by E. R. FALLON
Ben had visited our home as a guest over the years and became a fixture in the household I’d shared with my mother. There’d been no inkling that she would someday kill him. Alice had suffered from depression on and off her whole life but no one in the town had seen the murders coming. She’d been an ordinary woman from a respectable family until the confession was signed and the charges were brought against her. Of course, there had been that business of her husband packing up and leaving when their child was small, and no one knew what ever became of him. Clayton Lane was his name. She’d kept his last name after he left, and I’d inherited it, too. Alice hadn’t remarried after he exited our family but she had dated.
I’d thought about visiting Ben’s parents, William and Susanna Palmer, when I was in town, if they were still around, but then I’d either have to give them my birth name or tell them I was a journalist visiting Freedom Village for a story about their son, but it didn’t feel right to tell them I was a journalist. Also, they might not have wanted to speak with a reporter and lose their sacred privacy.
Even during Alice’s trial, Ben’s parents had never taken their anger toward her out on me. They seemed to have felt sorry for me because of my mother, not hate me. The parents, siblings, and general relatives of Alice’s other victims never spoke to me. Their long, hard stares were enough to convey the abhorrence for my mother that they must have lived with every day, and their hatred of me, a blood and flesh representation of her existence. I hadn’t faulted them. I didn’t speak at Alice’s trial but I’d attended briefly. I couldn’t bear being there to see the thing play out in its entirety.
I paused in front of a café Tawny hadn’t mentioned, a place I didn’t recognize, and I read the menu posted in the window. Pretty overpriced considering Freedom was in the sticks, but they claimed to have the best coffee within a hundred miles. I’d had my fill of coffee on the drive up there.
Going with my original choice of eating at the diner, I strode in that direction, a few blocks north of the café. An older woman walked out of the library adjacent to the diner and said hello to me in the way one greets strangers. I ducked my head a little lower anyway, and I nodded at her as I passed by.
I stared through the diner’s many windows at the few people sitting at the counter, their backsides hanging off the stools, and at the empty checkered tables in the background with a chair or two at each. Every table had a tall daisy in a clear vase. The diner appeared to be renovated since I’d left the town in an attempt to give it a trendier atmosphere. Since Tawny had recommended the place and she’d disclosed something about her boyfriend having trained at a fancy culinary institute, I reckoned I’d give it a try.
I had a late breakfast at the diner, and when I returned to the lodge, they had moved me into a large room on the top floor, with an expansive view of the vineyards. I spent the afternoon in my room except for when I ventured outside to get lunch at the same diner, writing down questions to ask Alice once I could see her.
I’d been chatted up by my loquacious server at the diner my second time there, once I let her know that no, I wasn’t there for the convention, and gave her my journalist story. She’d promised to reveal to no less than the entire town that a journalist would be writing a travel story about their little village. Then I’d taken a chance and asked her if a detective with the name Mack lived in the town, and I hadn’t been able to fool her about why I was asking.
“You want to know about Alice Lane, don’t you, for your story?” she’d said. “Does something like that belong in the kind of story you’re writing?” Suddenly, she’d seemed less friendly, as if she didn’t approve of me portraying her town in anything less than a positive light.
When I pressed her, she’d reluctantly said, “In his younger years, Mack was the one who broke that case. He comes in here once in a while.”
“I might mention the Lane case a little at the beginning of my article but it’s certainly not the focus,” I’d said to pacify her.
I hadn’t wanted her asking me additional questions so I didn’t bring up whether Mack lived at the residence I’d known as a teenager.
Chapter 10
There was the off chance he worked nights, but that early evening I left my room at the lodge and headed to what I’d known as Mack’s house, figuring he’d be home by then. I planned to grab a meal in the town after, and would most likely end up at the diner again. Perhaps Mack would join me.
When I’d known Mack he’d lived away from the more crowded main section of town, behind the railroad tracks. I took a chance and strode in that direction from the lodge.
Cars and trucks roared past me as I waited to cross the busy road leading to the outskirts. Every so often I could decipher a vehicle’s blurred license plate. There were a lot of out-of-state places. People heading back to the lodge from that wine convention? I turned my gaze from the burning glare of headlights. Even after all the years that had passed, the town hadn’t installed crossing lights.
I waited for a break in the heavy stream of traffic to sprint across the road. Most people in these parts drove to places instead of walking, even if they didn’t have to travel very far. I was the sole pedestrian out on the street that evening but instinctively felt safer there, in a small town.
The sidewalk ended a few steps from the silhouette of what had been Mack’s house, and what I hoped still was. I saw the faint outline of an unlit streetlamp in the dark and walked close enough to notice that the glass part of the structure was cracked. The lamp had always shone brightly when I left Mack’s house late at night as a teenager, to better hide from the news reporters, who during the day, waited outside the home I shared with my mother.
I’d wanted to believe in my mother’s innocence but her confession had me feeling helpless. To some people, her confession had made me guilty by association. There was a time when I wanted to confront her outside the courtroom during her sentencing and kill her myself. There was a time when I probably hated her more than the relatives of her victims had. I didn’t act on those feelings, though, because that would have made me seem just like her. I never let my mother’s actions define who I was. I did spend my twenties trying to convince anyone I met that I was a good person.
I had no plans to return to my childhood home during my visit, for standing outside, staring, would have brought attention to myself. I assumed whoever bought the house after my mother’s family arranged for its sale after her conviction had torn it down and rebuilt.
The farm fields near Mack’s house where owned by his neighbor behind him, as I recalled, and had become overgrown, as though the farm had been abandoned since I left Freedom. The area directly around Mack’s house appeared well-kept, from what I could tell, as I approached the white structure in the dark.
I stopped in my tracks and contemplated trying Mack at his number—there was a chance he had the same phone number after all those years—to explain who I was before knocking on his front door. He wouldn’t remember me as Evan, and the sight of a strange man on his doorstep in the evening might alarm him.
Through the closed curtains, there was a light on inside the home. But when I dialed the number I remembered, no one answered and a machine didn’t pick up.
I took my time walking the length of the trimmed lawn, scattered with the red, yellow, and orange fallen leaves of autumn, to the front door. From afar the home had appeared well-maintained but up close it seemed to have deteriorated a little since I saw it last. The once-bright paint had peeled away, and the entrance steps were cracked in numerous places. Mack still hadn’t installed a doorbell so I knocked. Someone peeked through the curtain inside the house.
After a moment the doorknob rattled and a man stepped out of the house. “Who is it?” he said, and I recognized detective Mack’s baritone. He kept his hand on his waist where his gun would have been.
I remembered visiting his house during Alice’s trial because Mack felt sorry for me, or at least that was what I’d believed. Back then, I start
ed to resent Mack’s sympathy, but the years following I came to realize he had been genuinely concerned for me.
I stood on the front steps and I could see Mack clearly in the porch light: tall, with broad shoulders that had begun to stoop over the years, and a bit of a belly where his thin waist had been. Streaks of white stood out on his wavy dark hair. His light eyes in his fuller, tan face—when I’d known Mack, he’d liked to take his boat out on the lake on the weekends—narrowed on me, standing a step lower than him, which made our height difference seem greater.
He waited for me to say who I was, and when I didn’t he said, “Can I help you?” He lowered his hand from the area around his waist, as though something about my appearance had disarmed him.
“Detective Mack, it’s . . .” For a second I forgot he wouldn’t know me. I noticed he didn’t have a gun and I wondered if he’d reached for it instinctively.
“Yes?” he said.
“I didn’t intend to show up like this,” I said. “I tried calling you but no one answered.”
“What’s the number you have for me? I changed it recently.” He rubbed his chin and watched me closely. “Who are you, anyhow?”
I recited the number I had. “I’m . . .”
“That’s my old phone number. How did you get that number?” He frowned and crossed his arms in front of his chest. “What’s your name? You never answered my question about that.”
He was still the astute detective I remembered, but did he still have the big heart he once had?
“You didn’t give me a chance to tell you my name,” I said. “We’ve met before, a long time ago. You wouldn’t remember me like how I look now.” I indicated my body.
Mack backed up on the steps and stood in the doorway, like he thought I might be one of the few criminals the town had, and who he’d arrested, and I was now coming to seek revenge. He leaned against the doorframe and could have easily shut the door in my face and gone inside if he wanted.
“My name’s Evan.” I reached to shake his hand. “Sorry if my showing up here has frightened you.” I smiled at him, which seemed to mollify him enough to accept my handshake.
“Evan, you’re right, I don’t remember you,” he said. “In fact, I don’t believe we’ve ever met. But I’m not scared of you.” A spark of challenge shone in his eyes.
“You needn’t be. But you might want to watch out for my mother.” I attempted a smile.
He gave me a staggered look.
“Detective Mack, it’s Evan Lane,” I said. “I used to be called Evelyn?”
“You’re pulling my leg,” he said.
I looked up at him and shook my head.
“Evelyn Lane left this town years ago and no one’s heard from her since,” Mack said. “What kind of stunt is this? Did you do something to Evelyn, is that what you’re trying to tell me?”
I’d known the detective to be a generous man with an open mind, but what if he didn’t react the way I wanted him to, and what if, instead of inviting me inside his home, he chased me away? “There’s no other way to tell you this,” I exhaled. “My birth name was Evelyn, now I’m called Evan to reflect my true gender. Does that make sense to you? You’ve heard of that these days?”
Mack’s eyes enlarged, and his jaw went slack as comprehension washed over his face. He nodded slowly. “I think I know what that is. It has been in the news a lot lately.” His voice was softer, as though he was jolted but no longer afraid of my intentions in coming to his house.
With anyone else I would have left it at that but Mack wasn’t just anyone. “I needed how I felt on the inside to be reflected on the outside,” I said.
“There’s no need to explain, I get it.” He looked over my clothing, and at me, shivering where I stood. “Nice jacket. Not very warm, though. Do you want to come in?” I’d worn the leather jacket Sammie had given me last Christmas.
“If it’s no trouble.”
“It isn’t. I was in the middle of making myself dinner.”
Detective Mack had been a widower when I’d known him years ago. “Sorry to have interrupted you,” I said.
“It’s no problem.” After a pause he asked, “Would you like to join me?”
“Sure, that’d be great.”
Mack held open the door for me and I entered the warm house first, a welcome respite from the cold outside. Behind me he shut the door. A short walk down the hallway led to a cozy sitting room with a sleek, wood, coffee table, a plaid couch, and a stuffed reclining chair, also plaid, parked in front of the television. The TV set was tuned into the evening news and Mack walked over and bent down to lower the volume. I smelled something savory cooking in the kitchen.
“I didn’t know if you’d be home or whether you’d be working tonight,” I said.
At that moment, Josh sent a text asking me where I’d gone. I wrote back I was fine and not to worry, that Sammie knew where I was. I’d been ignoring Em’s apology texts and voicemail messages, and there were a few new ones. I felt for her but also knew it would be better to not contact her, at least until the situation with Gilani settled down.
“Sorry for the interruption,” I said to Mack, and put my phone away.
“It’s okay. You’re young, always on your phone, I get it. And, at my age, I don’t work nights much anymore.” He gazed over my face as though the change in me amazed him. “You really do look like, you know, a guy. They did a good job, whoever does those things. Did they change, you know, all of you?” He glanced at where my breasts had been and his face reddened. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean for that to sound . . . Heck, it’s none of my damn business.” He rubbed his hair and looked down at the braided rug we stood on.
“It’s all right.” I patted his shoulder. “I don’t mind people asking me questions.” When they didn’t ask questions and rushed to judgment? That bothered me. “So, yeah, it’s okay, Mack,” I said. “And the bottom half of me hasn’t changed.” I took my hand off him.
Bottom surgery was something Sammie and I had discussed at length, and we’d both wanted me to go for it but my insurance company was fighting having to pay for the remainder of my surgery, and our battle against them didn’t seem close to being done.
I assumed Mack would blush but he gave me a pensive smile. “You make a good-looking man,” he said. “There, I said it, I told a guy he was handsome. I can tell it’s you because of how you say my name. You emphasize the k.”
“Thanks,” I said quietly, both surprised about and grateful for his acceptance of me. Seeing him brought memories, some good and some bad, and I cleared my throat to stave off a tear. If Mack noticed my blooming emotions, he didn’t give an indication he had.
“What are you doing back in town, after all these years?” he asked. “I was going to ask you when you explained who you are but there was so much to take in that the question slipped my mind. When you left for the Navy, you called me sometimes and then you stopped. You went to college after the Navy, didn’t you? I thought you forgot about us and would never return. I figured I must’ve done something wrong.”
I touched his hand. “You didn’t do anything wrong. That’s not why . . . It’s hard to explain—I needed to get away from everything, away from being under constant scrutiny because of her, to find out who I am.”
“I understand, kid.” Mack squeezed my hand and gestured for me to sit on the couch. “That’s not why you—because of your mother?”
It was a question I knew I’d be asked someday, but I wasn’t prepared for it to happen right then, or for Mack to be the one to ask me. “No,” I spoke firmly. “This is who I’ve always been, and who I would be regardless of what she did.”
“I don’t know much about it, and I apologize if I sound intrusive.”
“It’s all right. I prefer people ask me questions instead of coming to a wrong conclusion.” I sat down and reclined into the lumpy couch.
“Are you married? Have kids?” he asked. Then he mumbled, “Again, I’m not sure how that works wit
h you.”
“It’s possible,” I said. “But no, no kids, and I’m not married, but I have a girlfriend, Sammie.” I figured it would be safe to give Mack Sammie’s name. If I couldn’t trust my former mentor, then who could I trust?
“Good for you,” he said.
“How about you? Do you have any—”
Detective Mack shook his head before I could ask the question. “I’m an old bachelor. Celeste—you remember I told you about her years ago—she and I never had children before she died.” His wife had been murdered years before I met him, but other than that fact, I didn’t know the exact circumstances of her death. “I’m glad you were able to carry on with your life after what happened. You’re strong. I admire that.”
“I wish I could say I felt strong.” I struggled to navigate my sentiment to a place faraway, into some other compartment in my mind. “The reason I came here is because of her, because of Alice. I have a few questions I want to ask you. And I need a favor.”
Mack let out a low whistle and cracked a joke. “So you only come around here when you want a favor from me?”
I chuckled.
“Tell you what, I’ll be happy to help you out,” he said. “Can we talk over dinner?”
“You might not be as happy once I tell you what the favor is.” Dinner was the ideal, casual time to push what I needed on him.
Now, it was Mack’s turn to laugh. “Are you okay in here for a few minutes while I finish making dinner?” He pointed to the TV. “Do you want to watch that while you’re waiting? I can turn the volume up. What would you like to drink? I’d invite you to watch me cook but I’m afraid you’d find me quite boring.”
“Whatever you’re having is fine. I’m good, you don’t need to raise the volume.” I held out my phone to show him how I’d occupy my time. “I can check my email and such. But I’d love to help you cook.” I started to rise from the sofa.