Sweet Water(72)

And they’re still going. Alton has probably seen a few white envelopes in his day, pleased to win over the favor of the uncles who’d likely treated him as lesser because of his wayward mother. Livvy had it right all along, though, defying her family, skipping town, and living overseas, away from all the corruption. Mary Alice likely took over as primary caregiver, hence Alton’s strange servitude to her.

I swing open the door to the station, and my first thoughts are that it’s far too clean and pretty to be a police station. There are no people in the waiting room, and I have to ring a bell to get anyone to come to the front desk.

A young blonde who looks more suited to work at a makeup counter strolls in from a side door. Her lipstick is a little smeared, and she futzes with her wildly patterned blouse before asking me who I’m looking for.

“I’m here to see the sheriff,” I tell her.

She raises her eyebrows, which are much darker than her hair. “Is he expecting you?”

“Yes,” I lie. “Tell him it’s Sarah; he’ll know who I am.” In a town this small, I’m fairly certain I’m the only one.

She shrugs and knocks on a door behind her, the same one she just came out of.

Alton emerges, his lips pinker than they should be. Maybe the girl did work at a makeup counter in the past and thought she’d found the perfect brand that wouldn’t wear off, and it just backfired.

I shake my head at him, and he grins as I’m escorted to his office. Alton has never brought a girl to a family dinner. At first, we thought he might be gay, but Mary Alice was more than pleased to find out he’s just a womanizer instead.

“Not the staying type,” as he so plainly put it, much like his father, who left Livvy when he became uninspired by the industrial grit of Pittsburgh and decided to venture to Japan to teach. There was no pressure for Alton to procreate, since he didn’t bear the right last name, so this family flop wasn’t as big a deal as it would’ve been if one of the Ellsworth boys’ wives had left them.

Like I am strongly contemplating. The thought floors me, and I grip the corner of Alton’s desk and close my eyes for a minute, blindsided. Yazmin’s death has destroyed us, but it wouldn’t have if we were strong enough as a couple to begin with.

“Hello, Sarah, what brings you in?”

“Busy day, Alton? I wasn’t interrupting you, was I?” I can’t help myself from harassing him a little. These boys get away with everything in this town, and no one ever says a thing.

“No, it’s fine.” He clears his throat. “What did you need? Martin didn’t mention you’d be stopping by. We could’ve had dinner at Aunt Mary Alice’s if you needed to talk.” He runs his hand over his shaved head. There’s a clear intent in his sentence that I should be going through Martin if I want to speak to him. That these visits to discuss such private family matters shouldn’t go unannounced or occur at his place of work.

“How old is she, Al?”

He sits back in his chair, and it creaks, and at least something is old in this station like it should be. We pay more property tax than some people pay in mortgage. “Old enough. What’s going on, Sarah?”

“You tell me. Alisha Veltri believes you took Yazmin’s journal into evidence and then didn’t give it back. She’s very angry, threatening to go to the media. She wants it back. I’d like to give it to her if you’re done with it. And I’ll volunteer to make copies of the pages if you’re not.”

Alton’s fingers stop drumming. He turns and grabs a box with a rubber band fastened to the top labeled VELTRI.

“Did you find it?” I ask hopefully. Maybe it was just a work mistake, like hiring the woman at the front desk who clearly wasn’t qualified to be employed at a police station.

“No, I don’t have it,” Alton says.

My heart sinks in my chest, both because I so badly want to know if there’s anything in the journal that ties Finn to the crime and because I want to give it back to Alisha.

The first part is still hard to think about.

I feel guilty for doubting my child. I’m his mother. I’m supposed to support him, believe in him. My hand trembles on my purse, checkbook still inside.

There are lengths I’d go to protect him, but I need to know what he’s done first.

What did you do, Finn?

Alton removes the rubber band from the top of the box and lets me look inside. “Don’t touch anything, but see for yourself—it’s not here.”

I feel invasive looking in it, but I do, and there’s very little to inspect—car keys, pictures, school notebooks. My eyes fill up with tears that this young girl’s life is condensed into one cardboard box with not enough items to fill it to the top.

“Shouldn’t this be in an evidence room?” I ask.

Alton has a shitty grin on his face. “You’re looking at it. This is my only open case.”

“Where is the journal, Alton?”

He shrugs, reminding me of the blonde. She probably picked up his body language from hanging around him, the way couples adopt each other’s idiosyncrasies. “She’s going to go to the media. Did you hear me say that?”

“She’s not. She would’ve already. If she decides to now, the case will be closed by then, and the media will no longer be interested. I’m just waiting on the coroner report.”