons look older than Ryan by a few years. They all look rich and careless and utterly oblivious to the black woman pouring their coffee. There’s another server trudging down from the house with a tray of food.
“I’m interrupting your breakfast,” I say.
“I eat early,” he says. “You didn’t answer my question.”
“Nothing. I’m getting nothing out of this,” I tell him. “I was hoping to get justice for Peg, but I’m shutting it down. It’s not worth it.”
We pull up at the crest of the hill, and he makes an expert turn to park the golf cart at the foot of the steps. He doesn’t get out immediately; instead, he turns and looks at me as he leans on the steering wheel. “How’d you come to that conclusion? Seemed to me you were pretty gung ho right up until that last broadcast.”
“I was,” I tell him. “And then I found out things I wish I hadn’t.”
He nods. “You open up a hole, there’s no telling what comes crawling out.” He gives me a longer glance. “Seems like it’s taken a toll. Don’t know why you went poking around in this one, considering it was all tidy as it was. Brandon McDonal did it. No question about it.”
I stay silent on that count. I know the truth now, and it burns like a hot coal under my tongue. I’m not going to tell him. I’m not going to tell anyone. Ryan has enough pain from me; the last thing I’m going to do is pile more on top by spreading gossip among the people he has to do business with.
“I’m sorry about the fallout,” I tell Cox. My throat feels tight, and I wish I’d grabbed a bottle of water in the car. I’m not going to ask this man for anything in terms of hospitality. I don’t deserve it. “I never realized how big this was going to get, and how fast it would take off. I thought—”
“You thought you were just talking to yourself,” he says, which seems really insightful. “Sure. Easy mistake to make in the Internet age. People do it all the time; they put personal information out there, or they make rash statements, and next thing you know it’s spread all the way to Zimbabwe before you get off a plane. We’re private people in this business. And we don’t like people poking around. Come on. I can give you five minutes in my office, and then I’m on a conference call.”
He gets out of the golf cart then, and I follow him up the wide white stairs that must get a regular sweeping and washing because they gleam in the sunlight. The gardeners are already at work trimming bushes into perfect squares and ovals, and there’s a man on his knees in the flowerbed pulling weeds. Lots of people working.
His family, sitting at the breakfast table, seems to exist in a strange little bubble of inaction, floating serenely above it all. Though, oddly, I don’t include Cox with them. He seems like a man who gets his hands dirty.
The investigator part of me whispers, Maybe he got his hands dirty in Peg’s murder, and I shut it down fast, because there are no more rabbits to chase, no more intellectual puzzles to solve. I know what happened. Enough.
We step onto the veranda; the white columns, like the steps, are utterly spotless. There are white wicker chairs and tables, a blue rocking chair—all so clean that they look unused. Cox opens the front door, and I hear a beep as the security system notes our entry. I don’t see them, but I imagine there are cameras everywhere, clocking every step I take into the vast atrium. The chandelier is a crystal waterfall that shatters light in every direction. Beautiful, but cold. The place doesn’t seem like it fits Cox at all, but I’m guessing this is the public face of Irongate Farm, where they hold cocktail parties and formal dinners for the filthy rich.
We pass a massive dining hall that could hold fifty, at least, around the long table, and then we’re in a wood-paneled office that smells comfortably of tobacco and leather and old books. Lining the walls are oil paintings of horses—probably his own—enshrined and discreetly lit. He doesn’t go to the desk. He goes to the bar and pours himself a morning eye-opener, and waves the bottle vaguely in my direction. I shake my head. He downs the drink in a gulp and says, “You find out anything you didn’t expect? About Peg?”
It’s a weird question. I figured he’d just berate me for five minutes and have me thrown out, but instead, Cox sounds like he’s asking for a reason. I’m not sure what to say. Not the truth, obviously. “A few things,” I say. “Not enough to disprove McDonal’s confession.”
“He’s beyond reach of any earthly justice now,” Cox says. He goes to the window. He’s still holding his empty glass as though he’s considering topping it up again. “Did you end up believing him?”
“Did you?” I ask. Cox doesn’t answer. He just turns that glass in his fingers and stares out at the rolling hills. “The timing of his death was suspicious.”
“Indeed.” He shakes his head. “Anyway. I had not one goddamn thing to do with whatever happened to Peg. When she left here that day, she was just fine.”
I don’t understand what he’s said for a long moment, until the bombshell explodes in my brain. “Excuse me? She was here? On the day she died?”
“Yes. She rode up here on one of her horses to tell me off again. She wanted me to sign on to her no-doping pledge.”
“What time was she here?” I ask. My head’s spinning. No one’s ever said that Peg left Heart Stone that day. Not a whisper. No one knew what she was doing, according to the timeline.
I’ve just stumbled onto something brand-new.
“Must have been about five,” he says. “She stayed about thirty minutes. Got to say, she sure was a good talker. She nearly convinced me, I remember that much. And when she left, she gave me this smile . . . never seen the like, I’ll tell you—that girl had spark.” Cox shook his head and reached for the bottle. He splashed the glass again. “And then she was gone. Saddest thing. What a waste.”
I’m thinking fast. My heart’s pounding, my eyes are wide, and I can feel energy vibrating all the way to my fingertips. “You’re sure it was the day that she died?”
“Absolutely,” he says. “I told that detective who came to interview me. It’s all in the records.”
It’s not in the records. Not one damn whisper of it. Someone erased it.
“Detective,” I repeat. “From the police, you mean?”
“Sure.”
“Do you happen to remember his name?”
Cox stops sipping his bourbon and turns to give me a long look. “No,” he says. I’m not sure I believe him, but it was almost twenty years ago. Maybe he just can’t remember. “Can’t recall at the moment. You can find it in the police report.”
“When did he come to see you? This detective?”
“Late. Didn’t make my wife too happy getting rung out of bed at two in the morning. That would be my first wife. She passed a couple of years back.”
Which explains the glossy, blond trophy wife with his adult children at the breakfast table. No double-checking the story, then.
I’m almost sure the detective he’s talking about will prove to be Brockman. He keeps popping up at every turn. I try to pin Cox down on a couple of other details, like where Peg was going when she left, and who else might have seen her; he gives me—reluctantly—the name of his stable manager.
“And what about all this bullshit?” he asks as I shut down the recorder. He stalks to his desk, opens a drawer, and takes out a thick handful of paper. “Letters just from yesterday. ‘Tell the truth,’ written fifty times, on this one. ‘Did you kill Peg Graham?’ on this one. ‘We’ll find out the truth about Peg Graham.’ I’ve got a hundred of ’em. Not to mention the emails, phone calls, and other assorted harassment. What do you plan to do about this? You started it. You better end it, Mackenzie. I know your mother. She depends on farms around here. That can dry up in a hot second.” His affable nature gives way to the tough businessman.
That truly chills me, and then laces red fire through my veins. He’s threatening my mom? I bite back a reply and take a breath to think before I say, “I’m going to take care of this. It might take a couple of days for me to convince them there’s nothing here for them. All right? Leave my mom out of this.”
He’s still blustering as I make my own way out. I head down the hill without the golf cart, making for the stallion barn, which is the closest; on the way, I run into a young man walking a monstrously powerful horse that eyes me critically—well, they both do—and I ask about the stable manager, Bob Reilly. The man tells me to look in the stable office inside the stallion barn.
This barn is no less a palace than that of Heart Stone Farm, but laid out a little differently; I find the office at the front, which has a harassed-looking woman with graying hair answering the phone and hanging up. She fixes me with a glare. “Where’s your badge?” she demands. I realize that I didn’t register anywhere. Cox hadn’t thought it necessary, apparently, since I was with him.
I put on my best college-girl innocence and say, “I’m so sorry, I didn’t know I needed one. I just need to talk to Mr. Reilly? Mr. Cox said I could.”
I’ve pegged the woman correctly; she’s a mom, and she makes a shift toward cautiously maternal as she replies, “Well, you do need one, but I can fix you up. I’ll need to see your ID, please.”
I deliberately show her my UK ID, and she nods and writes down the details before she hands me a large red VISITOR badge that I clip to my shirt collar. She leaves the desk for a moment, and when she comes back, she motions to me and opens the door to the next office.
I step into Bob Reilly’s personal space. It’s nice. Small, warm, smelling of horses—and a faint trace of horseshit—with tack and leather everywhere, and a desk piled with paperwork and dominated by a computer that’s nearly antique. He’s about Cox’s age, with a full head of gray hair and square spectacles through which he’s squinting at the computer screen. He glances up at me, then back at what he’s doing. “Help you?” he asks in a central Kentucky accent. “I’m busy.”
“I understand,” I say, and thumb on the recorder again. “I won’t take long. Mr. Cox says you might remember something about the day Peg Graham died . . . ?”
I’m trying not to lead my witness, and Reilly pushes back from the desk and frowns at me. He has a face made for frowning. Under the baked-on sun damage, he looks a little ill. Hard living around horses. I wonder if he’s got health problems. “Peg Graham,” he says, and spits the name like nails. “Swear to God, if I have to hear that name again . . . look. We’ve been harassed for days now by idiots from the Internet about this. If you’re one of them—”
“I’m not,” I say quickly. “I’m trying to put a stop to it. If you can just tell me what you remember, it might help me clear everything up.”
He thinks about that for a second before he shrugs and says, “She rode over here that day to have it out with Mr. Cox about the steroids we were using. They were all legal, by the way, nothing that hurt the horses. But she wanted everybody to run clean, and that just wasn’t practical all the time. Horses need care. You ignore their problems, you get trouble.”
I’m not here to debate the ethics, so I prompt him with, “Sure. So . . . when did she get here?”
“I don’t remember. Sometime around five or six. She left about half an hour later.”
“Going where?”
“Home, I guess. It’s a nice ride. Can’t swear she didn’t take a scenic route, of course. But where else is she going to go on horseback?”
He has a good point. Peg Graham wasn’t likely to take her horse to town to pick up a new dress, or have dinner with friends. She would have gone home and seen to her horse before heading up to the house . . . where she died.
“You’re Macy Walker, right?” Reilly asks, which throws me, but then I realize that the receptionist must have told him before she showed me in. “Your mom’s a hell of a good vet tech.”
“Uh . . . thanks.” If I use this recording, I’ll have to edit this part out, obviously. “I’ll tell her you said so.”
“Your mom was at Heart Stone that day,” he says as he goes back to his computer screen. “You should ask her.”
I can’t quite understand what he just said. I replay it. My brain keeps trying to change “Heart Stone” to “Irongate,” but no, that’s what he’s said. “You must be mistaken,” I tell him. “My mom wasn’t there that day.”
“Sure was,” he says, and he sounds so casually certain about it that I feel like someone has just dropped a block of concrete into my stomach. “Talked to her on the phone right after Peg cantered out of here. I wanted to get her over to take a look at one of my fillies, but she was busy at Heart Stone for the day.”
“You—you’re sure?”
“I’m old, girl, I’m not senile. Not every day someone you admire gets killed like that.”
I feel sick now. Shaky. I’m briefly worried I’m going to lose my balance. Black sparkles eat the edges of my vision, and I manage to say something and escape into the outer office. The receptionist stops me to grab my badge, but I barely notice. I just keep moving, moving so I don’t fall, and when I get to a wooden bench outside the barn, I sink onto it and put my head down and breathe in and out until the fog starts to clear.
I run the recorder back and listen. No, I didn’t misunderstand.
Mr. Reilly thinks my mom was at Heart Stone Farm.
He’s wrong. She wasn’t there. She would have said something.
Unless there was a lot more to this than I’d ever guessed.
No. Stop digging. Just stop. Ryan killed his mom. He was a baby. It wasn’t his fault. Let it go!
But I can’t let it go. People have lied to me. Brockman lied. Ryan lied. Matthews lied. Everybody I’ve talked to in this case has lied to me at some point . . . but Cox sounded like he was telling the truth. So did Reilly. And why would they be lying? They’re not suspects in Peg’s murder, not anymore, even if she did come here the day she died. She wasn’t killed here. She died at Heart Stone.
Brockman must have covered up the visit, maybe just to keep them out of it, keep Brandon’s confession clean. And maybe Brockman pressured my mom to keep quiet too . . . but why? What does my mother know that she isn’t telling me?
2.
I feel too shaky to do it immediately. Yeah, I’m a coward. I blame it on hunger and pull in at a coffee shop in town, where I order an espresso-loaded coffee and a sandwich, which I eat without even caring what’s in it. I scroll through Reddit, and that doesn’t settle my stomach much; my digital army is in a froth.
FUKU: is mackenzie fucking dead or what
There are a ton of replies to that. Most are some variation of Don’t know or Probably or Got in too deep, but there’s one that catches my attention. I don’t recognize the handle, but the post says, I saw her out and about in Lexington. She’s fine. She’s screwing us over is what she’s doing.
I should have known that they’d have eyes on me by now, but my skin still crawls at the idea that strangers are watching me. Maybe a coffee shop is a terrible choice. I look around guiltily, and though nobody’s staring in my direction, I see that everybody has a screen and/or keyboard, and anyone could be posting updates about my location even now.
I scroll down farther. There’s a poll.
Topic: What Happened to Mackenzie?
I suppose I should be thankful that the bottom two options aren’t winning, but what’s ominous, at least in terms of my credibility, is that the vote has #2 in the lead, though not by much. Once word spreads that I’m alive, well, and not behind bars, I imagine the votes for “bought off” will shoot up considerably.
Maybe my troll army will stop attacking Irongate Farm and decide to dox the shit out of me instead. Probably. I’m not even sure if I should care anymore.
I don’t want to make the call, but I do it. I dial my parents’ home number, and get their voicemail. I hang up—who leaves those anyway? Besides apparently the Reddit army calling Irongate—and try Mom’s cell. It rings and rings. I hang up and go to text.
Mom need to talk where are u
No reply.
I finish my coffee in throat-searing gulps, dump my trash, and scoot out with my head down. I don’t feel safe. I go back to my apartment, and as I unlock the door, I find myself looking around for anyone taking pictures. Paranoia’s setting in hard. There’s no police cruiser across the street at the moment, which relieves me for a second until I turn and look at the back of my car.
Someone’s put a dent in my back bumper. Not hard enough to damage my taillights, but enough to be noticeable. It wasn’t there before; I’m sure it wasn’t. When did it happen? In the coffee shop parking lot? Accident, or deliberate malice?
I check my phone again once I’m inside. Nothing from Mom. Nothing at all.
If she’s not home, I can check her files. Mom keeps detailed records, going back to the very beginning; her home office is crammed with file cabinets, everything organized by years and clients. If she was at Heart Stone, she’d have some paperwork on it. She’d have to.
I spend a few minutes on Reddit. I’m not sure what I’m going to post until I put my fingers on the keyboard and just start typing.
MisforMurder: Hey, everybody. Look, things have come up that complicate this investigation—personally and professionally. I need some time to figure out all the angles before I decide what to do next. I’m sorry to put this on pause, but I promise, when I know something new, so will you. I’m not bought off. I’m not jailed. I’m not dead in a ditch. I might be crazy, but we all knew that going into this thing.
Please don’t tear apart the lives of everybody involved in this any further until I have better info to give you. I know I can’t stop you, but you can stop yourselves. Justice for Peg doesn’t have to come at the expense of innocent people.
Thanks,
Mackenzie
That comes out better than I hoped. I post it, and then I grab my copy of my parents’ house keys that I keep on a hook by my bedroom door.
Mackenzie, out.
3.
It’s weird being home without my parents there. I used to live here, and I still feel comfortable here for dinners, but without them . . . it feels like I don’t really belong inside these rooms. Dad’s at school. Mom’s . . . wherever Mom is. But she isn’t here, at least, and I lock the front door and head back to the extra bedroom where she keeps her records.
I swing the door open, and I think I gasp, because I remember lots of files, but this is beyond. She’s added half a dozen more file cabinets, covering every inch of wall space; she’s removed the closet door and somehow stuck three more inside there. But at least she’s still organized. Each filing cabinet is clearly labeled by year. The earliest ones are nearest to the hinge side of the door, and they go counterclockwise around the room. Mom’s desk barely fits now. The whole thing feels eerily claustrophobic, and it smells like oil and metal and rust.
I know the date of Peg’s murder by heart, and I go straight to the third filing cabinet. This was early in Mom’s career, and there aren’t a ton of client folders.
But there’s one for Heart Stone Farm.
That in itself isn’t suspicious; she’s worked for all the farms at one time or another, and she’s still working for Heart Stone to this day. I pull the folder and carry it to her desk, and when I open it, the smell of Mom’s hand lotion—the same kind she still uses—comes at me in a faded, ghostly wave. I flinch a little. I’m not supposed to be here. It feels like she’s watching me.
I flip through the record of the dates and hours she’s invoiced.
Nothing for the date Peg died.
I double-check it, and I take a deep breath that’s at least a little relieved. Maybe it’s bullshit. Maybe she wasn’t there at all.
Or . . . maybe she buried the records. Shredded the proof. Also possible.
I put the folder back, and as I’m starting to slide the drawer shut, I see something at the back of the cabinet that sparks a childhood memory. Mom, with that big, bulky day planner in her hands. She never went anywhere without it. She wrote all her stuff in there on the calendars, took notes, put business cards in it.
I pull it out. It’s heavy and ridiculous, the plastic cover stiff with age; I unzip the cover and open it up. Everything’s still in there. She changed out to new planners every year, I remember that; this one has a section for a calendar, a section for notes, an hours notation, a travel and mileage section. Lots of business card pages.
I check the calendar for the date of Peg’s murder, and I see HSF written there.
HSF. Heart Stone Farm.
I check the travel and mileage log.
She’s written out mileage to Heart Stone Farm there.
But under the invoice section where she would have recorded hours to bill, there’s nothing. No billing at all.
My heart’s pounding. My mouth’s gone dry again. I zip the planner up and put it back, almost dropping it in the process, and slide the drawer shut. I’m half convinced that I hear a key in the front door lock, but it’s only the catch engaging on the file drawer, and I flee Mom’s office, closing the door behind me. Past the kitchen where we eat every week. Past the living room where all my childhood memories whisper in shadows.
I unlock the door, lock it behind me again, and head out to the car. I sit there for a long moment, staring at the leaves rustling in the trees, and jump when I feel a vibration from my cell phone in my pocket.
When I check it, there’s a text. It says, What is it, honey? What’s wrong?
While I’m reading it, Mom tries to call. I let it go to voicemail. I keep staring at the text.
She’s been lying to me. I need to find out why. But I’m not sure if I can. I’m not sure if I should anymore. All these questions, all this insanity . . . what has it helped? People have died. Every question I’ve gotten answered has led to more questions, and ultimately to ruining Ryan’s life and memories.
I should stop. Just . . . stop, before I find out more things that I don’t want to know. How many more people will get hurt if I push? How much is the truth really worth, if it keeps hurting and helps no one? Would Delilah have kept chasing that? I’d built up an illusion of who my cousin was. I was just starting to realize that I hadn’t really known her, not for years . . . and also, that she wasn’t required to let me know her, either. Nobody owes that to anyone else.
I should have let Delilah keep her secrets. And her dignity. Maybe I should have done the same for Peg.
I think about that a long time before I text Mom back.
Where r u?
There’s a delay. I sit and listen to the cicadas drone in the summer heat, and wipe sweat from my forehead. It takes what seems like an eternity before the phone shakes in my hand, and the text pops up.
Heart Stone Farm.
I feel myself sinking back into the cushions of the seat. I can’t look away from the screen until it finally powers off from lack of activity, and then I drop it onto the passenger seat and switch on the car. A blast of lava-hot air hits me, then quickly cools until it chills. I wish I could text Ryan, in this moment. I wish I had anyone, anyone I could turn to. But everyone’s either dead, or destroyed, or lying to me.
I pick up the phone again and text: On my way.
This feels like it was inevitable, somehow. Like this is the road I started down the moment I turned on the microphone that first night to introduce Mackenzie to the world.
M is now for murder.
M is also for my mother.
4.
It takes half an hour to get back out to Heart Stone Farm, and along the way, I keep thinking about why I don’t just turn around, go home, crawl back in bed, and forget all this. I don’t even know anymore. It just feels . . . impossible. It’s no longer possible my mother lied to me; it’s proven. If I turn my back on that now, I’m betraying not just the people whom I engaged in this story, or the ones who’ve died and suffered for it; I’d be betraying Delilah’s memory, and I’d be betraying myself, too.
So I keep driving. I take the turn the Heart Stone. It isn’t a tour day there, and sheepishly I look for Ryan’s truck. It’s gone, and I’m deeply, sickly relieved; his sports car is still there, with a cover over it.
At least I’m not going to run into the person I least want to see right now . . . or most want to see. God, I can’t even decide how I feel about him. Mostly, I just feel guilty. Much better to avoid him—for both of our sakes.
My mother’s truck is there, hidden in the middle of other, similar vehicles. I look as I walk past it to be certain, and find her vet tech magnetic display on the side of the door. I make sure I have my phone, and my digital recorder. I know instinctively I’m going to need both.
I ask the first farm worker I see where my mother is, and he points me toward the stallion barn. Of course.
I can’t help but look toward Peg’s roped-off office as I come in, with its cluster of trophies and the fireplace, with its inset heart stone. Peg’s portrait smiles at me, but it’s a blind, impartial smile. She’d give it to anyone, including her own killer.
This is it, I think, and stop as my mom steps out of a horse stall and secures the door. I look at her, analyzing her head to toe, as if I intend to describe her for the podcast. Maybe I do. She’s wearing jeans and a summer-weight flannel shirt, and she’s carrying her heavy leather kit bag. She turns and sees me, and smiles for a few seconds before the smile fades and uncertainty rises up in her face like a wave.
“Macy?” she asks. She takes a step toward me, and stops. “What is it? What’s wrong?”
I reach into my pocket and switch on my recorder before I say, “Mom, I need to ask you some questions. Please don’t lie to me anymore.”
“Anymore? Sweetheart, what are you talking about?” She seems rattled. Good. I need her rattled. I’m confronting her exactly where I should be doing so, where she’s least certain of herself. “I was just finishing up. Let’s go home and talk about whatever this is. Is it Delilah?”
“No,” I say. I come forward, since she isn’t moving toward me anymore. “Mom, I need you to stop lying. You were here.”
Mom’s always been a pretty bad liar, but in that moment, she’s as transparent as a pane of glass. She goes an unhealthy shade of pale, and I can see the horror all over her face. But then she rallies, because my mom’s strong. Like me. “I really have no idea what you’re talking about,” she says. “Of course I’m here. This is where I work.”
“You were here that day. The day Peg Graham died. And you never told me about it. You knew I was trying to find out the truth, and you deliberately covered it up. Why? Did you see something?”
She doesn’t answer. I don’t think she can. She seems to be frozen in place.
“Mom! I dug until . . . until Ryan’s grandfather told me what happened . . . or at least, what he says happened. He says Ryan was playing with a loaded gun and shot his mom. He told Ryan that. Do you know what that did to him? He’s spent most of his life unsure how his mom died, and then he’s told that he did it?” I see her flinch, and I press the advantage. “But you know what? I don’t think he did. It sounded plausible at first. It sounded like everybody worked to cover up the truth so a little boy wouldn’t have to go through life suffering. But now I think it was something else. And I think you know what really happened.”
She finds her voice, finally. And her fear. “Macy, you need to leave this alone! You have to leave it alone! Just . . . walk away. Please. I’m begging you!”
“There were rumors that Ryan’s dad was having an affair. Is that it? Were you screwing the lord of the manor and she found out? Did you kill her?” That last sentence comes out in a shout, and I realize the stallions in their stalls are moving now, restless and alarmed by our confrontation. I can hear them banging and whinnying. The horse in the stall Mom just left has his head out, and his eyes look wide and wild. He jerks it back, and I hear a loud, shocking bang. He’s kicked the stall.
“No, god no, Macy. Lower your voice,” Mom says. “You’re frightening them.”
“Fuck the horses, Mom. I want to know: Did you kill Peg?”
“No! How could you even think that?”
“I looked in your files. I found your day planner. You were here that day. You recorded it. And Reilly over at Irongate knew you were here, too. That’s corroboration. Just stop trying to think of a way out and tell me the truth. You must be so tired of lying, Mom. You’re not that person.”
There’s silence. The horses start to settle a little, since we’re not shouting, and I get enough sanity back to realize that the last thing I want to do is cause any of these million-dollar walking investments any kind of injury.
My mom sags back against the wall beside her, and looks down at her boots. They’re flecked with manure, and have hay stuck to the bottom. “Maybe I am that kind of person,” she says. “Exactly that kind of person. Did you ever think of that?” Her voice sounds strange. Not like hers at all. I’m looking at my mom, and I realize that I haven’t really looked in a long time; she’s been a placeholder in my world, a mom-shaped hole into which I pour my expectations.
I see her now, and I see a stranger who has secrets and ambitions, desires and flaws. A person.
A person I don’t know if I can trust at all.
I shake my head without answering. Her voice sounds thin and ragged, and she’s breathing too fast. When she finally looks at me again, there are tears shimmering in her eyes. Have I ever really noticed the color of my mother’s eyes before? They’re hazel, with flecks of copper.
“I didn’t kill anyone,” Mom finally says. Her voice catches on the hook of a swallowed sob. “But I was here. When it happened.”
Her distress is still infecting the horses. They’re shifting in their stalls again, whinnying, and there’s another sharp bang as one kicks at a board. It’s close to evening now. We should get out of here. Ryan could be coming back, and if he hears this commotion, he’ll come running, and then, god, I can’t even imagine what will happen then. There are other workers out, too; some will be heading for their vehicles after knocking off for the day. One will surely hear this.
I open my mouth to tell her I want to leave, but she speaks first.
She says, “Peg caught us.”
My voice dies in my throat. I have a sick, hot flash of my mother here with Ryan’s dad, and the nausea hits me hard enough to make me cringe. It’s the worst, grossest version of the story, and I never wanted to hear this.
“You and Dick,” I say, with real effort. I just want to run away, at this point. I just want to unsee that vision, and unhear this conversation, forever. Chasing the truth just keeps leading me into more and more darkness.
I should have settled for the comfortable lies.
“Yes,” she says, and then takes a sharp breath and covers her mouth with her hand. “Oh, no, Macy, not that. It wasn’t an affair. I’d never do that! And definitely not with him.”
The loathing in her voice surprises me, and steadies me, too. I can’t imagine what she’s talking about if it isn’t knocking boots with the boss, and she isn’t forthcoming, so I finally ask. “Then what did Peg catch you doing?”
“Peg caught us doping the horses,” she says, as if it’s the most natural thing in the world. As if it’s perfectly obvious. And once she says it, I realize that it was perfectly obvious, if I hadn’t been running down so many wrong paths all this time. “Dick insisted. He thought they were going to lose the Derby for sure, running a clean horse against ones full of painkillers, and I didn’t think he was wrong about that. He needed the money; he’d gambled away the working capital. He couldn’t afford a loss. Not right in the beginning like that. Peg never . . . she never understood that. She just wanted to do the right thing.”
“And she caught you two doing the wrong thing. To her Derby horse.”
Mom slowly nods. She seems better now that she’s said it. Calmer. “It wasn’t the first time, but she’d never realized it before.”
“Why did you keep that secret? Why would you do that?”
“Why do you think?” A flash of impatience now that surprises me, as does the glare she levels at me. “Do you think you got to do everything you wanted on the salary of a teacher and a vet tech? Money. It wasn’t illegal. Peg didn’t pay the bills, Dick did, and I was doing what the boss said.”
“I don’t mean the doping, I don’t care about that! I mean Peg’s murder!” She doesn’t answer. Her gaze slides away, as though she can’t stand to think about it in my presence. “Mom! What happened when she caught you?”
Mom takes in a deep breath and scrubs at her face with both hands. They’re trembling, I can see it. “She had the little boy in her arms.”
Ryan. She was holding Ryan when she came into the barn and saw what they were doing. Ryan, who remembered the sound of a gunshot.
“What happened?” I’m gentler this time. I just want her to tell me. She’s terrified, I can see it. And horrified, too. “Please. I promise, I’m not mad. I just need to know.”
She has to tell me. I wonder how she managed to keep it inside all this time, all the guilt and horror buried so deep. She had to think of it sometimes. I wondered if it ever hit her when she was sitting behind the Girl Scout cookie table, or playing Monopoly, or watching movies with her arm around me that she’d left a child my age without a mother.
“She was angry,” Mom says quietly. “She ordered me out, and I was packing up. The horses were unsettled, like now. I just—I stayed when they started arguing. I tried to calm them down. And then when she put Ryan down . . . he looked so small. He was crying. I went and got him, and when I did . . . I couldn’t have stopped it, honey. Please believe me. I didn’t know Peg had a gun. I didn’t know Dick would—”
Everything made sense now. Everything. Ryan, hearing the shot. The horses, screaming at the smell of blood while Peg lay dying.
“Did you suggest Dick call his father for help or did he come up with that on his own?” I ask.
“He called . . . said Richard would know what to do.”
“And I guess you helped Dick carry Peg to the house,” I say. “You helped him stage the scene. You cleaned up the barn and made sure there was no trace she died here.” I swallow. “Why the horseshoe?”
Mom shakes her head. “He just thought . . . he thought she’d want it. He was beside himself.” That sounds helpless. Pitiful. Even angry as I am, I hear the devastation in my mother’s voice.
“And where’s the gun?”
She’s still shaking her head, and I imagine she’s going to tell me she has no idea. But that’s the moment when everything changes.
Because I’ve forgotten to look behind me, and now I hear a voice say, “Hey, ladies.”
When I turn, I’m surprised—and at the same time, not surprised—that it’s Len Brockman. The first detective on the scene of Peg’s murder. Security for the Order of St. Franklin. The fixer for old man Carlisle, who must have realized that his son was going to prison for life. Brockman was sent to clean things up.
And he’s still doing it.
“Len,” my mom says. She’s different, all of a sudden. She walks forward and puts herself directly between us. “Good to see you. Were—were you looking for Mr. Carlisle? He isn’t here, I’m afraid.”
“Yeah, I know,” Brockman says. He’s smoking. Why am I not surprised? He stubs out his cigarette, then steps through the door and pulls it shut. Engages the high-tech locks. “Your daughter asked a very good question. Where is the gun, Vikki? Because I’m starting to think that maybe you know, after all.”