“Like what?”
“Like her mother had sex for money to feed her drug habit.”
Mike blew out his breath. “So what do you want us to do?”
“I’m going to fix this, for Noel and for me. She can’t go through her life not knowing the truth, and I can’t go through my life detouring around Stetler County every time I head west. I’ve decided to start over, from the beginning. I’m going to treat Isaac’s crime and his suicide as if they just happened and I’m investigating them from scratch. That’s the only way I’m going to find whatever it was I missed the first time around. It’s not going to be easy, and not just because the cases are so cold. As recent events have demonstrated, I’ll need to watch over my shoulder the whole time.”
I paused for a sip of my drink. Caffeine courage. “And I could use some help.”
Richard looked at Mike, and he nodded. “We’re in.”
I smiled and nodded my own head. I had expected their cooperation, but my eyes filled with tears anyway. “Good. Let’s get started.”
We had my living room looking like it had been hit by a paper cyclone in no time. I told them everything I’d learned so far, and together we went through the trial attorney file (Richard’s file) and prison records. I didn’t have a copier at home, so we used my scanner to copy individual pages important enough to require that much time and effort. My living room floor was sown with discrete piles of pages, waiting to be stepped on. My big dry erase board hung from a couple of nails on the wall, listing slightly. A vertical line divided it more or less in half, with the left side showing a timeline and the right a to-do list.
Looking around the room at the chaos, my eyes came to rest on the bookshelf. It was then that I remembered the note. I retrieved the box of gloves from the kitchen before removing the note from the book. “Mrs. Waters found this when she cleaned my room.”
Richard spoke after he’d read it. “I’ll pass this on to law enforcement so they can run forensics on it. But don’t get your hopes up.”
“I’m not. I’m more interested in your impressions. Who do you think wrote it?”
This time Mike spoke. “I think we can assume it was left before you were attacked—little late to worry about your safety after the attack. Could be one of your attackers didn’t really have the stomach for it.”
“Could be,” I agreed. “That’s the most logical explanation, with what little information we have so far. And yet, I don’t think that’s who it was.”
“Who then?”
“I don’t know.”
No one volunteered anything else. I was grateful that neither man played the “what if” card. What if I’d found the letter, as the writer probably intended, before I was attacked? Questions echoed in my head enough without hearing them from their mouths as well.
We hadn’t eaten yet, and when we realized how late it was, Mike volunteered to whip up an omelet and threw some steak fries in the oven.
“My salsa’s moldy,” I warned Mike as he began pulling ingredients from the refrigerator.
“Yeah, I noticed, but Richard and Noel bought some.”
“So’s my cheese.”
“You can cut the mold off cheese.”
I cringed. Creating a hospitable environment for mold was one of my fortes. Eating it was not. I needn’t have worried. Even Mike blanched when he pulled the block of blue (formerly cheddar) cheese out of the fridge and threw it in the trash.
Cheese or not, within a few minutes we were eating a savory concoction that I could not believe had been produced in my kitchen. I didn’t ask Mike how he had managed it. I preferred to believe it was magic, perhaps because that gave me an excuse for not being able to produce such things myself. After all, I wasn’t a magician.
As we ate, we devised our game plan. Mike and Richard would stay the night with me. In terms of my reputation with my elderly neighbors, I couldn’t decide whether having two men sleep over was an improvement over just one. It either showed that it was clearly a platonic arrangement of convenience, or that we’d moved beyond simple adultery into the realms of serious naughtiness. I was also concerned about Richard’s wife, but apparently she felt comfortable that it was the former.
“But I do have to be home by lunch tomorrow,” Richard said, dumping more ketchup on his plate and generously dipping his fries. He was working hard to reach his 4-6 servings of vegetables.
“Some kind of family get-together,” he continued. “My wife is a wonderful, understanding woman, but if she has to face the groping brother-in-law alone, I’ll be wishing I was only in the dog house.”
“That’s cool. I’m supposed to go out on the Gulf with a buddy.” Mike rubbed his face and I could hear the late-day scratchiness. “Got to work on keeping my base tan.”
“Lucky you. Well, my doctor’ll give me the all-clear on driving Monday morning, so I should be heading in your direction by that afternoon,” I said, ever the optimist.
“Need a ride?” they asked simultaneously.
I grinned at the harmony, but they didn’t see the humor. “No, thanks. I already have a ride.”
Which was true, in an aspirational sort of way. I was hoping to get a ride from Ralph, which would give me a chance to pick his brain again. If he couldn’t take me, I’d just drive myself, now that I had my keys again. Of course, that little contingency plan went unmentioned. I’d rather drive to the Panhandle on Monday by myself anyway. My brain needed the space, the room to wander that I only find while driving or showering. That’s when I have some of my best insights, and I could use some insight.
I hadn’t told Mike and Richard, but I had a third reason for continuing my investigation. It was something so crazy I wasn’t about to tell anyone else until I had some hard proof. I didn’t know where the idea had come from, what had triggered it, but I needed to think it through, figure out if it was just unsubstantiated fancy. That’s what someone else would call it. I’d call it gut instinct, and my gut had a pretty good track record. It was only a whisper, but right now my gut was telling me it thought Isaac Thomas hadn’t killed his wife. It was telling me he was innocent.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
I gave Ralph a call after the guys left on Saturday. His wife Diane said he’d gone away for the weekend, fishing with some old buddies (what was it with these guys and fishing?). She didn’t expect him back before Monday afternoon. My appointment was Monday morning. So much for Plan A.
The phone rang around 9:00 Sunday night. I expected it to be Mike or Richard. It was Noel.
“How are you feeling?” she asked.
“A little tired, but I’m doing okay. You?”
“About the same. I—“ Seconds ticked by as I waited for her to finish. She changed direction. “You have a ride to the doctor tomorrow?”
“No.”
“Let me guess. You’re driving yourself.”
“Probably.”
“I’ll take you. See you around 8:30?”
“Yeah, that sounds good. Thanks.”
“Sure. See you then.”
“Noel?” I was afraid she’d hung up already.
“Yes.”
“Are you really okay?”
“No, but I’m getting there.”
Comforted by the thought of progress with Noel, I wandered around my house getting things together for my return to the Panhandle. I came across a plastic bag in a corner of my living room that must have been overlooked all week, a consequence of my relaxed approach to housekeeping. The back of neck went hot and my stomach lurched dangerously when I looked in the bag.
Inside was a bottle of water, a root beer, and a paperback. Pretty innocuous items. Innocuous items I’d bought at the convenience store that night, before things got crazy. Before I was attacked. I still couldn’t bring myself to say that out loud. Working as an investigator for going on 10 years, I’d been threatened regularly, pushed around occasionally, and I’d even had a gun pointed at me once or twice.
But it wasn’t really malicious, and it was rarely personal.
I was a stranger who got in someone’s face one too many times asking uncomfortable questions. I was an annoying force that provoked a reaction, a flesh embodiment of the system that had ground them and theirs up indiscriminately for generations, no matter which side I technically worked for. But I was never a target because of who I was, and I was never a victim. Until now. It was an uncomfortable thought, one I preferred to ignore.
The water and root beer went in the trash, unopened, but the cover of the paperback caught my eye. A bodacious brunette, with long flowing hair that provided more coverage than her torn blouse, was mounted in front of an impossibly muscled man with similar hair. Their manes contrasted with that of the perfectly white horse. I almost laughed, but I could understand the appeal. I didn’t care for the pretty boy on the horse, but maybe Oded Fehr or Viggo Mortenson.
This time I did laugh. Even in my current state, I couldn’t imagine wanting anyone real, anyone I knew, to protect me that way. The appeal was still pure fantasy. It didn’t even rise to the level of reality of winning the lottery. I wanted to win the lottery, but I didn’t want to be safe if it meant I had to be protected. Maybe I hadn’t quite been broken yet. I started to throw the paperback in the trash, then packed it away with a smile. I knew someone who might enjoy it.
I’d spent Saturday and Sunday going through Isaac’s boxes, and when I crawled into bed around 10 p.m., I was ready to be there. It was that wonderful rare feeling, just short of exhaustion, of being satisfied with what you’ve done, not feeling like you needed to do any more to “deserve” rest. It was unusual for me to get such contentment from intellectual rather than physical work, but while I was reading my body was healing, so I guess I’d covered both fronts.
I set my pillow vertically against my headboard, feeling the usual lurching inch of poor workmanship or a loose screw when I leaned against it. The air conditioning was working hard enough to justify a thin blanket in addition to my usual sheet, and as I slowly raised my knees I pulled the blanket up with them. It was an awkward job with my splint, but I didn’t mind. I gently tucked my arms around my knees and leaned into them. I couldn’t hold the position for long, but it felt good, like a bookend to my day. Settling down in the covers and turning out my little lamp, I fell almost immediately to sleep.
I dreamed of broken unicorns, fragile figures that had fallen from Vanda’s dresser and cracked on the floor, to be captured in crime scene photographs.
Noel was on time the next morning, as I knew she would be. We didn’t say much on the drive to the doctor. We needed to talk, but we needed to have the kind of conversation that you couldn’t have in a few minutes while driving. I considered risking it in the doctor’s office, having never made it to the inner sanctum in under 40 minutes before, but I barely had time to get settled in my chair before I was called back.
Dr. Brandon Malcolm, my doctor with two first names, is the the best kind of doctor. By that I mean he doesn’t go into technical medical details you don’t need, he doesn’t make you feel guilty for bad habits or not following ridiculous instructions to the letter, and, most importantly, he doesn’t give you ridiculous instructions in the first place. He asked what had happened, but his slightly lisping voice was laced with curiosity rather than disapproval. I made a flippant reply about seeing the other guy, and he laughed and was satisfied. As I’d expected, he released me from all restrictions, including the driving edict.
Noel looked genuinely pleased to hear that my doctor agreed with my prognosis that everything was cool. (My words.) I was about to suggest that we stop on the way back to my house for coffee, but she beat me to it. I took this as a positive sign. As we sipped and I played with scone crumbs, we fumbled through half-apologies before tacitly agreeing that we were okay and not to speak of it anymore. I could tell there was still something on her mind, and we had nearly finished our coffee when she blurted it out.
“You were right about the story. About how I learned of my father’s death.”
She eyed my fidgeting fingers. Her own plate, and shirt front, were immaculate.
“Was I really that transparent?”
“Well, maybe you just get to be particularly suspicious in my line of work.”
Her mouth twitched. “And diplomatic. I think Ben would say it was a pretty lame story.”
Noel handed me an envelope. “I received this about a month before I contacted you. It took me a while to decide what to do about it.”
I opened the envelope and removed a clipping. It was the same article I’d found about Isaac’s death on the internet, but it had been cut from the original newspaper. The paper was slightly worn and there was a pinhole near the top, as if from a thumbtack.
“If you’ll notice, the article was from the middle of the page so the date isn’t on there. I asked my grandmother about it, and she said it had been four or five years since he’d died. That’s why I was so surprised when you told me how recently it had happened. I really didn’t know, Sydney.”
“I believe you.”
I pulled another piece of paper from the envelope. It was unlined, a small scrap of paper about the size the article had been, perhaps cut with the same scissors from a piece of copier or printer paper. Written in pen in a wide slanting script were the words, “Don’t you want to know why your father died?” I wasn’t sure if the handwriting matched my own note. I hadn’t thought to keep a copy when I gave the original to Richard.
“I don’t know who sent it,” Noel said.
“It looks like a woman’s handwriting.”
“Yes, I thought so too.”
I examined both papers for a while longer, but there was nothing else to be learned from them, not by me at any rate. I’m sure some modern-day Sherlock Holmes could have taken it to his lab and cracked the case, but I didn’t have that kind of money or scientific aptitude. Noel told me to keep the papers anyway. I’d give them to Richard.
“Noel, why didn’t you just tell me?”
“I don’t know. I really don’t. It just seemed so surreal. An anonymous note, a newspaper clipping about a dead father I didn’t know.”
She began to press on her eyebrow with an index finger, tracing a few millimeters along the inner edge before applying pressure again, then releasing her finger and repeating the process.
“Sydney, I never asked for this. I never asked to be born into an episode of Dateline. I don’t want people to pity me and my family or try to analyze us, as if we’re indicative of the breakdown of society. We’re not a symbol; we’re people. And it’s no one else’s business. I’m not even sure it’s mine.”
I had no response, and, having unburdened herself, Noel was done lingering. She still had to go to work. When we reached my house, she walked me in and was immediately transfixed by the state of my former living room, now the Thomas War Room. I left her examining the wipe board while I went to the bathroom. I’d gained mobility in the past week, but it still took me longer than usual to perform the appropriate function. I thought I heard the phone ring, but wasn’t concerned about answering it. If embarrassment at my near-elderly bathroom tardiness wasn’t enough to make me hurry, then the opportunity to speak to a telemarketer certainly wasn’t. Unfortunately it wasn’t a telemarketer.
I could tell when I returned to the living room that Noel was pissed, but I couldn’t imagine what I could have done while in the bathroom to piss her off. It didn’t take long for her to tell me, albeit somewhat indirectly.
“Your sister called. She said not to worry, that nobody’s dead.”
“Lisa?”
How she had gotten my number? Come to think of it, I was probably listed in the Tallahassee phone book. Easy enough to access from the internet. For someone who wants to bother, which I wouldn’t have thought included Lisa.
“Unless you have more than one sister you don’t have.”
I looked at her blankly, trying to make
sense of the syntax of the sentence and Noel’s intent.
“Ben idolizes you. He loves you, and he trusts you more than he does his own family. How could you lie to him?”
It was then that I remembered the bit of conversation I’d overheard the night before. “I didn’t exactly—“
“Don’t even think about finishing that sentence. There’s no getting around the fact that you denied the existence of people related to you by blood. Little Orphan Sydney. You did lie to him.”
“Noel, it’s not a big deal.”
“Like it wasn’t a big deal for my grandmother to tell me my father was an only child, that I had no other family?”
“It’s not remotely the same thing.”
“Oh sure, there’s a difference in degree, but it is exactly the same thing. A lie is a lie. You of all people should know that.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“You’re so goddamned self righteous about it. That’s what kills me. You and your ‘justice in fact, not just in theory.’ And all the time you’re just a hypocrite, like everybody else.” She grabbed her purse and opened the door to leave.
“I put your sister’s number on the counter.”
The door was already shut, and I considered shouting after Noel, but I settled for muttering about my family under my breath while I willed the dizziness away.
“I didn’t lie to them; they lied to me.”
To help calm myself, I focused on Noel’s actual words, peeling the emotion away from them. “Justice in fact, not in theory.” The phrase was from one of my newspaper quotes a few months ago. So that’s why Noel had chosen to hire me, not just, as I’d assumed, because Brennan is near the beginning of the alphabet. I was still standing in the same spot, staring at the door Noel hadn’t slammed, wondering at the sudden injection of melodrama in my life, when Ben walked through it.
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