by Jodi McIsaac
“You got a boyfriend?”
“I date now and again, but there’s no one serious.”
“Why not?”
I shrugged. “Just haven’t found the right one, I guess.” It was the standard line I used to give my mom whenever she pressed me on the issue.
“But you’re happy?”
“I am.” At least, I had been. I didn’t know what I was now. “How about you?”
He snorted. “What, am I happy, or am I dating?”
“Both.” I looked at him curiously, waiting for his answer. We’d never spent much one-on-one time before; we usually visited each other in the context of a family gathering. I wondered if I’d crossed a line.
“Well, I don’t know. I guess I’m happy,” he said. “Depends on how you define happiness, I suppose. I’d be a lot happier if . . . well, you know. If Karen and Tracey were still around. Not to mention your folks.”
I put my hand on his arm, which was clenched on the steering wheel. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean—”
“Don’t you be sorry for anything,” he said gruffly. “Anyway, about the other thing . . .”
“The other thing?”
“Well, there’s this lady, Diana, who comes into the coffee shop in the mornings, same time as I do. We’ve started . . . just chatting, you know? She’s a widow, and she’s new in town, so I’ve been taking her out places, showing her around.”
“You’ve got a girlfriend!” I smiled, the first real smile since I’d heard the news.
“Well, I don’t know if you’d call her that—”
“Whatever it is, I think it’s wonderful. You deserve the best.”
He grunted but was saved from further commentary when we pulled into the driveway of his apartment building.
He insisted on lugging my suitcase up the stairs.
“Keeps me fit,” he puffed. “Never take the elevator if I can help it.”
No sooner had he put my suitcase down on the futon in the spare room than the doorbell rang with the pizza delivery. We sat down at the Formica table in the kitchen, and he turned on the TV in the corner of the room.
“Maybe you should ask your new lady friend to help you decorate,” I said, my cheeks stuffed with pepperoni, as I eyed the sparse surroundings.
“Ha ha,” he retorted, stealing an olive off my plate. “I’m—what do you call it? A minimalist. I thought you would like that sort of thing. Very modern.”
I grinned. “It’s perfect.” We smiled goofily at each other for a moment, but then I was jolted back to reality when I heard my parents’ names.
“Police are still investigating the double murder and suicide that happened in downtown Clarkeston on Saturday night,” the newscaster said. “Local residents Bud and Peggy Campbell were allegedly shot and killed by another longtime resident, Terry Foster, who then allegedly shot himself. According to sources close to the couple, Foster was known to them, and he even attended the same church, Northside Baptist Church.”
Pictures of my parents and of Terry Foster came up on the screen. I was suddenly more tired than I’d ever been in my life.
“Want me to turn it off?” Rob asked quietly.
“Yeah.”
He grabbed the remote and jabbed it at the television, turning the screen mercifully black. I stared down at my plate, no longer hungry. “Do they know why he did it?”
“If they do, they haven’t told me yet. But I’m guessing the police will want to have a chat with you, in case you have some information that could help them.”
“I don’t,” I said. “I hadn’t even talked to them in . . . well, too long.”
“Don’t beat yourself up. At any rate, the police chief is a friend of mine. He’s a good man. They’ll find out what really happened, and why.”
He fixed me with such a piercing gaze that I felt I had no other option than to nod in agreement. “So . . . I guess we should talk about . . . whatever happens next,” I said.
“Eventually. But it can wait until morning. Why don’t you get some sleep? We’ll be in better shape to make decisions tomorrow.”
I stood and kissed him on the top of the head, muttering, “Thanks.”
I washed the day’s sweat and tears off my face and brushed away the taste of pepperoni. I was exhausted, but as I climbed under the covers of the futon, my mind lurched from one disturbing thought to the next.
Did they suffer, or were their deaths immediate? What possible motivation could this man have had to kill them? Were they specifically targeted, or would he have killed anyone who had crossed his path that night? Had my father died protecting my mother?
If only the attack had happened at home, he might have been able to defend them. When we were kids, his hunting rifles always hung on a rack behind his desk. I admired the gleaming wood, though I didn’t dare touch them. Dad used to take Wes and me hunting in the woods behind our home in the country, back before we moved into town. I could still remember the way the recoil had knocked me backward, flat onto my bottom, the first time I ever fired. Wes had stood there and laughed—until the same thing happened to him.
After Wes started causing trouble, my dad removed the firing pins from all his guns. He locked the pins and the ammo in the safe, then hid the guns under a pile of thick blankets in the basement crawl space. It wasn’t the best hiding place, but when I asked him why he didn’t just get rid of them entirely, he told me that he couldn’t. A man needs to be able to defend his home and family. That was always his mantra. Defend your home and family. Work hard for your home and family. Sacrifice for your home and family.
That was the other reason I couldn’t sleep.
Others would ask Latasha’s question about moving back home. I was asking it myself. Was it now my obligation to move back to Clarkeston to keep an eye on Wes? To make sure he settled peacefully back into society, drive him to doctors’ appointments, buy him shoes when his wore out, and make sure he took his medication? My parents had done all this for him for years and would have done it again once he was released from the hospital.
Was that the price of love, of family, of duty, of honor? I stared up at the stippled ceiling, as if hoping an answer would come to me from the stars. But there were no answers. There was only fear, and grief, and, above all, guilt.
CHAPTER THREE
I awoke to the smell of coffee and the agony of the impossible decisions ahead of me.
“Morning,” Rob grunted as I padded out into the kitchen and ran my fingers through my hair.
“So it is,” I replied, glancing at the clock on the microwave: 10:21 a.m. Damn jet lag. He handed me a mug of coffee, black. I thanked him and headed for the fridge for some milk. I sat down at the kitchen table, and we regarded each other soberly.
“How’d you sleep?” he asked.
“Fine.”
“Ready to talk logistics?”
I nodded. He let me take a few drags of caffeine, then began. “There are a few things that need to happen. I’m the executor of the will, so I’ll need to go see their lawyer, Al Irvine. You’re welcome to come with me.”
I nodded again, and he continued.
“I’ve spoken to Pastor Steve at the church—he’s the one filling in while Pastor Dean is on sabbatical. Kid looks like he’s barely old enough to shave, let alone conduct a funeral service, but Dean is in Zambia and won’t make it back in time.”
I scowled at this. My parents would have wanted their longtime friend and pastor to conduct the service. Well, my father would have. My mother had always joked that she wanted her remains cremated and scattered around the world, in all the places she’d never had a chance to visit. I guessed neither of them was going to get their wish.
“Sure, whatever,” I said.
“If it works for you, we’ll have the wake the day after tomorrow and the funeral the day after that, on Thursday.”
“Do we have to have a wake?” I knew the answer even as I asked the question. The prospect of hours of small talk and commiseratio
n with my parents’ thousand friends, most of whom I barely knew, was about as appealing as the time Mom dragged me to one of her quilting circles.
I half expected Rob to reprimand me, as he might have done when I was a kid, but instead he smiled sadly. “I felt the same when Karen and Tracey died. But if I hadn’t done it, I’d be regretting it now. It’s an important part of saying good-bye. Even for you.”
I mumbled my assent.
“The coroner told me he has to cremate the bodies, so there won’t be a viewing, but people will want to come pay their respects.”
I looked up. “Why does he have to cremate them?”
“He didn’t say, really. Cited some kind of health regulation. Are you okay with that?”
I shrugged. “It’s fine. That’s what Mom would have wanted anyway.”
“So here’s what I recommend,” Rob said. “Leave Wes where he is for a little while. Let’s go see the lawyer. Then we’ll go to the funeral home and make sure everything is ready there. We’ll need to write up an obituary. I can do it if you want, but you’re the wordsmith. Why don’t you take a crack at it, and I can fill in any blanks. Then we’ll go see Wes.”
I shook my head. “I want to see Wes first.”
Rob looked as if he was going to argue, but changed his mind. “Okay,” he said. “Then that’s what we’ll do.”
“I think—please don’t take this the wrong way, but I’d like to see him on my own first. I mean, he’s free to go, right? I’ll pick him up, and we’ll spend a little time together. I just want to make sure he’s okay before I do any of that other stuff. He’s been in and out of there so many times.”
And it all started because of me. Of course, there had been other arrests since that first one. It wasn’t entirely my fault . . .
“The least I can do is pick him up and bring him home,” I said.
“You can take my car,” Rob said. “I’ll take the truck and meet with Al and the funeral director. Let me know when you’ve got Wes. Sound good?”
I got up from the table and wrapped my arms around his neck. “I’m so glad you’re here,” I said, kissing him on the cheek.
“Hey, Clare,” he called out as I was about to leave. “When I went to see Wes yesterday, the hospital seemed . . . busier than usual. Nothing to worry about, I’m sure. Just thought I’d give you a heads-up.”
I drove along the river that bisected the town. I passed the train bridge but averted my eyes. Not now. This side of the river boasted the downtown, the college, the high school, an art gallery, a theater, and government offices, as well as beautiful turn-of-the-century mansions lining the riverbank. I had no idea who lived in them, but they were meticulously maintained, with fancy cars in the driveways and manicured lawns. Why anyone who could afford a BMW would choose to live in Clarkeston was beyond me. We had lived on the north side, with the used-car lots and the abandoned cotton mill. It was the Clarkeston equivalent of the other side of the tracks.
A few minutes later I pulled into the parking lot of the hospital—half regional hospital, half regional psych ward. We were lucky to have it here in our town, I supposed. It was a beast of a building, all gray concrete and hideous orange trim. I’d only visited Wes here once before, two years ago.
He’d been in and out over the past several years. Not long after his first release, he broke into my grandmother’s house and kicked in the walls with his steel-toed army boots, convinced she was hiding the bodies of dead children, victims of a child-trafficking ring. My grandmother called the police, and Wes was sent back.
The sensation of being caged that always plagued my first few days at home grew stronger as I stepped toward the entrance of the psych hospital. My feet were like magnets being pulled toward the center of the earth. Every step was an act of will. Once I had Wes, there would be no giving him back.
I was unprepared for the scene that assaulted my senses the moment I entered through the glass doors. Busier than usual was an understatement. The waiting room was crammed with people—some sitting, some standing. One middle-aged lady writhed on the floor, but no one was helping her. A small boy crouched in a planter in the corner, his arms wrapped around the thin trunk of a fake tree. His mother pleaded with him to come out, but he was deep in conversation with someone else—the tree, perhaps. Several people were gathered around the receptionist’s desk, trying to drown out the moaning and screaming with their own shouts and complaints. The receptionist was telling them to take a number and a seat. Her eyes were red-rimmed, and her face stretched into an unsightly yawn as she repeated the same information to each new supplicant.
“I told you, you need to fill out these forms,” she told a man with deep gullies around his eyes.
“The doctor said you’d be able to get her in right away,” he protested. “Please, I just can’t deal with her anymore.”
“Fill out the forms,” the receptionist repeated.
“What’s wrong with him?” The young mother was now at the desk, having left her son in the planter. “He was fine a few days ago. What’s going on? What’s wrong with all these people?”
“Ma’am, I’m not a doctor. I have no idea,” the receptionist said, handing her a clipboard.
“I don’t want to fill out forms, I want someone to tell me what’s wrong with my son!” The mother threw the clipboard down on the receptionist’s desk and moved in closer. There was a general murmur of assent behind her, and other voices joined, in demanding answers.
I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. This was more than busy—it was chaos. What was happening? I took advantage of the turmoil around the front desk and squeezed through the crowd and around the corner to the elevators. I knew from my last visit that they were keyed, but the door to the stairwell was open. I slipped in, closing it gratefully behind me. The bedlam of the waiting room faded as I climbed the stairs to the second floor.
Apparently the stairwell was the only peaceful place in the building. The second floor was a hive of frantic activity. Intercoms blared requests for doctors and supplies. A man strapped to a gurney against the wall shouted, “It’s the end! The devil has come for us! Repent!” A sweaty orderly grabbed the gurney and ran with it down the hall. The man’s voice only grew shriller.
I pressed my back against the wall. Two nurses shouted at each other from behind a long counter, to be heard over the intercom. One wore a stiff white mask around her mouth and nose. Another nurse was slumped in a corner, crying.
I made a beeline for the desk, dodging a bin of linens that nearly took my arm off.
“Hi, I’m here to see—” I began, but the woman at the desk waved a hand at me and shouted into a phone.
“You heard me; I want the director on the line right now. Half of my nurses are telling me they won’t work in these conditions. And I don’t blame them. He’s where? Well, tell him he can’t dodge this one. We’re falling apart at the seams here. Fine. You do that.”
She dropped the phone in disgust, then gave me a furious look. “Who the hell let you in?”
Was I not supposed to be here? I opened my mouth to answer but was cut off by the sound of a scream. A teenage girl tore down the hall, ripping off her clothes as she ran. Two masked orderlies raced after her.
I turned back to the nurse. “What’s going on here?” A chill shot down my spine, giving me goose bumps.
“You need to leave, now. No visitors.”
“I can’t leave. I’m here to pick up my brother, Wes Campbell. He’s being discharged today.”
She looked at me suspiciously, but then directed her frustration at her keyboard. “Name?”
“Wes Campbell. I’m his sister, Clare.”
She continued to glare at her screen.
“Really, what’s going on?” I asked. “Why is it like this?” Last time I’d been here it had been a ghost town.
“I’m not at liberty to say,” she said curtly. She looked at me again. “Our notes say that Wes is to be discharged into the care of his parents. Are th
ey with you?”
I dropped my gaze. “No. It’s just me. They were killed over the weekend.” It felt so odd to say that out loud. Couldn’t the rest of the world feel the void where my parents’ lives had been?
“I’m so sorry to hear that,” the nurse said, her tone softening.
“Thank you. So . . . my brother?”
“I’m afraid it won’t be that simple. You’re his new guardian, I take it?” I nodded. “Then we’ll have to schedule a meeting with you, his social worker, and his psychiatrist before he can be released.”
“Why? Didn’t my parents already have that meeting?”
“Yes, they did. But if he’s being released into your care, then you need to have all the information they did.”
“Okay. When can we have this meeting?”
She frowned back down at her screen. “We had a cancellation; otherwise it would have to be next week at this rate. I can squeeze you in this afternoon. Does two o’clock work?”
“Sure. Can I see Wes in the meantime?”
“That’s the other thing. Your brother has been moved.”
“Where?”
“Looks like he’s over in the main hospital wing.”
“Why?” I demanded, my voice getting louder. “Is he hurt?”
“You’ll have to ask his attending physician,” she said, the tension returning to her voice.
“And who’s that?”
“You’ll have to ask at the desk. Section E. North wing.” She leaned in closer. “Normally I’d need to escort you off this floor, but as you noticed we’re rather occupied here. Take the elevator up to the fourth floor, then walk all the way down the hallway. There will be a set of doors at the end. Put the code five-three-one into the keypad on the wall, and the doors will unlock. Make sure there aren’t any patients around; we don’t want any escapees. I’ll let them know you’re coming.” She started fielding anxious questions from someone else who had been hovering at the desk.
I took the stairs up two more flights and then sprinted down the hallway. My mind kept swirling with the same questions over and over again: Why had they moved him? Had something happened to him? I thought back to Wes’s story about the scientist who had killed himself. Had Wes . . . ?