The Follower

by Koethi Zan

  ‘There it is, that’s me, that’s me, you fuckers. I haven’t disappeared. I’m physical. I’m real.

  ‘And I fucking leave traces.’

  CHAPTER 21

  They’d stayed on through that winter in Minnesota just as Cora had hoped and now spring was finally beginning to break. Cora didn’t shed the bulky sweaters though. For good reason. No one knew her secret yet but everyone would soon enough.

  That wasn’t her immediate concern. This morning she was hunched over the portable stove in the trailer trying to get the burner to light for her father’s coffee. He was passed out on the filthy mattress in the back, one arm thrown over his face. His clothes were wrinkled and dirty and the stale smell of beer reeked in the small space.

  She’d just washed that shirt, she thought, sighing with frustration. If he’d been careful he could have worn it at least a couple of days.

  There was a smear of blood across his elbow and a large bruise bulging out underneath it. He must have a cut somewhere she couldn’t see. She’d help him clean up later. He needed to go out to find work today and he couldn’t do it looking like a homeless bum.

  The situation was getting urgent. They were lower on funds than they had been in months and she was in dire need of some cash. Usually she could make do. No one could stretch the money further than she could, but this time they’d tested the limits of her ingenuity.

  He rolled over, muttered in his sleep.

  The flame lit suddenly and she blew on it gently, put the pot on top of the coils. She pulled her sweater tighter around her shoulders, then rubbed her ice-cold hands together, still suffering from the lingering effects of a brutal winter she’d thought would never end.

  She stood watching the burner, making sure the flame stayed on.

  ‘Cora, are you here?’

  ‘I’m here, Father,’ she said quietly as she folded their one clean kitchen towel and put it on the counter by the sink. She turned toward him, anger and tenderness mixed up in a strange brew inside her. ‘Are you feeling okay?’

  ‘I’ll live.’ He sat up, put his head in his hands, rubbed his eyes. ‘But I’m going to fucking kill that bastard. Rip his fucking eyes out of their sockets.’

  ‘No, no, don’t say that. I’m sure he didn’t mean it.’ She didn’t know what he was talking about, but she’d learned it didn’t matter. It was always the same story. Luckily, he didn’t have great visual recall the next day so he wouldn’t even know who it was he aimed to kill.

  ‘Maybe it’s time to cut back on the drinking. You need to get back to work anyway. We’re down to seventy-three dollars, which will only get us through about a week and a half and that’s if we’re careful.’

  He ignored her.

  ‘I’m hungry. What do we have?’ he asked without moving.

  She went over to their small refrigerator.

  ‘Not much here.’ The fridge was completely bare except for an open container of yogurt. She lifted up the lid and closed it again quickly when she saw the surface was covered with bright blue spots. She tossed it in the garbage, tied up the bag, and lifted it out of the can. ‘I can get you something tonight, but I’ll be late. I have a project after school.’

  He grunted at her.

  ‘Enough with the school. What you need is a job. Just lie about your stupid age.’

  It was her turn to ignore him.

  She’d noticed that he looked worse today than usual and the shakes had already started. She felt a mild pang of fear. What would happen if he were truly sick this time? What if he died? She knew that, whatever else was true, he was all she had.

  ‘Maybe it’s time to move on,’ he said. ‘This town disgusts me. Fucking podunk backwoods ass of America. We’ve been here too fucking long.’

  Cora’s stomach sank at his words. She wasn’t ready for this. It didn’t really matter though because until she told Reed, there was no decision to be made. Her whole future would be at his feet. This was it. Her fork in the road.

  He tried to sit up, threw off the blanket, and heaved over onto his back like a beached whale. Cora rolled her eyes and turned away from him. It was a shameful display.

  His eyes opened to a squint and she could feel them following her movements from across the trailer.

  The coffee was ready so she poured him a cup first. They didn’t have any milk. She knew he didn’t like it black but there was no choice in times like these. She carried it over to him and gently set it down on the small table next to the mattress. She helped him get adjusted, to sit up and lean back against the pillows.

  The blood from his elbow smeared onto the sheet. She’d have to deal with that later.

  He didn’t move so she handed him the coffee, but he was so weak he couldn’t even hold the cup. She took it back from him before it spilled, then watched him drop his head back onto the pillow and close his eyes again.

  She stood there for a minute or two observing his prone, bloated body. The thought occurred to her, unbidden, that she could kill him right then if she wanted. The opportunities became apparent instantly: she could smother him with the pillow, grab his neck with her bare hands and squeeze like the devil, or stab him with the butcher knife she’d hidden away in a drawer so he couldn’t find it when he was drunk. He barely had the strength to move right now, he’d never be able to fight back. And it would solve so many problems.

  She shook her head. Stop it. Just stop.

  Instead, she lifted the coffee cup to his lips and he took a loud slurp.

  ‘That’s too hot,’ he scowled, pulling his head away from it.

  Instinctively, he raised a hand to strike, but then, perhaps realizing his vulnerable position at that moment, he dropped it and said plaintively, ‘Oh, Cora, what would I do without you? You’re all I have. Everyone else can go to hell.’

  She winced, feeling guilty for her earlier thoughts. Of course she would never do anything to harm him. He needed her. He was her only family in the world.

  Only then did she realize he was crying, shedding actual tears. She hadn’t seen that in a while and it broke her heart, even if she should have known this would happen eventually.

  ‘I’m alone, Cora. I was always alone until you came along. Don’t leave me. Don’t ever leave me.’ His voice was a pitiful whine. He got like this sometimes when he was drunk, but never when sober. He reached out to her like a blind man, his fingers shaking.

  Against her better judgment, Cora was overwhelmed with emotion. She threw her arms around him and felt her eyes fill with tears too. She’d been struggling with so much all winter and it had been such a long time since he’d been like this, so subdued, almost loving in his own way. If only he would do this when she needed it, not just when he was in this morning-after state, feeling sorry for himself. This was the father she loved. It didn’t take much to make her happy. Here he was, back here with her, if only until it was time for the next drink.

  After this pronouncement, he lay back down and waved her off. She took the coffee cup back to the sink and turned on the tap, waiting for the hot water to come on.

  It didn’t take long for him to drift off back to sleep, a state she was sure he’d continue in for most of the day.

  She put his mug away, went outside, and sat on the swing-down front step with her own cup of coffee. She stared out at the woods filled with new-growth pines, dotted here and there with RVs and a couple of Airstreams. Morning fires were going and strings of laundry hung out of every vehicle. Tattered clothes, washed to the point of colorlessness, waved in the chilly breeze.

  A gray-haired woman with long braids was scrubbing some towels in a bucket out in front of the trailer next to them. She glanced up and waved, gave Cora a big friendly smile. Nothing fazed these aging hippies. Cora returned the greeting, careful to be cordial but distant. They didn’t want to stand out but they didn’t want to make any friends here either. Sometimes the camps developed too much of a community atmosphere and people started getting nosy. They couldn’t have that.


  Cora took a sip of coffee. She wished she could remember her mother. She had only a few threads, a few stray memories here and there. She recalled her thin fingers, buttoning up her winter jacket. Her own small hands dropping a toy boat in a stream and screaming as it floated away. Barnacles growing on the side of a dock while she struggled to keep her head above the water as a woman’s voice called from far away. Bits and pieces of time that slipped away when she tried to retrace them.

  Her father refused to talk about anything from her early years. He would only tell her she shouldn’t waste her time thinking about her anymore.

  What was it he was hiding from her?

  It was useless to search through their possessions looking for answers. He’d burned every piece of paper except the maps. It was as if she’d sprouted fully grown from his head, the rotten fruit from the rotten tree.

  How could she bring a child into this?

  She’d brought this all down on her own head though, hadn’t she? Forced her own hand by getting herself into something she couldn’t get out of. She hadn’t done it on purpose, exactly, but she hadn’t thought about the consequences either. Something in her obviously wanted to turn everything into a catastrophe. Blow everything up.

  And today she would break the news to Reed. She would do it right after school, meet him at Joy’s if he would even do that. She’d written him a letter explaining everything in case he refused. She looked it over one last time before shoving it into her backpack.

  Since you won’t talk to me, I’m writing this letter. You deserve to know the truth.

  She wasn’t sure how he would react, wasn’t sure how she felt about it herself either. All she knew was that she was afraid of almost every possible outcome.

  She wasn’t stupid. There’d been times when she thought she and Reed were close, when he’d made her believe he might even love her. Like that time he’d chased her across the parking lot in the pouring rain just to tell her good-bye. Or when he’d stayed with her in the library, distracting her from her homework with kisses between the stacks.

  Then he’d gone AWOL for several weeks over the winter, staring off into space, not talking to her, refusing to make plans. She was never sure of him, never sure whether he truly wanted to be with her. But she took what she could get.

  At first she’d wanted that baby the way a child wants a scruffy puppy it finds in the street. It was something she and Reed made together, not exactly out of love. No, perhaps not love but out of this strange energy that existed between them. In her heart of hearts though, she knew it wouldn’t work. And if it didn’t, she couldn’t bring that child into her life and have it sleep in that tiny trailer with her and her father, scraping together this pathetic existence with them. Her father would kill her anyway when he found out.

  She simply couldn’t let bad things happen to this baby the way they always happened to her. If that were the only option, she’d have an abortion and save it that way. Maybe people were right about reincarnation and that child could roll the dice again, have better luck, and land on a safe square.

  She didn’t know. She just didn’t know. She went back inside, grabbed her backpack, and headed out to the road toward town.

  Today was the day everything would be decided.

  CHAPTER 22

  Adam pulled up in front of the charmless cinderblock building and turned off the engine. He sat staring at the glass doors, formulating his thoughts. He didn’t have any right to be here. Even if they had reinstated him – which they hadn’t – he was out of his jurisdiction. They could make an issue of it if they wanted. Call up his precinct. Double-check his badge number. He could be arrested for impersonating a police officer. Or worse.

  He picked up his briefcase and took out his fake badge. He’d had to pull in some contacts from his undercover days to get his hands on one that looked this legit. He comforted himself by thinking that would help his cover later if they sent him back to vice.

  Today he was counting on the social worker to bend the rules a bit. Hoping she wouldn’t ask him too many questions. She would surely want to do some good, regardless of the formalities. Wouldn’t she?

  A Google search hadn’t turned up that much useful information about her. She’d won a service award from the state a couple of years ago and they’d written up a basic bio. Angela Martinez. Nice local girl, straight-A student. She’d gone away to college on the east coast, spent a year and a half in New York City, then come back home. Probably with her tail between her legs. Last year, she’d come in second place in the agency’s ‘fun run’. Not exactly what he needed to work up a complex psychological profile.

  However, even from those facts, she sounded like someone who’d be a real stickler for details and that’s why he was sweating under the collar about this encounter.

  But if she did help him – if she only would, he was certain she could help him fill in the gaps of Laura Martin’s story. And if he were especially lucky, maybe there’d be a picture or a print in the file.

  He screwed up his courage and opened the car door.

  Inside, one look at the reception desk made it clear he’d been naïve about the administrative hurdles he would have to overcome. This place was a fortress of records and interview rooms. It was almost enough to make him walk out and run. But he couldn’t turn back now.

  ‘Angela Martinez,’ he said with a crack in his voice. ‘I have an appointment. Name’s Adam Wilson.’ A fake last name, even. What was he coming to?

  Sitting at the front desk, slowly chewing her corn chips, the matronly woman with frosted hair and a name tag that said ‘Hilda’ apparently felt his request was an unconscionable burden on her. She sighed deeply and then swiveled in her chair, rolling it over so she could reach an appointment book on the other desk. She lifted up the glasses hanging from a bejeweled chain around her neck and held the book far from her face, squinting.

  ‘Yes, here it is. Okay, have a seat. We’ll call you.’

  Adam sat down on one of a long row of plastic chairs joined together underneath by a rusted metal bar. He picked up a newspaper, the Austin Messenger, an artsy weekly, and flipped through it. Not much news in it, mostly ads for bands. Adam smiled to himself. Before he’d met Deirdre, he’d gone nearly three years without seeing a show or a movie or attending any event unconnected to his search. Loyalty to a cause, that’s what the trainees were missing these days.

  By the time his name was called, Adam was feeling confident. He’d gotten in, hadn’t he? He brushed off his khakis and checked for his fake badge in his breast pocket. He could do this.

  Hilda directed him to the third door on the right along a long bright white corridor. He knocked timidly and a tall brunette in her early fifties wearing a snug-fitting tweed suit and freshly applied lipstick opened the door.

  She didn’t invite him in. Flustered already, he pulled out his badge and gave the name that matched it. She gave it a cursory once-over and stepped back inside, motioning for him to follow her.

  Only when she sat down facing him did she offer up a perfunctory half-smile. A professional courtesy only. Definitely a stickler.

  ‘So, Officer Wilson, I pulled the file you asked about. You’re lucky. Files that old are usually shipped to our warehouse in Marfa, but I kept that one in my personal filing cabinet.’ She brushed back her already-smooth brown hair.

  Things were off to a great start.

  ‘Why did you keep it?’

  ‘First things first. Why are you interested in that case?’

  Fair enough. He would tell her the truth, more or less.

  ‘That incident may have a connection to a crime that happened four years later in Minnesota.’

  ‘And how exactly did you find out about this … incident?’

  He was ready for this one too.

  ‘I can’t compromise our criminal investigation, but I can tell you how my search led to you. I traced the girl – this Elsa Sanders – to Austin, where she attended Thornton Middle S
chool. Then I tracked down the school counselor, Wanda Munro, now retired, at her home outside of Austin. She remembered that you’d called her – I guess you’d worked together pretty often on cases originating at the school – and this was an unusual situation, she said, so it stuck out. She didn’t give me any details though.’

  ‘Is Elsa Sanders a suspect in your case?’

  He shook his head.

  ‘A person of interest. For now.’

  Ms. Martinez nodded but said nothing. She drummed her fingers on her desk, her long nails clicking on the metal. She picked up a pile of papers and straightened them.

  ‘Officer –’

  ‘Wilson,’ he provided helpfully.

  ‘Officer Wilson. As I’m sure you’re aware, I can’t just turn over files to a police officer from Minnesota for a juvenile case from over twenty years ago. Those records are sealed and . . .’

  ‘I know that. I understand it’s a difficult situation.’

  ‘Not “difficult”. I simply can’t do it.’ She leaned back in her chair and closed her eyes, rubbing them with the palms of her hands.

  ‘Listen,’ she began again, ‘there is a reason I kept that file. That case stood out for me too. I always thought – well, maybe I’d rushed that one through, given up on that girl too soon. Regardless, my hands are tied now.’

  ‘Ma’am, I understand your obligations, but this is a matter of life and death. Your information could—’

  ‘I can’t. No way.’

  They sat staring at each other. Adam knew he should accept defeat and just be grateful he wasn’t leaving in cuffs. He was about to rise and thank her for her time when she cleared her throat and spoke again.

  ‘Can you tell me though, what happened to her? Is she okay?’

  Now they were getting somewhere. He suddenly realized that she might work with him on it. If she felt guilty enough. If she didn’t have to be implicated.