Harlan Coben - Don’t Let Go

Muse takes a step back. Augie and I follow her.

“Augie tells me you spoke to the mom who posted the video,” she says to me.

“Suzanne Hanson.”

“What did she say?”

“That she lied. That Hank didn’t really expose himself.”

Muse slowly turns toward me. “Come again?”

“Mrs. Hanson just didn’t like an undesirable hanging around the school.”

“And now he’s dead,” Muse says with a shake of her head.

I don’t reply.

“Ignorant, stupid...” She shakes her head again. “I’m going to see if we can charge her with something.”

I have no issue with that.

“Do you think maybe Mrs. Hanson is involved in this?” Muse asks.

No, I think to myself. And I want to be honest. I don’t want to lead Manning off the scent, but I also want what’s best for the case, which may involve slight misdirection. So I say, “I think the Hansons might be a good place for Manning to start.”

We stare up at the body again. Manning is circling underneath it, his face scrunched up. His manner is too showy, like something he saw on TV, and I half expect him to whip out a giant magnifying glass à la Sherlock Holmes.

Augie still has his eyes on the corpse. “I know Hank’s father.”

“Then maybe you should be the one to notify him,” Muse says. “And with the press already buzzing around, the sooner, the better.”

“Do you mind if I go with him?” I ask.

She shrugs a “suit yourself.”

Augie and I start walking away. Franco Cadeddu, the county medical examiner and a good guy, has just arrived. He passes us with a stern nod. Franco is always all business on the scene. I return the stern nod. Augie does not. We keep walking. The crime scene guys, dressed in full body suits and surgical masks and gloves, hurry past us. Augie doesn’t so much as glance at them. His face is set, trudging toward a dreaded task.

“Doesn’t make sense,” I say.

It takes a moment or two for Augie to reply. “How’s that?”

“Hank’s face.”

“What about it?”

“It isn’t purple or even a different hue than the rest of his body.”

Augie says nothing.

“So he didn’t die from strangulation or a broken neck,” I say.

“Franco will figure that out.”

“Another thing: The smell — it’s beyond rancid. You can see the start of decay.”

Augie keeps walking.

“Hank disappeared three weeks ago,” I say. “My guess is, he’s been dead that long.”

“Again, let’s wait for Franco.”

“Who found the body?”

“David Elefant,” Augie says. “He was walking his dog off leash. The dog ran this way and started howling.”

“How often does Elefant do that?”

“Do what?”

“Walk his dog here. This ravine is somewhat out of the way, but it isn’t that remote.”

“I don’t know. Why?”

“Let’s say I’m right. Let’s say Hank has been dead for three weeks.”

“Okay.”

“If Hank’s body had been hung up on that tree all that time, don’t you think someone would have spotted it by now? Or noticed that smell? We aren’t that far away from civilization, right?”

Augie doesn’t reply.

“Augie?”

“I hear you.”

“Something isn’t right.”

He finally stops and turns back toward the crime scene in the distance. “A man was castrated and hung from a tree,” he says. “Of course something isn’t right.”

“I don’t think this is about that viral video,” I say.

Augie doesn’t reply.

“I think it’s about the Conspiracy Club and that old military base. I think it’s about Rex and Leo and Diana.”

I see him flinch when I say his daughter’s name.

“Augie?”

He turns and starts walking again. “Later,” he says.

“What?”

“We’ll talk about it later,” Augie says. “Right now I just need to tell Tom that his boy is dead.”

Tom Stroud stares down at his hands. His lower lip trembles. He has not spoken, not one word, since he opened the door. He knew. Right away. He looked at our faces and knew. They often do. Some claim that the first step in the grieving process is denial. Having delivered my share of life-shattering news, I have found the opposite to be true: The first step is complete and immediate comprehension. You hear the news and immediately you realize how absolutely devastating it is, how there will be no reprieve, how death is final, how your world is shattered and that you will never, ever be the same. You realize all that in seconds, no more. The realization floods into your veins and overwhelms you. Your heart breaks. Your knees buckle. Every part of you wants to give way and collapse and surrender. You want to curl up into a ball. You want to plummet down that mine shaft and never stop.

That’s when the denial kicks in.

Denial saves you. Denial throws up a protective fence. Denial grabs hold of you before you leap off that ledge. Your hand rests on a hot stove. Denial pulls your hand back.

The memories of that night rush in as we enter Tom Stroud’s home, and part of me longs for that protective fence. I had thought that it was a good idea to come, but seeing Augie deliver bad news — the worst news, just as he did that night you died — is hitting me harder than I had anticipated. I blink and somehow Tom Stroud becomes Dad. Like Dad, he stares down at the table. He, too, winces as though absorbing punches. Augie’s voice — a blend of tough, tender, compassionate, detached — brings me back more than any sight or smell, the nightmarish déjà vu, as he tells yet another father about the death of his child.

The two older men sit in the kitchen. I stand behind Augie, maybe ten feet back, ready to come off the bench but hoping the coach doesn’t call my number. My legs feel wobbly. I am trying to put it together, but it is making less and less sense. The official investigation, the one undertaken by Manning and the county office, will, I’m certain, concentrate on the viral video. It will seem simple to them: The viral video goes public, the public is outraged, someone takes matters into their own hands.

It is neat. It makes sense. It may even be correct.

The other theory, of course, is the one I will follow. Someone is killing off the old Conspiracy Club members. Of the six possible members, four have been killed before their thirty-fifth birthday. What are the odds that there is no connection? First Leo and Diana. Then Rex. Now Hank. I don’t know where Beth is. And of course, there’s Maura, who saw something that night that caused her to run away forever.

Except.

Why now? Let’s say somehow they all saw something they shouldn’t have that night. Again, this may sound like paranoid thinking, even if the group was called the Conspiracy Club, but I need to play it out.

Suppose they all saw something that night.

Maybe they ran — and the bad guys only, what, caught Leo and Diana? Okay, stay with that. So then — again, what? — they dragged Leo and Diana to the railroad tracks on the other side of town and made it look like they were killed by a train. Okay, fine. Let’s assume the others ran. Maura they couldn’t find. That all works.

But what about Rex and Hank and Beth?

Those three never hid. They stayed in high school and graduated with us.

Why didn’t the bad guys from the base kill them?

Why would they wait fifteen years?

And talk about coincidental timing — why would the bad guys finally kill Hank around the same time that viral video came out? Did that make sense?

No.

So how is the viral video tied into this?

I’m missing something.

Tom Stroud finally starts to cry. His chin goes down to his chest. His shoulders start to spasm. Augie reaches across and puts a hand on Tom’s upper arm. It’s not enough. Augie moves closer. Tom leans forward and starts sobbing onto Augie’s shoulder. I see Augie in profile now. He closes his eyes, and I see the pain on his face. Tom’s sobs grow louder. Time passes. No one moves. The sobs start to subside. Eventually they fade away. Tom Stroud pulls back and looks at Augie.