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“I have to go where the evidence leads me,” I say diplomatically.
“Me too,” Nola says before going back inside the house and shutting the door in my face, the limp Christmas wreath swinging precariously from its nail.
Now what the hell did that mean? I wonder. Did Nola know more about what happened to Eve than she let on? Or was she trying to mete out some kind of homespun justice? She’s done that before, just ask Nick Brady.
I move across the street to my dad’s house. He’s still sitting on the porch but alone now. Leanne must have left for the day. Eve’s was the only case I recall my father bringing home with him. It was also the only case I remember my dad obsessing over. My dad would come home from the station and then go directly to his den and shut the door.
He spent decades poring over the few known details of Eve’s murder over and over again. Like an archaeologist he’d carefully hold the gruesome artifacts in his hands in search of a new detail, a new angle. He’d come home from the station or materialize from his den, pinched-faced and pale. I can’t help but wonder if his memory issues are his body’s way of saying, Enough. This is too hard. It’s too much. I don’t want to remember these sad, violent things anymore.
It didn’t help that he was trying to parent Colin and me on his own. My mom died of an aneurysm when I was nine and Colin was twelve. One day she was making breakfast for us and taking us to school and the next she dropped dead at the grocery store.
Eve’s case hasn’t killed my father like many people predicted, not yet anyway, but I do think it played a hand in his deterioration. He didn’t know how to help me through the grief of losing my best friend and he didn’t know how to help his artistic son find his path in the world.
After Eve died, I couldn’t get out of bed. All I wanted to do was sleep, to forget. My dad was patient for a while, tried to give me some space. The turning point came when the school called and said that I had missed so much school I was in danger of not being promoted to the eleventh grade. My dad stormed into my room, threw open the shades and told me to get out of bed.
Enough, Maggie!he shouted. Eve can’t live the life she was meant to, but you can. You owe it to her, to your mother and to me to get it together. I stared up at him in shock as he continued his tirade. Get up, take a shower and get to school. You let me worry about what happened to Eve and live your life. It wasn’t easy, but I did get up and with many fits and starts I was able to get back on track.
My dad didn’t realize that he was doing the best he could with us and that he wasn’t to blame for not finding the person who killed Eve. He didn’t believe people’s reassurances though. He blamed himself for not bringing the closure that the Knox family deserved.
I think that’s partly why I became a cop—to make my mom proud of me and to be closer to my dad. Be more like my dad. He worked his ass off his whole life to make Grotto a safer, better place. I couldn’t fully appreciate that when I was young. Now I do.
I don’t want to tell my dad that we are reopening Eve’s case but at some point I’ll have to. I know it will upset him. He’ll get anxious and sad and frustrated. Then he will forget that I told him. Just like that. I wish it could be that easy. To forget, to shed painful memories like a dried-up snakeskin. I’ve had so much loss. Eve, my mother, the babies. All the babies that could have been.
Eve would have been so happy for me. For a moment I allow thoughts of what might have been: picking out baby clothes and paint colors for the baby’s room, me calling Eve to run baby names by her. Maybe we would have even been pregnant together—sharing morning sickness and stretch mark stories.
My dad’s face brightens when he sees me coming toward him. “Hi, Dad,” I say.
“Maggie,” he says as if he hadn’t seen me just a few minutes earlier. “What are you doing in this neck of the woods?”
Normally, I come over and he moves over on the porch swing to make room for me. He loves talking shop, reminiscing about his glory days on the force. He peppers me with questions about whatever case I’m working on and I tell him with no fear that he’ll relay the details to Colin or his home health aide. He can remember a collar he made forty years ago but forgets what I tell him after a few minutes. But I don’t want to bring up Eve’s case, not today.
“I heard that Charlotte Knox was in the hospital. I just wanted to make sure that she was doing okay,” I tell him.
“Oh, that’s too bad. What happened?” he asks. I was right. He had forgotten.
“Apparently she fell down the basement steps. Nola says that she broke her hip. She’ll be in the hospital for a bit longer,” I explain and then change the subject. “What’s Colin up to? Is he around?”
“He’s around here somewhere, I think,” my dad says looking around. “You’re pregnant?” he says looking at my stomach. “When is the baby due?”
My dad asks me this nearly every time I see him and the joy on his face is just as genuine as it was the first time Shaun and I told him the good news. “August tenth,” I tell him. “We’re having a little girl. We can’t wait.”
“A girl,” he says with wonder. “That’s great! I’ll have to go out and buy a gift. I wish your mother was here for this.”
“I do too,” I say. My mother would have loved this. I miss her more than ever now. I have so many questions about giving birth, about being a good mom. Even though I’ve read as many books on the subjects as I can get my hands on, it’s not the same. I still need her even though I’m older than she was when she died.
Cam Harper pulls into his driveway and I watch as his garage door rises and he maneuvers his car inside. Bile creeps into my throat but I swallow it back.
“You okay?” my dad asks.
“Just heartburn.” I wave away his concern. “Dad, what do you know about Cam Harper? Did he run into any trouble when he was younger?”
“Trouble?” my dad repeats. “No, I don’t think so. He’s always been a nice guy. I remember you babysat for them all the time. I think you were over at the Harper house more than you were here.”
“Great baseball player, too,” Colin says coming out the front door carrying a glass of water and a handful of pills for my dad.
“Cam Harper?” I feign surprise. “I didn’t know that.” In fact, Cam told me all about his baseball glory days. It was one of his favorite topics.
“Oh, yeah, all-American in college. Could have gone pro but hurt his shoulder.” Colin hands Dad the glass. “Ended up coaching his kids’ Little League teams back in the day. Now he helps coach the softball team,” Colin says as he presses one pill at a time into our dad’s palm.
“Softball?” I ask as dread spreads through my body.
“Yeah, the freshman team at the high school in Willow Creek,” Colin says.
How did I miss this? I’d been watching Cam Harper for years, making sure that he didn’t get too close to any girls. I ran checks on him through the police computer. There were no complaints, no indication that he was abusing another girl. Could I have been the only one? I didn’t think so. Men like Cam Harper never were satisfied with just one.
