by Joe Clifford
“Do you have ID, sir?”
“Yes, of course.” I turned away from the door. There were two of them. “Come in.” I went to retrieve my wallet. They didn’t move from where they stood.
“When was the last time you saw Francis Balfour,” the cop asked, passing along my identification to his partner, a younger Asian woman, who wasn’t talking.
“Last night when I…dropped him off.”
“Dropped him off where?”
I pointed out the window, along the frontage road, visible through the window shades I never bothered twirling shut. “The side of the road.” In the bright daylight, the path didn’t look as sinister.
“Side of the road?”
I nodded.
“Do you know where he was headed?”
I exhaled, dreading what came next. I didn’t want to be an accessory. Francis must’ve gotten caught breaking in.
“Sir?”
“Francis’s grandson—my friend—Jacob, he…died in that quarry a couple weeks ago. Francis wanted to see where. I tried to talk him out of going. I saw the site was locked up, but you don’t know Francis…” I regrouped the words, reordered them, tried to choose carefully, not wanting to add more fuel to whatever this fire was. “Francis has schizophrenia. He doesn’t always think soundly.” Then, knowing how that must’ve reflected on me, allowing a seventy-something schizophrenic to venture alone in the dark at night, I added, “You can’t talk the guy out of anything once he sets his mind to it—”
“I’m sorry to tell you this, sir. Francis Balfour’s body was discovered by the crew this morning. Looks like he lost his footing and hit his head on a wheel loader. Death appears instantaneous. We are sorry for your loss.”
I’d never traveled far beyond my hometown or state. I’d visited Howe’s Caverns when I was a kid, and later the Baseball Hall of Fame with Mrs. Balfour and Chloe when Jacob’s team was playing in a tournament, which was the last year Jacob played ball before the bottom fell out. Both of those are in Upstate New York. We’d gone to Lake George too. I was twelve. I’d been to other states as well, but all in the Northeast—Massachusetts and the Berkshires, where we’d gone one winter, renting a cabin. No one around for miles, Mrs. Balfour made chocolate chip cookies and hot cocoa, while Jacob, Chloe, and I built snowmen and went sledding.
Where I was from, everything looked the same. Buildings, people, wilderness, geography—all stacked close together, maximizing space to compensate for the lack of real estate.
Driving back from Minnesota in Francis’s old Buick Skylark, through high wheat plains and ripe cornfields, miles and horizons stretching without end, radio fading in and out, old country music and talk radio, I began to appreciate how big this world is, all the opportunities, destinations available, my life an endless chain of possibilities. A choose your own adventure, like one of those interactive books I loved as a kid. Even though she didn’t have disposable income, Mrs. Balfour never said no to a book. In the end, Jacob and I chose our own adventure all right. I guess we all do. Me, Francis, Jacob. While I steered away from danger, opting for safe, responsible, and alive, men like Jacob and Francis had driven straight into the storm.
I was home before I knew it. For most of the trip I’d checked out. At first the scenery was unexpected and, thus, rendered exotic. Then it turned commonplace, unremarkable, like when you repeat routes so often you stop paying attention, autopilot taking over, one of those new self-driving cars.
As soon as I hit Cortland, I replaced my phone, restoring my contacts. I could’ve replaced the phone in Minnesota. Truth was, I wanted the couple days to zone out. After plugging back in, the first call I made was to Sam, who picked up on the first ring. I said I was calling to say hi. I wasn’t going to freak her out that killers masquerading as police tried to tell me she was missing. Sam said she’d been calling. I explained I lost my phone, how I had to visit my grandfather. She didn’t ask more than that. I didn’t offer more than that. I could hear by her tone she sensed something was off—and there was—but her purported disappearance was the least bizarre detail of what I’d been through. I had no interest in rehashing these past few days. I made an excuse why I had to get off the phone. Sam seemed confused. Understandable. I’d called to say I couldn’t talk.
Sunday, I hoped Mrs. Balfour would be home. I didn’t ring first, taking my chances. Some news you have to break in person.
I wasn’t looking forward to telling Mrs. Balfour about Francis. I wouldn’t be able to avoid how we’d ended up in Minnesota or what we were doing there. I’d do my best to spare her feelings and not reopen old wounds. She was going to hear about Francis sooner or later, if she hadn’t already.
Death ends all chances of reconciliation, forcing one to come to terms with the relationship as it is, as it was, as it will always be. Mrs. Balfour didn’t mince words when it came to Francis. After three days on the road with the man, I could understand why. Francis Balfour was moody, hardheaded, often snarky if not downright mean, and he was mentally ill. The most infuriating aspect of his personality was the lack of contrition. Instead of acknowledging the burden and onus he placed upon others, he championed these flaws, wore them like a badge, flaunted his imperfections. Francis was a man who defined himself in opposition, by what he was against rather than what he stood for. I had always associated that trait, contempt for convention, the willingness to fight and argue with youth. Angry young man syndrome. Like a teenager pissed off for just being born. Except Francis was at an age where he should’ve long outgrown such impetuous impulses and made peace with life’s inherent hostility. Instead of acceptance and assimilation, Francis Balfour wanted a war.
“Brandon!” Mrs. Balfour said when she opened the door. “Where have you been? I’ve been calling for days! Chloe! Brandon’s home!”
Chloe ran into the room, wrapping her arms around me. I held off on the news about her grandfather, skirting the lines of fact and filler. Mrs. Balfour put on coffee, Chloe ran off to a friend’s house, and that’s when I told Mrs. Balfour I had important news.
“I think it’s best if we sit down,” I said.
I’d resolved on the way over to tell Mrs. Balfour the complete truth, not hold anything back, even the parts that painted me in an unfavorable light. In that bright, sunlit kitchen, surrounded by the set design of my childhood—the sugar canister, the coffee maker, the whimsical, homespun crocheted wisdom stitched and stamped on assorted plaques and framed photographs—I couldn’t follow through on that conviction. And I wasn’t sure whom I was protecting. Talking about those three strange days I shared on the road with Francis Balfour felt like a violation of trust. I didn’t owe Francis anything. I also didn’t want to besmirch the dead. And would it have made any sense? The drug houses, the pawn shops, the jewels, the money? The…Shadow People? The one part I didn’t omit was the nameless girlfriend. I wanted Mrs. Balfour to know her son was not alone at the end, even if I hadn’t reached a verdict on said girlfriend, whoever—wherever—she was.
When I finished speaking, Mrs. Balfour expressed sorrow but didn’t look half as devastated as I felt. Sharing the story, even an abbreviated version, I couldn’t hide the fact that I’d fallen prey to a conman. The games, the lies, the ruse.
“Don’t do that to yourself, Brandon.” Mrs. Balfour grabbed my hand. “Francis was sick. That’s the insidious part of schizophrenia. The inability to differentiate between fact and fiction. He made it hard to love him.”
“I played into that.”
“Francis wasn’t a bad person. My father-in-law wanted to do the right thing. His moral compass was broken. Dealing with him was like trying to take a trip based on a map to a land that doesn’t exist.” She squeezed my hand harder. “My father-in-law had a lot of wonderful qualities, and one of them was he was a fantastic storyteller. I think part of that was because of the conviction. He believed his own lies. And because he was so passionate, he could get others to believe them too.”
“I know. At one point he tried telling me I’d been in a mental ward. I admit, even though I knew it wasn’t true, I started having flashbacks—I could see the orderlies and the color of the wall—even though I knew they weren’t real. I understand how they got there, these memories—from visiting Jacob—but now I was the one on the inside.”
I turned away, thinking about that part of the story, how easy it had been for Francis to tap into my biggest fear. Losing control. Agency was paramount to my survival, and to manipulate me, all one had to do was recognize that and turn it on its head.
“Is there going to be a funeral?” I asked.
Mrs. Balfour didn’t respond. She had no expression. Gone was the compassion, empathy, concern. In its place a blank slate. I thought maybe it was in poor taste to ask about a funeral, but Francis was dead. He wasn’t coming back. We needed to honor his life, however wretched it had been at times. Maybe it was too soon?
Then I realized that wasn’t the cause of her silence. And coming back around to the main point wasn’t a smooth transition. More like riding a rickety roller coaster. I’d navigated the initial big drop but was being manipulated again, dragged along by rusted chains, buckling logistics and physics. I didn’t want to. But I had to fall once more.
“Mrs. Balfour?”
Her eyes welled.
“It’s not true,” I said. “I know it’s not true. I’ve looked up my parents online over the years.” I tried laughing it off.
“Your mother’s maiden name is Cossey. Your father’s, yours is, was, Parker.”
“Are you telling me—?”
“I don’t know how your father got the nickname Buck. His real name was Alexander.”
“What are you trying to say, Mrs. Balfour?”
“And you didn’t grow up in Farewell Commons. You were born in Schenectady.” She took a deep breath. “Meaning if you ever searched for your parents and put in their names, the town, your name, any records would be hard to find. I didn’t do that to deceive you. Nothing was done with the intention of lying to you.” She reached across the table to grab my hand, squeezing it. “I didn’t want you to have to carry the burden of what your father had done. That was the only reason we kept your mother’s maiden name. I planned one day to tell you the truth. But you… The doctors said…” Mrs. Balfour tried smiling, wiping away a tear. “It was like you forgot it ever happened. I struggled with whether to tell you but by then doing so seemed cruel. You had adjusted so well. Jacob relapsed. You never wavered.”
I couldn’t move.
Mrs. Balfour left the room. I sat still, staring out the window at birds and trees, clouds and sky, willing my mind to snapshot this moment, leave it preserved, untouched. In case I couldn’t find my way back here on my own.
A moment later she returned with her laptop, setting it front me of me.
I eyed her, then the computer.
“Go ahead,” she said.
I hadn’t had the details of a crime until a couple days ago, when Francis told me. It’s hard to arrive at the correct answer when you have all the facts wrong. My mother’s name was all I’d gotten right. And Lisa is as common a name as you can find.
Of course they wouldn’t use my name. I was the victim.
You have to protect victims.
Husband Kills Wife Before Shooting Self; Child Flees
UTICA, Dec. 29 (AP) A small boy was found in the snow by neighbors before police made a grisly discovery…
I read the rest even though I already knew how it ended. I read about my father shooting my mother three times in the face before sitting at the kitchen table for hours, drinking whiskey, oblivious to the fact that his five-year-old son had run out of the house in a blizzard, before he turned the gun on himself. A passerby found me trembling on the side of the road, near frostbite, spackled with blood.
I’d known the truth all along.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
Before I left her house, Mrs. Balfour kept asking if I was okay, if I was I upset or angry. I told her no. My life wasn’t any different than it had been two hours ago.
That was a lie.
Francis was right. You don’t give away a kid to a neighbor. Didn’t pass the sniff test. The real story, confirmed by Mrs. Balfour, held up to scrutiny. I wasn’t mad at Mrs. Balfour for lying to me, omitting details. All she had done since coming into my life was love, care, and provide for me. This wasn’t about Mrs. Balfour. This was about what was inside me.
I was sick. I’d long been peculiar, odd, off. I could tell by the way people reacted to me. Bad thoughts popped into my head, unnatural desires, random violent urges. When these madman tendencies came on, I suppressed them. It was easy to do, like quashing a lone slow fat bug on a large concrete floor. I pretended to be the most normal person I knew. Rigid in my adherence to rules and order, I lauded this sensibility, championed it, considering it a testament to discipline over anarchy. But I never clicked with other people. Outside of the Balfours, I had no long-term relationships. I burned through people. We’d start out hot and heavy, friends, lovers, and then they’d get sick of me. Because they could see it too. Like Francis said, I was a user. All my idiosyncrasies now explained, they weren’t quirky or charming. Like the song says, I was a creep, a weirdo. It’s why I lived alone, why I’d been fired, why I didn’t have close ties. I wasn’t Brandon Cossey, cool, composed, collected, self-made college grad. I was Brandon Parker, the child of addicts, the offspring of bad people, the son of a murderer. That same blood flowed in my veins; that mutated gene marred my DNA. All the self-talk and reasoning could never change that. I was a note from the underground, a sick, spiteful man, unattractive and diseased. And no doctor could fix that.
The evidence had been there from the start. The last couple weeks, my psyche, overloaded and unfit, had started to crack, allowing the dim light to shine. It had always been a matter of time.
Schizophrenia often manifests itself in one’s early twenties. I saw these people. I heard their voices, clear as you talking to me. Except…they’d never been there. That’s the danger of the disease. The sufferer can’t differentiate between what’s there and what’s not. It’s why no one else saw the boy in blue, the maintenance man, the guys in the bar. None of these people existed.
Driving home, I tried not to laugh at that scene at the Flying J. How it must have looked to outsiders. Like stumbling upon Fight Club and watching Jack and his assorted organs punching themselves in the face. There we were, Francis and I, two escaped mental patients, flopping around, middle of the night in the mud, rescuing one another from an empty field by the freeway.
Or maybe I didn’t have schizophrenia. I hoped I did. At least it explained what was wrong with me. Otherwise, I’d just be…broken.
Climbing my apartment stairs, I was wrapped up deep in thought, sorting, compartmentalizing, filing. I almost walked into Detective Lourey standing at my door.
How long had it been since I met the Utica detective at the Balfours’ following Jacob’s death? Days, weeks? Felt like years.
“I apologize for not calling first,” Detective Lourey said. “Lori said I just missed you. I considered calling to see if you wanted to meet along the way. After all you’ve been through, I decided it was better if I came to you.”
I unlocked the door, muttering thanks, though to be honest I didn’t care. What was one more roadside pit stop? I pushed open the door, granting Detective Lourey permission to enter. “Would you like something to drink?”
“I’m fine, Brandon, thank you.”
“I don’t have much. I’ve been on the road for the past few days.”
“I heard.” Detective Lourey reached for a chair at my kitchen table. “Is it okay if I sit?”
I shrugged but didn’t join her, hands gripping backrest. I had the strangest sensation that if I let go, I’d spin off the Earth. A form of vertigo, maybe.
“I called you back,” she said. “About the jewelry and money.”
“I lost my phone.”
The detective confirmed the story about the money and jewels, the corresponding amounts. Francis had been telling the truth. Although I still didn’t know what it was supposed to mean.
“Where did the money and jewelry come from?” Which seemed like the most basic of questions, and one I figured the cops would’ve solved by now.
Detective Lourey’s lack of response told me they were as confused as I was.
“What do you need, Detective?”
“Francis Balfour. Rochester PD sent over photos this morning. I was hoping you could take a look.”
“I don’t want to see any more dead bodies.”
“We don’t need you to ID anyone. Francis Balfour had his share of arrests. His prints were in the system. He had his license and motel key card with him. These photos are of the construction site.”
“I don’t know what you think I can do. I don’t know why Jacob was in Minnesota in the first place—”
“He and his…lady friend…were trying to cross into Canada again. One of the items we recovered had ‘Grand Portage’ written on it, another point of entry.”
“What’s so special about Grand Portage?”
“It’s a state park. A lot of unmanned terrain. Looks like they were hoping to bypass customs.”
“So he did have a girl with him?” Of course, Francis and I had established this, but what else did the police know about her?
“We believe so, yes. According to Border Patrol.” Lourey shrugged. “That’s not what I’m here for though. Please.” She glanced at the empty chair.
Taking a seat, I waited as the detective retrieved paperwork from her satchel. She dropped a folder on the table, extracting several large photographs of heavy construction machinery. I didn’t know enough about construction to know the names of these machines, except in the abstract—backhoes, excavators, dump trucks, bulldozers, etcetera. The quarry seemed to be a grand operation.