Twisted Path

by Melissa F. Miller

  “I’m Bodhi King.” He smiled and dug an old business card out of his wallet. He handed it over for her to inspect.

  She raised her eyes from the card with a horrified expression. “I’m sorry, Dr. King. I didn’t realize you were an M.D. And … I shouldn’t have assumed you weren’t you.” She flushed a deep red.

  He shook his head and gave her an easy smile. “Please, don’t apologize. You couldn’t have expected me to look like this.” He stretched out one arm, gesturing to include his appearance and his preferred mode of transportation. “And I don’t put much stock in titles.”

  She smiled politely and tucked the card into her cardigan pocket. “Still, I should know better. Please, come in.”

  “Thanks.” He paused inside the door to wipe his feet on the mat. “Do you mind if I take off my shoes?”

  “Um … no?”

  “Great.” He slipped off his shoes while she closed and locked the door, then he padded after her in his stocking feet as she led the way to a casual family room where a fire burned in a gas fireplace.

  “I thought we’d talk in here?” She hesitated in the doorway.

  “Sure. Wherever you’ll be most comfortable, Mrs. Noor.”

  “Please, call me Hope.”

  “Okay, Hope.”

  “I’d like to talk here. I’ve been spending a lot of time in this room lately. … I don’t like being upstairs alone.” She shivered and wrapped her cardigan around her torso.

  “Of course.”

  He waited for her to choose a seat first. She took the armchair next to the fireplace, so he sat across from her. She’d barely settled in, folding her legs up under her on the chair, when she suddenly popped back to her feet. “I’m sorry. Can I get you a drink?”

  “That’s very kind of you, but I don’t need anything.”

  She returned to her seat and folded herself into a tight pretzel, with her legs tucked up under her and her arms crossed low over her lap. “I noticed on your card that you work for the medical examiner. I thought you said on the phone that you were an independent consultant?”

  “I am. But I don’t have any current business cards handy, and I figured you’d want to confirm my identity.”

  She nodded, accepting the explanation. “So you used to work for the Allegheny County Medical Examiner?”

  “Yes, several years ago.” He paused for a moment to consider what he was about to say, then added, “I was working there when your husband’s first wife died. I performed Raina Noor’s autopsy.”

  “Oh,” she breathed. She squeezed her eyes shut, the skin at the corners wrinkling from the tension.

  He waited until she exhaled and opened her eyes. When she focused on him again, he said, “The circumstances of your husband’s death must be doubly shocking in light of what happened here seven years ago.”

  She swallowed. “Yes, you could say that. I mean, I didn’t know Giles well back then. And I’d only met Raina once or twice … but, of course, she—or at least her death—was almost like the third person in our marriage.”

  “How so?”

  She twisted to her side and watched the flames dancing in her fireplace while she answered his question in a soft voice. “Giles was a mess after Raina died. She was his whole world. I was working in the history department as an administrative assistant while I was getting my degree, and he sort of fell apart. I felt so sorry for him. We grew close, but he was still mourning Raina’s death when we started dating. I sometimes … wonder … if he ever truly moved past it.”

  “Grief can be a lifelong companion. But that reality doesn’t detract from what you had with your husband.”

  She turned to face him. Tears shone in her eyes, threatening to spill out. She scrubbed her hands over her face and took several deep breaths. “You’re right. I mean, I know that, intellectually. I’m so emotional these days.”

  “Of course you are.”

  “It doesn’t help that we argued the evening Giles died.”

  “Do you want to talk about it?”

  “It was so silly. Just one of those dumb arguments that married couples have now and then. But I was so irritated with him. And before I left for yoga, I made this crappy remark to him about living in the past. And when I came home, he was … gone.” She was crying freely now, making little hiccupping sounds as she sobbed.

  He crossed the room and crouched beside her chair. He dropped a hand on hers and made a soothing, shushing sound. After a moment, she raised her head again.

  “Sorry.”

  “You have nothing to be sorry about. You’re grieving. You should be as gentle with yourself as you were with Giles after Raina died.”

  She attempted to smile. “Thanks,” she whispered.

  “Of course. And I’m sure your husband knew you loved him.” He withdrew his hand gently and returned to his seat.

  He knew he risked compromising his objectivity if he focused on the woman’s strong emotions, but he couldn’t ignore her pain. She seemed impossibly frail—like an injured sparrow or a delicate glass that threatened to shatter.

  She made a high, strangled mewling sound and pushed herself out of the chair as he began to walk away. “Will you excuse me for a moment? I just need to splash some water on my face and pull myself together.”

  “Absolutely. Take your time.”

  She nodded and darted from the room.

  Hope patted her face dry with a hand towel then checked her reflection in the mirror. She looked like death warmed over. She yanked the elastic hairband from her hair and shook her hair loose so it hung over her shoulders.

  Now she looked worse. She raked her fingers through her hair in an attempt to coax the jumble into orderly waves. It was no use. She hurriedly swept it back up into a knot and secured it with the band.

  Keep it together. He’s not even remotely intimidating or scary. There’s no reason to fall apart. Just answer his questions and he’ll be on his way.

  She nodded at her own instructions, watching her reflection in the mirror.

  She never should’ve brought up the fight. It had stirred up too many feelings. She’d panicked, though, when she saw Mrs. Remmy watching her receive a visitor. Mrs. Remmy was a thoughtful neighbor, and she’d been very kind over the past week. But everybody on the block knew she was an unapologetic busybody.

  Hope and Giles used to laugh at her nosiness. Giles called her ‘Nebby Nellie.’ She wasn’t even sure her first name was Nellie.

  Hope knew Mrs. Remmy had heard their fight last Tuesday. When she’d woken up in the Remmys’ guest room the morning after, she’d overheard Mrs. Remmy telling her husband that Hope had been shrieking at Giles ‘like a caterwauling alley cat.’

  The last thing she wanted was for Mrs. Remmy to waylay Dr. King when he left and fill his head with stories that made it sound as if she and Giles had had a troubled marriage. Or that made her seem like some sort of shrew. For reasons Hope couldn’t quite articulate, even to herself, it mattered what the kind-eyed forensic consultant thought of her. And of Giles.

  She pinched her cheeks to add a hint of color to her washed-out complexion. Then she took one last look at herself, threw back her shoulders, and walked out of the powder room as calmly as she could.

  When she returned to the family room, Dr. King was standing with his hands clasped together behind his back, inspecting the titles of the books that lined the floor-to-ceiling bookcases on each side of the fireplace.

  Bodhi heard Hope Noor’s light footfalls on the hardwood in the hallway and turned when she reached the doorway to the room.

  “Are you feeling better?”

  “I am. Thank you.” She nodded.

  “You have an interesting collection.” He gestured toward the bookshelves.

  “Oh, I guess. Most of the nonfiction down here is mine. Giles keeps—kept—his reference materials, biographies and histories, that sort of thing, in his office upstairs. The fiction titles are a mix. Some are mine, some are his.”

  �
�I see you have a copy of the Chumash. That’s the text of the Hebrew Torah, isn’t it?” She came to stand beside him and looked at the volume as if she’d never seen it before.

  “Yes, that belonged to Giles. He wasn’t always religious—I think I’ve explained this to Dr. David already, so I’m sorry if I’m repeating myself ….”

  “No worries.” He waved a hand to indicate she should continue.

  “Okay, well, his family was Sephardic, from Spain. And they always identified more as Spaniards than as Jews. I mean, he didn’t grow up really practicing any faith.”

  “Sure.”

  “But, after Raina’s death, he was floundering, I guess you’d say. Over the years, he tried out a couple different synagogues, some churches, even a Quaker meeting. Finally, he decided he felt comfortable at a progressive congregation just down the street. He wasn’t ever particularly devout, but it did matter to him. So, I thought I should honor his beliefs in death.”

  “Does Giles have any close relatives? A parent or a sibling, for instance?”

  She shook her head. “Neither of us do. His parents were much older when he was born. They both passed away when he was in college. And mine did, too, actually. I was a freshman when Dad’s cancer took him. My mother was dead a year later. Maybe that’s why Giles and I were drawn to each other.” Her lower lip shook, and she clamped her front teeth down on it.

  “I’m sure you were a great comfort to one another.”

  She looked at him with a slight wrinkle across her brow. “Dr. King, I don’t want to seem rude, but how does any of this help you determine how Damon Tenley’s DNA showed up in the forensic testing results?”

  It was a fair question, so he gave it a fair answer. “I’m not sure it will. When I worked as a medical examiner, my job was fairly straightforward. The deceased body told me his—or her—story. But, as a rule, I don’t perform autopsies anymore. So, I try to piece that story together from disparate parts of the victim’s life. Sometimes a fear or a passion they had in life will shine a light on how or why they died. I’m sure that sounds vague and not very reliable, but it’s a process that works for me.”

  “So, how can I help?”

  “Why don’t you tell me about your husband.”

  She looked queasy. “Like, what?”

  “What kind of music did he listen to?”

  “He liked pop rock. It was kind of funny because he was this super-erudite professor. I mean, he wore a bowtie to class and everything. But over the summer, he insisted we go to the Taylor Swift concert. It was me, him, and fifty thousand teenaged girls. He loved it.” She covered her mouth and laughed.

  Bodhi smiled at her. “Did he play any sports?”

  “He played tennis sometimes. He liked to swim, too. He’d get up early most mornings and swim laps at the JCC pool before work.”

  “Did he do that the day he died?”

  She thought for a moment. “He did. He got up before I did and went to the pool. He stopped and picked up bagels and cream cheese on his way home. We had breakfast together before he headed to campus.”

  “Do you work?”

  She shook her head. “I got my undergraduate degree in history. A month later we got married. I’d always planned to go for my master’s and then a Ph.D., but … it got weird. Giles was the head of the department and nobody wanted to be my advisor because it would put them in an awkward spot. I just … I stopped taking classes. I always figured I’d go back. But it’s been three and a half years since I left the program. Now, I don’t know anymore.”

  He gently brought her back to the day her husband died. “So, after breakfast, Giles went to work. Do you remember what you did?”

  “I went to the grocery store. We had that big snowfall over the weekend, and Giant Eagle had completely sold out of milk. I’d tried to pick some up on Monday, and the truck hadn’t come in yet. The guy stocking the dairy shelves told me they’d be getting a delivery on Tuesday morning, so right after Giles left, I went to the store.”

  “Did you get milk?”

  “I sure did. As well as bread and toilet paper.” She giggled.

  “Ah, the holy trinity. You’ll be ready for the next storm.”

  Her smile faded. “Then I returned some library books and picked up the dry cleaning. All the stereotypical homemaker duties.”

  “What time did Giles come home?”

  “He was home by three. He doesn’t—didn’t—have Tuesday office hours. We went to the hardware store to look at bathroom fixtures. We were planning to remodel the master bath. After that, he made himself some pasta and a salad for dinner. I kept him company while he ate, even though I don’t eat myself until after yoga. Then I left for my yoga class. And when I came back ….” She tipped her head back against the mantle and closed her eyes.

  He watched her for a moment. Then he turned away to give her some privacy. As he scanned the bookshelves closest to the window, the back of his neck began to tingle. He turned to look through the big bay window behind the sofa. Across the street, Hope’s neighbor stood at her own big bay window, pulling a sheer curtain to the side, and stared directly into the Hope’s family room.

  Creepy. Or urgent.

  Hope’s voice interrupted his thoughts. “Dr. King?”

  “Yes?”

  “I just needed a second. I’m sorry about that.”

  “Please, don’t apologize.”

  She swayed on her feet. He gave her a closer look. Her skin looked almost translucent.

  “Have you been eating?”

  She nodded but didn’t meet his eyes.

  “Why don’t you sit down. I’ll get you some tea and toast. Or juice and crackers. Something.”

  She collapsed into the chair and waved vaguely toward the back of the house. “I don’t know what’s out there. There’s a bunch of casseroles in the freezer. I keep forgetting to defrost them.”

  He placed a hand on her shoulder. “Don’t worry. I’ll find something.”

  He walked through the connected formal dining room, which was still and dark—a room that saw little use—and into the bright kitchen. A kettle sat waiting on the stovetop. He filled it with water from the sink’s faucet and set it to boil while he assessed the contents of the pantry. A tea tin, a box of soup crackers, half a loaf of bread, some onions, and dried pasta.

  As he reached for the bread, he knocked over a stack of cookbooks that were piled haphazardly on the wire shelf. He bent to gather them into a pile and noticed a soft leather-bound volume stuck in between a glossy Joy of Cooking that looked as if it had never been opened and a well-thumbed copy of One-Pot Meals for Two. He picked up the thick book and turned it over. It was a copy of the King James Version of the Bible with the words Family Bible embossed on the cover and the spine in gold letters.

  He wrinkled his brow. The Bible had clearly gotten mixed in with the cookbooks by accident. It was out of place in the pantry. It belonged on the shelf in the family room, right next to the Chumash. He placed it on the counter where Hope would see it and stacked the recipe books on the pantry shelf.

  Then he dropped a slice of bread into the toaster and pressed the lever. While the bread toasted, he scared up an apple, which he washed and sliced. He dug a lasagna from the tower of casserole dishes in the overstuffed freezer and placed it on the counter to thaw.

  The kettle whistled. He steeped a teabag, buttered the toast, took down a jar of honey from the cabinet near the mugs, and put the meager offerings on a tray he found leaning against the backsplash behind the sink.

  When he returned to the living room, Hope looked livelier. Or at least less on the verge of fainting. He placed the tray on the side table next to her chair.

  “Thank you, Dr. King. I’m embarrassed to say I haven’t been taking the best care of myself.” She kept her eyes downcast, hidden by her eyelashes.

  “Do you want me to call a social worker? Someone who can check on you, maybe keep you company for a few days?”

  “No, I’m fine
. Honestly. Mrs. Remmy across the street checks on me all the time. And my friends call and stop by when they can.” She lifted the teacup with a shaky hand and sipped the hot drink.

  “Even so, you seem …” He’d been about to say ‘frail’ or ‘delicate,’ but both words carried a whiff of sexist condescension, so he trailed off.

  “I know I need to be better about my sleep and nutrition.” She lifted her eyes to his. “I battled leukemia a few years ago. It’s in remission, but I know all about fatigue and rest. Trust me.”

  “If you’re sure—”

  “I’m positive. But, would it be okay if we finished this discussion some other time? I know you need to know about Giles, but I … can’t right now.” Her voice shook and tears leaked out her eyes.

  “Absolutely.” He reached into his pocket for the handkerchief he’d gotten into the habit of carrying when he lived in Burma, where paper products could be hard to come by.

  “I do want to help you,” she whispered.

  “I know.” He crouched by her chair and wiped the tears from her eyes with the corner of the handkerchief. “Eat that. I put a lasagna on your counter to defrost. You should warm that up later.”

  She nibbled the toast. “I’ll move it to the fridge and eat it tomorrow.”

  He held her gaze but said nothing.

  “I will,” she insisted.

  “Good. I’ll let myself out.”

  She made a noise of protest but he gave her a stern look. “Don’t you dare get up.”

  She sank back against the chair. “You’ve been so kind to me. Thank you.”

  He looked down at her drawn, sad face for a long moment. “You’re welcome. After you’ve eaten, don’t forget to lock the door behind me.”

  “I won’t,” she promised.

  He walked to the door. As he twisted the knob and pushed it open, he spotted the curtain in Mrs. Remmy’s living room swinging. He watched her door and window as he put on his helmet and slowly wheeled his bike down the steps, but he didn’t see the neighbor woman again.