Page 8 of The Gallagher Place
The rest of the family busied themselves around the kitchen and living room. Stephanie walked to the refrigerator and began heating up some leftovers while Glory told the kids to set the table. Constance put the baby in his high chair.
Marlowe kept her eye on the clock. She was waiting for someone to make sense of what had just happened. For Frank to give the family a quiet reminder to keep any explanations simple, to answer only what they were asked.
No one spoke. Nate sat in sullen silence, as if frustrated with his own thoughts: Why wasn’t he the one called first by the detectives? Or perhaps he was thinking, like Marlowe, of the last time they were questioned in this house, one by one, all those years ago.
FOUR
By the time Henry emerged from the study, Nate was pacing in the living room. Marlowe knew it was driving him crazy to have his younger brother get the first word. “What did they ask?” Nate had all but pinned his brother to the wall of the kitchen.
“Just stuff about the family and the landscape of the farm,” Henry said, nudging his brother a few steps backward. “They had me draw a map.”
A footfall announced Ariel’s arrival in the kitchen.
“Marlowe,” she said. “We’d like to speak with you now, if you don’t mind.”
Everyone turned to Marlowe.
“Of course,” she said, following Ariel back through the living room to the study.
Marlowe sank slowly into one of the matching armchairs in front of her father’s desk, but she did not allow herself to lean back. She didn’t often come in here anymore, and memories of all the times she had retreated to this dark-paneled room to read or draw as a girl flooded her.
“We’d like you to tell us about this morning,” Ben said. “In your own words.”
Marlowe nodded. “I was in my bedroom until around nine. Nate and Henry and I went out for a walk, just the three of us. It’s something we often do on family holidays; we hike to a spot on a river where we went swimming when we were younger. But before we got there, we spotted the tent. And, well, you know the rest.”
“And how long did it take you to walk from the house to where you saw the tent?” Ariel asked.
“About half an hour,” Marlowe said. “It’s more than a mile.”
“Almost two, your brother said.” Ariel folded her arms and smiled with her lips pressed together. Friendly or cross, Marlowe couldn’t tell.
“I guess it’s hard to say, because of the hill. If you run it, you can do it faster.” She wanted to be useful, but she had nothing to add besides a pointless observation. “We used to run all over this land when we were kids.”
“Of course,” Ben said. “Your father bought the property when you were a child, right?”
“Yes, the Gray House when I was five,” Marlowe said.
“And then the Gallagher land?” Ariel asked. “How old were you then?”
“I was in ninth grade,” Marlowe said. “Fifteen.”
“Lucky,” Ariel said. “To have all this as a kid.”
Marlowe had long since accepted the tacit bitterness toward her family’s wealth. She was certain the detectives looked at her and saw nothing but a stiff snob. Marlowe had learned that instead of resenting her own cold brand of beauty and the judgment it prompted in others, she could use it. She had been born with money, a straight nose, thick hair, and willowy limbs. But she had not been granted a winning personality in addition. She wasn’t warm or bubbly, and she was never charming. All Marlowe had was her composure.
“Yes,” Marlowe said. “I’m very lucky.”
“Do you remember the Gallaghers much? Harmon’s relatives?”
“Yes.”
There was a pause, and Marlowe stared over Ariel’s shoulder, at the black night framed in the window. Marlowe didn’t try to fill the silence. Anything she said about the Gallaghers would surely sound fake. To her, they had been like characters in a storybook, the three farmer brothers tending to their cows. But Marlowehadknown them, and Ben and Ariel had not.
“Sad, what happened to the three of them, dying so close together. Your brother told us the long and short of it,” Ariel said. “Must have been pretty difficult for Harmon.”
The admission surprised Marlowe. Henry hadn’t mentioned anything about this line of inquiry, and she didn’t know why he would volunteer that information.
“I didn’t know the Gallaghers had other relatives nearby,” Marlowe said. It was true enough. She had always thought of the Gallagher brothers as alone, except for each other.
