by Anne McAneny
“So how about now?” she said when finished. “Open mind?”
“No. But there are enough solid things going on for me to get involved. I don’t even need the foretelling stuff, although it is interesting. I remember that chemical leak. Got a ton of bad publicity for a couple days, then Golden must’ve hired some expensive lawyers because they got everybody to shut up. And they must’ve bribed the reporters to debunk the foretellers so no one would have a legitimate claim against the company.”
“And those who did would be too ashamed to come forward,” Zoey added. “Like my mother. They would have made her look like a loon.”
“But you definitely believe that the chemicals caused her foretelling ability?” Farnham said.
“Do you?”
“Doesn’t matter what I believe. What I do know is that we got one guy breaking in here, another guy—your Jake fella—who’s been incommunicado and doesn’t particularly want this baby. We got a college stalker who’s resurfacing out of nowhere, and a rapist who might find it to his advantage if you disappeared. Whether all this converges on a riverbank in Timbuktu or on a mountaintop in Tibet doesn’t make a bit of difference to me.”
Zoey reached out and put her hand over Farnham’s. She noticed that while he didn’t outright blush, he experienced something that made him darken half a shade and lower his eyes. “Thank you, Farnham. You’re a good guy.”
“Listen, Zoey, there’s a reason I came here tonight.”
“Not just to chase crazies from my door?” she said, gently removing her hand.
“I have an update on Corbin Black.” Farnham scrunched his brows down and an overwhelming amount of deep lines creased his face. “He’s headed this way, or may already be here.”
Zoey steeled herself. She knew this news would come, just not so soon.
“Last we know, he rented a car—today—and headed north.”
“Seriously? Same as me. But your guy is following him, right?”
Farnham’s half-blush turned to shame and fury. “My guy lost him in D.C. He thinks Black might’ve caught on. Ended up weaving all through the city.”
“Farnham, it’s okay. He wasn’t your responsibility.”
“I at least called in the rental plates to the Maryland and Delaware state troopers, with a bit of an embellished story. That’s the sad part, isn’t it? I had to make something up to get a half-assed APB put out on this guy because, legally, he’s done nothing wrong.”
“Murder and rape acceptable these days?”
“He’s a free citizen with no convictions. But in my book—and now, in my city—there’s no reason we can’t harass him and let him know we’re onto him.”
“Any word from Maryland or Delaware?”
“Unfortunately, yes. They found his rental car in Baltimore, but no Black. Good thing is, no cars in the area reported stolen, and no new car rented under his fake ID, so he might be hunkering down in Baltimore for a while. They’ll keep me posted.”
“At least no sign of him in Philly.”
“Not yet.”
Zoey hated the implications of the comment. “Would you like some tea, Detective?”
“No thanks, but you go ahead.”
He followed her into the kitchen. She put on the kettle, then scanned her tea selection, settling on an herbal peach/hibiscus blend. She leaned back against the counter and dangled the teabag like a hypnotist while Farnham struggled to make his large frame comfortable in the flimsy kitchen chairs Zoey rarely occupied. He settled on a sideways position, his back to the wall.
“You realize Corbin Black would fit all the criteria of your mother’s foretelling, don’t you?”
“Yes,” Zoey said. “Making me the child, right?”
He nodded. “If you’re only suspicious of Jake because of the child comment in the foretelling, maybe you can feel better about him. Corbin Black seems the more likely suspect.”
The kettle whistled. Zoey poured the hot water into the mug and sat down at the small table. She stared at the wall behind Farnham but seemed to be looking beyond it. Several quiet moments passed while the tea steeped, filling the air between them with a heady aroma. Slowly, Zoey shifted her head to Farnham, a melancholy aura now presiding over the kitchen.
“Tell me, Farnham, how is a person supposed to love, suspect, fear, and feel protective of another person all at the same time? How does that possibly mesh?”
Farnham adopted a knowing but weary look, like an old wizard accustomed to simple mortal queries. “That’s easy. We never feel just one way about anything or anybody. Most of us mesh a lot more than four emotions about the people in our lives. Especially the ones we care about most.”
Zoey suddenly realized she knew very little about this man next to her: his baggage, his victories, his loves, his losses. “Tell me about you, Farnham.”
He gave a small chortle. “Not much to know.”
“You married?”
“Was. She’s in Jersey now, married to a consultant, but don’t ask me what he consults about. All’s I know is that her new husband doesn’t have bullets whizzing past his head on a weekly basis, and she doesn’t worry every time the phone rings anymore. We get along all right. She’s happy. I’m not unhappy.”
“Kids?”
“Two boys. One in the Navy, one who owns a skateboard shop and has tattoos up and down his arms. Both good kids.”
The personal revelation made Zoey smile, maybe because it seemed odd to think of Farnham as a skater dude’s dad. “What about you?” she said. “You like what you do?”
He came close to grinning. “I do today.”
The corners of Zoey’s eyes and mouth lifted in appreciation.
“I’ll tell you what,” Farnham said, “when this is all over, we’ll have a long talk and I’ll prove to you that there ain’t much of interest to know about me.”
“I doubt that very much. And, it’s a deal.” Zoey felt a small surge of relief at Farnham’s mention of this ordeal being over, and that she’d be around to enjoy the aftermath. She sipped her tea as her cell phone rang.
“Go ahead and take it,” Farnham said. “Might be destiny calling.”
Zoey shot him a mildly reproachful glare that neither of them took seriously. Then she grabbed her phone and looked at the display. “It’s my mom’s friend, Bernadette. The one I gave a copy of the foretelling to.” She answered. After a few pleasantries, she listened carefully, then went to her purse, retrieved a scrap of paper, and read a phone number aloud number before hanging up.
“You got intense over there for a minute,” Farnham said. “I imagine it’s what you’re like on a dig: challenged, energized, with an acute focus.”
Zoey smiled. “The way I feel on a dig always lets me know I chose the right profession. At least I got one thing right in life.”
“Our professions aren’t so different,” Farnham said. “I’m sure there are times you feel like a puzzle worker who’s reached an impasse, and the only choice left is to scrap everything you’ve done or employ dogged perseverance.”
“I have no doubt which one you choose, Farnham.”
“What was that call about? Anything I need to know?”
“Bernadette thinks that Dora Santorini, my nanny who wrote the foretelling, might have gotten something wrong.”
Farnham looked surprised. “I thought Dora was one of the few who could understand your mother.”
“She was, but Bernadette thinks my mother’s description of the opal ring might have been a mistake. She wants to talk to Dora about it. That’s whose number I gave her. She also said she thinks there’s something off about the whole foretelling but she can’t quite put her finger on it.”
“That’s helpful,” Farnham said sarcastically. “Could be good news, I guess. Maybe she thinks your mom got the whole thing wrong, in which case, you won’t be swimming with the fishes anytime soon.”
Zoey cringed at the gangland vernacular. “She definitely didn’t think the foretelling was wrong
—she put a lot of stock in my mother’s skills—just that something was off.”
“Do you?” Farnham said.
“Do I what?”
“Do you put a lot of stock in your mom’s skills? In her foretellings?”
“They wouldn’t hold up in court, would they?”
“That’s not an answer,” Farnham said.
“Well, I think I’d be downright stupid not to give them credence at this point.”
“You’re harder to get a straight answer out of than the pimps who claim they’re running high-end escort services.”
Zoey smirked, but then smiled. “All right. She wins. I believe. But you have to admit a good lawyer could explain away everything, even the letter to Elena Baxter.”
Farnham frowned. “Yeah? I’d like to hear that one.”
Zoey squared her shoulders and rose to the challenge, her eyes narrowing as ideas filled her head. She got up and paced as she spoke. “Okay, take my mother’s letter to Elena Baxter. What if the rapist mentioned something to my mother during the attack? Maybe he’d been on the hunt for anyone named Elena Baxter. The same name as some third grade teacher who’d belittled him, or some demented babysitter who’d locked him in a closet. Maybe he even asked my mother if she was Elena Baxter, or he called her Elena Baxter during the attack.”
“Wouldn’t your mother have mentioned that in her letter to Ms. Baxter?”
“Not necessarily. My mother had blunt force trauma to the head, enough to cause a stroke later. She could have been delirious, hearing his words but not remembering in what context. That led her to imagine a scenario where a future Elena Baxter gets attacked—and then one does—but only because he was always searching for people named Elena Baxter. Black did strike my mom pretty hard”—Zoey stopped midsentence and gasped.
“What is it?” Farnham asked.
“He struck her with a knife.”
“Yeah, the pommel, like you said.”
“A knife. Same as my future attacker. Another point in the Corbin Black column.”
Farnham got up from his chair, the legs scraping against the tile floor. “Almost forgot, I have something for you.”
The lawyer game over, Zoey let her weight fall heavily back into the wobbly kitchen chair while Farnham grabbed his satchel and pulled out a small stack of papers. “The police report,” he said, laying the pages in front of her. “From Richmond. Everything they had on your mother’s attack.”
Zoey picked up the papers, leafing through them until she found a section that included large chunks of typed text. “Here it is,” she said, “the report from the female officer who first interviewed my mother, before my father arrived.” She read aloud. “Victim describes the assailant as medium height, Caucasian, about five-foot, nine inches tall, with dark eyes, coarse dark hair, a two-inch scar from the left corner of his lip and traveling up to his ear. His hands were rough and—”
Zoey flinched, horrified, unable to go on. Not only had Jake’s rough hands grazed her own bare skin a short time ago, but the only way her mother could have known about the texture of Black’s hands was through touch. The thought made her queasy.
Farnham seemed to know what had upset her. “You don’t have to read this, Zoey. I’ve been through it. I can give you the pertinent details.”
“No. Something that seems insignificant to others might mean something to me. It was just the thought of his—”
“I know. It’s never easy. Think how brave your mom was to come in and file that report. And to give such amazing details. You’ve got to remember—she survived this.”
Zoey looked pointedly at the detective, almost accusing him. “No. She didn’t.”
Farnham blinked slowly, then nodded in acknowledgement.
Zoey continued reading, more quietly now. “His hands were rough and his fingernails short. The victim is unable to describe the assailant’s clothes except to say he wore a dark shirt and long pants. Assailant came up behind Victim as she walked through Clover Park, on the east side of the fountain, during her regular evening stroll. He emerged from behind a tree, grabbed Victim from behind and put a large knife to her throat. He said, ‘Do as I say or I’ll kill you, you uppity whore.’ Victim struggled to free herself, sustaining a small laceration on her left cheek and several small cuts on her right hand. Assailant overpowered Victim and dragged her into a deserted corner of the park, behind a clump of shrubs under a large tree. Victim is unable at this point to say what type of tree it was but will show officers the tree after her statement.”
Detective Farnham watched Zoey blink back tears, then lift her head to the ceiling. A look of sad amusement crossed her face, similar to a widow being reminded of a husband’s loving quirk, a memory wonderful for its existence but still, only a memory. To Susan, trees were trees, as Bernadette had explained.
Zoey forced herself to continue. “Assailant then forced Victim to the ground at which point she struggled and succeeded in striking the assailant several times in the face and stomach with her fist. Assailant struck Victim hard with the handle of the knife, rendering Victim dazed. Victim’s recollection of the next several moments remains foggy, although Victim is unclear on whether or not she was truly unconscious—”
Zoey glanced up, a sharp look in her eyes, more reminiscent of the woman she’d been in court a year ago when Farnham had first seen her. “That must have been when she had the foretelling about Elena Baxter. She wouldn’t have dared mention that to the police or they would have thought she was crazy.” She returned quickly to the report. “As she regained consciousness, Victim remembers attacker saying, ‘Shut up. Just shut up. You need to know where you belong, sassin’ around this park like you own the place.’ Victim does not know why Assailant told her to shut up as she does not remember saying anything to him prior to his statements.”
Again, Zoey zeroed in on Farnham, almost excited. “She must have been saying things from the foretelling, out loud, while she was experiencing it. I think she used to do that. I don’t know how I know that, but I do.”
“What if she mentioned Elena Baxter’s name?” Farnham said.
Zoey cringed. “You mean, like she planted the name in Black’s head?”
“Exactly. Chicken and egg scenario.”
“Oh God, I hope not. One of Elena Baxter’s concerns—or accusations, rather--was that my mother caused the recent attack on her.”
With a spinning head, Zoey went on, reading faster now. “Assailant stood up and instructed her not to move for ten minutes after he departed. At that point, Victim remembers telling Assailant that he would never find happiness this way, and that no matter how many times he repeated this cycle, it wouldn’t bring him the acceptance he craved. He yelled at her to be quiet, but when she wouldn’t stop talking, he struck her on the head again, much harder the second time. Victim’s husband, Matthew Collette, interrupted our interview at this point, and the Victim refuses to speak with us further.”
Zoey frowned deeply. “He hit her twice, Farnham. My mother tried to help this man turn around his life, maybe spare his future victims, and what did she get for her trouble? Another clout on the head, probably the one that caused the lasting damage.”
Zoey knew she shouldn’t ask the inevitable what-if questions, but they flowed through her brain, anyway. What if the first strike to the head hadn’t caused the internal bleeding? What if her mother had remained silent? What if Matthew hadn’t taken Susan from the police station before they were done with her? What if her mother had lived?
She slammed the report to the table, causing her tea to splash over the rim of the mug and moisten the remaining report papers. She got up and slapped her palm—once and hard—onto the kitchen counter. Farnham pushed the papers out of harm’s way, and rose up to stand behind her, placing a strong, comforting hand on her shoulder.
“Your mom was a strong woman, Zoey. Very strong. She marched into that police station, right after this happened, and provided details. Even before she went to the
hospital. She didn’t hold back. I’ve seen traumatized victims. Do you know how mentally tough you have to be to verbalize an event like that? Trust me, you don’t hear reports like this very often. Your mother was good people. She even tried to help that degenerate, Black.”
Zoey’s anger transformed to soundless tears. She turned and cried into Farnham’s broad chest.
“Your mom deserves a lot of credit,” he said, holding her. “She turned this whole thing from a violent, sad tragedy, into something positive. And that was you. From everything her friends told you, and by her leaving you that foretelling, it’s obvious you meant more to her than anything in the world. She put a silver lining on a very dark cloud.” He gently pushed Zoey back so he could look her in the eyes. She stared up at him through her tears, eager to grasp any lifeline he was willing to toss. “We owe it to her to at least respect the foretelling, and to do all we can to keep you alive. Don’t you agree?”
Zoey sniffed and wiped her face with her sleeve. “Yes.” Her voice came out in a whisper but filled with determination.
“You and that baby, I should say.”
Zoey smiled and nodded.
“Then promise me you won’t do anything crazy. I don’t want you thinking your fate is written in stone. I’m a little more of a present-day guy and I don’t believe things happen until they actually do. In my world, outcomes aren’t determined until the last bullet is fired—and we haven’t even begun to fight.”
Zoey grabbed a tissue and wiped away all traces of her emotional outburst. “Okay, Farnham. I don’t think I can change this thing to the degree I could have if I’d moved to Australia and become a nun ten years ago, but I still have every moment from now until it plays out.”
Farnham nodded. “That’s my girl.” He gathered up the police report into a neat pile. “You want me to leave this with you?”
“Yes,” Zoey said, “I’d like to finish the rest later.”
“Listen,” Farnham said, “I’ve got to go. Got a call earlier about a lead on a murder case that hit a dead end weeks ago, but while you were walking Jake out, I took the liberty of calling for some protection. An officer should be outside your door by now. He’ll stay until the new locks are in.”