Ollie Clark—Wednesday, June 26, 2019
Len was in his cabin, and he turned down the music—classical, of all things—before opening the door. “Ollie. Eli.” Each name was two syllables, but they clearly didn’t taste the same in his mouth. “How can I help you?”
“You don’t actually think Eli did it, but you let my dad think you do.”
Len blinked and stepped back, opening the door wider to get them inside. “He figured it out?”
“He just called Cindy from the police station. What did you tell them?” Ollie had both hands on her purse strap, not because her phone was inside recording and she worried about the angle but because she wanted to keep herself from gesturing. Or slapping. Maybe clawing.
After a long look at her and an even longer one at Eli, Len took a seat in one of the rustic wooden chairs and gestured for them to take two of the others. “Don’t you want to know who actually killed your mom and sister?” he asked her gently, slouching back in the chair.
“Sure I do, but it wasn’t him. He was with me that night.”
Len winced. “You were nineteen and just lost half your family. You’re not a valid alibi. It didn’t matter back then, when they decided to go for Eli, but it matters now.”
Ollie slowly shook her head. “We drove out to camp. It’s in Covington. That’s not just around the corner.”
“He had plenty of time to get you out there and situated and for you to fall asleep before coming back, shooting them, and returning to your camp. There’s no way of knowing what the odometer in his car read Friday afternoon compared to twenty-four hours later. And they barely gave it a going over. It had the dirt and stones and whatever they expected, there wasn’t any blood …”
“Have you paid any attention the last couple nights? The sun doesn’t set until almost eleven. I couldn’t have fallen asleep stargazing because we couldn’t even see them yet. Dad told us at dinner we were swapping weekends and I’d be the one going with him once the dishes were done, we drove out, and we were still in the cabin at eleven. Talking.”
Len raised a finger. “About Eli.”
It wasn’t a question, so Ollie just waited.
“Your dad said that Birdy asked him to take you instead because Eli begged her for the change so your dad would talk you into marrying him.”
It still wasn’t a question. Why was she treating him like he was cross-examining her? Why was Len acting like he was cross-examining her?
“Randy doesn’t like Eli. He’s never liked Eli. Sorry,” Len added as an aside to the man in question. “So why would Eli or Birdy ever think Randy would come down on his side? Especially since I’ve seen plenty of emails between you and Birdy where you’re already planning the wedding. Birdy knew you were going to marry Eli and was excited about it. She’d never ask your dad to try to convince you to say yes, because you would never have said anything else. So: your dad lied.”
Ollie shook her head before she could stop herself, but held her tongue. She just needed to know how the hell Len had gone so wrong. She wasn’t here to correct him.
“He made the switch to your sacred schedule so he could have your mom and Birdy home unexpectedly. So you did fall asleep, maybe because he drugged you, so he could drop you off there and use you as his alibi if he needed it. Which he didn’t, because nobody looked even once at him, and that turned out all right because you would’ve been dismissed, anyway. What kid’s going to say her dad left the night the rest of her family was killed and risk losing him, too?”
Ollie pressed her lips together and shook her head. “That’s not all you’ve got.” They wouldn’t go after Dad just for that: following lines of supposition that, let’s face it, were beaten to death a decade ago.
Len sighed and looked to Eli like maybe Eli should stop him from going on. “Motive.”
Yeah. Motive was good. Because there wasn’t any.
“I have a copy of the coroner’s reports. On both of them.”
Okay, but they’d left Birdy’s pregnancy off the report. As a courtesy. And possibly illegally, but … small town. Unless Ollie or Randy told … or, yeah, Jared … then nobody was going to know.
Len wasn’t going to know.
“I had to kind of work my way around to it, but your dad’s talkative when he thinks someone’s listening. And when he gets to shape things the way he wants. You knew that, right? He wasn’t going to talk about them to you because you’d know where he lied. I’m kind of surprised he said so much to me, since it could end up in print, but I also figured he wouldn’t keep talking if he thought we were on good terms, so …” Len shrugged. “Sorry.”
Um. What, for ogling her in front of Eli? Dismissing Eli completely?
“One of the things I got from him this week was his blood type.”
Oh, shit.
“Your dad’s O,” Len continued, so either her face didn’t change or he didn’t notice, all caught up in being Holmes or Poirot or Monk. “So’s your mom. Positive, negative … that doesn’t matter, because Birdy was A.”
Eli frowned. “What?”
Len nodded. “Exactly. What? Now, it could be the other way around. Apparently. I’m not that great with blood typing, but if both your parents were AO, then okay, Birdy could’ve gotten an O from each of them. But, if your type is O, there isn’t anything else. Each parent has two Os, so the kid can’t get anything else.” He shrugged. “Birdy’s biological father is where she got the A.”
“Birdy’s …?” Eli either wasn’t following or didn’t want to.
“Look, the man has the patience of a saint,” Len agreed, sitting up a little so he could lean forward. “Eighteen years of putting up with Birdy. He should get a medal for that. And I don’t know when he found out, or at least found out for certain, but especially that last year? Birdy telling everyone her parents were cheapskates who hated her because she didn’t get money for college the way her perfect big sister did? And lying about it, of course. Maybe nobody else knew, but your parents knew she was lying. Telling everyone. You want to talk about saints? Jared had to be one, too. If her death didn’t drive him to drink, all that complaining would’ve. So Randy snapped and seized his moment.” Len spread both hands, palm up, like it really was all that simple. “I’m sorry, Ollie, but they’re only questioning him in case he can come up with a darn good excuse before his arrest.”
Len Wilcox’s private notes, handwritten, undated
All right, Len, it’s your freaking private diary. The question isn’t “Was Randy Clark abusive?” but “How abusive was Randy Clark?”
The evidence, your honor.
His daughters’ friends have little problem calling Wendy “Wendy” first time, every time, but he’s Mr. Clark. Maybe corrected to Randy, but how many times have I heard people talk about Wendy and Mr. Clark, no backtracking, all the way through? And maybe it’s a sign of respect, but calling adults by their first names isn’t always disrespect. It could be closeness. If they went over to the house to hang out, then Wendy would’ve been there.
Even though—crap, which one of the friends … she said they’d eat together in another room. (What other room? I’ve got the schematics—there aren’t many rooms in his house. The living room, on a card table?) And the other Clarks, Wendy and Ollie and Mr., ate at the table. So that’s separation from Wendy, too, but maybe it’s one of those order of operations things: when Mr. Clark’s present, then she has to go with him. When he’s gone, she can focus her attention on the kids.
Time and time again I hear that she never left the house without him. It was Randy and one or both of the girls, or it was all four of them. I’ve got this complete lack of information on Wendy because she was some sort of Yooper Rapunzel, locked in a house instead of a tower. Tell me that’s not abusive. Control is at the center of abuse, and this man is all about control. What would happen if something caused him to lose it?
Bury the Dead 16 – coming April 16
Rebecca Frost 