“Whatever happens, we’ll make it work.”
The computer is up and I click on Hal’s e-mail program first, but it’s password protected. “Dang it,” I mutter. I think for a moment and then try various iterations of some obvious guesses: the word “password,” some number strings, Hal’s birthday, and after a phone call to Jonas to get it from Tina’s driver’s license, her birthday. None of them work. I’m not surprised. Hal was too professional to use anything so simple for a password.
“Any other ideas?” I ask Hurley.
He takes out his notebook and consults it. “Try his mother’s name, Carlotta.”
I do so, with no success. “What’s his father’s name?”
“George,” Hurley tells me.
It seems an unlikely one and, sure enough, it doesn’t work, either. I try both names again with some numbers tacked on, and change the case on the first letters, but all to no avail. We stare at the password prompt and the taunt of the blinking cursor, both of us frowning in frustration. Then I snap my fingers, type something, and, just like that, I’m in.
“What was it?” Hurley asks.
“It was Persephone, the name of his boat. Kind of apt in a way. In Greek mythology, Persephone became goddess of the underworld after being kidnapped by Hades. I suspect that was Hal’s little inside joke about what he does . . . did for a living.”
“Clever girl,” Hurley says, bending down and giving me a kiss on the cheek. He then makes a phone call to Jonas, passing along the password we figured out in case the USB drive or the laptop requires one.
Over the next thirty minutes, we wade through Hal’s e-mails: current ones, deleted ones, and those he sent out. The vast majority of them are related to work, though there are a few from people in Eau Claire and Illinois who appear to be friends. None of the e-mails appear incriminating or point to any potential adversaries, motives, or dealings that might have gotten Hal into trouble. I move on to his documents file and wade through those, but they all appear to be innocuous work-related things as well.
“I don’t see anything helpful here,” I say, shutting down the computer. “Maybe his personal laptop or that USB drive will have something.”
Next we go through Hal’s desk drawers, a process made easier by the man’s obsessive neatness and need for organization. There is a drawer filled with hanging files and Hurley pulls them out and puts them in a box. “Let’s take these home and you can go through them there,” he says. “It’s getting late.”
By the time we get home, Matthew is in bed asleep and Emily is curled up on the couch watching one of the CSI shows. She has shown a keen interest in what Hurley and I do for a living, and she’s also shown an amazing talent when it comes to drawing. She once drew a face using a skeleton hanging in our office library as her basis for the sketch. That skeleton belonged to the wife of a prior medical examiner and her picture hangs in one of our office hallways. Emily’s drawing, despite the fact that she didn’t know the woman in question and hadn’t seen the picture, was a near-perfect rendition of the woman’s face.
“How was Matthew?” I ask her.
“He was fine,” Emily says, grabbing the remote and pausing the show. “He peed in the potty . . . well . . . mostly in the potty right before he went to bed.”
“Aw, that’s great. Thanks for watching him and be sure to add the hours to your account.”
“Oh, I won’t forget,” she says with a smirk and a wink. “Johnny wants me to go with him to some kind of outdoor-theater thing in the Dells on Friday night. Is it okay if I go?”
“Sure. Write down the specifics on the kitchen whiteboard,” Hurley says. “Remember to be smart and be safe, and make sure you take your phone. If you need—”
“—anything at any time, no matter the hour or distance, call,” she finishes for him with a wry smile. “I got it, Dad.”
Hurley’s lips curl into a smile and his posture relaxes. He visibly softens whenever Emily calls him “Dad.” It took her the better part of a year before she used the term for the first time. Prior to that, she always referred to him by his name. Then one night on her way to bed, she walked over, kissed Hurley on top of his head, and said, “Good night, Dad.” That was it and he’s been Dad ever since. There was no big event, no emotional moment, no celebration or ceremony that triggered the transition.
“Any news about Hal?” Emily asks, deftly changing the subject.
“Nothing solid yet,” Hurley says. “But we’ve got lots of evidence to wade through. Hopefully, something will break soon.”
“Was the woman on the boat his girlfriend?”
Hurley and I exchange a look. I let Hurley handle it. “She was,” he says, “but that’s not official yet, so you can’t tell anyone.”
Emily mimes locking her lips with a key, which she then tosses over her shoulder. Then she looks at me and her brow furrows with worry. “Do you think what happened to Hal has anything to do with a case you’ve worked on?”
I start to give her a reassuring platitude, but I stop myself. Emily is not only sharp, but she’s good at reading people. “We don’t know yet,” I tell her. “But we’re looking into it.” I nod toward the box of files Hurley is holding. “Those are the files Hal had in his desk. We’re going to take them upstairs and go through them. And we have a busy day ahead of us tomorrow, so we probably won’t be back down tonight.”
“So the remote is all mine,” Emily says, wiggling her eyebrows, something I’ve seen her father do dozens of times. It’s intriguing to see the bits and pieces of Hurley that emerge in Emily and wonder how many of them will also show up in Matthew.
“Yep, it’s all yours,” I say. “Thanks again for watching Matthew.”
“My pleasure.”
We say our good nights and head upstairs. Hurley carries the file box into the bedroom while I detour into Matthew’s room to peek in on him. He’s asleep on his side, his dark hair sticking out everywhere, his thumb firmly planted in his mouth, his down-covered cheeks fluttering as he sucks in his sleep. Knowing I’m responsible for this tiny little boy sleeping in his big-boy bed both exhilarates and frightens me. I stand there and watch him for a time, my heart swollen with feelings of love and tenderness. But deep down in my gut, there’s also a cold spot, an icy ball of fear. I’m too aware of all the things that can go wrong, all the ways life gets cut short with little to no notice.
A hand on my shoulder makes me jump.
“Sorry,” Hurley whispers, his head alongside mine, his front side along my back side. He stares at Matthew with me, and after a moment he says, “He’s growing up so fast.”
“I know.”
“I kind of want to make another one,” Hurley whispers, nibbling on my neck.
“Let’s get through the wedding stuff first. Then I promise to think about it.”
“We could practice,” Hurley says, his nibbles getting a little more urgent.
And so we do.
* * *
An hour or so later, Hurley is lying on his side in our bed, his head propped up on his hand, staring at me.
“What?” I say.
“You know what. You promised me a chat once we were home. Something about your father, I believe? I think it’s time.”
I grimace, knowing I have to do it, but not wanting to, especially on the heels of the glorious time we just spent together. But it has to be done. I sit up and scoot back to lean against the headboard, tucking the covers around me like some metaphorical protection from the anger I’m anticipating. Apparently taking a cue from me, Hurley does the same.
“Okay, here goes,” I start. I brace myself with a deep breath, exhaling it slowly. “I’ve told you before that my father left when I was four. And according to my mother, he left because he was a wandering Gypsy, who didn’t want to settle down. I always figured my mother was exaggerating and that she drove him away with all her idiosyncrasies and craziness. But it turns out there was a whole lot more to the story my mother never told me about, and a w
hole lot more she didn’t know about. At least I don’t think she knew.”
“Okay,” Hurley says slowly, “but what does that have to do with us getting married?”
“Hang in there and I’ll get to it. Remember when you came back to town after Kate died and I was being investigated for killing that guy who shot at me?” I don’t give him a chance to answer. I’m not asking because I question his remembrance of those events, but rather to ground him in the proper setting for what I’m about to tell him. “We had all those state troopers milling about down at the station and looking into my background. It turns out they delved pretty deep, going back to when I was a kid. And they came up with some interesting facts.”
“About you?”
“No, about my father. It turns out he hasn’t always been on the right side of the law.”
Hurley shrugs this off. “So he broke some laws. That shouldn’t impact our getting married. Unless you’ve broken some laws I don’t know about.”
“None that I’m aware of,” I say with a smile. “But my father apparently broke some serious laws, or at least the cops think so. They think he killed someone.”
“Well, technically, so did you. Apparently, it runs in the family.”
I give him a light punch in the arm and roll my eyes at him. I know he’s trying to lighten things up by making a joke, but he has no idea just how serious the matter is going to get.
“Okay, what were the circumstances?” he asks in a more sobering tone, realizing I’m not buying into his attempt at humor.
My heart is pounding so hard I swear Hurley must be able to hear it. “They think he killed an undercover cop, Hurley,” I say. I hold my breath, biting my lip, listening for his reaction. I expect a sharp intake of breath, or a muttered curse, but his breathing stays even and regular. “A cop named Roy Gilligan.”
This time I get a reaction. Hurley’s breath catches as he turns sharply toward me, his face a mask of confusion. “My ex-partner, Roy? That Roy Gilligan?”
I nod. “One and the same.”
“He and I used to run patrols together down in Chicago. I heard he was killed during an undercover sting looking into a mailbox store scheme that Quinton Dilles was suspected of running. That’s one of the reasons I went after Dilles as hard as I did when he killed his wife. I figured he had something to do with Roy’s death as well.”
“He may have, but only tangentially,” I say. “Trooper Grimes told me the suspected hit man in Roy’s death was a man named Cedric Novak.”
It doesn’t take Hurley long to make the connection. “This Cedric guy, he’s your father?”
I give him a slow, tentative nod, watching him warily as he digests what I’ve just told him.
He reaches up and scratches at his scalp, though I doubt anything itches. It’s something I’ve seen him do before when he’s puzzling through something. His eyes stare down at the bedspread, though there is a distant, almost vacant look in them that tells me all he sees are the connections forming in his mind. “Okay, why?” he says after several long seconds of silence. “Why did this Cedric guy, your father, kill Roy?”
“Apparently, Cedric worked at the mailbox store. In fact, he was the manager, and as such, the cops believe he was Dilles’s right-hand man.”
There it was . . . all the awful truths laid out on the table. Not only was my father suspected of killing a cop who at one time was Hurley’s partner, he was also suspected of working with Hurley’s archenemy, the man he hates more than any other, the man that caused Hurley to lose his job in Chicago: Quinton Dilles.
Dilles was suspected of killing his wealthy wife five years ago. As the lead detective on the case, Hurley pursued the man with a vengeance—for reasons I now understand—and Dilles complained about the harassment. Hurley ended up losing his job over the matter, only to have Dilles eventually arrested and convicted of the crime. Hurley’s exoneration came too late to save his job, and to add to his resentment, Dilles managed to coordinate a frame-up of Hurley from prison a few years ago. He almost succeeded in costing Hurley not just another job, but his freedom.
Ironically, though I got caught up in the Dilles doings as well, and nearly ended up unemployed and dead as a result, I owed a small debt of gratitude to the man. Had Dilles not gotten Hurley fired from his job in Chicago, Hurley never would have come to work in Sorenson. That meant I never would have met him, and the sleeping angel in the other room wouldn’t exist.
“What evidence did they have against this Cedric guy?” Hurley asks. He folds his arms over his chest, his body language telling me he’s having an understandably hard time with this new revelation.
“I don’t know the specifics. All I know is they didn’t have enough to arrest him for it, and even if they had the evidence, they couldn’t find him. You could talk to Trooper Grimes to find out, or ask Richmond.”
“Richmond knows about it?” Hurley said, shooting me a wounded look.
“He does,” I say, wincing. “I made him swear he wouldn’t tell you.”
“Son of a bitch,” Hurley mutters, staring off across the room and scowling. He shakes his head, his brows furrowed in anger . . . and betrayal.
“Don’t get mad at Richmond,” I say. “It wasn’t relevant to anything we were investigating at the time, and I was so afraid that knowing about it would turn you against me. I badgered him into his silence on the matter. If you want to get mad at someone, get mad at me.”
Hurley looks at me, letting out a long, slow sigh. “Is that why you kept telling me no when I asked you to marry me?”
“That was part of the reason,” I admit. “But I also didn’t want you to feel obligated to marry me because of the pregnancy. The combination of the two made it hard for me to accept in good conscience. This thing with my father still does.”
Hurley leans his head back against the headboard and stares at the ceiling. I want to ask him what he’s thinking, what he’s feeling, but I’m too scared to do it. Instead, I sit, chewing on my lip, waiting anxiously. Time ticks by with an almost audible heaviness.
Hurley finally straightens up and shifts himself in the bed so that he’s looking me right in the eye. I can barely breathe. “Regardless of what your father may or may not have done, I love you, Squatch. You are not him. You are the mother of my child, the woman I love, and the person I want to marry.” He reaches up and sandwiches my face between his hands. Then he kisses me, lightly, but full on the lips. It’s a tender, loving kiss that makes my relief and love for the man burst out of me in sobs.
“Oh, God, Hurley,” I sniffle when his lips leave mine. “You don’t know . . . how worried . . . how scared I . . .”
He shushes me with his thumbs on my mouth, his eyes looking so deep into mine that I swear he can see my soul.
“I wuv you,” I mumble from behind his fingers. And then I fall into him.
We embrace, and I take a moment to enjoy the warmth, the closeness, the security I feel in his arms. Eventually he lets me go and he resettles onto his side of the bed, leaning back against the headboard again. And then he reaches over and takes my hand in his, holding it.
“That gold necklace,” he says after a while, “how does it fit in? Because it has something to do with all of this, doesn’t it?”
I nod. “I’ve seen that pendant before. I’m pretty sure it belonged to my father. And that means my father might somehow be involved in Hal and Tina’s deaths, too.”
“I think we need to sit down with your mother and have a long chat.”
“Good luck with that,” I scoff with a healthy dose of sarcasm. “She won’t tell me a thing other than the fact that she doesn’t believe my father capable of killing anyone.”
“Maybe she’s right.”
His expression of doubt, his momentary belief in my father’s possible innocence—however misguided—stirs a burst of hope in my chest. I’ve spent the past two years vacillating between pondering all the ways my father could be innocent and harboring a strong conviction that
he’s a coldhearted killer. I want so badly to believe he didn’t do these awful things, but the simple fact that he abandoned me when I was so young makes me think he’s capable of all kinds of horrific acts.
My curiosity and my longing to know my father have always been there. And that need is stronger than ever lately because I have reason to believe he’s come back into my life, albeit sporadically and on the sly. I don’t know yet if I’ll welcome him into my life, should his appearances become more permanent, but I’d like to have the option. Though if he really is guilty of the murder he’s suspected of committing, that option will be gone.
“I suppose if we’re going to get to the truth of this matter, we need to figure out who killed Hal and Tina,” Hurley says, climbing out of bed. He walks over by the door and picks up the box he’d dropped there earlier, the one containing Hal’s office files. He carries it over and plops it on the bed, climbing back in and pulling it up between us.
“I imagine this is as good a place as any to start,” he says. Then he digs into the box and hands me a stack of files.
CHAPTER 19
I wake to the morning sun prying open my eyes. Then I realize it isn’t the sun doing the prying, it’s Matthew.
“Mama eye,” he says, beaming a big smile at me.
I pull back before he can jab a finger into my eyeball. “Good morning, Matthew,” I say. I steal a glance at the alarm clock and see it’s just past five-thirty. Given that we were up until almost one going through Hal’s office files, I’m hoping I can convince Matthew to crawl into bed with us and sleep a little longer. One more hour would be heaven. I reach out an arm and wrap it around him, giving him a hoist up. I hear Hurley mumble something behind me, and Matthew’s smile broadens.
“Dada,” he says, and he scrambles up into the bed, crawling over my hips and settling down between Hurley and me. I roll over to give Matthew a kiss and tell him to go back to sleep, though I know the odds of that happening are small at best. Some distant part of my mind registers the fact that the cats aren’t on the bed or making a mad scamper out of the room, but I don’t give it much thought. Until the smell hits me.
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