The first witness in Lynne Solari’s trial was Robert Beiler of the Rockland Chronicle. Chad felt his hands tighten into fists as the man took the stand, swore to tell the truth, and took his seat. He described his meeting with Steven Solari as an awkward tension-riddled conversation where he’d been drilled for information. “I couldn’t tell where I’d learned about who Miss Finley’s—” he glanced in Chad’s direction. “I mean Mrs. Tesdall’s father was. I thought he’d see right through me, but he seemed satisfied.”
“And why,” the prosecutor continued, “couldn’t you tell him?”
“Because Mrs. Solari told me I couldn’t. She gave me the information on Willow Finley.”
Robert went on to describe a meeting with Lynne Solari where the woman gave all the information necessary to write his article. “She’d discovered Willow’s existence through some contact with the ME’s office. Finley was a name she had flagged.”
“Are you saying that Lynne Solari paid someone in the coroner’s office to let her know if anyone by the name of Finley came through?”
“That’s what she said. The way she said it implied that Finley was one of many names, but—”
“Objection, assuming facts not in evidence.” The defense attorney rarely spoke. He hardly seemed to pay attention much less bother to object to any line of questioning.
“Can you tell us what she said exactly?”
“No,” Robert began, “But almost. She said, ‘I have a contact at the ME’s office who lets me know when someone comes through that I am interested in. I never expected to hear Finley, but she came through in May.’ It wasn’t those exact words in that order but really close to them and the exact meaning.”
Chad was dumbstruck. Of all the scenarios he’d run through his mind, Lynne wasn’t even in the running. She’d left them with the impression that she knew nothing of Steve’s payoff or Kari Finley at all. This testimony implied otherwise. He missed the final questions as his mind whirled with possibilities.
“I call Officer Chadwick Tesdall to the stand.”
The first questions were simple. His name, occupation, how he met Willow, and finally when he’d met Lynne Solari. Chad felt the phone vibrate in his pocket, but he ignored it as he answered the question. “That is correct. She’d disabled her own car in order to have an excuse to come to the house.”
The defense attorney in a bored tone said, “Objection, conjecture.”
“Is it conjecture if she admitted it to us?” Chad used the opportunity to share the information by asking his question.
He pulled out his phone and glanced at the name on the screen. Willow. Thankful they hadn’t confiscated phones, he slipped it back into his pocket and answered the next question. “She said it was because she’d seen the article in the paper.”
Time passed with agonizing slowness as he answered all of the prosecutor’s questions and endured a rigorous cross-examination. He sighed, relieved as he was excused. His phone vibrated again just as a crowd of reporters surrounded him, and he impatiently shoved it back into his pocket as he hurried down the courthouse steps. The last thing he wanted to do is let Willow hear the questions fired at him one after another.
Everything changed in an instant. The A.D.A. left the building seconds after Chad, sending the flock of reporters away from Chad. He reached for his cellphone to call his wife and watched it shatter as a bullet ripped through it, before tearing through his body. Fire. His hand felt as though on fire. As he fought waves of nausea from the pain, he stared at the pieces of his phone and then crumpled to the steps.
People screamed. The A.D.A. dove for cover, whipping out her cellphone to call for help, while a court officer raced to Chad’s assistance. Pandemonium reigned, but Chad became unaware of his surroundings. The burning in his chest and hand made it impossible to think or concentrate. He felt sweat trickle down his face in several places and wiped it away. His hand, streaked with blood, told him that his face was cut—probably in several places.
By the time the ambulance arrived, the entire courthouse was cordoned off and police crawled everywhere. As the paramedics loaded him into the ambulance, Chad insisted on speaking to the A.D.A. but the paramedic couldn’t comply. “Sorry, they’ve got her under protection.
Chad closed his eyes and grabbed the paramedic’s arm. “Tell her…” He swallowed hard. “Tell her I said do not call my wife.”
“Man, she’s gonna—”
“Do not call Willow. We have a good lawyer. I’ll use her.”
“Mr. Tesdall?” The face above Chad’s head swayed drunkenly.
“Have you been drinking, sir?” Chad’s voice sounded strange to his own ears.
“No, but you’ve been medicated.”
He struggled to sit up and then sank back against the pillows. “I was shot. I can’t believe I was shot. I remember now.”
“It was a through and through. Not sure how it missed your heart and arteries, but it did pierce the lungs, break a rib, and your hand took the full impact of the phone. I’ve never seen one like it.”
As the doctor explained his injuries, Chad struggled to remember something he needed to ask. “Did anyone call my wife?”
“I knew the EMT got it wrong. He said you refused.”
“I did. So no one called?”
The doctor nodded eyeing Chad curiously. “Mind telling me why you don’t want her to know? You can’t hide an injury like this.”
“I have an unusual wife. She’d rather hear it from me. Just trust me on that. I need to speak to my parents immediately. If they see it on the news, they’ll call and—”
The longer Chad spoke, the more clear his thinking became. “Man, what do you have me on?”
“Your PCA has morphine if you need a boost.”
“I have to avoid it as much as possible. I need to be able to drive tomorrow.”
“Well, you’re not going anywhere tomorrow. The surgeon has more work to do on that hand, and we can’t risk infection or pneumonia. The EMT managed to prevent a pneum—” the doctor altered his explanation at the sight of Chad’s confusion. “—um collapsed lung.”
Chad wanted to ask more questions, but drowsiness overtook him. Before he could speak, he slept.
Chapter 117
Rain still poured down on the farm the next morning. The thunder and lightning had abated, but in their place a steady rain drummed on the roof—rain that the farms nearby needed and Willow dreaded. Work was always so messy in the rain and usually meant the need for scrubbing floors. The one job she truly hated was scrubbing floors. She’d scrub the toilet, wash walls and windows, or beat carpets but floors…
Ditto protested her stall in the barn, but Willow was unmoved despite several attempts to butt her out of the way. The chickens protested as well, but Willow opened side panels to allow fresh air and left the birds in the dry coop. Nothing was more pathetic looking to her than a drenched chicken. The sheep and cow had plenty of fresh rainwater and seemed uninterested in crossing the pasture to say hi.
A new thought occurred to her as she stepped up on the porch. She did not want to drip muddy water all over the house as she entered. She did not want to scrub those floors. No one was home, there was no reason not to simply drop her clothing out the back door and take it to the barn that evening. Just to be certain that no one had arrived while she wasn’t looking, Willow walked around to the front of the house, nodded in satisfaction, and hurried to the back porch again.
Giggling gleefully, she raced through the house, upstairs, into her room and grabbed her most comfortable shorts and halter-top. Even with the rain, it was very warm and her favorite cool clothes sounded like the epitome of comfort. She stood for an indecent amount of time in the shower allowing the hot water to pound her muscles and then slowly turned it to cold, cooling her off again.
Before she hurried downstairs to make herself something for breakfast, Willow grabbed a wrap dress she’d made the previous summer. Now that Chad lived there, people stopped by som
etimes. Not often, but how embarrassing it would be to be caught running around in clothes that covered so little. It was one thing for her to wear them for herself or even while Chad was sleeping but quite another when others were around. The dress would look lumpy but she’d be covered.
She remembered a wedding gift that Marianne had been so excited about. “Just put your meat and vegetables in it, add a little water, turn it on low, and let it cook all day. It’s perfect for hot summers in your house.”
At the back of the pantry on the top right corner shelf, she pulled down her four and a half quart crock-pot and carried it to the kitchen counter. Carefully, she slit the tape open and pulled the appliance from its protective Styrofoam blocks. An instruction manual sent her to the chaise as she read every word before trying to use it.
She stepped onto the back porch to take it to the summer kitchen and paused. The yard was full of mud she’d be drenched and filthy by the time she got back to the house. The sight of the floodlight on the barn reminded her that the electricity was on in the house. She could use it and stay indoors. Chad would be amazed to come home to a meal cooked with an appliance inside the house!
The clock chimed nine by the time she had her food arranged in the pot and it turned on in the corner of the counter. She glanced at the phone charger and saw her phone was fully charged again. No messages. It must have been an exhausting day. Poor Chad, he’d be worn out by the time he got home.
Willow filled a bowl with Wheaties, poured her own milk over it, and took a bite. “Now that is good,” she murmured to herself and shuddered remembering the horrible taste of the milk Chad preferred over Ditto’s contribution.
Mother’s particularity for neatness was a blessing now. A kitchen cleaned as it is used is easy to polish when you’re done using it. The house needed little work done, but Willow remembered Chad mentioning his dislike for hotel beds and decided to change the sheets and blankets for him. He’d sleep better in fresh linens and with clean blankets.
Automatically, she reached for the sheets they’d always used but paused. A set of unused and silky soft cotton sheets caught her eye. They’d been a gift from her Uncle Kyle and his family for the wedding, and she’d washed, dried, and folded them with the rest of the linens without expecting to use them for some time, but now she ran her fingers over them again. They were so buttery feeling. Perhaps—
With a happy smile on her face, she grabbed the sheets and went to strip her bed. Her mattress pad looked limp and the sight of it sent her back to the linen closet where she pulled her mother’s from the top shelf. Sniffing it carefully, she nodded with satisfaction; there wasn’t a trace of dust or mustiness.
Singing as she worked, Willow made the bed, adding her favorite lightweight summer blankets and her lightweight quilted coverlet. She loved the beauty of quilts, but even the lightest weight batting was often too warm in summer so she’d made one with only a layer of low thread-count muslin as a batting one year It was perfect for hot summer nights.
Scooping up the pile of laundry, she dumped the bathroom hamper into the heap and carried it all downstairs to the back porch. Portia would probably have a lovely time sleeping on her blankets, but right at that moment, Willow didn’t care. She refused to go near the barn unless absolutely necessary.
The phone stood forlorn on the counter. No flashing lights announced a message. She picked it up called to leave a voicemail. “I just wanted to see how you were doing and ask you to call or send a note. Everything is good here except that you’re not. Here that is. Anyway, praying for you… bye…”
He’d warned her that things were uncertain during trials. Anything could delay things, the judge could require them to turn in their cellphones and all kinds of electronic gadgets before entering the courtroom, or he could be required to stay for another day. Willow, not really expecting it to be an issue, had assured him she’d see him when he got home and not to worry about her. She’d never imagined that she’d begin to worry about him.
“You’re being ridiculous. Just because the last time he didn’t answer the phone was a nightmare doesn’t mean it always is. Go read a book or make something.”
By nine o’clock, she’d given up hope that he’d be home that night. The roast, cooked until it fell apart at the touch, was delicious and hardly touched. Sitting in the icebox and waiting to be reheated, it was a testimony to an ingenious invention, the crock-pot, and to the sadness of one person eating it alone.
The coffee table was covered with a layer of handmade note cards and a stack of matching envelopes stood waiting to be paired with a card. She carefully replaced her supplies in their basket before returning it to the craft room and snapping off the light. In her room, she pulled a silky set of shorts and camisole from her drawers and examined it. Would the fabric breathe and be cool or would it be uncomfortable? It looked cool and felt so luxurious that she decided to try it. One glance at the bed sent a wave of disappointment over her. It wouldn’t be fresh anymore by tomorrow night and with the rain and her day off, she didn’t have time to do extra laundry to do it all over again.
Willow wandered through the house straightening little things and feeling lost. She was tired but antsy. The cards on her table were finally dry so she stacked them and set them on the bookshelf until she felt like matching them with envelopes. Finally, she stepped outside carrying her favorite couch pillow and curled into the porch swing to watch the stars, listen to the cicadas’ song, and reconnect with her Lord.
The pain intensified, seemingly with every passing nanosecond. He stared at the little button that could help alleviate some of the misery he was in and hesitated. Which was better—keeping off the medication so he could drive sooner, or ensuring that he stayed on top of it long enough to heal enough to be able to drive in the first place. For the first time, Chad was grateful that they’d talked him out of the manual transmission. With his throbbing, bandaged hand, he would never have been able to operate a gearshift.
A nurse entered the room. “So, we’re awake. Time for some pain medication?”
“I can’t decide which is better—less so it’s out of my system sooner or more so that I don’t get overwhelmed.”
“Use the PCA. You can wait until you think it’ll override you, but if your body has to fight pain and fight infection, it’ll take you longer to heal.”
With the next level of pain, Chad pushed the button. Twice. The clock said two-thirty. In seven hours, his parents would arrive, and by then, perhaps he’d feel better. He had to get sleep to heal. The phone next to his bed taunted him. She’d answer, even at this time of night, and though Willow wouldn’t worry, she would be confused.
He slowly awoke to the sounds of whispering and the feeling of losing all blood flow to his arm. “He’s been sleeping since I got on shift,” a masculine voice whispered. “The chart says he’s checking himself out after his next surgery even if it is AMA.”
“AMA?” The voice belonged to his mother.
“Against medical advice.”
“Probably has something to do with why he didn’t want us to call Willow, Marianne.”
A few minutes later, the sound of retreating footsteps and the continued whispers of his parents jarred him back to consciousness. “Is he worried about her safety, do you think?”
Pop’s voice sounded strained as he tried to reassure his mom. “It’s possible. Maybe he doesn’t want to lead someone out there, but I’d think it’d be less safe with her out there alone.”
“She has a gun, and she did take down the last person who tried to hurt her…”
Chad fought to speak, his eyes still unwilling to open. “She’ll want to come in if she knows. Coming in is a sure way to stress her out. She isn’t handling this trial very well. I tried to get her to come and stay at the hotel—make it fun, you know? She didn’t want to have anything to do with it.”
“You’re awake.”
“Barely,” he admitted.
Marianne kissed his temple and mur
mured, “But when you don’t call—”
“Mom, she’ll just think my battery died or something. She’ll wonder, but she won’t really worry. I could be wrong, but I don’t think so. And Dad’s right, we need to keep her out of town. If that shot was a trap to lure her into town by someone who doesn’t know where we live, I don’t want to risk it.”
Marianne’s eyes widened. “Do you really think that’s even possible?”
“Why aim for my heart instead of my head? I don’t understand it unless he just wanted to take me out of testifying for now or if it was all bait.”
“Maybe it wasn’t either of those. Maybe it was a warning to others who are on the witness list.”
Christopher’s point was something Chad hadn’t considered. “It’s possible. I really don’t know. I don’t want her out there alone, but I think I trust her more to take care of herself out there than I trust her ability to do it in town.”
“So you’re going to go home tomorrow regardless of how you feel?”
“After the surgery, once the anesthesia and meds are out of my system—”
“But what about getting well!” Marianne’s voice grew louder with each word.
“I’ll go to the clinic in Fairbury at the first sign of anything off. They have a few overnight rooms even. I have to get home.”
“You could call. Tell her the trial is taking more from you than you expected. Tell her your phone isn’t working, but you’ll be home tomorrow and everything will be just fine.”
“I’m not going to lie, Mom.”
“Chad,” Marianne protested quickly, “I didn’t mean for you to lie. All of that is true—it’s just ambiguous enough to keep her from worrying and to keep you in this bed.”
“Your mother has a point. Resting that lung—” The doctor stopped himself abruptly as Chad struggled to sit upright.
“If I called, I’d tell her everything. But if you called…”
Past Forward- A Serial Novel: Episode 16 Page 5