Somebody I Used to Know

by David Bell

  But when I climbed out of the car and walked down the row to plot number three, I saw that someone did remember. Someone did visit. On her grave sat a bouquet of fresh flowers. And not just any flowers. Lily of the valley—Marissa’s favorite.

  Someone who knew her very well had put them there—and in the last couple of days.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  I called Laurel, and she told me to go back to the hotel alone, assuring me that one of the Hanfort police officers she had met could give her a ride if she needed one.

  “Rest,” she said. “Watch pay-per-view or something.”

  “You want me to watch porn?”

  “It’s not all porn,” she said. “I’ll see you in a little bit.”

  The thought of going back to the room alone made me feel a little depressed. The whole town of Hanfort made me feel depressed. It seemed small and cramped, full of fading memories and aging people. I felt like the longer I stayed, the greater the chance I would disappear into the past forever as well.

  And I didn’t want to sit around and wonder about those damn flowers.

  But then Roger Kirby called.

  I answered while I drove.

  “I understand you wanted to talk to me about your company, Mr. Hansen.”

  I didn’t want to lie anymore. Coming up with the story on the spot was lie enough for me. “Okay, that’s not really true, Mr. Kirby. My interest is purely personal.”

  A long pause followed. I could hear his caution seeping through the phone line. “Personal?” he said, as though he were speaking a foreign word.

  “I wanted to talk to you about the Minor family. I’m an old friend of theirs. A friend of Marissa’s, really. She and I dated in college. Maybe you remember me? We even met a couple of times.”

  He didn’t say if he remembered me. Instead he asked, his voice turning gruff, “What about them?”

  “Can I come by your office?” I asked. “I’ve talked to some other people, and I just wanted your thoughts. It would be easier—”

  “That was all a long time ago,” he said. “I don’t think I can help you with anything.”

  And then he hung up.

  But I wasn’t finished with Roger Kirby. Or he wasn’t finished with me. I parked at the hotel and went back to the room, stopping for a free newspaper on the way. Before I could get my key card in the lock, my phone rang again. I recognized the number as belonging to Roger Kirby.

  “You say you’ve talked to some other people?” he asked.

  “I spoke with Loretta Stieger. I knew her pretty well when Marissa and I were dating. She recommended I speak to you.”

  I heard a quick breath through the line, almost like a snort.

  “Do you live here?” he asked.

  “I’m visiting. I can come to your office.”

  “Where are you? A hotel?”

  “Yes,” I told him, explaining which one and where.

  “I know it,” he said, his words coming out like shots from a nail gun. “I’ll meet you there in fifteen minutes.”

  * * *

  Roger Kirby might have been seventy-five years old, but he looked like he was ready to run a marathon. Trim. Fit. Tanned. Athletic. He shook my hand with a grip like a blacksmith’s. I met him in the lobby of the hotel, and when I invited him to sit, he took a look around the space. A clerk stood at the front desk, punching things into a computer, and two businessmen sat in the corner, exchanging few words, their laptops open before them.

  “Would you like to talk in my room?” I asked.

  “I think that would be best.”

  I led him there. He was taller than me, and his clothes were neatly pressed. He didn’t wear a coat of any kind despite the cooling weather, and he offered no small talk as we walked down the narrow, hushed hallway. I let us into the room. The curtains remained drawn, and I offered to get Mr. Kirby a glass of water, but he declined by making a dismissive gesture with his hand. We sat by a small round table near the door, he on one side and me on the other. He wore an impatient look, as though I was about to ask to borrow money.

  He didn’t speak. The first move was apparently up to me.

  “I’m trying to find out some things about the Minors. Specifically what might have led them to move away and start over in such a way that they left no trace of themselves anywhere over the years.”

  “Their daughter died.” He looked at me like I didn’t get it. “Didn’t you say you dated her?”

  “I know that’s why they moved away. And, yes, I dated Marissa right up . . . almost right up until the time she died.”

  Roger Kirby studied me. His nose was long and thin, almost beaklike. He looked like an eagle examining his prey. “I think I do remember you,” he said. “Weren’t you studying music or something like that?”

  “Philosophy.”

  He grunted. “You should know what a loss that was for the family.” He looked away. “I went through it with them, tried to comfort them. They were wiped out. Just devastated.”

  “Yes, I know.” I expected sympathy, but he turned back to me and held me with the same cold gaze. “Did you stay in contact with them over the years? What were they doing?”

  “Not really. We lost touch. Brent and I were business partners, friends even. But they seemed to want to put this life behind them after Marissa died. I respected that.”

  “Marissa dropped out of school right before she died, and Jade told the school she wouldn’t be coming in the fall,” I said. “They both cited financial problems as the reason for not attending, but Jade had a full scholarship. If they were having financial problems, wouldn’t she have taken the scholarship?” I studied him, hoping to see some understanding or help. “Do you know if they were having trouble like that?”

  Roger pointed at me. “Did you say you spoke to Loretta Stieger?”

  “I did.”

  “And who else?”

  “Loretta gave me names, but they didn’t help. So just Loretta. Why? Is something wrong?”

  “I don’t know why those girls would say those things about money,” Roger said, “but I make it a point not to pry into a person’s personal business. Maybe Brent grew careless with his finances, but it’s not something I knew about.”

  “Would you find it hard to believe he would have money problems?”

  “I do.” He looked and sounded certain.

  “So they lied? Both of them told the same lie?”

  “I have three daughters. If you can figure them out for me, let me know.” He adjusted his wedding band. “Maybe they wanted to embarrass their father, undermine him in some way. Kids try that stuff sometimes. Do you have children?”

  “No.”

  He gave me more of an appraisal from the corner of his eye, judging me for my lack of offspring. That, coupled with my college major, made me suspect in his eyes. “Hanfort is a small town. People talk. They talk really easily. You may have thought you were just having a polite chat with an old lady at Loretta Stieger’s house, but I guarantee you people will hear about it. That stuff’s twenty years in the past, so why bring it up now? Let the dead rest with the dead.”

  “So you know Joan and Brent Minor are dead?” I asked.

  He nodded. “Sure, I heard.”

  “Did you go to the funerals? Did you—”

  “I didn’t go,” he said. “Like I said, it’s over. All over. What do you hope to accomplish by stirring all of this up again? Are you doing this to satisfy some schoolboy fantasy you have about Marissa? Haven’t you grown up and moved on like everybody else?”

  I shifted in my seat. He clearly wanted to play the stern father and cast me in the role of the raggedy prodigal son. But I wasn’t going to let him. Twenty years had passed. I wasn’t a kid anymore.

  “It affects my life, so I have the right to know,” I said. “It’s my past.
I can ask questions. If you don’t want to answer them or you don’t know the answers, that’s fine too. But you can’t tell me I don’t have the right to ask. I do.”

  He stood up suddenly and shoved the chair back under the table. “I don’t think that’s a good idea. I think part of adulthood is accepting the past and moving on. Just . . .” He stood still for a moment. “Just move on like the rest of us.”

  “This is part of moving on. And I’m a suspect in a young girl’s death. I need to know certain things, or I’m in trouble.”

  “A suspect?” He looked me over carefully, as though I had transformed into something ugly right before his eyes. “Marissa’s death, all of that, it hurt a lot of people. Don’t dredge it up. Let it heal.”

  He didn’t offer to shake my hand or say good-bye. Instead, he took two long strides to the door, and then he was gone.

  * * *

  I sat for a few minutes, staring at the tabletop. I told myself: You’re not just picking a scab. There were real questions that needed to be answered, whether they had to do with Marissa or Emily Russell or both.

  I could worry later about how much I’d moved on: Living in the same town where I went to school. Where I met Marissa. Where she died.

  Before I could think about it anymore, someone knocked.

  I was up quickly. I thought it was Roger Kirby, coming back to dispense more fatherly advice, or else to apologize, even though I suspected men like Roger Kirby didn’t ever apologize. They never felt they needed to.

  Instead I found Laurel outside the door, a slightly puzzled look on her face.

  “What’s wrong, stranger?” I asked.

  She walked past me into the room. She didn’t speak. She didn’t sit down.

  “Did something happen?” I asked.

  “I just passed a man in the lobby,” she said. “An older man.”

  “Tall?” I asked. “Gray hair? Looked like he just stepped out of an ad for a vibrant and active retirement?”

  “I know him,” she said.

  “That’s Roger Kirby,” I said. “Brent Minor’s former business partner.”

  Laurel looked at me for a long moment. She seemed to be working up to speaking.

  “And?” I said.

  “That’s the man I saw with Marissa on the night she died.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  I threw open the door and ran down the hallway, my feet thudding on the thin carpet.

  When I reached the lobby I almost collided with one of the businessmen I had seen earlier. I skidded to a stop inches from making contact with him, and the man opened his eyes wide as though he had just come face-to-face with a crazy person.

  “Sorry!” I said.

  I went around him and out through the automatic doors at the front of the hotel, emerging into the cool air, turning my head from side to side, scanning and searching. One car drove off on the far side of the lot, and I turned to the left, where I saw Roger Kirby closing his door and starting his engine. I ran in that direction, but by the time I’d navigated the rows of parked cars, he had backed out of his space and was driving away. I waved my arms and called his name, but he didn’t stop.

  I would have gone after him right then, but I patted my pants pockets and realized I didn’t have my keys. I turned and jogged back to the room, slightly out of breath, my lungs burning a little with the burst of exertion. Laurel waited for me in the doorway of the room.

  “We have to go after him,” I said.

  “Do you know where his office is?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you have his number?” she asked, her voice and demeanor calm.

  I was still breathing hard, so I nodded.

  “What did he have to say to you?” she asked.

  I grabbed a glass and filled it with water, swallowing as my breathing slowed. “He knows something,” I said.

  “What did he tell you?”

  “Nothing, really.” I gulped more water, still standing as the adrenaline subsided. “He tried to shut me up. He told me to quit asking questions and let the dead rest in peace.”

  “He said that?” she asked, her face wrinkling.

  “Yes.”

  “We can talk to him soon,” she said.

  “Now,” I said. “We’re going now.” I grabbed my keys.

  “You need to hear what I have to say first.” Laurel took my empty glass to the bathroom, refilled it, and brought it back, handing it to me. “Relax.”

  “How can I?”

  I gulped that glass of water too, and Laurel sat, in the same chair Roger Kirby had sat in just minutes before. Nervous energy kept me standing.

  “What does it mean, Laurel?” I asked as she calmly took out her notebook and phone. “He was there with her the night she died. And you say they seemed involved. That’s the word you used. Involved. She had an affair with Roger Kirby, right? That’s why he doesn’t want me asking questions.”

  “These are all maybes,” she said, looking up, reading glasses perched on the end of her nose.

  “He was with her the night she died. Right before she died. He must know what was going on.” I walked around the room in a circle, my breathing almost normal by that point. “Let’s go find him.”

  But Laurel showed no signs of budging. She had her notebook out, reading something in it with her brow furrowed. “Do you know a guy named Blake Brown?”

  “No,” I said. “Should I? Wait. Blake Brown. You mean Marissa’s ex-boyfriend? I never met him, but she talked about him.”

  “Let me tell you about him.”

  “We have to do this now?”

  “It’s relevant. Listen.” She studied the notebook a little bit longer. “What did Marissa ever tell you about him?”

  “Too much. She lost her virginity to him. They dated for over a year, I guess, junior and senior year of high school. When they broke up, when she broke up with him, he went a little nutty. He started coming over to their house without calling. Sending flowers and gifts to try to win her back.” I stretched my memory back through the fog of my young man’s jealousy. “She told me that once, after they broke up, he even came over in the middle of the night and threw pebbles at her window. Apparently, he used to do that when they wanted to sneak out and fool around. But that time he stood in the yard and begged her to take him back. He said he couldn’t live without her, that if she didn’t get back together with him, he’d hurt himself.”

  “Did he?”

  “I don’t think so. Her family told the police. Or maybe a shrink at school. I thought it all blew over. She still had pictures of him in her dorm room freshman year.”

  “I remember that. He was a really good-looking guy.”

  “Thanks.”

  “I just mean he looked normal. Not like a stalker or a nutcase.”

  “Can you tell that easily?”

  “With some people, yes, you can.”

  “Holy shit,” I said. “Now I know where they came from.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “The flowers,” I said. “I went to the cemetery today, while I was waiting for you. There were flowers on Marissa’s grave, fresh flowers. Her favorite kind, too. Lily of the valley. He put them there. Roger Kirby. He knows her favorite flower and still visits her grave.” I wanted to throw my water glass against the wall, to shatter it into a million pieces. “And then he came over here and tried to throw me off the trail.”

  “I need you to listen to what I have to say, Nick.”

  “What does it matter?” I asked. “Did you really find something important?”

  “I did,” she said, trying to focus me. “Just listen. Kirby isn’t going anywhere. He’s been in this town for seventy years. We know where he works. I went to the library first today. I looked through the microfilm from the local paper for the dates around Mari
ssa’s death. You know, a month or so before. A few weeks after. It’s a small-town paper, so it wasn’t hard to wade through. I was just looking for anything that stood out as unusual. Anything.”

  “And?”

  “People always say small towns are safe places where not much happens. That’s just not true. Even a town like Hanfort had a lot going on twenty years ago. A couple of drug busts. A homicide—a brother shooting his sister over control of the TV remote. A hit-and-run accident that killed a little kid. Driver didn’t stop. Miscellaneous assaults and fights. The works.”

  “Small towns have their problems too,” I said.

  “They sure do,” she said. “But none of those problems had anything about Marissa.”

  She reached out and placed her hand on a small stack of papers to her right. It looked like she was guarding them from a strong wind.

  “What’s that stuff?” I asked.

  “I didn’t know if I was going to show them to you. Or if you’d want to see them. But they’re news articles about Marissa’s death, as well as the other things going on in the town at that time. I printed them off for you, but if you don’t want to look, I can get rid of them. Maybe it’s a bad idea.”

  “No,” I said, truly curious. “I’ll look at them. Later.”

  Laurel nodded. “Maybe you’ll want to be alone.”

  “Was there anything else you uncovered?” I asked.

  “Not really.” She tapped her finger on the tabletop. “Except they didn’t solve this hit-and-run. At least not in the couple of weeks after the accident that I looked at.”

  “What could that have to do with Marissa?”

  “I don’t know. And they probably solved it later. The cops I talked to didn’t remember the case. But there was a witness back then. An elderly woman saw the whole thing happen. She said it was a dark-haired man driving the car that hit the child.”