In the Clearing (Tracy Crosswhite #3)(70)

“Yes.”

“One of each?”

“Yes.”

“How old are they?”

Coe paused, staring at the ground. “I don’t know anymore.”

“You don’t see them?”

Coe shook his head. Then he picked up the watering wand and started down the next row of saplings.

Recalling Tiffany Gallentine’s statement that Darren took his own life when his daughter turned seventeen, Tracy asked, “How old were your kids when you and your wife divorced?”

This time Coe answered without hesitation. “Fifteen and ten.”

“Who’s older?”

“My daughter.”

“So you know what it’s like to be a parent, Mr. Coe.”

Coe stepped to the next plant without responding.

“You know that sometimes kids don’t always do the right thing.” The watering wand hovered over the same tree before Coe directed it to the next tree in the row. “But we forgive them. If they come to us and tell us they’ve done something wrong, we forgive them. We all make mistakes.” It was a speech Tracy had given to many suspects.

“I don’t see them,” Coe said. “They’re grown now. We don’t talk.”

“Kimi Kanasket didn’t jump in the river, did she, Mr. Coe?”

Coe didn’t respond. He looked momentarily paralyzed, the water beginning to puddle in a pot. “What happened in the clearing in the woods, Mr. Coe?”

“I don’t know,” he said as if coming out of a trance. He pulled the hose behind him to the next plant.

“Who would?”

“I don’t know.” Coe again tugged at the hose, but it had become wedged along the bottom of one of the ceramic pots and he had to go back to free it. Rain cascaded down the glass panels, blurring the view outside.

“Earl Kanasket has gone forty years not knowing what happened to his daughter,” Tracy said. “You have children. You have to know how that would feel—to lose one of your children and never understand why.”

Coe began to shift from his heels to the balls of his feet, rocking. “I don’t see them,” he said. “I don’t see my kids.”

“I can help you, Mr. Coe,” Tracy said. “If you tell me what happened, I can help you.”

Coe shuffled to the next plant, dragging the hose behind him. “I have to work,” he said. “I have to water the plants.”

“Why do you put plants in the clearing, Mr. Coe?”

Coe didn’t answer.

“I saw you that night, in the clearing, didn’t I? You’re the one who brings plants there, aren’t you?”

“Nothing grows in the clearing. Everything dies.”

“But you’ve planted things there, at the spot where Kimi was run over. You’ve tried many times. Why do you put plants there, Mr. Coe?”

Coe’s complexion, already sickly, had become ghostly pale. He looked on the verge of tears.

“Kimi was still alive,” Tracy said. “She didn’t die in the clearing.”

Coe looked up, and for the first time met and held Tracy’s gaze.

“Whoever hit her with the truck didn’t kill her, Mr. Coe. She was still alive when she was thrown into the river. Tell me what happened. You’ve been a solid citizen for forty years. You’ve never committed a crime. People are forgiving, Mr. Coe, but they want accountability. I get a sense you do too. You’ve been carrying this around for forty years. It’s time you unburdened yourself and got it off your chest. Tell me what happened in the clearing that night.”

“Nothing grows in the clearing. Everything dies,” he said, and he turned and directed the wand to the next tree in the row.





CHAPTER 24


As Tracy left the nursery, Jenny called.

“Looks like Hastey Devoe is getting a head start on celebrating the reunion. He’s drinking his lunch at a restaurant bar near Vancouver. I suspect he’ll be getting back in his car soon enough to drive home.”

“Jail is as isolated as it gets,” Tracy said.

“That was my thought exactly. I’ll tell my guys to pull him in before he reaches Stoneridge and give you a call when they do.”

“Stall him if he asks to make a call.”

“Will do. What did Coe have to say?”

“Not much, unfortunately.” She summarized her conversation with Archibald Coe as well as her impressions of the man and what she thought it could mean in light of Darren Gallentine’s own emotional fragility and suicide. “I’m sure he was the person I saw in the clearing that night and that he’s been planting things in that spot for years. I found dozens of dead plants discarded in the woods.”

“A memorial,” Jenny said.

“A would-be memorial. Nothing grows there. Everything dies. That’s what he said. We’re on the right track now, Jenny. I know it. And I got a very strong sense Coe knows what happened and that it still bothers him. I just have to find a way to get him to talk to me. If I can get him to tell me what happened, then all the circumstantial evidence becomes not just relevant, it becomes corroborating, and possibly damning.”

“I can speak to the DA about it; maybe we can offer Coe some sort of deal in exchange for his testifying.”