The Things We Keep

by Nikki Kincaid

  When I got home, I let Remy out, cranked the A/C, and collapsed onto the floor of the living room near the vent. That’s where I was when I heard Chris’s cruiser pull into the driveway. He rang the doorbell and when I didn’t answer, he left the boxes on the front step. I heard him talking to Remy before getting back in his cruiser and driving off.

  When I was sure he was gone, I peeked outside. I’d expected the battery he’d bought to be next to the boxes, but it wasn’t.

  He was probably going to return it to Ace.

  I frowned and brought the boxes inside.

  “You wanna come inside, girl?” I asked Remy, but she only gave me a passing glance before laying her head back on her front legs and staring wistfully in the direction Chris had gone.

  I sighed.

  With a beer next to me, I dug into the first box. Tucked beneath the extra bits of clothing and a beanie with the Browns logo on it was a picture of me. I was smiling at the camera with pink braces on my teeth, my hair wild about my head. It must’ve been taken in fifth grade because by six grade, my braces were off.

  Digging further, I found a book about the history of baseball, a couple folded bits of paper: notes from cases he was working, a grocery list, and a reminder to call me.

  I stared at my father’s handwriting, vision going blurry with tears.

  This was dumb. I grabbed my beer and drank it down. I was about to toss the clothing and notes back into the box when I saw a small black ledger.

  I picked it up. Its cover was bent, its pages grown thick with years of use. I opened it.

  Vanessa was written in my father’s cramped handwriting, followed by a number.

  I flipped to another page.

  JJ. Another phone number.

  Whitney Eisenstern.

  Pauline S.

  My toes curled, a sour tang rising in my throat.

  I’d just found my dad’s little black book.

  Dad’s ever-wandering eye was the catalyst of many arguments between him and mom, and after mom left, between him and me. It was easier to blame mom’s leaving on his philandering, rather than accept whatever part I had played in it. As I got older, that blame turned to simmering resentment.

  When getting in trouble at school, picking fights, missing classes, refusing to turn in homework on time, failed to make dad stay home, I tried a different tactic.

  The first boy dad caught me with was Rex Philone. I was grounded for a week and given The Talk.

  Which only infuriated me further. I made up my mind that when dad wasn’t home, I wouldn’t be either. I spent a lot of time at the skate park and the drive-in theater, hanging out with boys who only wanted one thing and sensed that I was willing to give it.

  I glanced through the book some more and was about to toss it aside when I saw a name that turned my blood cold.

  Elly Williams.

  Underneath it, dad had written a date: 11/5/2015.

  The image of Elly’s son flashed before my eyes.

  But Dad would have told me if I had a brother. Right?

  I reached for my phone. A quick Google search brought up Elly William’s Facebook page, and although it was private, her profile picture was of her and her son as a newborn. Like all newborns, it was hard to see his true features, impossible to tell if he looked like dad or not.

  I dropped the black book back into the box. That’s when I saw the word printed across the top of the papers stuffed next to an old sweatshirt. CASEFILE. Curious, I reached for it.

  * * *

  Document: Narrative

  Author: 9286- Sargent Mitchell Graves #406

  Related Date/Time: Aug-11-97

  * * *

  Synopsis:

  On August 11 at approximately 0754 hours, dispatch relayed the call of a body found at Beacon Falls Municipal Park. Upon arrival at the scene, a crowd of onlookers had circled a small overgrowth of weeds at the edge of an irrigation ditch. Upon asking the onlookers to please back up, I was able to see the body later identified as Allison St. James half-submerged in the water of the ditch. Fully-clothed with obvious head trauma.

  * * *

  Shockwaves over the gruesome discovery had reverberated through the community, but what really struck the final blow that forever etched this case into Beacon Falls memory was who was responsible for her murder.

  Three girls, ages twelve and thirteen, had lured Allison away from her house under the guise of a blossoming friendship. They’d been courting the awkward, quiet girl for weeks, plying her with gifts and making her feel like they truly wanted to be friends, when in reality all they wanted was to see, on a dare dreamt up one evening, what it would feel like to kill someone.

  I remember the far-away look in dad’s eyes that persisted for days as he relentlessly pursued this case. He and Mitch were both still beat cops, although dad was in line for promotion to sergeant. Maybe that was what had driven him to work ever longer hours, growing snappish and surly as the days passed without a suspect.

  Finally, he found a witness who saw a group of girls walking down to the drainage that evening. That lead eventually drew out the three girls, who were arrested shortly thereafter.

  Dad got his promotion, but—and this I remembered had felt strange to me even then—so did Mitch. Mitch had helped with the investigation, but it had been dad who’d spent hours doggedly pursuing even the smallest lead. I knew this because, at that time, I was often at Zoe’s after school, and Mitch was there too, eating dinner with his family while my dad worked his tail off.

  Yet even the newspapers said it had been a joint effort.

  When I asked dad about it, he shrugged it off, implying that this was simply what happened in small jurisdictions. And back then I accepted his answer as truth.

  It had been the Allison St. James case which had also gotten Mitch and dad a promotion to Vice Squad. It had been Vice Squad which had gotten tangled up in (and disbanded after) the prostitution scandal on Route 5.

  Was there some connection there that I wasn’t seeing?

  I wondered if I ought to call Mitch. But before I could, a car’s engine slowed outside the house. Remy barked angrily. My heart lurched. I snuck over to the window and peered through in the curtain.

  Just the mail lady. I let out a breath.

  After retrieving the mail, which included a thick manila envelope, I brought Remy back inside. She slopped up some water and settled down at the foot of dad’s La-Z-Boy.

  I flicked through the mail. A credit card bill, junk mail. Calling the credit card companies was on my list of things to do, but how do you stop junk mail being delivered to the dead?

  I turned my attention to the manilla envelope. It was thick and heavy. I flipped it over.

  It was addressed to me.

  With shaking hands, I grabbed a pair of scissors and sliced it open. Inside was a framed 8x10 inch photograph. It was a group of us from high school, taken after a football game one chilly November Saturday. Jennifer and Elly on one side, Shelby and me on the other. And there, in the middle, his arm around me, was Davis Dempster.

  Davis and I hadn't really been dating. In fact, we'd barely messed around at that point, and yet, for this picture, he snaked his arm around me like we were in love.

  I stared at Davis, an uneasy feeling slinking through my stomach. Davis was tall and lanky, his red hair coming down past his ears, half-mullet style. His eyes were creased because he was probably high. We both probably were. He wore a dark t-shirt and jeans that were one size too big, held up by a belt with an AC/DC belt buckle. He had the sucked-in, pinched look teenagers sometimes get when their bodies grow too fast.

  I stared at the photo, rubbing a thumb over the smooth surface of the frame. An expensive frame, not the dollar store bargains I was used to. Goosebumps erupted across my skin. I flipped the frame over and yanked off the backing. But there was nothing cryptically written on the back of the photograph, no sign of who had sent it.

  But I knew.

  I opened the tras
h can and dumped the frame and photograph inside.

  Chapter 16

  Around 7 p.m. that evening, Mitch stopped by with a dinner of pulled pork, onion buns, a carton of coleslaw, and a bag of chips. It reminded me of summer barbecues dad and I would share on the back deck. I forced the memories down and grabbed another beer.

  Mitch and I were sitting at the kitchen table with Remy at Mitch’s feet. Even though I’d known Mitch all my life, it had always been with dad between us.

  To fill the silence, I said, “Did dad ever tell you about the time when he did my math homework for me?”

  Mitch shook his head and tore off a piece of bun. He dropped it on the floor. Remy lunged for it, tail wagging.

  “I was in fifth grade,” I said, “Dad had just set up that soccer net in the backyard. Do you remember that?”

  Mitch nodded and shoved a forkful of coleslaw into his mouth.

  “All I wanted to do was go outside so I could practice but I had a ton of homework.” Outside the window, I saw the flash of a lightning bug as the sun began to fade.

  “I sat here,” I said, running my fingers along the edge of the table, “And I tried to concentrate but I couldn’t. It was multiplication of mixed numbers and I couldn’t figure it out. I got more and more frustrated until dad came into the kitchen and saw that I was almost in tears. He asked me what was wrong but I didn’t want to tell him.” Dad always seemed to get mad whenever I would cry, so by the time I was a teenager, I’d learned to swallow my tears, or if I couldn’t, at least hide them.

  “He said I should just go outside. That was his answer to everything: go outside.” I pushed my coleslaw around my plate with a potato chip. “When I came back in at dark, dad had this funny look on his face. Like, he was so proud of himself.” My heart ached at the memory. “He held up my math homework: he’d done it for me.”

  “But here’s the kicker,” I said with a smile. “When I got it back from the teacher a couple days later, all the answers were wrong.”

  Our laughter startled Remy, who leapt up and put her forepaws on Mitch’s lap, tail wagging. He scratched behind her ears.

  Mitch said, “You have any luck finding your mom?”

  I shook my head. “It’s like she disappeared off the face of the earth.” I got up and put my plate in the dishwasher.

  “When I moved to Reno,” I said, “I was so sure I’d find something. Dad said she had cousins there, but when I looked them up, they hadn’t heard from her in years.”

  A hollow opened in my chest. “First my mom,” I said, “And now my dad.” Tears welled behind my eyes but I shoved them down.

  “Your mom is still out there,” Mitch said, the words a platitude I’d heard a thousand times before.

  “Chris said there isn’t much evidence in my dad’s case.”

  “What else has he told you?”

  I was confused about the sudden edge in his voice. “Nothing. But neither has Ingress. You guys don’t have any leads? None?” Mitch didn’t answer. “What about that woman who came to dad’s funeral? Tammy Ernst? She didn’t have very nice things to say about dad.”

  “That’s not how the real world works, Mady.”

  I bit back the irritation. “How come you guys couldn’t find who killed her daughter? I mean, the newspapers said it was drug-related.”

  Mitch’s lips thinned. “It’s not like on television. And trust me, her death wasn’t easy on your dad. On any of us.”

  “Tammy Ernst said he didn’t do anything.”

  “Mrs. Ernst isn’t working through her grief.”

  “Did he?” I said. “Do anything?”

  “Christ, Mady,” Mitch said, irritated. “Of course he did. But you know how these things work. Witnesses don’t come forward, no one talks to the cops, investigations go cold.”

  Yeah, I knew how things work. But I also knew dad wasn’t the kind of guy to let a murder go unsolved if he could help it.

  The air conditioning clicked on.

  “Have you heard from Zoe?” I asked, glancing at my phone’s messaging app.

  Mitch got up and scraped his plate into the trash. “I told you that you don’t want to get mixed up in that stuff, Mads.”

  “I know, but…” I trailed off. The sinking feeling I’d had in my gut since Zoe first reached out returned. “I would feel better if I could talk to her.”

  Mitch put his plate in the dishwasher then turned to face me, his expression dour. “Since her mom died, we haven’t been on the best of terms.”

  Nannette Mitchell had died of breast cancer. When it happened, I didn’t reach out to any of them, not Dad, or Zoe, or Mitch.

  “I don’t like what she’s become,” he said. “And I don’t like to give up on people either. But—“ and here a sadness so fraught with regret descended upon him, I thought my heart might break “—I’ve seen a lot of addicts. Terrible thing to say, but I’ve seen what happens. They have to want to get clean.” He wiped his hands on a towel. “I’m not sure Zoe does.”

  We sat there for a long time after that, the only sound the tick of the clock and Remy’s soft snoring.

  “Does she still hang around with Staci Connor?” I asked.

  Staci Connor had been the new girl in town when I befriended her end of sophomore year. Staci, Zoe, and I spent that summer nearly inseparable. But the rift that had recently opened between Zoe and I—the rift I had been hoping to heal with the addition of Staci to our group—proved more devastating than I realized. Zoe and I started bickering more and more. Our bickering turned to arguments turned to full-on fights, and to those outside, it seemed jealousy ripped our relationship in two.

  But no one knew the true reason our friendship fractured.

  Mitch shook his head. “I haven’t heard that name in years.”

  Another dead end.

  Chapter 17

  Remy’s bark drew my attention away from the pile of clothes in front of me. I wiped my tears and stepped over the Donate pile I’d pulled from dad’s closet. Peering through the front window, my stomach dropped. Chris was here. He and Remy were engaged in a goofy dance in which Remy would leap up on him, he’d push her off gently, only to have her leap up again.

  “Remy!” I shouted, stepping outside. The front of Chris’s shirt and jeans were smeared with dirt. “I am so sorry,” I said. “I don’t know how to get her to stop jumping like that.”

  “It’s okay,” Chris said with a laugh. “This isn’t the first time.”

  “You have a dog?” Of course he had a dog. A perfect family wasn’t complete without a dog or two.

  “Used to.”

  “Oh.” I frowned. “I’m s—don’t let her go!” Chris unclipped Remy. She bolted for the trees. “Remy!”

  The dog reached the trees and circled back, barking and running circles around Chris. Chris laughed and teased her into a frenzy.

  “She’ll run away again!” I cried.

  But Chris didn’t listen. He chased Remy around the yard and when she brought him a stick she found at the edge of the woods, he threw it for her and she retrieved it, tail wagging so frantically her whole backend wagged with it.

  The sight of Chris playing with the dog like a little boy slowly eclipsed my fear that Remy would run off. And my anger at Chris.

  After several minutes, Remy collapsed at Chris’s feet, panting. Chris, too, stood with hands on hips, panting. He wiped the sweat off his brow and his shirt rose a fraction of an inch to reveal tight, tan skin. My heart rate quickened. I looked away and said, “Isn’t it your day off?”

  He reached into his back pocket and took out a phone. “It’s your dad’s.”

  I stared at the phone, muscles going rigid. It was your average smartphone in a black case, but somehow it felt like so much more. Our entire lives are on our phones.

  “The Staties downloaded the contents,” Chris said. “You can have it back.”

  I reached for it with a shaking hand. Pressing the button, I was surprised to see it light up.
>
  “I charged it a little on my way over,” Chris said.

  A wave of gratitude washed over me. “Do you know the passcode?”

  “Zero eight three one.”

  Tears filled my eyes. “My birthday.”

  “Your dad knew how hard it is to access phones after someone dies.”

  I looked at him sharply. “Did he know he was going to--?"

  Chris shook his head. “No, nothing like that. We found a list of passwords under a magnet on his fridge when we searched the house.”

  I stared at the phone’s home screen, and with a shaking finger typed in the code.

  My own face popped up, staring back at me from behind rows of apps. It was an old photo. I wore braces and acne dotted my forehead. I was smiling at the camera with bits of corn caught in my braces. A summer picnic on the back deck.

  Waves of emotions crashed over me. I clicked on the photos app, shocked to see how few there were, so different from the thousands of silly photos my friends and I took, the screenshots we passed between us, the images of our license plates, passcodes for public bathrooms, our credit cards so we wouldn’t have to get up to find our wallets.

  There was the image of a bee on a flower, its hind legs heavy with pollen. Several shots of Remy: one of her frolicking in the water of Swine creek, another of her staring up at the phone from the floor with the biggest puppy dog eyes I’d ever seen. There were a few screenshots: Twitter feeds, jokes, and a goofy picture of a man in a speedo hitting the water in a giant belly flop. I smiled.

  I kept scrolling. A few screenshots of Facebook. I squinted at the screen. Of my Facebook. Images from Reno, of my hikes up at Tahoe, of my friends and I sitting on a boulder at Emerald Cove. Of me shoving Kenny into the water.

  I stared at them, unable to figure out how he’d gotten these. My account was private, and we weren’t friends. Or were we?

  My stomach plunged. How many people had I friended simply because our social capital was defined by the number of likes we got on social media? How many strangers had I invited to look at my most personal photos based only on a tiny profile pic and the fact that they were friends with another of my friends?