Carolyn promised to call as soon as she had any information. Bet and Rob left E’burg soon after. As they drove home in Bet’s SUV, Rob remained lost in thought. They drove west up the valley toward the mountains and Collier. Hayfields and small ranches ranged alongside the freeway as they crossed back and forth over the Yakima River. The crystal-clear water raced across stones and reflected the blue sky in the slower, deeper pools.
“So,” Bet finally said to break the silence. “I have to ask. Do you have any idea who might have killed your mother?”
“I was just contemplating that myself,” Rob said.
Bet sped up and changed lanes to get around a truck towing a horse trailer. She passed the rig and moved to the right lane again. The mountains rose in front of them like a wall of granite that split Eastern Washington from the west side. Snow-capped peaks showed where glaciers survived, despite raising global temperatures.
“Something is wrong with my timeline, though.” Bet settled back at seventy miles an hour. “Didn’t your mother disappear before I was even born? How would I have seen her put in the lake?”
“I don’t know. She must have come back into town and I didn’t know about it.”
“That puts your dad—”
“Top of the list. I get it,” Rob said.
“Or, if Lillian and Michael Chandler did have an affair,” Bet said, thinking about the information she had, and how it could possibly form an answer to her questions, “she could have been coming back to Collier, to you and your dad, and Michael killed her. That would explain why Michael finally left for good. If I killed someone I abandoned my family for, I’d never come back either. Maybe Michael snapped.”
Rob closed his eyes for a moment, leaning back against the headrest. “When did you last see Michael Chandler?”
“It’s been years. And I can’t imagine he would be in town and I wouldn’t know about it.”
Unless he just comes and goes late at night sometimes, without anyone seeing him. Like a ghost. Bet thought of the collection of things left in the cave. Someone who is a part of our community, and yet not? Could Michael and her father have set up the cave together? George said military people would know the knots too. Maybe her father had continued to see Michael even after Michael left.
“You’re going to have to talk to his sons,” Rob said. “I heard Eric was in town. Maybe he’s seen his dad recently.”
“He said he hadn’t,” Bet said.
“Are you sure he’s telling the truth?”
Eric was capable of great deception.
“I’ll call Dylan and talk to him first, then go out and see Eric in person,” she said. “Are you going to contact your father?”
“I don’t know. I’d rather be with him in person to see his reaction when I tell him.”
Bet thought about the new case Lillian Collier represented. Bet would have to open a case file on her. Even if she was connected to Emma Hunter’s murder, her death and disposal were separate crimes.
“I’d like to talk to your father before you do,” she said. “Where is he now?”
“I thought you knew,” Rob said, looking over at Bet.
“Nope. I don’t keep track of your father.”
“He lives in Vietnam.”
A country with no extradition treaty with the United States.
“Why did he go so far away?”
“He visited there regularly for business. I guess he fell in love with the country. It wasn’t like he had anything left here.”
Once they arrived in Collier, Rob drove back to his place. Bet sent Alma home, overriding her argument that she should put in a few more hours. Then Bet went to her office and sat at her desk. She had a short conversation with Dylan, asking if he’d had any contact with his father. Bet explained she found something of Michael’s in her father’s effects she wanted to give him, and Dylan appeared to believe her story. He said he’d lost all contact with him and had no interest in helping Bet track him down.
“Whatever it is you have of my father’s, Bet, you can keep it,” Dylan said, before he hung up the phone. “I don’t even want to know what it is.”
Todd Jones wouldn’t be able to get back to Collier for a few days; too many other cases kept him busy elsewhere. Bet assured him they could wait. Dale would be on call tonight. Clayton was at the mine entrance, so for now, there was nothing to be done.
As she stared blankly at the computer screen, the search bar mocked her. “There’s nothing to search for,” she said to the machine. “I don’t know what direction to look anymore, and I can’t force my memories to show me any more than they already have about the man who dumped Lillian into the lake.”
“Thank God,” she said when her cell phone rang, grateful for the distraction. She looked down to see Eric’s number. She started to send it to voice mail, but changed her mind. She had to talk to Eric; it might as well be now.
His surprise came through the phone when Bet answered.
“I grew accustomed to hearing your voice mail,” he said, his voice intimate in her ear.
“Sorry,” Bet said. “It’s been a bit …” She let her words drift off, hoping Eric would fill the silence.
“How about a drink?” Eric asked. Bet surprised him further by agreeing.
They arranged to meet at “the Bar,” as it was so creatively named, a place that tended to the more serious drinkers in the community. They didn’t serve food, unless you counted pretzels and peanuts. No kids or dogs allowed.
Bet drove home and gave Schweitzer a quick walk. Once again she ignored her father’s voice telling her to clean out the gutters, but she did pause long enough to pull the garden hose out and water the bright, cheerful daisies before they wilted even more from the hot sunlight that would return tomorrow. She felt relief there were no new notes on her door.
Thinking of how neglected the Chandlers’ house felt, she assessed her own windows and decided she’d have to get the Windex out soon.
Bet sighed and entered the house. Walking through the quiet rooms, she made her way to the kitchen in the back. The scarred and marked rose-colored linoleum she’d helped her father put down when she was six still covered the floor. The cream-colored walls showed the scuff marks of a house well lived in. Pencil marks along one doorframe marked Bet’s continual progress in height, ending her first year of high school at five feet eight inches. After that, she didn’t want to know how tall she became.
Stooping to pick up Schweitzer’s food bowl, she put in two scoops from the bin on the floor in the pantry. After giving him fresh water, Bet went upstairs.
She went all the way into the master bedroom’s walk-in closet before she finally clicked on a light to find something to wear. She pulled a canvas jacket over a T-shirt and jeans and let her hair down, releasing her curls from the various pins that had anchored them all day. She stood for a moment, peering at her wavy image in the antique mirror, wondering what Eric saw when he looked at her now.
Mostly, she looked tired. Dark circles painted the fragile skin under her eyes, eyes the color of milk chocolate in the dim light. She thought briefly about putting on a little makeup but talked herself out of it. “It doesn’t matter what Eric sees,” she said to her reflection. “Not anymore.”
Eric had been back in the area off and on over the years. He could have been stealing items and stashing them down in the caves, but Bet couldn’t find any reason for it.
The one thing Eric had going for him, besides history, was that he hadn’t killed Lillian. His beard was too thin to be the man Bet remembered. And she did believe the same person killed Emma.
Bet shut off the lights and went back downstairs in the dark.
“Sorry, Schweitz,” Bet said as she got ready to leave. “You can’t come with me this time.”
The dog crawled up into his favorite chair and lay his head on the back, solemnly watching Bet through the window as she exited the house. It gave her heart a tug to leave him behind.
She arrived at the bar to find Eric holding down a table in the back. As she made her way through the murky darkness, which looked to be full of smoke even though smoking had been banned for years, her boots crunched on the concrete floor covered with peanut shells. The spots of light over the bar illuminated the bottles far more than the patrons or the bartender.
Eric sat in a corner of the room, a knit cap pulled low on his head despite the residual warmth of summer outside. He must have bought a pitcher before she arrived, as one sat in front of him along with an extra glass, so Bet walked over and settled in. They both pressed their backs against the wall, their shoulders almost touching.
“I didn’t know if you still liked dark beer. I hope you don’t mind.” Eric leaned forward. More light fell onto his features, and Bet could see the ice blue of his eyes. The lines around his mouth appeared etched deeper than when she’d last seen him, and she wondered if being home aged him or something else weighed on his mind.
She reached out to pour herself a glass, but Eric beat her to it, taking the ice-cold mug from her hand. “I’ll take that as a yes.”
“You wanted to talk?” Bet asked.
“Finish everything that had you so busy?” Eric asked, instead of answering her question. He set the glass in front of her.
“No. But a little time away might be exactly what I need.”
They fell silent, the easy camaraderie of their early years a strained memory.
“How well do you remember my father?” She could tell by his expression that the question was a surprise. She hadn’t planned to ask; it just came out.
“I didn’t see him much after I moved away. Is that what you mean?”
“No. When we were kids. How well do you remember him from when we were kids?”
“I remember I wished he was my dad. My dad was so … absent, even before he left for good. Earle was quiet, but at least he was always here.”
“Funny,” Bet said.
“What’s that?” Eric asked, one side of his mouth turning up in a smile while the other didn’t. Bet remembered that expression well. Eric wore that half smile when he truly listened. She could always tell when his mind was far away because both sides of his mouth would tilt up if he faked it.
“I remember wishing I had your dad. Your father wasn’t always around, but when he was, he was so much more fun. Earle always felt gone even when he was here.”
“I never thought about my dad that way,” Eric said.
“Michael saw things differently than the rest of us. One time we went fly-fishing over in Idaho. You remember that trip?”
“Sure, we were fishing the Clark.” There’d been only one trip to Idaho before Michael abandoned his family.
“Me and your dad went upstream while the rest of you went down.”
“Seems to me we caught a big string of fish, but you and my dad came back with squat.”
“We did catch a fish. We caught the biggest fish I’d ever seen. A rainbow.” Bet held her hands two feet apart. “Had to be this big.”
“You lost it?”
“Nope. Your dad, he held it through the gills so he wouldn’t damage it and pulled the hook out. He had us using barbless. He said, ‘Come here, Lizzie.’ Remember how he called me that?” Eric nodded. “He said, ‘Look real close at this one.’ I did. I mean, I really looked at a fish for the first time. How the light played on the colors of its sides, the big dark circle of its eye. Then he slipped it back into the water and we watched it swim away.”
“I don’t believe you. Why would he do that?”
“He said, ‘Some things, Lizzie, they’re just too pretty to kill. Best to leave him here in his pool. We know exactly where he is if we want to see him again. If we kill him, he’s gone for good.’”
Eric sat quiet.
“Do you remember my mom?” Bet asked.
“I remember she was beautiful. You look a lot like her, you know.”
“Do I? I thought I looked more like Dad.”
“You have her incredible hair.” Eric reached out for a curl and wrapped it around his finger, the way he used to. He tugged and watched it spring back into place. Bet froze. The gesture felt good. Bet had lived with loneliness for so long, she’d forgotten what it felt like when she wasn’t alone.
“Why do you think she killed herself?”
“This isn’t what I thought we’d be talking about tonight,” Eric said.
“I know, I just …” Bet wanted to tell the man who’d meant so much to her all those years ago about the doubts she had around her father’s “accident.” How she believed he’d taken his own life rather than fight his cancer. That he’d brought her back to town so he could leave it in her hands, which meant she should have seen what he planned and prevented it. What kind of sheriff didn’t know her own father was going to commit suicide?
She longed to tell Eric everything, like she used to, back when they were the only two people in the world. Like how her mother’s bracelet sat inside the cave and Bet wondered if her father had put it there or disposed of Lillian Collier in the lake. Bet reminded herself that Eric was still hiding things. It was his fingerprint on the flashlight Rob had found in the cave.
“Well, you know about the affair.” Eric broke the silence.
“Affair?”
Discomfort flashed across Eric’s face, then embarrassment. “Ah. You didn’t know. I’m sorry, I—”
Bet cut him off. “What affair are we talking about? There’s been so many.”
Eric didn’t rise to the bait, but continued. “Your mother. I don’t know why I thought you knew.”
Bet took a long swallow of beer, her thoughts whirling. “Who with? And why do you know about it?”
“I overheard your mom talking about it with my mom. They didn’t know I was home, I guess. They were both a little drunk.”`
“What did you hear?”
“Just that. Your mother slept with someone else and she felt guilty about it, even though it had been over for a long time. Believe me, I understand the feeling.”
Bet ignored Eric’s reference to their own history. “Who? Who was it with?”
Eric shrugged and took a drink from his mug. “Why does it matter now?”
“My mother had an affair? I thought your mother had the affair.”
Had all the adults in Collier been cheating? Or was Lillian’s affair with Michael a lie? She had been dead all these years, so she wasn’t off living somewhere with him. “What do you remember from their conversation? You must have heard more than that.”
“I remember my mom saying something about how money wasn’t everything but it sure beat nothing. I’m not sure how that fit in, except maybe …”
“The other man had money.” Bet finished Eric’s thought.
“Maybe.”
“Like Robert Collier?”
“Robert Collier!” Eric’s response came out louder than Bet thought the name warranted.
“Why is that so hard to believe?” She didn’t remember Rob’s father well, but he was a handsome man in his own right.
“It’s not that.” Eric paused. “I guess it’s possible. Maybe that’s what she meant. I didn’t think about it at the time. I was too busy hoping to hear about sex.”
Bet punched him in the shoulder.
“Ow! What? I was a curious kid. It wasn’t like my mother was the one talking about screwing around.” Eric rubbed his shoulder.
“What happened?” Bet asked, curious how he would explain his injury.
“You can’t laugh.”
Bet held up two fingers in the Boy Scout salute. “Scout’s honor.”
“I was moving furniture around and a bookcase fell on me.”
“Seriously?”
“Seriously.”
Bet started to laugh.
“You promised not to do that,” Eric said.
“I didn’t know it would be such a dumb story.”
“Thanks a lot. I’m being honest with you, and you make fun.”
“I hope it pinned you down for a while. How’d you get out from underneath it?”
Bet continued to chuckle at the image of Eric stuck under a mountain of books with one of the old, solid walnut bookshelves of his mother’s stretched across his fallen form like a tree down in a storm. The story had a ring of truth. She’d seen the furniture he’d moved around.
“I’m lucky I didn’t get seriously hurt.”
“Should I write the bookcase up? Assault as a deadly weapon?”
Eric took another drink of his beer, then started to laugh himself. “I can imagine how it looked. I’d taken all the books out, and it turned out it was a lot more top heavy than I anticipated. It started to go over and I threw myself under it, thinking I could stop it, and …” He shrugged. Their laughter died down, and with it the tension that crackled between them since Bet had first laid eyes on him a few days ago.
“They were all friends, you know. Years ago.”
“Who were?” Bet asked, confused.
“My parents and your parents and the Colliers. Before everything turned so … wrong.”
“My parents were friends with the Colliers?”
“That’s what I was told. It was a long time ago, before we were born.”
Bet looked at Eric, wondering what he really knew.
“When is the last time you saw your dad?”
“You asked me that already.” He dodged her eyes.
“Remind me.”
“We don’t stay in touch.” He evaded her question again.
Bet let it go for the moment; she couldn’t force him to tell her anything. She thought instead about how to bring up the flashlight.
“Did you know there’s another entrance to the Collier mine?” Bet hoped the element of surprise might cause Eric to say something he wouldn’t otherwise.
Eric looked at Bet with an intensity she hadn’t seen before. “You know?” he asked, his voice dropped low.
“Know? Know what?”
“About the mine, about …”
“What Eric? What about the mine? What is it you think I know?”
Eric looked down into his beer as if it held answers.
“If you’re in some kind of trouble, I can help you,” Bet said softly, trying not to break the intimacy of the moment.
Eric looked at Bet. “I was going to say the same thing to you.”
“I don’t understand.”
“I hear you’ve been spending time with Robert Collier. If you’re … involved in some way.”
“Involved with what?” Bet couldn’t believe Eric thought she had anything to do with the murders, and had no idea how he knew about them. She’d only told him Emma died in an accident and asked if he recognized Seeley’s photo. “Are you involved in some way?”
Eric sat back for a moment while the two glared at each other, neither wanting to give anything away. Finally, Eric put his hands up. “Wait a minute. Just, wait. Are we talking about the same thing?”
“Since I don’t know what you’re talking about, how can I answer that?”
“What do you know about the old mine?” Eric asked.
“Why did I find a flashlight with your bloody fingerprint on it in the tunnel?”
“My flashlight?” Eric’s voice trailed off. “So that’s what happened to it. I knew I dropped it somewhere.”
“Want to explain what you were doing there?” Bet was surprised he was so quick to admit he’d left something at the scene of Emma’s murder and the attempted murder of Seeley.
“Research.”
“Research into what?” Bet’s mind spun. Did Eric know about the gold? If he was involved in some way with the bodies down there, he wouldn’t say research or admit so quickly he’d been there.
“How well do you know Robert Collier?” Eric asked.
“Junior or Senior?”
“Either.”
“I don’t know Senior at all. Junior, just a few days.”
Eric struggled with himself, but talking to Bet finally won out. “I guess I should tell you what happened.”
“That would be a very good idea.”
“Relax, Bet. You look like you’re ready to bolt out the door. I just want answers about my mother’s death.”
“Your mother?” Bet had not expected this turn in the conversation.
Eric leaned into her, dropping his voice. “I want to believe I can trust you. I want to believe you aren’t in on this.”
“What is the this you’re referring to?”
“It’s the water, Bet. The water in the lake killed my mom.”