Billie's Bounce

by Claudia Hall Christian

  “And?” Ava asked.

  “I don’t know what,” Mrs. Michaud said. “Participate, I guess. Do something so that I. . .”

  She shook her head.

  “I haven’t been able to move past this,” Mrs. Michaud said. “I want to. I have done everything everyone has suggested — therapy, shamans, magic. I just. . . I need to know what happened to him and why.”

  Mrs. Michaud gave Ava a soulful look.

  “I know how it sounds,” Mrs. Michaud said. “I just. . .”

  “We are working this case,” Ava said evenly.

  Twelve

  “That’s what those buffoons at the FBI and that sheriff said,” Mrs. Michaud said. Imitating someone’s accent, “We are doing our best, ma’am.”

  Ava smiled at the imitation.

  “They did nothing,” Mrs. Michaud said. Her fist came down on the table in a thump. “Sure, they stirred up a lot of dust, but they never found a viable suspect. Just some bogeyman who stepped out of the forest, killed my husband, and disappeared back into the forest. They may as well have just blamed Bigfoot!”

  Mrs. Michaud gave Ava a steely look.

  “I hired my own investigative team,” Mrs. Michaud said. “They worked for more than a year.”

  “And?” Ava asked.

  “Two things — one is that the sheriff was behind the lack of progress in the investigation,” Mrs. Michaud said. “Even I could tell that he was hiding something. Before you ask, my investigators couldn’t figure out what. They thought it might have to do with his family. But at the time they were investigating, the sheriff had no family. His siblings were dead. He and his wife never had children. As for how my husband and the Sheriff’s family were connected?”

  Mrs. Michaud shook her head.

  “Who knows?” Mrs. Michaud said.

  “And the second?” Ava asked.

  “No hippie did this,” Mrs. Michaud said. “The original investigations focused on this mysterious hippie who was so angry with my husband for his vote against Agent Orange that he or she killed him.”

  “Why did they think it wasn’t a hippie?” Ava asked.

  “At the time my husband was murdered. . .” Mrs. Michaud said. “I can’t even say his name. Even after all this time.”

  Ava nodded.

  “I knew you would understand,” Mrs. Michaud said. “You were named after ‘A Melody for Amelie,’ weren’t you?”

  “I was,” Ava said with a nod.

  Ava’s mother used one of Seth’s songs, “A Melody for Amelie,” as her birthing song. Ava’s parents gave her the name “Amelie” after the song.

  “Then you know what it is to love someone beyond reason,” Mrs. Michaud said.

  Ava nodded.

  “You were talking about the hippies?” Ava asked.

  “Yes,” Mrs. Michaud said. “There simply weren’t that many hippies living in the valley when my husband was killed. There used to be a huge community. But in the 1980s? There simply weren’t that many of them. Too expensive for most of them by then. Those who were left were either becoming stockbrokers or fading out due to drugs. If they were a threat to anyone, they were a threat to themselves, not my husband.”

  Ava thought about what Mrs. Michaud had said for a moment.

  “Can you tell me about your husband?” Ava asked. “What was he like?”

  “Oh. . .” Mrs. Michaud sighed. “He was. . .”

  Mrs. Michaud looked at Ava and blushed.

  “Please,” Ava said. “It’s important for us to understand who he was.”

  Mrs. Michaud nodded.

  “I’m embarrassed,” Mrs. Michaud said. “A woman like you. . . How could you possibly understand?”

  “I might not,” Ava said. “I’m willing to listen and try to understand.”

  Mrs. Michaud gave Ava a long look before nodding.

  “I was a teenager when I met my husband,” Mrs. Michaud said. “He was tall, movie-star handsome, and more than anything, he was tough. My father was a brute. My mother couldn’t protect herself from him, let alone protect us from his needs and his wrath. My husband stood up to my father the first time they met. He told my father that he was a ‘son-of-a-bitch.’ No one said that kind of thing to my father. No one. But my husband. . . I. . . I think I fell for him in that moment.”

  Ava gave Mrs. Michaud a soft smile.

  “He was a real bastard,” Mrs. Michaud said. “Not to me, mind you. I was clear from the beginning that I held the purse strings. That kept his cock in his trousers and his cruelty at bay. At least, I can say that he was never cruel in my direction. My father adored him — called him ‘the only honest man I’ve ever met.’”

  “My father. . .” Mrs. Michaud looked at Ava. “I was his only child. For most of my life, I was not to inherit. Not a dime. My father used to say that ‘not one dime of his money was going to go to a creature as weak as me.’ He changed his will the moment I became engaged to my husband. When my father died, I inherited all of his money. My father didn’t even provide for my mother. My husband was the ticket to my wealth and my mother’s care.”

  Mrs. Michaud shook her head.

  “You were asking about my husband,” Mrs. Michaud said. “He was handsome, tough. . . In our home, he was like a deity. His word was the word. I didn’t have opinions of my own. I didn’t have to. He had opinions. He made decisions. He took care of everything. We ate what he wanted to eat. I wore what he wanted me to wear. That coat? It was one he liked and had me wear. I. . . He decided when we went on vacation and when we had sex. He ran me like I was his employee. And I. . .”

  Mrs. Michaud shrugged.

  “It must have been awful for you when he died,” Ava said.

  Mrs. Michaud nodded.

  “I was completely lost,” the widow said. “Adrift on the sea of life. It took me ten years and many, many hours of therapy to figure out how to even consider what I wanted. It was another decade before I had my first orgasm.”

  Ava bit back her wince. She was always uncomfortable the way Baby Boomers talked about their sex lives.

  “He wasn’t a good man or a great husband,” Mrs. Michaud said. “But he was the love of my life.”

  Mrs. Michaud shrugged.

  “The papers made a lot of his denial of Agent Orange benefits,” Mrs. Michaud said. “To me, it was just who he was. He didn’t like giving anything to anyone. He was a person who liked what he liked and didn’t like what he didn’t like. He didn’t like veterans. I don’t know why. He just didn’t. He. . .”

  Mrs. Michaud rested her head in her hand and sighed.

  “When I hear myself speak, I wonder why the hell I’ve given up so much of my life to this bastard,” Mrs. Michaud said.

  “Help us wrap this up, and maybe you will have other options,” Ava said. “You know what Seth would say?”

  Mrs. Michaud gave a slow shake of her head.

  “He’d tell you that you were trained from an early age that a ‘real man’ was someone like your husband,” Ava said. “He would applaud your efforts to break free of your training.”

  Mrs. Michaud looked at Ava for a long moment before she gave a sad nod.

  “Why was he in Aspen?” Ava asked.

  “Every investigator asked me this,” Mrs. Michaud said. She shook her head. “He went to Aspen once a year during a congressional break. He told me it was to ‘clear his head.’”

  She shrugged.

  “Honestly, I never gave it much thought,” Mrs. Michaud said. “The session was always madness right up to the end. He was at the office before the sun came up. We were out every night until the wee hours. He barely slept. When the session ended, he would head to Aspen to clear his head. When they told me that he’d booked a hotel and not slept there — that there was no record of him doing anything there — ever. . . I. . . uh. . . His death turned my world upside down. The idea that he was dishonest about these trips?”

  Mrs. Michaud shook her head. A renegade tear ran down her face.

/>   “I’m sorry to bring it all up again,” Ava said. “Would you mind if I ask you a few questions?”

  Mrs. Michaud’s eyes flicked to look at Ava.

  “Your husband was killed on a section of road outside of Basalt,” Ava said.

  Mrs. Michaud looked at Ava and gave her a slight nod.

  “Someone owns the tract of land next to the road,” Ava said. “We’re working through the shell corporations but I wondered — do you have any idea who owns that land?”

  Mrs. Michaud shook her head.

  “It’s not you?” Ava asked.

  Mrs. Michaud shook her head more fervently.

  “I have another hard question,” Ava said.

  “Please,” Mrs. Michaud asked. “I may look like I’m fragile, but I can tell you that, over the last thirty years, I’ve learned that I am tougher than my father ever was.”

  “I don’t doubt it,” Ava said. “We’ve been wondering, is it possible that your husband was married before he married you?” Ava asked.

  Mrs. Michaud jerked as if she’d received a shock. She remained still for a long moment before turning to look at Ava. Mrs. Michaud lifted her shoulders in a slow shrug.

  “I don’t know,” Mrs. Michaud said. “He told me that he had not been married before. I believed him because that’s what I did then. But. . . I. . . He was an accomplished liar, but I could always tell when he was lying. And when he talked about cheating the draft board? He was definitely lying.”

  “Did you ever ask him about it?” Ava asked.

  “I did,” Mrs. Michaud said. “He told me that I was imagining things. ‘You are my one and only wife. Why are you so paranoid?’ I wanted to believe him so I did.”

  “Did your investigators look into whether he had a wife and son?” Ava asked.

  “They never found any evidence of a previous wife or any children,” Mrs. Michaud said. “That is to say that William Michaud had never married anyone before me.”

  “I’m not sure what you’re saying,” Ava said.

  “After he died, I found some legal papers in the back of our safe,” Mrs. Michaud said. “Old. Yellowed and hard to read.”

  “What did they say?” Ava asked.

  “It was a name change,” Mrs. Michaud said. “He must have been seventeen? Eighteen? He changed his name.”

  “From?” Ava asked.

  “You’ll think that I’m lying, but the name was too faded to read,” Mrs. Michaud said.

  “Do you still have the paper?” Ava asked, her heart racing. This sounded like a real lead. “We can find out what it says.”

  Mrs. Michaud opened her purse and took out an envelope.

  “I put this together for you,” Mrs. Michaud said. “It’s all the papers I could find about his life before me.”

  She held it out to Ava. When Ava reached for it, Mrs. Michaud pulled it back.

  “You’ll tell me first — before the papers, before the public, before anyone else,” Mrs. Michaud said. “You will tell me first.”

  “Done,” Ava said. She held out her hand, and Mrs. Michaud shook it.

  Mrs. Michaud set the envelope on the table.

  “Why didn’t you give this to the original investigators?” Ava asked.

  “I didn’t find it until after the investigation was over,” Mrs. Michaud said. “I tried to get someone’s attention but they were all so certain that this mysterious hippie killed my Will.”

  Mrs. Michaud stopped talking.

  “Heh,” Mrs. Michaud said. “I haven’t said his name in all this time.”

  She turned to look at Ava.

  “You’re going to figure this out,” Mrs. Michaud said. “I just know it.”

  Before Ava could say anything else, Mrs. Michaud stood up. She took a card wallet out of her purse. She took out a card and gave it to Ava.

  “You can reach me at that number,” Mrs. Michaud said. “Day or night.”

  “Thank you,” Ava said. “I’ll call with updates and any other questions.”

  “Please do,” Mrs. Michaud said.

  Mrs. Michaud walked toward the door.

  “One more question,” Ava said.

  “Anything,” Mrs. Michaud said.

  “Was your husband planning a run for president?” Ava asked.

  “He was,” Mrs. Michaud said. “His campaign was to start when he came back from Aspen. He had meetings and fundraisers set up for the entire next month. Of course, they became funerals and memorials.”

  Mrs. Michaud looked sad for a moment before shaking her head.

  “It was a long time ago,” Mrs. Michaud said.

  “Thank you for your help,” Ava said.

  Mrs. Michaud gave a sad nod of her head before picking up her sable coat. She held it in front of her face for a moment.

  “Is that trash?” Mrs. Michaud asked, gesturing to the large trash can near the door to the hallway.

  Ava nodded. She watched Mrs. Michaud walk out of her office. The widow stuffed the sable coat into the trash can. With her head held high, Mrs. Michaud walked out of the lab.

  Thirteen

  “Anything?” Nelson asked as he stuck his head inside Ava’s office.

  Ava handed him the packet of pages.

  “William Michaud isn’t the senator’s birth name,” Ava said.

  “I’d think that the FBI would have known that,” Nelson said.

  Nelson opened the packet of papers and started riffling through them.

  “No computers,” Ava said. “They would have to have known something was not right to even look for it.”

  “She didn’t tell them?” Nelson said.

  “She didn’t find the form until long after the investigation was over,” Ava said. “She couldn’t get anyone interested in what she’d found.”

  Nelson nodded. He read the form for a moment.

  “Weird that the original name is so hard to read,” Nelson said.

  “Seems utterly consistent with the rest of this mess,” Ava said. “Can you do anything with it?”

  “Sure,” Nelson said. He looked up at Ava. “He changed his name in Pitkin County.”

  “Huh,” Ava said.

  “Huh?” Nelson asked.

  “She hired her own investigators,” Ava said.

  “She did?” Nelson asked.

  Ava nodded.

  “She said that they thought there was something about the sheriff and his family,” Ava said. “She said that by the time she paid for the investigation, the sheriff had no family — no siblings, no children.”

  “And they still thought it was about his family?” Nelson asked.

  Ava nodded

  “That’s weird,” Nelson said.

  “It is weird,” Ava said. “They also said that no hippie did this.”

  “Tell me something I don’t know,” Nelson said. “Why did they say that?”

  “They thought that when the senator was killed, the hippie population was already becoming stockbrokers,” Ava said.

  “Or the brain fried,” Nelson said with a nod.

  “Exactly,” Ava said.

  “Okay,” Nelson said. “There’s a lot for me to dig into.”

  He looked at Ava and gave her a quick nod.

  “We’re leaving in an hour,” Nelson said.

  Ava nodded. She went back to her desk. In light of what Mrs. Michaud had said, Ava went through the transcripts again. She was in the middle of reviewing the transcripts of family interviews when Nelson knocked on the glass to her office. He and Bob waved. Ava waved and went back to work. By the time she’d finished the transcripts, Fran’s lab results were starting to roll in. She noted additional testing that should be done and sent an email to Fran.

  When she looked up next, Leslie and Fran were talking just outside her office. She got up to speak with them and realized that the day was over. The lab was silent. Leslie and Fran confirmed what she already knew — they had at least another day before they had enough results to put things together. Nelson had a
lready told them about her conversation with Mrs. Michaud. The women invited her for a drink, but Ava waved them off. She watched them leave the lab and went back to her desk.

  Seth’s youngest daughter, Julie, was in the Marine Corps. She hadn’t been able to take time off when Seth was shot. She was able to take a few days this week. Julie would be staying with Seth overnight. Ava wouldn’t see Seth again until tomorrow evening.

  She looked at the piles of paper on her desk. She shook her head. Something about Mrs. Michaud’s sad life lingered in the air of her office. Rather than dwell on the story, she grabbed her jacket and bag and went to the gym.

  A few hours later, she arrived home worn out and starving. Maresol had left her a note and a plate of food. Ava shoved the delicious food in her mouth. Stumbling up the stairs, Ava collapsed on their bed. She grabbed Seth’s pillow and fell into a deep sleep. She woke up in the pre-dawn wondering who Senator Michaud was.

  She showered, dressed, and slid out of the house without waking anyone. On the drive to work, Ava called the hospital. Seth was unconscious, but he had done well overnight. If he continued to do well, he would be able to come home tomorrow.

  With any luck, they would be well on their way toward solving this mystery by tomorrow. Today was the day to pull everything together to see what, if anything, they’d found. She entered the silent lab and turned on all of the lights. The experiments had completed, so Ava took the last steps to secure the data. By the time Fran came in, the lab was clean and clear of yesterday’s experiments.

  Fran and Leslie joined Ava in her office. They’d waited only a moment before Bob and Nelson arrived via video chat.

  “So what do we have?” Bob asked.

  “Nothing,” Fran said at the same time Leslie said, “A lot.”

  “Let’s get started,” Ava said with a smile.

  “Anyone mind if we go first?” Nelson said.

  Everyone shook their heads.

  “Okay,” Bob said. “On our way into town, we checked out the property above where the senator was killed. It’s rough terrain, but there’s a house there.”

  “Oh?” Ava asked.

  “It looks like someone lives there,” Nelson said. “We knocked, but it seemed like no one was home. While I looked around the property, Bob went down the road to see if he could find anyone who knew who lived there.”