In the Clearing (Tracy Crosswhite #3)(92)

Reynolds stepped aside. The dogs retreated. Like the exterior, natural wood and stone dominated the decor, keeping a rustic theme. Tracy didn’t note a single family photograph amid the paintings and sculptures as Reynolds led her to a den. Entering, she noted a handgun on a poker table, along with a cleaning kit. She smelled the distinct odor of Hoppe’s No. 9 cleaning solvent.

“Doing a little maintenance?” she asked.

Reynolds looked to the table as if he’d forgotten the gun was there. “Actually, I was just starting to watch a movie.” He gestured to a very large television across the room. Bradley Cooper, wearing an Army uniform, stood frozen on screen.

“American Sniper,” Tracy said. “Late to be starting a movie.”

“I’m usually up late.”

“You don’t sleep well?” she said.

“No. No, I don’t. Can I offer you a drink?” he asked, moving again toward the poker table and the gun, the wet bar to his right.

“No, thank you,” Tracy said. “You have a lovely home. Is it just you?”

“Just me,” he said, offering a wistful smile “Well, and Blue and Tank here. I’m divorced. Twenty-five years now.”

“It must get lonely out here.”

“Not with Blue and Tank around. I’m used to being alone.”

“No children?”

“No. You?”

“Also divorced. Also many years ago. Also used to living alone.”

“No dogs?”

“A very needy cat.”

Reynolds offered her a leather chair facing the stone fireplace. Tracy noted a large gun safe in the corner of the room, the heavy door partially open, the stocks of rifles visible. Reynolds took a seat on a matching sofa near one of two table lamps offering soft light. The two dogs hopped onto the couch and curled up beside him, Blue keeping a watchful eye.

When Reynolds crossed his legs, his slacks inched up, revealing tan socks. “So what can I do for you?”

“I’m just returning from Seattle,” Tracy said. “I spoke with Tiffany Martin, Darren Gallentine’s widow, and his two daughters.”

“Oh?” Reynolds scratched Blue behind the ears and about the head.

“The daughters were seventeen and fourteen when their father took his life. They never knew why he did it.”

“He didn’t leave a note, then.”

“No, he didn’t.”

“A terrible thing,” Reynolds said.

“You can’t imagine unless you’ve gone through it,” Tracy said. “We like to believe our parents are perfect, but then you realize they’re human, with all the same faults and imperfections. I think that’s the hardest thing to accept.”

“You have personal experience.”

“My father shot himself.”

“I’m sorry.” Reynolds continued to pet his dogs. His right foot bounced rhythmically.

“Darren was in therapy at the time he killed himself.” Tracy paused, making sure she had eye contact. “The therapist kept a file. The family had never asked to see it. You can imagine. On the one hand, it could provide answers; on the other, it could reveal faults and imperfections. They’d decided to move on. Only they found that it wasn’t so simple to just move on from something that traumatic. Their father certainly couldn’t. Neither, apparently, could Archibald Coe. Hastey doesn’t appear to have either, and, despite appearances, I don’t believe you have.”

“I can assure you I don’t know what you’re talking about, Detective.” Reynolds didn’t sound defiant. He sounded tired.

“Yes, you do, Mr. Reynolds. Because I have Darren Gallentine’s file, and he told his therapist what happened the night Kimi Kanasket died. I’m talking about how the four of you were out drinking beer and getting high. About how you were upset because Cheryl Neal had gone out with Tommy Moore, about how fate, cruel and horrible, put Kimi Kanasket in your path.”

His foot continued to bounce. “No,” he said. “I was at home.”

“Maybe that’s what you told Buzz Almond when he came to your house to take pictures of the Bronco, but I know now that was a lie. Darren’s account was very detailed. You got angry. You had a temper then, one you’ve done remarkably well to overcome, it appears, and you chased Kimi into the woods with the Bronco. You didn’t mean to run her down. You weren’t even thinking straight. You were just angry. You were angry a lot back then. You were just a boy, who had to watch his mother die of cancer and grow up without her, trying to live up to his legendary father’s expectations. You were under a lot of pressure and stress. The whole town was expecting a lot of you, in particular. You were the golden boy, the all-American. That’s a lot for any eighteen-year-old’s shoulders to bear. The other three—Darren and Archie and Hastey—they were part of the Four Ironmen, but they didn’t have the same pressures. You were the center of attention. You were the star. I imagine you were feeling the pressure, particularly that night, on the eve of the biggest game in this little town’s history.”

“I told you, Detective, I never put much into all that stuff about being the Four Ironmen and all-American. Those were just labels others placed on us, on me.”

“Maybe you didn’t, but others did. Your father did, and whether you admitted it then or not, you wanted to live up to those expectations. That’s why in the photograph of the four of you with the trophy, the others are smiling, but you just look relieved. I imagine you were—relieved to have the season behind you. Relieved to be moving on, away from Stoneridge, away from the memory of what you’d done, away to college, where you could just blend in. You didn’t mean to run down Kimi. It wasn’t premeditated. It was a horrible thing to have happen. But it happened. And the four of you were scared out of your minds. You didn’t know what to do. Your whole life had changed in an instant—if anyone found out, all the accolades and attention and publicity would be forgotten, replaced by one horrible incident that would forever define you. Eric Reynolds, an all-American with a full ride to the University of Washington—a murderer, a felon who threw away his life because he couldn’t control his temper.”