Bet’s stomach grumbled as she reached the edge of town. She headed over to the Lakeshore Tavern for dinner before going home. She parked the SUV in the side lot and opened the back for Schweitzer to hop out.
They walked into the neighborhood bar, where the rough pine walls and solid beams that supported the pressed-tin ceiling made up one of Bet’s favorite safe havens. Autographed photos of bluegrass musicians who’d stopped by to play over the years hung on the walls.
The heels of her hiking boots thunked on the planks of the hardwood floors as she crossed the main room. The locals called out their greetings and she waved at the bartender, who hailed her with a hearty “Bet!”
“New tattoo, Rope?” Bet asked the bartender as she crossed over to say hello. Between his strange name and his penchant for body art, Rope managed to stand out in a town of unusual characters. The beefy man peeled the white gauze down off a patch on a forearm reminiscent of Popeye’s and held it out for inspection.
“What do you think?” He admired his latest acquisition. His shaved head glimmered with a sheen of sweat in the warm room, and Bet could see the rows of rings, barbells, and other bits and pieces of iron sticking out of his face and ears in direct contrast to the vintage western clothes he wore when he worked behind the bar. He looked like a futuristic cowboy.
“That’s the best-looking bat tattoo I’ve ever seen. It balances really well with the Celtic design here.” Bet pointed to the tattoo above it, hoping she’d said the right thing. His broad grin swept across his face and his eyes lit up.
“Thanks, Bet. I knew I could count on you to appreciate it. You going to sit in here and listen to music? Folks are going to pick tonight,” he said, referencing the live bluegrass jam sessions that took place regularly.
Bet loved to hang out when the local musicians played around the hearth, the fireplace empty in the summer heat, but she shook her head. “I’m heading out to my table, but I’d like to show you something first. We had a young woman die in an accident nearby, and I need to make an identification.”
Rope’s expression turned serious as he took the photo from Bet’s hand. He looked closely, but shook his head. “Sorry, Bet. I don’t remember seeing her.”
“Okay. Thanks. I’ll check with Tomás when I see him.”
Rope handed the photo back to her. “Do you know what you want?”
“I need a minute.”
“Burger patty for Schweitzer?”
“Yep.” Bet patted the dog on the head. “You know how he likes it.”
“Rare and now,” they said together.
“I’ll send Tomás out.” Rope caught his partner’s attention and signaled him to follow Bet outside when he finished up with his current customers, communicating wordlessly as only lovers and coworkers could do.
Bet went out onto the porch, trailed by the sound of instruments tuning up and the scent of burgers on the grill. Schweitzer squeezed his body under Bet’s favorite table at the far end of the deck, high above the water of the lake. She was glad she’d pulled her coat out of the SUV, knowing the temperature would continue to drop. High elevations after dark were often colder than the flatlands.
Tomás arrived with a fresh bowl of water for Schweitzer. She showed him Jane Doe’s photograph, but he also shook his head.
“Sorry, Bet. Do you want a minute with the menu?”
She said yes, and Tomás left her with a promise to return soon.
Bet decided on her order and leaned back to listen to the buzz coming from inside the lively restaurant. She took a deep breath to release the stress of the day. Her mind went to Rob Collier’s appearance. What was the likelihood he’d randomly reappeared in town at the same time a woman showed up dead in the lake that abutted his property? He could be lying about when he arrived, having rolled into town last night in time to drop Jane Doe in the lake before Peter found her this morning. He would know how to tie those odd knots.
It wasn’t long before she started to imagine her father’s voice. Conversations from the past. Tips for her future in law enforcement. She never knew what gem would surface at any given time.
“Don’t get me wrong, Bet. The first shot in a gunfight is important,” she remembered him saying not long before he died. “But never underestimate longevity in battle.”
Bet let her father’s voice continue. Since his death, she’d replayed old conversations, looking for clues into how he thought. Had he really fallen from a trail he knew like the back of his hand? Or had the cancer fight been one battle he couldn’t face? Had he really intended for Bet to fill in for a short time, or had he lured her back to stay?
“Never run out of ammunition. An empty gun is just a chunk of metal getting heavy in your hand.” The combat veteran her father had been never fully returned to civilian life.
Sometimes she added questions she wished she’d asked but never had the courage to bring up while he was still alive.
Wasn’t easy for Mom, was it, Dad?
Bet’s perspective on her parents’ relationship had changed over the years, she realized, looking at it now with adult eyes. Her mother Fiona had been more outgoing than her father, though neither was particularly gregarious. Fiona had enjoyed small groups of people. Three or four musicians would come over to play and sing, out in the backyard in the summertime or squeezed into the living room in the dead of winter. Bet remembered sitting at the top of the stairs, tucked around the corner out of sight, listening long past her bedtime. Between songs, their voices would rise and fall with music all their own, amusement at jokes Bet didn’t understand, shushes when anyone laughed too loud, reminders that a child slept upstairs.
One night she crawled farther out above the stairs than usual, a particular song catching her ear, and without realizing it she crept into her mother’s line of sight. Glancing up, either because of motion in the corner of her eye or from a mother’s intuition, Fiona locked eyes with her five-year-old. Bet froze, certain that punishment hung over her head for climbing out of bed so late, but her mother winked and returned to the song.
At the time Bet had felt solely relief, but now, years later, she realized it had been a pact made between mother and daughter to keep a secret from the man who made the rules. Bet wondered what other secrets Fiona kept. Like why suicide seemed the best option.
When Bet was ten, her mother had hung herself from a beam in the garage. An act that brought Bet’s father home early from his latest deployment and ended his military career, returning him to civilian law enforcement—deputy to his father first, then sheriff after him, as all the Rivers men had done. Keeping the links in the chain unbroken since the time Collier was nothing more than a few prospectors from the railroad looking for coal.
Bet had started to relive her father tearing down the garage when a voice broke into her memories.
Peter had walked out onto the deck, Tomás trailing close behind. “Hello, Sheriff. Mind if I join you?”
“Following me, Professor?”
Peter laughed. “Not a lot of choices in town.”
“Pull up a chair.” At least it would quiet her father’s voice.
Bet wanted to learn more about Peter, so she encouraged him to talk about his work. It was clear he loved what he did, though he remained vague about the project that had brought him to Collier. She asked questions about his students, how many he had each year, graduate or undergraduate.
“Do you find more women going into the hard sciences?” she asked, curious about his contact with young women.
“I do, yes,” he said.
Jane Doe was college age, the University of Washington in Seattle by far the largest university in the state. Ellensburg was closer but less than half the size.
“Do you advise many female students?”
Peter looked uncomfortable. “Why do you ask that?”
“Curiosity. I know what it’s like to pursue a career in a male-dominated field. I’m wondering what it’s like for women at U-Dub.”
“We have a number of women on the faculty as well.”
“They’re more popular with the students coming in?”
Peter laughed, though it had a bitter tinge. “Are you asking if I’m considered a dinosaur?”
“I looked to the experienced women on the police force for guidance. I thought your female students might too.”
Peter nodded, an expression that might be sorrow on his face. “I can understand that. To answer your question, yes. Female students tend to gravitate to female professors as advisers.”
“That bothers you?”
“It does. I’m there to teach every student, regardless of gender. I like to think I have something to offer everyone.”
Bet thought he might be telling the truth, at least as he saw it.
“What piqued your interest in our lake specifically?”
“There’s a lot going for it. It’s remote, but still accessible by road.” His eyes searched for something to focus on besides her face.
Which also made it a good place to dispose of a body. But she still couldn’t see a reason for dumping the body in the lake. Jane Doe would have been less likely to be found out in the woods.
Maybe someone wanted her found.
“There are plenty of remote lakes in our area,” she said. “There must be more to it than easy road access and a rumor about a train.”
Peter changed the subject. “I’ve talked enough about me. Tell me something about you. What do you do besides fight crime and keep the streets safe for the citizens? Hobbies? You must have hobbies.”
The thought of surfing the net looking for photos of missing girls who matched Jane Doe rose in her mind’s eye. She pictured her father with stacks of Polaroid photos from a crime scene. Pouring over them late at night when he couldn’t sleep, positioned like tarot cards on his desk. Bet would sit quietly next to him as he rearranged the photos over and over, ruminating on clues hidden in the images.
Bet decided to let the conversation move away from Peter for a while. She’d circle back around later. “Fly-fishing, I guess. Though I’m not sure if that’s a hobby or a religion.”
“Fly-fishing. That’s great,” Peter said. “Let me guess, you have an older brother.”
Bet pictured Dylan and Eric Chandler, her surrogate brothers. She’d learned to fly-fish with her father, Dylan and Eric, and their dad, Michael, before the scandal sent Michael out of town. The five of them would string out along a river, waiting for the fish to rise. Bet’s father and Michael Chandler had both survived their deployments, first in Kosovo, later in Afghanistan.
Still beats fishing in the Nerodimka, the two men would say when the fish weren’t biting.
“I was my father’s only child,” Bet said. She wondered if Jane Doe had siblings. How many people waited for her to come home?
“What do you fish for? Cutthroat trout? Rainbow? Smallmouth bass?”
“Are you an avid fisherman yourself?” Bet remembered his wistfulness at the fact that no fish lived in their lake.
“I’m not, but tell me what you love about it.”
Bet laughed; usually it was only other anglers interested in her fishing. She launched into a description of the perfect cast. The ten and two o’clock wave of the arm, line, and fly. She described a few of her favorite fishing spots, though her mind kept returning to the lake.
The lake that shushed softly beneath them, the water reflecting light back through the cracks in the floorboards of the deck. The strings of white Christmas lights tacked to the wall threw a warm glow onto the aged wood of the porch and lined the obsidian-black water below.
During a pause in the conversation, music flooded through the open back door, the Appalachian hills of her mother’s homeland made present through song.
In Scarlet town where I was born, there was a fair maid dwelling …
“Are you singing?” Peter asked.
“Just a little.” Bet picked up her glass to cover her self- consciousness. She hadn’t meant to sing out loud.
“You’ve a real pretty voice,” Peter said. “Those all local musicians in there?”
Bet said they probably were, and the two sat quiet to listen.
“They sound good, too,” Peter said.
The air, tinged now with a chill blown up from the surface of the lake, made them shrug on the jackets they’d brought with them—Peter’s a rugged, heavy cotton, the type worn by men who labored with heavy machinery, baggy on his lanky form; Bet’s a supple leather. Mist rose from the lake and spread across the surface, turning the black to gray.
Bet brought the conversation back to his arrival at the lake. “You’ve never been here before? To the lake?”
“Nope, nope, this is my first trip here to your lovely hamlet.”
“Why now?” she asked. “Something must have prompted your research project.”
“It’s been on my mind to do for a long time, and I need to … well, let’s just say I hope to find something worth publishing. Tenure beckons.”
Bet had started to ask another question when Peter swallowed the last of his beer. “I’d better find the men’s room.” He cut off her words and picked up Bet’s empty glass as well. “Need anything, Sheriff?”
“I’m fine.”
Bet watched him go through the door into the main room. Though he didn’t strike her as a psychopath who’d killed a girl then “found” her as a way to insert himself into the investigation, he kept secrets. She made a mental note to run the license plate on his trailer. If it didn’t belong to the professor or the university, maybe she could find out who funded his study.
They parted ways in the parking lot. Malone pedaled off to his campsite after a firm handshake and a caution from Bet about biking the narrow road at night. She and Schweitzer climbed back into her SUV.
Arriving home, she paused for a moment outside, looking over her house. Earle never rebuilt the garage after his wife’s death. Bright moonlight cast the two-story craftsman into shades of electric blue. The house sat under tall evergreens, which covered the roof with needles.
Her father would tell her to get out the ladder and clean the gutters before the fall rains came.
The house could also use a fresh coat of paint, at least on the front, faded from sunlight, but the window boxes overflowed with multicolored pansies, while the cheerful faces of white and yellow daisies lined the walkway. Bet didn’t have a green thumb, but she’d managed to keep them alive through the summer.
“I should plant something other than a few flowers, Dad,” she’d said to him not long before he died.
“Gardening was your mother’s job.”
Bet remembered fresh vegetables when she was a child, though she’d been too young to appreciate them. Working with her mother out in the backyard, Bet had liked to dig into the cool earth and find earthworms, which she held, wriggling in her hands, fascinated by creatures who could survive underground.
Bet walked across the creaky front porch. A white patch glowed in the dim light. Someone had left her a note.
She unfolded it, shining light from her cell phone on the paper.
Outsider.
Just a single word typed on the page.
She let herself in through the front door, unlocked as always, and made her way through the house without turning any lights on, the note in her hand. The house hadn’t changed since Bet was a child. Up she went, knowing where every piece of furniture sat, hulking in the dark hoping to bite a shin; the exact spot where the carpet runner needed to be retacked on the stair, requiring that she step to the side to keep from tripping; the number of steps it took to reach the bathroom in the master bedroom.
Bet hadn’t fully shifted into her father’s space. First she’d moved her toiletries into the master bathroom. Next she’d emptied her father’s closet, taking everything to the Goodwill in E’burg and bringing her own clothes in. She had yet to finish that chore, so both closets were half empty. Just like her job—half in as sheriff, half out. There was so much to do here in Collier. Sell the house? Keep the house? Win the election and stay for four years, then go back to Los Angeles? Hope Dale could grow into the job and take her place? Or lose the election and leave now? Let down her father and the entire town?
Apparently at least one person hoped for the latter. But why leave a note on her door? What did they hope to accomplish? She bristled at the implication that she no longer belonged, then wondered why it mattered now.
The antique standing mirror of her mother’s reflected the light Bet turned on in the bathroom. As a child, Bet had believed her mother regretted her decision to take her own life and tried to communicate with her daughter through the glass. If ever an object was haunted, it was the tall mirror, hand carved in Appalachia by Bet’s great-great grandfather. The frame was scrolled with fanciful creatures and strange faces. But all Bet caught tonight was her own image in the warped glass.
She brushed her teeth and washed her face, then went down the hall to her old room. She tucked her Glock 21 under one side of the bed and encouraged Schweitzer to climb up on his.
Earle never slept with his dogs. “Dogs belong on the floor,” he always said. It still felt like defiance when she brought Schweitzer up at night, but she loved the sense of security he brought.
It was crazy she was sleeping in her childhood bed with a dog his size. She should splurge on a king-size bed and move into the master. Maybe she’d do it when Schweitzer finally felt comfortable enough to spend the full night with her. He still hopped down partway through the night. Sometimes she felt guilty, using him to comfort her. If she returned to Los Angeles, what kind of life would Schweitzer have? He’d be better off staying with Alma. But now that he’d started accepting her, she wasn’t sure she could give him up.
As she pushed thoughts of her future aside, her mind cycled back to Jane Doe. She’d known it would happen sooner or later, her first homicide case. If she solved it—when she solved it—maybe she’d finally live up to the expectations of a dead man.