No One Will Miss Her(24)

Johnson squirmed. “I don’t know. Sure, people liked to joke around. Bust his balls. It didn’t mean anything. But in high school, Dwayne could get any girl he wanted, and Lizzie was kind of . . . you know. The junkyard. And her weird dad. And she was kind of high on herself, considering . . .” Only Bird made the mistake of leaning forward, a little too keen, and Johnson clamped his lips shut and started furiously rubbing his hands together again. He took a breath.

“I don’t want to talk bad about Lizzie,” he said. “I feel awful about what happened to her. I feel awful about everything. And I know anything I say, you’re going to read into it, and I don’t want that, either. I still don’t think Dwayne would hurt her. All I’m trying to say is, being with her wasn’t good for him. It kinda seemed like, once he got involved with her, everything started going wrong.”

Bird tried another tack. “Like his career? I heard he was going to play major-league ball.”

Johnson snorted a little. “Uh. No. College. D-1, maybe. But it was something, yeah, and then he couldn’t. He had to get that job at the logging company because of the baby, and then there wasn’t a baby. And then he had his accident. You’ve heard about that.”

Bird nodded. The accident was a major plot point in the story of Dwayne Cleaves, Tragic Hero—a mishap involving a fully loaded logging truck and a faulty tie-down. Dwayne had suffered a crushing injury that left him minus three toes on his right foot, and lucky he hadn’t lost the whole thing. A lesser-known but more interesting plot point, one that Bird had put together on his own, was that Dwayne had received a decent payout from the logging company for his troubles—close to six figures per toe—and used it for a down payment on a local business. Plowing in the winter, landscaping in the summer, equipment included. The original owner, a man named Doug Bwart, had since fled to a retirement community in Florida, but when Bird reached him on the phone, the man still remembered the transaction like it was yesterday. Most interesting of all, what he remembered most wasn’t Dwayne.

It was Lizzie.

“Damn near gave it away, didn’t I?” the man had grumbled. “Dwayne was a good feller, but that wife of his—damnable girl. She nickel-and-dimed me. She come in, waving around all kinds of paperwork, jawing on about emissions this and compliance that. I would’ve knocked another twenty-five thousand off just to shut her up.”

That was before Bird informed Doug Bwart that Lizzie Ouellette was dead, at which point the man stuttered, backpedaling, assuring Bird that he’d never have spoken so harshly if he’d known. But like the house, with its upstairs-downstairs split personality—and like Myles Johnson, who had all but said outright that Dwayne would be better off without Lizzie around—Bwart’s story was illuminating. And complicating.

Bird’s thoughts were interrupted by the sound of Johnson clearing his throat.

“Sun’s getting low,” he said. “Have you seen what you needed to see?”

“Yes. And I appreciate you coming by,” Bird added. “It’s a help, having someone who knows the town.”

The two men returned wordlessly down the stairs and exited through the front door, both inhaling deeply as they stepped into the deepening evening. The chill in the air was refreshing, the scent of smoke from the burning junkyard finally chased away. The yard itself was unsalvageable, Earl Ouellette’s livelihood burned down to nothing but a pile of sodden ashes—and in another couple days, he’d have his only daughter’s ashes to scatter on top. Loss on top of loss. A ghastly thought. Bird shook his head, dug in his pocket for his keys. Beside him, Johnson hovered. He was twisting his hands again.

“Sir?” the deputy asked. “Do you really think Dwayne did it?”

Bird stared into the distance.

“I think I’d like to ask him that question,” he said finally. “Good night.”

The saltbox house receded in the rearview as he drove away, but inside Bird’s head, he continued to pace its rooms: the dark den, the messy bedroom, the short staircase, the airy office. Maybe the house, where the two had lived together yet so very separately, was a sign not of cooperation or compromise but of trouble brewing, bubbling, eventually boiling over. And yet: when Lizzie Ouellette had wound up pregnant, Dwayne Cleaves had stepped up and married her. Then tragedy, Dwayne’s injury, had turned into opportunity, and Lizzie had stepped in to negotiate . . . and he’d let her. He’d trusted her. Granted, that had been years ago. A lot could happen; a lot could change. But the truth, the one that Bird couldn’t ignore, was this: in two of the most challenging moments of their lives, moments that could easily have split them apart, Lizzie and Dwayne had come together.





Chapter 10

The City




Adrienne’s gym bag was heavy on her shoulder as she crossed the lobby of the downtown bank, stepping through the front entrance just as the clock struck five. The sidewalk was swarming with people and she draped an arm over the tote, holding it close to her hip, keenly aware of the catastrophic consequences should someone try to snatch it. She had left Rick’s office hours before, but his warning words were still ringing in her ears.

“There’s no need to rush this process. And a cashier’s check of that size? My dear, it’s simply not done. It’s not just unorthodox, it’s dangerous. I could never recommend a client take that kind of risk.”