by Lissa Pelzer
‘Basically, I emailed the guy and explained that these are very special circumstances and asked him to ask her, Cassandra Stephenson, if she knew you.’ He waited a moment for a response but didn’t get one. ‘How exciting is that, to imagine that you might know a Hollywood star, that they might be the person who opens the door to all your memories?’
‘But you said that no one knew her at the place where I use to live.’
‘Yes, I did, but...’
‘So, why are you doing it? Is it like a vicarious thing? Do you want a reason to contact her, or do you think maybe I know her and I don’t know the people from the home?’
Bryan shifted in his seat. She was eighteen and he was in his forties, but something about the way she talked seemed to get him by the septum and drag him back to every hideous high school dance ever. Was that normal? Were all teenagers like that these days?
He shuffled his papers.
‘We’re still trying to get some of your old friends and staff down from the children’s home. And we’re looking into some animal therapy. Because you remember, you really loved their dog, Burger. Well, you don’t remember, but the woman up there did say, you loved that dog.’
No reaction. Bryan waited, aware that the fake smile on his face was starting to crack.
What had Karl, her therapist, called it, a psychological trauma, resulting in an emotional blockage, preventing her from remembering her past? He said that she would benefit from some psychoanalysis, hypnosis, that type of thing, that it might shake her connections back together.
Maybe it would help, who knew? But he couldn’t do anything about it. He was just the caseworker and had to use the traditional routes, contacting friends and family, making phone calls and writing letters.
‘So, that’s just a little of what we’ve got going on. Do you have any questions?’
Janine stretched out her arms. ‘When can I leave here?’ she asked.
‘As soon as your memory is complete enough for you to be able to look after yourself, we’ll move you to a supported living facility where you’ll be able to go about as you please, get a job, make friends, etcetera.’
‘And when can I leave there?’
‘We’ll know more about that further on.’
‘Bryan.’ She raised her eyebrows. ‘I want to leave here.’
He rubbed his eyes to avoid hers.
‘You said I had won a scholarship to go to school in California, that there was money for it too. So, why do I need to prove that I can get a job to look after myself? Surely, I can just go there, right? Then in a few months, when I’m back doing all my usual stuff, maybe my memories will come back.’
‘I know we talked before about the scholarship papers we found in your bag. But we spoke to you about that in the hope that it would help generate some emotions and speed up the chemical rebalance, not because we believed you would still be able to take up the offer this year.’
‘But if I got better, I could do it, right?’
‘If you got better...’ Bryan clenched his jaw. ‘In theory, you could. But I’m thinking from the university’s point of view because you’re recovering from a head trauma, that obviously changes a few things.’
‘Can I see the letter?’ she asked.
Bryan looked down at the file. There was a copy inside, but he didn’t want to show it to her. He wanted her to remember the letter before he gave it to her. To tell the truth, he was worried that at some point, Janine Kenny would be willing to pretend she remembered things just to get out of here. And considering how little they knew of her, she could probably do that.
Then the thought came to him. He wondered if in the next few moments, she would test his resolve and make him dive for the folder because she was moving very slowly forward.
‘You okay?’
She twisted her face away. ‘I know the letter,’ she said suddenly. ‘I’ve seen it before, the letter from the university.’
‘Yes, Janine? Do you remember the name of the college?’
‘You know what?’ She looked off dreamily. ‘I’ve seen it tacked up on a metal shelf somewhere, inside a boxcar. I was in a boxcar.’
‘A boxcar?’
‘Like a train up on a siding.’ She closed her eyes. ‘There’s an old couch in there with a white sheet over it. I was living there, I think. And I was writing.’
Bryan was on his feet. He was nodding and paddling with his hands trying to encourage her to keep talking. The scholarship was for a Fine Arts Bachelor Degree in Creative Writing, but he had never told Janine that.
‘I don’t know what I’m doing there, but I am looking in a mirror. I’m putting on makeup. It’s like I’m someone else, looking at me,’ she said.
‘Look at the letter, Janine. Describe it to me.’
She pressed her hands to her face. ‘There’s a gold seal in the lower right corner.’
‘Okay.’ Bryan remembered that seal too. It wouldn’t have been much of a guess to get that element right but he was willing to accept it. He reached for the file and took the photocopy out and held it to his chest.
‘And there’s a title in the middle of the page at the top,’ she said. ‘I can’t read the name, but I can see it. Two of the letters are linked together.’
Bryan took a big breath. The college was Antioch and O and C of the name were linked together. There was no way she could have guessed that unless she remembered it.
‘Here, Janine. Take a look.’
And he laid the letter down between them. The girl didn’t pick it up. She seemed to be lost in a trance.
‘That’s better than any confirmation call from Cassandra Stephenson. You remembered that, all on your own.’
‘I guess.’ She said.
‘Come on. Be proud of you!’
‘Okay. Does that mean I can go now?’
Davis
She got into the city, if you could call this place a city, at about twenty after seven and shortly after, drove into the lot of the Sleep Cozy Motel, from where the 911 call had originated. As she parked up, her phone beeped and she saw Marquez’s mobile number and pressed ignore. Kriegbaum must have told her department that she’d had left Ohio. Marquez would be wondering when he should expect her back in Florida. There would be counseling, retraining and pledging all over again and there would be paperwork, mountains of paperwork. But at least for now, as long as she could ignore Marquez, she could concentrate on locating Carol Ann.
Her hand went to the bag sitting on the passenger seat. It contained the only picture she’d managed to get of Ralph Adams. She’d seen his driver’s license photo for all of two seconds before hearing the chain flush. But online, she’d located a single, grainy thumbnail on his trucking company website. This showed a guy in a cap with shadow over his eyes and a full beard. It wasn’t much. But she had a name and a name usually started more conversations than a photo.
She turned off the engine and suddenly a memory of a news report playing fifteen years ago came to her unbidden.
“Cult leader, Thomas Cochrane fled the compound shortly before officers arrived. His whereabouts are unknown. He is considered dangerous and the police advise the public not to approach him.”
A name. Was a name really so valuable? The report was regarding their farmstead, recently raided, but the name Thomas Cochrane hadn’t meant a thing to her. Her husband was called Rane and it had taken her a minute to work out that Rane was just Cochrane without the Coch. How could you live with someone for two years without ever knowing his real name? But then, he’d always called her Buttercup. Davis shuddered at the thought.
She still worried occasionally that some freak from back then might sit down next to her in a restaurant, and call her by that name. That was one of the main reasons she avoided the tourist areas in South Beach whenever she was off duty, that and she’d been inside enough of their kitchens to know that those places should be sidestepped at all costs.
‘How long you planning on staying?’ the guy on rece
ption asked.
‘Two nights,’ she said, thinking that as soon as she got a look at those security cameras she’d noticed on the way in, and scoped out the place where Ralph Adams had been pulled over, she’d check out. She leaned her elbow up on the counter. ‘Where’s good to eat around here?’
‘There’s a Wendy’s on National, ten minutes west of here, a McDonalds just a way passed there.’
‘I mean, where do regular folk from around here hang out?’
‘Regular?’
‘You know.’ She forced a smile. ‘When you just want to sit back and relax, drink a few beers.’
He scratched at a patch of dermatitis on top of his head. ‘You can try Patchy’s. They’ve got sports.’ He rolled his eyes. ‘If you like sports, or if you’re looking for guys who like sports…’
‘There you go!’ She let him score his point. She was going to come back later and pretend to be drunk. Maybe if he thought she was up for some messing around, he’d let her come behind the desk and look at his security footage.
Davis took a stool up at the bar and ordered a mineral water, and a burger and fries in a basket. She checked the time, just after eight, took a sip of the water and let her eyes skim the other patrons.
Two tables of young guys in caps and flannels, a couple eating silently together, two beefy guys, a foursome of girls with Aquanet hair, and a couple of single guys at the bar, made up the whole the crowd. If she’d seen anyone who was obviously a cop she might have gone over and tried her luck, but this wasn’t a cop hang out. No one looked like they knew much about anything here and just then her phone rang and it was her daughter so she picked up.
‘How are you doing?’ her youngest asked. ‘You catch your bad guy yet?’
‘Getting closer every day.’
‘So that’s a - no?’
‘Sweetheart. You know, as soon as I have this taken care of, I’m going to be coming home and staying home for a while at least. So you just make life easy for your big sister and I’ll be home before you know it.’
‘You know, workaholicism is considered a disease. It’s not a joke. It’s an actual mental health issue.’
‘Thank you, honey.’ Davis turned her face away from the bar and made eye contact with a guy in a baggy gray t-shirt who had just sat down. He was about her age and not bad looking. She turned back in the other direction. ‘Give me a week, okay?’
‘A week? Seriously, Mom, I haven’t seen you in like a month! How about this, why don’t I just come out there?’
‘No, Honey. No.’
‘Maybe I could help.’
‘You can’t help. I know you want to but…’ She turned again. The guy in the gray t-shirt was still looking at her and she grimaced. ‘I have to go.’
‘Well, will you call me in the morning? You were meant to call me this afternoon.’
‘I will. I will.’
‘Because you didn’t today.’
‘I was driving.’
‘Right…’
Her daughter rang off sooner than Davis expected and it left her holding the phone away from her ear checking her connection.
‘Life on the road?’ the guy asked, with a bottle up to his mouth.
Her brain whirled for the right, open and neutral response. ‘You too?’
The guy got up off his stool. He gestured to the stool next to her. ‘May I?’
And Davis held out her hand.
‘Your…partner giving you a hard time?’
‘My daughter.’
‘Is that right?’ He took another sip. ‘I hope you don’t mind my coming over like this. It’s not a play or anything. I just thought that maybe you weren’t from around here and could do with some company.’
‘Well, that’s very kind of you.’ And she gave a nod. ‘I’m Susan.’
‘Bryan. So what are you doing out here, Susan? You on business?’
Davis smiled. He looked like a nice guy. It seemed a shame to mislead him, but that’s how it was. ‘I’m up here clearing out my friend’s house.’
‘Clearing out? You mean she passed?’
‘That’s right.’ She watched him looking up, searching his memory for news of anyone he knew in the area that had died recently. Obviously, he didn’t and politely refrained from asking who her friend was.
‘I’m sorry to hear it. A tough job.’
‘Sure is, but somebody’s got to do it.’
‘Are you drinking water?’
‘I’ve got work to do. I can’t afford to get fuzzy headed.’ Davis paused for a moment. ‘Hey,’ she said deciding to get it in early. ‘You don’t know a guy who comes through here sometimes, by the name of Ralph – Ralph Adams, do you? He drives a Freightliner.’
‘Can’t say I do. Who is he, a friend of your friend?’
‘Right.’
The guy shook his head. ‘It doesn’t ring any bells. That’s the problem with modern relationships, they’re not as out in the open as they use to be. And when things go wrong...’
And Davis watched as his eyes narrowed, as he thought something over.
‘Hey, can you keep a secret?’
Oh great. She felt the weight of a confessional coming on. His wife, would she be sick or cheating on him, or just not interested in sex anymore?
‘That depends,’ she said, ‘on the secret.’
He smiled. ‘I’m on a stakeout.’
The words resonated with her, but the way they were delivered was all wrong. He was no cop. Was he stalking someone?
‘See that boy over there,’ he said not waiting to be prompted and angled his forehead towards the four identical young men sitting around the center table.
‘Which one?’
‘The one closest to the bathroom door.’
‘Ah, you mean the one in a checked shirt and baseball cap?’
Now the guy laughed, but with the TV and the music blaring out from behind the bar, it wasn’t audible to anyone else. Davis looked from the guy at the bar to the kid at the table. The guy was staring at him intently, but she still wasn’t sure if it was a joke or not.
‘What’s he done?’ she asked out of the side of her mouth.
‘Well, if it’s him… if he’s the boy who came to see my client in hospital...’
‘You a lawyer?’ Now he really was stretching the line of believability.
‘No. I’m a social services caseworker.’
Davis waited for him to expand.
‘You see, I’ve got a vulnerable young woman on my books right now. She was in an auto accident. And a couple of weeks ago she got a visit from a mysterious friend. Except the more I think about it, the more it seems like it wasn’t an old friend, but this guy.’
Davis turned to look at the boy. ‘So you want to know what his relationship is to her, so why don’t you just ask her?’
The guy put a finger to the side of his head. ‘Amnesia.’
‘Real or fake?’
‘Oh very much real. Medically confirmed. And this young man in front of us, he’s the one who gave her amnesia.’ The guy leaned in conspiringly. ‘They were in an auto accident together.’
‘So, he does know her.’
‘She wasn’t in the car with him. He hit her when she was walking along the side of the road.’
Davis leaned against the low back of the stool. He’d piqued her interest. ‘But this is a small town,’ she said. ’All the kids must know each other. Maybe he just felt bad and wanted to see if she was okay.’
‘You know. I have the feeling there is more to it than that.’
Davis eyed her burger coming out of the kitchen and watched it cross the room. She doubted there was more to it than that, but knew how small town folk needed a little drama to keep them alive.
‘Do you mind if I go ahead and eat. I’m ravenous. I just drove over from Ohio and my doc says I need to be eating more regularly.’
‘Diabetes?’ he asked.
Davis took a bite of her burger. ‘Well, some sort of stomach pro
blems.’
The burger was good and she turned away back to the bar to rest her elbows there. In the mirror behind the bottles, she could still see the table of young men and could see the back of this guy’s head as he watched them. She could have given him some surveillance tips, but why get involved? She had her own case to work on. She’d ask the waitresses one time if they knew Adams and then probably head back and try to check out that security footage. Tomorrow, she’d go and interview anyone she could get her hands on at the fast-food places. But that was only three tasks in two whole days. An investigation rate like that wasn’t going to get her anywhere fast. Davis took another bite and then paused. This guy was the curious type. Maybe she should push the issue.
‘Bryan,’ she said and watched, as he looked back, surprised that she had remembered his name. ‘You remember hearing about a cop getting shot up in Ohio a few weeks back?’
‘No. Why?’
‘I thought it had something to do with down here.’
‘Patchy’s?’
‘Well, the general area.’
‘Not that I know of. What was the deal?’
Davis shrugged. ‘That was it. A girl shot a cop and I overheard she was spotted down here.’
‘Did the cop die?’ Bryan asked.
She felt this was an overtly aggressive thing to say, but realized, he didn’t know she was the cop. ‘Not that I know of.’ She took another bite and changed the subject. ‘Where are your thoughts going concerning that young man?’
Bryan straightened out his shoulders. ‘First off, why did he come to see her? I doubt it was guilt. I heard he’s claiming he didn’t hit her.’
‘Maybe he knows her, likes her...’