He’s brought coffee and croissants from the bakery down the street, the pastry still warm in their bag. She pulls butter and jam from the refrigerator while he grabs plates and mugs. Their movements together are easy, comfortable, as if they’ve been satellite people rotating around a kitchen sun their whole lives.
The croissants are flaky and delicious, but she has no appetite. Perry looks drawn. Tired. She doesn’t, she knows. The past few weeks have been good to her. Being away from Nashville, from Park, from the horror show their life had become is healing her as much as the clean food and exercise and sunlight.
“Have you been paying attention to the news at all?”
Olivia shakes her head. “I have been blissfully unaware of everything and everyone. On purpose.”
“They’ve found Annie Cottrell. Her remains, at least. In St. Louis.”
“You’re kidding. After all these years? Where?”
“A drainage ditch by the baseball field. Buried deep in a septic hole. They would never have found her if someone hadn’t talked.”
Dread parades up her spine. “Someone, like who?”
“An excellent question. The police got an anonymous tip.”
She tears off a piece of croissant. “Well, that’s good, isn’t it? Her parents must be so relieved to have an answer, finally. I can’t imagine anything worse, not knowing where your child is for all those years.” She shudders. “You came down here to tell me this?”
He runs a hand through his hair, forcing it back from his face. It’s gotten longer in the past few weeks, curling at the ends. She has an absurd urge to run her hand along the same path.
“Well, in a way, yeah. The reporter, Erica Pearl? She came to find me just before I left. She said she knew what Park did in St. Louis.”
“I thought you said he didn’t do anything.”
“I thought he hadn’t. But this reporter, she has a different story. She actually grew up in our old neighborhood. Her mom was in our class. I remember her, Enola Johnson, now Pearl. She was a year behind us. She told her daughter she saw Park alone, days after Annie went missing, near a drainage pipe that led to our baseball field. The same place they just dug out the poor girl’s body. She told the police, but no one believed her. And she saw him again, a few weeks ago. Standing in the same spot. And she swears he was there a few months ago, too.”
“I’m confused. What are you saying? Park was in St. Louis? No way. I would have known.”
“Would you have? You work away from the house. St Louis isn’t too far of a drive, and an even quicker flight.”
Olivia thinks for a moment. “I don’t think he’s flown anywhere. He doesn’t like to fly, it freaks him out. We have to get him loads of Xanax. So no, he didn’t fly.”
“But he could have driven.”
“Yes. But…”
He leans back in his chair, eyes sharp. “What?”
“I’m just trying to think. He did have to go to Jackson, Mississippi, for book research. Right after I got pregnant the last time. Research trips, they’re part of his job. He was going to talk to some historian down there about something, I don’t know. I only remember this particular trip because I was barfing all morning and he offered to cancel. I told him to go.”
“The timing fits. He didn’t go to Jackson. He went to St. Louis.”
“You’re just speculating. Besides, what are you saying, Perry?”
He pushes his plate aside. “First Annie Cottrell, and then Melanie Rich.”
“You think Park killed them?”
“All I know is I talked to Erica’s mother for a long time. She’s unshakeable. She knows what she saw. And then there are the flowers.”
“Flowers?”
“Even though they never found Annie, her parents have a grave for her, with a headstone, at the graveyard of the church they belong to. It has her name on it, Ann Elizabeth Cottrell, her birth date, and the date she went missing. They wanted a spot to visit, a place to be able to have some sort of closure. There were flowers left on her grave the same day Enola swears she saw Park. But here’s the kicker. Someone’s been putting flowers on Melanie Rich’s grave, too. Every year, on the anniversary of the day she went missing.”
Her heart thumps, but she shakes her head. “Perry, I’m not following.”
“Park is sending flowers to the women he killed. He’s assuaging his guilt. Or shoving it in their faces, I don’t know.”
“Perry—”
“Don’t you see? He did it. We need to confront him. We need to get him to admit what he’s done.”
She sighs, breaks a piece of croissant into crumbs. “Do we, Perry? What good will it do? They will still be dead, and Park will have to revisit the wound that has ruined him. And then what? We get him to admit what he’s done and the reporter or someone finds out and calls the police? He’s arrested, goes to jail?”
“Justice is served.”
“He’s your brother.”
“He’s your husband. You want him to get away with murder?”
She dumps the rest of the coffee in the sink, crosses her arms, careful not to jolt the mending collarbone. “No. Of course not. But I don’t see what we have to gain by diving into all of this. Trust me, I’m furious with him. I hate him, in so many ways, for the things he’s done, and the things he hasn’t done. But murder? This is Park we’re talking about. He might be a liar, but he isn’t a killer. He didn’t kill Annie Cottrell, and he didn’t kill Melanie Rich. He just doesn’t have it in him.”
Perry stares out to the water. Small whitecaps are breaking. The wind is picking up.
“I think this has to happen, Olivia. At the very least, we have to talk to him.”
“Even you said you were with him when Annie Cottrell went missing. Unless you were lying, covering for him?”
“I wasn’t!”
“Okay. So you know he didn’t kill her. But if the police start digging into Park, and his alibi—who is you, by the way—you don’t think they’re going to dive straight into your life, as well? What will your bosses think about you being the suspect in a murder? I assume you have a morality clause in your contract? They’ll fire you. And if you knew anything, anything at all…”
He doesn’t answer, wrestling with this. He hasn’t thought this through, she can tell. He’s driving on instinct, fear. She presses her advantage.
“And Melanie Rich…they had a trial, Perry. Evidence. A man went to jail, and Park was cleared.”
“But we know more. There’s so much we didn’t know before that we do now.”
She sits down again, takes his hand in hers. “Listen to yourself. Why do you want to take him down so badly? I don’t see what it gains anyone by tearing his life apart. Trust me, I wouldn’t mind seeing him suffer, but not with this. Not with accusations that can’t be proven. You have no proof at all he’s the one sending the flowers. None.”
“I can get proof. And what about his son? His son is a murderer. What about all the rest of those kids? Do you think he passed this murder gene along to them, too? He clearly inherited some awful predisposition to hurt people.”