The Only Suspect

by Jonnie Jacobs

  “Is it about school?” Molly thrived on school. For reasons I couldn’t understand, she even looked forward to spelling tests and book reports.

  “Not really.”

  “What was it then?”

  “Nothing.” She sounded exasperated.

  “Honey, it can’t be nothing if it ruined your day.”

  “I’ll tell you later. I don’t want my ice cream to melt.”

  I felt bad not being there. Maureen’s death had to have upset Molly. Maybe she was worried about losing me too. That was why I’d made the trip, I reminded myself. Left to their own, the police weren’t going to look any further than me for their killer. I needed to point them in a different direction, and in order to do that, I had to know who it was I’d been married to.

  “Try not to worry,” I told her. “I’ll be home tomorrow. And you’ve got my cell number. You can call me anytime.”

  Silence.

  “I love you, Sweetpea.”

  “Love you too.”

  My father came on the line, and I could hear him move to a different room. “Did you reach Ted Brown?” he asked me.

  I told him about my conversation with Brown and how he thought my wife looked a little like his daughter’s high-school friend Eva. “I’m going to contact Eva’s parents tomorrow. I suspect they’ll tell me their daughter is married and living in Connecticut and that they talk to her once a week.”

  “Then what?”

  “I don’t know.” If the lead to Eva didn’t pan out, I wasn’t sure how I’d ever figure out who my wife actually was. “I suppose anyone could go through the obituaries, find a name, and then order a birth certificate. From there, I guess you could build a new identity without too much trouble.”

  He mumbled agreement. “All you’d have to do is find someone about the right age.”

  I rolled my shoulders to relax the tension between them. “Do you have any idea what happened with Molly at school?”

  There was a moment’s silence. “It’s the other kids. You know how they can be.”

  Petty, mercurial, and sometimes cruel. But Molly was surprisingly immune to stuff like that. “Someone was mean to her?” I asked.

  Dad lowered his voice. “They’re saying things about you, Sam. You know how the media’s been with stories about Lisa’s murder and your trial. And Maureen.”

  “Jesus.” Parental guilt rocked me like a punch in the gut. My daughter was an outcast at school, and it was my fault. “They’re only in fifth grade. How do they even know?”

  “I’m sure they pick up most of it at home.”

  “It’s okay with me if she wants to skip school tomorrow,” I told him.

  “We’ll see. You don’t want her to think running away from problems is the right way to handle them, do you?”

  Sometimes it wasn’t such a bad idea. “But if she’s unhappy . . .”

  “Molly’s tough, Sam. She’s not going to let a bunch of snotty-nosed kids get to her.”

  I hoped he was right. But my heart ached for Molly and the trouble I’d caused her.

  When I hung up, I searched the hotel-room drawers for the local phone book. There were three listings under Flynn that caught my eye. One for a Lloyd and one for a Larry, both on streets other than Brookdale, and one for an initial L with no address listed. I jotted down the numbers so that I’d be ready to call first thing in the morning.

  When my sandwich arrived, I ate hungrily then found the vending machines and bought a pack of M&M’s for dessert. Keyed up as I was, I expected to have trouble falling asleep. Instead, I dozed off in front of a made-for-television movie about drug running.

  By seven the next morning I was showered, shaved, and dressed, impatient for the day to get started. It was, of course, too early to be making phone calls. I drove to the corner of Brookdale and Meadow, where Brown had said Eva’s family lived, simply to get a feel for the area. There was no guarantee they still lived there.

  Of the four corner houses, none was yellow. But they were all well kept. The homes in this neighborhood were larger and more stately than Ted Brown’s.

  Which one was the Flynns’? I tried to imagine my wife growing up in each of them. Tried to picture her here as a semisophisticated girl of sixteen. Which of the many upstairs windows had been her bedroom? On which of the wide front porches had some boy stolen a kiss? What had she felt each day coming home from school?

  Were Eva Flynn and my wife even the same person?

  I waited until the respectable hour of eight, then pulled out my cell phone and called the number with no address listed. A woman answered.

  “I’m looking for Lou Flynn,” I told her, ready to jump in with Len or other similar-sounding names if she told me I had the wrong number.

  “He passed away three years ago,” she said.

  “Are you his wife?”

  “Yes.” Her tone was hesitant. “I’m not in good health, however. I don’t want to buy whatever it is you’re selling.”

  “I’m not selling anything. I’m calling about your daughter.”

  I heard a sharp intake of breath. “Eva? How is she?”

  I’d found the right Flynn at any rate, and it didn’t sound as though mother and daughter were close. There went my lives-in-Connecticut-calls-home-once-a-week scenario.

  “Could I come by and speak to you in person? I think it would be best. I’m actually close to Brookdale.”

  “Brookdale ... We sold that house a number of years ago. I’m in North Gardens now.”

  “How about I come there, then?”

  She hesitated. “Who did you say you were?”

  “A friend of your daughter’s.”

  “Did she tell you to call me?”

  “Not in so many words.”

  “But you’ve talked to her recently?” Mrs. Flynn sounded hopeful.

  “Yes,” I said, knowing full well my answer was misleading at best.

  “Give me your name, and I’ll leave it at the gate. They’ll direct you to my unit.”

  North Gardens was, I learned from the large sign at the entrance, an adult retirement community. The grounds were lovely—common areas of green with borders of colorful flowers. The red brick condos were grouped in clusters about a central area. The first-floor units had small patios, while those on the second story had balconies.

  Mrs. Flynn—Sonia Flynn, according to the mailbox outside the elevator—was in 108C, in the assisted-living wing of the largest building. I was greeted at the door by a woman whose right side appeared to be partially paralyzed, giving her a lopsided look. A stroke, I guessed. She used a walker and kept her head turned slightly to the side. It took me a minute to figure out she probably had lost the sight in her right eye.

  I looked for any likeness to Maureen and saw none. Mrs. Flynn had sharp, almost rodentlike features and a thin mouth which she’d painted a garish coral color. Her bony fingers were heavily laden with rings.

  “Please come in, Mr. Russell. I’m sorry I don’t have anything to offer you. My maid hasn’t been to the store for a few days.”

  It wasn’t clear if she was referring to a personal aide or the assisted-living staff. Or if she was totally daft.

  She shuffled to an upholstered chair and pointed to another for me. The room was cluttered with knickknacks, but I could tell they were expensive ones. A crystal vase, a porcelain plate on a stand, cut-glass candy dishes. The remnants of a well-to-do life.

  “You said on the phone you had word of Eva?”

  “I ... I might,” I told her. “I’m not sure the woman I’m inquiring about is actually your daughter.”

  I showed her the photo of my wife.

  And then I held my breath.

  Mrs. Flynn angled her head and stared at the photo with her good eye. She picked up a pair of spectacles, put them on, and studied the photo further. “It could be her,” she said finally. “Her hair’s shorter; she’s a little heavier than last time I saw her.” She raised her eyes to look at me. “You said you�
�d seen her recently.”

  This was a quandary. I hated to lead off by telling her the woman in the photo was dead, and I was still far from convinced my wife and her daughter were the same person.

  Instead, I asked, “When did you last see your daughter?”

  “Oh, four years, at least. Maybe longer.” Mrs. Flynn folded her hands in her lap. The skin was loose, darkened with age spots. “She calls though. Used to call every February twelfth. That’s her birthday. But lately it’s just whenever.”

  “Have you talked to her, say, within the last year?”

  “I could have.” She gave an apologetic laugh. “When you get older, it’s difficult to keep the years straight.”

  Would there ever come a time when I couldn’t remember talking to Molly? I doubted it. “What was she doing at the time?” I asked. “Where was she living?”

  “Out west somewhere. No snow. Eva always hated the snow.”

  Maureen wasn’t fond of the cold either. “She didn’t say where in the West?”

  Mrs. Flynn shook her head. “Eva’s never stayed in one place for very long.” She hesitated. “I thought once my husband passed, Eva might come see me more often.”

  “Eva and her father didn’t get along?” I remember Maureen telling me once, I didn’t really have a father. Is this what she meant?

  Mrs. Flynn’s mouth worked as though chewing on her response. “Our daughter was a disappointment to him,” she said at last.

  “In what way?”

  She gave a brittle laugh. “In what way was she not? The ultimate blow came when Eva had some trouble with the law her senior year in high school. Lou thought it was better we not get too involved.”

  Not get involved? What good were parents if they weren’t there in your moment of need? Then, with a pang of guilt, I thought of Molly and the taunting she was taking from the kids at school. I couldn’t help feeling I’d deserted my own daughter in her moment of need. Maybe I shouldn’t be so quick to judge.

  Mrs. Flynn again picked up the photo I’d brought. “When was this taken?”

  “Last year.”

  “She looks good, doesn’t she? Where was she?”

  “California.”

  Mrs. Flynn’s mouth drew to a pucker. “That would suit Eva. She hated growing up here. Hated everything about the place, as far as I could tell. She was a most ungrateful child.”

  There was not a spark or warmth or motherly affection in her remarks. I felt myself growing protective of Eva, regardless of whether she’d been my wife. “If you wouldn’t mind, I’d appreciate hearing what you could tell me of your daughter’s life since high school.”

  “I thought you were here to tell me about Eva.”

  “I’m not sure this woman”—I gestured to the photo—“is actually your daughter. She changed her name.”

  “That doesn’t surprise me.” Mrs. Flynn settled back a bit in her chair. “Eva always had a flair for the dramatic.”

  “What else?” I waited while Mrs. Flynn searched her mind for a place to start.

  “Eva was a good student. A real whiz at math.”

  I hadn’t noticed that numbers were a particular strength of Maureen’s, but I wasn’t sure it would ever have come up either.

  “She had lots of potential,” Mrs. Flynn continued. “That’s what angered Lou. Eva never lived up to it. Never even graduated. Well, technically she did, but she left home before the graduation ceremony.”

  “Why?”

  Mrs. Flynn’s hand fluttered to her throat. “She got in such a snit about ... about something of no consequence. She absolutely refused to see our side of it. She and Lou had words, and well ... she took off. Like I said, dramatic and impulsive. She was all too happy to use our money, but not to abide by our rules.”

  Mrs. Flynn’s face clouded. “We never got to see her in her cap and gown. All those years of hard work raising them, you want to see them accomplish something. Graduation, marriage, the birth of a grandchild—milestones that make you proud. But Eva denied us all of them.”

  “So she never married?”

  “If she did, I never knew about it.” Mrs. Flynn sounded bitter.

  I felt the need to speak up in my wife’s defense. “If your daughter is the woman in the photo, she married me.”

  Mrs. Flynn gave me the once-over with her good eye. “Why are you asking me all these questions then?”

  “She never talked a lot about her past, and now ... now she’s ... disappeared.”

  “What do you mean, ‘disappeared’?”

  I still wasn’t ready to lay out the entire story. Not that I expected Mrs. Flynn would spend a lot of time grieving. “She went missing about ten days ago,” I explained.

  Her mouth twitched. “Have you been in touch with the authorities? Do they suspect foul play?”

  “The police are working on it. But I’m ... looking into what happened as well.”

  She took a moment to digest the information. “And you think your wife, the woman who disappeared, might be my daughter?”

  “Right. So anything you can tell me—”

  “Do you have children?”

  “I have a daughter by my first marriage.”

  She frowned. “That’s too bad.”

  I wasn’t sure if she was referring to a prior marriage or to the lack of children from my current one.

  “When Eva was young, she used to talk about having a big family. She hated being an only child herself. But when she got older, she never talked about having children at all. I think she realized how they tie you down.”

  I’d been keeping a running checklist in my head without even realizing it—in one column, the ways Eva and Maureen were alike. In the other, the ways they were different. I didn’t know what to do with this latest information.

  Maureen tried very hard—too hard, I thought sometimes—to win Molly’s affection. I told her it would take time, but she was impatient. It was as though she saw family as a role she could slip into rather than a relationship built through shared experience. But I think she’d also have been happy if Molly wasn’t in the picture.

  I mentally started a third column for details that could go either way and moved on. “When Eva left home after high school, where did she go?”

  “We suspected she was living on the streets or staying with anyone who’d let her. She never called us, although she did send a postcard from Florida a few months later to say she was okay. Lou thought she did it just to taunt us.”

  I was beginning to see why Eva might have wanted a fresh start with a new identity. Maybe being Eva Flynn was just too painful.

  “She did ultimately find work,” Mrs. Flynn hastened to add. “I don’t want to make it sound like she stayed homeless. She’d get a job, drop us a line, and then by the next postcard she’d be living somewhere else, with a new job. It wasn’t what you’d call a stable life, but she must have been doing okay for herself. It sounded that way, at any rate. She’d tell us about the places she’d been and the restaurants she’d eaten at, the fun things she was doing. Not that we necessarily believed all of it.”

  “Can you give me names of her high-school friends, people who might have stayed in touch with her?”

  “Her closest friend died when they were still at Holbrook, the high school. It was an automobile accident, very sad. Maureen, the girl who died, was a mousy little thing. I never understood why Eva hooked up with her. Now, Darla Winfield, she was popular with the other kids, and very pretty. She was homecoming queen senior year. They were neighbors of ours on Brookdale. Her mother and I were in the Opera Guild together. I tried to encourage Eva to be friends with Darla, but she never listened to me.”

  “How about other friends? A group that she hung around with, maybe.”

  Mrs. Flynn thought a moment. “There was that boy, Danny Vance. The kids used to hang out at his place. He wasn’t Eva’s boyfriend or anything. Kind of a gangly boy, with a bad case of acne. He lived with an older brother, and I don’t suppose
either of them ever thought to consult a dermatologist. And Melody Lucas, she was part of that group as well.”

  “Are they still in town?”

  “Danny is, or was several years ago. He managed the gas station on Lakeview, over by the Sears store.”

  “And Melody Lucas?”

  “Oh, yes. Her name is Hughes now. She married a very successful dentist. They’ve got two boys and a lovely home on the outskirts of town. She’s done very well for herself.”

  As poor, disappointing Eva hadn’t.

  CHAPTER 34

  I wasn’t convinced Eva Flynn was the woman I’d been married to, but it struck me as a real possibility. My conversations with Ted Brown and Mrs. Flynn had been productive. In terms of gleaning information, in fact, I was on a roll. That is, until I tried to reach Danny Vance at the service station he managed. He was on a camping trip and not expected back until Wednesday.

  Next I tried Melody Hughes and got an answering machine.

  Undaunted, I decided to dig a little on my own. I started with Holbrook High School, which Mrs. Flynn had said Eva attended, pulling my car into an empty visitor parking space.

  A walkway led from the lot to a traditional two-story brick structure with wide front steps—obviously the original school—which was flanked by two newer single-story buildings, also in brick. I could see a sports field and a gymnasium beyond.

  This was where Eva had gone to school. Where she’d mingled with friends, worried over tests and papers, maybe walked hand in hand with some special boy. Was it also the school my wife had attended? I tried, as I had earlier that day while parked near the house that might have been her childhood home, to imagine Maureen in these surroundings.

  She’d told me very little about her life growing up, but I’d somehow envisioned a less comfortable environment than what I’d seen today. Of course, a teenager with a barren home life would hardly feel comfortable.

  With the help of the high-school librarian, I found a copy of the yearbook from the year Eva graduated and turned to the senior photos. The names were listed, along with school activities and interests. While some entries ran half a dozen lines or more, Eva’s noted only that she’d been a member of the glee club her freshman year.