Stranger in the Lake(16)
I whirl around, and Paul is staring at me silently, urgently, from a few feet away. I meet his gaze, and everything goes still. My entire body changes in that moment of understanding. At his message, sharp and sparkling.
Stop talking.
“Call me as soon as you’ve got an address,” Chief Hunt is saying, “but do not go inside. Until we know otherwise, we’ll be treating her last known location as a potential crime scene. Now scoot. Micah, I’ll be waiting for your paperwork.” He turns and lumbers back up the hill.
Maybe I misunderstood. Maybe Paul is just embarrassed at his reaction, at this sudden swell of post-traumatic stress he tries so hard to stuff down. Maybe I’m reading more into this.
No. No, that’s not right. Paul looked her straight in the eye, and he talked to her. Even if she only asked him for directions or a restaurant recommendation, he would remember. Her face is too pretty not to be noticed, and Paul notices everything.
So why did he just lie?
By now Micah is dressed. He clomps down the ramp in his boots, pointing to the techs. “Seal the bag and take her up to Harris Regional. I’ll call the medical examiner, let her know you’re on the way. Don’t forget the tarp. She’s gonna want that, too.”
The creak of the body bag’s zipper is like a knife, cutting through the cold and crawling all over my skin. The tech pulls it snug, then slips a plastic tag through the pull and draws it tight, essentially padlocking the bag until the next person to touch her clips the tag. Chain of custody, Sam told me it’s called, during one of our gas station talks.
“You okay?” Micah’s lips are blue, but his eyes are bright with excitement. He’s itching to strap on an oxygen tank, sink to the bottom of the lake and dredge up whatever the woman dropped. He probably doesn’t even notice the cold.
Paul nods. His expression is parked in Neutral. His face is completely closed off, like those metal shutters people roll down the windows of their summer cabins, familiar but guarded. He glances up the hill at the house. “I’m gonna grab a shower.”
Micah shifts his gaze to mine. “You don’t have to stay down here, either. I’ll call up if I run into any snags. Just keep your cell close. The cops’ll need an official statement at some point, so don’t go anywhere without telling them, got it?”
I nod. Paul grabs my hand and tugs me toward the stairs, but I tug back.
Micah may be back in his clothes, but his hair is still sopping, the ends clumped and turning white with ice. I reach out and squeeze his arm. “I’ll bring down some coffee and whatever else I can scrounge up, okay? I’ll also make sure the basement door is open, in case y’all need a bathroom or you want to warm up in the shower.”
Micah gives me a smile, purple lips against bright white skin. “Thanks, Char. You’re the best.”
Paul looks relieved when I turn for the house, and he leads me up the hill at a pace that sends my heart hurtling. Thanks to his daily trots up and down these hills, this climb is just a quick jaunt for him, barely any effort at all. I’ve already run up these steps once today, and it wiped me out.
“Babe, babe,” I say, pulling on his arm. We’re four steps in and I’m already panting. “Slow down. I can’t—”
“Hey, Charlie,” Sam says, not a question.
Paul and I pause, sharing a fleeting look that dumps me back into my body. I feel Sam’s gaze on me like an army of ants, biting and stinging my skin. He’s coming up the hill behind us, a duffel slung over his shoulder.
“I need an answer from you, too. Do you have an ID on the body?”
Paul squeezes my hand so tight it’s almost painful, and if I had any doubts as to what’s going on here, I don’t anymore. This is where things could get sticky.
Because I don’t have to think too hard about what would happen if I were to blurt out the truth. If I were to tell Sam that, no, I don’t know her, but we did have a fleeting encounter. That I only noticed her because she was talking to Paul, who was not too traumatized from his memories of Katherine like I first thought, but aware enough to look a cop in the eyes and lie.
Sam would pounce on my confession, on the way it would implicate Paul. If nothing else, I’ve got him for lying to a police officer during an investigation. He won’t walk away from this one, not this time. Not again. I told Charlie, and she went and married him anyway. I feel Sam’s eyes on mine now, conjuring up all the rumors that could come from this very moment. All the stories taking shape in his head, taking on a life of their own.
And Paul.
Paul might say he understands, he might tell me we are fine, but would we be? Would he love me just the same? Lie or implicate your new husband and there goes the marriage, the money, the stability. And really, what’s one tiny, silly, inconsequential lie compared to everything Paul has given me? It’s not a difficult decision.
Especially since I don’t know her; I don’t have anything to add other than that she was in town yesterday afternoon. Something that whoever else ran into her will surely tell Sam, as soon as he makes it to town. Self-preservation, I’ve only been doing it my whole life. The lie comes with surprising ease.
“Sorry. I’ve never seen her before, either.”
8
June 12, 1999
5:53 p.m.
For those first few months after his mother’s funeral, it hurt to see Mrs. Keller again. She was constantly dropping by the house or calling him up to check in, and every time, her voice would hit him like a surprise punch to the underbelly, that moment before you could tighten up your muscles to absorb some of the blow. If he were a funny guy, he’d say it hurt like a mother.