What Lies in the Woods(12)

“Good luck with that,” I said, rocking back on my heels with my hands in my back pockets. “That house has been a disaster for decades.”

“It’s dangerous,” she said. “There are no clear walkways. If emergency services needed to get in to help him, they wouldn’t be able to.”

It wasn’t that bad—was it? I hadn’t actually seen the inside of that house in what, five years? Last time I was here it was a junk heap, but you could get around.

“So, what? Is it going to get condemned? I only ask because whatever he tells me, it’s not going to be the whole truth, and I’d like to know what I’m dealing with.” I kept my tone casual. I felt like a pumpkin getting its guts scooped out by hand, fingernails rasping against my insides. This was going to happen sooner or later. But as long as it had been later, we could both ignore it. Could get along, in our own way, each of us steadfastly ignoring the other’s sins.

“I haven’t done anything official yet, but it needs to be cleared out at least enough to make sure there isn’t any structural damage, and so that emergency response could get in if he got hurt or there was a fire. I told him I could give him thirty days before I had to report it.”

“That’s generous of you.” I had a month to deal with it, then.

“That was three weeks ago.”

“Of course it was.” I raked back my hair, looking up at the cloud-scabbed sky. I couldn’t deal with this. Not right now.

“Let me give you my card,” she said, more gently this time. “I can get you some numbers, people to call. You can still get the place fixed up, but he’ll need somewhere to stay in the meantime. With you, or—”

I laughed. She looked taken aback. “Trust me, no one wants that. I’ll figure something out.” It was more a statement of hope than fact. The idea of prying Dad out of this house wasn’t an appealing one.

“It’s not safe for him to stay here,” she said firmly, underlining the point, and there was that look I knew—the How could you let this happen? look.

“It wasn’t always that bad,” I said, gripped by the need to explain. “It was always a disaster, but it was livable. I don’t come to Chester much. I didn’t know…”

“Can’t really blame you for not wanting to come back to the area too often,” she said.

“You didn’t live here back then, did you?” I asked.

She shook her head. “I’m more of a city girl. My wife wanted to live in the woods, though, so here we are. I’ve heard all the stories, of course.”

“The ones where I get stabbed a bunch, or the ones where I’m an unrepentant delinquent?”

“Bit of both,” she confessed. “I’ll leave you be. You give me a call if there’s anything I can help you with here.”

I nodded. “Thanks,” I said, checking her card, “Officer…”

“Chief,” she corrected. “Bishop.”

My eyebrows shot up. “Chief? What happened to Miller?”

“Retired, six months ago,” she said, weight set back on her heels as she watched for my reaction. “Mayor Green and the city council brought me in from the sheriff’s office.”

I’d always figured when Chief Miller finally crumbled to dust, Bill Dougherty would inherit the job out of sheer inertia. He’d been Miller’s number two almost as long as I could remember. Of course, Dougherty was the moral and intellectual equivalent of an untoasted marshmallow, so I could only assume Bishop was an upgrade.

“Welcome to Chester, then,” I said genuinely, and she gave me a nod.

“Ms. Cunningham. Have a good day,” she said, and marched off to her car. I tucked her card in my back pocket and turned to face the door, fighting the urge to get in my car and drive straight back to Seattle. Forget the house. Forget everything. Let bones stay buried and secrets unspoken.

Bishop’s car crunched away down the road. I made my way up the steps.

Dad hadn’t locked the door. Never did. Even after what had happened to me, he’d never shaken the belief that bad things just didn’t happen in a town like Chester. The day he had to lock his door, he’d tell me, was the day he’d find a good rope and a strong beam and put himself out of his misery.

I pushed open the door, not yet stepping over the threshold. I knew exactly where Dad would be: in his chair, magazines stacked four feet high beside him, an avalanche of boxes, busted shelves, books, and God-knew-what filling every bit of the living room apart from a narrow path to the chair and sightlines to the TV.

Only there wasn’t a path to the armchair. In a couple places the mustard-brown carpet showed through, but newspapers, magazines, Tupperware, and random detritus I couldn’t identify covered most of it. The house smelled rank, like something had died in here. For a minute I was afraid it was Dad, until I remembered that Bishop had just talked to him.

“Dad?” I called, hovering in the doorway. Indistinct shifting and settling marked his movement, but it was a long time before he actually appeared. I was still unprepared when he emerged from the warren and we stood face-to-face.

He’d gotten old. Obviously he’d gotten older, but I hadn’t expected that he’d get old. He’d withered like a dead beetle drying out in the sun. His hair had receded, baring flaky, red skin, and he stood canted like he was trying to find an angle that didn’t ache. He wore a T-shirt and flannel pajama pants, both of them faded but relatively clean.