He Never Forgot

by P. D. Workman

  “If someone comes out, we can explain ourselves,” Zachary said. “I don’t think you need to worry about it.”

  “What if… they’re here?”

  “After this many years? I don’t think you need to worry. People don’t stay that long in one place, especially in an area like this. They come and go every year or two.”

  “So you don’t think they’re there?”

  Zachary highly doubted it was even the house they were looking for. It had just happened to catch Burton’s eye, to trigger some sort of memory. “No.”

  Burton stepped onto the lawn, then balked again.

  “Do you want me to drive you around to the back?”

  Burton nodded. “Yeah. Let’s go around, instead of cutting through. More respectful.”

  Zachary led the way back to the car. Burton was hesitant to leave the front of the house, but eventually slid back into the passenger’s seat and pulled his door closed.

  Zachary had noted the house number in case it wasn’t recognizable from the rear. He circled around to the alley and drove slowly down the alley until they reached the house. Zachary got out and Burton followed. The back yard was completely enclosed by a high fence. Too high for Zachary to see over comfortably. Easier for Burton. He peered over for a minute, then shook his head.

  “This isn’t it.”

  “That’s okay,” Zachary assured him.

  Burton punched the fence, making Zachary wince. “I thought this was it!”

  “What were you thinking and feeling, when you were looking at it?” Zachary made motions for Burton to get back into the car. Burton stayed there, staring at the back of the house.

  “I thought… I don’t know. I just thought I had succeeded.”

  “And how did you feel about that? Were you—” Zachary cut himself off before he could finish the question. He didn’t want to suggest an emotion that might color Burton’s answer. If Zachary suggested that he should be happy or excited, it might completely change Burton’s analysis of what he had been feeling.

  “I was…” Burton shook his head, a tiny movement, confused. “I felt anxious. Worried.” He looked at Zachary, meeting his eyes for maybe the first time since they had met. “Why would I feel that way?”

  “It’s okay. You felt however you felt. Do you know what you felt anxious or worried about?”

  Burton thought about it. “I’m not sure. That it was my house. That I was going to get caught there. I don’t understand, though, why it would be a bad thing to find it. I want to find it. Don’t I?”

  “Consciously, yes. But sometimes we have mixed feelings.” Zachary couldn’t count all of the times that he had contradictory feelings about a person or situation. It would probably be stranger for him if he only had one feeling. It seemed like different parts of his brain and body were always fighting against each other. He felt a certain kinship with people with multiple personalities. It would feel like a relief to him to be able to assign each set of feelings a different name. To be able to say ‘Tom feels like this and Joe feels like that’ instead of trying to figure out which feeling was really him, which one won out in a situation.

  “I didn’t feel good,” Burton mused. He looked at Zachary’s car. “Are we going back now?”

  “We don’t have to. We can drive around some more. If you think that we’ve done all we can in this neighborhood, I have others that we can check out.”

  Burton nodded. “I think we’ve seen everything there is to see here. It obviously isn’t the right area. Maybe we’ll have better luck somewhere else.”

  Zachary didn’t point out that it had been close enough that Burton had thought that he’d found the house. There were good reasons to think that it might still be the right area. They hadn’t gone down all of the streets. But he understood Burton didn’t want to stay there. They might have better luck somewhere else. Or Burton might just want to rid himself of the oppressive feelings that the ‘wrong’ house had brought him. They got back into the car. Before driving away, Zachary wrote down the address of the house they had stopped at.

  Just in case.

  8

  There were a couple more houses that Burton had Zachary stop at. Zachary took pictures of each one and wrote down the addresses. It would be up to him to examine the houses and the neighborhoods to identify the similarities among them. Then he would have a better idea of what they were looking for. If Burton actually did remember something and wasn’t just on a wild goose chase. Zachary believed from watching his changes in expression that Burton did have memories of his childhood and his childhood home, even if he couldn’t access them on demand.

  After stopping at one last house, Burton was too agitated and moody to carry on. Smoking and pacing around at the last house hadn’t seemed to settle him at all. Zachary was getting anxious from his own client’s behavior. It would be pushing his luck to stay with Burton much longer. He was winding himself up for something, and Zachary didn’t want to be in the way when he decided to blow.

  “I think we’ve done enough for the day. I’ll drop you back at your hotel.”

  Burton shook his head in irritation. He looked around and pointed to a bar in a low, dark building with several restaurants and retail shops. “I’m going there.”

  Zachary didn’t think that Burton was going there to make inquiries as to whether he had ever lived in the area. He had been several hours without a drink, and he wanted to remedy the fact.

  “I’ll drive you back to your hotel. You can drink there.”

  “I don’t want to go back to my hotel. I want to drink here.”

  “Why? You’ll be more comfortable at the hotel. And when you’re done, you can just take the elevator up to your room and go to sleep.”

  “I’m not going back there,” Burton growled. “I just told you that. I’m not going back there; I’m going to drink here.”

  “Does it have something to do with your memories?”

  “What?”

  “This place. Does it trigger something? Are you going in to have a look around or ask some questions?”

  “No. I’m going in to have a drink. It’s the closest place to drink, and I’m not waiting any longer.”

  “I can have you home in fifteen minutes. Better if you drink at the hotel.”

  Burton didn’t argue any further; he just started walking toward the bar.

  “How are you going to get back to the hotel?” Zachary reminded him.

  “I can take a cab.”

  “That will cost money and you’ll have to wait around. I can take you now.”

  Burton swore at him. Zachary didn’t chase after him as he headed for the bar. He wasn’t going to try to physically coerce Burton back into the car. He was bigger than Zachary and, if he wanted to drink in a bar, there was no reason he couldn’t.

  Zachary glanced at the lock screen of his phone. He still had a couple of hours before Kenzie would be getting home from the medical examiner’s office. He had time to get a few things done before she got home and he would need to turn his attention away from the case and give her some face time. He flipped through his notepad and decided to see what Heather had found him on skip tracing the social worker.

  He tapped her icon on his favorites list on the phone. Like Joss, Heather was one of his older sisters. But there were few similarities between the two. She had come back into his life after Tyrrell, looking for Zachary’s help on finding the identity of the man who had raped her when she had been a teenager. A cold case that had not been easy to break since the police had destroyed the forensic exam kit collected after her assault.

  One of the things that changed in Heather’s life after the case was closed was that she needed something to do with her time. She no longer wanted to hide from the world and everything in it, living a quiet, isolated life. She wanted to work, to do something useful, but after decades of not having a job, finding something that would satisfy her was a challenge. So Zachary had taken the opportunity to train her in some of
the basics of investigator work. Things that could be done from her computer at home or through discreet phone inquiries. Heather had taken to the job with an unexpected passion and was doing a lot of Zachary’s routine investigative work while he pursued the bigger, riskier cases.

  She answered the phone after the second ring. “Hey, little brother!”

  “Hi, Feathers. I’m just checking to see if you had any luck tracing Aurelia Pace.”

  “Well, it’s an unusual name. That makes it easier.”

  “If she signed up for services using her name and not just an initial.”

  “Yeah. Well, most of the time, I couldn’t find an Aurelia. So either she used an initial, or she used a husband’s name.”

  “Or a different last name. Got married or divorced.”

  “Right. All of the usual. But I did find a couple of good prospects.”

  “Great. Do you want to shoot them my way?”

  “They should already be in your inbox. Mailed them to you a few minutes ago.”

  “Awesome. Thanks for your help, Heather.”

  “Thank you. I’m having a lot of fun with it.”

  “Good. Let me know if I push too much stuff onto you. Otherwise, I’m going to assume that you’re okay with the amount I’m giving you, and I’m just going to keep giving you more.”

  “Load me up. I’m fine.”

  “Okay, remember you asked for it!”

  “We should get together sometime soon.”

  Zachary thought of the last awkward dinner at Mr. Peterson’s house, and wasn’t sure he wanted a repeat. Lorne Peterson’s house was one of the few places he felt welcome and calm, and he didn’t want it to become a place he avoided going.

  “Uh… yeah. Sometime soon.”

  “You okay, Zachy?”

  Zachary cleared his throat. “Yeah, I’m fine. I’m just not sure that all of us together…”

  “Not all of us. You and me. We don’t always have to do everything together as a family. I find it easier… if it’s just one-on-one. Having everyone in the room is exhausting. It’s fine for holidays like Easter and Christmas, but I can’t do it all the time.”

  Zachary breathed out a sigh of relief. “Me neither,” he admitted. “Especially with Joss. She’s pretty… intense.”

  “I thought the two of you were getting along together better.”

  “Better. But she’s still… not easy to be around. And putting everyone together, there are just too many things to try to do at the same time.”

  “I know. Joss is kind of… an acquired taste. Small doses.”

  Zachary laughed. “Yeah. That’s a good way of putting it. Okay. You and me can get together for coffee or a visit. You could come to my apartment if you want.”

  Heather was the first person he had actually invited there. Kenzie and Mario had taken it upon themselves to come see him and spend time with him at his home but, outside of them, it was the first time he had actually asked someone over. He held his breath for a moment, thinking about it and how it felt, and then released the air, letting it dribble out slowly.

  “That would be nice, Zachary. Thanks. I’ll see what Grant’s schedule is like, and some day when he’s busy with other things, I’ll come for a visit.”

  “Okay,” Zachary agreed. “That sounds good.”

  After the call with Heather, he clicked immediately on his inbox before he could be distracted by anything else. There were always so many things trying to pull him away from his work. He found Heather’s email and focused in on it. He had set up his mail window so that he couldn’t see the subject lines of the various emails, which helped him to avoid being pulled in by the promise of something more interesting or exciting.

  Heather’s work was neatly summarized and presented. Zachary looked at the time clock on the computer and decided there was still plenty of time to call Aurelia Pace. Hopefully, one of the numbers Heather had dug up would work.

  He dialed the first, scripting the call in his head. He wanted to put Aurelia at ease, but still to be able to request information from her that she might not remember or be willing to part with. Adoptees had more rights than they had thirty years ago, but some of the restrictions that the government put on things still made things too difficult for adoptees to get the information they needed.

  “Hello?” The phone was answered by a male voice. Maybe a bad sign. He pictured Aurelia Pace as a single woman. There was no reason to think that she couldn’t be married, but he pictured her as either single, divorced, or widowed. Men tended to die before their wives. So even if she were married, chances were he had died before her.

  “Yes, I’m looking for Aurelia Pace.”

  “Wrong number.”

  “Sorry, has there ever been an Aurelia at this number?”

  “How would I know? Not a name I’ve ever heard.”

  “No one else has called this number looking for her?”

  “No. Just you, buddy.”

  “And can I make sure I dialed properly? Is this…” Zachary recited the number.

  “Yeah, that’s the number you called. And there’s no Aurelia here, okay?”

  “Okay. Thanks for your time.”

  Zachary ended the call. He tried the next number.

  “Hello?” A woman’s voice this time. Older. Not shaky, but not a young woman’s voice. Zachary breathed a sigh of relief. This would be her. This was the right one.

  “Is this Aurelia Pace?”

  “This is Aurie.”

  “Ms. Pace, are you the same Aurelia Pace who used to be a social worker?”

  There was a pause before she answered. “I don’t know of any other Aurelia Pace,” she said cautiously.

  “So you were a social worker.”

  “Yes. Who is this?”

  “My name is Zachary Goldman. I’m a private investigator and I’ve been hired by a man you placed for adoption years ago. He’s trying to track down some information about his past, and I was hoping that you would be able to fill in a few blanks.”

  “Information about adoptions is private.”

  “Yes. I will have you talk to Mr. Burton. He will confirm to you that I’m acting on his behalf. You can release information to him about his own history.”

  “Well, it isn’t that simple. The law prevents me from releasing anything confidential.”

  “But there are some things that you would not be prevented from telling him. He knows nothing right now, so any information that you could provide to him would be greatly appreciated.”

  “Biological families have rights too. I can’t share information about them.”

  “But you can share information about my client.”

  There was a long pause as she considered this. “Maybe,” she said finally.

  “If you want to set the parameters for the discussion, that’s fine. And of course, if something is confidential, you can tell us that. We won’t push you to provide information that you’re not allowed to share.”

  “If I even remember anything about this client of yours. Why isn’t he going through the proper channels? There’s a form he can fill online. It’s very easy.”

  “He has done that and is waiting for the reply. And that will, of course, be non-identifying information.”

  “Which is the only thing I can provide. I can’t tell him anything that identifies who his parents were.”

  “You can talk about some of the circumstances.”

  Another pause as she considered this. “Some of them,” she conceded finally. “If I can remember. It’s been a long time since I was doing adoptive placements. A lot has happened since then, and I don’t remember a lot of the cases very clearly.”

  “All you can do is your best.”

  She didn’t voice any other objections, and Zachary waited for her to fill the silence. People didn’t like it when there was too much time without anything being said. They liked to fill it, to have a back-and-forth discussion. Too much silence was uncomfortable.

  �
�I suppose,” Aurelia said eventually. “Where are you?”

  9

  When Kenzie got home from work, Zachary was examining the pictures he had printed off. Kenzie took a quick look at what he was doing.

  “Looking at buying a house?” she teased.

  “If I was, I think I could do better than these. I hope so.”

  “So, what are these?” Kenzie reached for one of the photos, pausing with her fingers an inch away, looking at him to see whether he would object. Zachary shrugged, and she picked it up.

  “These are houses that provoked a response in my client. Houses that he initially thought might be his childhood home.”

  “Oh, how interesting.” Kenzie lined the houses up in a grid, looking over them. “So you’re trying to figure out what was the same between all of the houses. What it is that he sees that makes him think of home.”

  Zachary nodded. “But it might not be one thing the same between all of them. Some of them might have triggered a response because of… the colors, and others because of the windows. Or the porch or the fence. We don’t know that it’s one thing among all of them.”

  “Hmm.” Kenzie looked at them, considering Zachary’s words. “And we can probably assume that some of them have several things together that made him think of home. The right color and the right windows, but not the right porch.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Interesting. What have you got so far?”

  Zachary laid his scratchpad down where Kenzie could read it, his face warming as he looked at his messy writing. If she could read any of it, she was doing better than most of his school teachers.