The Carlaw’s two-story brick farmhouse is bigger than most of the houses around here and looks impressive from the outside so I’m expecting the inside to scream ‘rich fancy ranchers’ but the only thing it screams is ‘neglect’.
The living room is dark and cold. There’s a wood stove in one corner. Bits of firewood litter the floor around it, but at the moment there’s no fire. The black leather furniture looks expensive but there are tears on the armrests and worn spots on the cushions. The whole place reeks of dust, booze and cat piss.
There’s a calico cat meowing loudly under the glass coffee table, another curled up on the sofa and one sitting on top of the full -sized bar in the corner.
David casually swipes the cat off the bar with one arm and asks us what we’d like to drink.
“Do you have Ginger Ale?” Zane asks.
“Yeah. What do you want with it?”
“I’ll take it straight.”
David rolls his eyes as if he finds this ridiculous. “And you young lady?”
“The same.” I’d really like something stronger but it’s not worth the risk of me getting tipsy and saying the wrong thing. It feels important to stay sober and keep my wits about me.
Zane and I sit on the sofa. Sofa Cat sees this as an invitation to climb onto my lap. I start petting him, because he expects it, though I’m more of a dog person.
David pours whiskey into a glass, and nods at the two cans of Ginger Ale he set on the bar. “I don’t deliver.”
Without a word, Zane jumps to his feet, and retrieves our sodas.
David steps around to the front of the bar. He’s a big guy. Over six feet, broad- shouldered, with a substantial gut. There’s plenty of gray in his untrimmed beard and mixed in with his brown hair which is on the long side, reaching the collar of his worn flannel shirt. “So tell me what you kids were really doing in the barn after dark.”
Instead of sticking with the story about his grandma’s journals or making up a better story, Zane tells his uncle the truth, downplaying it as if Abigail’s bicycle being in the barn is more of a curiosity than a potential clue. He gets up to show David the photo and casually asks him if he knows anything about it.
David barely gives it a glance, doesn’t even take the phone from Zane’s hand. “No, sure don’t.”
Undeterred, Zane asks, “How well do you remember Abigail?”
David shrugs. “I remember her hanging around the arena and swimming in the pond with your cousins. There were a lot of teenagers around in those days. That girl only stands out because of all the fuss made about her running away.”
For a second I think Zane is going to object to the words ‘running away’ but he doesn’t. “Aunt Connie gave her riding lessons, didn't she?”
David nods. “From what I heard, Abigail was more interested in riding the boys than the horses.”
I choke on a sip of soda, surprised by his crudeness, and start coughing. Zane pats my back, which of course does absolutely nothing. Still, I recover quickly.
“Which of the cousins did she spend the most time with?”
David sets his glass down hard. “What’s the deal here Zane? Are you playing at reporter?”
“I’m not playing at anything. Just curious.”
David grunts his disbelief and crosses his arms. I’m not expecting him to answer, but after a moment he does.
“If I remember right it was Wyland, Travis, and Rev–not Gabe as much, he only had eyes for Kara even then. Connie wasn’t too happy about him getting married right after high school.”
“It worked out for him though. I mean Gabe and Kara are still together, and they’ve got three kids and all…”
They go on for a moment about his aunt not getting along with her daughter-in-law, but I’m barely listening, my mind stuck on the name Rev. He was on the list. Zane didn’t mention one of the possible suspects being a Carlaw cousin.
I find myself shivering, but it could just be a lack of warmth in the room, and the cold leather on the backs of my thighs, easily felt right through my jeans. I lick my finger and wipe up a bit of the blood where the nail pierced my skin. It isn’t deep. I’m more concerned with the expanding hole in my favorite jeans.
“Rev had a girlfriend then too didn’t he?”
David sits up straight, and points his index finger at Zane. “Rev’s conviction was total bullshit, you know that right?”
His voice is so loud that I startle, disturbing the cat. He lets out a loud, annoyed meow and jumps off my lap. Conviction? What’s this about a conviction?
“That’s what everyone in the family says, but if Rev didn’t do it then why did he confess?”
Confess to what?
David goes off on a rant that I find hard to follow. Something about the sheriff at the time hating on the Carlaws because of some feud between him and JB and how they questioned Rev for hours, threatening to charge him with attempted murder of the Ramsey kid and for kidnapping Abigail which was a bullshit threat since all they knew was that the girl didn’t make it home that night and she was probably perfectly fine. “It turned out to be good for Rev that he was being questioned that afternoon, because Bette Abel told the police she saw Abigail riding her bike on Road G at that time.”
“The turquoise bike,” Zane says.
“Sure, whatever color it was.” David waves this away as unimportant.
“I did hear that Bette was the last person to see Abigail, and that she was riding her bike at the time.”
“Yep. It happened while Rev was being questioned.” David drills this point home. “So there was no way he had anything to do with Abigail disappearing, or hitching a ride out of town, or whatever.”
It sounds to me like David is trying to convince us.
“So how do you think the bike ended up here?”
David gets up, staggers a bit on his way to the bar, pours another glass of whiskey, and downs it in one gulp. “Be my guess she left her bike somewhere on the property and somebody found it and saved it in case she ever came back for it.”
I’m expecting Zane to question this, demand to know why that ‘somebody’ didn’t turn the bike over to the police, or at least take it back to Abigail’s foster parents. Instead, Zane nods as if this makes sense and then asks, “Rev lives up past Jackson lake doesn’t he?”
“Not anymore. He bought a place on Road G.”
“Yeah? Which place?”
“Bette Abel’s place. Not the new house she had built in the eighties, she’s still living there, but the old house, the one she grew up in. I guess she got tired of renting it out and decided to sell. She didn’t even put it on the market, just sold it to Rev.”
Zane shoots me a look, as if to indicate this could be important. “There’s a pond in the back isn’t there?”
“There is.”
“The property must be worth a lot.”
“I’d guess so. Good property is damned hard to find around here.”
“That’s the truth.” Zane takes a drink of Ginger Ale.
“You’re not gonna go pestering Rev with questions are you?”
When Zane doesn’t answer right away David goes on. “There’s no sense getting people all riled up again, not over an old bicycle that might not even have belonged to the girl. Besides, near as anyone knows she ran away from home. End of story.”
“It sounds like the beginning of a story to me.”
“That’s your problem.” David waggles his finger at Zane. “You have too much imagination.”
When Zane doesn’t respond David turns to me, “Zane was the only grandkid who didn’t like to ride– not horses or dirt bikes, or mountain bikes. He didn’t even like skiing, none of that outdoor stuff. He was always sitting under a tree reading a book.”
I feel a need to defend Zane. “There’s nothing wrong with reading.”
“I didn’t say it was wrong.” David gives Zane an assessing sort of look. “Maybe you should focus on making shit up, not reporting on facts. Or is that what you’re doing?
A bit of color has risen in Zane’s cheeks. “I’m interested in finding out the truth.”
David snaps his fingers. “What’s that line in that one movie from the eighties?”
We stare at him blankly.
“Can you handle the truth, Zane?”
There’s an awkward silence. David ends it with a harsh laugh. “I’m just messing with you, kiddo. You’re wasting your time here.”
I’m thinking he means here on the Carlaw ranch but then he goes on. “What you should do is move to a big city where real crime happens every day. The bodies of young women are found in motel rooms or in dumpsters, all kinds of sick stuff having been done to them. If that’s what floats your boat, you can write your heart out and not waste your time on a ghost story.”
“Crimes against women do not float my boat.” Zane’s voice rises. “And Abigail was no ghost.”
“Not saying she was. But the story of Abigail turned into something similar to the one kids tell about the Brookwood House.”
I know what house he means. It’s the oldest in town. Four stories high, square and made of orange brick, it’s a museum now.
“What’s the story with The Brookwood House?” Anything to change the subject, and save Zane from this awkwardness.
Zane shoots me a look that lets me know he was not ready for a change in subject.
David, however, lights up. “It happened damned near a hundred years ago. The couple who built that place was found dead in the living room. It appeared they both died on the same day. The authorities couldn’t figure out how it happened. People started saying it was something unnatural–witchcraft or demons or some crazy shit like that. Even now people are still claiming the house is haunted. Supposedly they see ghosts in the windows at night. None of its real, but that doesn’t keep anyone from being afraid to walk by it alone at night.”
Zane is strumming his fingers on the arm of the sofa. “No one thinks demons dragged Abigail into the underworld. And something did happen that night. Someone hit Abigail's boyfriend, Ty Ramsey in the head with a heavy object. He was in the hospital for a week. And Abigail did disappear without saying goodbye to anyone or even packing a bag.”
David smiles. “Well, there you go. Simple answer. The Ramsey kid got fresh with Abigail, she hit him in the head and ran off to avoid getting into trouble.”
“Abigail wouldn’t do that.”
David laughs his mean-sounding laugh. “Not you too Zane? I would have thought you were too young then to have fallen for a pretty face and a perky pair of tits.”
Zane jumps to his feet, tension pouring off of him. For a second I think he’s going to tell off David, but instead he pulls it together and in a stiff formal voice says, “Thanks for the Ginger Ale Uncle David. We’ll be going now.”
The sound of David’s chuckle follows us out the door.
What’s that saying about the apple not falling far from the tree? Like JB, David comes across as a misogynistic asshole.
(I hope you’re enjoying the story. If so, feel free to share it. I appreciate you, friends.)
Uncle David is such an infuriating character! I don’t know how Zane managed to keep his cool
Great dialogue!