Page 43 of The Gallagher Place
Marlowe slipped out of the archival room, avoiding any notice from Jeanine, and walked outside to her car. She turned on the ignition and cracked a window, taking in the cold air, and then went back to her phone to search for another obituary. Harry Gallagher had died in 2001, at fifty-nine, of an unspecified illness. He had watched, from wherever he ended up after the sale of his land, as all his cousins died. He had seen his sister sell the last of the property to Frank Fisher. Had Harry found Dave’s journal, or was his son, Pete, the only one who had helped clear out the house?
Marlowe closed her eyes, trying to picture Pete as a boy. His bachelor cousins would have taught him to stack hay and sharpen blades on the stone wheel. A lump rose in her throat. Pete wasn’t a weekend visitor. He had, in fact, woken up in the Gray House every morning of his childhood. He had known every winding path through the woods, climbed every apple tree. He must have loved it, maybe even more than she did. And maybe he had assumed he would inherit it.
Instead, he watched as the debts piled up and the farm slipped away.
That was the difference between the Fishers and the Gallaghers. The Fishers didn’t depend on the land; the farmers did. They were at the mercy of the land and its many betrayals. There was never a perfect season. Rain ruined the hay. Cows got sick. Foxes ate the chickens. Maybe Harry Gallagher had suffered a few difficult years. Or maybe he just didn’t want to struggle anymore. In any case, his loss was his son, Pete’s, loss too.
Had Pete come back after his side of the family lost the land? Wandered old woods, mooned about in the fields. Marlowe knew she would have. If the Gray House were taken from her, she wouldn’t be able to stay away.
One last time, Marlowe counted out the years. In 1998, the night Nora disappeared, Pete Gallagher would have been thirty-six years old. Marlowe’s age now. He would have had a toddler, Harmon, but no farm. Her father had mentioned that Caroline had been willing to sell despite family pressure to hold on. She imagined that Pete had been among those dissenting voices. He would have been old enough to be angry about how things had panned out. Young enough to do something about it.
And if he had the journal—if he had pieced it together—he might have known. He might have known the Fisher children hadblood on their hands, and might have seen an opportunity for revenge. No one wanted to live where a tragedy occurred. And if the Fishers looked guilty, all the better. The more Marlowe thought about it, the more she saw the logic. The roads spreading out from the Gray House formed a web tattooed in her brain. Where had Pete been all those years? She thought of the abandoned car she’d found with her brothers. A figure watching from the tree line, keeping an eye on the Gallagher Place.
Marlowe shoved the piece of paper back into her purse and hurled it to the passenger seat. There wasn’t time to wait for the detectives to come to her. She pulled out of the parking spot and headed for Route 9, south toward Poughkeepsie.
TWENTY-THREE
Marlowe gave her name at the front desk of the police station, and within ten minutes, Ariel appeared.
“Marlowe, is something wrong?” Ariel asked. “Or did you just want to talk?”
“No, sorry. Nothing’s wrong. I just wanted to talk, if that’s okay.” Marlowe felt silly now, facing Ariel in the drab lobby, pretending she drove all the way here just to chat.
But Ariel didn’t miss a beat. “Should we go grab coffee? There’s a café round the corner, and I’m not ready to take you into a full-on interrogation room.” Ariel smiled, her teeth as small and white as pearls. “Yet.”
Marlowe didn’t laugh at the joke, but she did let Ariel lead her a few blocks away. They ordered drips and found a corner table. Around them, a few people worked on laptops, puddles forming beneath their chairs as slush melted from their boots. The café was comfortable and quiet, with just enough background noise to keep their conversation private.
“I wanted to ask about Nora’s case,” Marlowe said at last.
Ariel raised her brows. “You know I can’t tell you everything.”
“I read the file you gave me. If Pete had that journal, he might have known about the tricks we played as kids. He might have been upset.”
Ariel looked momentarily surprised by Marlowe’s blunt approach. Marlowe was surprised too.
“And are you upset?” Ariel asked.
“Yes, I am.” Marlowe met her gaze. “I had no idea he was so distressed.”
She couldn’t bring herself to say Dave’s name. It was the latest in a long line of insults.
“You’ve been in the dark about a lot of things,” Ariel said. “The details of the sale, the Gallagher relatives. Even Harmon’s threats seemed to catch you off guard.”
If Ariel meant to wound her pride, it was a wasted effort. Marlowe had lost any sense of pride the moment she read Dave’s journal.
“None of it was on purpose,” Marlowe said. “But Pete might have thought it was. Maybe he wanted revenge. Damen Miller said something about Nora being caught in a feud between families. He thinks we’re hiding something, but we’re not.” She hesitated. “And never have been.”
“When did you speak to Damen Miller?” Ariel asked, puzzled.
Marlowe shook her head, not realizing she hadn’t shared details of their conversation with anyone yet. She felt a sudden chill after the admission.
“A couple days ago,” she said, waving off the question and trying to remain calm. In truth, she wanted to stop Ariel’s investigation from taking Damen’s theories too seriously. His logic was tangled in grief. No matter how aggressive Harmon’s threats had been, she couldn’t picture any of the Fishers answering with violence. There were plenty of legal ways to deal with someone like Harmon, things her family was well versed in.
“Well, you shouldn’t be talking to him,” Ariel said. “That’s not going to end well.”
“Nora spent every second she could with my family,” Marlowe blurted out. “Every weekend, she was with us from Friday to Sundaynight. Every summer, she basically moved in. I never thought that was strange when I was a kid. But it is, isn’t it? I always thought the Millers were nice. So why was she always trying to get away from them?”
Marlowe pressed her lips together. She sounded desperate, grasping at something she had no proof of. But hadn’t she always been a part of this investigation? If anyone’s theory deserved to be heard, it was hers.
