Chapter 4 - What the River Remembered
Marcus agreed to let me see the police file. We drove to the county records office without speaking. The river ran beside the highway, brown and fast beneath a sky the color of old paper.
“I should have shown you this before I asked you to marry me,” he said.
“You should have shown me before our first date.”
“I know.”
“Stop saying that unless you plan to do something with it.”
He nodded and kept both hands on the wheel.
The file was thinner than I expected. There was a report, a diagram, two photographs of the wreck, and a copy of Marcus's statement. In it, he said he had been driving north when a deer crossed the road. He had lost control. Kate had been in the passenger seat. Lila had been asleep in the back.
I read the statement twice.
“This says Kate was in the passenger seat.”
“I know.”
“You lied about everything.”
“Almost everything.”
The investigator's notes mentioned a missing piece of evidence: a disposable camera found near the guardrail. The film had never been developed because the camera disappeared before it could be logged.
“Who had the camera?” I asked.
“Kate.”
“How do you know?”
“Lila was taking pictures that night. She liked photographing things nobody else noticed.”
The records clerk gave us an address for the retired deputy who had handled the case. His name was Raymond Pike. He lived in a narrow blue house behind a tire shop.
Pike answered the door holding a cane. When Marcus gave his name, the old man's face tightened.
“I wondered when you would stop hiding.”
Marcus swallowed. “I need to ask about the camera.”
Pike looked at me. “Who is she?”
“My fiancée.”
The word hurt and comforted me at the same time.
Pike let us inside. His living room smelled of coffee and dust. He opened a metal box and removed a photocopy of a handwritten note.
“This was never added to the file,” he said. “I found it in the wreckage.”
The note was in a girl's handwriting.
“Kate says we are going to the river. Marcus says we have to go now. She is mad because I know about the money.”
Below that, the ink had smeared into a dark line.
“What money?” I asked.
Pike's mouth tightened. “Kate's father had been stealing from his construction company. Lila found the records. She planned to tell her mother.”
“Did you know Kate was driving?” Marcus asked.
Pike looked at him for a long moment. “I knew your story was wrong. I did not know who was behind the wheel until later.”
“Why didn't you reopen the case?”
“Kate's father hired lawyers. Your statement was signed. The family wanted quiet. Lila was dead, and nobody wanted to drag her name through court.”
“Where is the camera?” I asked.
Pike rubbed his thumb along the edge of the box. “Kate brought it to me two weeks after the crash. She said the film was ruined.”
“Was it?”
“No.”
He looked at Marcus. “There were pictures on it. One showed Kate in the driver's seat before the crash. Another showed your hand on the wheel.”
Marcus's face drained of color. “My hand?”
“The camera was in the back. Lila must have taken the photograph when you reached over.”
“Why would I reach over?”
Pike shook his head. “I don't know.”
In the car afterward, Marcus pulled onto the shoulder and rested his forehead against the steering wheel.
“She grabbed the wheel,” he said.
“Who?”
“Kate. We were fighting about the money. She said Lila was going to ruin everything. I reached from the passenger seat to stop her from turning. The car went through the guardrail.”
“You said you were driving.”
“I thought my hand on the wheel made me responsible.”
“That is not the same thing.”
“It was to me.”
“What happened to the film?”
“Kate took it.”
“And you let her?”
“She said she would give it to the police if I ever abandoned her.”
I stared at him. “She has been blackmailing you for ten years.”
“I thought she was keeping me from lying again.”
“She has been using your guilt as a leash.”
His phone rang. The screen showed no number.
He answered on speaker.
Kate said, “Pike should have stayed quiet.”
Marcus stood so quickly that the car rocked on its suspension.
“You were listening?”
“You took Nora to the records office. You drove to Pike's house. You are not subtle.”
I leaned toward the phone. “Where is the film?”
“Safe.”
“You have it?”
“I have more than the film.”
“What do you want?”
“The ring back. The apartment. Marcus's promise.”
I laughed once, unable to stop myself. “You want our home?”
“It was his before it was yours.”
“No,” Marcus said. His voice sounded different now, stripped of fear. “You don't get anything.”
Kate's breath caught.
“You will,” she said. “When she finds out what you did after the crash.”
The call ended.
Marcus stared at the dark screen.
“What did you do after the crash?”
“I don't know what she means.”
“Then we find out.”
That night, I searched every box in Marcus's closet while he sat on the floor beside me. At the bottom of an old duffel, beneath a winter coat, I found a receipt from a storage facility dated three days after Lila's death.
The unit was still active.
May you like
The name on the contract was not Marcus's.
It was Kate's.
