Сандра Браун - Thick as Thieves

Quietly he said, “That’s not even close to being it. ”

“Well, it’s all I have firsthand knowledge of. We didn’t know he hadn’t returned home until the next morning when Lisa sent me upstairs to tell him that breakfast was ready. He didn’t come home on Sunday. Lisa and I ate the Easter ham without him.”

“Did you report him missing?”

“No.”

“Why?”

“After my mother was killed—you know she died in a car wreck?”

“Heard that. I don’t know the circumstances.”

“Her name was Marjorie. She’d gone to see a former college classmate in Fayetteville, Arkansas. As she was driving back, she ran into a band of freezing rain and sleet, hit an icy patch, skidded into the back of a eighteen-wheeler.”

Her eyes turned reflective. “Dad told us that she hadn’t felt a thing, that she’d died instantly. Lisa never questioned or disputed him, but I seriously doubt she believed the instant-death story.”

“Did you?”

She brought him back into focus. “I wanted to. With all my heart. But I’m almost certain that Dad knew better and had lied in order to spare us.”

“Maybe. But maybe not.”

“I guess I’ll never know,” she said wanly. “In any case, she was suddenly gone. Essentially, so was Dad. He was never the same. Before, he drank an occasional beer. Two at most. I guess you could say that he began drowning his sorrow.

“He fooled himself into thinking that he covered it well, that no one knew, not even Lisa and me. But of course we did. That Easter weekend wasn’t the first time he had left us without notice and stayed away from home for days at a stretch.”

“Was he drinking that Saturday?”

“At the time, I didn’t think so. I remember being glad of it. I was wishing for an Easter without Lisa and me pretending not to notice that he was drunk. Functioning, but drunk. We had to do that a lot.”

With the tip of her finger, she traced the wood grain pattern of the table. “In hindsight, I suppose he was steadily drinking all day. But when he gave me that goodbye kiss, I didn’t smell liquor on him.”

Ledge asked when she’d learned about the store burglary and Foster’s death.

“Dad still hadn’t returned by Monday. Lisa was on spring break from college, but because she had to take care of me, there were no trips to Padre or Cancún for her. She planned to spend that week working on a paper that was due when classes resumed. The school bus picked me up that morning as usual.” Ruefully, she added, “I didn’t know it then, but that was the end of my usual . Forever.

“When the bus dropped me off that afternoon, there were several squad cars parked in front of our house. The officers had come to question Dad about his whereabouts on Saturday night.”

Ledge said, “The burglary at Welch’s had been discovered that Monday morning when employees reported for work. Only one was unaccounted for.”

“Mr. Foster,” she said. “Dad’s employment at the store was short-lived. He didn’t take his dismissal well, called it unjust. He was particularly bitter toward Mr. Foster.”

“Why?”

“His termination had come from higher-ups, but it was Foster who’d hand-delivered Dad his severance check.”

“Huh.”

That was a previously unknown fact that Ledge tucked away for further review.

“According to people who witnessed the exchange,” Arden said, “Dad was verbally abusive to Foster.”

“So, when the human remains found in the lake were identified as his, and Joe Maxwell and the stolen cash were nowhere to be found…”

She raised a shoulder. “The logical conclusion was that Dad was the culprit, that possibly he’d coerced or blackmailed Mr. Foster into opening the store and the safe, then killed him.”

“That’s the logical conclusion, yes. But do you believe it?”

“No.” When he continued to look hard at her, she repeated the denial. “Dad drank. He would get emotional and sentimental, but never violent. Not once. It wasn’t in his nature.”

“Sober, maybe.”

She gave a stern shake of her head. “Even drunk. He was maudlin, but never mean.”

“It was well known that he was struggling financially.”

“That’s true,” she said. “It’s possible that Dad had become desperate enough to clean out the store safe with Brian Foster’s help. I could almost accept that. But I don’t believe Dad could have killed him afterward. He didn’t have it in him to kill anybody, no matter the circumstances.”

“Arden,” he said softly, “with half a million dollars at stake, circumstances can turn ugly in a heartbeat.”

Chapter 17

That night in 2000—Brian Foster

“…in addition to hiding the money,” Rusty said, “we need a fall guy.”

“Someone to take the blame?”

“That’s what fall guys do, Foster.”

“I know, I know, but—”

“We may not need one, but we should have it set up in case Burnet double-crosses us.”

“Yeah, okay,” Brian said. “It’s probably a good idea. But who?”

“The town drunk, otherwise known as Joe Maxwell.”

Disbelieving that Rusty could be serious, Brian switched his cell phone from one damp hand to the other.

For days leading up to tonight, he had been a nervous wreck.

Actually, since the day Rusty Dyle had approached him with his heist scheme, Brian had been teetering on the borderline of a complete meltdown. It wasn’t as though he and the sheriff’s son were close friends who had been blood brothers since childhood and trusted each other implicitly.

They had met only a few months ago, and it had been Rusty, with his engaging swagger, who had suggested that they “hang out.” That invitation to camaraderie was a startling and flattering first for Brian. Nobody had ever asked him for companionship. He didn’t have an appealing personality. Indeed, it was blah, which was a drawback to making friends, or so his mother had hammered home to him. Daily.

Her assessment had been shared by his first employer, who, after Brian had been on the job for only three months, had called him into a closed-door meeting, during which he had described Brian as “unprepossessing,” and then had fired him for failing to show initiative. He didn’t foresee the likelihood of Brian acquiring a go-getter spirit. Ever. Basically: Make yourself scarce.

That having been his first job after graduating junior college, it was an inauspicious launch of his professional life.

Following his dismissal, he had spent an anxious month of unemployment before seeing the online notice of an open position in Penton, Texas, for Welch’s Mercantile. Never having heard of either, he had looked them up on the internet.

Both the town and the position at Welch’s had seemed to Brian to be as unprepossessing as he. But for a young man who’d grown up in the Steel Belt, the geographical area with its dense pine forests and mystical-looking lake held some allure. Also, it promised escape from the only house in which he had ever lived, with his pipsqueak father and domineering mother.

He had submitted his application, figuring that a relocation to Texas was about as adventurous as he was likely ever to get.

Little had he known then.

He survived the rounds of interviews conducted over the telephone and was awarded the position. He packed his car to the gills and made the move. He signed a lease on a duplex whose best feature was that the rent included a cable hookup.

The hearty friendliness of the people, as well as their accent, would take some getting used to. He had a virulent gastrointestinal experience with his first Tex-Mex meal. But the mystifying lake, whose lore included a sasquatch, lived up to the pictures he had seen online. His new situation held promise.