Before He Finds Her

by Michael Kardos

  And with that promise, she found herself removing the clip from her hair. She hadn’t cut it in a while—it was about the longest it’d ever been. Tied up all day, it would look scraggly, so she ran her fingers through it a few times before facing him head on.

  He squinted a little in the early evening light, and the way he studied her face felt both clinical and tender. And just as it occurred to her why he might have made his request, and why he was now looking at her so intently, his eyes watered and he said, “Oh, my God.” He opened his mouth as if to say more—once, then again—before going to pour himself another drink, larger this time.

  He dropped into one of the leather chairs, took a swallow, and set the glass down. “I didn’t actually think... I mean, it crossed my mind, but...” He closed his eyes. And when he opened them again and confirmed that Melanie wasn’t a mirage but an actual young woman in his office, he smiled and said, “You aren’t the spitting image of your mother, but you come damn close.”

  15

  They sat together on the sofa, watching the sun dip behind his ex-wife’s neighbors’ homes across the bay. Melanie held a glass of water while David Magruder went through most of a bottle of champagne. “You sure you don’t want any?” he said. “I mean, if Meg Miller being alive isn’t cause for celebration, I don’t know what is.”

  The man could put away a lot of alcohol. He was clearly practiced at it.

  “Water is fine,” she said, the ice cubes knocking together in her glass surely giving her fear away. He knew. Him. A journalist. An untrustworthy journalist. A volatile journalist with money and power. It couldn’t be worse.

  “What about food—are you hungry? We could rustle something up in the main house.”

  Her stomach was growling. For the baby, she had to get on a better eating schedule. But how do you eat when you’re nauseous all the time? “Maybe if you have some crackers or something.”

  “Crackers?” He laughed. “Sure, we can rustle up some crackers.” But he didn’t get up. He still seemed stunned. “Look at you—Meg Miller. God damn.” He shook his head. “Meg Miller, alive and well.”

  “I go by Melanie,” she said.

  “Sure, okay. Melanie.” He smiled at her. Now that he knew her secret, he couldn’t stop smiling. “Where’ve you been all this time?”

  She shrugged. “Hiding.”

  “You lost me.”

  “From my father. So he can’t find me.”

  His smile disappeared. “You’ve been hiding since nineteen ninety-one?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Oh, Jesus.”

  “And I know your job is to expose stuff, but you have to keep this secret. You have to. Please. The only reason I’m alive today is that everyone thinks I’m not.”

  “Your accent—do you really live in North Carolina?”

  She shook her head. “Please. I’m not going to tell you, and I’m begging you not to try to find out. I need your help.” She had sought David out because of the unlikely possibility that he’d have something useful to say about the night of the murder. But when she thought about how easily he had investigated her without her knowing, a new idea started to take shape. “I need you to help me find my father.”

  “Darling, your father had a fifteen-year head start. The police have gotten nowhere. I’m not sure what you think I can do.”

  “You said you do this for a living.”

  “I’m a TV journalist, not a bounty hunter.”

  “But you can try, can’t you?”

  The yard had darkened a shade, and he squinted out the window, as if Ramsey Miller might be standing on the dock, waving at them.

  “I can try.”

  He insisted on taking her back to her hotel, but she insisted on being the one behind the wheel.

  “I’ve been drinking for enough years to know when I can and can’t drive,” he said.

  “Either I drive or I’m calling a cab.”

  He shrugged. “It’s a nice night—we’ll take one of the convertibles.”

  “How many cars do you own?” she asked.

  “Six,” he said. Then: “Seven. I forgot about the new one. Can you drive a manual transmission?”

  “No,” she said.

  “Then so much for the Alfa Romeo.” He grinned. “Come on, we’ll take the Corvette.”

  They went out to the massive garage, where seven shiny cars were parked in a line. The yellow Corvette was in the center. After David pulled the car’s top down, they got in, and she backed out of the garage, scared to death of hitting something, and went around the circular driveway to the road.

  She turned left and accelerated, the engine revving beautifully, and headed back to town, passing the large estates, and then the road curved around so that it ran along the bay, which looked smooth as glass underneath a sky that was fading from purple to black. She hadn’t ever ridden in a convertible before, let alone driven one, and she decided on the spot that of all the things missing from her life, this one ranked high.

  “You remember your way around?” David asked from the passenger seat.

  “Only from the past few days. I have no memories of this town,” she said. “I wish I did. I wish I could remember my mother. I try all the time.”

  At the light, she turned away from the bay and headed west on Main Street.

  “Let me tell you something. She’s worth remembering.”

  “So you weren’t strangers.”

  “No,” he said. “We were close. I loved your mother.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “What do I mean? I mean we were good friends. She was a wonderful person. I think I’m actually pretty drunk.”

  “Were you ever more than friends?” Melanie was glad that it was dark and she had a reason to keep her eyes straight ahead.

  “No,” he said. “Never. Turn right here.”

  “Why?”

  “Just do it—I want to show you something.”

  The turn sent her in the direction of her parents’ old neighborhood. She’d seen enough of that for one day. But then he had her make another turn, and another, onto a road that was new to her.

  “Pull into that parking lot,” he said. There were no other cars. “Drive to the end there and park. You need to see this.”

  David got out, and she followed. Though it was dark out now, she could see that they were in a park, a pretty spot with mature trees and a playground ahead and a pond off to the left. At the edge of the playground were a few picnic tables. David climbed up and sat on one of the tables.

  “So is it familiar?” he asked.

  “No. Should it be?”

  “This is where you used to play.”

  “Really?” She tried to imagine herself as a toddler, sliding down those same slides. Swinging on those same swings. She climbed up on the table and sat beside David.

  “There used to be a taller slide over there with several twists. It was your favorite. And that rubbery surface is new. Back then there were woodchips, I’m pretty sure. Same swings, I think. Though sometimes you just liked chasing the birds.”

  “Why do you know this park so well?” she asked.

  “I used to meet your mother here when she came with you,” he said. “With your father away so often, I think she appreciated the adult company.” Melanie knew from the articles she’d read that her father was a trucker. “We would talk.”

  “What would you talk about?”

  “Oh, I don’t remember now. Our jobs, our lives, politics, the weather... whatever was on our minds, I guess. You’d throw crusts of bread to the turtles in that pond.” He smiled. “That was the only way to lure you away from the playground and back to the car—the promise of feeding the turtles.”

  I used to play here. I used to feed the turtles. This was my home.

  Melanie climbed off the table and went over to the swings. There were bucket swings for babies and another set for older kids. She sat in one of the larger swings, lifted her legs, and glided back
and forth a few times before lowering her shoes and dragging to a stop.

  “Thanks for taking me here,” she said, going back over to him. “Sometimes I feel like I don’t have a past. So... thanks.”

  “You’re welcome,” he said. He reached out and clasped her shoulder, then moved his hand away. The gesture brought unexpected tears to her eyes. She turned to face the pond.

  They stayed like that a minute—him sitting on the table, her standing beside it—their eyes adjusting to the dark. A gentle breeze moved the leaves in the nearby trees.

  “Back at the house,” Melanie said, looking at him again, “you told me I could ask you whatever I wanted.”

  “Okay—I might have said that.”

  “You did.”

  He nodded. “All right.”

  “After the murder, why did the police talk with you several times?”

  “Who told you that?”

  Melanie held firm. “You said you’d answer my questions.”

  A bullfrog honked from the pond. “You’re being tough,” he said. “That’s a good journalistic instinct. I used to be a tough journalist, you know. Pretty legit. I have those instincts. But I like having money, too. Sometimes it’s a trade-off. God damn, I make a lot of money.” He shook his head. “I’m just so glad you’re alive. You have no idea how mind-blowing this is.”

  She returned the smile. “The police...”

  “Right. Okay. My mistake was that I was honest to them up front about being friends with your mother. And also...” He shrugged. “I had a shit alibi for the time of the murder.”

  “What was it?”

  “It was that I didn’t have one.”

  “You mean they thought—”

  “No, they didn’t think anything. This wasn’t a whodunit, you know? But the police like tidiness—people verifying other people’s stories. And God forbid if anyone is ever alone. I was married then—bad idea, by the way. I highly recommend never doing that. But I was married and my wife was in New York that night. Anyway, these local yokel cops were looking for the same thing you’re looking for now: something that might help them find your father. Well, I didn’t know anything. I barely knew the man. But you know how it is. I’m a public figure, and there are people in this world who make a lot of money running with nonexistent stories about public figures. Which is why I don’t ever talk about that time in my life, or about knowing your mother. I was very fond of her, and what happened was horrible, and I don’t like being reminded of it.”

  “You didn’t say ‘fond.’ You said you loved her.”

  The bullfrogs were louder now, and the crickets. It reminded her a little of West Virginia, the woods teeming with life.

  “She was a beautiful, complicated woman,” he said.

  “And you loved her.”

  “Yes,” he said. “I loved her very much.”

  David Magruder had interviewed movie stars and astronauts and every living president. Yet it felt less strange than she would have imagined, driving a drunk celebrity around in his fancy convertible.

  “I wish I’d brought a six-pack,” he said from the passenger seat, his eyes closed. Though her hotel was only a couple of miles from the park, by the time she arrived David was fast asleep.

  She pulled the car into a parking space and shut off the engine. She nudged his arm, rousing him.

  “You need to call your driver,” she said.

  “He isn’t on twenty-four-hour call, Melanie.”

  “Then a cab.”

  “I’m a grown man,” he said, and yawned.

  “Well, there’s no way you’re driving yourself home,” she said.

  “Of course I am.” He sounded wounded. “I’ve been my driving—” He tried again. “I’ve been driving since dinosaurs roamed the earth.”

  Her room had two beds, but no way. “There’s a sofa in the hotel lobby,” she said. “You can sleep there for a couple of hours.”

  He looked at her and smiled. “Your concern for me is wildly endearing. Tell you what—leave me here. The seat reclines way back. I’ll just rest awhile.”

  “I guess,” she said.

  “She guesses!” He grinned drunkenly. And when she handed over the keys, he leaned forward and kissed her cheek. “Absolutely amazing,” he said, reclined his seat, and shut his eyes.

  “You’ll probably want to put the top up,” she said softly. When he didn’t answer, she said, “Good night, David,” and shut her door, leaving him there to sleep in the Sandpiper parking lot. She did it reluctantly, suspecting that the minute she entered the hotel, the Corvette’s fancy engine would roar to life. Which was exactly what happened.

  16

  September 22, 1991

  After standing over his sleeping wife for a serene minute, Ramsey left their bedroom and went downstairs. His hands needed something to do, so he put on his coat and work gloves, went outside, and began carrying the sheets of plywood and two-by-fours from the garage to the backyard. It was still more night than morning outside, and cold—but the work encouraged a sweat. When he’d finished moving all the wood, he went inside again to wait for Eric.

  The tap came only a couple of minutes later. The two men shook hands. Ramsey would’ve offered Eric coffee, but his friend was already carrying a cup from 7-Eleven, so they cut through the house and went out back.

  “ ’Preciate your help,” Ramsey said. “I know it’s cold out here.”

  “Cold nothing. We’re a band, aren’t we?” Eric said. “Band needs a stage.”

  One good thing about the cold, everyone’s windows would be shut. Ramsey didn’t want the neighbors moaning about the pounding of nails on a Sunday morning. Not that this would take long. The plans were so simple, Ramsey barely needed to explain them to Eric: six pallets supported by thirty-six-inch sections of two-by-fours, which the hardware store had precut yesterday. They’d finish in time for Eric to get to church.

  Ramsey offered up his work gloves, but Eric declined and blew into his cupped hands. The ground was wet, so they knelt down on one sheet of plywood while working on another. Each man started on a pallet, working apart, not talking for a spell, the rhythmic hammering like a drumbeat to a song you can’t quite remember. Just as Ramsey expected, a project like this was what he needed. It was good to build something. After a few minutes, Eric broke the rhythm, saying, “So Wayne tells me you’re cracking up.”

  Ramsey looked up from his work. “What’s that now?”

  Eric set down his hammer. “The end of the world, Ramsey?” He said it disappointed, the head shake implied. His father had used the same tone when Ramsey was young and his rap sheet still in its infancy. Shoplifting, Ramsey? Vandalism, Ramsey?

  Ramsey had never intended to tell Eric, whose clay brain religion had baked hard, but now he knew anyway. Which explained why he’d agreed so readily to get up in the dark and come over here. He’d decided to be a one-man intervention.

  “I know it to be true.” Ramsey shrugged. “That’s all there is to it, my friend.”

  “Ramsey—”

  “I know it.” He said it final like, and made a point of returning to the two-by-four he was hammering into place. The morning was getting lighter, beginning to feel like today and not yesterday.

  “So you know the world is ending, but you don’t bother mentioning it to me?”

  “Didn’t see the point,” Ramsey said.

  “You told Wayne.”

  “Yeah, I told Wayne, but I hadn’t planned to.” Outside the music store yesterday afternoon, after arranging the P.A. rental, Wayne was smoking a cigarette and moaning to Ramsey about how he’d barely gone surfing all summer. So Ramsey told him he’d better get to it on Sunday morning, and he told him why—not too much detail, just the Reader’s Digest version.

  “So why’d you tell Wayne and not me?”

  Ramsey stopped working again. “I’ll bet you never knew that Wayne grew up in some shitty orphanage till he was ten. Or that when he was eleven, his foster dad broke his arm for
fighting at school. Cracked it right over the kitchen table.”

  Eric said nothing for a few seconds. “I’m sorry to hear that, but what’s your point?”

  “My point is, Wayne’s had it rough. And he hasn’t had one damn person in his whole life to look up to, and for some crazy reason he looks up to me. He confides in me. So I was returning the favor.”

  “Well, you shoulda confided in me, too.”

  “Oh, come on, man, don’t look all hurt—I knew you’d think I’d gone loony. Or worse, you’d believe me and start to freak out about your standing with Jesus.”

  “Strange, how I don’t remember reading about this in the newspaper.”

  “Make fun if you want,” Ramsey said, “but it’s no joke.”

  “So what’s your source?”

  Ramsey remembered everything about that late-afternoon: the roped-off seating, the other trucker, the way time had seemed to stop. “Saw it in writing a couple months back. In a science book.” Eric still had that parental look on his face. “I read it cover to cover. Trust me—it adds up.”

  “You’re no scientist,” Eric said.

  In a tree near the back fence, a couple of squirrels sounded like an old couple bickering. When they quieted down, Ramsey said, “Let me ask you something. Do you believe in God?”

  “What?”

  “Come on—do you or don’t you?”

  “You know I do,” Eric said.

  “But you ain’t a priest or a prophet or nothing, are you?”

  “It’s different.” He set his hammer down and drank some coffee. “My belief is about putting trust in Jesus Christ. It’s about having faith in the Holy Spirit.”

  Ramsey tried to imagine a time before Eric’s conversion, when he was just another drunk, one more fuck-up in over his head.

  “So on a scale of one to ten,” Ramsey said, “how much do you believe in Jesus and God and all that?”

  “Don’t ask me that,” Eric said. “It’s crass, putting it on a scale.”

  “So you won’t do it?”

  Eric sighed. “Whatever, Ramsey. Ten. All right? I believe it a ten.”