What Lies in the Woods(88)

“Past time.” I didn’t for an instant believe it was going to stick, but as far as I knew it was the first time he’d even bothered with the pretense of trying. “You know you can’t go cold turkey. The amount you drink, it could kill you.”

“I said cut back, not stop,” he said defensively. But he rubbed the back of his neck and looked away. “I know. I’ll be careful. I’ve done it before.”

“When?”

“When you got hurt,” he said. “I was drunk as a skunk while my girl was bleeding out. Couldn’t even be at the hospital while you were in surgery. So I quit. For a while. Didn’t last. But I did it.”

“I don’t remember that.”

“You were a bit distracted by all the holes in you,” he said with a wry smile.

I gave a low, broken laugh. “Turns out there’s a lot of things I don’t remember from back then,” I said.

“That right?” he asked. There was an uncomfortable note to his voice.

“Dad, were you there when the police talked to me? When I identified Stahl?” I asked.

“Of course,” he said.

“What was it like? What did I say?” I asked.

“They showed you some pictures. They asked you if you saw the man who attacked you, and you pointed him out. Simple enough.”

“But did they seem like they were pressuring me?” I asked. “Influencing me at all?”

He sighed. “Shit, Naomi. You were so drugged up that if they showed you a picture of a man in a red suit you would have said Santa Claus stabbed you.”

“Dad. Please. Tell me what happened.”

“They did it clean,” he said. “Had a bunch of photos and showed them to you one by one. You picked him out right away and started crying.”

“You’re sure?”

“Why would I lie about that?” he asked, but he didn’t quite look at me. “Thing is, though. When you woke up, I asked you if you remembered anything, and you didn’t. You remembered getting hurt, but that was it. Then right before the detectives came to talk to you, I went down to get some food. When I came back, Chief Miller and Jim Green were coming out of your room. After, you were acting scared, and you kept promising you’d remember and do it right.”

“They coached me,” I said. Or threatened me. I thought of the sense of doom that had hung over me, the conviction that something truly horrible would happen if I ever faltered. I’d never been able to pinpoint exactly who had said the words that convinced me that horrible things awaited if I messed up. I couldn’t imagine what kind of pressure had been on Liv and Cass—the ones who actually knew enough to be a danger.

“That doesn’t mean you were wrong,” he said. “Besides, it’s not like it matters now.”

“Of course it matters,” I said. “Stahl didn’t attack me. That means someone else did. You’re sure it was Jim Green in there with Miller?” I wasn’t sure whether that made Jim the more likely suspect. He’d done plenty of covering up for Oscar—I doubted attacking me would be enough to break that loyalty.

“I’m sure,” he said. He rasped his thumbnail over the stubble just below his mouth in short, nervous strokes. “You don’t think he could have had anything to do with it?”

“Do you have a reason to think he did?” I asked.

An animal skittered along the roof above us. He took his time in answering and the words came one by one, like slotting beads on a string. “Well. There was the money,” he said.

“What money?”

“For the trust.”

“That was from donations,” I said. Checks and dollar bills tucked into Get Well Soon cards. Bigger checks from the interviews Dad did. Pound for pound, my body was at its most valuable wounded.

“Some of it,” Dad allowed. His thumbnail picked at one red spot on his lower lip now. “But Jim wanted to help out. Get us back on our feet.”

“Dad. How much did he give you?” I asked. Some money made sense. We’d needed it, Jim had it.

“Thirty thousand,” Dad said, and any assumption of goodwill I’d had withered up into itself. “And he took care of the lawyers and everything.”

After the hospital, I’d had a succession of lawyers who were with me whenever I talked to the police. Serving as my “advocates.” They made sure I didn’t have to answer too many questions, that no one upset me. Or pushed me on my story. And Jim Green had paid for them.

“You think Jim’s the one that hurt you,” Dad said.

“Not just me,” I said. If Jim attacked me, it was because of Jessi. “Can you prove where the money came from?”

“I’ve got the papers someplace,” he said.

“So no, then,” I said.

He glared at me. “All that stuff ended up in a box. I know where it is, I just gotta get to it.”

“It’s fine,” I said. “Don’t worry about it.”

“When Jim gave me that money, I wondered if there was something he didn’t want me knowing. But we needed the cash,” Dad said. Guilt inflected his voice.

“You thought Jim might’ve had something to do with it?” I asked.

Dad shifted his weight uncomfortably. “I assumed it was Oscar,” he confessed.