The Secret Between Us

by Barbara Delinsky

John recoiled. “Were you. That I didn’t know.”

  “Neither did my mom, so don’t get mad at her. The accident was all my fault. I had two cans of beer.”

  He was a minute taking it in. “I thought you were studying.”

  Grace was silent. Deborah knew she didn’t want to implicate her friends.

  “Were you debilitated?” he asked.

  “You mean, like drunk? No. But if I hadn’t had anything, I might have seen Mr. McKenna.”

  “Grace,” Deborah begged, because they had been through this so many times, “I didn’t see him and I had nothing to drink.”

  “Don’t condone it, Deborah,” Greg warned.

  “I’m not condoning it,” she reasoned. “I’d never condone it. She’s underage. She shouldn’t have been drinking, period. But that isn’t what caused the accident.”

  John was looking at Grace. “When your mother came to pick you up, did it occur to you not to drive?”

  “No. I felt fine. But if I’d been drinking, my judgment about how I felt would have been warped. Wouldn’t it?”

  “You tell me.”

  She said an unhappy, “Yes.”

  “And you couldn’t tell your mom you’d been drinking, not even after Mr. McKenna died?”

  “Especially not then. I mean, she already knew I was the one driving, so I’d gotten us in enough trouble. Adding the thing about the beer would have made it worse. She would have been really upset.”

  “When did you finally tell her?”

  Grace shrank into herself. “Thursday. In the alley by the bakery, after I tried to swipe those Pradas. That was the first time she knew.”

  John thought about that, then turned to Deborah. “The night of the accident, when Grace got in the car to drive, did you see anything different about her?”

  “Absolutely not,” Deborah said. “She seemed in control. I was amazed at how calm she was driving in that storm. In hindsight, maybe the beer gave her false confidence. But I couldn’t fault the way she drove. Nor did the state police,” she reminded him.

  John leaned back, brows knitted. From the outer offices came muted sounds of business—the scrape of a chair, an indistinct voice, the ring of a phone. Here, all was silent.

  Deborah felt suspended. In his unprepossessing way, John Colby wielded huge power.

  Finally, he looked up. Clearing his throat, he focused on Grace. “What are your thoughts here?”

  Grace seemed unprepared for the question. She was a minute searching, then said, “I’m scared.”

  “About what?”

  “Knowing Mr. McKenna’s dead. Living with it for the rest of my life. It doesn’t matter what anyone says about my driving, I’ll always wonder.”

  “You weren’t drinking alone.”

  “I was the one who hit a man.”

  “But your friends were drinking, too.”

  “And, see, that terrifies me. Now you know, and they’ll hate me for that.”

  “Sounds like it’s already pretty bad for you at school.”

  Grace nodded.

  “What’ll make it end?”

  Her eyes welled. “I don’t know.”

  John grew quiet. After a minute, he asked, “Do you feel like you need punishment? Is that what the shoplifting was about?”

  Grace hung her head. “I guess. It’s like I’ve done all these bad things and gotten away with them, and maybe there are some kids who can do that and still sleep at night. But I can’t.” She looked up. “I lie awake thinking about it. I keep wondering who knows.”

  “So you’re here today because you can’t live with the fear of being caught?”

  “No. It’s not that.” She seemed to struggle. “Well, maybe a little. It’s that what I did was wrong. It doesn’t make me feel good about myself. It doesn’t make me feel like I can be someone someday.”

  Proud despite the circumstances, Deborah wanted to reach for Grace’s hand, but resisted. Grace needed to do this on her own.

  John sat staring at his desk while their lives hung in the balance, the only sounds muted ones from the outer office. Finally, he looked from Deborah to Greg. “This is one of those times when I wish we still had stocks.” He glanced at Grace. “Know what those are?”

  Pale, she nodded. “Like in The Scarlet Letter.”

  “We could set you up on Main Street for a morning and be done with it. Very simple. Very effective. Nowadays, things are more complex.” Again, he looked at Deborah and Greg. “Too complex for an instant opinion. I think I need to talk with the D.A.”

  Deborah was thinking that they couldn’t wait, that they did need an instant opinion, and that involving the D.A. would only prolong the agony—when there was a knock at the door. It opened only enough for John to see someone and rise. “Be right back,” he said on his way out, closing the door after him.

  Deborah did take Grace’s hand then. It was icy. She rubbed it between both of hers.

  “What’ll he do?” the girl asked.

  Deborah looked at Greg, who shrugged with his hands.

  “Going to the D.A. will be bad, won’t it?” Grace asked.

  Greg came forward and touched her shoulder. “It may not be. It could be as simple as John thinking of the civil suit. If the D.A. is part of any decision now, charges of a cover-up become null and void.”

  The problem, Deborah knew, was that if the D.A. was involved, a joint decision might be tougher, precisely to avoid the smell of a cover-up. Greg knew this. She could see it in the look he gave her.

  In the ensuing silence, there were more muted voices from without. This time, above that, Deborah heard the ticking of the large clock on John’s wall. The seconds seemed endless. She was about to scream, when the door finally opened.

  John closed it and stood for a minute. He was holding some papers and seemed startled. “Well,” he finally said. “That’s something.” He rubbed his neck, then looked at them. “It seems Cal did write a note.”

  Deborah glanced quickly at Grace, then back to John. “A suicide note?”

  Nodding, he handed her a sheet of typing paper, loosely folded in thirds. He stood nearby, arms folded over the swell of his middle. One hand still held the envelope.

  Deborah unfolded the paper and, heart pounding, read what was inside. As suicide notes went, it was neither eloquent nor enlightening, in many ways as cryptic as the man himself. By the time you get this, I’ll be gone. I’m sorry. I just can’t do it anymore. For every good minute there are five bad ones. I’m tired. It was written in the same precise script that Deborah had seen on Grace’s history papers.

  Feeling a swell of emotion—overwhelming relief, pervasive sadness, amazement at the timing—she handed the note to Grace, who read it with Greg over her shoulder.

  “How did you get this?” Deborah asked John.

  “Tom McKenna just brought it. He got it this morning, forwarded from a P.O. box in Seattle.” He passed her the envelope.

  “It’s addressed to Tom.”

  “Yes. Postmarked the morning after the accident. Cal must have put it in the mail slot shortly before he went running in the rain.”

  “But Tom lives here,” Deborah pointed out. “Why would Cal have mailed this to Seattle, rather than directly to Tom?”

  “I asked Tom that. He says it’s how Cal’s mind would work. He knew Tom’d get it, since he’d be the one collecting his effects.”

  Greg took the letter from Grace. He straightened and reread it while a wide-eyed Grace asked Deborah, “What does this mean?”

  Deborah deferred to John.

  “It means,” he said gently, “that you can’t blame yourself for what happened. Calvin McKenna deliberately ran in front of your car.”

  “Knowing it was us?” Grace asked in alarm.

  “I doubt it. He just needed a car, and yours was the one that came by.”

  “But people are hit by cars all the time, and they don’t die. How did he know he would?”

  “He was on Coumadin,” Deborah s
aid. “He figured he would just bleed to death.”

  “That’s horrible,” the girl cried.

  “Suicide is.”

  John took the note from Greg. “Let me bring this back out. We have to make a copy. Tom wants to take the original back to show Cal’s widow.”

  “Tom’s still here?” Deborah asked.

  John nodded and left. Deborah followed. She spotted Tom standing by the front door of the station. A lone figure, his back was ramrod straight, his eyes dark and filled with pain.

  “I’m so sorry,” she whispered when she was close enough not to be heard by the others. She wanted to touch him but didn’t dare.

  His voice was low and tight, his mouth barely moved. “What in the hell possessed him to do that?”

  It struck Deborah that he was furious. “Mail it to Seattle?”

  “Throw himself in front of a car. Didn’t he know that whoever was driving that car would suffer? You could have gone into a tree and died, too. And yeah, why did he send the note to Seattle? If he’d sent it straight to me, we’d have known this ten days ago. He was a selfish bastard.”

  “He was in pain.”

  “So he sends me that note that explains nothing at all, and now I have to tell his wife?” He took a short, angry breath. “Y’know, maybe he’d have found meaning in life if he’d been able to get over self-pity long enough to see the good stuff that he had.”

  Deborah did touch his arm then. She couldn’t not do it, perhaps the same way she couldn’t not have driven to see him Saturday. “He’s gone, Tom. The best we can do is to hope that he’s in a better place.”

  Focusing on her, Tom softened. “You didn’t deserve what he did.”

  “It wasn’t personal. My car just happened to be there.”

  “And you can forgive his using you?”

  “I can. You will, too.” When he looked doubtful, she gave his arm a tiny shake. “You will, Tom. First, you have to grieve.”

  “Here you go,” John said, coming up from behind and handing Tom the envelope with the letter refolded inside.

  Deborah took her hand from Tom’s arm. John gave no indication of having seen it, simply turned and headed back to his office.

  “Gotta go,” Deborah whispered. “Can we talk later?”

  Tom stuck his hands in his pockets. “Are you sure you want to after this?”

  She scolded him with a look. “You could have burned the letter.”

  “No. I couldn’t have done that. Not to you.”

  She felt the words deeply, along with a dire need to tell him all he didn’t know about the accident, but this wasn’t the time or place. “When’ll you be home?” she asked softly.

  “One or two, I guess.”

  “I’ll call.” She looked at him a second longer before returning to John’s office. Taking a seat again, she ignored the curious looks coming from Greg and Grace. Her relationship with Tom was hers alone and would stay that way until she figured out what it was. Another lie? No, she realized. Simply no one’s business at this point in time but her own. “What happens now?” she asked John.

  He scratched his head. “Good question. A suicide note changes things. Once Tom shows it to his sister-in-law, he’ll get it back to us so that we can validate the handwriting.”

  “It was his,” Grace said in a shaky voice.

  “Tom agrees. We’ll just make it official.”

  “So…” Greg urged him on.

  But John was silent. He was clearly grappling with this unexpected twist at a time when his own judgment had been called into doubt. Deborah could almost sympathize.

  Finally, he shook his head. “I can’t press charges. What we have here is a situation where the victim caused his own injury by throwing himself in front of your car.”

  Deborah had suggested that herself—Who is the victim here? she had asked the detectives—but hearing the words from John made her truly accept them.

  “Then it’s over?” Grace asked, sounding afraid to hope.

  “I’ll have to consult with the D.A. But I’d suspect yes.”

  “What about the beer?” the girl asked.

  Wincing, John ran a hand around the back of his neck. “The problem is if I do something public about that, I’ll have to go public with the rest.” He eyed Deborah. “That’s where I’m torn. Do we want the student body dealing with another suicide, this one a teacher, an authority figure?” He looked at Greg. “All things balanced, is full disclosure necessary? What would it accomplish?” He turned to Grace. “The note does exonerate you. The world does need to know that Cal McKenna came out of the woods and ran out into the path of your car. But the accident reconstruction report will say that, anyway. So what if we conclude that Mr. McKenna was disoriented in the rain? It’s certainly not a lie. A person wanting to kill himself is disoriented. Don’t you think?”

  Grace considered that. “Yes,” she finally said.

  “As for the beer, we have no way to prove it this long after the fact. What if I put it into a memorandum here in my file cabinet, to be taken out only if you break another law? If, say, three years go by and you’re clean, we destroy the memorandum. So you’d basically be on probation for three years, which is what a judge would likely do. Are you comfortable with that?”

  Grace nodded. Quietly, she asked, “What about the shoplifting?” “In my file as well. You never did make it out the door with those shoes.”

  The girl made an embarrassed sound, but she was sitting straighter. Deborah suspected that nine-tenths of the battle had been won simply by telling the whole truth to John. Feeling lighter herself, she asked, “What about my filing a false report?”

  “Same thing. Locked in my cabinet. Probation there, too.”

  “And the civil suit?” Greg asked. “Do we assume it’ll be dropped?”

  John gave a tentative smile. “That’s up to the D.A. But a suicide note puts a whole other slant on things. Don’t you think?”

  Chapter 24

  Standing in John’s office, Deborah held Grace for the longest time. Words weren’t needed; there was relief and love aplenty in the embrace. When John left, Grace drew back and turned to her father. Deborah felt her hesitation. Urging her on mentally, she was pleased when the girl hugged him, too. Greg had come through for her. He had come through for them both.

  Father and daughter went off for time by themselves, allowing Deborah to return to work, but her eye was on the clock. She had a phone call to make.

  Impatient, she barely made it to one before trying Tom’s line. When he answered, she smiled. “Hey. How are you?”

  “Been better,” he said gently, but he sounded tired. “I just got back from Selena’s. She’s having a hard time with this. Seeing the note means she can’t pretend anymore.”

  “Pretend?”

  “That Cal wasn’t unhappy. That something wasn’t wrong with their marriage. When I showed her the note, she didn’t question its authenticity. It’s like she half expected it. She kind of buckled and grew sad. The fight left her.” The fight seemed to have left him, too. His voice was quiet. “I went to get her a drink, and when I came back, she started to talk. But it wasn’t the wild talk I’d heard before. She sounded defeated, wanting to understand what had happened by telling me what she had seen.”

  Tom was a good listener. Deborah knew that firsthand.

  “She talked about how they met,” he went on. “The actual events were much the way she had first told me, only this time she talked about his moods. They frightened her, but she loved him, so she went ahead with the marriage. Then she saw it full-time—the silence, the brooding, the pacing at night in the dark. Remember how I said he compartmentalized?”

  “Yes.”

  “That was what she saw. He was great at school. Really another person. And there were times when he was great with her. But then there was the dark, silent side. He would never talk about it. She asked me what I knew, but what could I say? I don’t know what depressed him. He had demons none of us
understood.”

  “Had it been worse lately?” Deborah asked. She wanted to understand, too.

  Tom didn’t answer immediately. Finally, sounding defeated himself, he said, “Apparently, yes, it was worse. She couldn’t reach him at all. It was like he had less of a reserve of goodwill, she said—like he used it all up at school and had nothing to draw on at home. When she told him to see a shrink, he didn’t talk with her for three days.”

  “Do you think he was seeing someone and just not telling her?”

  “I can’t find any record of it. If he was in therapy, he was paying in cash and leaving no trail. He wasn’t on medication for depression—and yes, you’re thinking he might have stopped taking it, which would explain why he reached the breaking point.”

  “And why it didn’t show up in an autopsy.”

  “But I’ve combed his medical file. There’s nothing.” He paused briefly. “I can’t fault Selena in this. She tried. She was—is—legitimately grief-stricken.”

  Deborah accepted that. She still resented Selena’s having gone to the D.A., but, for all she knew, she might have done the same herself, had the tables been turned. “Well, you were good to listen,” she told Tom.

  “Oh, nothing altruistic there. I needed to hear what she said.”

  “Did it help?”

  He was quiet. Then, “Some, I guess. I still blame myself for not being more on top of what Cal was going through. I might have gotten him to a psychiatrist. With proper medication, he might have lived. But this does explain things a little. Selena isn’t a bad person. She knew Cal had problems. She thought she could help.”

  “Many women do,” Deborah said. She didn’t ask about the lawsuit. It was irrelevant just then. She wanted to know more about Tom. “You were angry at the police station.”

  “I still am. I understand more about his reaching a tipping point, but he had no right using innocent people as his suicide tool. I think John got it as soon as I showed him the note. Was that your ex-husband with you in his office?”

  “It was. He came down to help with Grace. She’s had a tough time with all this. We actually worked out some of the hard feelings relating to the divorce.”

  “That’s good.”