The Liar

23

She turned up the oven, put on the dress, banded back her hair so it wouldn’t explode as it dried.

She joined him on the back porch, with wine, and just sat a moment, looking out at the mountains with their soft peaks and ridges rolling up into the sky.

“I was paying bills today when the kids were napping, and I thought about how Jimmy Harlow—it has to be him—would be looking at all my business. The lawyer stuff, the creditors, the accounts I’ve kept of what I was able to sell. I thought how embarrassing that is, a stranger poking around in all that, and told myself it was worth the embarrassment if it made him realize I don’t have anything he wants.”

“That’s good thinking. Smart, positive.”

“Then I was thinking more. He’d see all the photos I have on the laptop. I keep them all in files on there—I transferred them from my old one once I got it back from the authorities. I never got around to going through them all, deleting any from . . . from the time I was with Richard because there was just so much else to do. It occurred to me he’d—Harlow—he’d seen, especially from that first year or so, all the places we went. He could follow right along, like a map.”

Griff nodded. “And so could you.”

“Yes! That’s what I realized. So could I. Griff, I think Richard took me all those places for a reason—I understand now he never did anything without an angle to play. I was like his disguise. I—and then when Callie came along, we—made him a family man. What if he stashed the jewelry or the stamps, or both, in one of those places, or sold some of it off as we went? And I started thinking more, once I started looking through the pictures, he was probably doing his work, too. On his honeymoon—or so I thought—then with his pregnant wife. Such a handy disguise, the pregnant wife.”

“I’m going to agree with you, even though I know it has to burn some.”

“I’m past the burning. Looking through the pictures, the letters I sent home, I started remembering what he’d always say to me—at least for the first months or year. Whenever we were going to meet somebody, he’d say, ‘Just be yourself, Shelby.’ How that would charm them. Not to worry, I didn’t know anything about art or wine or fashion, that sort of thing. I was never nervous about meeting new people, but I started to be.”

“He made you feel awkward, and . . . less.”

“He did, and as the ‘be yourself’ started changing to how I shouldn’t try to impress whoever it was because they’d just see through that. I guess I didn’t have a lot to say, and that made a good disguise for him.”

She sipped the wine, set that part aside for now.

“I thought maybe I could look at articles online, matching them with the time we were in a certain place. Was there a robbery? A fraud? Even worse? And I had more to use because Mama saved all my letters and postcards. Every one. So I could read through, remind myself what we did, where we went in Paris or Madrid, who we met. I was full of details at first, so swept up in it all.”

“Does anything stick out now, when you look at it from what you know now?”

“A couple of things. Why was he in Memphis? I don’t believe he just stuck a pin in a map. But there he was, and only four days from when he robbed that woman—Lydia Redd Montville—and shot her son.”

“Four days after, according to the brunette, he double-crossed her and Harlow, ran off with the take.”

“That’s right. I think he must have had that take with him, or he’d stashed it. A bank box, maybe. He had his new identity, and he had a fat roll of cash. Or it seemed like it to me. And there I was, just primed to be dazzled and swept up.”

“Do you want my angle on that?”

She drew in a breath. “I guess I do.”

“The cops were looking for Jake Brimley, a man on his own. He had to know his partners would rat him out. He didn’t go into it without a plan in place. The new ID, the seed money, a change in looks. But he needed one more thing. He needed to be a couple.”

“I think that’s true.”

“He wouldn’t want someone like the brunette, someone who could play his game. He’d want innocence, youth, someone malleable and trusting. And ready to be dazzled.”

On that she could only nod, let out a long breath. “I sure fit the bill, right down to the ground.”

“He was a professional manipulator, Shelby. You didn’t stand a chance once he zeroed in on you. He ends up with a young, striking redhead, so he’s not only not traveling alone, he has someone people notice. Notice first, remember last. Where did he take you first?”

“He spent four days in Memphis. I’d never met anyone so charming, and exciting, too, the way he talked about all his travels. Our gig was over, and I planned to come home for a week or so before the next one. But when he said he had to go to New York, for business, and asked me to go with him, I went.”

She let out a half-laugh. “Just like that. It was just going to be a few days—an adventure, I thought. And it was thrilling.”

“Why wouldn’t it be?” Griff countered.

“We flew on a private plane. I’d never known anyone who’d been on a private plane.”

“No security, no luggage check. You can take anything you want on private, right?”

“I hadn’t thought of that. He almost always flew private. At the time it was just one more thrill. I’d never been anywhere like New York, and he was so sweet and charming and . . . well, he seemed dazzled by me. It wasn’t the money, Griff, though I can’t say I didn’t love that he’d buy me nice clothes and take me to restaurants. It was the sparkle of it, all of it. It was blinding.”

“He made sure of it.”

“Even now it’s hard to believe he didn’t mean the things he said back then. How I was what had been missing from his life. I wanted to be that—I wanted to be what had been missing from his life. So when he asked me not to go back, but to go with him to Dallas—more business—I went. I threw everything away and went with him.”

“Another major city.”

Closing her eyes, she nodded. “Yes. You see that pattern already? We always went to a big city, always stayed for only a few days. Sometimes he’d give me a wad of cash, tell me to go out shopping because he had meetings. Then he’d come back with flowers—white roses. He said how he lived on the road or in the air right then, but how he was ready—now that he had me—to settle down somewhere.”

“Exactly what you’d want to hear. It was his business to read people, to be what they wanted or expected.”

She sat silent for a moment, appreciating the softening light, the whisper of air in the trees, the bubble of the stream.

“If I’d built a man I’d fall for, at that point in my life, it would have been Richard. The thing is, Griff, in those first few weeks, we crisscrossed the country.”

“Covering his tracks.”

“I think so, and I wonder, did he have places along the way where he left part of the take from that Florida robbery? If he had a bank box in Philadelphia, maybe he had others. Melinda Warren indicated that. He never seemed to run out of cash, so I think maybe he had those boxes to pull from, or he was stealing along the way.”

“Probably both.”

She shifted toward him, angling so they were face-to-face. “I think it was both. Looking through the pictures and letters, I remembered when we were in St. Louis, and I woke up to find him gone. He’d go out for walks—that’s what he said. Thinking time. He didn’t get back until nearly dawn, and he was excited. Just quivering with it. We left that morning. He rented a car and we drove to Kansas City. Just a quick stop, he said. He had a business associate to meet up with. And he pulled this Cartier watch out of his pocket, said he’d picked up a little something for me. A couple years later, I went to put it on, and it was gone. He got angry, said I’d been careless and lost it, but I hadn’t been careless. Anyway, I went on the Internet and I looked back, matching up the dates, and found there’d been a burglary that night in St. Louis. Jewelry again, about a quarter of a million in jewelry. And watches.”

“Steals them in St. Louis, fences them in Kansas City.”

“I guess he figured the watch was my cut—for a while. There were other times. I’m going to see if I can match them up like St. Louis.”

He reached over, gave her arm a rub. “What’ll that tell you?”

“I know I can’t change any of it.” She dropped her gaze to her hands, thought of her notes, her stacks of photos and postcards. “But maybe he did steal in those places, and at least I can give what I know, or think I might know, to the police. It feels like I’d be doing something.”

“You are doing something.”

“Right now I should be putting dinner on the table.” She rose. “I appreciate you listening.”

“Why wouldn’t I?” He walked in with her. “I’ve got a list of my own started.”

“What kind of list?”

“I don’t have the information you do.” He glanced at the memory box, the laptop. “I wouldn’t mind having a look at it. Mine’s pretty much a list of names, events, times. Warren, Harlow and Brimley—as he was known then. Miami robbery, the shooting, the double-cross. You come next. I didn’t realize it was only days after Miami, but had to figure it wasn’t long.”

“It’s like I was as tailor-made for him as I thought he was for me.” She put the meat loaf on a trivet, got out his only platter. Transferring the meat and vegetables, she glanced around as he’d gone quiet.

“What is it?”

“I don’t want to upset you more than all this already does, but I don’t think he just walked into the club where you were playing that night and decided, okay, she’s my cover.”

“What do you think?”

“I think he spent a couple days checking you out. You’re a looker, Red, and I bet you were a looker at nineteen, on stage. Your name’s right there, so he could look you up, ask a few questions. You’re single, unattached.”

Thoughtfully, she garnished the platter with curly parsley and rings of red and green peppers. “A bumpkin from a little mountain town in Tennessee.”

“You’ve never been a bumpkin. But there you are—young, fresh, inexperienced, but game. It takes game to get on stage. He checks you out, then he moves in, feels you out. By then he’s got a good sense what you’re like, what you like. And he makes himself exactly what you like.”

“What if I’d said no, no, I can’t just run off to New York City with you?”

“He’d have moved on, found somebody who would. I’m sorry.”

“No need to be. It’s a relief in its way to feel like it was never really about me. It was never really personal. It makes it more of a puzzle to solve.”

“Okay. Wow, that looks great.”

Pleased, she set the completed platter on the eating counter. “My mama would tell you presentation counts. So even if it doesn’t taste good, at least it looks good. Let’s hope we have both. Sit down. I’ll serve it up, and you can tell me what’s next on your list.”

“Houston, right?”

“It was Houston for about six months.”

“Then Atlanta, Philadelphia, then Hilton Head. You said Richard never did anything without a reason. Why did he want you and Callie to go with him to Hilton Head?”

“You think he might have had some sort of deal going there, and we’d have been cover again.” She plated a hefty slice of meat loaf with generous portions of potatoes and carrots. “Oh God, Griff, what if it wasn’t an accident? What if the deal went bad, and he was killed? Dumped in the ocean?”

“You’re probably never going to know the answer to that one. He put out an SOS, didn’t he?”

“Somebody did, but . . . Griff, Forrest said Harlow escaped around Christmas. Richard—that was just a couple days after Christmas.”

“Killing Richard wouldn’t be a smart way to get to the millions.”

“No, you’re right. But there could’ve been a fight, an accident, and you’re still right. I’m probably never going to know, at least unless they catch Harlow.”

She put a smaller portion on her plate, sat. “It probably happened just the way the police think. He liked taking risks. Driving fast, skiing the fastest slopes, scuba diving, rock climbing, skydiving. He wouldn’t have let a squall stop him. But it did. What else?”

“The PI. Maybe he’s just what he claimed, but—” After the first bite of meat loaf, Griff stopped. “Wow.” Sampled another bite. “Okay, that seals it. I’m keeping you. This meat loaf’s better than my mom’s—and if you tell her I said that, I’ll swear you’re a liar.”

“I’d never insult another woman’s meat loaf. You really like it?”

“Ask me again after I’ve licked the plate.”

“Must be the beer. In the meat loaf.”

“There’s beer in the meat loaf?”

“An old family recipe.”

“Definitely keeping you.” He stopped eating long enough to cup a hand at the back of her neck, pull her over for a kiss.

“I haven’t made meat loaf in years, so I’m glad it turned out.”

“Prizewinning.”

“Tell me what you think about that detective.”

“Right. I fell into an altered state due to beer-laced meat loaf. So the PI, he tracks you to Philly, follows you down here. He’s either dedicated or he has an agenda. He’s licensed and all that, and he swears the brunette wasn’t his client. Forrest says he won’t name the client.”

“I didn’t get that much out of Forrest.”

Griff shrugged. “We were talking. He’s alibied for the night of the murder, so there’s no legit cause to hassle him. Yet.”

Head cocked, she stabbed a bite of carrot. “You know more.”

“Bits and pieces. I know Forrest says the widow and her son both deny hiring the PI. The insurance paid out, and they’ve put the whole ugly business behind them. The Miami police talked to them, and it looks like they’re alibied for the murder, too.”

“You’re just a well of information.”

“He’s worried about you—Forrest. Mostly it’s negative information, so I guess he didn’t want to dump it on you.”

“Knowing’s better than not.”

“Now you know. Most of the rest is pure speculation. We can speculate pretty confidently Harlow’s been in the Ridge. It’s no big leap to speculate he killed the brunette, if for no other reason than who else, and he had motive since she’d claimed he shot the widow’s son—and maybe he did—but since the gun you found in Philadelphia in Richard’s safe-deposit box was the one used, it’s more logical to—”

“What? What did you say? The gun I found—Richard’s gun?”

Griff decided he needed a long drink of wine. “Okay, listen, he—Forrest—just got the information on that today. The Miami cops did the ballistics, verified the gun you found in the bank fired the bullet that wounded the son. I happened to run into him this afternoon, and he told me.”

“Richard. Richard shot someone.”

“Maybe. Maybe he just grabbed the gun after, but . . . logical speculation. His gun, his shot. Harlow always denied it, and he’d never taken a hit on weapons charges before this.”

“She lied. She was in love with Richard—Jake to her. At least in her way she loved him. She lied, even after he betrayed her. It wasn’t just the money, the take, that had her tracking me here. She was jealous, angry and jealous that he’d spent those years with me. Had a child with me.”

“Most likely.” Since he’d come to the same conclusion, Griff nodded. “And more, a lot of people project. You know what I’m saying? She couldn’t imagine you being with him and being uninvolved in the rest. She was a liar, a cheat, so by her reasoning, you had to be the same.”

“And Jimmy Harlow would think that, too.”

“I don’t know.”

“You’re hedging back now,” Shelby said when Griff went quiet. “Because you’re worried all this upsets me.”

“It does upset you.”

“It does, but I want to hear what you think. I don’t need to be protected against upset, Griffin. I’ve gotten through worse. Tell me what you think.”

“All right. I think it’s a pretty sure bet Harlow wasn’t in love with Richard, so his thought pattern might be clearer on it than the brunette’s. But he’s on the list I’m making, in several columns. I’m guessing he’s been staying somewhere close. Not as far out as Gatlinburg, like the brunette. Probably not the hotel. One of the campgrounds or cabins, one of the motels.”

“So he can watch me.”

He paused a minute, but he agreed with her. Knowing was better than not.

“Think about this. He didn’t confront you, get in your face, make threats like the woman. He’s playing a longer game, I think, so he wanted information. He wants to know who you are. It’s more likely he’ll cut his losses once he does. Better to stay free than to be rich—especially when the rich part doesn’t look promising.”

“I hope you’re right.”

“Playing that longer game, he’d be smarter to take a good look at all the information, just like we are. He’d know Richard better, and it seems like he’d follow the lines if he can connect the dots.”

Just as Griff’s thoughts and conclusions helped her connect dots. “We stayed the longest in Atlanta. But he planned to get out, and fast. I think he had a job there, a mark there, and wanted to pull out as soon as that job was done. I barely had time to pack once he told me. He went on ahead.”

“I didn’t know that. He went north without you and Callie?”

“About ten days before. I was supposed to pack, and turn over the keys. I thought we’d bought that condo in Atlanta, but we’d rented, so it was just turn over the keys, and fly north. I almost didn’t. I almost came home instead, but I thought maybe that’s what we needed—that change. Maybe that would help set things right between us again, and he talked about how we’d have a big yard for Callie. And . . . how we’d have another child.”

“Playing you.”

“I see that now. Clear,” she added. “I found in his papers he had a vasectomy right after Callie was born. He made sure there wouldn’t be another child.”

“I’m going to say I’m sorry, because that hurt you, and it’s a beyond crappy thing to do. But—”

“For the best,” she finished. “I have to be grateful I didn’t have another child with him. Playing me is what he did, all along, and in that lightning move to Philadelphia when he must have known I was thinking about leaving. Making it sound like the best thing for Callie nudged me into trying it, going, wanting to make it work.”

“A fresh start.”

“Yes, that’s how he made it seem. I said we stayed longest in Atlanta, but I don’t think he’d have left anything important there. I can see, looking back, he planned to get out well before he told me, so I think he’d plan to take whatever he had stowed away with him.”

He noted she only pretended to eat now, and wanted to erase it all, all the thoughts, the speculations, the points of view. But that wasn’t what she wanted.

“You said he traveled a lot, without you.”

“More and more, especially after we settled in Atlanta. I just wanted to nest a bit, find a routine. It got so he didn’t ask, just told me he had a business trip. Sometimes he didn’t bother to tell me. I don’t know for sure where he went. He may have told me the truth, he may not. But I know where I went with him, so that’s a start.”

“You could dump all this on the cops.”

“I suppose I will, but I want to work my way through it first, try to understand it.”

“Good. So do I.”

“Why?”

“You,” he said immediately. “Callie. If you don’t get that, I haven’t been doing a good job.”

“You like fixing things.”

“I do. People ought to like doing what they’re good at. And I like your face. I like your hair.”

He reached out for it, really wanted to take it out of the band she’d pulled it into.

“I like your meat loaf,” he added, polishing off the last of it on his plate. “I like taking Little Red on pizza dates. And I’m sunk when she gives me that flirty smile. So it’s more than fixing things, Shelby. You’re more than something to fix.”

Saying nothing, she rose to clear the plates.

“I’ve got those. You cooked. You cooked great.”

While he cleared, she opened her laptop, did a search for a photo. “Tell me what you think.”

She turned the computer around.

With a considering frown, Griff crossed back, leaned over and studied the photo of her.

Taken at one of the last functions she’d attended in Atlanta, it showed her and Richard in formal dress.

“You look gorgeous, and sad—I thought that the first time I saw you. You’re smiling, but there’s no light in it. And what happened to your hair? You look gorgeous, like I said, but not so much like Shelby. Where are the curls? Did you sell them?”

She gave him a long look, then tipped her head to his shoulder. “You know what I want to do?”

“What?”

“I want to take a walk around your backyard, watch the sun set, give you all sorts of unasked-for advice about where you should plant things, and put that arbor. Then I want you to take my new dress off me. That’ll be easy as I’m not wearing a thing under it.”

“Can we do that first?”

She laughed, shook her head. “Let me drive you a little crazy first.”

“Already there,” he told her as she took his hand to lead him out.

• • •

HE FOLLOWED HER HOME AGAIN, used the drive back for thinking time. Added to thinking time by taking Snickers on a long patrol, then putting a good hour into framing out a closet in one of the other demo’d bedrooms.

One step at a time, he told himself as he put his tools away, cleaned up.

He took the next step by sitting down at his computer and doing his own search for unsolved burglaries and fraud cases in Atlanta during the years Shelby had lived there.

A puzzle to solve, he thought. Never did anything without a reason, Griff reminded himself. So why had the fucker pulled up stakes in Atlanta, and so abruptly?

It might be interesting to find out.

• • •

WHILE GRIFF RAN HIS SEARCHES, Jimmy Harlow worked on a laptop he’d lifted from a trade show in Tampa. The busy hotel and half-drunk conventioneers in the hotel bars had been prime picking.

He’d walked out with the laptop—fully loaded and in a nicely padded travel bag—just over two thousand in cash, two iPhones and the keys to a Chevy Suburban he drove directly to a chop shop.

He bought a new ID—it paid to have contacts—and stole a piece-of-shit Ford he drove over the Georgia border to an acquaintance who bought it for five hundred flat.

He lay low for a while, growing a beard, growing out his hair, dying both, building up his cash the old-fashioned way. He picked pockets, pulled some minor burglaries, moved on.

He made his way to Atlanta, taking a winding route, staying in fleabag motels, stealing the occasional car—a skill learned and honed in his youth. In a side trip to New Orleans, he mugged and beat the crap out of a drug dealer who procured for a high school in the Ninth Ward.

He strongly disapproved of selling drugs to minors.

He also picked up a solid Toyota 4Runner outside a bar in Baton Rouge, which he drove to yet another chop shop.

He paid to have it reVINed, repainted, and with the help of another contact, forged the paperwork to match his new ID.

He watched the news obsessively, used the laptop to scan for the manhunt.

He trimmed his beard, bought easy, casual clothes—and broke them in so none of them looked new. He used self-tanner religiously to rid himself of prison pallor.

He bought maps, even sprang for a decent Canon digital camera, and slapped a few stickers on the truck from state parks, as any tourist might do.

He ate what he wanted, when he wanted. Slept when he was tired, got up and going when he wasn’t.

Every day of the years he’d spent in prison he’d dreamed of just that. Freedom. But he’d dreamed of what he’d do with that freedom.

He had no illusion of honor among thieves—he’d been one too long. But betrayals required payback. And payback drove him.

It drove him to Atlanta, where inquiries in the right ears, grease in the right palms, gave him information.

He stole the .25 from a split-level in Marietta, where some idiot had it unsecured in the nightstand, and took the 9mm from a desk drawer in the home office.

Kids in the house, too, he’d thought at the time as he’d done a sweep of a boy’s room, a girl’s room. Hell, he was saving lives here.

He’d left the kids the Xbox, but had taken the iPads, another laptop, the cash in the freezer, a diamond tennis bracelet, diamond studs, the cash rolled up in the jewelry box and, because they fit, a pair of sturdy hiking boots.

By the time he arrived in Villanova, the woman who’d hooked up with Jake was gone.

He picked the lockbox, took himself on a tour. Jake had done real well for himself, and that burned bitter in his throat.

He contacted the realtor using his drop phone, discovered it was a short sale. So maybe not so well after all.

He spent a few days in the area to get a better sense of things, then worked his way down to Tennessee.

He’d rented a cabin a good ten miles from Rendezvous Ridge—a three-month, under-the-table cash deal with the owner. He was Milo Kestlering here, out of Tallahassee, where he’d been middle management for a wholesale food company. Divorced, no kids.

He had plenty of filler to his new background if he needed it, but the landlord had been happy to take his money.

He had no contacts here, and had to be careful. More careful with cops sniffing around since Melinda’s murder.

Stupidity had killed her, in Harlow’s opinion. Maybe prison had dulled her edge, but either way, she wasn’t a factor anymore.

The redhead now, that was another matter. But he had what he wanted, for now. Enough to keep him busy, for now.

Cut it close at the boyfriend’s place, he thought. Pushed it, he admitted. Always better to go in an empty house—but the door was unlocked, and the laptop right there.

Still, he’d gotten the data.

He’d taken a risk walking right up to the redhead on the street, but he’d gotten what he wanted there, too. More, he’d seen no recognition in her eyes when she looked at him.

He wouldn’t have figured her for Jake’s type, but maybe that had been the point.

Plenty to think about there, but for tonight, he had the numbers right in front of him. He had pictures, he had e-mails. He had lives spread out on the screen.

He’d figure out what to do with them.

He’d figure out what to do about them.