Dead Right. Brenda Novak

responsibility and curiosity are all powerful motivators,” Allie said. “You, of all people, should understand that.”

      “We’re not talking about me,” he grumbled.

      Her smile was back. “If you only knew what a good man you are.”

      He shoved the hair out of his eyes. It was getting long; he could use a cut. “It’s enough for me that you think I’m good.”

      “Maybe if Maddy still had her mother, the situation would be different,” she said.

      “Of course it would. Then my mother wouldn’t have married Lee Barker. He had nothing nice to say about his first wife, but you know he never would’ve divorced her. That wouldn’t have reflected well on him.” He heard the bitter note in his own voice. “He was all about appearances.”

      She bent over to kiss his cheek. “You’ve done your best with what you were given, done your best by Maddy. You love her just as much as your other sisters.”

      “But it’s probably not the same for her,” he said. “She belongs, and yet she’s the only one who doesn’t really belong. That’s got to be hard.”

      “Not as hard as it could be if she ever finds out the truth.” Allie walked over to get the phone. “So call her.”

      “And say what? Hey, Maddy, take it from me—you don’t want to know what you think you want to know?”

      She tugged playfully on his hair. “No. Tell her the case is too old, that this P.I. won’t uncover anything new, that it’ll cost her a lot of money for nothing. And if that doesn’t work, just let her know you don’t approve.”

      “I can’t come on too strong,” he said.

      “Why not?”

      “Because it’s a miracle folks around here haven’t poisoned her against me.”

      “She’d never turn on you.”

      “She could if this P.I. comes to town.”

      “Which is why you have to convince her not to bring him here,” she pointed out.

      “I doubt that anything I say will change her mind.”

      “It’s worth a try,” Allie insisted and handed him the phone.

      

      The phone in Madeline’s office had been ringing all morning. It seemed as if everyone in Stillwater had something to say about the discovery at the quarry, which came as no surprise to her. People in this town had been talking about her father’s disappearance for years, and the knowledge that his car had been found renewed public interest.

      Fortunately, most were well-intentioned calls, friends and acquaintances who, after hearing the latest, wanted to give Madeline a kind word or a little encouragement. But there were a few who used this latest development to try to undermine her faith in the Montgomerys.

      Madeline would rather have skipped every one of those calls in favor of some peace and quiet. It was difficult enough writing about her father without so many interruptions. But she was anxious to hear from Chief Pontiff, to learn if he or any of his deputies had managed to glean some evidence during their more thorough search of the Cadillac. She knew they must be finished by now, couldn’t imagine why he hadn’t contacted her. So when a call came in just as she’d settled down to work, she grabbed the receiver, despite the blinking curser on her computer screen that seemed to mock her lack of progress.

      “Hello?”

      “Madeline?”

      Madeline paused, confused by the M. Ziegler that had appeared on her caller ID. It wasn’t Chief Pontiff, calling her from some remote location. If she’d guessed correctly, it was Ray Harper. Before the falling out that had left him and her father estranged, he’d been Lee’s best friend. When Madeline was little, Ray had even worked for them, doing odd jobs around the farm.

      “Hello, Ray. How are you?”

      “Good as ever. And you?”

      “Hanging in there.”

      “I heard about the Cadillac.”

      Word traveled fast in Stillwater. “Can you believe it was right there all these years?”

      “Who put it there?”

      “I have no idea.”

      “That’s got to bother you.”

      It did. But she preferred some development to nothing at all. Besides, she and Ray had both experienced a deeper kind of pain—she’d lost her mother and, a few years later, he’d lost his sixteen-year-old daughter, both to suicide. “I’m okay.”

      “Did they find anything—any answers?” he asked.

      “No, not yet.”

      “That’s too bad.”

      “I’m not giving up hope.” He didn’t say anything more, so she filled the silence. “I don’t see you around town much anymore, Ray. What’ve you been up to?”

      “I’ve been spending half my time in Iuka. My mother fell and broke her hip and she can’t live alone anymore. I’m with her now, moving her to my sister’s place.”

      That explained the strange name on her caller ID. “I’m sorry to hear about your mother,” she said.

      “She’ll be okay now that she’s with Patti. Anyway, I should be home later in the week. Let me know if anything changes, okay? Your father and I weren’t on the best of terms when he disappeared. But I think about him often.”

      “I appreciate that.” Her telephone indicated that she had another call coming in. “Good luck with your mom,” she said and switched over. But this caller wasn’t Pontiff, either. According to caller ID, it was Clay. “What’s up, big brother?”

      “Nothing new,” he replied. “Just checking in.”

      She finally pushed away from her computer and swiveled her chair to look glumly out the large front window of her office, which revealed an entire block of Stillwater’s most prominent businesses—L & B Hardware, Town & Country Furniture, Cutshall’s Funeral Home, Lambert’s Auction Service and Let The Good Times Roll Billiards and Bar. A corner of the police station was visible, too. Her eyes zeroed in on it as if she could see through brick and mortar.

      “I’m fine, just tired of the rain.” And growing more impatient by the minute, waiting for Pontiff to call.

      “You took yesterday pretty hard, Mad.”

      “He’s not coming back,” she said distantly. “I thought it’d be easier for me to know if he was…gone for good. But it isn’t. It makes me angry. And it makes me feel guilty, as if I haven’t done enough for him.”

      “You’ve published every possible lead, posted rewards to encourage people to come forward with information, followed up whenever and wherever you could. You’ve hung on, and you haven’t let anyone forget. You’ve done your best.”

      She knew her dogged persistence had created problems for Clay and his sisters and mother. They’d had to constantly defend themselves, suffer two police searches of the farm, endure the distrust of almost everyone in town and tolerate whispering behind their backs. But what else could she have done? What else could she do now but pursue whoever was responsible? Lee Barker was her father, the only parent who’d planned on sticking with her.

      Besides, if she could get to the truth, wouldn’t the Montgomerys ultimately be better off?

      “I should’ve hired a P.I. a long time ago,” she said. “Maybe it would’ve brought me some peace—and saved you from what happened last summer.”

      He didn’t comment on the murder charges that’d been brought against