“You moved her by boat?” I ask in surprise. “I thought you were moving her by OHV.”
“Well, yeah,” he says. “It was the fastest way. Took her in the DNR boat. Once we got to the public dock we transferred her to the ambulance. She’s on her way to Des Moines for an autopsy as we speak. We should know more tomorrow afternoon.” Stitch sits at my feet and I know he’s waiting for me to toss him a cracker. I do, and he swallows it whole and waits for more.
“You shouldn’t feed him that crap,” Jake admonishes me. “It’s not good for him.”
“What? You never give Rookie treats?” I ask in mock disbelief. Rookie is Jake’s former partner, a ferocious-looking German shepherd that would tear your throat out if Jake gave him the command. Rookie retired two years ago at the ripe old age of seven and now spends his days in full-fledged pet mode.
Jake doesn’t bother answering. We both know that he only feeds Rookie the best. If a dog could be like a child to a person, Rookie’s that dog. Jake’s told me several times that Rookie saved his life more than once. The first was on the job when a suspect who had just robbed a pawnshop decided it was a good idea to start shooting. Jake, the second officer on the scene, arrived to find a veteran cop—Jake’s mentor—lying in the street with a gunshot wound to the abdomen and the suspect holding a gun to the shop owner’s head. Jake ducked behind his car, and was trying his damnedest to talk the man into giving up his weapon so he could get help to the injured cop. Instead, he started firing at Jake. Knowing that the officer was bleeding to death before his eyes, he ordered Rookie to stellen—to bite. Without hesitation, Rookie lunged toward the gunman, leaped through the air and latched onto the shooter’s arm and didn’t release until Jake commanded him to pust—let go.
The second time Rookie saved his life, Jake said, was after his wife, Sadie, committed suicide four years ago by leaping from the old train bridge into Five Mines. Though there was a witness who saw her jump they never found her body, just a splattering of blood from what was believed to be where she struck her head on the concrete piling below. She did leave a suicide note that Jake found lying on the kitchen counter later that night.
I’m sorry, Jake. I’m just so sad. Your life will be better without me. Love ~ Sadie
I’ve never seen Jake so distraught. My brother called and told me to go as fast as I could over to Jake’s, that he was afraid Jake was going to hurt himself and that he’d be on the first plane from Denver. When I arrived at Jake’s house I found him sitting on his back deck with his service revolver lying in his lap, Rookie at his feet. I remember the terror I felt when I saw the despondent look on his face—it was the face of someone who wanted to die. So different from the Jake I knew growing up. Jake was always the funny one who never let things get to him, could laugh at himself, defuse any tense situation.
I sat down in the chair next to him and put my hand over his. “Please don’t,” I whispered. He cried then. Great heaving sobs that I could never have imagined coming from the boy I once thought of as invincible. Rookie and I sat with him all night as he intermittently cried for, then raged against, the woman he loved. When he finally fell asleep, I eased the gun from his lap and hid it on a high shelf of the linen closet behind a stack of blankets. When I came back out to the deck, Rookie had squeezed into the spot next to Jake and nestled his head where the gun once lay.
Rookie gave Jake a reason to get up each morning and though it took a long time, about six months ago, glimmers of the Jake I used to know reappeared. He’s smiling more and thinking of something else besides work. I’ve started to wonder if he might have met someone, may actually be dating again. I have to admit I’m not sure how I feel about this. What is happiness for someone mixed with a little jealousy called?
“Well, I’d better go feed Stitch his real dinner,” I say. “Help yourself to the coffee.”
I go into the laundry room with Stitch at my heels and pull the bag of bargain brand dog food from a cupboard. I can’t afford the good stuff for Stitch but he doesn’t seem to mind and wags his tail while I scoop the kibble into his bowl. I can’t bring myself to take any money from David right now. So for the last eighteen months that I’ve been living on my own, I’ve been living off my savings. My lawyer thinks I’m an idiot. Though I’m not too proud to take advantage of David’s health insurance.
When I stand upright Jake is in the doorway, a serious look on his face, and for a moment I think it’s because of my choice in dog food. “I have to go,” he says, holding up his cell phone. “I just got the call. Someone was able to find Marty Locke.”
“So it really is Gwen?” I ask. A part of me was hoping I was mistaken, that the woman in the river just looked like my old friend.
Jake points to himself, makes a fist against his chest and rotates it in a clockwise motion. “I’m sorry, Earhart,” Jake says, coming to me and pulling me into a hug. And though I know it’s completely platonic, another human being hasn’t touched me this way in such a long time and the sensation seems foreign to me. His arms are strong and solid and all I want to do is to sink into his embrace but I know he has a job to do that could include telling a man that his wife isn’t ever coming home. Jake takes a step back so I can see his face. “I’ll call you when I can,” he promises. “And remember you need to come to the station for a follow-up interview. How about tomorrow morning around ten?”
I agree and return to the kitchen where I pour his coffee into a stainless steel travel mug and walk him to the door.
Evening has fully descended and the world outside is buried in shadows. There are no stars shining, no moon, no light from Evan Okada’s home. I wonder where he could be.
“Make sure you lock the door behind me,” Jake says, taking the mug from my hand.
“I will,” I assure him and watch as he strides purposefully to his car, unlocks the door, climbs in and turns the ignition. He lets the car idle for a moment and I realize he’s waiting for me to shut and lock the door before he’ll leave. I step back inside and slide the door shut. I make a point to waggle the broomstick in front of me and with great flourish place it in the door’s track. Jake waves and drives away.
Before Evan Okada moved in, I never worried about anyone being able to see inside my house at night. I had no problem wearing my pajamas or less because my house was the last one on this section of the river and the house on the bluff stood empty for so long. Now I have to be conscious of the kayakers and hikers that have since discovered this little known part of Five Mines. I make the rounds, pulling each curtain shut and lowering each blind until the outside world disappears. Stitch has finished eating and follows me around as I tidy up the kitchen. I hand wash the dishes, put away the cheese and crackers. I sweep the cracker crumbs littered across the counter into my hand and let Stitch lick them away.
I can’t stop thinking about Gwen.
I turn on the television and find a local channel. I rarely watch TV and when I do, it’s mainly to catch up on what’s happening beyond the walls of my house and practice my speech reading. I pull a pillow from the love seat, set it on the hardwood floor and sit as close to the television screen as I can. Stitch realizes that he gets the entire sofa to himself and climbs up and stretches his limbs across the cushions.
The bland sitcom I’m watching goes to a commercial and a breaking news banner fills the screen. The newscasters’ faces are serious and I’m sure the story is going to be about Gwen. The closed caption ribbon scrolls across the bottom of the screen. Though I try to focus on the speakers’ faces I still have to rely heavily on the captioning.
“A woman paddle boarding on the Five Mines River with her dog made a grisly discovery this Halloween morning,” the newscaster begins. “We take you now to KFMI reporter Mallory Richmond at the Five Mines Marina for a live update on this very disturbing situation.”
“That’s right,” the reporter says as she looks intentl
y into the camera, “early this morning, a deaf woman and her service dog were paddle boarding just a few miles south of this very location when they stumbled upon the dead body of a yet to be identified woman floating in Five Mines.” Behind her an American flag, illuminated by floodlights, whips wildly in the wind but somehow her perfectly straight blond hair remains in place. The screen flips to a video of an ambulance parked as close to the dock as possible, its back doors open wide.
Eagerly, I read the words crawling across the television screen. “Police spent the better part of the day at the actual crime scene collecting evidence. Officials aren’t saying much but did confirm that the woman’s remains were transported by a Department of Natural Resources boat and transferred to this awaiting ambulance, as you can see in the video.” I watch as the DNR boat appears on screen and slowly makes its way to the dock.
As the boat comes closer I immediately recognize Jake with his broad shoulders and sandy hair. The DNR officer who was the first to arrive on the scene is steering the boat. His eyes widen when he realizes that a television camera is pointing directly at them. Jake, as calm as ever, simply ignores the reporters and busies himself with grabbing onto the dock to help guide the boat as close to the shore and ambulance as possible. Two EMTs dressed in their navy blue uniforms emerge from the ambulance, pull a stretcher from the rear, unfold the wheels and roll it down the dock.
The camera switches back to the reporter, who nods grimly into the camera, and I focus on her lips. “Police Detective Jake Schroeder, whom you saw in this video, had no comment, but sources close to the investigation have told me that the police department is looking at all missing person’s cases.”
The reporter signed off and the newscaster in the studio was speaking again. “Join us tonight for the ten o’clock news with more updates on this story along with the disturbing 9-1-1 call made by the woman who discovered the victim’s body.”
I groan, causing Stitch to heave himself from the couch and come and investigate. Even if they bleep out my name, if the news station plays the recording of the 9-1-1 tape all my friends and former colleagues will know it was me who made the call. I think it’s safe to say that I’m the only deaf woman who owns a dog, paddle boards and lives on the banks of Five Mines. Stitch’s ears perk up and he nudges my leg with his nose. I turn to look at what has caught his attention. The light on the phone is flashing and I hope it’s Jake to tell me they caught the person who killed Gwen.
I reach for the receiver. “Hello,” I say and watch the telephone display in anticipation.
“I just saw the news.”
“Jake?” I ask.
“No, it’s David. I just saw the news. You found her? The dead woman? Jesus, Amelia. Do they know who she is?”
I hesitate. I know I’m not supposed to say anything just yet. “I can’t...” But this is David I’m talking to. How can I keep this from him? David knew Gwen too—she worked at the same hospital, she filled in on the ob-gyn floor from time to time. “It’s Gwen Locke, David, she was just identified, but it’s not released to the public yet.”
The screen is still for a moment. “That’s horrible. Are they sure it’s Gwen?”
“Yeah, I found her. It was awful.” Tears creep into the corners of my eyes and I angrily swipe them away. I’ve cried too many times to David, begging him to forgive me, to take me back, only to be rejected over and over. I hate appearing weak in front of him.
“Jesus, Amelia, are you okay?”
“I’m fine.” I’m surprised, touched even, that David would think to ask how I’m doing. He hasn’t done that in a very long time. I try to remember his voice, the warm timbre that greeted me each day when he came home from the hospital, his soft laugh that made me laugh too. Suddenly I’m almost unbearably homesick for the old house. So much so that I almost tell David that I’m terrified of staying here in this house by myself even though that’s not exactly the truth.
I miss the sunny kitchen where Nora and I would make cinnamon rolls and monkey bread for Sunday morning breakfasts. I miss the front porch where on summer afternoons I would sit on the wooden swing reading books and drinking iced tea while Nora colored and sipped lemonade. I miss waking up in my old bed, my limbs entwined with my husband’s. “I’m fine,” I repeat, more for my benefit than for David’s.
“Do they know who did it?” he asks.
“No, not yet. But there was a boat, right around the time I found her.”
“You saw it?” David asks. “Amelia, what if they saw you?”
“No, no,” I hurry to explain. “I didn’t see it, I just felt it. The wake knocked me down.”
“Thank God for that,” David says, and again I’m pleasantly surprised with David’s concern for me but there’s no way I’m going to let him know I care.
“Is Nora around?” I change the subject. “Can I talk to her?”
“She’s here. You can talk to her. Just don’t say anything about...you know. She doesn’t know about any of this and I don’t want to upset her.”
“Of course I won’t say anything.” I’m indignant. Why in the world would I tell a seven-year-old about a corpse that I discovered? I wait impatiently for Nora to get on the line. Talking to her is the highlight of my days. Our conversations are never frequent or long enough.
“Hello?”
“Hi, Nora,” I say. “How was trick-or-treating?”
Nora goes on to tell me about her Frida Kahlo costume. “Daddy helped me find the perfect outfit and his friend helped me put real flowers in my hair.”
I feel like someone has sucker punched me in the gut. “What friend?” I try to ask casually but I can barely choke out the words.
“Helen,” Nora says but rushes on. “But I had to tell everyone who I was, except some old lady. She knew exactly who I was dressed up as. She said my unibrow looked real.” Nora loves art and would check out piles of books about artists from the library. That, and she had a magnificent art teacher in school who made sure that even the youngest of students were exposed to the great artists.
“Did Helen go trick-or-treating with you?” I ask.
“No, she had to go to work. She’s a nurse like you.” Way to mix things up, David, I think. David could date any woman in Mathias and he has to pick another nurse. I scan my memory for any nurses named Helen that I might know, but come up blank.
Nora goes on to describe her day at school. How she loves her homeroom teacher but that her music teacher is kind of grouchy. She talks about the new boy in her class that makes fun of her freckles and she mentions the math test that she missed four questions on.
Sometimes I hate this phone and wonder if I’d be better off not having it at all. All I have are the printed words of the conversation—I can’t hear the emotion in her voice. I have no context. I don’t know if Nora is pleased that the new boy teases her—maybe he likes her. I don’t know if missing four questions on the math test is a good or bad thing. So I have to ask her and pretty soon the conversation has stalled and Nora is ready to hang up because, I think to myself, shouldn’t a mom know these things—just be able to know how her daughter is feeling?
“Bye, Mom. Love you.”
My eyes fill with tears again. “I love you too, Nora. I’ll call you tomorrow.”
I wait for a moment before hanging up in case David wants to speak to me again but no new words sweep across the screen so I replace the receiver. I think about what Nora said about David’s friend Helen. Could he really have a girlfriend? We’ve been apart for a long time. It still shocks me that David hasn’t had divorce papers delivered to my house for me to sign.
For the next two hours I sit in front of the television and watch some old movie but all the while I keep thinking of Gwen. We were good friends once. But that was before I got hit by the car, before I lost my hearing and abandoned my family and friends for alcohol. G
wen and I both grew up in Mathias, though I’m several years older. Our paths didn’t cross until we were both nurses at Queen of Peace. She’s what is called a floater nurse. She goes to wherever the action is in the hospital. If the emergency room is overflowing or maternity is bursting at the seams, she’s there to assist. She was bubbly and a bit irreverent in the break room but the minute she stepped out on to the floor she became no-nonsense and unflappable.
We went through the sexual assault nurse examiner training together. During the workshops we learned how to assess and evaluate the injuries of sexual assault. We were also trained in the collection and packaging of forensic evidence from the crimes.
We bonded during the breaks and chatted about our lives. We had daughters the same age—Nora and Lane. We talked about our husbands and how challenging it could be balancing home life and nursing. During the first domestic violence case that we worked together, I was the on-call SANE nurse and was summoned to the Queen of Peace to collect the evidence. Gwen was also there, covering a shift in the emergency room. The victim, a thirty-year-old mother of two, was so distraught, striking and lashing out at the EMTs who brought her in that she managed to kick one of them squarely in the face, causing a fountain of blood to erupt from his nose. Gwen somehow managed to calm the badly beaten woman with her low, soothing voice while I collected the evidence.
Our friendship was sealed that night. Though after the fact the injured woman insisted that she fell down the steps, the evidence I was able to gather clearly showed that she was beaten with a leather belt, sending the husband to jail at least for a few days. Gwen and I talked every day after that. We met for coffee once a week, set up playdates for our girls. Then I was injured, started drinking and lost touch with just about everybody. About six months ago, though, Gwen had left me a phone message. When I read the transcript I found it to be just a regular, run-of-the-mill, “how’re you doing, we haven’t talked in a while” message. I hadn’t bothered to call her back.
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