Cold River - Carla Neggers [101]
He sipped his Coke. “How long did I stay in the cellar?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “How long, Bowie?”
“I guess that would depend on whether I was obsessed with you and wanted to hear your footsteps upstairs, or if I was just enjoying being down there without you knowing it. I wouldn’t want to push it too far if my van was out on the street and I couldn’t explain myself if I got caught. Or if you closed the bulkhead on me. Then what?”
“Don’t make fun of me, Bowie. Maybe you didn’t run into the bulkhead.” Hannah dropped her hand from his shoulder. “Maybe you’ve had the jar in your van or someplace and decided to plant it among the old canning jars while you were working on the cellar.”
“Why would I do that?”
“To upset me,” she said.
“Why would I want to upset you?”
“Payback for your arrest.” Hannah was calmer now. “Did you do it on your own, or on behalf of someone else?”
Bowie swiveled on his stool and faced the bar. Liam O’Rourke had eased in closer. “You might want to take a couple sips and head on home,” Liam said, setting a glass of ice water in front of Hannah. “Bowie, you, too.”
Sean materialized behind her. Liam seemed relieved. Hannah remained on her feet, focused on Bowie. “The police are going to want to talk to you,” she said.
“They already did,” Bowie said. “As you can see, I’m not under arrest.”
“Did you see the jar when you were working down there?”
“It’s blue willow, right? That’s what I heard in town.” At her tight nod, he looked at her again and smiled. “I don’t even know what blue willow is.”
Hannah felt her shoulders slump. “You’re an easy target for everyone, Bowie,” she said softly. “The police, the Camerons. Me, even. Maybe you are for these killers, too.”
“Don’t worry about me.”
“Whoever stole the jar in the first place wanted to frame Devin. Hiding the jar—”
“I think a part of you thinks it could have been Devin after all,” Bowie said, “and you’re wondering if those killers focused on him because they knew.”
“No. Part of me doesn’t think that at all. I opened up the bulkhead to air out the cellar. It could have happened then. Maybe whoever did it could explain his or her presence in the cellar.”
“Kyle Rigby and Melanie Kendall couldn’t.”
“Melanie could have said she thought Nora was in the cellar and went down to check on her.”
“Talk about the wicked stepmother,” Bowie said.
Sean sat sideways on the stool, one elbow on the rough-wood bar. “The police don’t believe Melanie was in Black Falls when the money was stolen.”
Hannah kept her gaze on Bowie. “It wasn’t Devin. I know my brother. He didn’t steal that money.”
“Until you hired me to fix that leak,” Bowie said, “I hadn’t been in that cellar since I was fifteen and helped your father on his service call.”
“If you had gone down there in November and I’d seen you, I wouldn’t have thought twice about it.”
“A tourist interested in old houses could have sneaked down there and you wouldn’t have thought twice about it. That’s how you all are at the café.” Bowie stood up at the bar and placed a few dollars under his glass. “You keep forgetting that not everyone has your best interests in mind.”
“You learned at a young age that no one’s going to step in for you.”
He looked at her with his dark eyes. “You’ve always been smart. I’m thirty-four years old. I was away from Black Falls for a long time. I’m not the kid you grew up with, Hannah. You don’t know me. Don’t think that you do.”
She didn’t back down. “Are you afraid you said the wrong thing and that’s how Kyle Rigby and Melanie Kendall found Drew’s cabin?”
“I talked stonework with Drew. I walked him through how to rebuild and preserve an old rubble foundation. It was theoretical. I didn’t know he was actually doing it.”
“But you had an idea he was,” Hannah said.
“I thought it was none of my business.” He looked at Sean. “I wish I’d asked him more questions or followed him up the mountain. I’d see him pass by my place. I knew he was headed up that way.