“And that’s it?” Phoebe demanded.
He didn’t say anything for a second, and she saw him take a breath.
“No,” he said, “there’s a bit more than that. About two weeks ago, I bumped into her at a farmer’s market a few miles from here. It seemed odd to find her there, and later I realized she might have overheard me tell someone I was headed there on the weekend, and showed up on purpose. She asked if I wanted to have a cup of coffee with her. There were a few plastic tables set up. I felt backed into a corner, so I said yes. And as we were sitting there, she leaned over and kissed me—totally out of the blue.”
He shook his head as if the memory still bugged him. Was it all an act? Phoebe wondered.
“I told her I was flattered,” Duncan said, “but that I didn’t believe in dating students. She apologized and said she was just confused about a bunch of things. I felt sorry for her—I could tell she was still troubled about the boyfriend and trying to sort things out. That was the last contact I had with her this semester—though I saw her a couple of times coming out of the science center. If I’m the man she told people about, I had no clue her feelings ran that deep.”
“But why would you lie to me? Why tell me you didn’t know her?”
“A student drowns in the river? A student I rebuffed romantically? That’s not information I intended to broadcast on campus. I hadn’t even told Miles.”
He’d misled her so successfully before, she didn’t know how to read whether this was the truth or not.
“Look, Phoebe,” he said when she’d didn’t reply. “That’s why I acted like such a prick this morning when you mentioned her having an affair. Once you and I had become intimate, I was having second thoughts about withholding this information from you. I don’t make a habit of lying.”
“Is that right?” she said. “But you told me a lie just the other day. You said Miles had had an angina attack, but when I talked to Jan today, she claimed he doesn’t have angina.”
“Wait, you spoke to Jan?”
“I asked her if Miles was okay.”
Duncan threw up his hands. “I should have told you. He hasn’t admitted to Jan that he has it. He doesn’t want to alarm her. If you don’t believe me, call him.”
He seemed frustrated with her. But that was what liars often did, she knew. They flipped things, becoming indignant with you.
“Then why tell me it was Bruce you were going to see?” she said.
“What?”
“You told me at first you were going upstairs to see Bruce.”
“I misspoke, for God’s sake. I work with both of them every day. Where are you going with this, Phoebe, anyway?”
“Well, there are these inconsistencies, but then I’m supposed to believe you when you say that there was really nothing between you and Lily. And then she ends up dead. And so does Hutch.”
“Are you suggesting that I did something to her—that I killed her?”
Stop right there, Phoebe commanded herself. Don’t go any further. But she couldn’t contain herself.
“Did you?” she asked, her voice suddenly hoarse.
Duncan let his arms drop by his side and shook his head in dismay, his mouth pinched together.
“I don’t believe you’re doing this, Phoebe,” he said. “I thought we had something together—something good.”
He turned abruptly and traipsed off along the woods.
I guess that’s it for us, Phoebe thought, regardless of what the truth is. I just ended everything.
She felt overwhelmed—by sadness and grief but also by anger that Duncan had lied to her, and by fear that everything he’d said just now had been lies as well. She wanted to believe him, but she was still nagged by doubt.
She waited a minute until Duncan was out of sight and then made her own way across campus. By the time she reached the gate, her head was pounding and her elbow ached unbearably.
She had just turned onto Hunter Street when her phone rang. Wesley, finally.
“What’s going on?” he said, sounding agitated. “I got all these calls from you.”
“I’m sorry about that,” Phoebe said, sliding into the front seat. “I was just anxious to catch up with you.”
“Is something the matter?”
“No, no. I just need your help. I want to get a bit more info from you about the man at the jukebox in Cat Tails.”
“The man? Why does that matter anymore? They’ve arrested the girls who did it.”
“Uh, maybe not. I’m having doubts that Blair and her friend are the killers.”
“Whoa, really? And you think it was this man I talked to?”
“I don’t know, but I just keep coming back to him. Is there any way you can meet me tonight? I can explain when I see you.”
“Lemme think for a second,” he said. “I’m still at work, and then I’m going out from here—but in the opposite direction from Lyle.” There were a few seconds of silence. “Is there any way you could meet me here? It’s about twenty, twenty-five minutes west of Lyle.”
She didn’t like the idea of driving all that way, especially because it would be completely dark soon, but she was desperate to meet with Wesley. In person she could take notes, prod him better. And even show him a picture.
“Okay,” she said. “How late will you be there?”
“I was planning to leave in half an hour because I need to be at this other place. But if you hurry, I’ll wait.”
Phoebe was worried about how she would pull it off, but she didn’t want to pass up the chance to see him. She scribbled down the address and signed off. Now she needed to hurry home, check on Ginger, and pick up her car. She also had to download a photo.
The little dog seemed overjoyed to see her and nearly leaped in her arms when she walked into the house. Phoebe took a few seconds to pet her and toss her one of the tiny treats from the package Dan had left. Next, with the clock ticking in her head, Phoebe pulled up the college Web site and downloaded the photo of Stockton. There was a remote chance, she thought, that once Lily had been spurned by Duncan—if that were really the case—she had moved on to Stockton, and the story had then morphed slightly in the telling.
Phoebe was in the car in less than ten minutes, but she was now behind schedule. She programmed the address into her GPS and pulled out of the driveway. Fortunately most of the trip turned out to be on backcountry roads, and there was little traffic to contend with. As she drove, the misery she was feeling seemed to balloon with each mile. Her boots were soaked through from walking over soggy ground earlier, her elbow still ached, and her emotions were a battered mess. She had had something good with Duncan. And now it was over.
Wesley’s feed company was at the edge of a small town called Springville, and Phoebe reached it fifteen minutes later than she’d promised. She prayed that Wesley was still waiting. As she pulled off the road into the parking lot, she saw a sign out front that read, “Closed,” but there was one car still in the parking lot.
She stepped from her car into the cold. She was at the far right end of the large brick building, and peering through the twilight, she saw a stream running near the back. It was the one Wesley had mentioned, she realized, the one that once moved the paddle wheel that then turned the grist stones. In the air was the smell of something sweet but unidentifiable.
As she hurried toward the main door, she saw that she was actually looking at two buildings—the big old gristmill with a drive-through on one end—probably for trucks and vans making pickups—and a newer, less impressive structure on the far side that appeared to be devoted to the lawn care business. There was a light on just inside the main building, so she tried that door first. Entering, she spotted Wesley standing behind a counter in the two-story-high space, dressed in his standard-issue khaki pants, button-down shirt, and pullover. The smell she’d picked up outside was even stronger in here.