When Ghosts Come Home(74)

“Rodney and I went to high school together,” Colleen said. “Mr. Bellamy was my teacher.” Janelle nodded her head and tried her best to smile at them both, and in that moment, Colleen felt like a child standing in her jeans and Keds in front of this put-together woman who had a child and who’d already lost a husband.

“Well, thank you for coming,” Janelle said. She gestured toward the sofa.

Colleen and her father sat down, and Janelle sat in a blue armchair to Colleen’s left. Bellamy sat in a matching chair to Colleen’s father’s right.

“Are you sure I can’t get you anything?” Janelle asked.

“No,” Winston said, “but thank you.” He sat, leaning forward, his elbows on his knees and his hands clenched tight together. “Now, Mrs. Bellamy, I know—”

“Please,” she said, “call me Janelle.”

“Miss Janelle,” he began.

“No, please,” she said, “just Janelle. I prefer just Janelle.”

“Okay,” Winston said. He seemed flustered, embarrassed, and Colleen could not remember him ever coming across that way in front of her. It made her feel relaxed and in control, as if she might have to step in and manage or redirect any awkwardness Winston might reveal. Now she understood why he’d wanted to bring her with him. He needed her, and it felt good to play a role for someone, to be relied upon. She looked to the right across the small glass coffee table at Bellamy while Winston spoke with Janelle. Mr. Bellamy was no longer the gruff, demanding history teacher he’d been when she was a teenager. His eyes flicked to hers, and his mouth, which had been slack while he looked at Colleen’s father, now flattened itself into a hard, straight line once his eyes met hers.

“Janelle,” Winston said, “I’ve spoken with Ed about what happened out here at your home night before last, and I want to apologize to you as the sheriff of this county. No one deserves to go through something like that, especially after what you’ve all been through.” He paused as if giving Janelle the room to say something, but she remained silent. “The deputy who answered the call without reporting it has been fired from the sheriff’s office. I understand that Captain Glenn Haste has interviewed you and your brother, and I want you to know that my office will continue to look into—”

“It was Bradley Frye,” Bellamy said.

Colleen’s father turned to face him. “Ed, let me finish.”

“There’s nothing to look into, Winston.”

Winston turned back to Janelle. “My office will continue to look into what happened, and if I find the person who broke that window, I will arrest that person. Until then, I can’t do anything but warn people away from doing something like that again.”

“That’s not enough,” Bellamy said.

“That’s all I can do, Ed.”

“That’s not enough,” Bellamy said again.

“No one could be identified, Ed.”

“I saw Bradley Frye’s truck flying through here in the middle of the night with that goddamned flag on the back of it.”

“I can’t arrest him for that.”

Janelle spoke up as if attempting to break the impasse. “It’s okay,” she said. “I understand. Let’s just—” She waved her hands in front of her as if signaling Colleen’s father to continue.

“Janelle,” Winston said, “I hate to have to ask you questions about what happened to Rodney, but I do. They’re just going to be routine questions that should be easy to answer, but you take all the time you need.”

Janelle inhaled as if she were preparing to do something physical. For the first time, Colleen noticed that Janelle had a tissue wadded up in her hand, and she figured Janelle must be carrying them in her pockets all the time now, having become adept at removing and using them discreetly.

“Can you tell me about the last time you saw Rodney?”

Janelle exhaled the breath she must have been holding, and she turned to look at her father-in-law. He nodded, his mouth even tighter and straighter than it had been before. She began.

“We’d been up late with the baby,” she said. “He was colicky, a lot of crying, fussy.” She looked down at her lap and paused for a moment. “Rodney was good with him when he was like that. Sometimes he could calm him down, get him settled.” Her face drew in on itself in a way that pinched off whatever words she may have planned to say next. She lifted her hand that held the tissue and dabbed at one of her eyes and then her nose.

Janelle gathered herself and raised her face to Colleen’s father, her countenance having taken on a look completely absent of the emotion they all knew she had just taken a moment or two to suppress, and Colleen found herself high on the realization that someone else’s tragedy was not hers.

“I went back to bed,” Janelle said, “but I could hear them across the hall, Rodney singing and talking to the baby. He finally got him down and came into the bedroom. I guess he could tell I was still awake. He told me he wouldn’t be able to sleep so he was going to get diapers from the store.”

“Did you need diapers?” Winston asked.

For a moment, Janelle appeared betrayed, as if Winston had not believed what she’d just said, but Colleen watched Janelle’s face settle again, perhaps thinking, This man has no idea how many diapers you need. “Yes, we needed diapers,” she finally said. “We always need diapers.”