Before He Finds Her Page 26

  The walk home left her sweaty and short of breath. She finally crossed the parking lot and was close to the hotel when she heard: “We sacrificed everything to keep you safe, and this is how you repay us?”

  She turned toward the voice and scrambled to make sense of what she saw: her uncle leaning against the cement ledge near the front entrance.

  “How did you—”

  “You know you shouldn’t be here,” he said, and lowered his voice. “My god, Melanie, the one place on this earth you can’t be.” He squinted in the sunlight. “What happened to your head?”

  “I got beat up. It doesn’t matter. How’d you find me?” But she knew.

  “Of course it matters. You look—”

  “Tell me how.”

  “The young man you’ve been seeing had the decency to—”

  “He had no right.” Melanie was already backing away. “And I have nothing to say to you.” She rushed away from him, into the hotel lobby.

  He followed her inside before the automatic doors slid closed. Followed her right out the back sliding doors to the swimming area, which was deserted and consisted of several dirty chaise lounges around a small pool filled with murky water. Melanie sat on one of the chairs and put her head in her hands. Wayne sat on the lounge chair nearest her.

  “Who hurt you?” he asked.

  “I don’t know,” she said. “I just got mugged, is all.”

  “Figures—this place is a fucking nightmare.” His voice was harsh but whisper-quiet. “We were scared to death. I’m very angry with you.”

  “I told you in my note not to worry.”

  “Well, we did worry. We worried a lot. We thought he’d gotten to you.”

  “Oh, stop it already!” She glared at him.

  “Stop what?”

  That damn detective. Melanie didn’t want to believe her. “Stop lying to me.”

  “Honey, I’m not—”

  “You kidnapped me, Uncle Wayne.”

  “What? No. Keep it down. What are you talking about?”

  “The witness protection program—I know you made it up.”

  “That’s not true. Why would you think—”

  “The police checked it all out. They spoke with the U.S. Marshals. It’s just not true.”

  “The police? You went to the—” He shook his head. “Honey, the police are idiots. You know that. They obviously made a mistake. It’s been a long time and the files get...” He took a breath. “You shouldn’t be talking to law enforcement. You shouldn’t be here. It’s too risky. We’re not even allowed here. It’s like I always said...” She remained quiet, watching his mouth form words that were increasingly losing any meaning. “It’s like I said—we have to...”

  With every fumbling word from her uncle’s mouth, Melanie became more certain. He had taken her and lied to her about it, inventing the sort of lies that made her afraid, lies that kept her within the tight perimeter of their trailer. “Why?” she said. “Why would you do that?”

  He watched the pool for a few seconds. Large leaves floated in the water. “Growing up without parents, Melanie... the Hope Home for Children—you can’t imagine. The beatings, the daily humiliations... it didn’t matter how well you behaved.” He was looking at the leaves in the pool but seeing into his past. “The noise that never stopped—the crying and screaming and moaning. Older kids hurting the younger ones at night with rocks, with handmade knives. The smell of sickness. The stink of it. Vomit and piss and shit.” He looked at Melanie now. “At night I’d lie in bed and pray to die in my sleep. And then one day the place closed, and the people that took me—I knew it had to be better. But it wasn’t. She locked us in closets with no lights. She put out her cigarettes on my arms. And him. He was worse.” She had never seen tears in his eyes before. “No way was I going to let you live that way.”

  “This is crazy,” she said. “I don’t want to hear this.”

  “You’re the one who came here for answers, Melanie. So now you’re going to get them.” He took a breath. “The night your mother died, me and Eric and Paul—we went to a bar near the house, but we were worried about her. None of us grew up protected like you did. We had all seen the sort of things that people did to people. And Ramsey—your father—he was acting crazy that day. The look in his eyes—we’d all seen it before in other men. So when we left the bar, I drove back to check on them.”

  “Eric Pace told me you were drunk and drove straight home.”

  “You talked to Eric?” His eyes widened. “Well, sure, Mel—that’s what I told him. I had to keep the truth from everyone, even him. To keep you safe. Damn, Melanie, you know I don’t like talking about this...” He took a breath. “So we all left the bar together and got in our cars, but then I went back into the bar and had one more drink. I was afraid, you know? I didn’t want to go, didn’t want to face Ramsey. But I felt like I had to. So I stayed and drank one more beer, and then I got in my car and went over there. It was so much worse than I ever thought...” He swallowed. “I saw her in the fire, Mel. And I knew that Ramsey would go to prison, probably forever, and you’d become a ward of the state. I’ll admit, it all happened fast. I was practically a kid myself and didn’t have time to think any of it through. It was instinct, you know?” He looked distraught, remembering back. “I knew I had to keep you. I’d take care of you. Raise you in a good home. Give you what I never had. And when I found out that Ramsey was on the loose, it only proved I’d made the right decision to protect you. I knew that’s why I was put on this earth.”

  “And Aunt Kendra—she knew all this?”

  “She knew we could all be a family,” Wayne said. “She knew we could have a peaceful home where we look out for one another, which is all she’s ever wanted.”

  “That’s not what I’m asking.”

  “Then no—she doesn’t know everything. She thinks everything is legal. I did her that favor.”

  Of course: the letters. They were never meant for Melanie.

  Every meal together as a family. Every night, going to bed and believing you knew the raw data of your own existence.

  “My whole life, you’ve lied to me,” Melanie said. “Everything’s a lie.”

  “No—that’s not true.” His eyes were begging her. “Your aunt loves you. And so do I. We’re a family.”

  “Don’t say that.”

  “You know we are.”

  She wanted to get up and plunge into the water, cleanse herself of everything she was hearing. But even the pool was dirty.

  Her skull throbbed. “I need to take some Tylenol.” She got up and walked toward her room. She let Wayne follow her. In the room, she took two pills and lay on the covers of her bed while Wayne paced the small carpeted area.

  “Forget what I said about working in the garage,” he said. “You can pick up where you left off at the college. Take any course you want.” More pacing. “If you want to be on that newspaper... well, I guess that’s okay, too.”

  The school newspaper? Did he not understand anything she was saying?

  When he tore open the complimentary packet of coffee grounds, Melanie’s stomach seized. “Please don’t make coffee.” He frowned at her. “My headache is making everything smell bad.” He shrugged and dropped the opened packet into the trash.

  “You’re almost eighteen,” he said, taking a seat at the table by the window. “I know we have to start treating you like an adult. I mean, I get that,” he said. “But we can make it work. Everything’s on the table.”

  Nothing was simple. Wayne had lied to her for years, but not about sacrificing everything for her safety. And she felt safer around him, still—even now, protected in a way that was familiar and seductive. She could almost chalk this whole trip up to some failed Nancy Drew sleuthing, the stunt of an impulsive teenager, and head home to Fredonia. But she also understood exactly why she felt so tempted: As long as she was with her aunt and uncle, she’d never have to be responsible for herself or anybody else.

  �
�No,” she said. “I’m never going back there.”

  “Honey—”

  “I can’t live this way anymore. I won’t. I’m going to find my father.”

  “You won’t find him,” he said. “Not if the police and F.B.I. can’t.”

  “Well, I’m trying, anyway. You might as well go home. Phillip’s on his way—he’ll take care of me.”

  “Him? I find that hard to believe,” Wayne said, and they both watched through the window as a police cruiser pulled into the lot.

  “That’s probably for me,” she said. “Because of this.” She touched her forehead.

  “Melanie, this is a bad place.”

  “Okay. But I should go out there. I doubt either one of us of wants an officer coming to the room.”

  When she got out of bed, he reached out and touched her arm. “You never should have come to Silver Bay,” he said.

  She wondered if she would ever feel his touch again. “Go home, Uncle Wayne.” And in case he needed to hear it: “Don’t worry—I’m not going to turn you in.”

  It was Officer Bauer, who’d come to take Melanie to the station.

  “Why?” she asked.

  “Detective Isaacson wants you there.”

  “Why?”

  “I suppose she wants to talk to you.”

  “Can I make a call first?” Melanie asked.

  “Can it wait until we get there?”

  “Not really.”

  She had to borrow the officer’s cell phone. Phillip picked right up.

  “I’m in Trenton!” he announced as brightly as if he had just entered Emerald City.

  She was furious at Phillip for telling Wayne where she’d gone, but there was nothing she could say with the officer standing right there. All she could tell him was to meet her at the Silver Bay police station, not the hotel. She handed the phone back to the officer, who pocketed it and opened the back door for Melanie. “Watch your head,” he said.

  For nearly an hour, Melanie sat on the hard wooden bench in the station’s cramped lobby, her headache not helped any by the fluorescent lights buzzing overhead. Only a few people came and went, taking no notice of her. At some point she heard rain on the roof. Finally, Detective Isaacson hurried into the room from somewhere within the station’s depths. “Sorry to keep you waiting,” she said, “but if we didn’t pick you up at the hotel, there’d be no other way to reach you.” She shook Melanie’s hand. “You might think about getting a cell phone. Thanks for coming. Coffee?”

  “No.”

  “All right. Let’s go somewhere we can talk.”

  Melanie’s body tensed. Every time they talked, Melanie learned something she didn’t want to know. The alternative was to choose not-knowing over knowing, and that option was starting to have its appeal. Nonetheless, she followed the detective down a narrow corridor with an uneven floor. On the wood-paneled walls hung framed photographs of police academy graduating classes—trim officers with proud postures and eyes that seemed to follow her accusingly.

  The detective led her to a small room with a desk and a few mismatched chairs. She shut the door and motioned for Melanie to sit. The detective sat beside her and opened the file folder. “I had your statements from this morning transcribed off the tape. I’d like you to read them and let me know if you have any corrections. Then sign them.”

  Melanie glanced at the papers; it was odd seeing her own words in print.

  “You were right, by the way, about the man who assaulted you. Bill Suddoth has had trouble with the law before. Misdemeanors: a couple of drunk and disorderlies. He was very cooperative with me when I went to his apartment this afternoon and told him I was investigating an assault committed by a man of exactly his size, wearing the same shoes he was currently wearing. And you were also right about his shoes. I kind of wish he’d polish mine. Anyway, he immediately blamed Magruder, said his boss wanted you dead and threatened to fire him unless he took care of it.”

  Melanie looked up from the papers she was holding. Despite her bruises and aches, she had trouble believing this. “David wanted to kill me?”

  “That’s what Bill Suddoth claims. He also claims he decided all on his own to convince you to leave town—you know, talk to you instead of doing something a lot worse. He claims he never meant to hurt you.” Detective Isaacson held Melanie’s gaze. “I think it’s complete bullshit.”

  “Which part?”

  “All of it. Magruder, with all his money and connections, would never rely on a man like Bill Suddoth to commit a murder for him. He’d pay top dollar for a professional hit man. So here’s what I think. I think that driving Magruder’s fancy cars is the best job Bill Suddoth has ever had, and he’d do a lot to keep it. Not murder, but a lot. Now, if Magruder was surprised to see you alive yesterday—I think you even used the word ‘happy’—then I doubt very much he’d want you dead today. But after sobering up last night he must have become very anxious about something, and decided it was best if you left town and never came back.”

  “Anxious about what?”

  “Well, we don’t know for sure. But I’m going to try like hell to find out when I interview him. That’s why I want to make sure your statement is totally accurate.”

  “When are you going to interview him?”

  “Now.”

  “You mean he’s here?”

  “Yes, but he doesn’t know he’s a person of interest. We told him we’ve arrested Bill Suddoth for an assault, made it sound like an open-and-shut case. The moment he feels threatened, he’s going to demand his lawyer. So I figure we have one good shot at catching him off guard.”

  Melanie glanced at her statement. All the facts were there, but something didn’t add up. “You’re doing all this—messing with a famous person—because his driver shoved me?”

  The detective sighed. “David Magruder committed a serious crime today, orchestrating your assault, and he did it stupidly, getting Bill Suddoth involved. Why do you think he would take a risk like that?”

  “I guess he panicked,” Melanie said.

  “Exactly. And why did he panic? Because of you.” Then the detective did the most surprising thing. She took Melanie’s hand. “Honey, I think it’s possible—actually, more than possible—that David Magruder is responsible for your mother’s death.”

  “My father killed my mother,” Melanie said automatically, pulling her hand away. It was true because it had to be true. It was the one true thing left.

  “Melanie, I went back and read the file from 1991. You were right. Magruder had no alibi for the time of the murder. And he lied to us on tape about having a relationship with the victim.”

  “So what?”

  “So in my opinion, the police went far too easy on him back in ninety-one. The lead investigator at the time, Esposito—our careers overlapped by a few years. He was a sweet man who threw great holiday parties. But as a detective?” She shook her head. “All I’m saying is, the fact that he interviewed Magruder more than once is actually pretty astonishing. But he never would have pursued Magruder as a suspect. Not without hard evidence screaming at him. Not when Magruder was already a local celebrity who denied knowing the victim, and especially not with an obvious suspect in your father, whom a dozen people had witnessed acting angry and unbalanced—unhinged—on the night of the murder.”

  “He’s the obvious suspect because he did it,” Melanie said. Needing this to be true, she repeated it like a mantra. “My father killed my mother.”

  “Honey—”

  “Please don’t call me that.” After a full day of being bossed around by doctors and cops, everyone believing they knew best, it felt good, even pleasurable, to stand up to the detective. “I’m not a child. And no matter what David might have done, or why he did it, I know that my father killed my mother. I know it.” She stood up.

  “Melanie, I agree that your father’s disappearance is a mystery. But not everyone who vanishes is a murderer. And I think it’s possible that David Magruder killed
your mother and fled, and sometime later that night or early the next morning Wayne Denison came upon the crime scene, panicked, and took you away where he thought you’d be safe.”

  “That’s not right.”

  “It makes sense, your uncle jumping to the same conclusion as everybody else. He thought he was protecting you from your father. I mean, it was a reasonable thought to have. But holding you for all those years.” She exhaled. “I can’t begin to imagine.”

  Melanie had been working hard this afternoon to hate her uncle—he isn’t even your uncle! she kept reminding herself—but she couldn’t make herself do it. “He wasn’t ‘holding me,’ detective. He was raising me. He did what he thought he had to.”

  “But he didn’t have to. He never should have taken the matter into his own hands.” The detective softened her voice. “We’ll be coordinating with authorities in West Virginia to pick up Mr. and Mrs. Denison. I hope you understand we have no choice.”

  Melanie’s legs were weak. She sat back down. In her head, she was trying out a new sentence: David Magruder killed my mother.

  “Given all of this,” Detective Isaacson said, “I’d like you to remain at the station while I interview Mr. Magruder. Like I said, I’ll have one shot at this before he sees what we’re up to and he starts spreading his money around on lawyers, at which point he’ll become a far more difficult suspect. So in case he says something I need to verify, or that contradicts something you’ve said, I need to be able to ask you right away. He’ll never know you’re here.”

  My father did not kill my mother.

  “We don’t have nearly enough evidence for a murder charge yet,” Isaacson was saying. “I’m hoping this interview will let me start building a case.”