The Tempest

by James Lilliefors

“If I asked you today to rank the most valuable things in your life, how would you respond? Most of you would say your family. Your health. Your home. Financial security. Your freedom, perhaps. Then what? Some of you might mention some prized possession or other, a vintage car, mementos.

  “But where would you put your relationship with God? Why wouldn’t you put that first?”

  He looked out and saw the sheriff shifting uncomfortably in the pew, his face lowered and contorted like he was about to sneeze again.

  “We’ve all heard the saying ‘a rising tide lifts all boats.’ God’s like that, too. When we put God first, it lifts the value of everything else in our life. It gives us a greater appreciation for all of the other things that we value. We need to remember that, in good times and in difficult times. And in times of tragedy.”

  He talked some more about value and then closed the sermon with a prayer for Susan Champlain, drawing from Psalm 139 and its parting message of darkness becoming light. Afterward, Charlotte helped him greet the congregants as they filed out. There were many ­people there he hadn’t seen in weeks, or months, among them Jackson Pynne, the swaggering businessman whose new restaurant/bar, Jackson’s, was having problems with the liquor license board again; Tim and Marty Sparrow, a retired ­couple whose surname had always struck him as a perfect fit; gift shop owner Roberta Tilghman, with her clangy bracelets and theatrical gestures, telling him how her parakeet Andy was “so looking forward” to the pet blessings; Anne Renault, a true-­crime journalist, who tried to interest Luke in helping her tell “the real story” about Susan Champlain, as Luke pretended not to notice the enormous stain on her blouse; Talmadge Lantern, a gaunt, white-­haired scarecrow of a man who’d once played drums with Bob Dylan; Donald Rumsfeld, the former secretary of defense, visiting with his wife Joyce; Gab Bunting, the wavy-­haired publisher of the Tidewater Times, who still wanted Luke to go goose hunting with him sometime; Gabe Knoll, a retired astronomy professor and former atheist who now believed that science and religion were simpatico; and the pastor emeritus Manfred Knosum and his wife, Mabel, who lived in Florida but returned to Tidewater in summer to visit with their seventeen grandchildren.

  After all of that, and saying goodbye to Charlotte, Luke noticed Sheriff Clay Calvert ambling toward him, coming down the corridor from the restrooms. He’d been lingering, evidently, wanting to be the last to leave.

  “Well, that was sure a nice sermon, Pastor,” the sheriff said, gripping his hand a little harder than necessary and then not letting go. “But I gotta tell you, call it my prejudice, but I don’t know as I like what I’m seeing so much out there anymore.”

  “What is it you’re seeing?” Luke said, trying to stay upbeat.

  “A fear. Is what I call it,” he said.

  “A fear?”

  “A fear. Yes, sir.”

  Luke held his smile as long as he could. There were several theories about the sheriff—­that he was becoming prematurely senile, that he was drinking too much, that he was having financial or marriage troubles (all of these Luke had heard from Aggie). Luke didn’t think it was senility, but there was definitely something different about the sheriff lately.

  “We’ve had it before, don’t misunderstand,” he said, finally letting go of Luke’s hand, “but not in a while. And not like this. And the thing is, it preys on itself. Preys on itself,” he said, liking the sound of that phrase. “There’s a fear now that accidents happen and ­people start to talking like they’re not really accidents. And it preys on itself.”

  “Well,” Luke said. “That’s interesting. I’m glad you could come today.”

  Calvert grimaced, and turned to the parking lot. “What you and I need is to go out fishing one of these weekends,” he said.

  “We should do that sometime, yes.”

  He clapped Luke hard on the back and walked away to his car.

  Luke helped the custodians to clean up and close the church. He didn’t realize until he was in the parking lot that Susan’s brother and sister had been waiting at their car for him to come out. Nancy Adams gave him a long hug and Brian Wilkins shook his hand slowly but firmly. It was touching to see how grateful they were. They talked for several minutes, Nancy becoming emotional again. He invited them to visit with him in his office but Brian Wilkins said they needed to get on the road.

  “It’s almost like she knew this was coming,” Nancy told Luke. “She had an acute awareness that other ­people never had. I hate to think this, but she almost knew ahead of time what was going to happen.”

  She gave Luke another hug before leaving. Brian was already in their rental car by then. Nancy had begun to mythologize her sister a little, Luke sensed. That was okay. It was one of the ways ­people dealt with death.

  “Have a safe drive,” Luke told her.

  HUNTER WENT ON a long run after church, around the commercial harbor and up along the bluffs, Radiohead in her earbuds, ending it with a wind sprint along the flat marina road. It was a hot, cloudless day and it felt good to work up an honest sweat.

  She called out Winston’s name as she came in—­“Hey Winnie! Ready for a lunchtime snack?”—­but heard nothing in reply. Normally, Winston squawked immediately, either proud of whatever hiding place he’d found or just wanting to announce his presence. She walked through all of the rooms of her apartment, sweat sliding down her face and neck, trying his name in different voices. She got down on hands and knees and peered under the bed. She looked in the closets, the washer and dryer, behind the sofa and in the bathtub. She searched each room carefully, first the places he favored and then everywhere else, beginning to worry that something had happened; that somehow Winston had gotten loose. Had she left the door open while she was lacing up her running shoes? Or when she was using the bathroom? It didn’t seem possible. Hunter spent another fifteen minutes searching the apartment, retracing her steps and trying not to panic, her priorities suddenly falling away; she wanted nothing more in her life now than to find Winston. She began to imagine him outside, darting across the marina road, his mind in chaos mode; or cowering in the bushes near the seafood restaurant, too scared to do anything. She imagined finding him on the side of the road, after he’d been hit by a driver who didn’t bother to stop or maybe didn’t even notice. Hunter went outside, anxiously pacing the parking lot, shouting his name, walking onto the docks, her eyes combing the lawns and the boats. “Winnie! Winnie!” Probably sounding a little foolish. She went back inside and searched again, all the places she’d already looked and then places she hadn’t, where he couldn’t be; although with Winston, it was hard to tell. She opened the refrigerator. She felt along the upper shelf of the study closet and the kitchen counters, even though they were taller than she was. She lifted the toilet cover. At one point, she opened the middle drawer of her bedroom dresser, looked down and there he was—­lying on a white T-­shirt, curled up like a black half-­moon, asleep. It took a moment for it to register: had she really closed the drawer before her run and not noticed that Winston was inside?

  She lifted Winston from the drawer and hugged him, cooing as if he were a human baby. Finally, he squawked disapprovingly. She set him down and he trotted away to his water dish, tail straight up in the air. Hunter followed him to the kitchen, feeling enormous waves of gratitude. Not only for Winston, but for everything else. She thought of Luke’s story—­about the parking space. About how tempting it was not to be grateful.

  Hunter took a ten-­minute shower, and then returned to normal life. She checked her messages: John Linden had finally called back, while she was outside frantically searching for Winston. She got a Diet Coke from the kitchen, and went to the back porch with her phone and notebook.

  “You called me,” Linden said, in a guarded tone. “How can I help you?”

  Hunter explained that she was investigating Susan Champlain’s death.

  “And how’d you get my name?”

/>   “It came up in the course of interviews,” she said. “Could I come out and talk with you?”

  He let some silence pass. “How did my name come up in the course of interviews, if you don’t mind me asking?”

  “Does it matter?”

  “I’m curious. You’re investigating her death?”

  “That’s right.” She scribbled Doesn’t want to meet in her notebook. Then decided to push it into another gear. “The reason I’d like to talk with you is that I understand you were with Susan here in Tidewater County on Wednesday, the day she died. In fact, as far as I’ve been able to tell, you were the last known person to see her alive.”

  Another silence followed. But this was a different kind of silence. The long, endless kind. “Hello?” Hunter said.

  JOHN LINDEN SEEMED to be dressed for prep school: blue oxford shirt, pressed khaki slacks, natty burgundy loafers with tassels. His clothes were unwrinkled, despite the seventy-­mile drive from Delaware; Hunter wondered if he’d stopped nearby to change. His cheeks looked even fuller than in the picture and he had less hair, but what struck her most was how short he was. Probably an inch or two shorter than Susan Champlain. Hunter hadn’t picked up on that from the photo, where he was standing beside his even shorter wife. Fooled by the elegant shoulders, evidently.

  “So. Am I in trouble?” Linden asked, seated on the other side of Hunter’s desk. Linden’s dark eyes had a steady, attentive quality but the smile spoiled it a little, giving his face a crooked, indecisive look.

  “I don’t know,” she said. “Is there any reason you should be?”

  “No, of course not. Who told you I was here on Wednesday?”

  “Someone who saw you with her,” Hunter said. “I understand you used to date Susan?”

  A flush rose up his cheeks. “You’ve talked to the family, then.”

  “Her brother and sister, yes.”

  Linden shifted in the chair.

  Tanner walked by, hesitating as if he was going to ask Hunter something.

  “Hello,” he said, nodding to Linden.

  Linden just looked blankly back at him.

  “So: You used to date her?” Hunter asked.

  His eyes assented. “Years ago, yeah.”

  “How many?”

  “Six. Five or six.”

  “But you stayed in touch.”

  “Occasionally. Not a lot.”

  “So how did you happen to be with her here in Tidewater on the day she died?”

  “How did I happen to be with her,” he said, echoing her tone. He leaned back and cleared his throat again. “Okay: Susan e-­mailed me the day before. Said she wanted to talk, could I meet with her? I drove down in the morning, Wednesday morning, we met, and I left here at about one thirty that afternoon. I was back in my office before the end of the day. You can check.”

  “I will,” Hunter said. “Why did she want to meet with you then?”

  “Why? She just wanted to talk. She said she was worried about something, and needed to talk.”

  “Was that something she’d do—­ask to meet with you when she wanted to talk?”

  “Almost never.”

  “So what was different on Wednesday?” she said. “What was she worried about?”

  “When she contacted me, you mean? Or—­? She didn’t go into specifics. Just—­that she wanted to talk and—­We were going to have lunch, but she was real nervous when I got here so we talked at the Inn for—­I mean, just a few minutes, walked out to the water, and I left. That was it.”

  John Linden cleared his throat again, unnecessarily.

  “That’s a long way to drive just to talk for few minutes.”

  “It is.”

  “And so what was she worried about?”

  “Oh, well, I don’t know. I mean—­her husband, mostly. There were tensions in her marriage, as you probably heard.”

  “Over—­?”

  “Over—­” He had to think about that. A thin film of sweat had formed above his chin. It was as if he’d over-­rehearsed and suddenly become tongue-­tied. Finally, he said, “I mean—­this is kind of getting into a personal area, asking about our conversations.”

  “Not anymore,” Hunter said. “The details are part of a police investigation now. You were seen here with her the day she died. There’s going to be video footage of you talking with her. It’s part of our investigation now.”

  Suddenly the blood seemed to leave his face and his eyes flashed a look of panic. Moments later, John Linden leapt to his feet and gasped several times. He flapped a hand up and down in front of his face and dropped back into the seat as if he was about to faint. Was he having a panic attack?

  “Are you okay? Can I get you water?”

  Hunter rushed out to the watercooler. Tanner waved from his office as she walked by, but she kept going. When she returned, he was better, standing again and shaking out his right leg as if the problem had just been his foot going to sleep.

  “Are you all right?”

  “Sorry,” he said. He took a ­couple more deep breaths and they both sat. “I just sort of got dizzy there for a second. Dehydrated, probably.”

  “Take your time.” Hunter let him drink the water. He gulped down three-­quarters of it and set the cup on her desk. “Start from the beginning,” she said. “What did you talk about with Susan Champlain? Why did she call you?”

  “All right,” he said. He sat forward and exhaled audibly. “She wanted to talk because—she was worried, like I say, about her husband. And I guess it had to do with—­she had learned something that she wasn’t supposed to know, about her husband’s business.”

  “Go on.”

  “And she was afraid it might have something to do with organized crime—­or that’s what she said, anyway.” He gave her a tentative smile. “She was afraid he was being used and that he was going to get hurt. She was actually more concerned about her husband’s welfare, I think, than her own.”

  “Okay. Go on. What kind of business are we talking about?”

  “I couldn’t tell you that.”

  “You could,” Hunter said and he looked up at her for a moment like a scolded child. “You’re saying she didn’t share any of the details?”

  “No, I mean—­not many of them.”

  “Okay. Tell me the ones she did share.”

  He sighed, reached for the rest of the water, and drank it, setting the cup back on her desk.

  “She believed—­this is what she told me—­that she thought it maybe involved stolen art,” he said. “And, possibly, that this deal had something to do with organized crime, like I say.”

  “Her husband’s business.”

  “Yes.” He drew in his lips and sat back.

  “Okay. And why did she think that?”

  He lifted his palms to show he didn’t know. “I have no idea. I mean, that’s what she said. That’s what she thought. She did kind of overhear things. She was smarter than ­people give her credit for. A very astute observer.”

  “She could read signs, I understand.”

  “What?”

  “Did she ever tell you that?”

  “No.”

  Hunter nodded and waved away the subject. “So she told you she’d overheard him talking about this deal?”

  “On the phone, yeah, two or three times, making comments, talking—­cryptically, sometimes, I think was how she put it. Like I say, she picked up pieces here and there—­”

  “Had they been arguing about it at all, Susan and her husband?”

  “Arguing?” He reached for the cup again, saw that it was empty and left it on her desk. “I mean—­ She didn’t get into that part with me, really. She could be very guarded about certain things. And probably a little paranoid, because of the organized crime thing.” Hunter waited. “She was afr
aid they were ‘shadowing’ her husband. That’s a word she used.”

  “Why would someone be shadowing her husband? Who did she think it was?”

  “Oh, I don’t know.”

  Hunter nodded. She could sort of understand why Susan Wilkins and John Linden hadn’t stayed together. They were two nervous ­people who probably made each other a little crazy.

  “It seems strange to me that you chose to meet in such a public place, at the Old Shore Inn,” she said. “Had you met there before?”

  “No. I mean, it wouldn’t have been my choice. Of course, her husband was away at the time. So—­”

  “And I don’t understand why you didn’t come forward and say something after she died.”

  “You mean to the police?”

  “Yes.”

  “I don’t know. I mean—­” He sighed. Sweat glistened on his forehead and his chin. “In retrospect? I probably should have. Obviously, I’m devastated by what happened, as her family is. But. I guess I just didn’t want to get in the way. And I didn’t think it would help, anyway.”

  “How would you have gotten in the way?”

  “I just didn’t want to confuse things.”

  “Confuse things—­meaning because you’re married and she’s married?” Hunter said.

  “Well.” He cleared his throat and shifted in the chair, his face turning scarlet. “That probably entered into it,” he said. “But, I mean—­if I thought I could have shed any light on what happened? I’d have been there in a heartbeat.”

  “What do you think happened?”

  “Oh, I don’t know,” he said. “No idea.”

  “Then why are you so sure that nothing you said would’ve helped?”

  “What?”

  “Why are you so sure nothing you said would have helped?”

  He began to fidget with a cuff button on his shirt. Hunter had seen all kinds of affairs and knew what they did to ­people, including some that weren’t technically affairs; those, at times, were worse than the real thing. “I mean, I just didn’t think it would have mattered,” he said, as if this explained it. “Also, I didn’t come forward because I don’t think she would have wanted me to.”