The Book of Cold Cases(19)

Beth figured she should probably burn it down.

All of Arlen Heights was oppressive and gloomy this morning, the rain coming down on the carefully untended streets. The interview with the police detectives had been the day before. Since then, Beth had been driving, spending endless hours behind the wheel of her car. Searching, searching. She’d barely slept, and even though she was sober, she still had a headache behind her eyes that felt a lot like a hangover. She didn’t want to go home.

Just keep control, Beth. You can handle this. Just keep control.

She’d finally decided to come home and try to sleep. She felt jumpy and wild, unable to sit still, but when the Greer mansion came in sight, a chill descended. There was a car in her driveway, a big sixties Chevy, floating like a freighter. She’d know that car anywhere. And parked on the street in front of the house was a van she didn’t recognize. As she pulled into the driveway behind the Chevy, a man got out of the van, carrying a microphone. He was followed by another man with a camera on his shoulder.

Now she wasn’t jumpy anymore. Now she was just angry.

It was cold, her anger. Her parents’ anger had always burned hot, especially when they shouted at each other. Then they’d both storm out of the house, leaving Beth alone, and everything would go cold and silent. Beth had learned early which one she preferred. Which one kept her calm and served her purposes when she needed it instead of making her surrender control.

“Miss Greer!” The reporter was coming up the drive as she opened her car door and got out. The cameraman hurried behind him, only able to go so far before he ran out of cable. “Miss Greer!” the reporter shouted. “Do you have anything to say about the murder accusations against you? Are you the Lady Killer?”

Beth closed the car door behind her. She shoved her hands in her pockets, because she couldn’t think of anything else to do with them. Part of her thought that if she left her hands free, she’d slap the man across the face, right there on camera. It was the same anger she’d felt during the police interview, but this time she kept her foot on its neck by sheer force of will as it struggled to get free.

The camera was pointed at her, a large bulky thing that was snarled with cables and a huge lens. The reporter had his microphone pointed at her face. Beth savored the feeling of her anger, the cold in her bones. She leaned toward the microphone and said, “I’m just a girl who minds her own business.”

Then she turned away and walked up the drive where the camera couldn’t follow her. She circled the house to the backyard, where she knew Ransom would be.



* * *



—

He wouldn’t be in the house. He had never said as much, but Ransom Wells hated this house as much as Beth did. Beth walked past the dripping trees to the open lawn that led to the cliff over the sea. It was a view of flat green grass and churning, dark blue ocean far away off the shore, birds wheeling in the sky overhead. She shivered. The rain was letting up, but it was always cold back here, no matter what time of year it was.

Standing on the lawn was a man well over six feet tall, with big shoulders and a big body to match his height. His hair and beard were salt-and-pepper, though he was only in his thirties. He was wearing a suit and an overcoat. He seemed oblivious to the rain, like most of the lifetime residents of Claire Lake. He looked exactly the same as the last time she saw him, after her mother died two years ago.

At that time, he’d told her she was hiring him whether she wanted to or not.

I don’t need a lawyer, she’d replied.

And he’d said: You’re young, you’re beautiful, and as of now you’re alone and very rich. My dear, you need a lawyer more than anything.

“Ransom,” she said now, approaching him across the grass. “What are you doing here?”

He didn’t reply until she was standing next to him. “This is a beautiful view,” he said. “Your father always loved it.”

Beth waited. Ransom had a newspaper, now damp, folded under one arm. She tucked a windblown lock of hair behind her ear as the anger she’d felt for the reporter drained away. When Ransom had something to say, there was no power on earth that would make him say it faster.

Finally, Ransom spoke again. “I first met your father when he called me up to make an impaired driving charge go away. Did you know that? Not the most illustrious meeting.” His brows drew together as he looked at the ocean. He wasn’t a handsome man, exactly, but he was hard to look away from. “I didn’t think I’d like him, but I did. I got him off the drunk driving charge, because I’m good and that’s the way the world works. I’ve been sorry for his loss every day since he died. Literally every day. I’m as puzzled by that as you are.”

Beth swallowed and looked at the trees. Her father had been complicated—unhappy, sometimes angry. In his own way, as trapped as her mother was. For a long time, during the years of alcohol-fueled fights and lonely Christmases, she had hated him. Part of her still did.

But she had loved him, too. She had wished, with the stupid wistfulness of a daughter, that she could have been the one to make him happy. But she wasn’t. She could never be. Fixing her father hadn’t been possible.

She turned back to see Ransom looking at her. He’d been her father’s lawyer, and then her mother’s, and now hers. He was as familiar to her as a tool she used every day. She knew he had a wife who left him frequently—he always got her back—and three kids. He liked steak and loathed cigarettes, claiming the smell made him sick. She hadn’t seen him in two years, but she knew all of those things were still true.