A Sharp Solitude_A Novel of Suspense

by Christine Carbo

  Toni begins to cry harder, and I realize I shouldn’t have brought up my own daughter—essentially rubbing it in. But my sister has created her own hell. I know all the elements in our lives—the addicted, abusive father; the struggling working mom; the overbearing sister—formed the gaping wounds in my sister, the burning ache that pushed her from guy to guy, party to party, drug to drug. I’m not going to make excuses for my own strong will. Somehow, against the torn backdrop of my own upbringing, my anger and bullheadedness fueled me to keep my grades up and enabled me to push myself to go to college even though I never felt like I belonged there. It was the fire that drove me to overcome the temptations that my sister fell prey to so easily. My mom and I tried to help her in the way every concerned family member tries—spending way too much money (mostly mine) to get her help that didn’t stick. I guess that’s part of why I was so impressed with Reeve. The help he received stuck, and he managed to stay sober against all odds.

  “Ali,” my sister moans. “Are you still there?”

  “I’m here. I’m here. Look, are you eating well?”

  “Yes.”

  I have no idea if I’m getting the truth or not. I ask only out of habit. “And everything’s going okay at work?” Toni works at a nail salon.

  “Yes, yes, everything is fine.”

  “Good,” I say. “Okay, sis. Look, I gotta go. Gotta make Emily some dinner now.”

  She doesn’t reply.

  “Toni?”

  “Yeah, I’m here. Okay. I know. You gotta go. Tell Emily her auntie loves her. Talk to you soon?”

  “Absolutely,” I say, but deep down I’m dreading it, because I know things will not have changed, and my sister’s voice will still sound small and broken the next time.

  • • •

  After I make Emily dinner and let her watch Frozen for the thousandth time, I go into my office to look up Vivian and Rachel’s musician friend in Seattle and give him a call. I figure it’s a long shot that I’ll get ahold of him, especially if he plays in some club on a Friday night. He doesn’t answer, so I leave him a message to call me.

  I’m about to go make myself some tea when my doorbell rings. I wonder if it’s Rose, already feeling better and wanting to thank me for the soup, but she never rings the bell. Emily is already at the door with her hand on the knob when I get into the room. “Em,” I say harshly, “you know better.”

  “But it’s Hollywood.”

  “Agent Marcus,” I correct her, realizing that I’ve created a monster with all my nicknaming. It’s not completely unusual that he’s here; he’s certainly been over before for dinner and barbecues, but he doesn’t normally show up uninvited.

  “Okay, then,” I say, shrugging off a twinge of uneasiness. Emily swings the front door open, and Herman is smiling down at her. He says hello and tells her he likes her mermaid jammies.

  “But you’re a boy,” she points out.

  “Doesn’t mean I can’t like them.” He puts his hands on his hips. She giggles.

  “Is everything okay?” I say when he looks up at me.

  “Everything’s fine.”

  “Can I get you some tea or coffee? I was just about to make some.”

  “Sure. As long as you were going to make it anyway. Tea is fine.” He follows me into the kitchen, and Emily settles back in front of her movie.

  “Is everything okay at work?” I fill a kettle and set it on a burner.

  “Everything is fine.”

  I grab two mugs. “Earl Grey okay with you?”

  “Sure, whatever you have.”

  “I have herbal tea too.” I go to grab that box out of the pantry, but he stops me.

  “No, no, Earl Grey is good.”

  Herman asks me questions about Emily and how school is going for her while I prepare the tea. He says he can’t believe how much bigger she’s gotten since the last time he saw her—sometime last spring. I set the mug with the tea bag already in the water before him and take a seat. “They grow like weeds,” I say. “So what brings you here?”

  “I just haven’t had a good chance to catch up with you lately. Thought this evening was as good a time as any.”

  I look at him with a solid dose of skepticism.

  “Okay, I’m worried about you,” he says after dunking his tea bag into the hot water and blowing on the tea to cool it down.

  “Worried?” I say, playing dumb.

  “Ali,” he says after setting his mug down, “what’s going on with the county murder case?”

  “The woman up the North Fork?”

  He nods, pinching his lips together like he’s humoring me.

  “What about it?”

  He tells me that Ray said I stopped in to ask about the computer files on the victim’s system and wanted him to let me know that he found another gun-control piece the vic was working on called “Man Among Mountains” or “Man of Mountains.” “Something like that.” Herman waves a hand in the air. “Said it’s an article that describes the main suspect’s indirect involvement with getting Florida’s gun accountability laws changed in the early nineties.”

  I stare at him, my head tilted toward my shoulder as if I’m trying to listen to it, as if it might whisper into my ear some good response to give him.

  “So of course”—he taps his head—“I start to wonder, Why is Ali interested in all of this? And then I think I could start snooping around too, try to figure it out, or here’s a novel idea: Since I work with her every day, maybe I can simply stop by and ask her.”

  I sense his irritation. I lick my lips. “Of course,” I say. “Anytime. You know that, and . . .” I’m not actually sure what to say, so my sentence peters out.

  “And?”

  “And what?”

  “Ali, come on, don’t make me work this hard. What’s up?”

  “I’m just interested,” I say. “Not in a big way. Just curious. I guess I’m just, I don’t know, a little bored with some of these homegrown terrorism cases we’ve been working, these anarchists who think we’re all the right hand of the devil. Just thought I could see what’s going on, help them out if something comes to mind.”

  Herman studies me, his eyes slightly narrowed. “You’re bored?”

  “No, not bored. That’s the wrong word.” He’s not having any of it and keeps his face straight, his bulky arms now crossed before his chest. “I guess just annoyed, and this is just an interesting case, that’s all: Journalist gets taken out in the middle of the night out in an area where there’s not a lot of people in the first place. No suspects. The owner of the cabin is a friend in transit coming to meet her. Someone had to know she was visiting—staying there. Someone had to have timed it just right. She hadn’t even entered the cabin when she’d gotten there.”

  “She was probably followed. Or someone who knew she was staying there was waiting for her,” Herman says. I’m relieved that he’s taken the bait and is now in detective mode.

  “Precisely. But who? They only have one suspect, and that suspect has no motive. I just don’t want our colleagues zeroing in on one person and closing out other suspects in the process.”

  “But Ray indicated that the suspect has a history of violence. From what I hear, he hasn’t been telling them the truth about his past.”

  “There was just one incident, supposedly. When he was nine.”

  “Apparently he was in and out of juvie for years.” Herman pushes the bridge of his red glasses up higher on his nose with his middle finger. “It’s a stretch, but Ray said Reynolds and Brander are building a modus operandi argument. That there’s circumstantial evidence to suggest the victim was killed in the same way the boy’s friend was killed when he was young. Rifle, shot to the chest.” He holds his large hand flat on his sternum. “Close range.”

  I know where Brander and Reynolds are going with this. In court, you’re not allowed to bring in past crimes as evidence. However, there’s one exception, and that exception is modus operandi. The prosecutor asks: Do the fa
cts or the circumstances of the two cases match up? If so, old history is fair game. “That sounds like a long shot if I ever heard one.”

  Herman shrugs. “Maybe, but I’m not working the case. And neither are you.” The edge comes back into his voice. He gives me a serious stare. “And I think it’s best that we stay out of it until they want our help.”

  I nod that I understand.

  “Ali, I’m just saying that you need to be careful. The agency relies on us to keep good, cooperative relations with the local factions.”

  “Of course,” I say in reproach. “I know that. That’s why I’m trying to help.”

  “Well, it can come across the wrong way if we butt in where we’re not wanted. I’m just saying what you already know: Don’t piss on the relationship we’ve established with the locals.”

  I stare at the I’d Rather Be Hiking mug in front of me. Monty Harris from the Glacier National Park police force gave it to me, even though I literally never hike despite having a child with a man who does it all the time. I know I should tell Herman that Reeve is the suspect we’re discussing—should have already told him the day Reeve called me to fetch McKay from his place. I simply wanted to believe that none of this would amount to anything—that it would be easily put to bed. A flash of anger slashes through me. I feel my cheeks heat up. Damn, Reeve. How could you put us in this situation? I want to tell Herman everything, but I can’t. My throat feels thick, slammed shut.

  When I think about my family, it’s not like I have everyone pegged under some boldface psych-textbook heading about classic behavioral problems that arise from families in which abuse and addiction occur. I realize it’s much more complicated than that. The truth is, I’m fighting hard not to fall into some classic textbook description myself. Even as I sit here way out on the western edge of the divide, I can still see text encapsulating my personality type: controller: can’t let go; feels the need to steer situations; enables those he/she considers needing help; doesn’t do well with limitations. Sometimes I’m surprised I’ve lasted this long in an institution like the FBI, because it’s true, I don’t like to be told what to do and how to do it. In a way, coming to an RA in Montana worked out better than I thought because it provided me with a way to gain independence while still working for a strict, rule-guided organization, a way for me not to blow my own self up as I nearly did in Newark by fighting with all the wrong people. I need this job, I remind myself. I cannot afford to lose this job.

  “I get it,” I tell Herman.

  He smiles sweetly, and I feel a pinprick of guilt for lying. I do get it, but I can’t drop everything and stay away from the case. There are too many lingering questions.

  “So you’ll stay out of their business unless they ask?”

  I nod.

  “Great, then.” He stands. “Thanks for the tea.”

  Reeve

  * * *

  Wednesday—The Day Before

  “THE THING ABOUT guns,” Anne Marie begins as she leans forward in her chair, and I watch several more strands from her braid come loose, dangling near the soft curve of her collarbone. “The thing about guns is that if you have one, you feel the need to use it, and that often leads to an accident.”

  “Of course people use them—just like people use their cars. You have one, you drive it. Safely most of the time, but unfortunately, every once in a while, an accident happens.”

  “Cars are registered, licensed, and closely monitored,” she says.

  I get up and add another log to the woodstove. I’m standing right next to her, and out of the blue, just like that, she slips two of her fingers inside my belt loop and gives me a pretty closed-lip smile. Her cheeks are flushed from the heat, and she shyly looks down at her own fingers in my belt loop, gives a little flirtatious tug, then lets it go. My breathing stops and I’m not sure what’s happening. The gesture confuses me; it’s out of context with the mood she’s just set with all her questions and back in line with the way she was earlier in the day.

  I want to reach out and touch her, but I don’t feel as unencumbered as I did while watching the elk. Because of her questions, because she’s brought up Sam, I’m anchored to a familiar heaviness I’ve felt my entire life. But before I have time to consider it one more moment, she starts up again.

  “And these people . . . a lot of them don’t own only one hunting rifle or shotgun,” she continues, as if she hasn’t made the gesture at all. And just like that, the mood that her tiny gesture created—tender, youthful flirtation—dissipates. I furrow my brow, clear my throat, shut the stove door, and sit back down. “They own entire arsenals.”

  “Some people collect them,” I agree.

  “Collecting is a kind word. I guess you could call it that, but it’s more than that. It’s not like collecting baseball cards. It’s an obsession driven by fear and paranoia.”

  “Not necessarily, but even if it is, so what? So what? What if it is about fear?” I ask glibly. “Is there not a lot to be paranoid about in this world of ours?”

  She takes an audible breath and lets it out with a sigh that says, You don’t get it, do you? But of course I do get it. It’s not as if I haven’t thought long and hard about this stuff. America is deeply divided over this issue, and mass shootings seem only to widen the rift. One side sees such tragedies as proof that things have gotten out of control with guns, and the other sees it as more evidence that we all need to be packing in order to protect ourselves and our families. Each side thinks the other is crazy and illogical. I refuse to enter the debate. With the last mass shooting in the news—one that took place in a small college just two states over—I told myself I wasn’t going to read the news anymore. The woods were safer.

  “What about your father?” she asks. “Does he still own a gun?”

  I shut my eyes for a long moment. I’m not at all comfortable speaking about this, especially to a stranger, but something is opening up—a fissure is widening. I don’t want to talk about my father, but at the same time the need to do so is bubbling up.

  “Because if I had to guess—” she adds.

  “I have no idea if he does or not,” I say. “Quite frankly, it’s none of my business.”

  “I take it you two aren’t close?”

  I shrug.

  “That’s understandable, given what happened.”

  My unease pushes me out of my seat. I walk to the window, and McKay jumps up and follows me. I can see my reflection in the glass: disheveled hair, ruddy face, tired eyes. I can’t make out that they’re bloodshot, but I can feel the grit and burn of them. I can see Anne Marie in the reflection also. She’s looking at me, and I figure she’s simply waiting me out. She knows I won’t tell her to leave.

  “What’s out there?” she finally says.

  “Nothing.”

  “Then come sit back down.” She moves over to the couch where I had been sitting and pats the cushion beside her. “You’re making me nervous.”

  I rub my eyes and think of the irony in that statement. She’s the one making me nervous. I turn and look at her on the couch, where light from the woodstove flickers across the planked floor and the only things separating us from the wilderness are these flimsy walls.

  I don’t know if my father still owns a gun. I know that he didn’t get rid of it after the police returned it to him. Since under Florida law at that time Sam’s parents could file no charges, the gun was not needed as evidence and was returned to my dad. He probably still has it, and I picture him taking some sort of perverse stubborn pride in still having it—the rifle used by his son. Goddamn it, I can hear him say. Of course I’m not going to give it away just because there was an accident. Not like it’s going to happen again. It was an accident.

  No matter that it tore apart a family’s life. That Sam’s parents eventually divorced after their crusade to change Florida gun laws; that I heard that Sam’s dad, Larry, struggles with depression and that Sam’s mom, Glenda, remarried but apparently fell prey to opioids. Th
ese bits and pieces I know from my mom, who has some way of keeping up with gossip in Tallahassee. I don’t really want to know, but I can’t quite tune it out, either, like a deer not being able to look away from a bright light. I imagine the loads of pain piled upon their family by what I did, by what my parents did—my dad, really—by leaving a loaded gun under the bed. I imagine how their constant grief and endless ache must have been a hundred times worse than the grief in my own family, and that is unthinkable to me. I think of how our family tragedy became a public tragedy. Years later, when my mom came to a counseling session with me (my father refused), she told me about how the newspapers referred to the deceased Tallahassee boy as a symbol, how three weeks after the funeral forty-eight people—mostly mothers—gathered to march from the local Tallahassee Civic Center to the state capitol in protest. They wore T-shirts that read Protect your children and carried signs that said: DON’T LET ONE PARENT’S IRRESPONSIBILITY STEAL YOUR CHILD’S LIFE.

  My mom told Gary, the counselor, through choked tears, that Sam’s mom was quoted on the news as saying, “This is what my baby must have been destined for—to make a difference, to save other children from reckless parents.” “Like us.” My mom had pointed to herself. “Reckless parents like us,” she had repeated in the still room. I can’t remember Gary’s reply, but I fill in the blanks, thinking that he must have not had one. What could he say to something like that?

  I remember her also saying through sobs that if she hadn’t hidden my birthday present, none of this would have happened. I do remember Gary’s reply to this one: “Even though no one is to blame, everyone is bound to feel guilty in a situation like this.” And me? On top of missing my best friend, whose life I’d stolen, I felt responsible for making my mom cry, for making her feel guilty too, when I didn’t think she had done anything wrong.

  Ali