The Second Silence (15 page)

‘See you on Thursday?’

‘Unless you’d care to accompany me now on a quick tour of the
Register,’
Charlie offered lightly. ‘I doubt you’d even recognize the old place.’

‘This whole town has grown,’ Mary observed.

‘It’s those new condos tacked up around the lake. It’s brought in a lot of summer folk.’ A bitter note crept into Charlie’s voice, and she remembered that Van Doren & Sons was behind this recent building boom.

‘Well, anyway, I’d love a tour.’ The words were out of her mouth before she realized she’d said them. ‘I can walk to the bookstore from there.’

Not until they stepped outside did she realize how tense she’d been. Mary released her breath with an audible exhalation.

Charlie, walking along the path just ahead of her, turned to cast her a knowing look. ‘It still gets to you, doesn’t it?’

‘What?’

‘This house. Your mother.’

‘Only when I look down.’

‘Give it a few days, it won’t seem like such a tightrope.’

‘Says who?’

‘I’ve had my share of experience with this kind of thing.’

Mary knew he was thinking of his parents. ‘I heard about your mom,’ she said softly. ‘I’m sorry. I hope she didn’t suffer.’

‘Mercifully, no. In the end she went peacefully. More important, she died sober.’

Mary thought what cruel twist of fate it was that after ten years in AA, Pauline Jeffers had died of liver failure. Six decades of hard drinking had clearly taken their toll. ‘How’s your dad doing these days?’

‘Spends most of his days at the senior center fleecing old Kiwanis buddies at poker, but he’s hanging in there. Dad’s like your mother in that sense, a real survivor.’ Charlie jerked his head in the direction of the house. ‘She seems a little better, don’t you think? For a while there we weren’t sure she was going to make it.’

‘Doris? She’ll outlive us all.’ Mary gave a dry laugh that didn’t quite mask her tumult of conflicting emotions at being once again at her mother’s mercy.

Charlie wasn’t fooled either. He seemed to sense what was on her mind and opened his mouth to respond before abruptly changing his mind. ‘This lawn could use some mowing,’ he noted as he cut across it to where his car, a mud-spattered Chevy Blazer, was parked. ‘I’ll send one of the boys to take care of it.’

It was a moment before Mary understood he was referring to the office boys at the
Register,
the same job Charlie himself had once filled. Watching him stride across the unkempt grass as if to meet the long blade of his shadow, she was struck by the irony.

‘I’ll follow in my car,’ she told him.

He shrugged. ‘You know the way.’

Minutes later she was pulling up in front of the familiar brick building on Chatsworth Avenue. Five years ago, when Charlie bought out Ed Newcombe, the place had begun to look run-down. Since then the old bricks had been power-washed, the shutters and trim painted a glossy hunter green. Even the pallid ivy that used to trail dejectedly from the planters in front had been replaced by bright geraniums and nasturtiums.

Inside, too, what had once been a sleepy operation was now a bustling hub of activity. In the newsroom on the second floor there were at least a dozen desks, with a row of glass-partitioned offices along one wall. She remembered the old days, Charlie telling her about the veteran reporters who’d thought nothing of taking two- and three-hour lunches. What she saw now, though, was a crew of energetic-looking men and women, most of whom looked fresh out of college. As they bustled about, the noise was almost deafening, a cacophony of rattling keyboards, jangling phones, and voices shouting to one another over cluttered desks. She tried not to imagine what it would be like later on, with the volcanic rumbling of the presses below.

‘There was a fire down at the Mackie Foods warehouse last night.’ Charlie raised his voice to be heard above the din. ‘There’s talk it might be arson. I sent two of my best and brightest to cover it. Stan!’ He waved over a stoop-shouldered young man with a thatch of hair the color of a rusty pipe. ‘What did you get from the night watchman? He pick up on anything suspicious?’

The kid shifted from one foot to the other, scratching his freckled nose with the eraser end of his pencil. ‘I spoke with
both
guards. The guy who works the five-to-twelve shift and the one that comes on at midnight,’ he reported. ‘The first, a Mr Bluestone, claimed he had his eye on the security cameras the whole time and didn’t spot a thing out of the ordinary. The second, a Mr’—Stan consulted the notebook in his hand—‘T. K. Reston, friends call him Tuck, told me on the QT that Bluestone is fond of napping on the job.’

‘See if you can get copies of those cam tapes from the fire marshal,’ Charlie ordered. ‘They might turn up something interesting.’

‘I’m already on it, Chief.’ Stan tossed him an airy salute and sloped off toward his desk.

Inside Charlie’s fishbowl of an office it was somewhat quieter. ‘Have a seat.’ He gestured toward the chair facing his battered oak desk, a remnant from the previous administration, stacked with newspapers, its trays overflowing with paperwork. To the right of the computer sat an ancient Underwood typewriter.

Mary pointed to it. ‘Don’t tell me you still use that thing.’

Charlie chuckled. ‘You’d be surprised. Last winter when the power was out during that big storm, it came in pretty handy. But mostly I keep it around for sentimental value. Reminds me of when I was just a lowly copyboy.’

‘I’m impressed. And I don’t impress easy.’ Mary looked about in open wonderment. ‘You’ve turned this into a real newspaper, Charlie. Hot dog reporters and all.’ She smiled. ‘No more pieces about cats rescued from trees, I take it.’

‘There’s plenty of real news, even in a town this size—if you know where to find it.’ He picked up a paperweight, a geode sparkling with crystals that made her think of tiny, sharp teeth. He examined it without really seeming to see it, his gaze turned inward.

She recalled his earlier remark to Noelle. ‘Speaking of which, what’s this about your doing some digging? Is it something I should know about?’

With a sigh Charlie replaced the paperweight and leaned back against his desk, folding his arms over his chest. She couldn’t help noticing that his wedding ring finger was bare. A new woman in his life? Or had he merely decided it’d been long enough? His wife, after all, had been dead eight years.

‘I don’t know yet. It might be nothing.’ His expression was remote, unreadable. ‘My first impulse was to march over there and kill the bastard. Luckily I thought better of it and decided to do some nosing around instead. Anything I could pull up on Robert Van Doren, going all the way back to high school.’

‘And?’ Her heart quickened.

‘What I’ve come up with so far raises more questions than answers, I’m afraid.’ He swiveled around and pulled a file from atop an overflowing basket. ‘Here, take a look.’

The file contained a series of newspaper articles copied off microfiche. The top one, from the
San Francisco Examiner,
was dated April 12, 1972:

YOUTH CHARGED WITH RAPE

Yesterday morning, police in Palo Alto arrested a student at Stanford University, 21-year-old Justin McPhail, for the alleged rape of 18-year-old coed Darlene Simmons. Both had attended a party at the Kappa Alpha fraternity. When Simmons left the party with McPhail and two of his friends, all were reported to have been drinking heavily. Simmons identified her attacker as McPhail, claiming to have been raped as she walked back to her dormitory.

When questioned by authorities, McPhail’s companions, neither present at the time, 21-year-old King Larrabie and 20-year-old Robert Van Doren, said they knew nothing of the alleged crime. McPhail’s only statement was, ‘We’d both had a lot to drink and started fooling around. I didn’t force her into anything.’ He is currently being held without bail. Meanwhile, campus police at Stanford have launched an investigation.

The thought that had been tickling at the back of Mary’s mind materialized suddenly: Corrine’s suicide. What if they could find a way to use it against Robert? Coupled with this article, it would cast a pall of suspicion if nothing else. People might begin to wonder, as she had all these years, if he’d had more to do with Corinne’s death than met the eye.

‘Why didn’t we hear about this at the time?’ she asked.

‘For one thing, it wasn’t local.’ Charlie ticked off the reasons with his fingers. ‘For another, there was no proof that Robert was directly involved. I remember hearing something at the time, a rumor about some trouble at Stanford. But I don’t have to tell you the Van Dorens are a pretty tightlipped bunch.’

‘But if he wasn’t guilty of anything, why all the secrecy?’

‘Good question.’

‘You think he’s hiding something?’

‘Maybe, maybe not. Could be just a coincidence. I don’t know yet what happened with McPhail, but the interesting thing is where Larrabie ended up.’ Charlie pulled another clipping from the file, this one from the
Burns Lake Register,
dated November 16, 1998. The headline read:

REP. CANDIDATE KING LARRABIE ELECTED TO STATE SENATE

Mary looked up. ‘What makes you think the two are connected?’

‘Like I said, too many coincidences. And I’m not a big believer in coincidences.’ He tossed the clipping back into the file. ‘You hear about the new superhighway that just got voted in up in Albany? Take a wild guess who its biggest backer was.’

‘Larrabie?’

‘Bingo. And who in Burns Lake will benefit most when that highway goes in?’

Mary didn’t have to ask. Cranberry Mall was all their son-in-law had talked about for months. The highway would provide the crucial link to outlying areas, which in turn would spur more growth in Burns Lake itself. But other than the usual corporate payoffs, where was the smoking gun? Her mind groped for a connection.

‘It sounds a little fishy, I agree,’ she said. ‘But that doesn’t make it illegal.’

Charlie cocked an eyebrow. ‘No, but what if Robert and Larrabie have been in cahoots since way back when? What if they knew more about that girl’s rape than either of them admitted to? They’d have reason to look out for each other.’

A memory came to her then, like a draft of cold air finding its way through a crack. The night of Corinne’s death Robert claimed to have been at home with his family. But what if his parents had lied to protect him?

She remembered something else, a comment her friend had once made. They’d been sitting on the bed in her room, talking about Robert, and Corrine had gotten this funny look, as if she were bewildered, but also maybe a little scared. She’d said, ‘Nothing ever gets to him, Mary. I don’t mean stuff doesn’t bother him. It doesn’t even
touch
him.’

What exactly had she meant? That nothing bad ever happened to Robert? Or simply that he was without conscience? On the basis of his recent actions alone, she’d go with the latter. But underhandedness in a divorce was one thing, murder something else altogether.

Nevertheless, Mary felt the hairs on the back of her neck stand up. It was the same feeling she got when a major opportunity for publicity presented itself. ‘I was just thinking of Corinne,’ she mused aloud. ‘Do you remember her funeral? How cold Robert acted. Almost like—like he was trying to distance himself from the whole thing.’

‘To be honest, the only thing I remember clearly is the day we heard she’d died.’ He shrugged, spreading his hands.

Of course, she thought. How could
either
of them forget? That was the day she’d walked out on Charlie. And however unwitting her actions, there was no getting around the suffering she’d caused. She thought she saw a flicker of that old pain in his eyes just now.

Mary fought the urge to look away. ‘What if Robert knows more than he’s telling, not just about the rape but about Corinne?’

Except for a barely perceptible tightening of his jaw, Charlie’s expression remained neutral, considering. ‘I thought of that, too. But even if we’re right, we have no way of proving it.’

‘Suppose we
could
prove it, though?’

It had been this way with them from the beginning. Whenever one expressed an idea, it was only to find that the other had been thinking along the same lines. They used to laugh about it. Now it made her uneasy to realize how little had changed.

‘Speaking as a newspaperman,’ he said, ‘I’d have to see some pretty compelling evidence. And after all these years, frankly I don’t see much likelihood of anything new coming to light.’

Even so, an idea was taking shape in Mary’s mind. She leaned forward in her eagerness. ‘Let me help, Charlie. I’ll have plenty of time on my hands. And God knows I’m familiar with the territory.’

Charlie shook his head. ‘Look, I don’t mean to sound harsh, but you’d just be getting in the way. Anyway, like I said, it was a long time ago. Whatever trail there might have been is stone cold.’

She bristled. ‘I may not be in the newspaper business, true, but one thing I
do
know is spin-doctoring. It’s what I do for a living. If Robert has something to hide, believe me I’d know where to look.’

He regarded her thoughtfully. In the dusty light that slanted through the blinds, his angular face appeared to have been chipped from the same hard stone as the arrowheads of his Iroquois ancestors. Was he wondering about the two of them working so closely together? Was he apprehensive, as she was, of the old feelings it might dredge up?

It’s been thirty years,
a voice scoffed.
What makes you think he still cares?
He was the one who’d remarried, not she, with a child to show for it. Anyway, this wasn’t about Charlie and her. It was about their daughter. And Emma.
That
was the reason she’d come back. Not to pick over old bones.

She knew she’d won when Charlie inquired casually, ‘Just for the sake of argument, where would you start?’

Mary thought hard, the noise outside fading to a distant hum. But oddly enough, what came to mind was a memory of Charlie and her at their junior prom. She’d been wearing a blue satin dress with a lace overskirt, she recalled. The auditorium had been showered in silvery coins of light from the glitter ball twirling overhead. They were dancing to the Righteous Brothers, and Charlie was holding her tight, saying something she couldn’t quite make out over the music. There was only the feel of his lips brushing her ear, his warm breath against her cheek. She remembered loving him so much at that moment it hurt, a sweet ache that traveled all the way down to the quivering muscles in her calves as she strained upward in her high heels.