Chapter Sixteen
“I didn’t want to lie to you,” said Bentley after his uncle had left.
“Yeah, but you did, and now I’m stuck in this mess.” Lincoln was still angry, and he crumpled up a piece of paper and threw it across the room. He couldn’t help but chuckle as he said, “And to think, Darcy and Hector had me convinced you were all right. I guess you fooled them too.” His bitterness led him to say something he would later regret, “Did you lie about your wife dying too? Was that just a ploy to get me to trust you?”
Bentley’s jaw tightened, and he glared at Lincoln with obvious rage.
Lincoln saw that he’d hit a nerve, and he almost felt like apologizing, but decided not to. “I don’t know what to believe anymore. Apparently I can’t tell when I’m being lied to. For all I know you made up some sob story about your wife to make me feel bad for you.”
“I didn’t lie.”
“And how am I supposed to believe anything you say?” asked Lincoln as he began to walk away.
There was a short silence as Bentley steeled himself. “It was a Friday,” said Bentley, his voice tinged with a mix of anger and apprehension. “She was driving back from work. We were going to meet for dinner. I got to the restaurant, and I waited…” He was struggling to tell the story, a wealth of emotions piercing his heart with every word. “And I started to get mad. I ordered myself something to eat, and I tried to call her. I remember calling her over and over, and each message I left was a little angrier than the last. She was always late.” He let out a choked laugh, the sort of chuckle that a person tries to use to alleviate an encroaching breakdown. “I swear, Jamie couldn’t make it anywhere on time, like ever.” He swiped his hand out in front of him, a useless gesticulation that faded like his laugh. He took a breath, and forced himself to continue. “I was mad, like always. And when my food came I ate it as quick as I could, just to spite her. I wanted her to get there and see I was done – so she’d feel bad.”
That last sentence broke him.
Lincoln stepped forward in a feeble attempt to console Bentley, but the young man began telling his story again as if in defiance. “I wanted her to feel bad for being so late. But, that’s when I got the… when I got the call. It wasn’t her. It was some stranger. Some guy who found her phone in the car. Some stranger… Just some guy. I don’t remember his name.” The fact that he couldn’t recall the man’s name vexed him, but he continued on. “He said that… uh…” Bentley took a steadying breath. “He said that there’d been an accident. He was frantic, out of breath, and he kept saying it was bad. He said it was real bad.”
His fists were clenched, the scars on his knuckles bone white. “She was driving too fast, because she knew how mad I got when she was late. She knew, and that’s why… that’s why she was in a hurry, and she took that corner too quick. Her car hit the rail, and she tried to pull it…” He used his hands to demonstrate as if he were the one driving. “She tried to get back on the road, but it just made her go across to the other lane. She hit a concrete median and flipped over. Smashed the top of the car and pinned her in there as the…” He struggled through the description of the crash, and slid one hand over the other to mimic a car sliding along the pavement. “She slid right off the mountain and landed on a road about seventy feet down the side of a cliff. The car rolled the whole way down.”
“Oh God,” said Lincoln in sympathy, any distrust of Bentley erased.
“I got the call, and I didn’t know what to do. I kept asking him if she was dead, but he just kept saying it was bad. Then the police got there, and they took the phone. They told me what hospital they would take her to, and then hung up. I threw down some money on the table, it must’ve been a couple hundred dollars. I’m not sure. I just threw it down and ran to my car.”
Bentley closed his eyes, as if intent on recalling the images that’d burned themselves into his memory so he could get every detail right. “I had to pass by the scene of the accident on the way to the hospital. The car was still there – or what was left of it. It was mangled, and the traffic… Oh God, it took so long to get through. I remember sitting there crying and screaming - cars in front and behind me. I kept honking, but I was stuck. There wasn’t anything I could do. I had to sit there with everyone else while the best woman in the world was dying. I got out and ran to the cops on the scene and told them who I was. I had to stand there and look at the wreck as I begged them to let me through. I had to look at the yellow tarp they’d laid over the car because they didn’t want anyone to see the blood. They let me through, and I drove to the hospital to find out that Jaime was in intensive care. She’d broken… God damn. She broke so many bones, and her face…” He put his hand to the side of his face. “Her face had been pressed up against the roof when she was sliding, and glass got pushed up into her eye. She lost that… they had to take the eye out. It was too messed up. And her jaw was broken. It was crooked. And when I finally got to see her, she didn’t even look like herself anymore. She was so swollen. They induced a coma.”
“I believe you,” said Lincoln, wishing Bentley would stop.
He continued, determined to finish. “They said they had to, but then they weren’t sure if she’d ever wake up. And I remember throwing up that Indian food that I’d wolfed down.” He smiled despite the obvious pain. “That fucking hospital bathroom… I ruined that place. Spicy chicken vindaloo all over. Oh, and it burned so bad coming up. I can’t even tell you. It ruined me on Indian food. And the bathroom just had that horrible, thin toilet paper. You know the type that’s on those giant rolls. Imagine trying to wipe off spicy vindaloo vomit with that worthless toilet paper.”
Lincoln smiled and nodded, appreciating Bentley’s attempt at levity.
“It took her five days to wake up. And during that time her family and I listened to doctor after doctor tell us how she might not be all there. You know? That she might be handicapped. They had a counselor come and talk to us about tempering our expectations, and how we should hope for the best but prepare for the worst – that sort of thing. But Jaime was a fighter. She was tough, and when she got up she was,” he snapped his fingers, “just as sharp as ever. She was sore, and drugged up, but we knew she’d be fine.”
He almost seemed happy for a moment, and then his smile faded. “I think I told you the rest.”
“The pneumonia, right?” asked Lincoln.
Bentley just nodded.
After a moment of silence, Lincoln said, “I’m sorry I accused you of lying about her. That was shitty of me.”
“Yeah, it was,” said Bentley. “But it was also shitty of me to lie to you about Clyde, and about what my uncle was up to.”
“We’ve all got secrets and demons kicking around in our closets. I’m no saint, that’s for sure.” He thought of his dinner with Angel, and how during their conversation he’d said something similar. That made him start to think about the other things she’d revealed.
Lincoln thought about how the police had shown Pettigrew the journal, and how Angel had said that she’d seen it as well. Suddenly there were a variety of people who could’ve drawn those symbols in the shed with Devin’s blood.
“Where do we go from here?” asked Bentley after a moment of introspection. “Are we moving ahead with the case?”
“Of course,” said Lincoln. “As a matter of fact, I’m supposed to go visit Angel Harcourt tonight. Darcy convinced me that I’m terrible at telling when someone’s lying to me, so maybe you should come along.”
“Sure. What are we meeting with her about?”
“I don’t know. She came by my place last night and said that we needed to talk. And I’ve got some questions for her about Frank. I’m starting to get the feeling Angel’s been hiding something. Maybe tonight we’ll find out what.”
They spent the next couple hours getting things in the office back in order. Hector returned, and they filled him in on what he’d missed. Lincoln asked him if he could come with them to see Angel, but He
ctor had to get ready for his trip to Arizona.
They were on their way out of the office when Lincoln’s phone rang.
“Hey Mark,” said Lincoln. “What’s up?”
“I just wanted to check in on Darcy,” said Mark, a family friend who was part of Darcy’s Cancer Resource group. The group met once a week, and Mark always called Lincoln to check in on Darcy whenever she was absent. The entire group lived in fear of the news that another friend had fallen ill.
“Did she miss another meeting?” asked Lincoln, already guessing why Mark called.
“Yeah, I just wanted to make sure everything was all right. I tried to give her a ring, but she didn’t answer.”
Lincoln and Bentley were headed to his car. They were leaving the office later than they’d planned, and the sun was down behind the mountains, offering the sky a blazing orange warning of impending nightfall. The wind was chilly, erasing the warmth of day and replacing it with blustery air that cascaded down from the mountains. A front was moving in, bringing an early threat of winter.
“She told me that she had a busy day lined up,” said Lincoln. “Her band’s recording their EP this weekend. I bet she’s out with them, practicing. I’ll try and give her a call to make sure.”
“So there’s nothing we should be worried about?” asked Mark as if he didn’t believe that everything was all right. “She’s not… you know.”
“No, she’s fine. Last I heard, her blood tests were perfect.”
“Good, good. Glad to hear it.”
“Thanks for calling,” said Lincoln.
“No problem,” said Mark. “If you talk to her, tell her we miss her. She brings a lot of positive energy to our meetings. When she’s missing, it’s like someone stole our sunshine.”
“I’ll tell her you said that. Talk to you later,” said Lincoln, thinking nothing of his daughter’s forgetfulness. Even still, after he hung up with Mark, he called Darcy to see if he’d have better luck reaching her. The call went to voicemail. It didn’t worry him. He was certain she was with her friends, practicing.
“Where’s Angel live?” asked Bentley when they reached the car.
“Up in Eversprings.” Lincoln pointed vaguely west, towards the mountains. “It won’t take us long.”
Bentley paused and looked over at the foothills. “Ah the mountains. Boy do I hate driving in the damn mountains.”