Sympathy Between Humans

by Jodi Compton

  I wasn’t prompting him at all, by this point. There was a story inside him that wanted to come out.

  “Paul wasn’t threatened by an old flame, so when I came to visit, I planned to stay for a week,” Campion said. “They’d been living together for three years. Gitte was happy. Paul did something in construction. God, he was a big guy. Maybe six-four, and tough. But a good guy. Thought the world of Gitte and the kid. Their son, Jacob, was two years old.

  “Toward the end of the week, I went out drinking with Paul. We went to this bar he liked, a real bucket of blood. I’ve been in some bars in my day, and even so, I was glad to have Paul at my side. We were fine until Gitte’s neighbors came in. These guys- I don’t use this kind of language lightly, but trust me, I’m a wordsmith- these guys were douche bags.”

  I smiled to let him know I wasn’t offended.

  “Gitte’s neighbors raised pit bulls to fight,” Campion said. “The dogs scared the hell out of Gitte, not just for her sake, but for Jacob’s. She wanted the neighbors to pay their share of a better fence between the two yards, but these guys’ attitude was ‘You want the fence, you pay the whole nickel.’

  “Paul was willing to ignore them that afternoon, but they starting getting in his face, making remarks about Gitte. Then it was on. Half the bar jumped into the fight. Me included. I’m not much of a fighter, but Paul was my drinking buddy at the time. Them’s the rules, you know?”

  “I know,” I said.

  “I got my clock cleaned fairly early, but Paul… I’ve never seen anyone fight quite like that. The thing is, he looked happy. Incandescent.” Campion shook his head, remembering. “It took four cops to subdue him and get him into the squad car. I walked outside after them. They left Paul to sit there while they mopped up the rest of the fight. But as soon as Paul was in the backseat, he put his head down, against the window, and closed his eyes, like all the fight had gone out of him. Like he was at peace.” Campion paused. “The cops didn’t question it either.”

  “Question what?” I said.

  “He was dead,” Campion said. “When they got to the police station, he didn’t have a pulse. It was one of those rare, undetected heart conditions, the kind that sometimes makes an athlete drop right after a race. Some lawyers called Gitte afterward, talking about a negligence suit against the cops, but it wasn’t the cops’ fault, and she knew it.” Campion sipped a little more beer. “I stayed around another month afterward, with her and the little boy, Jacob. I wanted to help out. But I wasn’t Paul, and Gitte and I weren’t suited for each other. We’d been down that road before. I moved on.” He shook his head. “I’ll never forget that afternoon, though. I remember walking out of the bar after Paul and the cops, and the sun was setting, and I was standing in that dirt parking lot, and Paul just laid his head down and died. I’ve always wanted to write about it, but I’ve never been able to.”

  32

  At eight-thirty Monday morning, I was waiting outside Christian Kilander’s office. It was my day off, and I’d dressed for it, in old Levi’s and a loose cream-colored shirt that belonged to Shiloh. Seeing me at his door so early, Kilander arched an eyebrow. “To what do I owe this honor?” he said.

  “I already owe you a favor,” I told him, “but I need another one. You did law school and your first clerk’s job in Illinois, right?”

  “I knew putting my résumé on file was a bad idea,” he said, balancing coffee and his briefcase in the same hand while he unlocked his door.

  I followed him inside. “You’ve still got contacts down there, right?” Kilander was a master networker; I doubted he’d let any useful association grow too much moss.

  He set his briefcase down on the credenza and his coffee on the desk. “I see where this is going,” he said. “What do you need, and from whom?”

  “Vital records, from Rockford,” I said.

  “You know those are public,” Kilander said. “You don’t need to pull strings. Just call and ask.”

  “Or I could just call Dial-a-Prayer,” I said.

  Government records- birth and death certificates, marriage licenses and decrees of divorce, property records, school enrollments- are documents of public record. They also frequently get misfiled. Or names are misspelled. Or the computer is down. It’s best if you can hunt for what you need in person, taking your time and employing all your patience.

  If you can’t be there, you need someone who can go the extra mile to help you, someone who recognizes your voice on the phone. If not, you’re condemned to a day of sincere disembodied voices. I’m sorry, sir, I’m sorry, ma’am, we don’t have that information. There’s nothing I can do.

  The bottom line: if you want to be able to say you tried, you can call an anonymous clerk. If you really want the information, you find a personal connection.

  “All right, kid,” Kilander said. “What are you looking for?”

  “Birth, death, school, change-of-name… I’m not sure exactly what I need.”

  “So you’re trawling, not spearfishing,” he said. “Okay, I’ll dig up a couple of phone numbers. In fact, I’ll make a few calls, to get you started.” He sat behind his desk, flipped through a Rolodex, spoke without looking up. “Is it casual day over at the detective division?”

  “No,” I said. “It’s my day off.”

  ***

  I staked out an empty conference room and spent the day making follow-up and return phone calls to Rockford. When my cell rang at 4:25 in the afternoon, I was expecting another call from Illinois. That was why I couldn’t place the masculine voice on the other end. “Detective Pribek?”

  “Speaking,” I said.

  “This is Gray Diaz. I know it’s your day off, but I was wondering if I could have a few moments of your time today. I’d need you to come downtown.”

  The BCA. The tests were back.

  “That’s fine,” I said slowly. “Where are you? I’m downtown right now.”

  ***

  Diaz had made himself fairly comfortable in the office of a vacationing prosecutor, Jane O’Malley. He’d spread out his materials on her desk, so that pictures of her two children and her nephews and nieces looked out over the Royce Stewart paperwork.

  “Thank you for coming,” he said. “Please, have a seat.”

  O’Malley had good wide armchairs she’d bought herself, low and soft, that guests sank deeply into. I was familiar enough with them to know that they’d be too comfortable to be comfortable, particularly if Diaz continued to stand, thus towering over me. I settled onto the arm of the chair, a half-standing position, instead.

  There was a beat while Diaz accepted this. Then he walked over to the window and looked out, although I doubted he was really looking at anything.

  “Sarah,” he said, “I haven’t told you anything about myself.” Pause. “I came to work in Blue Earth because my father-in-law is ill. My wife doesn’t want him to have to move, at his age. He’s lived in that town nearly all his life. He’d probably stroke out from the stress of packing everything up and moving out of his farmhouse. You know?”

  “I know,” I said.

  “I’d much rather be up here, working with you guys, in Hennepin County.” He paused. “If I were, you and I would be colleagues, Sarah. We could have been working cases together.” He turned from the window. “I wish that were the situation here. I wish I didn’t have to meet you under these circumstances.”

  “So do I,” I said.

  “Because of that,” Diaz said, “because we’re virtually colleagues, I want to give you an opportunity. I’m getting close to the end of my work here.”

  I said nothing. Diaz walked over to stand between me and O’Malley’s desk.

  “When I first interviewed you, Sarah, I asked you if there was any reason someone might have seen you outside Stewart’s house the night he died. You said no.”

  “I remember,” I said.

  Diaz sat on the edge of the desk, like a teacher having an informal moment with a student after class.
“I’m asking you now,” he said, “would you like to reconsider your answer?”

  Don’t hesitate here. “No,” I said. “I wouldn’t.”

  Diaz looked away, toward the window, then back at me. “We found blood in the carpeting of your car,” he said. “There’s also a diagonal groove in your right rear tire, damage caused by something it ran over. It’s as distinctive as a fingerprint.”

  I didn’t say anything, but felt the muscles in my throat work, swallowing involuntarily.

  “Sarah, I know what Royce Stewart did to your partner’s daughter. I know that the night Stewart died, you believed your husband was dead and that Shorty had an opportunity to help him and didn’t. There are highly, highly extenuating circumstances here.” He leaned forward until his half-folded hands almost touched mine. “I’m familiar with your record. I know you’re a good cop, Sarah, and I want to help you. But we’ve come to the point where you need to tell me what happened that night. If you don’t come out and meet me halfway, I can’t help you.”

  In that moment, I wanted to tell Diaz the truth, and for the worst of all reasons. Not because I feared what would happen to me if I continued to obstruct justice, as I had been doing since that night in Blue Earth. Not because he had forensic evidence that might convict me whether or not Genevieve returned to confess. I wanted to tell him solely because I wanted so badly to believe what Gray Diaz was telling me with his words and tone and posture: that he wanted to help me.

  I cleared my throat. “I’m sorry, Gray,” I said. “I have nothing further to add to what I’ve already told you.”

  Diaz sighed. “I’m sorry, too, Detective Pribek,” he said, standing. “I’ll be in touch.”

  ***

  Back in the conference room, I couldn’t remember what I’d been doing before. I looked at my notes, and they made no sense to me.

  “Are you all right?”

  I hadn’t heard Christian Kilander come in. “I’m fine,” I said, turning from the window.

  I wasn’t lying. Calm had settled on me unexpectedly, and I understood why. Gray Diaz had made it pretty clear that this was my last chance to level with him. Maybe I should have taken it, but now it was too late. First-time skydivers must feel this way, just after they jump. There are a dozen chances to back out of a dive, but once they’ve stepped out into the air, they’re committed. Whatever happened, safe landing or bloody impact, the weight of decision was off their shoulders. Like them, I’d made my choice. Whatever happened from here on was out of my hands.

  Kilander held out a fax. “This came for you, from Rockford,” he said.

  I took it from his hand. Certificate of Live Birth, it read at the top.

  “Sorry there wasn’t anything else,” Kilander said.

  “No, that’s okay,” I said, still scanning the text. “Sometimes one thing is all you need.”

  ***

  In retrospect, it might have been better if I’d taken some time to think, to sleep on what I’d learned. But I didn’t. At five-thirty that evening, I drove out to the lake.

  The weather really was beautiful, a sunny day without a hint of the humid gray scrim that takes the bloom off many of Minnesota ’s summer days. I wasn’t surprised that the Hennessy kids were outdoors on this bright evening.

  All four boys had divided up for a football game by the lake. It was an oddly matched game, but probably the best they could do: Aidan and Liam against Colm and Donal. Above them, Marlinchen presided over a grill on the porch, painting sauce onto chicken breasts and wings. She was wearing a white T-back tank shirt, cutoffs, and sunglasses with a copper-wire frame and greenish-silver mirrored lenses, a Discman on her hip. When she saw me, Marlinchen pulled the earphones off her head, to rest around her neck. “Sarah!” she said, looking pleased. “We’re having a little barbecue to celebrate school being out. We’ll probably have plenty to spare, if you can wait.”

  She seemed in excellent spirits. That was going to change.

  “I’m afraid I’m here on business,” I said.

  “What kind of business?” she said.

  “Your father has limited ability to answer yes-and-no questions, right?” I said. “That’s how you did the conservatorship hearing, as I understand it.”

  Marlinchen glanced immediately up at the high window. “Dad’s resting right now,” she said. “What’s this about?”

  “I need to ask some questions only he can answer,” I said. “About your cousin, Jacob Candeleur.”

  “I don’t have a cousin named Jacob,” she said. “We don’t have any cousins, period.”

  I took the birth certificate from my shoulder and gave it to Marlinchen. I saw Marlinchen absorb the names: Jacob, Paul, Brigitte.

  “See the birth date?” I said. “He and you and Aidan were born only months apart.”

  “How bizarre,” she said. Puzzlement had washed away the polite anxiety in her voice. “I never met him.”

  “Your father didn’t like your aunt Brigitte, and kept her away from his children,” I said. “But it isn’t true that you never met your cousin Jacob. You grew up with him. He became your closest friend.”

  “What are you saying?” But Marlinchen was beginning to understand. Her eyes went to the tall blond boy beneath us, who was letting Donal outrun him for a touchdown.

  “That’s not your brother Aidan down there,” I said. “It’s your cousin, Jacob. Your father didn’t give him away to Brigitte when he was 12,” I said. “He gave him back. Aidan, I mean Jacob, said that Brigitte was affectionate and clingy, as if she’d always wanted to be a mother. And she did. To her own son.”

  Marlinchen took off her sunglasses to make eye contact. “Is this some kind of a sick joke?” she asked. She enunciated as if speaking to a child. “There’s a rather gaping hole in your theory, you know. If that’s Jacob, where is the real Aidan?”

  This was the hard part. “If I had to guess,” I said, “I’d say he’s buried under the magnolia tree.” I pointed. “I think he shot himself with your father’s gun, fourteen years ago, and your father buried him under your mother’s favorite tree. The choice of burial site was probably a misguided way of comforting her.”

  “No,” Marlinchen said.

  “You have memories of it: a loud noise, your mother being upset and sleeping in the same bed with you that night. For comfort.”

  “It was a storm that upset her,” Marlinchen said.

  “No,” I said. “You all say your father didn’t have any interest in cars or home improvement. Yet he laid the new carpet in the study himself, and he’s held on to a car for fourteen years saying he might fix it up someday. Fourteen years, Marlinchen.”

  “What’s your point?”

  “When Aidan shot himself, your father rushed him to the hospital in that car. The carpet in the study he simply replaced, because it was soaked in blood. The smaller splashes, in the hall carpet, he scrubbed out with bleach. But the car, where Aidan lost most of his blood? He couldn’t ever fully clean that up. That’s why he was afraid to ever get rid of the car. Afraid that a buyer might find remnants of blood, under the seats, in the carpet and floorboards. Ditching the BMW and claiming it was stolen would only have made it worse; it would have made the car of interest to the police if it was ever found. No, the safest thing was to clean it up as best he could and lock it away on his own property.”

  Marlinchen glanced at the garage, but only quickly.

  “None of those cover-up methods was particularly adept,” I said, “but they didn’t have to be. As long as Hugh didn’t sell the house or the car, no one would ever get a close look at what evidence remained.” Until now, I thought. “Hugh replaced Aidan with his sister-in-law’s son,” I went on. “I don’t know how he persuaded her. Maybe he played on her concern for her grieving sister. Maybe he paid her off; Brigitte was poor, and a single mother. It could be that she thought Jacob would have a better life with her older sister and Hugh. But if she hadn’t gone along with it, imagine the consequences. Hugh’s care
er would have been terribly compromised. Your mother might have been labeled unfit along with him. You and Liam might have been taken away by Family Services, for who knew how long?”

  “Okay, okay,” Marlinchen said, holding up her hands for me to stop. “I see where you got your theory, but it’s all impossible. He couldn’t have just been switched. I was four years old. I would have known.”

  “You weren’t quite four. Kids are susceptible at that age, and their parents’ word is like God’s word,” I told her. “Hugh brainwashed you. He told you that Aidan was away. He stalled for weeks. Then he brought home Jacob and said ‘This is Aidan,’ until you and Jacob both accepted it.”

  “But Mother…” Her voice was very soft.

  “Your mother was in on it,” I said. “I suspect it wasn’t her idea, but she went along with it.”

  That had been the difficult part for me, too, acknowledging the complicity of the woman who slept under the marble angel in the cemetery. Elisabeth had also borne a share of guilt in Jacob’s fate. But where guilt had poisoned Hugh, it had softened Elisabeth. She had adored her sister’s son, sharing with him a bond between two wronged souls.

  “It wouldn’t have worked at all, except that the two of you weren’t in school yet,” I said. “Aidan had no teachers, no playmates that came to the house, and no older siblings. There was no one else to trick. J. D. Campion was the only other person who’d seen both Aidan Hennessy and Jacob Candeleur. Later that year, your father inexplicably and flatly refused him entry to your home.”

  Marlinchen’s lips parted very slightly, and I thought perhaps that last detail, which her own knowledge of her parents’ lives confirmed, had convinced her. Then she straightened, as if relieved. “Aidan’s missing finger,” she said, the three words like a syllogism. “If there was no attack by a dog, how do you explain that?”

  “There was a dog,” I said. “His neighbors in Illinois raised pit bulls, and there was a shoddy fence in between the two properties. Jacob really did lose the finger to one of the pit bulls, which is why he’s scared of dogs to this day.”