Cold River - Carla Neggers [79]
She seemed unaware of his scrutiny. “Bowie’s place on the river is of no historic consequence, but it’s an old part of town,” she said. “He’s fixing it up. I’m surprised he wanted to go back there. He didn’t have it easy as a kid. Everyone loved his father, but they didn’t know what he was like in private—especially with his son.”
“It’s hard to love people who aren’t good for you. Who hurt you.”
Hannah brushed off the front of her shirt. “Bowie’s escape was to hunt for old cellar holes. It got him interested in historic stonework.”
Sean glanced at the old cellar with its stone foundation. The exterior of the house was brick, and there was a hundred-year-old stone wall out back. The former tavern up at Four Corners had an old stone foundation and stone walls, too. He was familiar with “historic” stonework.
Tobias Shay, Sean remembered, had laid the stone terrace at the lodge.
He rubbed a rough, whole stone on the foundation, then turned back to Hannah, knowing he had to ask. “What was your father’s relationship with Bowie?”
Her pale, pretty eyes were suddenly distant. “Did Jo tell you to ask me about him?”
Sean nodded. “She did, yes.”
Hannah remained very still. “He and Bowie got along well. He died when I was fourteen and Bowie was eighteen. He ran his car into a tree on an icy road.”
“I remember.”
Her expression was impossible to read, deliberately so, he thought. “Do you remember anything else about him?” she asked.
“I was seventeen—”
“No,” she said, answering for him, without a trace of bitterness. “There’s no reason you should. Most people don’t remember my father, and those who do don’t talk about him. I don’t talk about him. Devin and Toby have no memories of him at all.” With one hand, she batted the long string on the lightbulb and watched it swing into the dusty air. “I figure Jo looked him up or talked to her father about him.”
“Why Chief Harper?” Sean asked.
Hannah didn’t hesitate. “My father served time in prison when I was small. It’s not a secret—it’s just not something anyone ever talks about. People didn’t even talk about it when he was alive.”
Sean recalled vague references to Hannah’s father, a gifted stonemason, having a troubled past. “Jo’s thorough,” he said. “It’s her job.”
“I understand that. I figured when I was up at the lodge that she either knew about my father and hadn’t thought about him until Bowie turned up, or she asked her father. Chief Harper arrested my father at least twice.”
“What did he do?”
Her cheeks were pink now, her emotions high if in check. “Broke the law.”
“Hannah—”
“I try to focus on the good times I had with my father. He convinced my mother he’d gotten his act together when I was ten. She took him back, and they had Devin and Toby.”
“Did he get into trouble again after that?”
“Not that I know of.”
“When Nora Asher talked to Jo and Elijah after their ordeal on the mountain, she mentioned that Devin had told her that his father had abandoned his family.”
“He must have heard that around town. I guess it’s true in a way, isn’t it? He never abandoned Devin and Toby, but he did my mother and me by doing stupid things and ending up behind bars.”
Sean considered her words, tried to be objective about them—about her. It wasn’t easy. “It’s also possible Rigby played up your father’s past and put it out there to help raise suspicions against Devin.”
“Maybe. I don’t know. I always studied hard and knew that getting a good education was my path to a different life than what my parents had. My father encouraged me. He was beset by demons I’ll never understand, but he didn’t want me to make the same mistakes he had.”
“You’re worried about your brothers,” Sean said, seeing it now. “You don’t want them in trouble.”
She grabbed a rag that hung on a nail and returned to the desk, dusting its scarred surface. “I hope going to California is the right choice for them.”
“They’ll figure that out for themselves.”
“They don’t have the same upbringing you’d had when you left Black Falls.”
“Not the