The Good Daughter

  “And now?”

  “I think he knew that bad people did bad things, but he still believed that they deserved a chance.”

  “That’s a very romanticized way to look at the world.”

  “I was talking about Dad, not me.” Charlie felt sad that they were talking about Rusty in the past tense. “He was always searching for his unicorn.”

  “I’m glad you brought that up,” Sam said. “I think he found one.”

  19

  Charlie stood with her nose a few inches from the television screen. She scrutinized the right-hand corner of the paused school security footage for so long that her eyes started blurring in and out. She took a step back. She blinked to clear her vision. She studied the entirety of the image. The long, empty hallway. The vivid blue lockers rendered navy by the ancient camera. The lens was angled down, capturing the hallway roughly to the middle point. Her eyes went back to the corner. There was a door, possibly closed, a millimeter out of frame, but clearly there. The light from the window cast a shadow onto something that was reaching into the hallway.

  Charlie asked, “Is it Kelly’s shadow?” She pointed past the TV, as if they were both standing in the hallway rather than Rusty’s living room. “She would’ve been standing here, right?”

  Sam kept her own counsel. She had her head turned, using her good eye to view the image. “What do you see?”

  “This.” Charlie pointed to the shadow reaching into the hall. “It’s a blurry, hairy line, like a spider’s leg.”

  “There’s something strange about it.” Sam narrowed her eyes, clearly seeing something that Charlie could not. “Don’t you think there’s something strange?”

  “I can try to make it bigger.” Charlie went to Ben’s laptop, but then remembered she had no idea what she was doing. She hit random keys. There had to be a way to do this.

  Sam said, “Let’s get Ben to help.”

  “I don’t want Ben to help.” Charlie leaned down to read the menu icons. “We left it in a really good—”

  “Ben!” Sam called.

  “Don’t you have a flight to catch?”

  “The plane won’t leave without me.” Sam used her hands to frame the upper-right section of the footage. “It’s not right. The angle doesn’t work.”

  “What angle?” Ben asked.

  “This.” Charlie pointed to the shadow. “It looks like a spider’s leg to me, but Sherlock Holmes over here sees a hound in the Baskerville.”

  “More like a Study in Scarlet,” Sam said, but still did not explain herself. “Ben, can you make this upper-right corner larger?”

  Ben performed some magic on the laptop and the corner of the frame was isolated, then enlarged to fill the television. Because her husband was not a tech wizard in a Jason Bourne movie, the image did not sharpen, but became more blurred.

  “Oh, I see it.” Ben pointed to the furry spider’s leg. “I thought it was a shadow, but—”

  “There wouldn’t be one,” Sam said. “The lights are on in the hallway. They’re on in the classroom. Absent a third light source, shadows would be cast backward from the door, not to the front.”

  “Okay, yeah.” Ben started to nod. “I thought it was coming out of the open door, but it looks like it’s pointing in.”

  “Correct,” Sam said. She had always been good at puzzles. This time, she had apparently figured out the solution before Charlie even understood there was a puzzle to be solved.

  “I can’t see anything,” Charlie admitted. “Can’t you just tell me?”

  Sam said, “I think it’s better if you both independently validate my suspicion.”

  Charlie wanted to throw her out the window like a sack of bullshit. “Do you really think this is the time for the Socratic method?”

  “Sherlock or Socrates. Pick one and stay with it.” Sam asked Ben, “Can you correct for color?”

  “I think so.” Ben opened another program on his laptop, a purloined copy of Photoshop he’d used to insert Captain Kirk into their Christmas cards two years ago. “Let me see if I remember how to do this.”

  Charlie crossed her arms, making sure Sam knew she was displeased, but Sam was watching Ben too closely to take notice.

  There was more tapping, more tracking, and then the colors on the screen were saturated, almost too much. The blacks were up so far that gray spots bubbled through the midnight fields.

  Charlie suggested, “Use the blue on the lockers as a color guide. They’re close to the same blue as Dad’s funeral suit.”

  Ben opened the color chart. He clicked on random squares.

  “That’s it,” Charlie said. “That’s the blue.”

  “I can clean it up more.” He sharpened the pixels. Smoothed out the edges. Finally, he zoomed in as close as he could without distorting the image into nothing.

  “Holy shit,” Charlie said. She finally got it.

  Not a leg, but an arm.

  Not one arm, but two.

  One black. One red.

  A sexual cannibal. A slash of red. A venomous bite.

  They had not found Rusty’s unicorn.

  They had found a black widow.

  Charlie sat in Ben’s truck, hands sweaty on the wheel. She looked at the time on the radio: 5:06 PM. Rusty’s funeral would be winding down by now. The drunks at Shady Ray’s would be spent of their stories. The stragglers, the sightseers, the hypocrites, would be whispering gossip into their phones, posting snipey tributes on Facebook.

  Rusty Quinn was a good lawyer, but—

  Charlie filled in the blank with the things that only the people who really knew Rusty understood:

  He had loved his daughters.

  He had adored his wife.

  He had tried to do the right thing.

  He had found his mythical creature.

  A harpy, Sam had said, referring to the half-woman, half-bird from Roman and Greek mythology.

  Charlie was sticking with her spider analogy because it better fit the situation. Kelly Wilson had gotten caught up in a carefully spun web.

  The heat in the truck was on, but Charlie felt herself shudder from the cold. She reached down for the keys. She turned off the engine. The truck shook as it came to a stop.

  She angled the rear-view mirror to look at her face. Sam had helped her cover the bruises. She had done a good job. No one would guess that Charlie had been punched in the face two days ago.

  Sam had almost punched her again.

  She didn’t want Charlie to do this. Ben certainly did not.

  Charlie was doing it anyway.

  She smoothed out her funeral dress as she got out of the truck. She put on her heels, balancing against the steering wheel. She found her cell phone on the dash. She closed the door quietly, listening for the click of the latch.

  She had parked away from the farmhouse, hiding the truck around a bend. Charlie walked carefully, avoiding the pocks in the red clay. The house came into view. Any similarities to the HP were slight. Colorful plants and evergreens filled the front yard. The clapboard was painted bright white, the trim a stark black. The roof looked new. An American flag hung from a swiveling bracket by the front door.

  Charlie didn’t go to the front. She rounded the side of the house. She could see the old back porch, the floor freshly painted robin’s egg blue. The kitchen curtains were closed. Not yellow with red strawberries anymore, but white damask.

  There were four steps up to the porch. Charlie stared at them, trying not to think of the steps at the HP, the way she had run up them two at a time all of those years ago, kicked off her shoes, peeled off her socks and found Gamma cursing in the kitchen.

  Fudge.

  Her heel caught on a knotty hole in the first step. She held onto the sturdy railing. She blinked at the porch light, which even in the early dusk was bright white, like a flame. Sweat had dripped into her eyes. Charlie used her fingers to wipe it away. The welcome mat had a lattice design on it, rubber and coir fibers that reminded her of the grass t
hat grew in the fields behind the farmhouse. A cursive P was in the center of the design.

  Charlie raised her hand.

  Her sprained wrist still felt tender.

  She rapped three times on the door.

  In the house, she heard a chair scrape back. Light footsteps across the floor. A woman’s voice asked, “Who is it?”

  Charlie did not answer.

  There were no locks that clicked, no chain that slid back. The door opened. An older woman stood in the kitchen. Hair more white than blonde, pinned in a loose ponytail. Still pretty. Her eyes went wide when she saw Charlie. Her mouth opened. Her hand fluttered to her chest, as if she had been hit by an arrow.

  Charlie said, “I’m sorry I didn’t call first.”

  Judith Pinkman pressed together her chapped lips. Her lined face looked windburned from crying. Her eyes were swollen. She cleared her throat. “Come in,” she told Charlie. “Come in.”

  Charlie stepped into the kitchen. The room was cold, almost frigid. The strawberry theme was no more. Dark granite countertops. Stainless steel appliances. Eggshell white walls. No cheerful, dancing fruit bordering the ceiling.

  “Sit down,” Judith said. “Please.”

  There was a cell phone beside a glass of ice water on the table. Dark walnut, heavy matching chairs. Charlie sat on the opposite side. She put her own phone on the table, face down.

  Judith asked, “Can I get you something?”

  Charlie shook her head.

  “I was going to have some tea.” Her eyes darted to the glass of water on the table. Still, she asked, “Would you like some?”

  Charlie nodded.

  Judith took the kettle off the stove. Stainless steel, like everything else. She filled it at the kitchen sink, saying, “I’m very sorry about your father.”

  “I’m sorry about Mr. Pinkman.”

  Judith glanced over her shoulder. She held Charlie’s gaze. The woman’s lips were trembling. Her eyes glistened, as if her tears were as constant as her sorrow. She turned off the faucet.

  Charlie watched her return the kettle to the stove, turn the knob on the Wolf range. There were several clicks, then a whoosh as the gas ignited.

  “So.” Judith hesitated, then sat down. “What brings you here today?”

  “I wanted to check on you,” Charlie said. “I haven’t seen you since the whole thing with Kelly.”

  Judith smoothed together her lips again. She clasped her hands on the table. “That must have been hard for you. I know it brought back some memories for me.”

  Charlie said, “I want you to know how much I appreciate what you did for me that night. That you took care of me. Made me feel safe. That you lied for me.”

  Judith’s lips were trembling when she smiled.

  “That’s why I’m here,” Charlie told the woman. “I never talked about it when Daddy was alive.”

  Her mouth opened. The tension drained from her eyes. She smiled kindly at Charlie. This was the caring, generous woman that Charlie remembered. “Of course, Charlotte. Of course. You can talk to me about anything.”

  Charlie said, “Back then, Dad had this case, this rapist he represented, and the man got off, but the girl hanged herself in her family’s barn.”

  “I remember that.”

  “I’ve been wondering, do you think that’s why Dad wanted to keep it secret? Was he worried that I would do something like that?”

  “I—” She shook her head. “I don’t know. I’m sorry I can’t answer you. I think that he had just lost his wife, and he thought his oldest daughter was dead, and he saw what happened to you and …” Her voice trailed off. “People say that God won’t give you more than you can handle, but sometimes, I don’t think that’s true. Do you?”

  “I’m not sure.”

  “The verse is in Corinthians. ‘God is faithful, and He will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with temptation, He will provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it.’” She said, “It’s the second part that makes me wonder. How do you know the way of escape? It might be there, but what if you don’t recognize it?”

  Charlie shook her head.

  “I’m sorry,” Judith apologized. “I know your mother didn’t believe in God. She was too smart for that.”

  Charlie knew that Gamma would have taken the observation as a compliment.

  “She was so clever,” Judith said. “I was a bit afraid of her.”

  “I think a lot of people were.”

  “Well.” Judith drank some ice water.

  Charlie watched the woman’s hands, looking for that telltale tremble, but there was nothing.

  “Charlotte.” Judith put down the glass. “I’m going to be honest with you about that night. I’ve never seen a man so broken as your father was. I hope I never do again. I’m not sure how he managed to go on. I’m really not. But I know that he loved you unconditionally.”

  “I never doubted that he did.”

  “That’s good.” Judith used her fingers to wipe condensation from the glass. “My father, Mr. Heller, he was devout, and loving, and he provided for me, and he supported me, which, Lord knows a first-year schoolteacher needs support.” She chuckled quietly. “But after that night, I understood that my father did not cherish me the way that your father cherished you. I don’t blame Mr. Heller for that. What you and Rusty had was something special. So, what I guess I am telling you is, that no matter what your father’s motivations were for asking you to lie, it came from a place of deep and abiding love.”

  Charlie expected to feel tears, but none came. She was finally cried out.

  Judith said, “I know that Rusty is gone, and that a parent’s death makes you think about a lot of things, but you shouldn’t be angry with your father for asking you to keep it secret. He did it with the best of intentions.”

  Charlie nodded at what she knew was the truth.

  The kettle started to whistle. Judith stood. She turned off the stove. She went to a large cabinet that Charlie remembered from before. It was tall, almost floor to ceiling. Mr. Heller had kept his rifle on top, obscured by the crown molding. The white wood had been painted dark blue in the interim. Judith opened the doors. There were decorative mugs hanging from hooks beneath the shelves. Judith selected two mugs from either side of the rack. She closed the doors and went back to the stove.

  “I’ve got peppermint and chamomile.”

  “Either is fine.” Charlie looked at the closed cabinet doors. There was a sentence painted in script underneath the molding. Light blue, but not in enough of a contrast against the dark blue to make the words stand out. She read aloud, “‘He settles the childless woman in her home as the mother of happy children.’”

  At the counter, Judith’s hands went still. “From the Psalms: 113:9. But that’s not the King James version.” She poured hot water into the mugs.

  Charlie asked, “What’s the King James version?”

  “‘He maketh the barren woman to keep house, and to be a joyful mother of children. Praise ye, the Lord.’” She found two spoons in a drawer. “I’m not barren, though, so I like the other version.”

  Charlie felt a cold sweat come over her. “I guess in some ways you’re the mother of your kids at school.”

  “You’re exactly right.” Judith sat down, passing one of the mugs to Charlie. “Doug and I spent more than half of our lives taking care of other people’s children. Not that we don’t enjoy it, but when we’re home, we enjoy the quiet even more.”

  Charlie turned the handle of the mug around, but she did not pick it up.

  “I’m barren,” Charlie said, the word feeling like a rock in her throat.

  “I’m so sorry.” Judith stood up from the table. She brought back a carton of milk from the fridge. “Do you want sugar?”

  Charlie shook her head. She wasn’t going to drink the tea. “You never wanted children?”

  “I love other people’s children.”

  Charlie said, “I heard that
you were helping Kelly study for some kind of exam.”

  Judith put the milk on the table. She sat back down.

  “You must have felt betrayed,” Charlie said. “For her to do that.”

  Judith watched the steam rise from the tea.

  “And she knew Mr. Pinkman,” Charlie said, not because Mason Huckabee had told them, but because Sam had shown Charlie her notes where she had recorded Kelly Wilson’s exact words:

  “I heard people say he wasn’t a bad man, but I never got sent to the principal’s office.”

  Kelly had managed to finagle her way past Sam’s question. The girl had not said that she did not know Douglas Pinkman. She had said that he was not known to be a bad man.

  Charlie said, “I saw the security footage from the school.”

  Judith’s eyes snapped up, then back down to the mug. “There was a re-enactment on the news.”

  “No, this was the actual security footage from the camera above the front office.”

  She picked up her mug. She blew on her tea before taking a sip.

  “At some point, the camera was pushed down. The angle stops about two feet away from your classroom door.”

  “Does it?”

  Charlie asked, “Do you think Kelly knew about the camera? That whatever happened directly outside your door wasn’t recorded?”

  “She never mentioned it. Have you asked the police?”

  Charlie had asked Ben. “The kids knew that the camera didn’t catch the back end of the hall, but they didn’t know the exact cut-off point. But the strange thing was, Kelly knew. She was standing just shy of the camera’s range when she started shooting. Which is odd, because how would she know where to stand unless she’s been inside the room where the security cameras are?”

  Judith shook her head, seemingly bewildered.

  “You’ve been in that room, right? Or at least seen inside it?”

  Again, the woman feigned ignorance.

  “The monitors were kept in a closet right beside your husband’s office. The door was always open, so anyone who went inside could see it.” Charlie added another detail. “Kelly said she had never been sent to the principal’s office. It’s curious that she knew the blind spot without ever having seen the monitors.”