Secrets and Lies: He's a Bad Boy\He's Just a Cowboy (15 page)

She grabbed lunch in a café that had once been part of the old movie theater and walked through the park, only to stop and stare at the memorial—a gazebo of all things—to Roy Fitzpatrick.

No matter what she did or where she went, the memory of the night Roy died followed her. It seemed as if the town of Gold Creek had changed permanently that October evening. The course of history had been altered. And she and Jackson were a major part of that change.

Who had killed Roy? She’d asked herself a hundred times and never found an answer. Maybe there wasn’t one. Maybe the past was so buried beneath prejudice against Jackson and gossip about her, that the other facts surrounding Roy’s death were conveniently forgotten. No other suspect had ever been hauled into jail, though the sheriff’s department and the Gold Creek police had questioned nearly everyone who had been at the homecoming game that night, as well as a few citizens who hadn’t. Every kid who’d shown up at Roy’s party had been interrogated, but when the dust had cleared, Jackson had been the only suspect.

Roy’s murder had been left unsolved, though everyone in Gold Creek assumed that Jackson was the culprit.

She climbed back into her car and stared at the green. It had all been so long ago, and yet, in some respects, it was as if time had stopped in Gold Creek.

And now Brian was running the logging company—a job Roy had been groomed for. Things would be different in Gold Creek if Roy had survived, and things would certainly be different between Jackson and her. But she wasn’t going to think about Jackson. Not today.

She had work to do.

She drove back through town and under the railway trestle again. But she didn’t drive as far north as the logging camp and stopped at Monroe Sawmill Company, where some of the workers were just getting off. Still, others were arriving for the swing shift.

She approached a man she didn’t recognize and hoped he didn’t know her name as she introduced herself. He didn’t even lift a brow as she explained her reasons for returning to Gold Creek and began asking him questions about his family, the town and what he wanted from life.

“I just want to work and support my family,” he said after staring at her long enough to decide he could trust her.

“And you’ve found that opportunity here?”

“I did until all the dad-blamed environmentalists decided it was more important to save some bird’s habitat than it was to keep men’s jobs. I got a wife and two kids, a mortgage and car payment. I don’t give a rat’s rear end for some dang bird.”

She quickly took notes as the man rambled on, and she decided the complexion of Gold Creek had changed little in the past decade, though there was more talk about environmental concerns that affected the timber town. When jobs depended upon cutting down trees and slicing them into lumber, no one really cared about the fate of endangered species of wildlife.

“Sure, we care,” a man admitted, as he wiped his work glove over his face and brushed off the sawdust that clung to his hair and his mustache. “But if it comes to the damned owls or my family, you’d better bet I’ll pick my family every time. It’s time those big-city environmentalists got a look at real life. Who’s in the corner of the little guy, hmm? Who’s protecting
my
environment—my job? I’m just a workin’ man. That’s all. And you can print that in your paper.”

He’d finished his coffee then and headed back to work. Rachelle watched as he climbed aboard a forklift, shifted some levers and began moving stacks of lumber.

She didn’t see Erik Patton until she’d started back to the car. He was standing by three other men, hard hats in place, gloves stuffed in back pockets. He was bigger than she remembered, and the start of a beer belly had begun to hang over his thick belt. At the sight of Rachelle, he stopped talking for a second, then muttered something to his friends and walked over. Hitching up his pants, he almost swaggered and Rachelle braced herself.

“Heard you were back in town,” he said, stopping only a few feet from her. He fished in his pocket for a crumpled pack of cigarettes. “Stirrin’ up trouble again, right?”

“I don’t think so.”

“No?” He squinted through a cloud of smoke as he lit up. “Moore’s back, too. Quite a coincidence.”

“Isn’t it?” she replied, then decided Erik would be an interesting subject to interview. He’d been here from the day he was born and his college career had either been cut off or he’d decided he loved sawmilling. “Do you mind if I ask you a few questions? I’m doing a series of articles for the
Herald
and—”

He waved off her explanation and removed his hat. His hair, shot with the first few strands of gray, was creased where the band of the hard hat had fitted against his head. “I heard about it. Why would you want to talk to me?”

“Because you’ve been here the whole time I was gone. You’ve seen the changes in town—”

He snorted. “What changes? This place is just as dead today as it was twelve years ago.” He took a long drag on his cigarette and cast a look at the sawmill, where men bustled in and out of sheds and heavy equipment kept the logs moving.

“Why didn’t you leave?”

He shot her a dark look—the same brooding glance that she remembered on the night he’d driven her to the Fitzpatrick summer home in his pickup. “Some people have roots here.”

“But you were going to college…” she pressed on, and his lips turned into a tiny frown of disappointment.

“Sonoma State and I had a parting of the ways,” he said. His cigarette dangled from the corner of his mouth, and smoke curled in the clear air. “I don’t know what good this is going to do, Rachelle,” he said with more candor than she’d thought him capable of. “Moore should have stayed away and left things as they were. And you—“ he motioned toward her pocket recorder “—you were better off in the city. No one here is ever going to forget that night, you know. And you and Jackson back in town just bring it all up again. You’re not going to be very popular.”

“It’s not the first time.”

He took a final tug on his cigarette, and as smoke streamed from his nostrils, he tossed the butt onto the ground and settled his hat back onto his head. “You were a smart girl once. Do yourself a favor and go back to wherever it is you came from. And tell Moore to do the same. Believe me, there’s nothing here but trouble for both of you.”

CHAPTER EIGHT

A
S SHE UNLOCKED THE DOOR
to her cottage, the phone began to ring. She dropped her purse and sack of groceries on the counter and picked up the receiver before the answering machine took the call.

“I was about to give up on you!” her mother scolded gently.

Rachelle rolled her eyes to the ceiling and twisted the phone cord in her hands. She’d only been on the phone ten seconds and already she was on a Mom-inspired guilt trip. “I’ve been busy.” The excuse sounded lame.

“Too busy to have dinner with me?”

“Never,” Rachelle replied as she stretched the phone cord taut and shoved a quart of milk into the refrigerator. “In fact, I was planning on asking you out.”

“Nonsense. It’s already in the oven.” They talked for a few minutes and neither woman brought up Jackson’s name, but Rachelle braced herself for the evening ahead. No doubt it would be an inquisition. Ellen Tremont Little made no bones about the fact that she thought Jackson Moore was the cause of all Rachelle’s problems.

Within half an hour Rachelle had changed and driven the two miles to her mother’s small house. She carried a bottle of wine with her as she pushed the doorbell.

The door opened and Ellen waved her inside. Her mother looked smaller, more frail than she had on her last visit to San Francisco and her eyes were red, as if she’d been crying. Her permed hair was unkempt and frizzy, and she was nervous as she hugged her daughter. “Thank God you’re here,” she whispered, clinging to Rachelle and smelling of cigarettes and perfume. She dabbed at her eyes with her fingertips.

“Mom, what’s wrong?” Rachelle asked, but deep in her heart she knew. Her mother’s second marriage had been rocky for several years.

“Harold moved out,” Ellen replied as Rachelle glanced uneasily around the small rooms, glad not to find her stepfather, pipe stuck in the corner of his mouth, reading glasses perched on the end of his tiny nose. He was a small, round man with a nasty temper and cutting tongue. From the day he’d married Ellen, he hadn’t been satisfied with anything she or her daughters had done.

“Are you okay?” Rachelle asked, holding her mother’s shoulders at arm’s length.

“I think so.” Her mother offered a wan smile. “When your father left me for
that woman,
I thought I’d die. I couldn’t imagine not being married.” She wrung her hands together as she motioned Rachelle into a tired kitchen chair that Rachelle remembered from her youth. “It wasn’t just the money, you know. It was the company. The fact that I’d be alone. When your father left me, he took our social life with him.” She sighed heavily. “And it was hard to accept the obvious fact that he’d rejected me—rejected me for a younger woman.” She shook her head and her lips tightened at the corners. “You can’t imagine the shame of it…everyone in town whispering about me… . Well, maybe you do understand a little.” Her sad eyes filled with tears as her gaze met Rachelle’s.

I understand more than you’ll ever believe,
Rachelle thought, but held her tongue.

“Anyway, I was at a loss.” Ellen threw up her hands. “All my friends were married. My social life—what little there had been of it—was gone. I felt betrayed, alone, miserable and then…well, you know. I met Harold. I knew he wasn’t perfect, but he was a way out of the money problems and the loneliness… . Oh, God, Rachelle,” she whispered, working hard against tears, “I’m going to be alone again.” She held her face in her hands, and Rachelle hugged her tightly.

“Being alone’s better than being with Harold,” Rachelle said, but felt more than a little stab of guilt. Harold, though a mean, self-important man, had, when she was struggling in school, loaned Rachelle enough money to make ends meet until she graduated from the University of California at Berkeley. She’d paid him back with interest, but still, she couldn’t forget that he’d helped her when she’d needed it.

“I know I’m better off without him, but it’s so hard. So damned lonely.” Ellen sniffed and rubbed her forearms as if suddenly cold.

“You’re sure it’s over?”

Ellen waved away the question and her face knotted. “He, uh…” She looked about to confide in her daughter, but changed her mind. “We’ve agreed. All we have to do is work out the details with the lawyers. I just—I just don’t know what I’ll do,” she said in a voice choked with bitterness.

Rachelle’s heart went out to her mother. “You could come to the city. Live with me.”

Ellen’s face crumpled for a second and then she started to smile. “Live with you?” she repeated. Suddenly she was laughing or crying or both. Tears streamed down her lined face. “Then we’d both be miserable.”

“It would only be until you got on your feet.”

“I couldn’t even drive in San Francisco. No, honey, I’m a small-town girl. Born and raised here. I guess someday I’ll die here. Probably earlier than I should if I don’t give up these,” she admitted, reaching into a drawer for a carton of cigarettes. Her fingers shook as she opened the cellophane wrapper of a new pack. Lighting up, she let out a smoky sigh. “I don’t know how many times I’ve tried to quit.” She studied the tip of her cigarette and lifted one side of her mouth. “I think I’ve got to go out and find a job. Isn’t that a hoot? At forty-eight. I never worked a day in my life. What can I possibly do?”

“You’ll find something,” Rachelle predicted.

“I hope so.” Ellen drew long on her cigarette, then set it in an ashtray near the sink. Without another word, she started moving food from the oven to the table, and Rachelle helped put the napkins and flatware on the place mats. She stubbed out her cigarette just before they sat down, then, in a ritual that had been with the family for as long as Rachelle could remember, she folded her hands and sent up a silent prayer.

“No matter what happens, we’ve got to thank the Lord,” Ellen said, an explanation Rachelle and Heather had heard a hundred times over after their father had walked out.

The meal—pork chops, gravy and squash—was delicious. Rachelle was so full, she could barely move, but her mother wouldn’t hear of her declining dessert, “her specialty” of strawberry-rhubarb pie topped with whipped cream.

Rachelle ate three bites and had to quit. “I can’t, Mom. Really. It’s wonderful. The best. But I swear I’m going to pop.”

Ellen laughed and seemed almost happy as she licked the whipped cream from her fork.

“I like cooking for someone,” Ellen said sadly as she wrapped the remainder of the pie in plastic wrap. “I enjoyed cooking for your father and even Harold. Now who am I going to cook for?”

“Yourself.”

Her mother threw her a disbelieving glance. “Cooking for one is worse than cooking for a dozen. You should know that.”

Rachelle ignored the little dig about her marital state. Her mother had been pushing her toward the altar for years and didn’t understand why she hadn’t yet taken the plunge, even though she herself was soon to be twice divorced.

Ellen reached for her pack of cigarettes and a lighter. “Heather says you’re thinking of getting married.”

Rachelle, if she’d been able to find her sister at that moment, would gladly have strangled her.

“David, I assume,” Ellen added.

“He thinks it’s time,” Rachelle hedged.

“And you?”

“I don’t know if I’m ready.”

“You’re going on thirty. David’s a nice man, has a good job and seems to love you.”

She couldn’t argue with such straightforward logic. But her mother wasn’t finished. While her cigarette burned unattended in an ashtray, Ellen began clearing the dishes. “You know, I read your column every week,” she said simply, and a touch of envy entered her voice. “You’re the first woman in this family to have completed college and that’s always been a source of pride to me. I thought that—” she leaned against the sink to gather her thoughts “—I thought that you, of any of us, would be a survivor. You’d find the right man. Even after that mess with Jackson Moore.”