Radhauser thought about the things he learned at the academy and through his own experiences as a detective. Never take the crime scene for granted—let it speak to you before you project yourself inside it. Each one had a unique story to tell. Even if that story was hidden in something that seemed trivial at first glance, his job was to find that story, read it, and figure out exactly what it meant. And that rubber band on the toddler’s wrist bothered him.
Murphy let out a long sigh. “No matter what we do, the press is going to be all over our asses until we make an arrest.”
Chapter Ten
Bryce dressed in his new navy sport jacket, a pale blue dress shirt and a pair of gray slacks—his cordovan loafers polished to shine. He deliberately came late to the 8 p.m. viewing and memorial service for Skyler. Tucked inside his jacket pocket was Skyler’s favorite rubber shark. He was surprised to see two uniformed police officers stationed at the front entrance to the mortuary.
He read the lips of one of the officers. “Give the family some privacy.” The young woman reporter paid no attention and thrust a microphone in Bryce’s face. “What can you tell me about the murder of Skyler Sterling?”
Bryce swallowed hard and kept walking. Murder? The press must be fishing for a story. Just a bunch of vultures looking to prove themselves through other people’s tragedies.
He fingered the rubber shark in his pocket. When he had a private moment, he planned to place it in the casket with Skyler. The days of chasing him around the house and playing that “bite the butt” game were over, and it seemed appropriate the shark go with Skyler to wherever he was headed now. Bryce stood at the back of the room, observing. The entire room smelled like roses and grief.
He was surprised to see Detective Radhauser in the back row, wearing a dark blue, western-cut suit and his spit polished cowboy boots. The hat dangled from the tip of his index finger.
Bryce stepped over to the detective.
Radhauser turned to face him. “I know this isn’t a great time for questions, but I need the name of the man who came home from the park with you on Monday and entered the house.”
“Tilly doesn’t miss a trick, does she?”
Radhauser laughed. “She gives new meaning to ‘neighborhood watch.’”
“His name is Montgomery Taylor.” Bryce told Radhauser what happened at the park, how Monty wanted to photograph Skyler, but Bryce had refused. How they’d struck up a conversation and ended up walking home together. “Monty was thirsty and asked for a glass of water.”
“Would he have had an opportunity to tamper with Skyler’s bottle?”
“I pointed him toward the kitchen while I put Skyler down for his nap. We keep Skyler’s bottle in the same cabinet as the drinking glasses. Why? Did someone mess with the bottle?”
“I’m not sure,” Radhauser said. “But I’m checking out everyone who had access to Skyler on Monday.”
“That thing that happened in Philadelphia was the worst time in Miss Tilly’s life,” Bryce said. “Please don’t upset her anymore. She would never hurt either of the boys.”
Radhauser put a reassuring hand on Bryce’s shoulder. “I’m doing my job. And for tonight your job is to say goodbye to Skyler.”
Bryce’s eyes pooled. And then his gaze shifted to Dana.
Tears, darkened by mascara, ran down both cheeks and into her mouth. Her face was smudged with so much misery that Bryce turned his own to the mortuary window, then stepped in front of it, gazing out at the garden lit by spotlights. Golden and rust-colored chrysanthemums, some yellow rose bushes in their second bloom, and an assortment of pansies dotted the carefully planted mounds. Strands of tiny white lights wrapped around the trunks of Japanese maples as if they were Christmas trees.
The open casket sat on a platform at the front of the room. It was no bigger than the old trunk of Christmas decorations his mother had once kept in the attic. Skyler, propped on a white satin pillow, was dressed in a navy-blue sailor outfit, crowned with a starched white collar he would have despised. Two embroidered stripes wrapped around each sleeve. His tiny hands were folded across an appliqued anchor on his chest.
As Bryce stared out into the autumn night, the pressure of a hand on his shoulder turned him around to face Tilly and a muscular young boy about sixteen at her side. They both smiled and Bryce was relieved to find two friendly faces in the crowd of Dana and Reggie’s coworkers, friends and family members.
“You remember my grandbaby, Lonnie, don’t you? I hope you don’t mind he’s here. He gave me a ride.”
Bryce glanced at his bandaged finger, shrugged, then extended his left hand. “How’s that batting coming along?” Years ago, Bryce had spent months of evenings and weekends at the batting cages with a younger, more awkward Lonnie, eager for Little League tryouts.
“Great, thanks to you, Mr. Bryce. I played third base, the hot corner, for Central Point High School last spring.” A wide grin lifted Lonnie’s face. “I had twenty-seven RBIs.”
Bryce dropped his arm over the boy’s shoulder. “I’m proud of you. And thank you both for coming.”
Tilly nodded toward their seats near the back of the room, two rows in front of Radhauser. Lonnie took her hint and left them alone. When Tilly was certain the boy couldn’t overhear, she raised her chin, adjusted her glasses and declared, “He grew up real good, didn’t he, Bryce?”
“He sure did, Tilly.”
“You holdin’ up all right, boy?”
Bryce glanced toward the coffin again. “It’s still pretty hard to believe, even though I see it with my own eyes.”
“I hate the way that redheaded Reggie Sterling stands up there actin’ like he give a damn about the child, when you were the one who loved him.” She touched Bryce’s arm. “I know that, even if nobody else does.”
The service was short, delivered by a clergyman who never met Skyler. To him, and everyone who didn’t know the toddler the way Bryce did, it looked as if the little boy had bypassed everything. He wouldn’t enter first grade or hit a home run into left field, he would never write a love poem or cradle his own child. But he lived for nineteen months. He reached out and touched, and maybe he absorbed more about living than many adults. Maybe he already discovered everything that really mattered. Maybe, at this very moment, Skyler was running toward a shimmering light somewhere just outside the reach of time. Or maybe it was merely Bryce’s need to insist Skyler’s life, though short, had a purpose.
At the end of the service, Dana and Reggie stood beside the tiny white coffin. As each family member, friend or co-worker filed by, Bryce read her lips as Dana recited the story of Skyler’s death. She began with the tarot crossing card she drew that morning, then moved on to the phone call from Bryce, how she left a tray of drinks on the bar, rushed from the Lazy Lasso to the hospital, and stood next to Skyler’s bed as he breathed in for the last time.
Not much of what she repeated was true. It must be Dana’s way of coping with the tragedy—to claim she saw it beforehand, perceived it coming through the cards. Her interpretation removed all possibility of prevention, as if nothing or no one could have changed the course of Skyler’s life and death, laid out in ten cards on a black velvet cloth.
Bryce waited for his opportunity to say goodbye to Skyler. While Reggie and Dana were involved in a conversation with Bear and Henry, Bryce stepped up to the casket. He lifted Skyler’s hands, strangely shocked by their heavy lifelessness, and tucked the rubber shark beneath the toddler’s palms. He stood there for a few moments, saying a prayer for Skyler. For some reason, this death brought back all the others.
He shuddered, struggling to clear the memory of his father’s suicide. And when he did, the other death, the one he willed himself never again to recall, surged inside him. Grief rose as pure as a song, a hymn sung a cappella.
Bear and Henry stepped up to the coffin.
Bryce moved aside to give them space.
Henry stood, looking at Skyler for a long time. “I guess he won’t be
screaming anymore.”
Bear hushed him and they moved away.
Bryce returned. Above all other things, he vowed he would cherish his days with Skyler and always love the little boy who’d come late into his life and through whom he tasted the promise of a childhood.
Reggie grabbed him by the elbow. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”
The air around Bryce held him down. He swallowed against the strength of something that told him not to move. “I’m paying my respects to a little boy I loved as much as my own son,” he finally said.
“Was he your son?”
“You know damn well, I didn’t even meet Dana until Skyler was a few months old.”
Reggie’s pale skin reddened. “If you loved him so damn much, why didn’t you keep him safe? Why is he lying in a coffin instead of running around being a kid?” Reggie grabbed the shark from beneath Skyler’s palms. “And he doesn’t need this cheap piece of shit either.”
Detective Radhauser yanked Reggie away from the coffin, took the shark and tucked it back under Skyler’s hands. “I suggest you let this man mourn. The way I understand it, he took care of Skyler when you didn’t want anything to do with him.”
“And who the hell are you to tell me how I felt about that boy?”
He opened the leather case that held his badge. “I’m Detective Radhauser from the Ashland Police Department.”
“Then make yourself useful, Detective. Arrest this son of a bitch. He killed my son.”
Chapter Eleven
At Union Square, Kendra Palmer stepped from the back of a limousine, delivered to her father’s office straight from the San Francisco airport like a Federal Express package. When she phoned from Medford to schedule an appointment with him, she insisted on taking the shuttle bus. Best get used to it, given the career path she chose. But she wasn’t surprised when she spotted George, her father’s chauffeur, at the airport gate. Good old Dad had a reputation for getting what he wanted. Her father, Kendrick Huntington Palmer III, believed in the stock market, Ivy League educations, Armani suits, and traveling first class.
She let him score on the limo. Kendra had a much bigger victory in mind.
When she entered Harvard Law School, she didn’t have a single doubt she would follow the map her father laid out for her future. Pass the California bar exam, do a clerkship with a prominent judge, and honor her father’s wish that she join the family law firm like three generations of San Francisco Palmers before her. But, strange as it sounded, while pursuing her father’s dream, she discovered her own.
It wouldn’t be easy to convince him she was doing the right thing. Kendrick Huntington Palmer III was a brilliant and complicated man. His cross-examinations were legendary—the way his steel-gray eyes fell on a witness and remained there until a tiny interest stirred, like a slow smile, when he discovered the one thing they most wanted to hide.
Kendra reminded herself she had nothing to hide, and in three years of law school she learned how to debate a point. And she knew how to win. The class follies aimed an entire skit at her, the graduating lawyer most likely to free the guilty.
Keep telling yourself that, she thought, brushing a piece of lint from the gray, pinstriped jacket she wore to please her father. She pulled her long blonde hair back and clipped it at the nape of her neck with a plain gold barrette. Her high-heeled shoes were stylish and yet sensible.
Kendra spent weeks planning a defense of her decision, a rebuttal that would make him understand both her appreciation for everything he did for her, and her need to serve in another way. She would keep it simple. I’ve passed the Oregon State Bar Examination and accepted a job in the Office of Public Defense in Ashland, Dad. I’ll be able to help people who haven’t had the advantages you’ve given me. She would tell him how she fell in love with Ashland, its Siskiyou Mountains and alpine ski lodge, its quaint shops, and all the diverse restaurants. How it looked as if a little bit of England dropped into southern Oregon.
Once he realized how important it was to her, surely he would be happy. But no matter how her father reacted, she wouldn’t let him stop her. She thought of her dead mother then, the way she always encouraged Kendra to follow her dreams, told her how important they were and what happened when a person didn’t have them.
Fortified by the memory of her mother’s support, Kendra maneuvered the wide sidewalks crowded with shoppers. A column of tourists waited to board the next cable car. Kendra hurried past them.
In front of her father’s brick and granite office building, a woodwind quartet in black tuxedos played a Vivaldi Concerto. Something in the plaintive sound of the oboe caught her attention. She paused to listen for a moment, then tossed a crisp five-dollar bill into a top hat with The San Francisco Wind embroidered inside the rim.
Kendra smiled to acknowledge the saxophonist’s grateful nod, then slipped through the revolving doors and across the black and white marble lobby to the elevator. She pushed the button for the twenty-second floor and checked her watch. Right on time.
The elevator doors opened on her father’s floor. Even though she wasn’t born the son he dreamed of, her father loved her and took pride in her accomplishments. Her law degree meant everything to him. It might take him a while, but he would realize it meant something different to her. Squaring her shoulders, she stepped off the elevator, then stood in the hallway, her hand on the doorknob.
A polished brass plate announced the family firm, Kendrick Huntington Palmer III and Associates. She sighed, aware of how very much she wanted his blessing, then opened the door into a room full of people eating catered hors d’oeuvres and sipping champagne.
Great. An office birthday party.
Balloon bouquets and bright yellow and red crepe paper streamers hung from the ceiling. A huge, hand-painted welcome aboard banner with Kendra’s name on it covered the entire back wall.
Before she could react, her father stood, beaming in front of her. He was a tall, middle-aged man, slender with perfect teeth, tanned skin, and a thick head of wavy dark hair streaked with silver. He was dressed, as he always was for work, in a three-piece Armani suit. He drew back a starched, monogramed cuff and checked his watch. “Right on time.” He grinned and kissed her on the cheek. “I’m sorry I missed the party after your clerkship. Your Aunt Edna said you were the star.”
“I understood,” she lied.
He took another glass of champagne from the silver tray the white-coated waiter offered and thrust it into Kendra’s hand. Wrapping his arm around her shoulders, he led her to the center of the room. “May I have your attention,” he said, looking like he won a ten million-dollar lawsuit. “I propose a toast to our newest associate, Harvard Class of 1998.” He paused, lifted his glass and smiled. “Who just happens to be my daughter, Kendrick Huntington Palmer IV.”
Her gaze moved from her father to his secretary and back again. She fought the urge to announce her plans, raise a toast to a future representing the disenfranchised, but couldn’t bring herself to embarrass her father.
When the applause ended, she avoided her father’s eyes and scanned the room, looking for Aunt Edna. A half circle of smiling faces, many of whom knew Kendra since infancy, cheered and raised their glasses. Finally, she caught her aunt’s attention and smiled. She’d talked with Aunt Edna at the clerkship party and she understood and supported Kendra’s plans.
Aunt Edna, her father’s sister, hurried toward her.
Kendra loved to watch her walk, the way she loped across the room, projecting enthusiasm and good intentions that arrived an instant before she did. Though she just passed her fiftieth birthday, she didn’t look much older than the young woman Kendra first met in childhood, her eyes wide as an autumn sky and shining beneath her clumps of cinnamon-colored curls. None of the magic vanished. Edna had stepped up to the plate after Kendra’s mother died.
She hugged Kendra, lips pressed against her ear. “Welcome to the Twilight Zone,” she whispered.
Despite her frus
tration, Kendra laughed.
“How was the interview?”
“You’re talking to the newest Jackson County Public Defender,” she said. “I’ve found an apartment in Ashland. It’s an amazing town in the mountains, and looks like a little English village. They have a world-renowned Shakespeare Festival. Wait until you see it. I start on Monday.” Kendra glanced at her father.
“Don’t worry,” Aunt Edna said. “We’ll adjust his dials later.”
Her father’s colleagues, a long line of attorneys with offices in the building, shook her hand and patted her on the back. They all said versions of the same thing. You’ve made your father very proud. This is the happiest day of his life.
Kendra clasped each hand, smiled and kept silent. And when the time came, she cut the bright yellow ribbon across her new office door and waited for the party to end.
A half hour later, her father ushered Edna, the last of the guests to leave, toward the door. “I’ll see you at the house later. Kendra has something important to discuss with me.”
Aunt Edna smiled at Kendra. “Flip those dials carefully,” she said, then stepped into the hallway. “We don’t want to blow any circuits.” She winked. “I’m cooking tonight. Your favorites. So don’t be late.”
Drawing her back inside the new office, her father nodded toward a chair.
Kendra sat, crossed her legs, leaned into the rose and green tapestry wingback facing a wall of windows, and waited. Like a postcard, the Bay Bridge stretched across gray-blue water flecked with sailboats.
“Did you enjoy the party?”
“Look,” she said. “I know how much you want…” She stopped, thought about the conviction in the three-sentence speech she’d prepared, then tried again. “I know you mean well, Dad, but I found something I can be really good at. Something that matters to me.” She waited for the explosion.
Instead, he pulled a chair in front of her, their knees nearly touching. He picked up her hands and studied them, stroked the smooth surface of her nails with his thumbs. “If you’re determined to get these dirty, The Office of Public Defense in Ashland is as good a place as any, I guess.”
A River of Silence Page 10