Don't Ever Forget (Adler and Dwyer)

by Matthew Farrell

  “Is that right?”

  Tim nodded. “Yup. I answered all of his questions, and we talked and played games, and we colored and made pictures. It was fun!”

  “Excellent.”

  Susan sipped her water and broke off a little piece of crust from her slice. She could actually see Tim’s little shoulders relax and his smile become something made of real joy. It made her tear up every time she witnessed it. Her son. Happy. Who would’ve thought?

  The twins got back to their chairs and continued devouring their slices. They’d already gone through a small stack of napkins, and Susan reached over and grabbed a full dispenser from the table next to theirs.

  “So it went well?” Liam asked, helping himself to a slice.

  “Yes and no,” Susan whispered. “The session went okay, but he’s having some trouble at home. The anniversary of what happened is coming up, and he’s thinking about it more. Fighting with kids, not sleeping, not talking as much.”

  “Did Dr. Radcliffe tell you Tim’s thinking about it, or did Tim?”

  “Radcliffe. Tim told him while they were in session. But I could sense it too.”

  “Well, at least the little guy’s talking it out. He’s doing great. Just gotta hang in there.”

  “As long as it takes.”

  Susan popped the piece of crust into her mouth and refilled the twins’ waters. Out of the corner of her eye she could see Liam watching her as he took a bite of his pizza.

  “You’re getting around pretty good on that thing,” she said, nodding toward the cane.

  Liam chuckled. “The PT is working wonders. Won’t need it much longer. I’m all healed up and walking better each day.”

  “You look like you got a little toned there too.”

  “You checking me out?”

  “You wish.”

  They both laughed, and it felt good, even for that brief moment. The kids were eating, she was smiling, and the conversation was real.

  “You heading back to the job when you get your clean bill of health?”

  Liam shook his head, and his smile faded. “I don’t think I can take all the people I came up with staring at me and whispering about me every time I walk by. It’d be too much. I know they’d welcome me back, but it wouldn’t be the same. For me or for them.” He grabbed his glass and filled it with water from the pitcher. “But I’m too young to retire, don’t have the savings, and don’t have any other skills, so I’ll have to catch on somewhere. Maybe state police like you. Or New Jersey. Hell, I’d even take a look at Maryland if the pay was good enough.”

  “Or New York,” Susan said a little too quickly. She took a bite of her pizza and felt her cheeks get hot. “I could put a word in.”

  “I don’t know,” Liam said playfully. “I hate the Giants, hate the Rangers, can’t stomach the Yankees, and the Mets are a joke. I’m a Philly boy through and through. New York has always been our biggest rival in every sport. Not sure if I could do it.”

  “You would let a sports team determine where you live?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “A man of true wisdom.”

  They laughed again. It was always like this when they got together, but Susan was afraid to seek anything more than whatever it was she and Liam already had. She was attracted to him, yes, but often wondered whether his attractiveness stemmed from the way he was with her kids or an actual physical longing. It was too complicated with his backstory and hers, and with them being three hours apart, it seemed better to let sleeping dogs lie. She would never forgive herself if she pushed things and destroyed what they already had. But still, when they were together, it just felt natural.

  “I need to ask you something,” Susan said, turning serious for a moment. “It’s fine if you’re not up for it, but I could use a little help on my case. Help that would be, let’s say, off the books.”

  Liam took a bite of his pizza. “Keep talking.”

  “This case I’m working on, it involves one of our troopers being killed at a traffic stop. We caught the suspects on the dashcam but have no idea who they are. Couldn’t get a clean look. There’s an old man, James Darville, who’s missing and is somehow a part of all of it. Just can’t figure out exactly how yet. I thought if I can start digging into this guy’s background, I might come across something that points me to the people who killed the trooper.”

  “Sounds like a good plan.”

  She opened her phone and scrolled through her email, clicking on one that came in from the barracks. “I got Darville’s background check last night. He was born and raised in Circleville, Ohio, just south of Columbus. No siblings. Parents are both deceased. No record of extended family. Graduated Ohio State in 1975 and worked as an English teacher in schools around Ohio and western Pennsylvania. Never married. No kids. Bought the house in New York where he was currently living ten years ago. No criminal record of any kind. Clean.”

  “So what’s the off-the-books help you’re looking for?”

  “It seems like he moved around a bit. Spent some time in West Finley and Beaverdale. Both Pennsylvania towns. I called in to the feds to get an extensive background done, but they’re all tied up, and my request just ended up in their queue. I was thinking maybe you could make a couple calls to the contacts you have in Pennsylvania. See if we can get something from the state database?”

  “I can certainly try,” Liam replied. “I know West Finley is south of Pittsburgh, almost on the Ohio border. I worked with a guy who grew up in the same county. Never heard of Beaverdale, though.”

  “It’s kind of in the middle of nowhere. Center of the state.”

  “I can’t guarantee anything, obviously, but it won’t hurt to ask around.”

  “I appreciate it.”

  “Why is this off the books?”

  “I don’t really know what road I’m going down yet, so I’d rather not put in official requests across state lines. Like I said, I’m just hoping if I find out enough about this James Darville, I might stumble upon the man and woman involved in the trooper’s death.”

  “Got it.”

  “So you’re in?”

  Liam smiled again. “I wouldn’t miss an opportunity to be your partner on a case. Not a chance.”

  37

  Cindy had been out for a walk to clear her head and try to come up with a strategy that would get James talking. Hagen would be there soon, and if he arrived before James had told her what he’d done to her sister and the other children, it would be too late. He’d kill the old man, and his truth would die with him. She knew time was running out, but she couldn’t force a failing brain to remember what she wanted, and when. She wasn’t sure what her next step should be. She was beginning to think the entire thing was hopeless.

  She opened the front door and immediately heard yelling. Cindy hurried down the hall and found Trevor bent over the coffee table in the living room, pounding the wooden surface with his fist, the veins in his forehead, purple and swollen, protruding up toward his hairline.

  “You leave them alone, you son of a bitch! I’ll kill you! I swear to God, I’ll kill you! Give me my family back!”

  “What’s going on?” she asked, her voice drowning in his.

  “If you hurt them, I’ll hunt you down and skin you alive! We’re doing everything you asked. Everything! I’ve killed for you! Leave my family alone!”

  “What’s happening?”

  “I want—” He pulled the phone away from his ear, and she could see the screen. It was blank. The call had been cut off.

  “Trevor, talk to me. What happened?”

  Trevor spun around, his eyes wide with his anger and madness. Yes, that’s what she could see. The madness. It was all catching up to him, and he was losing it. They all were.

  “You,” he barked through clenched teeth. “Did you do this? Have you been working with Hagen this whole time? Do you know who this guy is?”

  Cindy took a step back. “Of course not! What happened?”

  He h
eld up his phone. “He called me.”

  “Hagen called you? He never calls.”

  “He’s angry. He knows the cops found the car, and he’s still pissed about the trooper we killed. He knows about the evidence we left behind at the old man’s house. We screwed it all up. It’s all coming undone.”

  “What did he say?”

  “He said we needed to pay for our mistakes. He said he can get Mrs. Hill her liver but that maybe the blood type won’t match, and she’ll die when her body can’t process the new organ.”

  “Oh my god.”

  “Then he said I might have to choose between my wife and my son. He said maybe the best way to make things right since I killed the trooper would be to take the life of someone I care for. He said maybe I’ll only get one of them back, and he wants me to choose or he’ll choose for me.” Trevor began to sob, deep harsh breaths filled with panic and sorrow. “Why did you get me involved in this? Why?”

  Cindy rushed over and hugged him. “I’m sorry. I am. I wish you weren’t involved. I really do.”

  “I can’t choose. I love them both. I have to find them.”

  “We will. But right now we have to stick to the plan. Maybe if we do things right the rest of the way, he’ll forgive us.”

  She let him cry it out before he was able to get himself under control. He wiped his eyes and sat down on the couch, coughing and clearing his throat.

  “You’re right,” he said. “We have to see this through. Maybe he will forgive us.”

  “If he contacts me, I’ll beg him for all of us.”

  “Where’s David?”

  “He left. He had to get back to his mother.”

  Trevor looked at her, his eyes both cold and resigned. “You ever notice whenever Hagen contacts us, David’s not around?”

  “What are you saying?”

  “What do you think I’m saying?”

  “You think David is Hagen?”

  He shrugged. “Why not? Any one of us could be.”

  38

  By the time Susan and the kids got back to the house, Beatrice had dinner waiting. It was a late dinner due to the traffic they ran into on the New Jersey Turnpike, but it was better than the fast food Casey and Tim had begged for. The kids burst through the door with full bladders and empty stomachs. The familiar sounds of a house in perpetual chaos returned, and life was as it should be. They were home.

  With dinner done, baths taken, the dishwasher loaded, and the twins in bed, Beatrice sat on the couch with her feet up on the coffee table and a pillow tucked into the small of her back. She sipped a cup of coffee while watching a rerun of Law & Order, careful to keep the sound low and her attention focused while Susan worked next to her on the love seat, her papers spread out on the cushions, a glass of merlot on the side table, well within reach.

  The living room was silent but for Jack McCoy and Lennie Briscoe trading theories about the motive for the homicide they were investigating. Susan was trying to do the same thing, but in real life there weren’t always clues to point you in the right direction or witnesses who popped up at the right place and the right time. There were no commercial breaks to rest during and no linchpins to tie everything together with five minutes left before the end of the show. Real police work involved procedure, interviews, a little bit of gut, and a whole lot of hard work. Rabbit holes were easy to fall down and difficult to climb out of, and even when you got the story that made sense, you had the burden of proof to present, or the DA wouldn’t bring charges. That’s the way it was in real life. That was the law, and even within the law, the bad guys got away on occasion and the wrong guys went to prison. But not for Jack and Lennie. Jack and Lennie had it made. They always found their man just in the nick of time.

  Susan closed her file and grabbed the wine from the table. She took a sip and sighed.

  Beatrice looked at her. “I can go in my room and watch this there if it’s distracting you.”

  “No, you’re fine. The show isn’t the distraction. It’s this case.”

  “Tough one?”

  “Kind of. I’ll get it.”

  Beatrice waited a few beats, then asked quietly, “How’s Liam?”

  “He’s fine.”

  “Mm-hmm.”

  “I can’t argue about Liam right now, Mom.”

  “I’m not arguing about anything.”

  “I know you don’t like him. We’re just friends. There’s nothing to worry about.”

  “Who’s worrying?” Beatrice asked. “Have your friend. And I never said I didn’t like him. I just don’t want a man who has so much baggage spending all that time with my grandchildren. Not until we know he’s okay. You did meet him at a psych hospital. Let’s not forget that.”

  “Yeah, the same psych hospital that’s helping the grandchild you’re so worried about. Do you want Tim to have that same stigma when someone’s talking about him?”

  “That’s not the point. I’m just saying be careful. Baby steps. See what he’s made of.”

  “I’m on it.”

  A pause. “I know there’s a lot happening in your life right now,” Beatrice said. “Just know that God only gives us what we can handle.”

  Susan waved her hand over her paperwork and chuckled. “I think God is overestimating my capabilities.”

  “Well, I’m not. You got this.”

  With the remnants of her injuries still plaguing her, it took Beatrice a few minutes to get up off the couch. She took her mug and made her way toward her bedroom. “I’m heading in. I’ll see you in the morning.”

  “Okay. I love you.”

  “Love you too, sweetie. Good night.”

  Susan listened as her mother’s bedroom door closed. They’d argued about Liam before, and it always ended the same way. Beatrice would implore her to be careful, and Susan would assure her mother she knew exactly what she was doing. The truth was, she didn’t know exactly what she was doing—if she was even doing anything at all. But her gut told her Liam was one of the good guys. He had to be. She couldn’t be that wrong for a second straight time. She couldn’t.

  Susan pushed thoughts of the twins and Liam and Philadelphia out of her head and tried to concentrate. She picked up the copies of Rebecca Hill’s address book and began skimming the names and addresses, hoping something would click. She scanned name after name, placing each page down on the cushions and moving on to the next.

  She stopped on the fourth page and stared at the name she’d read before. For whatever reason it stood out to her now, in the silence of her house, when her mind had a chance to stretch.

  Look for the others.

  She flipped the pages back to the Fs, and he wasn’t there. She flipped ahead to the Ps, and she wasn’t there. Finally, she flipped to the Rs, and even she wasn’t there. This was clearly a personal address book, void of anything related to Rebecca’s job, her patients, or the facilities in which she worked.

  So why was he there?

  Susan had searched for James Darville’s doctors, and none of them were in the book. Dr. Phines, his neurologist, wasn’t there. Dr. Trammel, his physical therapist, wasn’t there. Even Rebecca’s boss at the staffing agency, Beth Ruelle, wasn’t there. Susan turned back to the Cs and looked at the name.

  Phillip Calib.

  James Darville’s primary doctor.

  Rebecca didn’t even have the word Doctor in front of his name. Just Phillip Calib. Why was he the only person associated with James Darville in Rebecca Hill’s personal address book?

  39

  The storm that had brought gray skies and rain to Philadelphia the day before had worked its way north and moved into the Hudson Valley overnight. Susan listened to the sound of her wipers sliding across the windshield as she pulled into the back entrance of the doctor’s office, her mind still running through the case since last night. After discovering Dr. Calib’s number in Rebecca’s address book, she’d spent the next several hours scouring her interview notes and examining the crime scene reports fr
om Rebecca’s car and Darville’s house. She was confident they hadn’t missed anything—at least until the lab reports came back and the extended background checks were finished.

  Even at nine in the morning on a cold and dreary day, the line at the coffee shop across the street stretched out the door. Dr. Calib had been right. Double the line on a weekday. Susan scurried from her car and into the office lobby, yanking her hood over her head as she ran. The directory stated that Dr. Calib’s practice was on the second floor. She took the stairs.

  The doctor’s office was typical. Faux-leather chairs lined two of the pristine white walls. A glass partition marked the third wall, separating the patients from the nurses and the receptionist, who worked at small desks answering phones and filling out paperwork. The fourth wall had an access door to the examination rooms as well as a magazine rack that was bolted in place. Periodicals and newspapers hung over the edges, the entire case overstuffed and on the verge of collapse.

  An elderly couple sat together in the waiting area. The man was reading a magazine while the woman clutched a handful of tissues against her chest. Neither of them spoke to the other. It was a comfortable silence, Susan thought. A silence that came with years of practice and mutual respect.

  The receptionist looked up just as Susan pulled her shield from her jacket.

  “I need to see Dr. Calib.”

  The receptionist smiled as she’d clearly been trained to do. “He’s with a patient right now.”

  “I’ll wait in his office.”

  “You’ll have a seat and wait in the waiting room, thank you.”

  Now it was Susan’s turn to smile. “It’s important that I speak with Dr. Calib as soon as he’s done with his current patient. You can show me to his office, since I’m sure you don’t want your other patients seeing a homicide investigator waiting to interview their physician.”

  The elderly couple both looked up.

  “Please don’t make me do this the hard way,” Susan continued, her smile still plastered on her face.

  The receptionist nodded slowly. “I’ll buzz you in.”