by Jodi Compton
“What about me?” he asked.
“Did you like your brother?”
“Mike? Yeah, I guess so.” Bill was surprised at the question, but he was thinking about it. “When he was a kid, he used to want to tag along with Adam and me. We used to jump freight trains to get across town when we didn’t want to walk somewhere, and Mike could always keep up with us. We never had to slow down for him. We’d swim at this lake up in the hills, with steep bluffs on one side, and Mike used to jump from the heights, totally fearless. Even I only did that once, but he did it all the time.
“And he knew all this stuff, even as a kid. It was cool to talk to him. When he was older, it started to get under my skin. It wasn’t that he showed off his IQ.” Bill wrestled with a thought. “But he was just real smart, and you could tell that he knew, even though he didn’t say anything. He knew he was different.
“I guess that’s why I was angry when I thought he had a girl in his room on Christmas Eve. Like he felt it was okay for him to do that, because he was Mike. Since then, I’ve wished I’d covered for him.” Bill shook his head. “I didn’t know then he was going to up and leave home because of what happened.”
After a moment of silence, I realized Bill Shiloh was done. There was no moral to the story, no coda, other than his expression of mild regret.
I had one last question, but I thought I already knew the answer. “I don’t think Mike’s in trouble,” I said. “But if he were, do you know of a friend he’d go to?”
“To Sara,” Bill said. “He’d go to her.”
chapter 16
After two open-ended interviews, casting with a broad net for anything that might be useful, I finally had a very specific task: finding Sinclair Goldman.
That task led me to the public library at midday. None of Shiloh’s brothers or sisters seemed to have a current or even an old phone number or address for her. Sinclair, of course, was deaf, but I was working on the assumption she’d have a TTY phone, one adapted for use for the hearing-impaired.
Normally, a phone number would make things easy. Vang, back in Minneapolis, could run any name I gave him through the national phone disc and come up with a number. It was deciding what name to give him that would be the problem. Sinclair’s last name could be Goldman, or she could have split up with her husband and gone back to Shiloh. Her first name could be Sinclair, if she’d had it legally changed, or it could still be Sara.
Sitting at a broad table in the library’s reading room, I mixed and matched the possibilities on a piece of scratch paper. Sinclair Goldman. Sara Goldman. Sinclair Shiloh. Sara Shiloh. Four possible names. No, six, I realized. Naomi told me that Sara spelled her first name without the h. But one thing I’d learned in doing routine investigative work was to always account for clerical errors, especially common misspellings of variant names. Michele and Michelle. Jon and John. If I asked Vang for this favor, I’d have to include Sarah Goldman and Sarah Shiloh as possible names. Vang’s list might stretch into the hundreds of listings. Even a thousand.
Some of those women I’d actually reach the first time. But I’d also end up leaving dozens of messages on machines and in voice mailboxes, then I’d be stuck by a phone in a cheap motel room somewhere, waiting for return calls.
There was even a possibility that Sinclair’s phone wasn’t listed under her name but her husband’s, whose first name I didn’t even know. Something with a D, Bill Shiloh had said.
There had to be a better way than going through official data banks.
When people aren’t crooks, and aren’t hiding, there are a couple of easy ways to find them. Through their profession is one way.
Sinclair was a poet. She didn’t seem to be well known, if there was such a thing as a well-known poet other than the rare few called on to read at presidential inaugurations. But even so, she was a semipublic person. Her name, Sinclair Goldman, was her brand. She wasn’t likely to have changed it, even if she’d broken up with her husband.
Through an entryway off to my left I could see into another room, full of computers. They were Web stations. I picked up my piece of scratch paper and crossed to the doorway.
Every station was occupied. Nearby, a sign advised, Please sign up for Internet time. Half hour while others are waiting. A clipboard hung below.
Almost all the users seemed to be high-school students. Did the schools release them to do library research on their own? Did they cut school to go on the Internet? I’d been no stranger to cutting school as a kid, but never to go to a library.
The youngest user was perhaps 15. He was looking at pictures of muscle cars.
“Excuse me,” I said. I held up my Hennepin County badge. “This is police business.”
His eyes widened a little and he got up, reaching for a backpack next to the seat.
“Don’t move your stuff,” I said. “This probably won’t take long.”
I slid into the warm seat and typed the address of a meta-search engine Shiloh favored into the window of the browser. When the portal came up, I typed “Sinclair Goldman” into the search field.
It drew two hits. One was the site for Last Light Press; that was promising. The other one was of more interest. It was the site of Bale College.
Clicking through, I learned that Sinclair Goldman was on the Bale faculty for the current semester. Sinclair Goldman was a lecturer, Creative Writing 230. Practice of Poetry. My heart felt a little lighter, like it always did when a trail was getting warmer.
Further mouse-clicking told me her class met today, but too late for me to catch her there unless Bale was somewhere in northern Utah. It wasn’t. The ‘Getting Here’ page showed a star on a map a bit south of Santa Fe, New Mexico.
“Just another minute,” I told the waiting kid as I clicked on “Contact Us” and reached for the library’s supply of scratch paper and a little half pencil.
I called from a quiet phone near the library’s rest rooms, and the operator switched me through to the literature department.
“This is Detective Sarah Pribek,” I told the young man who answered the phone. “I’m trying to get in touch with Sinclair Goldman. I know she’s deaf,” I put in quickly. Already I’d heard him draw in his breath to explain that to me. “But I have to get in touch with her today. It’s police business.”
“She’s on campus right now. She has a poetry seminar from two to four.” He had a pale, hollow voice and a student’s accent. Apropos of very little, I imagined him. About 20, with very short hair dyed white-blond from some more mundane color.
“I’m in Utah,” I said. “I’m coming to Santa Fe, but not that fast.”
“We’re not in Santa Fe. We’re-”
“I don’t need directions. I just need to know where I can get in touch with Sinclair Goldman after she leaves campus. A phone number or an address.”
Predictably, he balked. “We can’t give addresses out.”
I’d expected as much, and I couldn’t press the issue. I was on the phone. He was right not to give out her information on my word that I was a police officer.
“A phone number, then,” I said.
He sounded incredulous. “I really don’t think she has a phone. Ms. Goldman is hearing-impaired.”
“I know that, but-”
“I can tell you she has office hours here on Tuesday from-”
Goddammit. “Look, I’m a sheriff’s detective from Minnesota. I’m not coming to New Mexico to talk to her about a term paper, and I can’t wait until Tuesday. Will you please check for a phone number?”
A beat of silence. “Please hold.”
He came back a minute later. “I have a number,” he said, sounding surprised. He read it. “The thing is, there’s a name in parentheses next to it. Ligieia Moore. Does that mean anything to you?”
“Thanks,” I said. “I appreciate your help.”
Ignoring his question, I broke the connection with my index finger and waited before dialing again.
Sinclair was in class right now, so was anyone e
ven at home? Maybe D. Goldman, husband. Or Ligieia Moore, whoever she was. Maybe this number was some kind of contact. An assistant? Her editor, even?
The phone rang four times and someone picked up. “Hello?” It was a light, feminine voice.
“My name is Detective Sarah Pribek, and I’m trying to reach Sinclair Goldman. Who am I talking to?”
“This is Ligieia,” she said. “Sinclair isn’t here. Did you say you were a police officer?”
“I’m a sheriff’s detective from Hennepin County, Minne-sota,” I said. “I need to talk to Ms. Goldman as part of an investigation. I called Bale College, and this is the number they gave me for her. Is there a better one I should have called?”
“No,” Ligieia said. “This is the right number. Do you sign?”
“No,” I said. “I’m afraid I don’t. You’re saying if I want to talk to her, I’ll need a translator.”
“Yes. I translate for Sinclair, usually. In her classes, and I read her poetry at the slams. If you want to set something up, a meeting, it’d be easiest to do it through me. I’ll talk to her when she gets home.”
“Might her husband be able to translate for us?” I suggested.
“Sinclair isn’t married,” Ligieia said.
“She got divorced, then,” I said.
Ligieia paused, processing the fact that I knew a little bit, at least, about Sinclair. “Yes,” she said. “I’m going to need to tell her what this is about.” Her voice lifted a little, prompting me.
I wished hard that I knew sign language. Already, it was unpleasant going through an intermediary I didn’t even know, and it would probably be more intrusive when I was face-to-face with Sinclair. “Like I said, I’m a detective with the Hennepin County Sheriff’s Department. But my married name is Shiloh,” I said.
“Oh,” Ligieia said, surprised. She recognized the name.
“I’m also Sinclair’s sister-in-law. Her brother Michael, my husband, is missing. So it’s police business and it’s family business, too.”
“Oh, wow,” Ligieia said. The phrase made her voice sound yet younger. “Okay. Are you in town? Or up in Santa Fe?”
“I will be, as soon as I can get a flight. I’d like to talk to Sinclair tonight,” I said.
“Well,” Ligieia said, “I’ll have to talk to her before we can set anything up. Can I give you a call back?”
“I don’t have a number where I can be reached,” I said. “It’ll really be better if we can set something up now, and you can tell me how to get to her place.” I was pushing.
“Really, I can’t do that,” Ligieia said. “I’m her housemate, and I translate for her sometimes, but that’s all. She’s completely independent. I’m not like an aide for the disabled.”
“I understand,” I said.
“She might be okay with meeting at the house, but she might feel more comfortable meeting on campus, or someplace in town,” she said.
“Let me call you when I get into Santa Fe,” I said, capitulating.
“That sounds good.”
“Listen,” I said, curious, “if you translate for Sinclair in her classes… isn’t she holding a class now?”
“Right,” Ligieia said. “But Bale teaches sign through their language department. Sinclair agreed to let one of the honor students translate for her today, as an assignment. So I got some time off to study.”
“Are you studying sign language?”
“No, creative writing. I write poetry. But I had a deaf boyfriend all through high school, and that’s how I learned to sign.”
A group of noisy schoolchildren walked by the pay phones on their way into the library. I stuck a finger in my ear and turned away from them.
“Look, I hope I didn’t make Sinclair sound standoffish earlier,” Ligieia went on. “She’s a really amazing person. I’m sure she’ll be pleased to meet you.”
I was going to have to make excellent time if I hoped to speak to Sinclair Goldman this same night, and I pushed my rental car up to seventy-five on the highway out of town. But nearly as quickly, I had to slam on the brakes at a traffic signal. The light was green, which was why I very nearly shot into the intersection and into a long black sedan. As I skidded to a halt partway into the crosswalk, I saw that the sedan was one of many like it, moving in a slow and sober chain. I looked to the left, the front of the procession. The very first car was a hearse, rolling through a wide stone gate behind which a narrow road wound through well-tended emerald lawns.
I hoped it was not a young person they were burying.
The mortuary where Kamareia’s arrangements had been made clearly had overcompensated for the cold snap we’d been having; the interior nearly glowed with heat. Furthermore, my funeral dress-the one I bought and last wore when my father died-was wool, appropriate for wintertime. As Genevieve’s family and friends trickled in and the room filled, I felt uncomfortably warm and wished I could slip away.
Shiloh was across the room in his dark going-to-court suit. I had taken a personal day to be with Genevieve and the family members who were staying in her house, to help her through the viewing, service, and burial. Shiloh had arranged a split shift so he could be here now, for the viewing.
That was a figure of speech in this case. The mortician could only do so much with a face battered like Kamareia’s had been; the casket at the front of the room was expensive, gleaming, and closed. I stared at it a moment too long, then turned my gaze to the arriving mourners.
One of them arrested my attention immediately.
I’d heard Genevieve talk from time to time about her brief marriage. She was working-class white Catholic from the urban North; he’d been born black in rural Georgia and was raised in the First African Baptist Church. When those differences doomed their marriage, he’d gone on to Harlem, then finally to Europe as a corporate lawyer, while she’d stayed to be a cop in the Cities that had been her family’s home for several generations.
I’d never seen a picture of Vincent, but Genevieve described him to me once, early in our friendship. So when I saw him, there was really no reason for me to think, Who the hell is that? but I did, and then of course I realized.
It was my habit to categorize people I saw as the athletes they might have been in high school: linebacker, cross-country runner, swimmer, point guard. That wasn’t possible with this man. Vincent Brown was six-foot-four and he had a powerful physical presence that was impossible to characterize. He was power all over, in a rich man’s monochromatic suit, with something Aztec about his cheekbones and hawklike in his profile. His dark gaze reminded me not at all of Kamareia’s light-hazel, wide-set eyes. It was difficult to imagine him as the father of that lighthearted, gentle girl, and equally difficult to envision him as Genevieve’s husband, the two of them making a home together.
Vincent saw who he was looking for: Genevieve, among her family. He went to her side, and her brothers and sisters moved aside slightly at his approach. Genevieve raised her eyes to him, and Vincent kissed her. Not on the cheek or even the forehead, but on the top of her head, and he closed his eyes as he did it, a gesture of immeasurable tenderness.
Suddenly I saw what I hadn’t been able to only seconds earlier: kinship. Belonging, despite everything that seems to argue against it.
Vincent spoke to Genevieve, and she to him. He turned and looked at me, and I realized I was being discussed. Caught staring, I glanced away, but already Vincent was moving toward me, so I turned back to acknowledge him.
“Sarah,” he said.
“Vincent?” It was half a greeting, half a question. He didn’t exactly shake my hand, but took it and held it a moment.
“You were with Kamareia, weren’t you?” he asked. “On the way to the hospital?”
“Yes.”
“Thank you,” he said.
At the Salt Lake City airport I found a flight to Albuquerque that I could be a standby on. I laid down my credit card and bought a ticket.
If Shiloh’s various statements-bank, phon
e, credit card-had shown no suspicious activity, I was leaving a paper trail that a child could follow: long-distance calls on my card, paperwork at a rental-car agency, plane tickets on the American Express.
But my name was not called, and I was left standing to watch the boarding agent close the door to the jetway. Behind the counter, the little red lights spelling out “Flt. 519-Albuquerque-3:25” went dead.
The 4:40 flight was more sparsely loaded. Our flight time was one hour, twenty minutes. At least, it should have been. As we neared the Albuquerque area, the pilot made an announcement.
“They’re experiencing some delays in Albuquerque due to some heavy low cloud and rain there. We’re not going to reroute; we expect to get you on the ground and on your way before too long, but we will be spending a little while in a holding pattern, waiting for clearance. Sorry for the inconvenience.” The pilot’s voice turned warm and avuncular. “Speaking of the weather, folks, you may want to factor in a little extra time for your ground travel this evening, due to the conditions. We like to see you stay safe so you’ll be back to fly with us again.”
I rested my head against the edge of the little porthole of the window, and listened to the impatient rhythm of my own heart.
The later I was, the more likely it was that Sinclair and Ligieia would put me off until tomorrow morning, probably for a meeting somewhere in town.
I didn’t want to meet Sinclair in a café or diner. If I had to speak to Shiloh’s closest sibling through a translator, at least I didn’t want to do it in a busy public place that wasn’t going to lend itself to a lengthy and comfortable conversation.
The surroundings in which Naomi Wilson and I had talked were ideal. In her own home, we’d had privacy and we’d had time to let the conversation go where it needed to. It probably wasn’t going to be possible to re-create that with Sinclair, no matter what. But I wanted to go to her house, and it wasn’t just so we’d have time and privacy to talk.
All of us have that one place we’d go if our lives fell apart. My conversation with his brother suggested that Shiloh’s place might be wherever his sister Sinclair lived.