by Ray Flynt
“He died just about a year before my son; April 2nd to be exact. Dent—we called him that, but his full name was Denton—was a retired Marine. He had his first heart attack when he was forty-six, and got a medical discharge. He was fifty-seven when he died.”
Brad wondered about the relationship between Dana and his father, and whether there might be any connection between the anniversary of his father’s death and Dana’s suicide.
“Your husband died of a heart attack?” Brad inquired.
“Yes.”
Brad nodded sympathetically.
“When I left shortly before 9 a.m. on that Saturday, Dana was still in bed. I had shouted for him to get up about eight-thirty, but he hadn’t stirred. So I knocked on his door before I left, and told him it was almost nine and that there were fresh biscuits on the table in the kitchen. He called out, ‘Thanks, Mom’.” Amanda paused, a wistful look on her face. “Dana loved bluegrass music and every Saturday morning a local radio station played two hours of bluegrass starting at nine. So I figured he’d want to get up.”
She’d diverged from the details of Dana’s suicide, but it was clear to Brad that all of the raw emotions from four years earlier remained bottled up inside of her.
“About four o’clock that afternoon,” she continued, “I was still at my studio. The Sheriff’s office sent an officer to tell me that my son had been found dead in our garage of carbon monoxide poisoning. The officer said, ‘I’m sorry to tell you this ma’am, but it appears he took his own life’.”
Brad realized he must have had a pained expression on his face when Amanda said, “I don’t mean to shock you. It’s curious how one gets about this subject.”
Subject? Did she mean suicide?
“After learning of Dana’s death I was hysterical, followed by numbness. During the funeral I saw so many people whose aim was to avoid the subject. People I’d known for years didn’t want to look me straight in the eye. After a few months I tried putting my life back together, but nobody wanted to share the pain of what it means to hear your son has committed suicide.” She sniffled. “So I’ve lived with it. But I don’t talk about it—because it makes people uncomfortable.” Becoming more animated, she added, “Of course it isn’t that they don’t talk about it. Many times I’ve seen cars slow down in front of the house, and I can just imagine the conversation.” She mimicked, “Po’ Miz Carothers, her son done killed himself right up in that there garage.” Amanda kneaded her hands in front of her.
Brad found himself nodding. He remembered a kid from Philly who’d gone to Princeton, but couldn’t take the pressure. He recalled a time while crossing the campus with a group of friends, one of his buddies pointed and said there’s where Charlie Reynolds shot himself, which was followed by nervous laughter from the group. At that young and confused stage of their lives, Brad felt that they could have been talking about any one of them.
Amanda pulled him out of his thoughts, saying, “Believe me; I don’t mind talking about it.”
“Amanda, I know the pain of losing people who are close to you,” Brad said. “The murder of my mother and sister were what motivated me into the detective business.”
“Ah, but you see, that’s the difference. You’re sure it was murder. How many times do you play the ‘what if’ game?”
He thought he knew what she was about to suggest, but said, “What are you saying?”
“When someone close to you commits suicide you have no choice but to ask yourself ‘what if.’ What if I hadn’t gone to my studio that morning? What if I’d made sure he was up for breakfast? Or what if I’d let him use the car two nights earlier when the gas gauge was on empty and I was afraid he’d be stranded on the highway?” She closed her eyes and shook her head. “Doctors tell me suicide is an irrational act by an irrational individual, but when you’re as close to a person as I was to my son…”
Her voice trailed off. Brad tried to think of what he could say just as she continued. “I can’t help but feel guilty. And so it continues to plague me. Dealing with my feelings these past four years has been like getting a burn. Have you ever been burned, Brad?”
Brad shrugged. “A few times. When I was a kid.”
“Working with a kiln it’s an occupational hazard. First there’s the pain, but that subsides as a scab forms. But eventually the scab creates its own discomfort—gnawing and itching. And you want to pull that scab off, but you don’t, because you’re afraid the wound might bleed again.” She leaned forward. “Brad, I’ve decided I’m ready to pull off that scab. I’m convinced that my son did not commit suicide. I’m prepared for whatever happens.”
Amanda leaned back in the rocker and squared her shoulders.
He could identify with her heartache, but she hadn’t offered a single bit of evidence to suggest that Dana’s death had been anything other than suicide.
“Amanda, you mentioned there was a suicide note. Could I see it?”
“I have the original, which I can show you, and I made a copy which you can take with you.”
Brad realized that by agreeing to take a copy of the suicide note he may be raising her hopes about him taking the case, but he paused for only an instant before saying, “That’ll be fine.”
Amanda got up from her chair and made her way down the hallway, returning moments later with a wooden box. She placed the box carefully on the table next to her. She retrieved a photograph, and handed it to Brad. “This is a picture of my husband on the day he retired from the Marines.”
Brad observed what a handsome man her husband was, made more so by his full-dress uniform. It marked the second time in their conversation when she’d linked her husband and son.
As Brad passed the photograph back, Amanda handed him the original of the suicide note. It consisted of a half-page torn from a three-ring notebook, on which was written in ink:
I’m sorry for any pain I’ve caused you. I only hope that in time you’ll be able to forgive me.
Love
“Do you recognize this as Dana’s handwriting?” Brad asked.
Amanda nodded. “It’s his all right. It just doesn’t strike me as a suicide note. And he didn’t sign it. That has bothered me from the moment I first saw it.”
Brad wasn’t an expert on suicide notes, but knew they took all forms, from short profanity-laced ones to rambling explanations and post-death instructions. “Who gave you the note?”
“Josh Miller at the Beaufort County Sheriff’s Office. About three days after we buried Dana, they brought me his personal effects, including the note.”
“Was there an autopsy?”
“No. That’s another thing that bothered me. If I had been thinking straight at the time, I would have insisted on one. But everyone kept saying suicide, and my doubts didn’t surface until later.”
“You mentioned Dana was your youngest son. How many other children do you have?”
“I have one other son, Denton, Jr. He’s a Marine, like his father. Stationed up at Parris Island at the basic training center. He wouldn’t...” She hesitated, and then said, “Let me get more tea.”
She was out of her chair before Brad could stop her.
What wouldn’t Denton, Jr. do? Want her talking about Dana’s death? Opening old wounds? Had Denton, Jr. been on her mind when she referenced her husband, Denton? “This isn’t going to be easy,” Brad muttered to himself.
Amanda returned and refilled his glass. She left the half-empty pitcher on the glass coffee table before sitting.
“Amanda, you started to tell me what your son Denton wouldn’t do,” Brad said. “If I’m to take this case, I need your complete candor about the living as well as the dead.”
Her eyes looked moist as she said, “My son wouldn’t appreciate me getting you involved. He keeps telling me to forget it.”
“Then you’ve shared your concern with him about the possibility of murder.”
“Yes,” she ran her fingers through her hair, “but he doesn’t want to listen.
He says, ‘Let the dead rest in peace’.”
“How old was Dana when he died?”
“He was twenty. Just finishing his junior year at the University of South Carolina, majoring in art and literature. He showed great promise as an artist. He completed that piece,” she pointed to the ceramic artwork Brad had noticed earlier above the couch, “six months before he died. I was very proud of him, and did everything I could to encourage him to pursue his talents.” Amanda clasped her hands prayerfully as she spoke about her son. “There’s a lot of pressure on young people these days to become an overnight success in business. Dana was a talented and artistic young man. Very sensitive.”
In a family of Marines!
“Oh, he could be tough too, and competitive,” she said, as if reading his thoughts. “But I could never see him wasting his time in business. As you may have guessed, Dana was a lot like me in temperament and outlook. Denton takes after his father.”
It was a question Brad had to ask. “How did Dana get along with his father?”
“Dent loved both his sons. He could be a tough taskmaster. After his first heart attack though, Dent mellowed a bit. He and Dana worked in the woodshop together. Dana was very good with his hands. His talent showed in their projects. Woodworking provided an activity where they could relate.” Amanda grabbed a nearby magazine and fanned herself. “Dana was a thoughtful, sensitive, young man whose inclinations were toward the creative. Denton Jr. succeeded with his father in the hunting and fishing departments. My husband insisted both our sons get a good education. Denton Jr. spent two years in community college before his father let him join the Marines.”
Brad didn’t get the sense that she was hiding anything; two sons, different personalities. He thought about his own brother and their differences.
Brad edged forward on the recliner. “Did anything unusual happen on the morning of April 5th or during the few days before?”
Amanda closed her eyes and pinched the bridge of her nose. “I didn’t see anything out of the ordinary. There was… well, I didn’t think about it much until a few days later. On the night before Dana died I bought a quart of pineapple juice. That Saturday at breakfast I finished the old carton of juice but didn’t open the new one. Later the same day, after I heard the tragic news about my son, I noticed the carton had been opened. I don’t remember opening it, and Dana was allergic to pineapple juice.”
Brad exhaled. These were hardly more than cobweb threads on which she pinned her hope of proving foul play.
“Is there anything else you can think of?” he pleaded.
She stared at the floor before shaking her head.
“What did Dana do the night before he died?” Brad asked.
“He went out on a double-date—to the movies. I didn’t know where he was going, but Denton Jr. saw him there and mentioned it after... you know, everything happened.”
A twenty-year-old heading to a movie on a Friday night told him nothing. Brad decided he was wasting his time, and wanted to wrap up the discussion.
Brad stood, and Amanda had a panicked expression on her face like he was about to leave. “I’d like to see where your son’s room was, and then have a look at the garage.”
Amanda relaxed, and got up to lead him down a hallway, pointing out her own bedroom on the right, and a small study to the left before they reached Dana’s bedroom at the end of the hall.
“Denton calls this room the shrine,” Amanda ruefully said. “I suppose he’s right, but this is all I have left of my son. This is exactly the way it was on the day he died. I gave his clothes away to the local mission, but everything else is the same. Oh, except the picture of Dana on the dresser. I put it there. It was his high school graduation picture.”
Brad lifted the picture frame for closer inspection. Dana had the same fair coloring and fine features as his mother, with a cherubic face and smile revealing perfectly aligned teeth. An impression of innocence, but then what high school graduation picture didn’t?
Dana’s bedroom was small. A twin-sized bed, covered in a blue and green plaid spread, sat perpendicular to the wall, cushioned from the hardwood floor by an oval braided rug. Opposite the foot of the bed sat a maple dresser topped with several ceramic pots in addition to the photograph. The view through the back window took in several acres of property and a distant row of pine trees. Beneath the window a stereo system that looked at least a decade old sat on a refinished coffee table. The walls were dotted with posters from a Savannah bluegrass festival, and pictures he suspected were bluegrass groups, including one named Nickel Creek. Tacked above the bed was a pennant from the University of South Carolina.
Brad felt something brush against his ankle from under the bed. “What the...” he yelped.
“There you are, Nicholas!”
Amanda scooped up the longhaired, gray and white cat. “I wondered where you were. This is Nicholas. His full name is Nicholas Nickleby.” The cat rubbed whiskers against her sleeve. She held him in her arms like a baby, and combed her fingers through his thick fur. “Yes, you were hiding weren’t you? You’re just a little Dickens.”
She laughed at her own joke.
“Nick was Dana’s cat,” Amanda explained as she led the way to the garage on the opposite side of the house. “He found the kitten in the woods where someone had abandoned it, leaving the poor thing to fend for itself. Dana was studying the novel in senior literature class, and he thought Nicholas would be a good name for a stray. I’m thankful they weren’t reading Moby Dick,” she laughed, then added, “Nicholas has been my link to Dana for these past four and a half years. I don’t know what I would have done without him.” She hugged the cat even closer.
Brad’s inspection of the two-car garage was brief. Only one car occupied the space on the far side. A late model Volvo too new to have been the source of the carbon monoxide in Dana’s death. As Brad looked around he noticed that Amanda stood close to the door which led back into the house. Her body stiffened and her voice went to a whisper as she pointed to a spot on the floor next to the car. “That’s where his body was found.”
Brad saw that the only exits from the garage were via the vehicle door—for which there was an automatic opener—and the door to the mudroom area just inside the house.
“Open the door please,” Brad asked.
Amanda punched the button, and the double-door ground its way to the ceiling. Brad walked toward the sunlit driveway and his car, and Amanda caught up.
“Who found the body?” he asked.
“A neighbor.” Amanda pointed down the road. “Jim Westin. His daughter, Kathy Ann, was the friend Dana went out with on the night before he died.”
“Who handled the funeral arrangements?”
“Summerfield’s in Bluffton. Two brothers run it, Homer and Horace. It’s been in their family for three generations. Everybody here uses Summerfield’s.”
Brad inhaled, unlocked the car door and opened it to buy time as he thought about what he could say. As he prepared to climb in the vehicle, Amanda looked at him plaintively.
“Amanda, you’ve been extraordinarily candid with me,” Brad began. “I’ll respond the same way. You haven’t given me much to go on. I’m not optimistic that after more than four years I could prove Dana was murdered—even if he was. We don’t have the physical evidence. People’s recollections about what happened won’t be clear or ultimately credible in court. If you truly believe someone murdered your son, you’ll want to see justice done.”
Amanda Carothers’ eyes blinked rapidly and she bit her lower lip. Her voice quivered as she spoke, slowly at first. “I want to restore the sanctity of the memories I have of my son. As to people recalling what happened, you remember where you were on 9/11?”
“Of course.”
“My son’s suicide was big news in this town. People will remember, I assure you.”
“Your devotion to your son and your faith are admirable, Amanda, but...” Brad paused as he saw the hope drain from her e
yes. “I’ll make a few calls. I can’t make any promises.”
“Thank you for your visit,” she said, placing her hand on Brad’s arm. “I feel better already.”
Brad patted her hand. “If you remember anything else about the day your son died, anything out of the ordinary, call my cell.” Brad scribbled a phone number on the back of his business card, and handed it to Amanda. “I’ll be in touch.”
He sat in his car and smiled back at Amanda as he pulled away. He’d make good on his offer to make a few calls about her son’s death. In the rearview mirror he saw Amanda clutching her cat. Except for disappointing her with one final phone call, Brad suspected he’d be left with that receding image as the memory of their meeting.
Chapter Three
Brad was somber as he headed back toward Hilton Head and the Haig Point marina. He liked Amanda, understood her angst over her son’s suicide, but felt she had false hopes of finding homicide in a case where the police had ruled suicide and a note was found. She’d have better luck scoring on a Powerball ticket.
He’d only driven a few miles when traffic slowed to a crawl. Glancing to his right he saw SUMMERFIELD’S – EST. 1924 stenciled in black on a freshly painted white sign. He checked his watch noting it was shortly before 3:30 p.m. Beth wouldn’t worry about him until at least 6 o’clock, so he decided to stop. Besides, if she needed him she would call.
The white frame Victorian-styled house, accented with black shutters, had a gabled roof and a circular turret at the front. A canopy extended from a spindled porch, while a side exit from the porch led to a small parking lot marked “Parking for Funeral Home Only.”
Brad knew this visit was a long shot in finding any answers for Amanda’s questions, but he dutifully walked to the front door.
“Ring Bell and Walk-In During Normal Business Hours,” the sign said. Brad pressed the button and entered a foyer adorned with floral wallpapers, patterned carpets, and decorative wood molding. Straight ahead were stairs to the second floor, and to his right a large Victorian parlor. A spinet sat in front of an unused fireplace, and the air reeked of carnation-scented potpourri.