Gathering Lies Page 15

  Kim’s eyes blurred with tears. “Grace spotted Jane first. She started to go down there, but we talked her out of it.”

  “We didn’t think there was anything we could do,” Dana said, her chin still trembling. “And we were afraid Grace would fall and we’d lose her, too. We started calling for you, Sarah, to let you know what had happened so you’d come here instead of the house.”

  She looked at me, drying her eyes on the back of her hand. “Actually, I thought of you walking through the woods all by yourself, and I…I was worried something might have happened to you, too.”

  It seemed to me that Dana was trying to tell me something. Was it that she didn’t think Jane’s death had been an accident? And why did that thought even occur to me?

  I started to ask her if that was, indeed, what she’d meant. But Luke had reached Jane’s body and was feeling for a pulse, first in her wrist, then her neck. I saw him lean down and put an ear close to her mouth. Finally he looked up at us, shaking his head.

  I felt tears sting my eyes. For the first time, I almost hoped that Jane’s children hadn’t survived the quake. At least, that way, they would be together now. Jane could stop worrying, at last.

  8

  Even if we’d all been rested and up to it physically, it would have been difficult to bring Jane up from the ravine. Now, with the constant aftershocks, and with all of us exhausted from lack of sleep and not enough food, it was impossible. Luke suggested we leave Jane where she had fallen, offering to cover her over with rocks from the hillside until the rescue teams came.

  Placing the rocks—necessary because of the predator birds—took what seemed to be forever. I watched Luke inch along the sheer side of the ravine, gathering them one by one and gently placing them over Jane’s body until every inch was covered—every inch, that is, but the terrible hole made by the spear that had penetrated her chest. He moved heavily, revealing an exhaustion that was reflected in his ashen face. We all wanted to help, but again he was adamant that we stay above.

  “If any of you fell…” he called up, shaking his head. “I don’t think I could do this again.”

  We linked hands and watched silently, as Jane—a woman we hardly knew yet already missed—disappeared beneath one rock and then another. Dana prayed aloud, and I think this was the first moment when we knew, not in theory, but beyond a shadow of a doubt, that this could have been any one of us.

  We’d been luckier than the people who’d died in the quake—thousands of them, probably. We were luckier than Lucy or Jane. But we were living on borrowed time. How long could it last?

  Afterward, we sat at the kitchen table at Thornberry, looking at each other silently, everyone reluctant to be the first to speak. I had taken Timmy aside when we arrived, and told her about Jane. She had paled and gone outside. Ever since, she had been sitting beside Lucy’s grave, bent over as if in grief, her mouth moving in what I took to be prayer.

  Gabe Rossi, the newcomer, was outside fixing the goat pen, in case the goats returned. We had come in through the front, and hadn’t spoken to him yet.

  I finally put into words what I’d been thinking from the moment we’d found Jane. “We have to at least consider,” I said, “that Jane’s fall wasn’t an accident.”

  I counted the startled eyes that turned my way, looking for at least one pair that seemed less startled than the others. There were none, however. Not that I could detect.

  “But that’s—that’s crazy, isn’t it?” Dana said. “Who would want to hurt Jane?”

  “I don’t know. But over the years as a lawyer, I’ve been at a lot of crime scenes. I’ve learned to look for certain things.”

  “And?” Luke said.

  “And there was something at the edge of the ravine that struck a familiar chord in me, something I’d come across in a criminal case years ago. I just didn’t have time to process it while we were there.”

  “What was it?” Kim asked.

  “The ground at the edge of the ravine. It was torn up, as if there had been some sort of scuffle. If Jane had simply fallen over—let’s say she lost her balance during an aftershock—the earth wouldn’t have looked that way.”

  “But several of us were there before you and Luke got there,” Dana pointed out. “Me, Grace and Kim. We probably did that by looking over the edge to see Jane.”

  “I don’t think so. The edge was sort of rounded, not a flat shelf. If you’d kicked up that much dirt so close to it, you would probably have slipped and gone over, too. No…for the ground to have been stirred up that much so close to the edge, there must have been a scuffle.”

  “She’s right,” Kim said. “I remember standing back from the edge because it was rounded that way. I could see that if I wasn’t careful, I could easily just slide right off.”

  Timmy’s voice, thin and unsteady, came from the open kitchen door. “Are you saying you think Jane was pushed over? By someone here?”

  That gave me a start, as I hadn’t seriously considered that someone at this table might have murdered Jane.

  “I…no,” I said. “I guess I was thinking that there must be someone else on the island.”

  “Ten little Indians,” Kim murmured.

  “What?”

  “The Agatha Christie book, And Then There Were None. Except that here, it’s the reverse. Instead of disappearing, people keep showing up.”

  “It’s more like some goddamned nursery rhyme,” Grace said. “‘London Bridge is Falling Down,’ or something. Which one is it where people hold hands and it’s all very chummy, all these kids dancing around in a circle—until some poor slob gets picked to be ‘out’?”

  “I’ll bet you were the one who was always out,” Kim said, though her tone was more gently teasing than insulting.

  Grace didn’t snap back, and for the first time since the ravine, Dana actually smiled. “Have you ever noticed how many of those nursery rhymes are about food? ‘Jack Sprat could eat no fat’…’Old Mother Hubbard went to her cupboard’…’Little Jack Horner sat in a corner, eating his Christmas pie’…”

  “Not to mention Little Miss Muffet with her curds and whey,” Kim said. “And of course, ‘Peter, Peter, Pumpkin Eater.’”

  Dana buried her face in her hands. “Oh, God! I would kill for a taco right now!”

  For some reason, we all found that funny—even Grace, who burst into laughter with the rest of us. I suppose we must have been on the point of hysteria by then. It did help to release some of the grief and tension we’d carried home with us from the ravine.

  “All right,” I said, when we finally settled down. “The first thing we’ve got to ask ourselves is, ‘Who was not with someone when this happened?’ ‘Who was somewhere alone?’”

  “I was,” Luke offered. “For a while, anyway.”

  “I was, too,” I added. “For a while.” We looked at each other.

  Grace fixed her sharp gaze on us. “So you two met each other in the woods? Like, just by coincidence?”

  “Yes, by coincidence,” I said. I was in no mood for her barbs right now.

  “Gabe Rossi was alone out there for a while,” Kim said.

  “Who’s Gabe Rossi?” Luke asked.

  “I forgot,” I said, “you haven’t met him. He showed up last night after you went out. He owns one of the cabins along the shore.”

  “And you don’t know where he was at the time Jane must have fallen into the ravine?”

  “Amelia told me he left here to go back to his cabin and get something. Right?”

  Amelia, who was guiding Dana’s sprained ankle into a pan of warm water that she’d heated herself over the outside fire, nodded.

  “He went to his cabin to get some tools.”

  “I thought there wasn’t anything at his cabin,” I said. “He told us he didn’t keep anything there over the winter.”

  “Well, to be fair,” Dana answered, “I think he meant food and other kinds of supplies like that. I don’t remember seeing any tools there, but
we were hurrying to meet you and Kim at Ransford that day. We didn’t look in all the drawers, just the ones we thought might have food, or flashlights or radios. And maybe he had an outside storage room we didn’t see, like at Luke’s house.”

  “I hate to say this…” Kim began, then fell silent.

  “What?”

  “Well, if Gabe was gone for a while, that left Timmy and Amelia alone. Did either of you…Did either of you leave the other by herself?”

  Neither woman answered at first, and I think the rest of us were stunned, the idea was so absurd.

  “You aren’t really suggesting that either Timmy or Amelia might have killed Jane?” I finally said.

  Kim shook her head. “No, I’m not. Not really. But as you say, we have to consider everyone—not leave anyone out.”

  I was not comfortable with making either of these women suspects. I didn’t know if it was because of their ages, or because I honestly liked them both. Still, I had to admit that it wouldn’t be fair, or even smart, to rule either of them out.

  Looking over at Timmy, I said, “I know this is ridiculous. But did either of you leave the other alone this afternoon?”

  “Only to go outside in the garden,” Timmy said.

  “We never left the property,” Amelia added quickly.

  Too quickly? Amelia’s answer raised doubts, but I decided to let them pass for now.

  “Well, then, what time was it, about, that Gabe Rossi left to go to his cabin?”

  Amelia looked at Timmy, who shook her head and turned away. “It was shortly after you all left,” Amelia said. “He came back a while before you did.”

  “So he could have done it,” Grace said. “He could have taken some back trail and been at his cabin when Jane went up there to check it out. He could have taken her out behind the house, where Dana couldn’t see, then led her to the ravine and pushed her over.”

  “But why?” Dana said. “Why on earth would he have killed Jane? I can’t even imagine her being a threat to anybody.”

  “Maybe she saw something she shouldn’t have,” I said.

  There was a small silence.

  “And maybe Gabe Rossi isn’t who he says he is,” Grace offered.

  “You’re right, ladies,” he said from the door. “I’m not at all who I say I am. I’m a killer. A cold-blooded killer.”

  He had been holding one hand behind his back, and as he swept it forward, I think we all jumped a mile, thinking it must be a gun. But in Gabe’s hand was a huge, radiant bunch of lilacs, and on his face was a wide grin.

  “Before I off you, however, I intend to bury you in flowers. How’s that for a switch?”

  He plunked them down on the table, and their sweet, life-affirming scent filled the room. Looking up at the grin, the twinkle in the eyes, I don’t think any of us could have considered this man to be a cold-blooded killer.

  “And you must be Luke,” he said, reaching into his shirt pocket. “Timmy’s been telling me all about you.” His hand came out of the pocket and opened up to reveal a perfect, sky-blue bird’s egg, no bigger than a quarter.

  “Por moi?” Luke raised a brow and looked at it, and then glanced sharply at Gabe Rossi. “Why?”

  “Well, the ladies seem to have chosen you as their protector,” Gabe said. “So I figure you’re just the man to save this little bird’s life.”

  Luke shook his head as if bemused, but took the egg Rossi handed to him. Holding it in his own palm, he blew on it a bit with his warm breath, and I remembered something I’d forgotten over the years: Luke with a baby bird in a shoe box, feeding it from a medicine dropper, the way kids will. He was thirteen at the time, and wanted to be a vet when he grew up. Eventually, the baby bird reached the point where it could fly, and Luke and I had a ceremony, releasing it to the skies.

  Rossi and Luke met each other’s eyes. There was something between them, some challenge. Maybe it was just that age-old thing of two dogs pissing on a fire hydrant—two male egos butting up against each other in the midst of all this estrogen.

  I noted that Dana and Kim, and even Grace, were looking at Luke as if he were some kind of savior. Give a woman a man who’s nice to animals—or birds—and they lap him up like cream.

  Not that I blamed them. Luke had certainly proved himself to us, between burying Jane and helping us in so many other ways, since he’d arrived on the island. Aside from that, he had the kind of personality that endeared him to women. He was quiet but kind, firm but open to listening to another person’s viewpoint.

  Not as classically good-looking as Gabe Rossi, though—and I would have bet my last penny that the other women would have fallen more for Gabe’s openness and charm.

  “When you came in,” I explained to Gabe, “we were talking about possibilities—wondering which one of us might be a killer, ludicrous as it seems. We couldn’t rule you out, any more than we ruled out Timmy and Amelia.”

  He took off his jacket and sat across from Grace, Kim and me. “But, ladies, I don’t even know what you’re talking about. Who am I supposed to have killed? Who’s died?”

  I remembered then that no one had told him about Jane.

  “One of the women,” I said. “Her name was Jane Parrish. We found her in a ravine, dead.”

  “And you think I pushed her over? Good God, ladies! Why on earth would I do a thing like that? I didn’t even know the woman!”

  “You met her last night,” Grace pointed out.

  “Well, yes, but if you don’t mind me saying so, I was a bit out of it last night. Somebody, you may remember, whomped me with a walking stick.”

  He gave me a worried look. “And now you think I’ve done in your friend? Pushed her into this ravine, is it?”

  “As I was saying,” I told him, “we’ve been going over the possibilities. You were only one of them. Nothing personal.”

  “Oh, glory be! Nothin’ personal, is it? I’m bettin’ ye’ll all be sleepin’ with yer walkin’ sticks t’night!”

  He lapsed into the Irish brogue so quickly, it startled me.

  “You know, we never did ask you what you do,” I said thoughtfully. “When you’re on the mainland, that is. What kind of work do you do?”

  He grinned and dropped the brogue. “You might say I’m one of those YETI’s you hear about. Young Entrepreneurial Techies. I suppose I don’t qualify for the ‘young’ part anymore, since I hit thirty-five. But the kids who work for me do. I own a software company.”

  “Really?” Kim said. “Which one?”

  “Dark Kingdom. You’ve probably never heard of it. We came out with something similar to Loom, but with better graphics. It hit big, and now I do the voices in some of our games, just for fun. One of our biggest successes had an Irish locale. I called it Bloody Mist.”

  Dana shuddered. “Sounds gruesome. I’m sorry, but I wouldn’t want my kids playing some of those games.”

  “Do you have children?” Rossi asked.

  “No—I just know I wouldn’t want their minds growing up that way. Jane felt that way, too. We were just talking about it the other—”

  She stopped, looking down at her hands.

  “Gabe,” I said, “Jane went up to check your cabin this afternoon. Apparently, you were there, too. Did you see her?”

  “I’m afraid I didn’t, no,” he said. “And just for the record, I’m very sorry about your friend. You don’t really think someone pushed her, though, do you? I mean, if she was out in the woods walking alone, she probably just slipped and fell. The ground is treacherous after the quake and all these rains.”

  “It would help if someone had seen her slip and fall,” Grace pointed out.

  He shrugged. “I’m afraid I can’t help you. I didn’t see your friend. On the other hand—” He paused, looking at Luke. “I did see you.”

  Luke stared. “You saw me? Then you must have been at Ransford. What were you doing there?”

  “I was actually nowhere near Ransford. I was walking from my cabin back to Thornberr
y, through the woods. I saw you—and you were standing at the edge of a ravine, looking down into it.”

  I turned my eyes to Rossi, confused. “You must have seen us all at the ravine. We were all there with Luke.”

  “Not when I saw him, you weren’t. He was alone.”

  Luke pushed back his chair, jerking to his feet. “You’re lying! What the hell’s going on here?”

  “I am not lying,” Gabe said calmly. “I saw you standing at the edge of a crevasse, looking into it. Your hands were full of mud and you were wiping them on your jeans and staring at something. I watched you for several moments.”

  Luke paled and looked at us all, shaking his head.

  “He’s lying. I went directly from Ransford along a path that wasn’t anywhere near that ravine. I ran into Sarah in the woods, and we didn’t leave that spot until we heard the rest of you call. There is no way I could have been at that ravine when Jane fell.”

  “Then what were you doing there?” Rossi persisted. “Because you were there. I saw you with my own eyes.”

  “That’s crazy!” I said. “Luke would never have hurt Jane. He wouldn’t hurt anyone.”

  “Sarah—” Grace began.

  “No, I’m telling you, it’s crazy! I’ve known Luke for years.”

  “May I point out that you haven’t seen him in years?” she said reasonably. “May I also point out that your friend has done quite a bit of disappearing since we met up with him? And who knows what he’s been up to?”

  I turned on her angrily. “I can’t believe you would buy any of this, after all Luke has done to help us. For God’s sake, Grace, why would you take the word of a man who just showed up here in the middle of the night, and who none of us even knows?”

  “What reason would Gabe have to lie?” Grace argued.

  “I don’t know. But if Luke says Gabe is lying, then he is. Besides, I already told you—Luke and I were together in the woods.”

  “Well, all I can say is, it’s awfully damn lucky the two of you have each other as alibis. Real convenient, him running into you in the woods. And you into him.”

  “So now you think it was me who killed Jane?”