Page 55 of The Gallagher Place
“What news?” Marlowe jumped up, and Frankie cried at being jostled.
“They made an arrest,” Henry said.
Marlowe traded the baby to Henry for his phone, and he narrated as she read the news article.
“Rick Frasier. The police found bloody clothes at his house—no alibi for the night Harmon was killed. They say it’s solid.”
Gasps filled the room. Glory clasped her hands together, murmuring, “It’s over. Thank the Lord.”
Constance exhaled and clicked her tongue. Stephanie let out a long, dramatic sigh of relief.
Marlowe continued scanning the article. Rick Frasier had been hauled into the station earlier that day. Rick and Harmon had fought over money—a failed business venture of some kind. The details were murky. Rick had loaned Harmon cash, and the fallout was ugly.
“Overwhelming evidence,” Henry said. “He’ll be convicted. Might even plead guilty and take a plea bargain.”
The house buzzed with tentative hope, but Marlowe knew it wasn’t over. It was only beginning.
Ariel must have known they were close to an arrest when they spoke yesterday. She had given Marlowe Brierley’s notes because she had to move fast if she was going to solve both cases. Marlowe set down the phone and accepted a plate that was handed to her.
Ariel wasn’t going to stop, and she couldn’t stop either.
TWENTY-EIGHT
THE SNAPPING TURTLE
Sunday, August 24, 1997
The Bean River ran crisp and clear, except for one stretch that merged into a swamp just north of the Gallagher fields and barn. There, the river all but disappeared, becoming wide and shallow, its waters creeping through a quagmire of trees and grass and muddy puddles, before spilling out on the other side and once again finding its course through the Flats. The four of them set out that morning looking for a great new frontier, unknown and ripe for exploration.
In just a few days, Nate was leaving for college. For weeks now, he had been talking about the dorm he’d been assigned and the classes he was registered for and how much packing he still had to do.
But that afternoon, he didn’t speak of it. As if even Nate could be nervous about the big changes to come.
Marlowe was relieved. Nora had recently become sulky whenever the subject of college came up.
“He’ll go and he won’t ever come back here anymore,” Nora said to Marlowe the night before. “And then in a few years it’ll be you. You’ll leave too.”
Marlowe reassured Nora it wouldn’t be like that, but Marlowe couldn’t deny that college students didn’t leave campus every singleweekend. And her father was already talking about the best art programs. In faraway states, and in other countries. It was awkward to share this with Nora, who had no clear plans. Her options were limited to the community college or maybe an in-state, four-year university, if she could get financial aid. Marlowe had taken to giving Nora small knickknacks from around the Gray House every so often so she could sell them to the pawnshop one town over. The cash would never be enough for college tuition, but it was something.
They marched past the Gallagher barn, but instead of climbing the Rise, they veered toward the soft mud along the edge of the swamp, cutting into the murky terrain when they were even with the gully. The sun was directly overhead, and the afternoon felt like it could stretch on forever.
Nate led them in a twisting trail along the scant solid ground and toward the site of a beaver dam they’d discovered earlier in the year.
“I’m sure it’s still there,” Nate assured them. “Beavers stick to one place.”
“How do you know that? You watch a nature documentary or something?” Marlowe chided, getting a laugh out of Henry.
But sure enough, they soon reached the area where the water pooled around a thick dam, sturdy enough for them to walk across and continue exploring the wetlands on the other side.
Giant green ferns that reached up to Marlowe’s waist, tangled reeds, and thick rows of cattails crowded in the shallow, cloudy water. Lily pads and duckweed blanketed the surfaces of every small pond. Marlowe was fascinated by how a place could produce so much vibrant green plant life while also containing so much sticky brown muck and so many gnarled branches.
She wanted to illustrate the wildness of the swamp, the way the trees were spaced out, unlike in the woods, each one staking asolitary claim to a patch of the marsh. Her fingers itched to depict how water pooled in every divot, but she didn’t know how to begin such an endeavor. She had dozens of half-finished sketches of the Gray House and its surroundings scattered across her bedroom floor. The house itself was easy to replicate on paper, with its neat edges. But whenever she tried to draw the surrounding woods, the rolling field beyond the gully, or the Gallagher barn, they never came out right. She could capture the shape of the barn and the precise dimensions of the field well enough, but she couldn’t capture what they were to her, the spirit of the landscape. Not entirely.
“Hey!” Nate’s shout rang out from another pool up ahead.
Marlowe and Nora ran through the weeds to keep up, trying not to look down at their feet as they sloshed through the muck, for fear of seeing a snake or something else slimy and unsavory.
They pulled up short where Nate crouched down at the edge of the water, Henry standing tense behind him.
