Page 51 of What Happened to Lucy Vale
Rachel
Danny Wilkes, twenty-two-year veteran of the Willard County Sheriff’s Department, agreed to meet Rachel for lunch at the Old Mill, a hundred-and-fifty-year-old landmark outside the township of Jalliscoe. Rachel remembered it from the occasional dinner with her aunt and uncle. She was almost positive they’d celebrated her cousin’s graduation at the Old Mill. Or was it Kelly’s eighteenth birthday? Either way, stepping into the wood-paneled room and across the wide plank floorboards buckled with age and creaky with the pressure of every step, she experienced a sudden, almost vertiginous nostalgia for the teenager she’d once been. She’d had plans to backpack through Europe, fall in love with a man named Claude or Sergio. She’d dreamed of breaking stories, of wartime, corruption, and injustice. She’d dreamed of Pulitzers, cargo planes, and the dusty back roads of distant countries.
That was before college. Before the parties, and the pills, and the pregnancy. Before Lucy arrived, dense and grasping, with a gravitational force that reoriented her entire world.
Danny looked older in person than in his profile picture. No surprise there. Still, he had a nice smile.
“I should have known when you first pinged me you weren’t looking for a date,” he said, a little ruefully. She’d introduced herself as ajournalist on their first phone call and asked him explicitly whether he might instead be willing to meet and talk about the Faradays, even though Willard County hadn’t been explicitly involved in the investigation. Still, cops talked. “You’re way out of my league.”
They chatted a bit—about the weather (glorious), Danny’s divorce (amicable), their respective children (teenagers all). At some points, Rachel thought, it really might have been a date.
But after they ordered, Danny leaned forward and squinted at her. “So you’re writing a book about the Faraday case, huh?”
Instinctively Rachel looked around as if someone might be listening. But the restaurant was full—boisterous with families, truckers, and wizened couples who looked as if they’d been there since the restaurant’s heyday—and loud. Besides, she reminded herself, she was in “enemy territory,” as Lucy put it: a place free of fanatical devotion to Woodward’s club team or the Sharks. The contrast between how the adjoining counties had reported on Nina’s disappearance and her mother’s suspicious death was amazing. In Rockland County, all the coverage had pointed to some unknown stranger—a drifter, a drug runner, a mystery boyfriend from parts unknown—or back to the Faradays themselves. Nina had run away with one of her many admirers or because her mother was too controlling. Lydia Faraday had waged a vindictive campaign against Tommy Swift because she was obsessed with Coach Steeler, whom she had briefly dated in high school.
In Willard County, the headlines—and subtexts—were very different. Tommy Swift, or one of his swim team buddies, had killed Nina Faraday. Coach Steeler, and possibly the entire Administration, had helped cover up his involvement.
And Lydia Faraday’s death was no suicide, and no accident.
Rachel said, “I’m thinking about it. For now I’m just doing some research.”
“And how’s that going?” Danny’s eyes carried a glint of amusement. “Rockland County Sheriff’s Department being helpful?”
“I haven’t asked,” Rachel said, which was true.
“Wouldn’t be much use if you had,” he said frankly. Then he added, “You might have more luck when Sheriff Cox steps aside. It won’t be long now. He just doesn’t have the support he used to.”
“Sheriff Cox,” Rachel repeated. “Any chance he’s related to the Steeler-Coxes?”
“Sure. He’s one of the clan,” Danny said. Seeing Rachel’s face, he added, “You see why some people had doubts about the way the disappearance was investigated.”
“What about you?” Rachel asked. “You remember. What doyouthink?”
“I think it was three days before they’d even opened an investigation. Even then, they treated Nina like a runaway.”
“I take it you don’t think she ran away,” Rachel said.
Danny shrugged. “Most runaways come back,” he said simply. “Look, the truth is, it’s easy to play Monday morning quarterback on this stuff. I don’t know what they had to go on. I wasn’t on the case. That was, what, sixteen years ago? I was still writing speeding tickets. We didn’t even know who Nina was until Cox asked for our help bringing in Joaquin Turner.” Rachel wrote down the name. “He was a senior at Jalliscoe then. Another swimmer. Apparently he’d been hanging around with Nina.”
“I bet that didn’t make Tommy Swift very happy,” Rachel said.
Danny tipped his head in acknowledgment. “All those kids—all those boys on the club team, Steeler’s boys—they like to win.”
It seemed almost like a non sequitur. But Rachel heard the implication in his words.
“Do you think the school protected them after Nina went missing?” she asked.
“I think the school still protects them.” Danny suddenly grew more agitated. “Look at what happened a few weeks ago. Some of our kids get jumped, beaten up outside a bowling alley. One of them winds up in the ICU. And what happens to the kid that put him there? Nothing.”
“You’re talking about Aiden Teller?” Rachel asked, and Danny nodded. “He got suspended from competition,” she pointed out. “My daughter tells me that his scholarship could be in jeopardy.”
“It’s a slap on the wrist. He should be in prison. He’s a menace; they all are.”
Rachel reflected. There might not be a single person in southern Indiana who could be objective when it came to Granger’s steady stream of swim stars. But she didn’t say so.
“So why does everyone protect them? Is it the money?” Rachel knew that the Woodward High School Athletics Booster Fund was one of the largest in the state. The vast majority of it went to their Aquatics department.
“Oh, sure. It’s partly that.” Danny shrugged again. “I grew up outside of Gainsberg. For us it was the football team. Our quarterback could have driven an 18-wheeler into the church, and he’d be welcomed back on Sunday morning for Communion. And you know, that whole area—what they call the Four Corners—had nothing going before Steeler came back to build the swim program. The whole county was depressed. Main Street was bleeding businesses. No one wanted to move there. Now ...” He shook his head. “Well, let’s put it this way. I’m surprised you found a house so quick.”
