It Takes a Family

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“I don’t know how you were raised,” he said when she’d finished, “but in a Walker house, food is never off-limits to anybody, whether they were invited, not invited, expected or unexpected. From now on, just help yourself, whether it’s for you or for Amy.”

It still didn’t seem quite right, but Karis thought that if she could do a chore here and there it might make her feel as if things were evened out a little.

“You can start to earn your keep by getting us a couple of sodas,” Luke said then.

Karis wasn’t sure, but there almost seemed to be an edge of humor to his tone. Was it possible that he was going to lighten up? She might even consider cleaning his bachelor bathroom to accomplish that.

She took two cans of cola out of his refrigerator and brought them to the table where he was setting out burgers and fries.

Deciding to test the water and see if they might actually be able to have a normal conversation, she said, “Was your meeting some kind of emergency?”

“No, no emergency,” he answered as they sat down to eat. “We’re in the process of opening a new investigation of an old case. The state police consented to send in a search team to help us, but they weren’t supposed to be here until Monday. For some reason they showed up this afternoon to work through the weekend. Everyone had to be briefed and updated and shown around—that kind of thing.”

He’d offered that information civilly and it encouraged Karis to ask more.

“What are you searching for?”

“The body of a man who robbed the bank in 1960.”

“He robbed the bank and died and you just started looking for him?”

Luke had taken a bite of his hamburger and, while he chewed and swallowed, he shook his head. “Two men—itinerant farm hands—robbed the bank. Until a few weeks ago we thought they’d both gotten away with it. And with the wife of the man who was our Reverend at the time—”

“Ooh, a little soap opera.”

“Afraid so. It seems the Reverend’s wife got restless and hooked up with one of these two guys, purportedly not knowing that they had any intention of pulling a bank job. But once they had, it looked as if the Reverend’s wife and the robbers had gotten away.”

“But they hadn’t?”

“The town is named for an old bridge that’s being refurbished. In the process, one of the workmen came across a duffel bag in the rafters. Inside the duffel bag were the belongings of one of the men and there were bloodstains on the outside of it, which prompted our looking into things again. When we did, we discovered that the FBI—which has jurisdiction in bank robberies—had actually caught one of the robbers, the one the Reverend’s wife was involved with. He’d claimed that the Reverend’s wife didn’t know ahead of time that they were going to pull the bank job, and the other robber had taken his share of the money and gone his separate way. But since there was never another sign of the second robber—”

“And now that you’ve found the second robber’s bloodstained duffel bag…” Karis said, to let him know she was paying attention.

“Right, and now that we’ve found the second robber’s bloodstained duffel bag, we’re thinking that the guy didn’t make it out of Northbridge, that the first robber killed him and buried him rather than split the money.”

“And then took off with the Reverend’s wife,” Karis added. She wasn’t really invested in the story, but she was so happy that Luke was in a better mood that she wanted to encourage it.

“And then took off with the Reverend’s wife,” he repeated. “But she wasn’t with the first robber when the FBI caught up with him. During questioning, he told the agent that she’d been distraught over leaving her two sons back here with her husband. She’d been upset all the time, crying, overeating—which was making her less attractive to him—and she’d just all-round become not much fun. So he snuck out in the middle of the night and left her on her own in Alaska.”

“Ouch!” Karis said with a grimace.

“The robber the FBI caught was shot to death during an escape attempt and that’s where the investigation stopped. Because of personnel changes with the feds and here in town, because there was no trail at all on the second robber, and because no one believed the Reverend’s wife had had anything to do with the robbery, the whole case got put on a back burner and eventually forgotten about. But now that it looks as if the second robber might have been killed, we’re looking for his body. If we find it, that opens a whole new can of worms.”

“Then it’s a murder case and not just a bank robbery.”

“And while the feds were content to take the robber’s word that the Reverend’s wife, Celeste Perry, wasn’t involved in the bank job, the murder of the second man before she and her boyfriend left town could put a different spin on her role in everything. She could either have been a witness to or a participant in a murder. Plus, even though she’d be of retirement age now, it’s reasonable to think she might still be alive and, since entries on the last report all agree that she was determined to get back to Northbridge at some point, this whole thing needs to be pursued.”

“Not only a soap opera but a mystery and a scandal for a preacher, too—the plot thickens,” Karis said.

“It seems to be, yeah.”

“And here I thought this was a small, quiet town like in the movies and on TV.”

“As a rule, it is,” Luke said.

“But now you get to stretch your cop muscles. Are you glad for the stimulation or sorry to have the norm disturbed?”

“Both,” he admitted. “On the one hand it’s a little exciting. On the other hand none of us are eager to stir up dirt for the Reverend and his sons and grandchildren. And there could be a lot stirred up if we find a body.”

“And the search is on.”

“Beginning tomorrow it is.”

“Will you be doing it?” Karis asked.

“Some of it. The state guys will focus only on that. There’s a lot of wooded area around the bridge where the duffel bag was found. As for the local cops, we’re such a small force we don’t have the manpower to assign anyone to work the search and only the search, so we’ll each just pitch in during our regular shifts as long as things in town stay quiet, which they usually do. We have the option of working it during our off hours, too, but I told them at the meeting today that I have my hands full with other things.”

“Me and Amy.”

“You and Amy,” he said, leveling green eyes on her.

But they didn’t seem as hard or as cold as they had before and it was such an improvement that Karis didn’t mind it this time.

Then he broke the connection and, seeing that she’d finished her burger, offered her a second one.

When she turned it down, he unwrapped it for himself. After the initial bite, he said, “Speaking of which—”

“Of me and Amy?”

“Of me and Amy,” he amended. “I’ve set up the blood draws for the DNA test. We’ll go in tomorrow.”

“On a Sunday? I didn’t think anything would be done until Monday.”

“One of my brothers is Northbridge’s doctor. He doesn’t have an office. When the town anted up for the small hospital the community needed, we did away with the doctor’s office and placed all the medical care in the hospital. Mainly out of the emergency room. Anyway, Reid will meet us there tomorrow. Getting it done on a Sunday is a perk of having a doctor in the family. Results will take at least six weeks, so I want to get the process started as soon as possible.”

Karis nodded, wondering if that meant he expected her to stay in Northbridge for six weeks.

Not that she had anywhere else to be, because she didn’t. But she doubted anyone would be too thrilled with her still being around once she revealed information about her inheritance.

But now wasn’t the time to bring that up.

When Luke had polished off his second hamburger and the rest of the fries, Karis proved she was willing to earn her keep and gathered everything to throw away.