by Brett Baker
I wanted my mom and dad back.
My meltdown on the bench lasted ten minutes, start to finish. Grief is a very uneven process, and I can’t imagine feeling any worse than I did on that bench. I quickly pulled myself together though, checked my appearance in the reflection of a window, and went back inside.
As I entered the room I noticed a man sitting in the back row by himself. He wore a dark blue shirt, grey pants, and a red tie. Black glasses framed a tanned face with what appeared to be a few days of intentional scruff. He sat with one leg crossed over the other, his hands folded in his lap. A quick glance around the room verified that he was the only person not engaged in conversation with anyone else. I didn’t recognize him, and his look seemed a bit too modern to fit in with the typical Eutaw man.
I met Whit at the front of the room, and he introduced me to Bonnie, a woman who dressed as though she was in her seventies, despite being only a few years older than me. She was the secretary at the Methodist church and had great things to say about my parents. As I talked to her I kept an eye on the man in the back row. He seemed rather disinterested in the entire event, although I noticed him looking my way a few times.
When Bonnie walked away I pulled Whit closer to me before anyone else could begin talking to us.
“Who’s the man in the glasses in the back row?” I asked. “I don’t recognize him, and he doesn’t appear to be chatting with anyone else.”
Whit looked toward the back of the room, stared at the man for a few seconds, and then shrugged his shoulders. “Never seen him before in my life.”
“I thought you knew everyone in town,” I said.
“Just about everyone,” Whit said. “Maybe he’s not from town. Could be some guy your dad knew from work or something. There have been a few people I haven’t recognized. Shouldn’t be a surprise. Your mom and dad made friends everywhere they went.”
“Yeah, I guess.” While my training in the Summit taught me how to always be aware of my surroundings and to perceive threats almost instantaneously, I sometimes saw threats where no threats existed. Most people are good, harmless, innocent, but I still suspected the worst. Somewhere along the line I’d developed the ability to ferret out a person’s intentions, which had saved my life on more than one occasion. But sometimes I also found it difficult to believe that a guy sitting in a chair could just be a guy sitting in a chair, instead of a guy sitting in a chair and planning something sinister.
“Go up and introduce yourself,” Whit said. “No better way to get to know someone.”
I nodded, but was interrupted by an elderly man who called my name much too loudly. He introduced himself as Marvin Tashman, and explained that he frequently saw my dad at the local diner, where he went for breakfast every morning. Marvin knew Johnny and me by name, and made a passing reference to the ridiculous affair rumor between my mom and Whit. He’d just turned a hundred years old and my dad had mailed a greeting card to him in which he wrote, “Happy Birthday to the oldest person I know. Thanks for not dying.” Marvin said he laughed for three days.
I talked to Marvin for five more minutes before he complained about standing too long, and sauntered off toward the side of the room, where he joined another group of people and continued talking to them while he remained standing.
Whit and Johnny were talking to each other, and when I turned around to find Justine, the man from the back row was standing right in front of me. I barely held in a gasp when I saw him. He stood with his hands folded in front of him, and looked down at the ground as if to avoid eye contact, or to warn that he bore bad news.
I collected myself, forced a smile, and said, “Thank you for coming.”
He looked up, and nodded. “I’m sorry for your loss.” I’d heard that phrase a hundred times that night, but never as robotic, never as empty of emotion. He looked beyond me, toward the caskets. “They look at peace, thankfully.”
I turned and peered in the direction of my parents. Nowhere in the myriad thoughts that had run through my mind since I entered the funeral home did the word peace emerge. There are certain phrases that mourners say that are repeated so often they’re almost devoid of meaning. That’s how the word peace seemed to me at that moment.
“I hope so,” I replied. “At least they’re together.” Another repetitive phrase. “How did you know them?” I asked, my curiosity finally getting the best of me.
“I didn’t know them,” the man said. “I’m actually here to talk to you.”
“To me?” I asked. “What about?”
“You’re Mia Mathis, right?” the man asked.
“I am. And you are?”
“I’m Greg Hertz,” the man said. “I won’t take your time tonight. I just wanted to introduce myself. We’ll catch up in the next day or two. You’ve got things to take care of here. I just wanted to be sure I had the right person.”
“The right person?” I asked. “What does that mean? The right person for what?”
“Never mind right now. We’ll talk later.” He nodded once and turned to walk away. Before he could take a step I grabbed his arm.
“Wait a minute,” I said. “You can’t come in here and say something like that and then brush me off. Tell me what this is about.”
“I’d really rather not,” Hertz said. “This isn’t really the time or the place for it.”
“Then why come talk to me? If it’s not the time or place to talk about it, then it’s probably not the time or place to approach me.”
“I couldn’t take the chance of letting you get away.” I felt my pulse begin to race. Considering the events of the week, talking to someone who worried about letting me get away worried me.
“Well now we have to take care of this,” I said, walking toward the room’s exit. I turned back to see him still standing there, not having moved a muscle. I waved for him to follow me.
I encountered a group of three mourners I recognized as I neared the exit of the building and exchanged greetings with them. A woman in the group a few years older than me sobbed as she hugged me, and although I felt a bit guilty trying to break our embrace and walk away, I was anxious to know exactly what Hertz wanted with me.
I led Hertz out the door of the funeral home and along the sidewalk at the front of the building. We followed it to the side of the building, where it led to a patio surrounded on all four sides by privet hedges taller than me. An opening that had begun to encroach upon the width of the sidewalk provided access to the secret location. A wrought iron bench backed up to the hedges opposite the entrance, and I sat down before immediately deciding that I’d rather stand and talk to Hertz.
“So what’s this about?” I asked. “It must be important for you to come and interrupt me in a situation like this.”
“Mia, really, I think it’s probably best we have this conversation at a time during which you’re less preoccupied with more important things. There’s no reason this can’t wait until tomorrow.”
“There’s no reason we can’t take care of it right now,” I said. “You’ve already come here and introduced yourself to me and implied that you have some sort of cryptic message to deliver. So let’s get to it.”
“My name’s Greg Hertz…”
“Yeah, you already said that,” I interrupted.
Hertz looked at me and offered a fake smile. I could tell that he was annoyed but I didn’t care. “I’m a detective with the Tulare County sheriff’s office in California. I have a couple of questions for you.”
“Tulare County. I’ve never heard of it. Where is that?”
“We’re in central California, sort of halfway between L.A. and San Francisco. Forests, lakes, mountains. Absolutely gorgeous part of the state.”
“And what do you want with me?”
“Are you familiar with Abner Chamberlain?”
“No, I’m not. Should I be?”
“You haven’t seen any of the news coverage about him?”
“I’m sorry, no, I haven’t. In case you
forgot I’ve been a bit busy the past few days. Who is he and why should I know him?”
“Of course. My condolences once again.” Hertz paused as if he expected me to respond, but I simply looked at him and waited for him to continue. “Abner Chamberlain was a bigwig in the environmental movement. He led opposition to projects that threatened the environment, and his group worked to acquire as much threatened land as possible.”
“It doesn’t ring a bell. Why are you asking me about him?”
“Chamberlain’s dead,” Hertz said. He paused as if awaiting a reaction from me. I had no desire to feign interest or shock at the death of someone I didn’t know existed a minute before. Hertz eventually read my blank stare and continued. “He lived in a cabin on the outskirts of a national forest. A couple of hunters came across his body and called us. He’d been shot once. Right in the forehead. We think the shot came from a considerable distance since the two men didn’t see anyone at the house. And if it came from a distance it’s all the more impressive because it was a clean shot. This isn’t just some random shooting. Whoever did this knew what they were doing.”
“You think I shot this guy?” I asked. Hertz had yet to make clear the point of his line of inquiry, so I hoped that posing such a ridiculous question would help him zero in on why he actually wanted to talk to me.
“No, you’re not a suspect,” Hertz said. “But we hoped you might be able to shed a little light on the situation.”
“Don’t hold your breath,” I said. “Until a couple of minutes ago I’d never heard of the victim.”
“I understand. But the reason I’m here is because another officer and I responded to the call at the same time. We found the two men exiting Chamberlain’s cabin. We asked them why they went inside and they said they wanted to look around, make sure that the bad guys weren’t still there. Then one of the guys says, ‘We figured it didn’t matter if we went inside because he’s not going to need anything in there anyway. Can you believe that?”
“It can’t be too surprising that a couple of dudes rifled through a dead guy’s belongings, can it? Maybe it’s just me, but I’m no longer surprised by anything.”
Hertz chuckled and nodded his head. “You’re right. Not surprising at all, actually. To be honest, we don’t care what those guys steal from the house, except for how it might impact the investigation. They’ve got a point. The dead guy doesn’t need his stuff anymore. So if they want to take a few things, I’m not going to spend time pursuing them when there’s a killer on the loose. But what if they steal the only thing that might solve the murder? I can’t let that go.”
“Of course not,” I said. “Listen, I don’t mean to be disrespectful, but I don’t really care about what crimes you investigate and which ones you let slide. In case you can’t tell, I’ve got bigger things on my mind right now. So can we just get to the point? I assume you think I’ve got something to say about Abner Chamberlain.”
“I’m sorry. I’m just trying to give you some background. I’ll get to it.” Hertz paused, smirked, and said nothing, as if waiting for me to respond. I nodded, hoping to urge him to get to the point. “We found a folder labeled H.R. 3650. Inside the folder were printouts of a few newspaper articles about a bill before Congress, a receipt for a cash bank deposit of three thousand dollars, and a piece of paper with your name, address and phone number on it. Beneath that information was one word: restrain.”
“Restrain? That’s it? What the fuck does that mean?” I asked. “What was the piece of paper?”
Hertz reached into his pocket and pulled out a folded piece of plain white paper. He unfolded it and held it up. “That’s me,” I said, verifying my name and address on the paper.
“Since you claim not to know who Abner Chamberlain is, then I guess it’s safe to say that you don’t know why he wrote down your phone number and address.”
“I don’t claim not to know him. I don’t know him. I’ve never heard the name. And I’m not worried about my address and phone number, I want to know what the hell the word restrain means.”
“Your guess is as good as ours,” Hertz said. “We hoped that you’d be able to shed some light on this.”
“If you flew across the country based on a name written on a piece of paper, then I’m guessing you don’t have much to go on here. Seems a little soon to be grasping at straws.”
“Restrain worried us. We had Chicago PD do a well-being check on you, and obviously you weren’t you there, so we had them case your place for a few days, but when you never showed up we were worried. I’m glad we found you down here.”
“Wait a minute, you had CPD monitor me?”
“Not really,” Hertz said. “You weren’t there for us to monitor, remember? You’re here. They knocked on your door, and after waiting a day they gained entry into your apartment.”
“Who the hell let them in?” I asked. Had I followed The Summit’s guidelines of keeping a sparse apartment, CPD entering without my knowledge wouldn’t have been a big deal. The Summit wanted us to keep apartments that were so sterile that they’d be useless to any prying eyes, including law enforcement. I couldn’t think off-hand of anything in my apartment that would give away my involvement in The Summit, but I knew it was possible I’d forgotten about some of the contents.
“I don’t know who let them in, but we were justified in entering, if that’s what you’re worried about. We had serious concerns about your safety, considering what happened to Chamberlain, and since none of your neighbors had seen you for a couple of days we felt it a necessity to make sure you weren’t dead inside.”
“You talked to my neighbors? What did you say to them?”
“I didn’t personally talk to them, no. CPD did. I don’t know what they said. Typical investigative stuff, I’m sure.”
None of my neighbors had any clue about The Summit. I’d kept almost everything about my life from them, but especially anything mission-related. I talked to so few of them that the investigators probably had difficulty finding someone who recognized me, and anyone who did recognize me would have only known the fictionalized alternative life I created for myself. Still, I felt uneasy about anyone poking around. People naturally wonder why law enforcement is asking questions, and the only good attention involving The Summit is no attention, so no matter how benign CPD’s questions were, they were unwelcome.
“Well, you can see I’m not in any danger,” I said. “Thanks for checking on me, but I’m afraid I’ll be of no help to you.”
“I’m not so sure about that,” Hertz said. “Why would Abner Chamberlain have your name written on a piece of paper in his house? You’re a technical writer, is that right?” I nodded. “And what do you know about this bill before Congress?”
“I don’t know anything about it,” I said, speaking the truth. I didn’t recognize the bill’s number when Hertz mentioned it. In fact, I’d decided years earlier to remain intentionally uninformed about politics and governing. It’s a vortex into which we can become easily trapped and collapse further and further down.
“Why did Chamberlain tie you to it then?”
“I don’t know. You’ll have to ask him.” Hertz shot a look toward me to indicate he was not amused. “I wish I could help, but none of this sounds the least bit familiar to me. I’m afraid you wasted your time coming out here.”
Hertz looked down at the ground and kicked at imaginary dirt on the brick patio. After pausing for a moment he looked at me and said, “Please give me a call if you think of anything. No matter how insignificant you think it might be.” He reached out and handed me his card. “I’m sorry to bother you at such a difficult time. We just wanted to make sure you were okay, and I thought maybe you could help us with this. Time is of the essence in these investigations, so I couldn’t wait.”
“I understand,” I said. “I need to get back inside.”
“Of course,” Hertz said. He stepped to the side and let me pass.
As I walked back in I thought of poor Abn
er Chamberlain. Killed without warning, his body found by two reprobates intent on robbing him, his death a mystery. Hertz seemed like a capable guy, and if he caught a break he might catch Chamberlain’s killer. But, my primary concern became self-preservation. Restrain. It has twenty definitions in the Oxford English Dictionary. None of them mattered unless I figured out which one Chamberlain thought applied to me, and why.
17
Chapter 17
We all have certain days in our lives that stick with us forever. The day we bury a parent is one of them. I knew burying two parents on the same day would either cement the day in my memory, or so disturb me that the day would pass in a blur of sadness, heartbreak and loss, never to be recalled.
I woke early on the day we buried my parents. After the emotion of the previous day I’d fallen asleep as soon as my head hit the pillow. The early morning sun pierced through a crack between the drawn curtains and dappled rays on the luminescent yellow wall at the foot of the bed. I sensed the light through closed eyelids, and when I opened them I brought a hand to my face to shield the brightness. I didn’t want to be awake, both because I was still tired, and because I knew what the day held and I didn’t want to face it.