We Begin at the End(64)

Martha had a stopwatch. They’d allow for the fact he could’ve run, sprinted there and back, though Walk didn’t recall if the man appeared out of breath, or sweating, but then Walk couldn’t recall much of the detail of that night, aside from Star’s face, which he knew he’d carry for the rest of his life. The memory loss, it was creeping on him. He’d taken to making notes, pretending he was writing up when really he was just keeping check. The order of his day, the time he took pills, he noted it all now.

They started out into Star’s backyard, stepped over the broken fence, which had been there as long as Walk could remember. Into light woodland, just a copse that separated Ivy Ranch from Newton Avenue. They were methodical, every walkway, every tree and bush and cluster of flowers. They checked drains; knew Boyd and his men and dogs had already run the same routes but Walk was hoping for something more, something only a local would notice. He closed his eyes and put himself into Vincent’s shoes.

They walked seven routes, some slight deviations from the last. They got nowhere at all.

“He didn’t have it. If he had we would’ve found it, or more likely Boyd would have.”

“It’s a hole in their case. A big one,” Martha said. “The D.A. will be pissed.”

They found their way back to the Radley house and stood on the sidewalk.

She reached out and grasped his hand. He was close to breaking. Every way he turned, he couldn’t figure it. He’d lost Darke, tried his cell over and over and left so many messages he filled up the mailbox.

He felt it. Darke killed Star and pinned the blame on Vincent King in order to get his hands on the house that would save his empire and make his fortune. It was flawed, but that’s all he had to work on. As for the girl, he took comfort in the fact that Hal was a ghost, Radley land was buried, the kids were safe up there.

At the end of Newton she led him down the neighbor’s driveway and then hopped a low fence, hidden by thick barberry.

“You still know all the shortcuts,” Walk said.

“Star showed me that one.”

Twenty minutes and they were by the old wishing tree, stars over the ocean, the tower at Little Brook like an abandoned lighthouse.

“I can’t believe it’s still here. You remember we used to make out under this tree.”

He laughed. “I remember everything.”

“You never could unhook my bra.”

“One time I did.”

“No. I unhooked it before, let you have your moment.”

She sat down, then reached up and pulled him down beside her. Together they leaned back against the wide oak and looked up at the stars.

“I never said I was sorry,” she said.

“For what?”

“Leaving you.”

“It was a long time ago. We were kids.”

“We weren’t, Walk. Not according to the judge. Do you think about it?”

“What?”

“Me. Pregnant. A baby.”

“Every day.”

“He didn’t get over it, my father. He wasn’t all bad. It’s just … he thought he was doing right by me.”

“And wrong by God.”

She said nothing for a while. The lights of a boat drifted, moving with the tide.

“You didn’t marry,” she said.

“Of course not.”

She laughed gently. “We were fifteen.”

“But I knew it.”

“That’s what I loved about you. That pure belief, in good and bad and love. You never said anything, about my father, about what he did. You never told anyone. Even though I left you behind, and Star went to another school and it was just you, and this thing. This giant fucking sickening thing that Vincent did.”

Walk swallowed. “I just wanted you all to be happy.”

That laugh again, nothing about it was pitying.

“I did see you,” he said. “Maybe a year after. At the mall in Clearwater Cove. I was with my mother, and you were standing in line outside the movie theater.”

She was quiet before it came to her. “David Rowen. Just a boy. It didn’t mean anything.”

“Oh, I know that. I didn’t mean because of that. I just, you looked happy, Martha. And I thought about that boy, and he didn’t know, right. He didn’t know what we all went through, and I thought that must’ve been alright. You could just … it wasn’t there between you. You didn’t have to share that thing. You could just … be.”

She cried.

He held her hand.





26


AS WINTER ARRIVED RADLEY LAND froze and the sky whitened with light snows.

Robin lay flat on his back and watched it so long Duchess had to drag him in when his fingers turned white. The field work eased but the animals still needed tending. The gray and the black wore coats as they grazed. Duchess began to take the gray out each morning alone, saddling her at first light and following tracks she began to learn well. She took enjoyment from the Montana quiet, so thick it was as if God had laid down a blanket over the woodland and smothered all but the loudest chickadees.

They watched out for Darke, Hal sitting till late each night, a deerstalker and blanket and the shotgun by his feet. Some nights Duchess woke and went to the window, saw him down there then promptly fell back into deep sleep. Other nights she went down and he fixed cocoa. They would sit, mostly in silence, but sometimes she allowed him to tell her stories of Billy Blue, so dazzling and detailed she wondered if the old man made them up himself. One night she fell asleep on his shoulder, then woke in her bed, the cover pulled up tight.