I closed my eyes, remembering. It had scared the hell out of me. Of course Adrian bounced back. That was Adrian. He was invincible. I put my head down on my desk and concentrated on breathing.
The irony of life after Adrian was that as much as I didn’t want to let him go, I couldn’t have if I tried. Between the column, Brian, Scarlett, the book, and the Ironman tribute, I was in purgatory—with Adrian and without him. I was a wreck. I’d started to believe that if we could just stay connected, I could do this, I could be a good mother again—or at least an adequate one—I could survive.
I lifted my head and stared at my screen. Ay chingada. I didn’t want to leave the privacy of my office, but I’d sucked down a bottle of Nuun-boosted water, and now I had to go. I clicked save and got up. I looked both ways down the hall from my office door, then made a try for the bathroom.
“Michele, do you have a minute?” Mierda. Brian.
I stopped at his door. “Yes?” He looked like a giant blueberry behind his desk in his Texans jacket.
“Are you all set with Scarlett for next week’s publicity schedule?”
Scarlett was dragging me to speak or sign books or answer interview questions a few times a week. It reminded me of when Dad took me to the rodeo when I was seven and a little dappled pony balked at the entrance to the arena. His lathered flanks heaved and the whites of his eyes bulged as they locked on the crowd—not on the barrels he was supposed to run his cloverleaf around. I was that pony. “Yes. Two speeches, two radio shows, and one TV spot.” And it is my hell.
“Good. Good. And the training and column are going well?”
He knew the answers to these questions. “Yes, fine.”
He looked down at his desk. My eyes followed his. Just a bunch of scribbles I couldn’t read upside down. “That Detective Young and his partner showed up here yesterday to talk to me.”
“Oh, really?”
“Yeah, they grilled me like a suspect. Scarlett said they did it to her, too.”
“We got the same treatment at our house. They told me they’re just being thorough.”
“I’m sure you’re right.”
I turned to go, but he said, “One thing, though. The fat partner had a lot of questions about Sam. Sam and Adrian. I told him Sam is a great kid, but I got the sense they have the wrong idea about him.”
My back stiffened. “Yes, it appears they do. Did you get any idea of why?”
“No. And I asked.”
“Thanks, Brian.”
I made my escape to the bathroom.
As I waved my hands uselessly back and forth and up and down underneath the automatic water faucet, Marsha walked in.
“I can’t get that thing to work half the time, either.” She stopped and leaned against the dark blue wallpaper, an Astros border ringing the room at ceiling level above her head. “I just put someone into your voice mail, a guy named Connor Dunn. He said he’s a friend of Adrian’s.”
“Thanks, Marsha.”
“I’ve been meaning to get you alone.” She reached for the glasses on her jeweled strap and put them on, then took them right back off.
Finally, the water came out. I rubbed my hands underneath the stream to rinse off the soap. “Okay.”
“I remember that psycho woman, Rhonda Dale, and how she was here stalking Adrian.” I waved my hands under the paper towel sensor. Nothing. “I know her stories were lies. She lied when she was here that day. Something was very off about her. I don’t care what everybody else says.”
“Thank you.” I gave up on the towels and shook my hands to dry them.
She moved to the counter and put her purse on it. “I can testify or do an affidavit or something, you know, if you ever need it.” She pulled out her makeup kit.
I walked to the door and grabbed the handle. “You are so sweet. I will remember that. Thank you so much, Marsha. Have a great afternoon.”
She looked after me, lipstick in hand. “Sure, Michele. Anything you need, you know that.”
On the other side of the bathroom door, I paused to slow my breathing. Marsha was trying to help me, and yet I felt like a prisoner who had just broken out of the gulag. I took a reading on the tension meter: a surprising 9. I needed to work out again. That would calm me down.
My phone vibrated. Text from Annabelle. “Are you there? Jay is coming to NY to see meeeeeeee!!!!”
I smiled a little bit. The phone rang in my hand. My ex-husband. Oh, joy. Stress meter at 9.5. I contemplated letting it go to voice mail, then thought better of it and took the call as I walked to my office to get my things.
“Hello, Robert.”
“Sam told me he has plans and wants to reschedule.” It was Sam’s weekend with Robert.
“I’m sorry.” I paused for him to go on. He didn’t. “What would you like for me to do about it?”
“I’d like for you to support me and make him come stay with me.”
I read another text from Annabelle while Robert was speaking: “OK, you must be busy. Hug Precious for me. I miss you guys. Text me soon.”
Guilt. I jumped back into my conversation with Robert as I reached my office. “Did he say anything about his plans?” I sat down and logged off my computer.
“No. I assumed you would know.”
I was spending the weekend riding and running in Huntsville. I needed Robert to keep Sam. “He’s working a ton, and when he’s not working he’s at baseball. Must be a recent development. Yes, I’ll support you.” I prepared to hang up, transaction completed.
Robert kept talking. “How is his hygiene when he’s with you? I can’t get him to brush his teeth. Shouldn’t he have outgrown that?”
I hadn’t noticed one way or the other lately. He didn’t get past breakfast before I left most days, so it wasn’t on my radar. “I think we should revisit the idea of medication,” I said.
“He needs consistency and discipline, not pills.”
I closed my eyes. “I’ll let you know what I find out about this weekend. Goodbye, Robert.”
I sent my son a message: “Sam, need answer ASAP about why you told your dad you can’t stay with him. What plans do you have? I will be out of town. Need to work with him, and stay at his house. Sorry.”
The light to my voice mail flashed on the desk phone. I dialed in and listened, thinking it might be Connor Dunn. A hang-up. Oh, well. Next, Annabelle. I forced myself to take the time to answer her back, including lots of the expected LOLs and smiley winking emoticons about Precious and her visit from Jay. I hit send. There. Done.
I looked at my Garmin. It was 10:59, just a little short of the lunch-hour departure I’d planned for. Good enough.
Chapter Eleven
I pulled all the way up the driveway to the house. The heat beat down on me as soon as I opened the car door and I trotted inside and wolfed down an Apple Pie Quest Bar as I changed into my running clothes. On my way back through the kitchen, I snagged a banana, a spoon, and Adrian’s jar of cashew butter, added a fresh water bottle and my Nuun tablets, and hit the door ten minutes after I arrived. I couldn’t wait to get to the gym, put on my headphones, and find my husband.
I walked out the door and came to an abrupt halt. Detective Young’s car was blocking my Jetta. He started across my lawn toward the front door.
“Hello, Detective.”
He looked my way and stopped. “Hello, Michele.”
“It’s Mrs. Hanson.”
“All right, Mrs. Hanson.”
I stayed with my car between us and put my hand on its roof. Hot. Very hot. I removed it. Just then, a white Taurus drove by. I double-took. My voice sputtered. “Hey—there goes an old Taurus—like the one I’ve been telling you about—”
I ran down the driveway to get a better look, but it had turned the corner and I couldn’t see the driver or the license plate number, but I recognized it as a Texas plate. I looked back at Young, who hadn’t moved. I walked back to where he waited in the shade of our big oak, my tension nearly hitting the top
of the scale.
“Sorry to bore you, Detective. What can I do for you? Is there some progress in the case?”
“Unfortunately, no. In fact, this isn’t even about the case. I’m trying not to overstep, but, well, I have a teenage son, too, and I decided I would want another parent to come to me in your situation.”
“What exactly is my situation, Detective? Is my son still under suspicion? I thought you had an eyewitness to a car that definitely does not belong to anyone in my household.” I tried to tamp down the wall building in my chest.
“I’ve had to spend some time on this case, like I told you I would in the beginning, looking at people who might’ve had a motive to hurt your husband, even if only to rule them out. At this time, Sam is a person of interest.”
“A person of interest?”
“Yes, a person we believe may have more information or involvement than we know of yet.”
I rolled my neck and hoped Young felt guilty when he heard it pop. “Go on.”
“Sometimes it helps to circle back and look at the people in the victim’s life again. The killer is usually there somewhere, and when I come back with fresh eyes, well, sometimes I see them off to the side where I didn’t before. So I came back to watch Sam and the people around him.”
“Okay . . .”
“There’s a Chevron station on South Post Oak. Are you familiar with it?” I nodded. “There’s a guy that sometimes sells drugs behind the dumpster there in the parking lot. Our officers usually run him off; sometimes they pick him up. He’s done a little time, but he keeps going back to his spot.”
Again I nodded.
“Last night I watched your son and his buddies.”
I interrupted. “Wait a minute. So you’re still watching Sam? Is he under surveillance?” If Young or Marchetti named Sam a suspect, the media would crucify him.
“I’m trying to find out what happened to your husband.”
“So you’re not saying my son is an official suspect.”
“He’s not an official suspect.”
“My son and some of his buddies—you were saying?”
“Yeah, well, they pulled up to the Chevron. Your son was driving your husband’s old car. One kid pumped some gas. Your son went in and bought a Sobe No Fear—”
“Sounds like a killer to me.”
Young pressed his thumb between his eyes for a moment. “The other kid went behind the dumpster and bought what looked like marijuana.”
Mierda. I didn’t know who Sam was out with or where they went last night. Come to think of it, I hadn’t seen any of his friends at our place in a while. “Why didn’t you bust them?”
“I don’t work narcotics, Michele.”
I let the Michele slide. Suddenly I’d lost all my fight. “Anything else?”
He stared at me hard, not speaking.
I sighed. “Okay, so ‘anything else’ wasn’t the right question.”
“Nope.”
Suddenly the right question was obvious. “So, why exactly is Sam a person of interest? Is it because you’re looking for a teenage boy close to Adrian, and stepsons are jealous of stepdads?”
“Actually, no.”
“What is it, then?”
“Sam’s coach said he and his friend Billy Mays skipped baseball practice on the day your husband died.”
Sam lied? My mind reeled back in time to my fourteenth birthday when my mother gave me a shadow box with colorful butterflies hanging inside. My throat had closed, panicked—for them, for me, trapped between two pieces of glass, unable to breathe. “But it’s not a school team, it’s Summer Select—the coach doesn’t even take attendance.”
“So said Sam. Coach Metcalfe disagrees. To Sam’s credit, the coach said Sam never skipped practice before.”
I chomped down on a fingernail and severed it at the quick. “Sam didn’t have a car. We don’t have a white F150.”
“Surely you don’t mean to suggest that teenagers don’t drive underage, or drive friends’ cars?”
“You’re reaching, Detective.”
“Billy Mays’ father has a white F150.”
I wanted to whimper, but I stood up straight. “What are you saying?”
“Sam had opportunity, and he had motive.” He held up a hand to silence me. “I’ve seen killings with far less motive than Sam had. And now he may have had the means.”
“Did you talk to Billy and his father?”
“Mr. Mays said he had his truck with him, and Billy said he was with Sam the whole time and Sam didn’t do it. We’re checking out their stories.”
“You have no means, and you have a witness negating opportunity.” I spoke the truth, but not all of it. The truth was that Sam lied to me and to the police. That rocked me, and made me suspicious about last night. I didn’t know what else to say. “Are we done here?”
“Yes, that’s all.”
I faked moxie I didn’t have. “You’ll let me know if there are real developments in my husband’s case?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
He got in his car and drove away. I got in my car and put my head in my hands.
After a few sweaty minutes, I started the car and turned on the AC, then texted Annabelle.
“Belle, hi sweetie. Help me on something important?”
“Hey Michele! Sure! LOL!”
“Sam is really bumming. Has he said anything to you, have you noticed?”
“Ummmm, can you NOT tell him we talked?”
“Yup. Promise.”
“My friends say he is totally with the bad boys. Sam LOL But I don’t believe it.” Another quick text followed. “I think he’s just sad.”
Me, too. “R U OK?”
“I’m by myself all the time, and I miss you guys & Jay & Precious. I don’t ever see Grandmother. She’s really busy.” A few more texts came in rapid succession. “Grandfather always works. They’re making me go to boarding school. I leave in a week.”
Annabelle never texted in long strings. If they just meant to send her away, why couldn’t they let her stay here with us and go to school with her friends and Sam? “Oh sweetie. I’m sorry. Can I help?”
“Tell Precious I love her. The boarding school has a swim team at least. Oh yeah, & I’m thinking of going to UT instead of Stanford. Don’t laugh.”
“Why would I laugh??”
“Because I’m such a baby that I just want to come home.”
“Does this have anything to do with a certain boy who will be swimming for UT?”
“Ha ha yeah but also because I can come home & see you guys some weekends.”
I held the tears in, but they were just below the surface.
***
A few hours later, I was immersed in my bathtub up to my eyeballs. In the battle of mind over matter that day on the treadmill, matter won—specifically my injured knee—before I managed to connect with Adrian. I really needed his comfort. My anxiety was off the charts over Sam, my knee, and everything.
I dried off my hand, picked up my phone, and pressed dial on the number of the orthopedist I’d saved in my contacts. A pleasant-voiced woman answered, took my insurance information, and worked me in on Monday. Good. In the meantime, I had a fifteen-mile run and a seventy-five-mile bike ride that weekend in Huntsville. I couldn’t skip those workouts. I could only hope they didn’t make everything worse.
And after Sam got back from his dad’s, I would send him to a therapist. Hell, maybe I’d go, too. I sent Sam a message. “We need to talk. Text me.”
Chapter Twelve
I bumped my head on the top of my two-man tent when I got up at four thirty a.m. at Huntsville State Park. Adrian and I had always used a five-man tent, and I regretted downsizing. It had been years since I’d camped alone in a two-man as a law school student in search of spring-break solitude to study for finals, and it wasn’t as roomy as I remembered. I rolled up my pad and folded the sheet I used as a cool barrier between me and any biting insects that made it into my tent.
By four forty-five I had popped four ibuprofen, put on my gear, and started positive visualizations while ministering to my knee with a Hothands heat pack. Michele, running through a forest in fifty-five degrees with a soft trailing breeze and a knee that felt great. Michele, not worrying about the trouble her teenage son has gotten himself into until Sunday night, even though he managed to avoid her and ignore her messages Friday night. Michele, unreachable for calls from the media, her ex-husband, or Detective Young. Michele, safe from white Tauruses and skanky blondes.
Michele running through a sauna without a breeze, more like it. I didn’t care how Adrian coached me last spring; it was hell.
“I have to train in race-like conditions,” he’d said. “Kona favors those from a hot, windy climate, but with more hills than Houston. I need me some hills, like the ones in La Grange.” We’d fallen in love with the bicycling in the rolling, forested hills in the countryside around La Grange when we were there for our second wedding, and every time we returned to Hill Country afterwards.
“I’ll find you some hills as long as you’ll buy me one of those fan-misting visors for the hot runs,” I said.
“Hmm. How about I run backwards and blow on you instead?”
Michele, crazy and believing she is on a secret date with her dead husband.
I broke down my tent and stuffed my gear in the trunk of the Jetta, then drove over from the far end of the Prairie Branch campground to the Chinquapin trailhead and was ready to go by five o’clock. A few other cars were already spilling forth a trickle of hikers, mountain bikers, and runners. Two big slobbery dogs with silverfish-gray hair and blue leashes danced around a pudgy young man in brand-new Nikes whose shirt sported a price sticker on the back left shoulder.
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