A Sharp Solitude_A Novel of Suspense

by Christine Carbo

  The dream I had about my father comes to me again, along with Anne Marie’s questions about guns and about my relationship with him. I didn’t tell her that a year after the incident, my dad decided he wanted to give me a tutorial on how to handle a gun—that after all, had I had a proper education in the first place, I wouldn’t have killed Sam. Of course this was in spite of the fact that he left the gun in a reachable spot, ready and loaded. In spite of the fact that I was nine years old.

  Part of this education involved taking me to a shooting range. He packed the very rifle that had killed Sam into his red Honda Prelude and made me hop in. I didn’t want to go, but the last thing I was going to do was argue with my father, who since the incident had been unpredictable in his anger toward me. One minute he’d be understanding, and the next he’d fly off the handle and yell at me, tell me that I was going to turn into a no-good loser if I didn’t get with it, clean my room, get better grades, help around the house.

  He’d also long since quit playing hoops with me out in the driveway. Early on, we couldn’t because of the reporters camped outside, but after they had moved on and things quieted down, he’d say he was too tired or had other things to do, because “damn it, lord knows how I have to do it all around here.” I wasn’t sure what he meant by having to do it all, because as far as I could tell, my mother seemed to be the busy one when they were both home—always bustling around the house, cooking, cleaning, doing laundry, gardening. So I didn’t protest, but I was terrified. I did not want to go to the shooting range. I did not want to pick up that rifle ever again.

  It was an outdoor range located in a field on the edge of town. We drove down a long straight road that wavered like water in the distance from the heat. Snakes, black racers that had been run over, lay on the hot pavement like broken fan belts. When we got there, I froze at the loud pops of gunfire. I was sitting in the passenger seat, and when my dad opened his door and started to get out, he saw that I wasn’t moving. He stopped and peered over his shoulder at me. “You gettin’ out?”

  I stared straight ahead without answering.

  “Jesus, you look like a deer in the headlights. Come out here right now.”

  I still didn’t speak.

  “Who am I?” he asked. It was a familiar question. He used it when he wanted me to do something. Usually I answered “My dad” automatically, which was the answer he wanted, but I didn’t respond this time. I kept staring out the window at the car parked in front of us: some big bronze sedan from the seventies with an old bent license plate. I read the tag line on the bottom of the plate over and over. Sunshine State Sunshine State.

  He stepped out of the car, slammed his door, and came around to my side. “I’m your father, that’s who, and I’m telling you to get out of the car.”

  I climbed out into the hot afternoon sun while he grabbed the rifle and the box of ammunition from the back seat. I followed him into a Quonset hut that had a counter with a man working behind it. My dad paid the man, and he smiled down at me. “Looks like he’s gonna cry,” he said to my dad. “A little sensitive, is he?”

  My father mumbled something and said, “Come on,” to me. “Quit lookin’ so scared.”

  I walked behind him to the field where the shooters lined up. The humidity was stifling, and mosquitoes pricked at my arms. A large sign with big red lettering stood off to the side: GUN SAFETY RULES. The first rule on the list read: Always keep the gun pointed in a safe direction. Never point it at something you don’t intend to shoot. A queasiness pinched my stomach. The second rule was: Always keep your finger off the trigger until you are ready to shoot at your target. The third said: Always keep the gun unloaded until you are ready to shoot. I wondered if my dad had ever read the third rule. But in the long run, it was the first two that plagued me for many years to come. They were so simple. So doable.

  By the time we made it to the line of shooters, my heart was pumping ferociously and I was sick to my stomach. No one was shooting at the moment. “Here,” my dad said, handing me a pair of bright orange, rubbery earplugs. “Put them in your ears.” He told me how to hold the rifle, to point it down and away from anybody in the vicinity. He showed me the safety and demonstrated how to look through the sight and down the barrel. When the range operator yelled, “Commence firing!” my dad took aim and fired several shots. Everyone in the line began shooting again, great blasts in my ears. I couldn’t distinguish my heart’s pounding against my rib cage from the shots booming around me. I had trouble breathing. “You try.” My dad handed it to me.

  I shook my head.

  “Go on, take it!” He thrust the rifle toward me, into my pounding chest. I involuntarily lifted my hands and grabbed it.

  He pointed at the target, two red circles one above the other. Sweat ran down the back of my neck and my shirt. I wanted to cry, but I knew my dad would be even more disgusted with me if I did, especially out here among all these people, mostly men. I tried to take a deep breath—Don’t cry, don’t cry, don’t cry, I repeated to myself—and dug the tips of my fingers into the hard, smooth wood of the rifle butt. Slowly I lifted it to take aim, my hands and arms shaking.

  “Just at the top circle,” he said. “Aim for the center.”

  The blasts of gunshots engulfed me as I tried to focus. My dad slapped at a mosquito on his neck and said, “Damn skeeters,” and it seemed to happen in slow motion. I could feel my pulse behind my ears, and suddenly all I could think of was the gun violently slamming into my chin and seeing Sam’s body go down in front of me. Sam’s eyes: first confusion, then terror. And the blood. Mosquitoes buzzed around my head, and along with the throbbing behind my ears and the thumping of my heart, I’d had all I could take. I dropped the gun and swatted frantically at my head, slapping the sides so hard that my palms and my scalp stung. I ran for the car. Behind me, I heard the range operator scream, “Cease fire!”

  When I got to the car and turned, I saw my dad marching angrily toward me with the rifle at his side in one hand. A violent shade of purplish red consumed his face and ran all the way up to his high hairline. The range operator followed him, yelling at his back, “Don’t you ever bring that kid back here, you understand? For god’s sake, he could have killed someone!”

  Ali

  * * *

  Present—Saturday

  I’M WAITING TO hear back from Brander so I can fill him in on the connection between Anne Marie and the Smith case, and I’m beginning to wonder what’s taking him so long. I keep getting up from my desk, looking out the window at the piles of dead leaves around the backyard that have been scattered by the wind and spread in messy rivulets in all directions. Several of the mounds look like they’ve begun to rot, and I picture Emily rolling in them, getting sticky-wet, pungent-smelling leaves stuck to her cheeks and hair. I know I need to get out and finish raking and bagging them. Emily’s still watching cartoons, and even though she’s past the time limit I gave her, I let her continue because, selfishly, I know I need time to think.

  I’m on my way into the kitchen to make some tea when the doorbell rings. “I got it,” I tell Emily and go right to the door. It’s Herman, and I feel annoyed that he’s stopping by again when a call back would suffice. I had left him a message too, because I needed to tell him about Anne Marie’s appearance in the Smith file, but I could just as easily have told him about it over the phone. It makes me think he’s checking up on me, but I realize I’m antsy and impatient, and I don’t want to direct my angst toward Herman and put him in the middle. Damn, Reeve. Look what you’re doing to me.

  I politely take him to the kitchen, just as I did the night before. After all, he’s my partner, and before Herman even sits down or takes his coat off, he says, “The county guys came to our office today.”

  My stomach drops. I force myself to not stop and turn, to continue toward the kitchen cabinet to grab some cups. “Why’s that?”

  “They wanted to talk to you. Seems there’s a bit of a problem. They said they’ve disc
overed an interesting piece of information.”

  “About Smith?” I turn to him.

  “Smith?” Herman looks at me, confused for a second, before he shakes his head and slides back to an expression of obvious displeasure. I can feel the tension, the judgment—or at least a certain amount of condemnation—coming from Herman like heat from an open oven, and the dread turns to a spark of anger. I know it’s misplaced. I should be feeling fear instead, but as usual it’s fury rearing up in me like an unwanted guest. I purse my lips together, cross my arms, and wait for him to say more.

  He holds his hands up like he’s trying to stop me from doing something. He must sense my agitation. “Ali,” he says in his low voice, “they know that the suspect is . . .” He tilts his head toward the living room where Emily sits frog-legged before the TV.

  “Sit down.” I motion to the table. “Do you want some coffee?” I grab a cup and hold it up.

  “No thank you.” He takes a seat, and I pull up a chair across from him. He’s sitting back rigidly, his face serious, his coat still on. He looks too big for my small round oak table.

  “What else did they say?”

  “That they subpoenaed his financial records and saw that he writes a check to you once a month. That you watched part of his interview and didn’t mention that you knew him.” His face changes from annoyance to pity, and that enrages me even more, because I hate pity. It evokes the looks of Sara Seafeldt and many other adults I encountered in my younger years—an expression that says, Poor, poor, pitiful you. Your life is so sad.

  He brings up the fact that I also swung by the county and had an in-depth discussion with Reynolds without disclosing my connection to the suspect.

  “I didn’t want everyone in my business at that point,” I explain. “You can understand that.”

  “Under different circumstances, yes, I most certainly can. Under these circumstances, no, I’m sorry, I can’t. Are you kidding me? This could be your job on the line. You know better than this. What do you think Shackley and PR are going to say?”

  I watch a busy squirrel frantically collecting supplies—nuts, pinecones, mushrooms—then scurry up the maple tree in our backyard and hop to one of the branches. I want to say, My daughter is on the line here, but I don’t want to sound paranoid or like an alarmist. “Are you reporting me?” I ask.

  “Not necessarily. I’d like to think I’m warning you, just like last night, when you also opted out of telling me the truth. What kind of a game are you playing here?”

  “I’m not playing any game.” I hug my arms even tighter over my chest. “Herman, listen,” I say firmly, and I can see in the way he draws his head back that he notes that I’m not calling him by his nickname. “Reeve didn’t do it. And I’m not saying that because he’s . . .”—I snap my head in the direction of the living room just as Herman had done—“but because it just doesn’t add up. It doesn’t make sense, and I don’t trust those bozos to do this correctly.”

  He shuts his eyes for a second and sighs, as if he’s trying hard to gather patience for a live wire like me. It irritates me even more to be treated like a child. “I understand, but you are clearly in no position to judge his innocence.”

  “But I am. I know him. He wouldn’t do something like that.”

  Again he flashes me a look of pity—a droopy-eyed, sympathetic look that says, That’s exactly why you have no place to judge.

  I get up and pace around the kitchen. I look out the window and see the squirrel coming back down the trunk. Busy fucker, I think. That’s what it takes to survive—an endless vigilance. Busyness, acquisition, sustenance. And if it’s not food, as it is for the animals, it’s money, security, trust, love, truth, or acceptance. It never ends, the journey to find sustenance, even when you convince yourself you’re seeking something different. It’s really just the same effort in disguise.

  I go to him, sit down again, my chair scraping on the floor. I lean toward him, jamming my elbows into the table. “Herman, you have to believe me on this.”

  “I get it, Ali. But are you going to jeopardize your job for this, this guy, this Reeve, who you aren’t even married to, whom I’ve never even heard about? And even if he is so important to you, what part of conflict of interest do you not understand?”

  I’m about to answer him, but the minute I open my mouth to speak, Emily comes into the kitchen and stands at Herman’s side.

  “Are you talking about my daddy?” she asks.

  “No, honey,” I fib for him, because although he knows Emily, he looks taken aback by a five-year-old’s interrupting our conversation. Under different circumstances, I’d tease him for looking more spooked by her arrival than he is by the violent criminals he’s usually dealing with. “Why?”

  “I heard his name.”

  “No, I don’t think so, sweetie.” I feign confusion. “We’re just talking about work. Go back and watch your show, okay?”

  “But I heard you mention my daddy’s name: Reeve. That’s my daddy’s name.” She smiles at Herman, and sways shyly and playfully from side to side, her hands by her sides. A stab of guilt shoots through me for fibbing to her, basically telling her that her own senses are not to be trusted. What’s worse is the silly pride on her face; her tiny chin lifting when she announces her father’s name cuts me even deeper.

  “Is it?” Herman smiles, still unsure how to handle the situation. “I didn’t know that.”

  “My daddy says that he’s named after a riverbank. My grandma thought she was naming him after a river, but it’s actually the bank. Isn’t that funny?”

  “That’s very funny.” Herman forces a smile.

  “That’s what he thinks, anyway, but he’s not sure. He said he’s only googled it, and that you can’t always trust Google.” She still shows remnants of her toddler speech at times, and once in a while, trouble with the r’s comes out so that river comes across as wiver and trust sounds like twust.

  “Ah, your daddy’s right about that,” Herman says.

  Emily begins to climb into my lap, but I cut the motion off by standing up. I grab her small hand to take her back into the living room before the TV, but she resists, pulling back. “Come on, Emily.” I clutch her wrist tightly with frustration, and she begins to scream, so I let go immediately and tell her to be quiet. “Come on, don’t you want to watch TV?”

  “I don’t want to watch cartoons anymore,” she says, annoyed, but at least she’s following me into the living room.

  “Just a little longer. Herman and I need to discuss some work things. And since when do you not want to watch cartoons?”

  “No,” she says, pushing her bottom lip out, glaring at me.

  I want to tell her that saying no to me is not an option today, but I don’t want a tantrum. “Okay, then, why don’t you go upstairs and get dressed? Then maybe we can do something fun.”

  I see that resonate. Her face softens, an excitement bubbling in her dark eyes, and I’m relieved. “Like what?”

  “I don’t know. We’ll think of something.”

  “Promise?” she asks.

  “Promise,” I say.

  She bounds up the stairs, sounding like a small elephant.

  I go back into the kitchen. “Sorry about that.”

  “I’m sorry,” Herman says. “I wasn’t thinking.”

  “Look, Herman. The Smith file you gave me—did you read it all?”

  “I skimmed it.”

  “Did you see Anne Marie Johnson’s name?”

  “What?”

  “The victim’s name. It’s crazy, but Anne Marie Johnson, the victim, she’s in the file. Did you notice that? That’s what I was referring to earlier.”

  He looks at me skeptically. “Go on.”

  I tell him about the connection between her and Smith, how she was posing as a follower of his cause for an investigative piece she was working on—that she thought there was a connection between someone high up in the NRA and our Smith. “It’s in the file.” I point
in the direction of my office. “I can grab it for you.”

  “Just sit, please,” Herman commands, studying me. I can see I’ve lost some of his trust, and it’s a bad feeling, like murky water creeping up around me. My anger has faded, and fear replaces it in the form of any icy sensation in my spine. I want Herman’s big warm smile back—the one that always makes me feel like I’m the best agent and coworker in the world. Now that the cat’s out of the bag, the judgment in Herman’s face is gone, and he simply looks sad. I see it plainly: not only have I crossed professional boundaries, but I’ve hurt him by not telling him about Reeve in the first place. I think of all the times he’s hinted at my past, leaving sentences open-ended and asking innocent questions—So Emily is with her dad this weekend?—to see if I’ll fill in the rest, and when I never do, he backs off. He’s been a good coworker. A good friend, but I can see it now: he’s questioning whether he can say the same about me.

  “So”—I clear my throat—“that alone gives me—us—some reason to be checking the circumstances of her death out anyway.”

  “There’s been no us here,” he reminds me coolly.

  I feel the sting of that. I have this sudden flare in my mind, like seeing my life unspool before me, that this is what I’ve always been working toward: some type of destruction. Like Reeve, somehow I’m seeking admittance into a world of sharp solitude. I picture myself jobless. I see Emily and me alone because we can no longer afford Rose, and, worse, our moving back to be near my mom and sister. I see myself hanging on to Emily like a lifeline and her rebelling, desperate to get away from a suffocating mother. Stop, I tell myself. I refocus on Herman. He’s waiting for my response, but I don’t say anything. I’m banking on the idea that Herman won’t want to look foolish in front of his bosses for not catching the connection in the file.