Chương 5
Miller asked, “Name?”
“Eric Lawson.”
Greg came down the ramp.
“Eric hasn’t talked to him in months.”
Hannah heard him.
“Your dad is there?”
“He’s here.”
Greg leaned toward the phone.
“Hannah, Eric and Shawn had that blowup in March.”
“I know.”
“Then why would Shawn go there?”
“Because Eric has a place in Tennessee.”
Greg’s face changed.
Not much.
Enough.
Brenda stood.
“What place in Tennessee?”
He did not answer her.
Hannah said, “Greg knows.”
Every eye went to him.
Greg looked at his wife, then at the deputy, then at me.
For the first time that morning, he seemed older than I was.
“It’s not a place,” he said.
“It’s a hunting trailer outside Tellico Plains.”
Miller asked, “Does Shawn have access?”
Greg rubbed the back of his neck.
“He has a key.”
The deputy took out his notebook again.
“And you were going to mention this when?”
Greg’s jaw tightened.
“I didn’t know he was running.”
Miller looked at Greg for a long moment, then closed the notebook.
“You may not have known.”
“That’s what I just said.”
“You also may have information that matters now.”
Greg’s shoulders sagged.
The anger had finally run out of places to stand.
He walked to the tailgate of the U-Haul and sat beside Brenda without looking at her.
“I haven’t been up there in maybe five years.”
“Who owns it?”
“My brother, technically.”
“Hannah said Eric is Shawn’s brother.”
“He is.”
I frowned.
“Your brother owns your son’s brother’s hunting trailer?”
Greg shook his head.
“No, no.”
He rubbed both palms over his jeans.
“Eric is our older son.”
The family tree corrected itself in my head.
I had only met Eric twice.
He was seven years older than Shawn, divorced, broad-shouldered, quiet, and usually gone before dessert.
Susan had liked him because he cleared plates without being asked.
“Eric bought the land with me years ago,” Greg continued.
“Then I signed my half over when I stopped hunting.”
“Why did Shawn and Eric stop speaking?” Miller asked.
Greg looked at Brenda.
She answered.
“Money.”
Of course it was money.
Miller asked, “What kind of money?”
Brenda pressed her lips together.
“Eric loaned Shawn thirty thousand dollars.”
Greg said, “Twenty-five.”
She turned toward him.
“It was thirty.”
“He paid five back.”
“That still means he borrowed thirty.”
Greg closed his mouth.
Miller waited.
Brenda continued.
“Shawn said he was investing in a property deal.”
“When?”
“Last fall.”
“Did Eric receive the rest?”
“No.”
“What happened to the investment?”
“We don’t know.”
Greg stared at his shoes.
“Shawn said the deal fell apart.”
A slow uneasiness moved through me.
The cabin no longer felt like the beginning of anything.
It felt like the first place the curtain had been pulled back.
Miller asked for Eric’s number.
Greg gave it to him.
The deputy stepped away to call dispatch and speak with someone about coordinating with authorities in Tennessee.
Nobody said the word warrant.
Nobody said fugitive.
Nobody said arrest.
Those were television words.
What we had was a family standing beside a rental truck while a deputy made cautious phone calls and a dead woman’s signature sat on a folded deed.
That felt worse because it was ordinary enough to be real.
Brenda wiped under her eyes with the heel of her hand.
“I’m sorry, Walter.”
I looked at her.
She seemed surprised that she had said it.
“So am I.”
“For coming here.”
“Yes.”
“I really believed him.”
“I believe you believed him.”
That was not forgiveness.
She knew it.
She nodded anyway.
Greg stood abruptly.
“We need to finish unloading.”
Brenda stared at him.
“Loading.”
He blinked.
“What?”
“We need to finish loading, Greg.”
He looked toward the cabin.
“Right.”
He started back up the ramp.
I followed him into the cabin because I could not bear the idea of him moving through Susan’s things without me.
The first room was worse than I expected.
Their boxes had taken over the small living area.
A floor lamp stood beside Susan’s reading chair.
A folded dog bed sat near the fireplace even though Greg and Brenda had not owned a dog in years.
Two framed photographs leaned against the wall.
One showed their grandchildren.
The other was Greg holding a largemouth bass.
My own photographs had been moved to the mantel.
Susan and Hannah at a county fair.
Susan kneeling in the garden.
Susan laughing into the camera because I had taken the picture while she was chewing.
I walked over and picked that one up.
Greg stopped carrying a box.
“I didn’t move those.”
“Who did?”
“Brenda.”
I put the frame back where it had been before.
“She was trying to be careful.”
I looked at him.
He added, “I know how that sounds.”
“No, I don’t think you do.”
He bent to pick up another box.
“I didn’t know about the signatures.”
“I believe that too.”
He straightened.
“Then why are you looking at me like I forged the damn thing?”
“Because you were willing to take the house before I knew it was gone.”
That hit him.
He shifted the box higher against his chest.
“Shawn said you’d agreed.”
“No.”
“He said you didn’t want to deal with us directly because of all the grief attached to the place.”
“No.”
“He said you wanted Hannah to handle it.”
“No.”
Greg’s mouth tightened.
“You think I wanted to steal from you?”
“I think you wanted this cabin badly enough not to ask me yourself.”
He looked away.
That was answer enough.
Outside, a truck passed somewhere on the county road.
The sound faded.
Greg set the box down again.
“We were going to lose the house.”
His voice was quiet now.
I said nothing.
He stared toward the window.
“I spent twenty-seven years building that business.”
“What business?”
“Commercial flooring.”
“I know what business.”
“Then you know I wasn’t sitting around doing nothing.”
“I didn’t say you were.”
He rubbed his jaw.
May you like
“After COVID, everything got weird.”
There was no speech in him.
