All Good People Here(32)

“Jace was into arty stuff,” Billy said. “He was never really interested in the farm or sports or anything. Didn’t really fit in here, so he went off on his own a lot. And then, when he was older, he tended to get into a bit of trouble. Nothing too bad, just boy stuff. He was a good kid, but he had a hard time after January. Well, we all did.” He hesitated. “Especially Kris. But I suppose you know about that.” He shot her a glance.

“I do, yeah,” Margot said. Everyone in the country knew about Krissy Jacobs’s suicide. “I’m sorry. You were the one who found her, right?”

Billy swallowed, nodded tightly. “I’d been at a convention all weekend, and when I walked through the door—” He made a fist and pressed it to his lips.

“That’s where you found her? By the front door?” That, Margot hadn’t known, and it struck her as odd. When most people took their own lives, they went somewhere private—a bedroom, bathroom, their car.

Again, he nodded. “After January, Krissy was…Well, it was hell for her after that. I think after a while, it just got to be too much.”

“Do you…” Margot hesitated. There was really no tactful way to ask what she was about to ask. “Do you think guilt could’ve had anything to do with it?”

Billy stared at her blankly for a long moment before her meaning sunk in. “Oh, Christ. Don’t tell me. You’ve been talking to people in town.” He shook his head, and when he spoke next, his voice was hard. “My wife did not kill our daughter. Krissy loved January. She may not have been the perfect mom, but”—he took a breath—“she loved her. She wouldn’t have hurt her in a million years.”

“What made her ‘not perfect’?”

“What? No, I didn’t mean it like that.” Billy shook his head, looking suddenly skittish. “Krissy was a great mom. She was always really involved in January’s dance and stuff. Really pushed her to do well. She didn’t kill January. She wouldn’t—couldn’t have done that.”

Margot studied his face. It seemed that his emotion surrounding January’s death was real, but her questions about Krissy had gotten him flustered. And those about Jace had made him evasive, vague. Even though it had been over a decade since he’d seen either of them, it seemed to Margot that Billy Jacobs was still trying to protect his wife and son. He may have told her the truth about his family, but he certainly hadn’t told her all of it.

“And believe me,” he continued before she could press him. “I’ve thought about who could’ve done it every day since it happened.”

“And?” Margot said. “Any ideas?”

“What I’ve always thought, the only thing that makes any sense, is that it was some…man. Some creep who’d caught sight of her at the playground or one of her recitals and— I don’t know, maybe you’re on to something with this story, Margot. Maybe whoever took this Natalie Clark girl took my January too.”



* * *



—

Margot stayed another half hour or so to ask Billy about the details of his daughter’s case, but everything he told her was something she’d already known. And each time she’d steered the conversation back to Jace or Krissy, he’d repeat his “good kid” and “good mom” appellations like a politician with a party line. Eventually, the two of them drank their last sips of coffee and ate their last bites of pie, and Margot thanked him for his time.

“Oh, one last thing,” she said as Billy walked her to the front door. “Would you mind if I took a look at your barn?”

“Well, sure,” Billy said. “The police finished this morning, so I don’t think there’s anything to mess up. I can walk you over if you want.”

“Oh no, it’s fine. It’s on my way out, so I just thought I’d take a look.”

“Be my guest.” He hesitated, his eyes flicking over her face. “I remember you from back then, you know. I remember how the two of you were always running around together. And now, look at you, so grown up—” His eyes filled with sudden tears and he dug a knuckle into them, laughing self-consciously.

Margot smiled, welling with sympathy. Though its repercussions had happened over a very long time, that July night twenty-five years ago had robbed this man of everything: first his daughter, then his son, finally his wife. “Thanks again for your time.”

Billy nodded. “Come over whenever you want.”

The Jacobs barn was one of those big industrial types, separated from the house by a patchy, yellowing field. Margot made her way over, the summer sun hot on her skin. From the photo that had been on the news, she knew the message had been written on the far side, but when she rounded the corner, she deflated. The words were gone. In their place on the red wall was nothing but a faded black smear.

“Shit,” she said.

She walked slowly along the barn’s side, scanning the wood planks for remnants of something, anything, but there were none. She looked at the ground and, in the dirt beneath her feet, were dozens of different shoe prints. There was no way of telling which, if any, belonged to the author of the message.

She will not be the last. The words played over and over in Margot’s mind, as did the circumstances surrounding them. Natalie Clark had gone missing mere days before the message appeared on January Jacobs’s barn, which meant whoever wrote it was clearly tying the two girls together. The only logical conclusion therefore was that January’s murderer and Natalie’s kidnapper were one and the same, though the actual wording was still ambiguous. The author could have meant January Jacobs will not be the last to be murdered or Natalie Clark will not be the last to be taken—though Margot had a sneaking suspicion it was both. And either way, Wakarusa was not a safe place for little girls right now. But the biggest question in her mind was who had written the note—the killer or someone else?