“Of course.” Isaac took the business card Weaver presented him and stepped away. Les S. Weaver, Attorney at Law, he read as the door closed.
Isaac was still sitting in his truck with the engine idling, staring at the embossed lettering and thinking about a guy who raised money for autistic kids but was also, in one way or another, involved in two highly unlikely deaths, when the garage door opened. Weaver and an attractive blonde rolled down the driveway in a black Mercedes. Isaac watched to see if he’d look up or wave, but he acted as if Isaac wasn’t sitting at the curb and drove off.
With a frown, Isaac put the transmission in gear and gave the truck some gas, but then he circled back. It couldn’t hurt to have a quick look around while the Weavers were gone, just to make sure Les was as honest as he sounded.
It didn’t take much effort. What he could see through the back window convinced him he hadn’t been wrong to drive down here, after all.
Claire’s stepfather came in to get his hair cut as she was finishing up for the day. Considering how rocky things were between her and Leanne, she wasn’t sure if he really needed his hair trimmed—he was a bit obsessive about his appearance, but it hadn’t been that long since she’d done it—or he wanted to talk. She couldn’t remember a time when her stepfather hadn’t tried to smooth over any problem Leanne had. He’d always championed the baby of the family, even before the accident.
Usually Claire didn’t mind. Today, however, the idea that he might try to squeeze an apology out of her got on her nerves. No one felt worse about her sister’s loss of mobility than Claire. But Leanne had to be held accountable for her actions, just like anybody else. They were doing her no favors by making excuses for her every time she acted out.
“Is something wrong?” she asked as she used her spray bottle.
Pensive, he watched her in the mirror, and she realized how quickly he seemed to be aging these days. He’d been three years younger than her mother when they married, but at fifty-six, the lines around his eyes and mouth were more pronounced. “Just wanted to let you know I told Leanne about our last conversation.”
“You mean the one where you explained the tape.”
Wanda Fitzgerald, Claire’s last client, sat under the hair dryer, reading a magazine. Tug glanced over at her as if he feared she might be listening, saw that she was preoccupied and murmured, “Yes.”
Because of what Leanne had said earlier, Claire already knew he’d confessed to revealing her indiscretion as a thirteen-year-old. “Is that the reason you’re here?”
“That and a haircut.”
Or he didn’t want to address what was on his mind while others were present. Claire didn’t want to address what was on hers, either. Since her conversation with Isaac, she couldn’t stop thinking about the possibility that David had been murdered.
She rinsed and styled Wanda’s hair as her father swept up his own trimmings.
“Have you ever confronted Joe about Mom?” she asked once they were alone.
With what sounded like a heartfelt sigh, Tug leaned on the broom while she put the checks she’d received into a deposit bag.
“Yes.”
Again, Claire sensed a certain amount of resignation, which was a change from before. “And?”
“He claims they weren’t intimate.”
“But?”
“I think they were.”
No longer interested in the mundane details of finishing up work, Claire dropped the deposit bag onto her desk. “You told me yourself that wasn’t the case. You said, ‘It wasn’t your mother who was involved with Joe.’ Now you’re saying the opposite? That you believe Mom was cheating on you?”
He nodded.
“Why? And why didn’t you say so before?”
“I didn’t want to acknowledge that she might not have been as happy with me as I hoped she was.”
Several heartbeats passed before Claire could speak again. “But you and Joe are friends. He does the tree work on every property you own.”
“He lost someone he loved, too. And he’s always protected her memory. I respect that. I respect that he’s kept his mouth shut about what Leanne did, too.”
“So what makes you think they were…involved?”
“A lot of…little things, really.”
“Like…”
“She was very quiet, even secretive, in the months leading up to her disappearance.”
Claire couldn’t remember any of that. According to the police report, Alana and Tug had gone out for doughnuts and coffee the morning of the day in question. That certainly sounded amiable. “Are you sure this is something you noticed before she went missing and not a way to make losing her easier?”
Considering everything that had been said about Alana’s visits to Joe’s house, Claire could understand how Tug might struggle to maintain faith in Alana’s fidelity. Claire thought maybe his opinion had changed over the years, fallen more in line with what others believed in order to alleviate his guilt for moving on so quickly and completely.
“I’m sure. There were…other signs, too. She’d been taking birth control pills, something we never bothered with, since we wanted another child. I found the package in the false bottom of her jewelry box a week before she disappeared.”
“Where is it now?”
“Gone. I was so angry, I threw it away the day I confronted her about it.”
Given what Claire had heard her mother say about Tug’s inability to father a child, this made no sense. He’d obviously been hoping lightning would strike, because he certainly didn’t admit—or perhaps accept—his inability to father a child. She was tempted to mention overhearing that conversation, but she feared Tug would take it as further proof that Alana had been cheating. If she really believed he couldn’t impregnate her, why would she need birth control?
“You were forty-one when you married Roni. She was thirty-seven. Why didn’t you have a baby with her?” As far as Claire knew, they hadn’t even tried. They definitely hadn’t visited a fertility specialist. That would’ve required trips to Libby, Kalispell or somewhere else that had a specialist.
He still didn’t admit it. “Roni had already raised four children for her ex-husband, three of whom have never treated her very well. They couldn’t get over the fact that she’d replaced their mother and blamed her for the divorce.”