River Bodies (Northampton County #1)(49)

“Okay,” Rick said. “It was nice meeting you, Becca.” He slapped Parker on the back. “Keep in touch.”





CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

Becca was ten years old. She was outside skipping rope at the end of her driveway. Sheba was darting around the yard, carrying her favorite toy, the kind that squeaked every time she bit down.

“Forty-one, forty-two, forty-three.” Becca counted the jumps with each swing of the rope. Her goal was to make it to one hundred without missing.

Her mother was volunteering again at the nursing home across town. She’d been spending more and more of her free time there, out of their house and away from Becca’s father. Her mother read to the patients from their favorite books and magazines, and occasionally she styled the women’s hair or applied a little makeup to their cracked and withered faces. She’d said it made them feel better, like somebody cared. It made them feel human. But mostly, her mother had said, it made her feel good.

Becca’s father’s truck was parked in front of the garage. He’d chased her outside when he’d come home, eager for her to leave the house, demanded she play outdoors. He’d said he’d let her know when she could come back in. The weather was pleasant enough, so she didn’t mind so much, although the wind bit at her ears. She’d made it to sixty-six when her foot caught the rope just as a dark-blue sedan slowed and pulled into the driveway, coming to a full stop beside her.

She blinked.

The driver’s-side window went down. “Do you live here?” the man in the sedan asked.

“Yes, sir,” she said and looked back at the house. She wasn’t supposed to talk to strangers. Should she run and get her father? Or would he be angry at her for interrupting him? Sheba had stopped playing with her toy, although it was still in her mouth. She stood in the middle of the yard and stared at the car, eyes and ears alert.

The man in the sedan must’ve sensed her hesitation. “It’s okay,” he said and flashed his badge. “I’m a police officer. You can call me Jim, and this is my partner, Rick. Is that your dad’s truck? Is he home?”

Because her father was chief of police, she knew the other cops in town by name, but she had never heard of Jim or Rick. These two weren’t from Portland. They weren’t wearing the typical police-blue uniforms her father and the other Portland officers wore.

She took a step back.

“What do you say you take us inside,” Officer Jim said and got out of the car. He was tall and thin, in a suit and tie. He looked important. Sheba barked.

“My father’s home, but he doesn’t want to be disturbed.”

“Oh, yeah? Why’s that?”

By this time Officer Rick had gotten out of the car. He was wearing a suit too, and when he put his hand on his hip, Becca saw a gun strapped to his side.

“He has company,” she said.

Officer Jim smiled. “Is that so?” He turned to his partner. “Maybe we should go in and see who it is.”

“We’re not here to get involved in small-town domestic shit,” Officer Rick said. “Just tell him we’re here,” he said to Becca.

She didn’t want to go inside and get her father, but she didn’t believe she had a choice. Sheba sniffed around the two officers’ legs. Officer Rick bent down to pet her.

Becca stepped through the front door, dragged her feet up the stairs. The mattress in her parents’ bedroom creaked. “Dad,” she called and knocked. There was more creaking, heavy breathing.

“Dad,” she hollered and kicked the door. The room grew quiet. Then there was the sound of muffled voices and shuffling around.

In the next minute, her father pulled open the door. “What the hell?” He stepped into the hall, yanked the door closed behind him. He was shirtless, and the button of his pants was undone. “I told you to wait outside.”

She stared at her feet. He smelled funny. “There are two police officers outside waiting to talk with you. They’re not from around here.”

He pushed past her and entered her bedroom to look out her window. “Shit,” he said and grabbed Becca by the arm. “Go on and tell them I’ll be out in a minute.”

She went back outside. Sheba was lying in the driveway, chewing the handle on Becca’s jump rope. “He’s coming,” she said to the two officers, looking at her feet once again, ashamed and confused about what her father was doing with another woman in her parents’ bedroom. It was wrong. She knew it was wrong, but what was she supposed to do about it?

The two officers leaned against the side of their sedan and waited.

It was another few minutes before her father approached them from the garage, fully dressed. “What gives you the right to barge into my home?”

“We’re here for the river body case.” Officer Jim, who turned out to be Detective Jim Cronen, flashed his badge. “We’d like your cooperation.”

“I’m still the goddamn police chief around here. You want to talk with me, then you come to my office.”

“We were already there. One of your boys told us we could find you here,” Detective Smith said.

“Well, hell.” Becca’s father ran his hand over his head. “You want the case? No problem. It’s yours. But don’t come to my home the next time and bother my family, you hear?”