River Bodies (Northampton County #1)(46)

They were quiet. Jackie was the first to break the silence.

“Well, anyway. It’s good he’s sleeping soundly,” she said and walked out of the room.

Becca wasn’t about to wake up her father, not after what Jackie had said. She grabbed her car keys from the kitchen counter. Romy pranced, believing they were going for a ride.

“I can’t take you with me,” she said and kissed her on the nose. “They don’t allow dogs where I’m going.”

Romy looked dejected. She barked when Becca left without her, and Becca felt bad. She promised to make it up to the dog with a new toy or extra playtime.

She hopped in her Jeep and raced down the road.





CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

Parker sat on a stool in the pub not two miles from the station. It was a favorite hangout for the guys in his troop. The pub was a place for them to meet, shake off the job before they went home to their families. Parker didn’t drink, nor did he have family to go home to, but he often dropped by for a club soda to show he was one of them. He was a team player.

Tonight was different, however. He’d gotten a call from a retired detective, a Rick Smith, who had handled the first river body case, the name the case had been given long before Parker had joined the force. He was sitting at the bar listening to an old Hank Williams Jr. song about a tear in his beer. He ordered a second club soda when Rick Smith slid onto the stool next to him. Rick wasn’t wearing the standard dark suit and bland tie that Parker and the other detectives donned, but he still looked the part in jeans and sweatshirt. There was a look about cops, detectives, an air of confidence, craftiness, a complete lack of emotion on their faces that was expected on the job. Parker believed he’d mastered these skills, aware of the shift in his personality, the toughness the job required settling deep inside his bones, taking up permanent residence. It was only when he’d been alone with Becca that he’d felt the mask slip away, felt himself slide into the old Parker of his youth, free and easygoing. The moment hadn’t lasted long, and he’d recovered, but it had been there. He’d felt it when he’d been sitting next to her, along with other emotions he wished he hadn’t.

“Thanks for meeting me.” Rick signaled Benny, the bartender, for a beer.

“What’s this about?” Parker asked. Detectives were often protective of their cases, holding them close, keeping outsiders and intruders from telling them how to do their job. But Parker was willing to hear Rick out. It was Parker’s first big case, and he had a bad feeling about it.

“Tell me what you know about the case, and I’ll tell you what’s not in the file,” Rick said.

Benny placed a mug of whatever was on draft in front of Rick, interrupting their conversation. “Good to see you,” Benny said. The two shook hands. “How’s retirement treating you?”

“Boring as hell,” Rick said. “I’m not going to lie. I miss the work but not enough to come back.” Benny was called to the other end of the bar. Rick turned toward Parker, looking at him closely. “You’re a bit green to be the lead on this one, aren’t you?”

Parker took a drink of club soda. “I’m the perfect man for the job.”

“Why’s that?”

“I was born and raised in Portland. If the people in town are going to talk with anyone, it’s going to be with me.”

“You may have a point,” Rick said and took a long swallow of beer. “Damn funny town of yours. Most people like to talk; they like the attention. But the people in your neck of the woods, they don’t say a word. You ask them a question, and they stare at you as though they don’t speak the same language. Why do you think that is?”

“They’re private people,” Parker said, trying to keep the defensiveness he felt out of his tone. He couldn’t help it. He had a loyalty to his hometown that had never left him. Maybe it had to do with the way he had been raised with a sense of responsibility, devotion to the small, tight community that for the most part had been a safe place to grow up. Maybe that was why he’d transferred to the field station at the first opportunity, to be close to the people who knew him best, to live his life quietly alongside the river and leave behind the day-to-day problems that came with the job. There was truth to this, but there was also a deeper reason for why he’d returned, one he was just starting to figure out.

“If you ask me, they don’t talk because they’re scared,” Rick said.

Parker didn’t reply. He didn’t have to. There was a certain look on the faces of the people in town that he’d recognized on his own father’s face. He’d been a boy when he’d first become aware of his father’s activities where the Scions were concerned. It had happened one night when Parker had been up late, past his bedtime, when there had been a knock on their back door. His father had opened the door to find a rough-looking guy on their stoop. The guy had had his hand pressed to his abdomen, blood pouring through his fingers.

“In here,” Parker’s father had said, leading the man in the leather cut and tattoos to his office on the side of the house where his private practice had been located. He’d directed the man to lie on the table. The door to the examination room had been left open a crack, and Parker had peered in, watched as his father had worked, cutting the clothes away from the guy’s wound, blood splattering the front of his father’s white lab coat that he’d thrown on over his pajamas at the last second.