You Were Always Mine

by Nicole Baart

  “Of course.”

  Jess was already half gone, her fingers on the door handle. “I’ll be back before supper. This is nothing, really. I just want to have Evan’s wallet.”

  She drove in silence for over an hour, listening to the sound of her wheels whirring along the old highway. The sun was low in the sky behind her, washing the world in a pale, diluted light that shimmered feebly. It was cold, bitterly so, and even though Jess had the heater turned on high, frosty air seeped through the windows, the doors, the floor vents. The dashboard thermostat proclaimed it was seventy-four in the quiet cab of her car, but the skin on the back of Jess’s neck still prickled with goose bumps.

  Maybe she was afraid. The landscape around her was well suited for tragic daydreams, crashes and heartbreak and little disasters like an affair, an illness, an end. The whole earth was brown from where she sat, dark fields and dead grass and beige skies. An occasional gnarled tree with bent limbs and arthritic joints. Every few miles Jess passed another car or two. The driver lifted a finger or a few in a halfhearted, habitual wave.

  Evan had loved road trips. The long expanse of highway, the hum of the wind and the tires. When Jess’s head became heavy and drifted to the curve of her seat, Evan had brushed his knuckles against her cheek and given her a smile that made her feel known. Maybe it was the way their breath mingled in the space between them, the understanding that for a few hours at least they were alone in the world, held together in this small space where they could stop working and racing and striving and just be.

  Jess blinked hard for a second, remembering. They had been good in those moments. Those minutes that seemed to stretch out beyond the confines of time. When the obligations of their lives and the needs of other people and the pressures of a job that Evan loved so dearly weren’t clamoring for his attention, they had been at peace.

  By the time Jess pulled into the outskirts of Elmwood Park, she was shaking for real, her entire body trembling though she had turned the heat up as far as it would go. She slowed down past the Motor Inn, an uninspiring, L-shaped compound with maybe twenty rooms all facing an empty parking lot. Jess tried to picture Evan stopping in front of one of the blue doors, its paint faded to watered-down Kool-Aid and peeling in furred little curls. Number 4? Number 7? She wondered where he had stayed, which room had been the last place he laid his head. But that thought only made her suddenly fit to sob, so she yanked herself up short and kept on driving.

  The diner didn’t have a name, at least, not that Jess could see, but a neon sign blinked HOT COFFEE and a handful of cars proclaimed it open. There was no police cruiser in the parking lot, but Jess didn’t know what Deputy Mullen would be driving anyway. Any one of the sedans in the parking lot could be his. She didn’t know whether to hope that she had beat him there or not. Pressing her hands to her face, Jess took a deep breath and turned off her car. Then she grabbed her coat off the backseat and threw it around her shoulders. She ducked her head against the wind and hurried to the café entrance.

  A smattering of people populated the red booths, and Jess was greeted by the scent of pancakes and beef gravy. Clearly this was an all-day breakfast café, but the chalkboard near the entrance proclaimed the lunch special to be roast and mashed potatoes. The clash of odors turned her stomach just a bit, but before Jess even had time to wrinkle her nose, she spotted the man she had come for. Deputy Mullen was in a booth near the back, raising his hand in greeting. He had seen her come in.

  “Thanks for coming,” he said as Jess approached the table. He rose to shake her hand, but there was an awkward moment when they both seemed to wonder if a hug was more appropriate. Jess still had her hand out when the deputy reached around her and patted her back firmly, twice.

  “Thanks for meeting me.” She sank onto the padded bench and scooted to the middle. He sat opposite from her and circled his hands around his mug, though he made no move to pick it up. Jess realized his coffee was mostly gone and no longer steaming. Deputy Mullen had been here awhile.

  “Would you like a cup of coffee? Something to eat? I ordered a meat loaf sandwich,” he said. “It’s good here.”

  “I’m not hungry,” Jess admitted. “Maybe a Coke.”

  “They only have Pepsi,” he said apologetically.

  It didn’t matter to Jess. She wasn’t here for the food or the small talk. All she wanted was a hit of caffeine and her hands on that file.

  Deputy Mullen waited until he had a plate of food in front of him and Jess had her Pepsi. It didn’t take long, though the minutes felt endless to Jessica. How were the boys? Fine. Was she working again? Yes. Boy, it was getting cold. Sure was. Finally, after he forked a bite of the piping-hot meat loaf and swallowed it seemingly without chewing, Deputy Mullen said: “I’m sure you’re wondering about Evan’s things.”

  Jess forced herself to take a sip of her drink. It was flat. “Did the password work?”

  “No. He must have changed it. But we’ll keep working on it.”

  She nodded.

  Deputy Mullen seemed to size her up, and Jess sat a little straighter, trying to look capable of handling whatever he had to say to her. Eventually, he sighed and said, “I’m afraid I don’t have much to tell you. “They kept his clothes in the lost and found for a week or so and then donated them to Goodwill. Other than that, the room was clean. There’s really no use dusting for fingerprints or anything after all this time. Eleven people have stayed in that room since Evan.”

  “Do you normally dust for fingerprints in the case of an open-and-shut hunting accident?” Jess was surprised by the edge in her voice.

  Apparently, so was Deputy Mullen. He gave her a searching look. “No,” he said. “We don’t. Is there anything that you’d like to tell me, Jessica? Has something come up since the last time we talked?”

  Lots of things, but nothing concrete. Nothing that Jess could offer up as evidence of some crime. She felt suspicious and maybe even a little delusional. Clearly her husband had been keeping secrets from her, but to imagine that they had anything to do with his death seemed downright absurd with Mullen sitting across from her. He was the professional. She was a grieving widow with an overactive imagination.

  “It’s just hard,” Jess said eventually, because she had to say something. Her voice cracked just a bit and she was mortified by how close her emotions were to the surface.

  “I know.” Mullen reached across the table and patted Jess’s hand. She didn’t even realize that she had been picking at the corner of a napkin until the deputy stopped her nervous motion with the weight of his warm fingers. “This is completely normal, Jessica. Death is hard, even when you’re expecting it. But this. There’s no textbook for this.”

  Jess nodded once and carefully extracted her hand from his loose grip. She knotted her fingers in her lap. “I’m fine. We’re all going to be just fine.”

  Deputy Mullen watched her as he wiped his mouth with a napkin. Clearly he didn’t believe her. Tossing his napkin over his plate, he pushed his sandwich aside half-eaten and reached for a beat-up attaché. “It’s not much,” he said. “I don’t want you to get your hopes up.” He worked a stiff buckle loose and then peered in the depths of the bag. A moment later he held out a worn, brown leather wallet and a simple file folder.

  Jess reached for them even as she felt a wave of disappointment. Cate had described an accordion folder, not a flat, colorless rectangle. What could it possibly contain? It was so pinched it seemed as if there wasn’t a single piece of paper inside.

  “There’s a couple hundred dollars in the wallet,” Deputy Mullen told her. “From the sale of his Jeep, we’re guessing. Driver’s license, a credit card, some receipts.”

  Jess rubbed her thumb over the soft fold of the slim wallet. Evan had always been a bit of a minimalist. A single credit card. His library card. Receipts carefully folded in half and then in half again and tucked in the corner of the pocket where he kept his cash neatly arranged in order of denomination. Ones in the front. Fif
ties in the back. Flipping the wallet open, Jess let her finger fan the stack of bills. There were more than a couple hundreds.

  But Jess wasn’t all that interested in the wallet. She tucked it carefully in her purse and then picked up the file. “You don’t need this?” she asked, tipping it toward Deputy Mullen.

  “We’ve photographed the contents, but we don’t believe it’s relevant to the investigation. Looks like notes on some of his patients.”

  Jess laid the file flat on the table in front of her and opened it with more than a little trepidation. She didn’t know what she was hoping for or secretly dreading, but somehow it felt significant that she was finally holding a piece of Evan. Maybe even something that he had written recently. That held a clue to what had happened in the final weeks and months of his life.

  But the file was not at all what Jessica was expecting. Just as she feared, there wasn’t a single sheet of paper inside, just a rainbow of Post-it Notes stuck in careful rows on both sides of the open folder. They were arranged by color, and a quick count of the columns told Jess there were twenty-five perfect squares in all. Six columns and four rows with one lonely Post-it Note all by itself at the bottom. Eight yellow ones, eleven blue ones, five purple ones, and a single green one. They were all covered in Evan’s handwriting.

  “What is this?” Jess asked.

  “We thought you’d be able to tell us.”

  Jess glanced up and realized that Deputy Mullen was studying her intently. “Is there something you’re not telling me?” she asked.

  “Is there something you’re not telling me?”

  Jess felt herself blanch. All the blood in her cheeks drained to her toes and she felt suddenly light-headed. “No,” she managed. “But I have no idea what this is.”

  “Names,” Mullen said helpfully. He leaned across the table and stuck his finger on the first one. “Mariah K.,” he said, reading upside down.

  “I can see that. What do they mean?”

  He sat back and shrugged. “Your husband was a doctor. Maybe he was doing some sort of study.”

  “On what?”

  “You tell me,” Deputy Mullen said. “They’re all women. No last names, save an initial. There is a brief description of each woman and then a few words about their family and friends.”

  “What’s this?” Jess squinted at the last line on the first Post-it Note, a collection of letters that comprised some sort of acronym.

  “That I can tell you. Or at least guess.” Deputy Mullen leaned back and crossed his arms. “Those are crime charge codes. Abbreviations.”

  “Excuse me?” Jess was trying to follow, but what he was saying just didn’t make sense.

  “What’s the first one?” Mullen waved his hand as if to say: Lay it on me.

  Jess squinted at the Post-it Note. It was yellow, the very first square in a grid that was as neat and orderly as Evan himself. But put together, the scraps of paper were beyond mystifying. They were indecipherable. Jess took a deep breath, then put her finger beneath the letters in question and read: “Capital M-A-N slash D-E-L followed by a C and an S.”

  “Sometimes different departments use different codes, but it’s clear that those abbreviations refer to the manufacture and delivery of a controlled substance.”

  Jess’s eyes shot to his. “You’re kidding me.”

  “It’s pretty standard. This shorthand is used on background checks, arrest records, warrants—you name it.” Mullen seemed to be studying her just a bit too intently. “Do those letters mean something to you?”

  “No. I mean, I don’t think so.” Jess hurriedly scanned the rest of them. “I’d have to look at them for a while, I guess, but nothing pops immediately.”

  He nodded. “I think they’re pretty clear. Look, there’s a yellow one near the end of that batch and two purple ones that all say P-R-O-S-T. Take a guess.”

  “Prostitution,” Jess said, barely believing that she was having such an incomprehensible conversation.

  “Bingo.”

  Jess deflated against the padded bench. “I don’t understand,” she said. “What does this mean?”

  “I don’t know.” Mullen put his elbows on the table and templed his fingers. “But we plan to find out. Hopefully Evan’s phone will point us in the right direction.”

  “You wanted to find out if I knew anything,” Jess said as the reason for Deputy Mullen’s eagerness suddenly clicked. He wasn’t being nice meeting her halfway; he was hoping to glean some information.

  He tapped his fingertips together. “It occurred to me. It’s not why I met you, Jessica, but I’m glad I did. It’s good to see you.”

  She realized she was biting her bottom lip and forced herself to stop. She sat up straight and pulled the file toward her. “This is mine?”

  Mullen nodded.

  “Thank you,” Jess said. “For his wallet. For this.” Jess tapped the edge of the folder on the tabletop, then gathered up her purse and coat and scooted out of the booth.

  “Don’t forget the keys.” Deputy Mullen handed her a key chain filled with keys. “If you think of anything at all, please let me know.”

  “I will,” Jess said, sticking one arm and then the other in the sleeves of her coat. She was grateful to have something to do so she didn’t have to watch him watching her. But just at the moment she was ready to leave, Jess found that her feet stuck to the floor. She paused. Gathered up the courage and asked: “Do you still think Evan’s death was an accident?”

  Deputy Mullen looked away from her, out the filmy windows of the greasy diner, and furrowed his brow. It was a familiar expression, Jess could tell from the deep wrinkles that appeared on his forehead, between his eyes. After a moment he gave his head a little shake. “I don’t know,” he said truthfully. “I just don’t know.”

  * * *

  Conversation with Larissa Tate (July 27, 2018)

  LARISSA TATE: HELLO?

  EVAN: HELLO, MS. TATE. YOU DON’T KNOW ME, BUT—

  MS. TATE: I DON’T TALK TO TELEMARKETERS.

  EVAN: WAIT! I’M NOT A TELEMARKETER. MY NAME IS EVAN CHAMBERLAIN. I WAS A FRIEND OF YOUR DAUGHTER.

  MS. TATE: LASHONNA IS DEAD.

  EVAN: I KNOW. AND I’M SO VERY SORRY FOR YOUR LOSS.

  MS. TATE: DO YOU WORK FOR THAT LAW OFFICE?

  EVAN: NO. I’M A FAMILY PRACTITIONER. I’M SO SORRY TO BOTHER YOU, BUT LASHONNA’S DEATH WAS SO UNEXPECTED, AND I JUST HAVE TO KNOW: DID SHE SPEAK WITH YOU BEFORE HER DEATH?

  MS. TATE: I’M NOT SURE HOW THAT’S ANY OF YOUR BUSINESS.

  EVAN: YOU’RE RIGHT. IT’S NOT. I JUST . . . I CAN’T SLEEP. MS. TATE, WHAT HAPPENED TO THE BABY?

  MS. TATE: I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT YOU’RE TALKING ABOUT. THERE WAS NEVER ANY BABY.

  Kate L.

  27, Caucasian, GED

  Anorexically skinny, mousy-brown hair, startlingly blue eyes.

  Brother involved.

  ARS, 52m, 1yr 7m pp

  CHAPTER 16

  HALFWAY HOME, JESS pulled onto a gravel road and parked in a field driveway. She had good reception, so she dug a pen out of her purse and found a directory of common criminal abbreviations on the web. Deputy Mullen was right. They were easy enough to decipher. A young woman named Kate (whom Evan described as anorexically skinny with mousy-brown hair and startlingly blue eyes) had been convicted of arson. Jessica assumed she had been given a fifty-two-month sentence, but she couldn’t figure out the rest of the numbers. Did they signify how much time this Kate L. had already served? Jess just didn’t know.

  By the time she was done, Jess had unveiled charges of burglary (BURG), fraud (FRD), criminal possession of dangerous drugs (CPDD), homicide (HOM), and even DUI. Cody De Jager had gotten off with just a few months on his DUI conviction, but a woman named Ariana hadn’t been as lucky. Maybe that was because she had also been carrying a concealed weapon (CW).

  Jess stared at her scribbled notes, the strange collection of crimes and bizarre notations her husband had made. They were all women
. And they were all criminals. Did Evan know them? Were they in his care somehow? Maybe that was the unifying factor—Evan had taken on a research project or something. But why hadn’t he ever said anything to her about it?

  Because they hadn’t been together anymore. The thought made Jess’s heart sink. Silence enveloped their home weeks and months before the official separation. The stillness became a fog, thick and viscous, impenetrable. Sometimes Jess would open her mouth to say something and just as quickly shut it. She became changeable as air, flowing around the rock that was her husband. And if he missed her, Jess couldn’t tell. Evan was so busy, distracted. Wrapped up in something that she didn’t understand and he didn’t explain. Maybe he had been all wrapped up in them.

  Jess would give anything—anything—for the chance to sit in this car with Evan one more time. To fold her hand in his and study the laugh lines at the corners of his warm eyes. When had he stopped looking at her? Really looking at her? When had the words slowed to a trickle? Jess wished that she would have tried harder, that she would have found a way to reach her husband before the love between them had dried up altogether.

  Jess sobbed in the car before tucking all her notes away and finishing the long drive home. When she arrived at her father’s house, the boys were watching a movie with Anna.

  “Star Wars,” Henry told her. “The first one. Or, I mean, the new one.”

  “The seventh?” Jess guessed, hoping her father couldn’t tell that she had been crying. If he noticed, he seemed willing to pretend he didn’t.

  Henry shrugged. “Sure.”

  “It’s a little dark for Gabe, don’t you think?” Jess took a few steps toward the living room where she could hear the strains of the classic Star Wars music cueing up a battle scene.

  Henry tugged her sleeve to stop her. “It’s fine. We fast-forwarded through the opening and Anna has her finger on the pause button. Max is happy. Gabe is happy. Everyone wins.”

  Jess was about to protest but found she just didn’t have it in her. Nearly three hours in the car, plus the knowledge that Evan had been keeping something from her—something big, something she couldn’t even begin to understand—made her feel heavy and slow. Unnaturally tired. She let her father lead her away from the living room and into the kitchen, where he pulled out a chair for her and motioned that she should sit down.