Farraday Road

by Ace Collins

  Lije went through the swinging gate in the railing that separated the entry from the working part of the firm. Curtis was about to follow him when she glanced back over her shoulder.

  “Come on, Diana. Heather’s office is down the hall and to the left.”

  “You go ahead. I’m going to lock the front door and close the blinds. Anyone in the area could see us.”

  “And get off a good shot.” He hoped his mocking tone wasn’t too subtle to be missed. She wasn’t as sure about Heather as she claimed to be, and they both knew it.

  Lije made his way into the young lawyer’s office, flipped on the desk lamp, and slid open the drawer. Sitting on top, right where Heather said it would be, was a small, slate-blue metal box with a combination lock. He placed it on top of the desk.

  “That’s it? ” Curtis asked as she entered the room.

  Turning the box so the numbers faced him, he studied it. For several minutes, he didn’t move. All the while he felt Curtis staring at him. Finally, when her patience ran out, she asked, “Are you trying to guess the combination?”

  “Nope,” he replied softly. “I’m sure I know it. It’ll be Kaitlyn’s birthday.”

  He hesitated because he was afraid. Did he really want to see what was inside? If this was meant to be an anniversary gift, then it was meant to be something they would share. Kaitlyn was diligent in always finding the perfect surprise, so this would have to be very special. The better the gift, the more it was probably going to hurt. He wasn’t ready for that pain. He wasn’t sure if he would ever be ready for that kind of pain.

  Laying the box back on its base, he moved past Curtis and into the hall. “I’m going into my office, catch up on the news online, and check my email.” Did he really need to explain himself to her?Of course not. So why did he?

  For a few minutes Lije tried to read the top stories of the day and run through his work-related email. He even spent a couple of minutes searching for car parts on auction. Yet all the time, the box was begging him to come back, pleading with him to spin the lock. Even though he tried to put it out of his mind, make it disappear, it wouldn’t leave him alone. Minute by minute, its call grew stronger. Finally, it was screaming at him.

  He got up from his desk, folded his arms, and closed his eyes. A part of him was curious, but that side of his brain was having problems competing with the side that held an overriding fear. He leaned against the wall and tried to guess what the box might hold, but the fear was scoring the most points. Fear was making a good argument too. With Kaitlyn gone, what difference did the gift make? There would be no anniversaries to celebrate anyway. Didn’t that fact trump the need for gifts? Didn’t that trump curiosity?

  The only sounds were the ticking of an antique wall clock in the front room, the hum of fluorescent lights, and his own breathing. He looked back across the hallway, into Heather’s office, and saw that Curtis hadn’t moved. She had taken a seat in front of Heather’s desk and seemed content to wait for Lije to return and break the silence. He wondered how long she would wait. Would she break before he did?

  Just when he was about to cave in to his fear, he decided he needed answers. He needed answers so he could move on.

  Still there were doubts. Did he really want to move on? What was the point? Because he knew that when he took that step forward, it would be a step taken without his wife.

  In silence he waited another twenty minutes.

  “I USED TO TEASE KAITLYN BY NOT OPENING HER presents when she gave them to me. I’d set them aside and find something else to do. It could be a bit of work, or checking my email, or watching a television show, or maybe taking out the trash. I’d just find anything to keep me busy, because it would drive her crazy having to wait for me to open her gift. A couple of times she grew so frustrated she would grab the boxes and open them for me. Then just hand me the presents.”

  “You were mean,” Curtis said.

  He nodded. “Now, here I am putting off opening this box, not as part of a game but because I know it will be the last present. This is her final surprise. After I see what’s inside, then the joy of wondering what her special gifts are will be finished forever.”

  The thought chilled him. It sucked the air from his lungs and the blood from his brain. It was that reality he was still unwilling to face, the unspoken truth he was avoiding. He had to talk about it. He needed to explain how he felt. And Curtis was the only one here to listen.

  “Diana, until this moment I’ve done a really good job of running from the fact that Kaitlyn died. I think I was the only person who didn’t cry at her funeral. The reason … I was too much of a coward. I’ve been using the same tactics I used with her gifts to not acknowledge her death. I’ve found menial things to keep my focus off the one thing I can’t face—that I’m never going to see her again. When I open this box, I’ll be admitting that she’s dead.”

  He didn’t expect her to comment. She didn’t. And then he was disappointed. Did she not care or just not know what to say? He might as well have been alone. In fact, he wished he was alone.

  Grabbing the box with his left hand, he spun the four small dials. Once he had them positioned, he returned the box to the desk and turned his chair toward his guest. “You’re the CSI. Any guesses?”

  “No.”

  “That’s disappointing. I figured with all your training you’d at least have a hunch.”

  “No hunches.” She lobbed the question back at him. “How about you? Do you have any ideas?”

  Lije turned his gaze back to the box and shook his head. He made no move to open the lid.

  Curtis waited a couple of minutes before announcing, “It’s time.”

  “Forgive me if I sound bitter here,” he said, “but not everything’s about the case. This might just be personal.”

  He ran two fingers along the edge of the box. Then he looked up. “Something hit me as I stood alone in the hallway. Diana, sometime in the near future, when the ABI puts a closed stamp on what happened here, you’ll walk away. Your life won’t be that greatly influenced by this case because, for you, there will be hundreds of others. But for me, the rest of my life has been dramatically altered. And, if you’re right, and Heather is the one behind this, then my faith will be altered too. Faith in people. Even my faith in God.”

  She offered no words of comfort. He wondered if she was trying to understand what he was feeling or just curious about what Kaitlyn had found to surprise him.

  Lije sighed. “Like you said, it’s time.”

  Dread consumed him as he placed his trembling hand on the box, his thumb resting at the front edge of the lid. A sharp pain ripped through his gut at the point where the bullet had exited his body. He looked down to see if the stitches had ripped open, but there was no blood on his white shirt and he felt no flowing warmth against his body.

  He would have simply respun the numbers that controlled the lock, put this box back in the drawer, and let it sit for months if not for one thing. He felt there was a chance—probably a very slight one—that what was under the lid would help him make some sense of what had happened. Clinging to that thought, he pulled open the lid and forced himself to look inside.

  On top of a stack of folded papers was a ring holding several keys. The metal was dark and the keys, except for one, appeared to be decades old. Unfolding the documents, he read through the first page and then scanned the next one. After leafing through them all, he put the papers back on Heather’s desk and fixed his gaze on the key ring.

  Curtis seemed to feel the need to respect his silence, but finally her curiosity got the better of her. “Lije?”

  “Kaitlyn bought Swope’s Ridge, the old German’s house, and all 359 acres.”

  “That’s the property you wanted to build a home on?”

  “Sure is, the most beautiful site on Spring River.”

  Kaitlyn was going to surprise him with the chance to finally see what the world looks like from on top of the hill. Swope’s Ridge. She had re
ally outdone herself this time. Her last gift was a real winner. Yet it was the one, more than all the others, that was meant to be shared by two. Now it was nothing more than a scenic hand of solitare.

  “How could she make such a huge purchase without your knowing?I mean, this must have cost …”

  “Over a million dollars,” Lije said. “And she paid for it in cash.”

  “I assume that you’d have had to know if that much money was being withdrawn from your account.”

  “I’d have known if it was out of the joint account. But about a dozen years ago, when her father died, he left her several hundred thousand dollars. We didn’t need the money, so I suggested she invest it. After giving away about twenty percent to some of her causes, she opted to buy stock in Apple Computer. Let’s just say that Steve Jobs and his company were very good to her. I knew she’d sold some of the stock a while back, but I have no idea how she could have bought Swope’s Ridge.”

  “She just keeps surprising you.”

  Lije didn’t hear Diana’s comment. He’d tried to buy the place for years, but the original owner wouldn’t sell it to him. How did Kaitlyn get him to change his mind?

  Lije put the paperwork back into the box, closed the lid, spun the dials, and slid the metal case back into the desk drawer. He slipped the keys into his pants pocket and turned out the desk lamp. “Let’s go.”

  They walked out the front door of the office and got into the Cord.

  “It seems to me,” Curtis said, “that you were less surprised by the gift and more surprised by the fact that Kaitlyn could actually buy the property.”

  He pulled up to the street and slid the car into first. “Yeah, the German immigrant who bought the property right after World War II was very reclusive. To my knowledge he had no family and, based on what those around that area told me, no friends. He didn’t farm, raise livestock, or hold a job. Yet he lived pretty well. I was told he always had plenty of money for the modest things he needed. Of course, who knows about such talk—might have been rumors. Yet he had this incredible property and, from what I understand, rarely left his home. It was like he was hiding from the world rather than enjoying it. So, needless to say, he wouldn’t even hear an offer, though I understand plenty of folks tried to talk to him.”

  “So Kaitlyn charmed him?”

  Lije preselected second gear and mashed on the clutch before answering. “No, he died about five years ago.”

  “Who did she buy it from?”

  Bathed in the glow of the ancient car’s green dash lights, Lije thought back to the papers he had just scanned. He had glanced at the name. A few minutes later, as he pulled the car into the barn, he finally admitted, “For the life of me I can’t recall the name of the previous owner. I’m usually really good with both names and numbers. I can look it up tomorrow.”

  Curtis shrugged. “Let me know who owned it.”

  About halfway along the path back to the house, Lije stopped and glanced back toward the clump of trees that earlier had sheltered the shooter. Pointing to the spot, he asked, “The rifleman was right down there?”

  “The riflewoman.”

  For some reason, the old television show The Rifleman, which he had watched as a kid in reruns, jumped into his mind. And then he had the name. The first name of the sheriff on the show was Micah. “That’s it,” he shot back.

  “That’s what?”

  “The name of the previous owner of Swope’s Ridge. Kaitlyn bought the property from the estate of Micah Dean.”

  “Does that name sound familiar to you? I feel like I’ve heard it somewhere.”

  Lije made his way to his study and did an internet search for Micah Dean. The results led him to the archives of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.

  “Micah Dean was murdered a couple of years ago. Shot by a man named Jonathon Jennings. He was found guilty and got the death penalty.”

  “Yeah,” Curtis said as she walked into the study from the kitchen. “That’s it. We didn’t do any actual location work on that case, but we did process evidence. I think the motive was over some real estate. Could that have been …”

  Turning his attention back to the monitor, Lije read through several more paragraphs: “ ‘The disagreement began when Dean would not listen to a financial offer presented by real-estate agent Jennings. The offer, made by the agent on behalf of a supposed outof-state party whom Jennings could not produce at the trial, was for several hundred acres of land on the Spring River. The property is best known by the name of the lumberman who initially settled the land back in the mid-1800s, Oval Swope.’”

  “Swope’s Ridge,” he whispered.

  THE MATRON ORDERED HEATHER JAMESON TO STRIP. Silently, with the stranger’s eyes taking in her every move, she did what she was told. She had never been so humiliated and never felt so hopeless.

  “Turn around,” the woman ordered as she slipped on a latex glove. After Heather had slowly done a three-sixty, the matron said, “Now bend over and spread your legs.” It simply couldn’t get any worse, but it did.

  She was left to stand naked for a while before being issued an orange jumpsuit. Then the same unyielding eyes that had watched her undress studied her just as carefully as she put on the uniform of an accused. Finally, convinced she wasn’t hiding anything anywhere on or in her body, the guard left her alone in the eight-by-eight cell.

  The blame had started when she was just a kid, and she realized she had no control over it. Her dad was a drunk, coming home every night to tell her that his drinking was her fault. Her mother’s death—her fault. That even she knew was her fault. She had told her mother that her dad would change if only her mother would stick it out, stay in the marriage. But her real reason for not wanting her mother to leave was that she didn’t want to be from a broken home. Her dad could change; she knew it. But he didn’t change, and her mother ended her life with a bottle of pills.

  In college she had a clean-cut boyfriend who had his act together until she convinced him to start doing drugs. He saved her one night from an overdose, and she cleaned up her act. She showed up too late one night to save him, and he died. Because of her.

  She told her little brother to join the army to escape life at home. He was one week from returning home from Iraq when the officer showed up at their house to deliver the news of his death. Because of her.

  And now Kaitlyn, murdered.

  Was that her fault too? If only she hadn’t …

  The cell contained a sparsely outfitted bed, a metal sink, and a commode. There wasn’t even a mirror. But that seemed like a gift. She couldn’t bear to look at herself. This jail cell was her present and her future. This was the way it would be from now on.

  Death suddenly seemed like a welcome friend. Life had the sting. Her best friend dead. Her family … she couldn’t think of that. In over her head in debt. And now she was accused of killing a woman she admired more than any other she had ever known. Sitting there, alone, she continued to warm to the idea of taking an early leave from a cold and cruel world.

  Pressing her knees to her chest, she pulled her arms around her legs and began to gently rock back and forth on her bunk. After a while she felt her lips form a strange smile. Was she taking the first step toward madness? The thought of falling into the snake pit somehow brought her a sense of security. Crazy! She could blame it all on being crazy. But what if she really was crazy? What if she was so crazy she had done it and blacked out? What if? No, no, no, that wasn’t right. She wasn’t crazy. Or was she?

  Minutes passed like hours and hours like days and at dawn her face was still wrapped in a look of mental confusion. She was going mad, and it was a trip she wanted to make. She wanted to go so mad that she forgot everything—her father, her brother, her mother, her boyfriend, Kaitlyn.

  The journey to oblivion was interrupted when she heard footsteps outside her cell door. She glanced up and heard a key inserted into her door lock. The door opened and a tall man with kind brown eyes walked into the cell.
He seemed like a tired old dog that needed a pat on the head. He did look tired, but he wasn’t old.

  “I’m Kent McGee.”

  She knew who he was. He and Lije were friends. But could she trust him? Rather than answer, she just nodded. He looked like a young Mark Harmon. She liked Mark Harmon. Loved him on NCIS, Tuesday nights. He was nice. Maybe McGee was all right. He had made a name for himself. But why had he come to see her?

  A few days before, she would have tried to get a date with McGee. She would have turned on the charm and given herself permission to flirt. But that was the old Heather. This was the new crazy Heather. So he could’ve been Brad Pitt and it wouldn’t have mattered. Nothing mattered now.

  She stayed on the bunk, her arms still wrapped around her legs.

  “Miss Jameson, Elijah Evans called me and asked me to represent you. He believes you’re innocent and wants to make sure we get this cleared up as soon as possible. I am here to help you.”

  LIJE WOKE TO THE SOUND OF THE PHONE RINGING. It was already past nine. He rolled out of bed, not believing he had actually slept, much less slept this late. The pills Dr. Herring had prescribed and that Curtis had forced him to take had really knocked him out. It was the first real rest he’d had in days.

  But he still felt horrid.

  “Lije here,” he said.

  “It’s Kent. I’ve spent some time with Heather Jameson and she won’t talk to me. I’ve tried to explain that I need to have certain information and she just clams up. I know she’s a lawyer and I know she knows better, but as scared as she is, she’s not going to help me help her. It’s like working with someone with mob connections. To them death’s not as scary as dealing with the dark human forces of this world. I think she’s given up. I think she wants to be found guilty. Or crazy.”