Page 43

Granted, there had been a few technological advances since my day—or, more accurately, my father’s day: flat-screen monitors sat on the desks instead of the old CRT monitors.

A security camera feed, visible behind the front desk, offered split screens showing different corners of the town.

(Nothing was happening as usual.) Body cam dock chargers were lined up in the corner like they’d been sent to detention hall.

Lunchtime on Sunday was never busy, but I honestly thought there was no one in the station at all, until I heard the slide and scrape of the filing cabinet in the sheriff’s office.

My heart began to skip unpleasantly at memories I thought I’d forgotten.

“Hello?” Finn called, and I jumped. He patted my shoulder encouragingly.

Sheriff Rankin filled the doorway of his office. “Howdy. Can I help you folks?”

His voice was deeper, rougher. He was probably in his late fifties now. My father’s most trusted deputy—and the nearest thing he had to a close friend. Up until my father had been recalled and Rankin was elected in his place.

Anyway, when I’d known him, Deputy Rankin had been tall, whip-thin, and brown.

Brown hair, brown eyes, and sun-browned skin.

He’d had a wide smile that reached his eyes and an easy, lowkey manner.

He was thicker through the middle now; his face was more lined.

He still wore scuffed cowboy boots and a stiff-brimmed hat, like he’d been hoping to join the Texas Rangers but had ended up in Steeple Hill instead.

I remembered that he’d told me to call him ‘Jim,’ which had flabbergasted my childhood self. He’d seemed genuinely kind though, not someone who was being nice because I was his boss’s son.

I said, “Hi. You probably don’t remember me. I’m Keiran Chandler.”

He actually sort of rocked back on his heels. “ Keiran Chandler ? Now that’s a funny thing. I was thinking about you today.”

That answered the first question: would he even remember me?

“This is my friend Phineas Scott. I was wondering if I—we—could speak to you in private.”

Rankin smiled that wide, genial smile I remembered. “Sundays are about as private as it gets around here. Step on in.”

We stepped on in to his crowded office. I didn’t think I’d been in that little room since my father had been sheriff. Rankin had a framed photo of his wife and daughters on his desk and an actual live potted plant on the file cabinet.

“Take a seat, boys. Keiran, I was real sorry about your daddy. Sorry I didn’t get a chance to speak to you at the funeral.”

I murmured something. Had he been at the funeral? I hadn’t noticed. I remembered almost nothing of that day except my desperation to leave.

Finn and I took the two wooden chairs in front of his tidy desk. Rankin sat down, too, and closed the file on the blotter pad. He studied me with his shrewd brown eyes.

“I saw you put the house up for sale, lock, stock and barrel. Would you folks like some coffee?”

We declined coffee. I leaned forward and said, “Sheriff Rankin, I want to talk to you about something that happened twenty-three years ago. The night Dominic Baldwin…disappeared.”

Rankin’s unruly brows rose. He folded his arms across his chest and leaned back in his chair. “I’d be very interested to hear that, Keiran.”

I couldn’t help thinking he didn’t seem as surprised as I’d have expected. I glanced at Finn. Finn gazed back, calm and serious. He gave a little nod like let’s do this .

So, I did. I told Sheriff Rankin the whole story.

Everything.

Everything that had happened back then.

Everything that had happened in the last five days.

I relived the horror of that first sight of Dominic’s face in the cemetery, the realization that he really was dead, that there was no going back.

Milo’s hysteria. The horror of dragging Dom’s sodden, lifeless weight through the reeds, the wet fabric catching on every sharp rock and splintered root, of standing in the sucking mud of Pescadero Marsh, my shoes mired to the ankle, watching his body sink slowly into the muck, the dark water lapping over his legs, his face disappearing beneath a slick of green algae.

Remembered my breath sobbing in my chest, praying that he would hurry up and sink.

I told Rankin about the shock of Milo’s disappearance, the hurt that gradually gave way to the conviction someone must have done something to him. The grief and fear that followed.

And after years of…nothing, the bewilderment and alarm of receiving the implicit threat of the manuscript, I Know What You Did , with all that it had gotten wrong—and all that it had gotten right.

I handed over the plastic bound binder. Rankin took it automatically, laid it on top of the closed file.

I detailed the drive to Steeple Hill, my effort to track down Troy Colby, and the harrowing trip back to Monterey, reliving again the blowout in the middle of nowhere, the night pressing in, the trees, thick with the hum of insects, the sharp scent of pine and hot metal.

The doubt that turned to panic as headlights appeared.

The sinister rumble of a V8 engine, the creak of the opening door, the blinding, glaring certainty that this wasn’t a coincidence.

I talked about confronting Colby, of confronting Milo, of Geo’s suggestion to throw me off the balcony.

I talked for three hours.

I talked until I was hoarse.

I don’t think Rankin said anything the entire time except to ask for the occasional clarification and to offer me a glass of water.

Finn didn’t say a word, but I felt his silent, steady support. On the rare moments I glanced his way, his expression was calm, approving.

When I had finally talked myself to a standstill, Rankin remarked, “That’s… I don’t know what that is.”

“It’s the truth,” I said.

“I don’t see what you’d have to gain by implicating yourself. You offered a clear and lucid account. You came in voluntarily. Funny thing. I was telling my wife the other night that nothing shocks me anymore. Guess I spoke too soon. So, Georgi Argyros is in jail for killing Troy Colby and Milo is…”

“Not going to corroborate anything I’ve said.”

Finn said, “Keiran was a minor at the time.”

“Yep.”

“With a reason not to have a lot of faith in the justice system.”

Rankin’s eyes flickered. He said again, neutrally, “Yep.”

“Most of the charges against him would have expired long ago.”

“Most of them,” Rankin agreed. “There’s no statute of limitations on murder. Or accessory. And as far as Dominic’s death, we only have Keiran’s version of events.”

Finn said, “Was the body ever discovered?”

“Nope.” Rankin’s smile was dour. “You must have driven a ways into the marsh, Keiran.” And then to Finn, “You’re no lawyer. Cop?”

“Former cop. I worked homicide for five years. One thing I learned is DAs don’t like cases where there’s no body.”

Rankin nodded noncommittally.

Finn gazed steadily at Sheriff Rankin. Sheriff Rankin considered him thoughtfully, then reached down to pull open his desk drawer. He pulled out a very worn blue cloth-bound book.

I felt the hair prickle on my scalp. I hadn’t remembered Milo keeping a journal, but when I saw that blue book, I remembered it. I’d thought he’d used it to organize his book notes. I kept a spiral notebook for the same purpose.

“Judge Baldwin’s lawyer dropped this off this morning,” Rankin said to me. “There was a letter which confirms a lot of what you told me. The judge did believe you’d killed Dominic and Milo both, and since his plans to punish you weren’t working out, he wanted to make sure justice would be served.”

I closed my eyes.

“Well, that’s bullshit,” Finn said briskly.

“Seeing that Milo is still alive. Baldwin was off his rocker. I’m not sure how credible the dying declaration of someone plotting a blackmail and possible murder revenge plot will appear to a jury.

I think you could argue that Baldwin is at least partially responsible for Colby’s death. He dragged him into this scheme.”

“I don’t suppose Colby was an unwilling victim. The judge was always generous. Colby would have been paid handsomely to write that chapter.”

I said, “It would depend on how the story was spun to him. If Colby believed he was helping to catch a murderer? Maybe he didn’t think of it as participating in extortion. Maybe he thought he was one of the good guys.”

Finn, who was one of the good guys, made a growling sound at the very idea. He said to Rankin, “Either way, you’re smart enough, savvy enough to know Keiran’s told you the truth, but if you want to waste tax-payer money trying to take this to trial—”

“Hold your horses, sonny boy,” Rankin interrupted. “What I was about to tell you is Judge Baldwin died during the night. He’s been on borrowed time for a while now and the clock ran out.”

I dropped back in my chair. After a moment, Finn said, “Which leaves us where?”

Rankin said to me, “You didn’t know Dominic well did you, Keiran? You didn’t run with that pack.”

“I didn’t run with any pack.” I said with self-mockery, “I was a lone wolf.”

“You were a good kid,” Rankin said gruffly. “All you needed was—” He didn’t finish the thought.

“Keiran was never a suspect, was he?” Finn asked.

I guessed, “And neither was Milo?”

Rankin gave another of those sour smiles. “No. Oh, we knew Dominic didn’t disappear all on his own. There was no question of foul play. The question was who, out of a very large cast of suspects, might have decided to take matters into their own hands.”

“A very large cast of suspects?” I repeated.

“Dominic started getting into trouble with the law when he was thirteen. He must have been detained or arrested about twenty times by the time he disappeared. The charges were always dropped. A lot of it was petty stuff. Fist-fights, peeking in windows, taking stuff and forgetting to pay for it, sneaking into empty houses—”

“You mean assault?” Finn inquired. “Voyeurism? Theft? Breaking and entering?”

“Yep,” Rankin said grimly. “It escalated as he got older. Why wouldn’t it? He had years of learning the laws didn’t apply to him. Judge Baldwin never saw it that way. He considered any trouble Dom got into as kid stuff.”

My father would have been the sheriff during that time. Now there was irony. The man who never let failure to wash a dish or a “smart-aleck” comment go unpunished.

“Keiran, your pal Milo knew this—it’s in his journal—but you might be surprised to learn that when Dom was in high school, he considered himself quite the lady’s man.

He was handsome, rich, on the football team.

He didn’t have trouble getting girls. Keeping them was a different matter because he was a bastard.

There were complaints of physical and verbal abuse, stalking.

A couple of charges were filed—but none of it came to anything.

The thing is, those girls all had daddies, and several of those men weren’t happy about the way their daughters were treated.

They weren’t happy with the failure of the law to protect their kids.

They all, at one time or another, made threats. ”

Finn said, “So when Dominic disappeared, the investigation focused on the fathers of the girls who claimed Dominic had assaulted or abused them.”

“Grandfathers, fathers, and brothers,” agreed Rankin. “Milo disappearing the way he did raised some eyebrows, but he was never really on our radar. We took an extra close look at a couple of folks, but nothing came of it. The case went cold.”

I said, “But now—”

Finn and I stared as Rankin picked up the journal, the plastic binder, and the manila folder on his desk and dumped them in the trash.

He read our expressions and said wryly, “Don’t worry. I’m planning to incinerate all of it.”

I said on a swallow, “But… Are you not going to pursue…this?”

Finn put a hand on my shoulder. I wasn’t sure if it was reassurance or a warning to shut up.

Rankin grimaced. “I spent the morning reading your friend Milo’s journal. There’s a lot about Dom in there. A lot about you in there, too. Maybe the system did fail in finding justice for Dominic Baldwin, but it also failed those girls, and it failed you most of all.”

That choked me up, and I’m not sure why.

“The only person still having sleepless nights over Dominic Baldwin is gone now. There’s no fixing the past. Dom Baldwin got away with a lot worse than you ever did, Keiran. And maybe Milo, too.” Rankin sighed. “Sometimes letting old ghosts lie quiet is as close to justice as we get.”

I stared in disbelief from Rankin to Finn. I was afraid to believe what Rankin seemed to be saying.

Finn was smiling, his eyes light with relief and happiness.

“You’re fine,” he reassured me.

For the first time in my life, I knew it was true.