Hunted by Brian M. Campbell

HUNTED - BRIAN M. CAMPBELL

 

A damp November dusk had settled on the Deer Run Trailer Park drawing from the windows an orange-yellow glow where women could be seen heating up food in the small spaces that doubled as kitchens.

 

Only one trailer was still dark. It was the doublewide, standing at the back of the park looking out over the fallow field and, with one of its windows boarded up, it looked almost abandoned.

 

But Marc Bommel was inside.

 

He was sitting perfectly still listening for any sound outside. By now he could identify each of his neighbors’ cars from the sound their tires made on the gravel or by the setting of the carburetors and when he heard the storm door slam a couple of trailers down, he didn’t need to look at the clock to know it was gone five and Rhonda Ramos was taking her three kids to the diner on route 7a for the early-bird special.

 

When silence returned to the park, he turned on the small lamp, opened the table drawer and took out the envelope addressed to the insurance company. It was dirty now, over the past year he’d spilt coffee on it and there was a grease stain on the back he hadn’t noticed before.

 

He’d told himself to wait a year before filing the claim but now the day had come he still hesitated. He took the form out of the envelope and studied the empty black boxes then opened the drawer, took out a pen and wrote his first and last name on the form. He was about to fill out the address when he heard a noise outside; it sounded like somebody had bumped into the garbage can he’d put in the middle of the walkway leading up to his trailer.

 

He reached across the table and turned off the light then walked over to the window where he pulled aside the blind. He looked to the left and then the right until he was sure there was nobody there, until he was certain that it was only the wind looking for pieces of paper and plastic bags to toss into the night sky.

 

As he stood looking out the window, he thought back to that day exactly a year ago when he was standing in the same spot watching the Sheriff hitching up his pants and settling his holster on his left hip before thrusting his hands deep into the side pockets of his jacket and walking toward the trailer.

 

He could even hear the Sheriff’s knock on the door, the initial low rattle until he got the measure of the light aluminum frame and then the hard thump, thump, thump with the side of his fist.

 

The Sheriff was a big man in his late fifties, his face set in a permanent scowl from the scar that ran from below his left eye to his jaw line.

 

“Marc,” he said with a nod of his head when Bommel opened the door. “You best let me in, son.”

 

When the Sheriff walked into the trailer he filled it with his authority, and Bommel felt as if it didn’t belong to him anymore. Bommel stood by the door uncertain of what to do, wondering if he should offer the Sheriff a drink from the bottle of whiskey sitting on the kitchen counter but thought better of it, thought the Sheriff would probably say no, say that he didn’t drink on duty and say it like those cops did on TV; so Bommel stood mute, waiting for the Sheriff.

 

The Sheriff told him to sit down, even pointed to the chair he should use but sitting there he didn’t know what to do with his hands, so he lay them flat on the cool Formica surface.

 

“I’ve got bad news, son,” the Sheriff said. He was still standing but he was facing Bommel now, looking down on him, the scar pushing into the white of the eye, twisting the features of his face until Bommel couldn’t make out what he was thinking.

 

“We found her out there in the forest,” he said but stopped and turned away looking, Bommel thought, at the bottle of whiskey. “She was over there by Forster’s Creek.” He turned back and looked Bommel in the eye. “Looks like some kind of accident.”

 

Bommel felt he should say something but when he opened his mouth all he could feel was a tight knot in his throat, so he looked at his hands pressing down on the Formica.

 

“Probably some damn fool from the city, usually is,” the Sheriff said and once again Bommel thought he was looking at the whiskey. “You know how it is with them.”

 

A couple of years back, Sally MaCalister was out in her backyard playing with her older sister when she was shot clean through the head and even though her sister got a good look at the hunter, could describe his clothes, said he had a beard and brown hair, nothing was ever done because the hunters from the city brought a lot of money into the county.

 

That’s how it was with them.

 

“Well I’ll be getting along, give you some time,” the Sheriff said. He seemed uncomfortable now and Bommel thought he could feel a nervousness in the edge of his voice.

 

“You know Marc, the city cops’ll be down—always do when something like this happens. I’ll wait a few days before putting in the papers, give you some time to get yourself together, think about what you want to say.”

 

He looked at the door but didn’t move; he looked down at Bommel: “Is there anything you want me to do? Phone somebody? Drive you some place?”

 

Bommel shook his head.

 

“Well, I’ll be getting along, give you…” He stood silent again and Bommel could feel him getting smaller, shrinking away from him. “It’s a hell of a thing, son, I’m just, well I’m just so god damn sorry.”

 

He put his hand on Bommel’s shoulder but it didn’t stay there long and again Bommel looked up at him but this time he knew he didn’t need to say anything.

 

It was a couple of hours later that her mom and dad came over. He was still sitting at the table where the Sheriff had left him but he’d poured himself a drink.

 

He stood up and shook hands with her dad then her mom wrapped him in a tight embrace where he suffocated in the sweet smell of her perfume. When she let go of him, she took off her coat and put on one of his wife’s aprons then busied herself in the kitchen with the breakfast dishes before taking three ready-made meals from the freezer and heating them up.

 

His father-in-law helped himself to a drink and walked around the room, his body tight with a restless anger.

 

“God-damned fucking city assholes,” he thundered and Bommel thought he should join in but again he couldn’t find the right words so as her dad’s anger beat on the walls of the trailer, he listened to the cracking of the ice as it melted in his glass.

 

Her mom and dad planned the funeral.

 

The long black cars pulled up outside the trailer under a slate grey sky that held them hostage to a storm that had broken higher up the valley.

 

He sat in the back of the second car between his brother and his wife wearing a borrowed black suit that was tight about the shoulders. When the car started off, he saw the storm reflected in the eyes standing outside the neighboring trailers; eyes staring in at him ignoring the show of the man in the black top hat who walked slowly toward the buck antlers that marked the entrance to the park.

 

The storm broke when they got to the church making the tarmac slick with rain and he stumbled under the weight of the coffin but when he steadied himself he let her bite into his shoulder and was sorry to put her down on the trestles standing in front of the altar. The pews were filled with people, it was as if the entire valley had turned out to stare at him standing there among the swirling smoke of the incense that the priest waved over the coffin.

 

There were speeches at the reception.

 

Her dad said what a good daughter she’d been then stopped and people started to clap thinking that he was too overcome with grief to read from the piece of paper he held in his hand but he crumpled the piece of paper and threw it on the floor then snarled and cursed about the arrogance of the city.

 

Bommel’s brother spoke next, said how happy the family had been when she married Marc, and that was true. Then Suzie Mitchelson stood up and talked about the charity work she’d done in the valley, the food bank, the winter clothing drive, the walk for the cure.

 

Others said this and that but he didn’t remember much of what was said—he knew people were waiting for him to say something, waiting as if words from him would bring the story to an end and let them go on their way but all he could come up with were a few scraps about how she kept a clean home, how happy they’d been that time in Atlantic City but he knew that wasn’t the ending they were looking for.

 

After the speeches he stood in the middle of the room but nobody said much to him. The women would hug him, tell him what a good wife he’d had, say how sorry they were, and the men with somber faces would silently shake his hand and look him straight in the eye as they gave him another drink.

 

He didn’t remember much of what happened over the weeks following the funeral. He lay on the sofa half awake, desperate to escape the nagging headache gnawing at the back of his eyes but every time he managed to fall asleep there was a man on the TV shouting about the moon and he would wake up in a sweat and begin the search for sleep all over again.

 

His brother woke him up one night, standing over him dressed in a white shirt and a clean pair of jeans. He brewed a pot of black coffee and made Bommel get off the sofa, shower, shave and get dressed before taking him out to Cody’s Roadhouse.

 

Cody’s was a barn of a place but it was always filled with people dancing, drinking, having themselves a high time, and that night was no different.

 

The bartender kept putting drinks in front of him, telling him who had bought them and he would look over and nod his head in thanks. Even the Sheriff bought him a round. He saw the Sheriff sitting at a table next to dance floor and Bommel knew there was something he had to ask the Sheriff, something that had kept him tossing and turning on the sofa but he couldn’t remember what it was and the not knowing filled his mind, closing out the music, the dancing girls, even the drinks in front of him.

 

When his brother slapped him on the back, he turned away from the Sheriff and saw the girl. She was sitting on the stool next to him but she didn’t stare like the others, she didn’t look at him at all, she looked down at the bar and fidgeted in her seat, twisting her hair around her fingers, smoking one cigarette after another.

 

When they were dancing, she put her hands on his shoulders and he thought again about the Sheriff and that day in the trailer but her hands stayed on him longer so he pulled her close and kissed her.

 

The rooms were upstairs.

 

She sucked and stroked his dick until she got it hard enough then straddled him, leaned back to hold onto his ankles and rocked gently back and forth.

 

He tried to get excited.

 

He looked at the arch of her body, the hard nipples that topped the firm small breasts but no matter what he did or thought about his mind was filled with the Sheriff.

 

After a while, the girl sat up and looked at him.

 

“Maybe you’re not in the mood tonight, sugar,” she said and kissed him on the forehead. “I’m real sorry about your wife.”

 

He watched her getting dressed in the shadows of the room and when she settled the thick brown belt on her hips, he remembered that he wanted to ask the Sheriff about the city cops and when they were going to come.

 

The next time he woke up on the sofa the only thing he could hear was the buzzing of a black fly as it flew around the empty cans and bottles that littered the floor. When he sat up the headache had lifted; he walked over to the kitchen sink and drew a glass of water that he drank down in one, then refilled the glass and drank again.

 

He opened the front door and sat on the top step looking at the sunshine bouncing off the chrome of his fourteen-month-old bright-red Ford F150 four-by-four. He walked around the truck, trailing his hand along its smooth lines then went back inside and opened all the windows and blinds.

 

It took him nearly six hours to clean the trailer from top to bottom. The only room he didn’t touch was the bedroom because he didn’t know what to do with her things, the clothes, the make-up, the bits and pieces of jewelry; he thought he’d ask her mom to clean it all out one day while he was at work.

 

He took the vases they’d gotten for their wedding and cleaned them until he could see his face in the silver then went out into the woods and picked flowers to put in them.

 

The next day, he put the box filled with bottles of booze and cans of beer into the back of the truck, drove to the dump and threw it in a skip; then he drove to the car dealership to return the truck.

 

Jon Thone didn’t ask any questions. He gave Bommel a couple forms to fill out and when they were complete said how sorry he was that he couldn’t give him a better deal but the market for used trucks being what it was, well, he’d done the best he could.

 

As Bommel was taking the last of his things out the truck, a few CDs, an old work shirt, he thought back to the day he bought the truck and the argument they’d had. She’d said they couldn’t afford it, said they should buy something smaller, said something about a Toyota Corolla but he told her that no one in his family had ever ridden in no God-damn foreign car, and he wasn’t going to start now.

 

She waited outside in the parking lot while he signed the papers and picked up the keys but she’d ruined the day for him, taken the edge off what he’d looked forward to for so long—buying a brand-new truck, a truck that had never been ridden by anyone else.

 

They drove home in silence. She sat there in the leather upholstery, among the quad stereo system with her arms folded staring out the window. After a couple of miles, he turned on the lite FM radio station and sang along with the songs as loud as he could.

 

He was happy during those first few months with the truck.

 

When he arrived at work in the morning, when he drove into the parking lot he could feel everyone looking at him. At lunch times he allowed them to take turns driving around the l parking lot, and it filled him with such a sense of pride, a feeling that he was somehow unique, that he was better than they were.

 

Everyone who drove it asked him the same question: how do you get to afford such a fine truck? And that was the problem.

 

Before buying the truck, he’d calculated how much overtime he would need to pay off the loan. There was always overtime, there were even times when the boss begged men to stay after working overtime. It had been that way for the past five years, and he couldn’t imagine it ever changing.

 

But it did.

 

When the recession hit, orders for the high-end finished stone that the factory produced fell to the point where it was him who was begging for overtime but no matter how much he asked and how long he waited around after his shift, the days of endless overtime were gone. He could make some extra money by covering for guys who called out but when the boss canceled the late shift, he knew he was in trouble.

 

All he thought about was how he was going to afford the truck. He looked for a second job down at the mall but there weren’t any and besides they didn’t pay enough to keep a kid in gas money.

 

Then the fights started.

 

He accused her of wasting money, buying things they didn’t need just so he would have to get rid of his truck; she said that if they’d bought a smaller car like she wanted to, they wouldn’t be in such a mess.

 

It didn’t take him long to get behind on the payments. He made sure to pay something every month but by July he was a full payment behind and a woman from the finance company phoned to ask if anything were wrong.

 

What angered him most was that he didn’t need that much more each month, a few hundred dollars and if he were careful with mileage and how often he went out with his brother, he could make it.

 

He started to think about where he could get the extra cash.

 

His brother didn’t have a steady job but always had money so one night when they were at Cody’s watching the girls dancing around the steel poles, he said:

 

“I need to make some extra money, what with the slowdown at the factory and all.”

 

His brother didn’t say anything, kept looking at the girls, smiling at one that was looking his way, so Bommel repeated what he’d said.

 

“You serious?” his brother asked.

 

“I gotta make more cash or I’m gonna lose the truck.”

 

His brother loosened a cigarette from the pack and sat back in his chair.

 

“I know this guy,” he said as he was lighting the cigarette. “He needs someone to drive up north for him. I’ve been thinking about helping out myself, only…” he stopped to stare at the tall skinny girl with the blue eyes and schoolgirl freckles who was grinding her body against the pole as she stared back at him.

 

“Only what?”

 

“Well, he’s Russian,” his brother said still staring at the girl. “Goes by the name of Mr. Smith, and it’s said that Mr. Smith is one bad dude.”

 

“How much will he pay?” Bommel asked.

 

“Starts out at ten grand, if you prove yourself, it can go as high as thirty.”

 

“Thirty thousand dollars? Just for driving up north? I could do that in my sleep.”

 

“There’s things to think about,” his brother said.

 

“Like what?”

 

“Well, shit can go wrong.”

 

“But it’s just driving, what could do wrong?”

 

“A lot,” his brother turned to face him. “Your truck might break down; the cops might stop you; the dudes up north might rip you off; you might get hijacked—there’s a lot to think about here, Marc.”

 

Bommel finished his beer and ordered two more.

 

“Why aren’t you doing it?”

 

“Me? I ain’t desperate for money.”

 

Over the next few days all he could think about was the thirty thousand dollars. He would think about as he was driving to work, while he was at working, even before going to sleep. With thirty thousand dollars, he could pay off the truck in one go, or he could put the money aside and keep making his regular payments, maybe take a vacation, go back to Atlantic City or perhaps even go to Las Vegas.

 

He met Mr. Smith at a diner out on the interstate. Mr. Smith was sitting in a booth looking out the window at the semis making their way cross-country; a tall thin man, going bald, wearing a leather jacket over a black T-shirt, with a habit of looking over his shoulder before he said anything.

 

He explained to Bommel what he wanted him to do then said:

 

“It’s easy job. You might ask why I pay such good money, to buy your loyalty. I tell you one very important thing,” he looked around to make sure no one was listening then said in a quieter voice: “Listen to me carefully now please: you make mistake and I kill your family. I ask you not to doubt this.”

 

Mr. Smith told him to take a week to think about it. Told him that if he didn’t want to help, there would be no hard feelings but when they parted in the wind-swept parking lot, he didn’t shake Bommel’s hand.

 

Over the next week he kept changing his mind. There were risks, he understood that but it would take him years to save thirty thousand dollars. He asked his brother what he should do but his brother said it was a decision only he could make. He wanted to ask his wife but he knew she would think him mad.

 

Everywhere he went that week he saw kids driving cars better than he’d ever owned before the truck and the thought of going back to driving used cars made him depressed.

 

But despite the feelings of depression that followed him everywhere that week, he knew he couldn’t drive for Mr. Smith. He knew it when he was at work and the fear of jail would overcome him; knew it when he was sitting at Cody’s and the thought of Mr. Smith sent an icy-cold shiver down his spine.

 

He realized he wasn’t a crook, he wasn’t some tough guy; he was just a working stiff who had to make do with the money he made from going to work every day, day-in day-out, six days a week.

 

There was nothing to be done but sell the truck.

 

It wasn’t all bad, he told himself. He could sell the truck and with the difference between what he sold it for and what he’d already paid off he might still have enough money to go to Vegas.

 

They kept all their important papers in a fireproof safety box that they’d gotten as a wedding present. It was at the back of the closet in the bedroom, behind his wife’s dresses and shoes. He was on hands and knees going through the box when his wife came into the room to get dressed to go to work.

 

“Where’s the truck registration?” he said.

 

“Why do you need that?”

 

“I’m gonna sell the truck.”

 

“What d’you wanna do? Lose us more money?”

 

She told him that new trucks lost their value as soon as they were driven off the lot and that he’d be lucky to get enough money to pay off the finance company.

 

He didn’t believe her and they got in to a fight about it; he followed her around the trailer as she was getting dressed until she got to the front door to leave.

 

“You’re too damn dumb to be alive,” she said before slamming the door in his face.

 

As he was driving to work, he reasoned that she was only saying it to annoy him, to get under his skin. On his break he talked to a guy who used to sell secondhand cars and he said that it was true; said that the only way not to lose money was to trade in for a new model.

 

The next day he opened the safety box and put the registration back inside. The papers in the box were a mess from where he rooted around the day before so he took them out one-by-one refolded them and stacked them carefully one on top of the other.

 

The last document he picked up he’d never seen before; he opened it up but at first couldn’t make out what it was. It had his wife’s name on it and the sum of one hundred thousand dollars and he remembered when they got married there was talk about her dad taking out a life insurance policy but he didn’t think her old man had done it.

 

One hundred thousand dollars, two birds one stone.

 

He tried not to think about it but it would creep up on him at different times of the day, random times when he was least expecting it—at the mall, at a traffic stop, while he was shaving.

 

Then he woke up in the middle of the night and couldn’t get back to sleep and he knew he was going to do it, knew it like he knew the sun would rise that morning.

 

He waited until the crack of rifle fire filled the days before climbing up into the lookout about half a mile from the path she walked every day to work and back. It was a clear day with a sharp edge to the air that would turn icy once the sun set.

 

When she came into the clearing, he followed her through the telescope for a few yards then pulled the trigger; the bullet whistled through the distance between them and she fell.

 

It was a clean kill. He didn’t think she felt anything; didn’t see her twitching or flopping around or anything like that.

Skeletons Out Of The Closet by R.J. Spears

SKELETONS OUT OF THE CLOSET - R.J. SPEARS

Something inside her turned to ice just as she entered the quiet apartment.  She climbed the stairs and stood in the bedroom doorway.  She knew but she called his name lightly anyway.  She looked for signs of his breathing.

Could she miss something like that from where she was standing?  Was he just sleeping very deeply?  Maybe he was sick or unconscious?

All these thoughts whirled through her mind but the one inescapable conclusion was what she knew to be true.  He was dead.  It was time to make phone calls.

I stood in the same bedroom doorway where my client, Stephanie Mason, stood less than one week ago.  David Bentley's bedroom.  Her heart was broken in this room.  A subtle chill slipped down my spine even though this was an unseasonably warm spring day.  I left my station in the bedroom doorway, and I took a tour of the room.

Something to let me in on the reason why David Bentley had taken his own life.

Bentley kept it simple.  A cheap no-frills bed.  The mattress was barren, stripped of any sheets and blankets.  Probably by forensics in case of foul play.  A second hand dresser contained the typical items: socks, underwear, some ratty shirts used for yard work.  A lonely, lopsided chair caught light as it spilled in from the front window.  His closet was small and, other than a couple suits, an array of shirts and some dress pants, contained nothing of obvious interest.

I got no real sense of him at all from the room.  Nothing struck me other than he lived a rather Spartan life devoid of everything but the essentials.  Nothing that revealed any quirks of character or insights.

Before leaving, I detoured into the study.  It was a smaller room, outfitted in the same austere fashion.  In the corner was an olive drab desk that looked Army surplus. There was a small press board veneered bookshelf, sparsely loaded with books.  Most of the books were either college texts and some mainstream fiction.  I turned my attention to the desk and methodically went through its contents, finding a few items of interest.  The most obvious of these being manila folders containing some personal papers.  I gave them a cursory inspection.

Stephanie Mason had decided to wait in her car while I was inside.  She sat rigidly.  When I got in, she was looking to the other side of the street.

She was in her thirties and was what some would call a big girl.  I guessed she was all of five ten, and I would put her hitting the scales at somewhere around one sixty or seventy.  Despite her size, her look was healthy and toned.  What struck me were her eyes.  They were penetrating and full of conviction.

“How was your relationship with David?”

“Isn't it obvious, Mr. Daulton?  It was good.  No, great.  We were going to be married in the spring.  He had everything to look forward to.  He was...he was...we were happy."  She looked away for a moment.

These are awkward moments for me.  I'm a private investigator, not a counselor, but I know that a significant part of my job requires a gentle touch.  Sometimes I deal with despair and heartbreak as much as I dealt with betrayal.

"He was more than just a decent person, he was a saint," she said.  "And I know almost everyone at church thought the same of him."  She had told me the day before at my office that she had met David Bentley at Fellowship Baptist Church just over a year ago.

“We never argued.  We had disagreements but nothing serious. I knew something was wrong from the way he was acting that last week.  But he wouldn’t talk about it. That’s what was driving me crazy, Mr. Daulton.  I can't think of any reason that he would want to kill himself.”

"Can I ask you to do something for me?  I asked.

"Sure" she replied.

"Please call me Dan.  Every time you say ‘Mr. Daulton’ I start to look for my dad." A smile slipped from her and I continued my line of questions.

“What did you know about his past?”

“He grew up in Columbus.  His parents died a couple years apart about ten years ago. They were older, and he was an only child.  He went to Ohio State,  tried pharmacy, then chemical engineering but dropped out.  He was able to use that experience to get a lab tech job at Lily.  He had been at the church before I moved to town last year, but from what I could tell, he had only been there about a year.”  She paused a moment, composing herself.  “What else did I need to know?  I fell in love with the guy in what felt like minutes.  There was nothing about him not to love.”

“Nothing you know of.  We all have our skeletons.  Something was wrong with him.  Maybe something so personal that he couldn’t bring himself to tell you.”

She looked away again and began to cry.  Her shoulders shook as she sobbed silently, trying to maintain a degree of humility.

Maybe I should have reached out to comfort her, but I knew first hand, that no pat on the back was going to make it all better.  Grief is a solitary road that we all must travel alone.

I fidgeted some as she recovered.  "Let's change gears for a moment.  Let's say someone did kill him.  How did they do it?"  I asked.

Her initial conviction from the day before flashed in her eyes.  "Whoever did it forced him to take the poison.  Maybe they forced him at gunpoint?  Maybe they threatened someone he cared about?  I don't know.  The one thing I do know is that he couldn't have killed himself unless someone forced him to."

"It's awfully difficult to get someone to take...what was it?  Potassium Cyanide.  You said that he worked at Lily.  Something like that would be fairly easy to pick up there."

Her face flushed with anger.  "The police told me the same line of...of...bullcrap."  She clenched her fists.  "I don't want you to get the wrong impression of me.  Of us.  The media is always painting this picture of us churchgoers as Bible beating crazies.  I know I said that David was a saint.  It's not like he walked on water.  He was human with ups and downs just like everyone else.  He had his dark times.  I know there was something in his past that bothered him, but I told him that the past was the past."

She paused a moment, taking a couple breaths to maintain her composure and continued.  “Maybe what you and the police think is true.  I don’t know.  There are so many questions.  Maybe someone forced him to take the poison.  Maybe they weren’t in the room. Okay, I can accept that.  But for some reason, the man I loved killed himself, and I need to know why.”

“Even if the truth might be painful?  I asked.

“What could be worse than this?” she said.

*

Three days later, I sat in my office examining my notes from almost a dozen interviews.  They were from David Bentley’s friends and acquaintances.  I decided to handle this investigation like a background check.  I had done my share of those, but this was the first time I had done one on a dead person.

What I found out was that David Bentley was the next best thing to the second coming.  I wouldn't be surprised if he could walk on water and cure the infirmed after what I had heard.

Most of the people I interviewed were from his church circle.  They all described him as cheerful, helpful, and an overall nice person.  I heard accounts of Bentley helping someone fix a plumbing problem, tending to sick children, and driving the bus that picked up the elderly on Sunday morning

I talked to his supervisor at Lily Chemicals and he said that Bentley was prompt, efficient, and knowledgeable.  He even worked over time without complaining.  He told me confidentially that he would like to clone Bentley, hire the clones, and let the rest of his staff go.

His credit report was sparkling.  He had two Visa's which he used sporadically, always paying them off.  His checking account balance set in the seven thousand range, and he had a cool eighteen thousand in savings and a tidy sum in a 401K.

His life was too wrapped up and tidy.  Anyone so clean had to have a dark side but when I checked with a friend in CPD, Bentley came up clean.  Not even a parking ticket.

With no leads, I found myself back in David Bentley’s study again.  I decided that the items that I had only given a brief inspection deserved a closer look.

Before I checked the folders again, I picked his yearbook from the bookshelf and perused it.  Maybe David Bentley’s ancient history would offer some revelatory clue?

I found him among seniors, looking gallant in a suit with wide lapels and no tie.  He was an active guy.  Drama club, the student paper, the Spanish club, track, student council vice president, etc.

I replaced the yearbook and then pulled a pile of folders from his desk.  I picked up a folder marked "Apartments."  I opened it and found a series of guides for various complexes around Columbus.  There were several newspaper ads listing openings from about two years ago.  I sorted through these and found the ad for his apartment in Grandview Heights.  I looked at the back of the folder and found a lease agreement signed by Bentley for an apartment in German Village.  German Village is an area to the south of the downtown that had gone through a renaissance in the 70’s and 80’s and attracted a lot of yuppies.  From the dates on the lease, it looks like Bentley left the place about two years ago and moved to this apartment
I reached into the pile again and found another folder neatly marked “Resume.” I pulled one resume and reviewed it.  Before coming to Lily, he worked at another firm called Meditech.  It dealt in pharmaceuticals and his job was very similar.  I checked the dates of his employment and it coincided with his change of apartments.

I closed the folder and tapped the edge of it on the desk, leaned back in my chair, and reviewed my mental notes of the interviews.  All the people I had spoken to were relatively recent acquaintances of Bentley’s. None more than two years old.

I saw a pattern emerging here.  Bentley made three significant life altering changes, all pretty much at the same time.  He changed jobs, he moved, and he joined a new church.  People are allowed to change apartments.  People are allowed to change jobs.  People are allowed to dedicate themselves to the church or synagogue of their choice but it seemed strange that you would do all three things at once unless you were looking for some sort of fundamental shift in your life.  And what would cause that?  I didn’t know but I aimed to find out.

Meditech  was located in a bleak industrial park on the city's west side.  All the buildings were huge metal and concrete squares and rectangles designed with a studied eye to drabness.
After a fairly unproductive interview with a Mid-manager, a husky fellow named Pemberton, I was directed to one of Bentley’s former co-workers.  His name was Rusty Solwald.  After winding through a maze of corridors and having to ask directions twice, I learned that Mr. Solwald was on a smoke break at the back dock.

The dock area overlooked an asphalt employee parking lot and looked to be the company’s primary shipping and receiving area.  I found Solwald leaning on a concrete yellow cylinder positioned in front the loading dock, dreamily taking a drag off a cigarette.  He wore dark pants and a light blue shirt with the word “Meditech” embroidered over the breast pocket.  I put him in his late twenties and from my perspective, looking down from the dock on to the top of his head, he was early into male pattern baldness.

He must have heard my approach because he turned toward me.  He had one of those sour expressions that someone gives you when you interrupt an ultimately pleasurable moment.

“Rusty Solwald? I asked stepping down from the dock.

“Yes,” he replied.

“Mr. Pemberton said that I should talk to you.  I'm investigating David Bentley’s death and I wanted to ask you a few questions, if you don’t mind?  I asked.

“What for?  Wasn’t it a suicide?  He wasn’t killed or anything?”

“It certainly looks like a suicide, but I just wanted to check why he left his job here.  It could mean something or it could mean nothing.”

He took a deep drag on his cigarette and flicked it away.  “To tell you the truth, I don’t know why he left.  I got the feeling that it was something personal.”

He left it there.  I didn’t.  “Could you elaborate?”  I asked making a circling hand gesture to elicit more information.

“You see, he was always so organized and during the last couple months he was here, things got a little out of order and he seemed distracted.  You know what I mean?”

“What do you mean he was distracted?

“Just not all here all the time.  I mean, here as in body, but not in spirit.  You know what I mean?”

Rusty Solwald was one of those people that had a tag line.  His seemed to be ‘You know what I mean?’ sort of people.  “Well," I said, "do you know why he was distracted?”

Before he answered he did a quick look around to check for other people.  “Listen, not many people know this, but I think David was a queer.”

I was stunned.  I found this information incomprehensible at the moment.  It didn’t seem to fit, but I tried to keep a neutral expression.

He continued.  “Now, I don’t know this for a fact.  You just get this feeling when you’re around someone for a while.  It’s not like he was a limp wrist or anything.  You know what I mean?  He was normal enough but I caught him once out here at this dock talking with this guy and, I just walked out the door, you know.  I could swear that the guy had just kissed David.  When David heard someone was there, he jumped away from the guy like he was on fire or something.  His face was all red and embarrassed like, and he kept looking at me with these quick looks.  You know what I mean?  What could I do?  I just acted liked nothing had happened.  They talked for a couple minutes and David walked the guy to his car.  I sort of started looking back in the past and I remembered that David had only gotten personal calls from guys.  One day I was talking to someone up in purchasing, and they said that they had seen him coming out of this one gay bar downtown.”  Solwald tapped his head with a his right forefinger for a moment, trying to bring the place to mind.

“Whatever its name is, I can’t remember.  So, anyway, I put two and two together.  It’s not that I mind working with a fag or something.  He was just as normal as the next guy.  You know what I mean?”

“I found myself at Colombo’s on Long Street feeling very conspicuous.  I really shouldn’t have because almost every other patron of the bar was a man.  You always hear the line, “Some of my best friends are...” and I certainly had a few gay acquaintances but I definitely felt out of place here.

It was a pretty typical bar.  None of it was decorated in pink.  There was a vacant dance floor in the back.  The place was sparsely populated with patrons.  A pitted and scarred wooden bar ran along the west wall for about twenty five feet.  Behind its expanse was a wall with a vast array of liquor bottles of different shapes, sizes and colors.  The place had the stock aroma of other drinking establishments: stale beer and sweat.

I sat nursing an Uncola, waiting for the evening bartender because the day man had only worked there for a couple months.  I wondered if I should have worn an armband that said, “Hetero.”  I guess I was playing into a stereotype, but I couldn’t help myself.  I was facing my own prejudice, and it was making me supremely uncomfortable.

I noticed the early bartender at the end of the bar talking to another fellow who looked of a similar vocation.  At least it seemed that way since the guy had just put on a stained apron, but maybe I shouldn’t make assumptions.  My track record wasn’t too good lately.

The new arrival started my way with a confident swagger.  He was a beefy guy with a round face bisected by a handlebar mustache.  “You a cop?”  he asked.

“No, I’m private.  I’m just trying to track someone down,” I replied.

He leaned closer to me as if we were sharing some clandestine information and almost whispered, “I don’t know if I should help you at all.  We don’t need anyone coming in and hassling us.  We have enough problems.”

I had to head this off.  “That’s why I came to you and your friend first.  I thought that if I started interrogating your patrons...well, it might cause a problem, and that’s the last thing either of us want.”  I tagged the sentence with my most earnest smile.

It must have worked because he asked me what I wanted, and I showed him the picture of David.  He put on a pair of reading glasses and examined the photo for a moment, then placed it on the bar and slid it across to me.

“Yeah, this guy used to hang here a couple years ago,” he said as he took off his glasses, in one fluid motion, and put them back in his apron.

I nodded my head to solicit further information, and he took my cue.  “His name was Dan or Dave or something that started with a D.”

“Did he come in alone?  Or do you remember if he hung around with anyone?”

“Our clientele changes all the time,” he said, shrugging his shoulders.  He scratched his head and then said, “I remember that he used to drink a lot.  And he tipped well.  He could have met someone here.  I’m not sure.”

“Are you sure you can’t remember anyone?”  I asked.

He told me he didn’t, and I gave him my card in case anything came to mind.  I was out the door with my prejudices and all, feeling a bit ashamed of myself for having them but knowing that there wasn’t much I could do about it

I hesitated calling in my daily report to Stephanie because I knew that this news would devastate her.  Not one of David Bentley’s new circle knew or even suspected his past.  He was a knight in shining armor who rode boldly into their lives.  Who was I to destroy this image?

A day went by and I made excuses to be out of the office, only checking my answering machine and returning Stephanie’s calls when I knew she was at work.  I sort of felt like a kid who was avoiding telling his parents about a bad report card.

It was late on a Thursday when I got the call.  I identified myself and said hello.  A scratchy, deep male voice on the other end of the line said, “Is this the private investigator that was asking about David Bentley?

“Yes,” I replied.

“I know who’s responsible for his death,” he said matter-of-factly.

I asked “Who,” but he refused to tell me over the phone.  He gave me the address of a house in Clintonville.  I told him I could be there in less than twenty minutes.

It was twilight, and a cool breeze cut through the air carrying the odors of spring flowers as I got out of my Cherokee.  I couldn’t tell a daffodil from a daisy and, unlike most people, I never really liked the aroma of flowers.  I found their odor reminiscent of an old woman.

Clintonville is to the north of Ohio State’s campus and is an authentic, middle class urban neighborhood.  All the houses are too close together for my taste. Some of the houses on the south were inhabited by students, but the farther north you got the more the student population thinned out to the normal folk.

The place was a two-story frame house which needed a paint job.  I hesitated before ringing the bell, asking myself if I should expect any danger in this encounter.  This person had said they knew who was responsible for David Bentley’s death.  Maybe this was a setup?

Some intuitive sense told me that this wasn’t the case, and I rang the doorbell.

After a couple moments, a man opened the door and stood wavering slightly as if the breeze might topple him at any moment.  He was back lighted by a bright foyer light causing his face to become a collage of more shadow than light.  The smells coming from within the house were a stark contrast to the outside aromas.  My nostrils were assaulted with the strong smell of disinfectant and rubbing alcohol.

The same scratchy voice from the phone asked, “Are you Mr. Daulton?”

I said yes.

“Won’t you come in?” he said moving from the doorway to allow me entrance.  He seemed to be around six foot and, judging by his silhouette, was painfully thin.  The foyer was mostly natural stained wood.  A staircase was to the left of the door leading to a second floor.  The man gestured to a semi-darkened room off to our right and shuffled into it.  I followed.

The living room had the same stained natural wood, the floor covered with a worn oriental rug.  Most of the light was indirect, seeping into the corners of the room.  A large flat screen flicker quietly in front of a luxurious, hunter green leather couch.  It was covered with a sheet and a blanket.  The couch was positioned beneath a bay window with mini-blinds shut tightly only allowing in the smallest shafts of cool, blue twilight.
I still hadn’t had a direct look at my host, although I could now tell he was wearing sweats, a t-shirt and had some sort of baseball cap.  He walked around a mission style coffee table in front of the couch, turned and motioned to an overstuffed chair.

“Won’t you sit down?” he asked, and I complied.

He didn’t so much sit as collapse onto the couch.  He emitted a muffled groan as he situated himself.

“You’re probably wondering who I am and why I called you here this evening,” he said, and then laughed deeply, seemingly delighted with his utterance.  The laugh turned into a coughing fit, and after he got himself under control, he continued.  “I’ve always wanted to say that.  ‘You’re wondering why I called you here this evening?’” he said in a deeper, put-on voice.  I was getting a better look at his face now as my eyes adjusted to the subdued lighting of the room.  He was wearing was a Cleveland Indians cap.

His face was gaunt with pallid skin tightly stretched over high cheekbones and his eyes were deeply set, turned into dark sockets by the subdued lighting.

I told him I was wondering.

“I told you that I knew who was responsible for David Bentley’s death on the phone.  Well, my name is Michael Smith, and I’m responsible for David’s death.”

We sat in a heavy silence.  How do you respond to this sort of revelation?  There was a story to be told.  I knew this, so I kept silent and waited for Michael Smith to continue.  Although I suspected I already knew what he was going to say.

“Frank, from Colombo’s, called and told me that you were in asking about David."  He coughed slightly to clear his throat and continued.  "David was my lover on and off for almost six years.  It was a turbulent relationship, you see.  David was hidden deep in the closet.  He would only see me when it was safe for him.  I hated his terms, but what could I do?  I loved him.  No, I adored him.”

He broke from his story and asked, “What do you know about David?”

“I’ve interviewed a number of David’s friends, and they all think he’s a saint.”  He smiled at this comment.  “But noticed there was a big gap in his life.  He went from high school to college, then nothing for about six to seven years.  He changed his job, moved into a new apartment in a new area of town, turns up in this church, falls in love and gets engaged, all in a very short time span.  Those are dramatic changes.  I also noticed that there were no photographs or mementos in his apartment that would reveal anything about that time.  And no sort of records?  I just don’t see someone starting over and erasing a part of their past for no reason.”

He leaned forward on the couch and said, “Yes, it was too much.  Too much for David.  I’d like to say that it was too much for me but I know better.  David was a deeply spiritual person as you could probably tell from talking to his new friends.  In some ways, he was the most innocent person I’ve ever met.”

“I say I was his lover but did that make him gay? I don’t know what to think? He was engaged to be married. Does that make him bisexual? What do these terms mean? There are some people in my community of friends that say that there’s no such thing as a bisexual. I don’t know, but David was above those sorts of titles. Am I getting too philosophical for you? Are you a ‘just the facts’ sort of detective?"

I shook my head and he continued, “He wasn’t happy being with a man.  He was raised a strict Catholic.  All that Catholic guilt and shit.  This caused him untold torment.  He would see me for a period and then break it off.  I don’t know what he would do for those periods. Sometimes it would be weeks, and sometimes it would be months.  I may have misstated something earlier.  I said I was his lover, and I was in love with him, but I also hated him.  The reason I hated him was because I loved him.  I wanted him and, worst of all, I needed him.”

“During those times I would literally pine, but sometimes I distracted myself with others.  But they all seemed pale in comparison to my David.  You can probably tell that I’m not a well man.”  He waved his arm around the living room.  “This is my domain now.  I don’t have the strength to even go upstairs at night.  You know what I have, don’t you?”

I nodded my head.

He removed his ball cap, and I could see the Kaposi sarcoma spots high on his forehead.  His hair was cut close to the scalp, and the purple blotches were about the size of dimes, intermixed with his hairline.

“I picked this up with one of my distractions when David took one his vacations from me.  I never told him that I had seen other men in his absences.  I was worried that he might not want to see me any more.  Do you think that’s selfish?”

I once again remained mute.  We sat in silence with the flicker of a muted television washing over us like a fire throwing off splashes of color.

“David was here last week.  I called him.  I was feeling guilty about not telling him about the other men.  About having unprotected sex with him afterwards.”

“David did a good job with his final break from me.  I hadn’t heard from him for over two years.  Of course, my life went on.  Then I started noticing the symptoms.  I had seen them before in friends.  Maybe it was denial because I waited and waited to get tested.  For some reason, the doctors can’t get any of the treatments to work for me.” He paused and rubbed his eyes for a moment.

“Well, when I did, I became so angry and, then, self-absorbed. I blamed David a great deal of the time. If he had stayed with me, I never would have had to have to seek out the company of others.” He paused from his soliloquy and sighed. “Those sorts of vicious rationalizations.”

“I’m on the downhill slide now.  It’s obvious, and I’ve begun to think about the bigger picture. I had some friends look into David’s new life...his new happy life. They filled me in and I kept wondering. It began to nag at me. What if? What if? So, I called him and asked him to see me. At first ,he refused, but then I had to tell him about my condition. He came right away. We sat here just like you and I are sitting now. I talked and talked just like I’m doing now. And he listened. He was always a good listener. I told him that I felt guilty about him. That I was concerned for him. He said that he would be fine. He convinced me of that. He had a serenity about himself now that hadn’t been there when...well, back when we were an item.”

He tried a weak smile but the corners of his mouth fell.  Silent tears begin to run down his cheeks.  He leaned forward, put his head in his hands and sobbed.

After a moment he looked up, tears streaking down his face, and said in a voice thick with grief, “What have I done?  Oh God, what have I done.”

He sobbed inconsolably for a few moments his head in his hands, rocking gently back, and forth while I sat silent.

After wiping his nose with his sleeve, and composing himself, he looked at me again.  “Do you know what he did before he left?”

I shook my head.

“He prayed for me.”

I had my final meeting with Stephanie on Friday afternoon.  She was able to get off work around three in the afternoon.  The sun was fighting to break through a dark cloud cover as I looked out my office window.  There was a chill in the air, a striking contrast to the past few warm days.  Columbus’ springs were always flighty and unpredictable like a teenage girl.

Stephanie Mason entered my office tentatively, and I asked her to sit down.  She did.  She was dressed in a long flowing dress with a flower pattern on it.  The background of the dress was black and the bright flowers stood out, almost life-like contrast with their dark backdrop.

Now it was my turn to build a case.  My case rested on one question and, from there, I had to improvise my answers, but I knew where I would go.

I filled her in on all the interviews up to the one I had had Rusty Solwald.  It was time for me to pop my question.

“Stephanie, I have a question I need to ask you. It’s going to be very direct and personal, and I need you to answer honestly.”

She look at me intently as if she were actually on a witness stand, “Okay.”

“Did you ever sleep with David?”

She paused, and I could see a myriad of emotions float like a cloud over her face.  She finally said, “No. Don’t get me wrong. I wanted to, and I’m not a virgin or anything but we had decided that we would wait. Actually, David suggested that we wait.”

It was all I needed to know. I had made a detour on the way home after Michael Smith’s confession. Of course, it wasn’t a confession. There was no penalty for infecting someone other than the one the carrier shared with the infected. In this case, the de facto penalty was deadly for both.

I used the key to David’s apartment again. I went through his garbage and found the test results from the clinic. They were wadded up in the bottom of the trash, ready to go to the dumpster.

So, my improv started. I had designed a pattern of lies that seemed plausible. David had had a history of depression. His parents had really died in a horrible accident in which David had always blamed himself. His Uncle blamed David for his sister’s death. Things must have come to head.

It sounded okay to me.  Of course, if she did any checking, she would probably uncover the truth. I think underneath she knew that it was something else, but she needed the story to be this way. She needed her saint to remain saintly, and David needed to keep his skeletons in his closet. His past would be his past.

It worked for me.

Head Over Heels by John Winn

HEAD OVER HEELS - JOHN WINN

 

He pushed her off the balcony. He pushed her off the balcony and didn't see it coming until his hands pressed against her back and she tumbled end over end onto the concrete patio by the pool.  A sliver of moonlight shimmered as the water bobbed up and down. Brody's sandy hair billowed in the wind as he breathed in the salt air. The starkness of it didn't fully sink in until he leaned over the railing to get a glimpse of his wife's crumpled body.

 

Even in death Skylar struck a pose, skin glistening in her Day-Glo nightgown. Her form was beautiful, legs posed akimbo like one of the many photo spreads she shot for the big fashion magazines. Despite the blow to the head, she looked strangely peaceful down there.  Brody half-expected her to get up and smile as usual, but he knew better.

 

He only wanted to confront her. The rumors of infidelity had been swirling for months, first from, then from.  Brody assumed it was all lies and half-truths made up to boost circulation and ratings. Skylar was always off modeling for some big shot photographer somewhere.  Germany, Japan, New York, it didn't matter. The lengthy separations bothered him, yet Brody of all people understood the demands such a life entailed.

 

Only when he stumbled on a clip of her in a three-way with two guys on the Internet did he seriously question the nature of their relationship.

 

Even as their court date loomed, he drove over to the mansion they once shared, hoping to appeal to the better angels of Skylar's nature.  Despite his fearsome reputation as a studio executive, he was a pragmatist by nature. Both he and his wife had prenuptial agreements.  No matter the outcome, a costly divorce would annihilate them both.  The resulting fallout would dog their careers for the rest of their lives.

 

Even as he approached the front door, Brody hoped that an eleventh hour deal would be reached.  Skylar's warm smile as she greeted him at least gave hope that a compromise would be reached before the clock struck twelve.

 

As they talked in the study upstairs, Brody gradually realized how off the mark he was. Skylar was calm as always, but there was no trace of the happy, bubbly model he once knew. Her voice was as icy as her pale blue eyes. In not so many words, she let him know coldly, dispassionately that she was going to sue him into the Stone Age. Yet despite the not-so-veiled threat, Brody never let on about his seething anger.

 

His eyes flared as he watched her step onto the balcony. Something odd came over him as thought of his wife walking away wife his future in her hands. The forty year-old worked too hard to see his life crumble like this. His legs quaked as he walked toward her, overwhelmed by his reptilian brain.

 

Skylar never saw him coming.

 

Everything seemed to slow down as she tumbled toward the asphalt below. A visceral scream rent the air as she fell to death. She hit the ground with a thump, bleached white hair falling over her face. It was all over in a few seconds.

 

Brody couldn't believe it.

 

He fished his cell phone from his jeans pocket. He could call 911, but what could they do? There was no point in reviving her. He'd have to explain how she fell off a three story balcony, not to mention the fingerprints on the back of her nightgown. Oh, and the pool of blood gathering beneath his late wife's head.

 

But there was person he could call.

 

"Hey, Sam," Brody dialed his lawyer. "It's me, Brody. Look, there's been a situation. Mind if I swing by your office tomorrow?  It's not for the telephone."

 

As Brody hung up, a gnawing realization tugged at the back of his mind. Brody let out a howling laugh. When the sun rose tomorrow the whole of Hollywood would realize how radioactive he was. There would be no more deals to ink, no more films to green light. As a studio executive, Brody was good as dead.

 

It was mutually assured destruction.

Ghosts Of Friendship by Jenean McBrearty

GHOSTS OF FRIENDSHIP - JENEAN MCBREARTY

Jennifer called three times before ten o’clock. Lynn was in the shower the first time, so she only lied twice about not hearing the phone when Jennifer, in desperation, came by the house. When her silver Mazda rolled up the drive-way and stopped, Lynn had sighed in exasperation and steeled herself for another onslaught of Jennifer’s questions. Why was Rojilio treating her so disrespectfully? Why didn’t he just tell her not to come see him at his office? Why couldn’t he communicate his feelings? Did he even have feelings? They were endless questions that only had one answer. Rojilio acted the way he did because he was married man and Jennifer knew that going in.

“You’re going to get hurt,” Lynn told her. “Hispanic men don’t talk about their feelings, especially to middle-aged American women in Mexican med-schools. You think you’re the only woman who’s thrown herself at him?”

Jennifer ignored the warning the way women do when they fall in love with love and can’t see anything else, when they ride the roller coaster up and down, apex to nadir, three or four times a week. Then on weekends, when Rojilio was with his wife and three sons, Jennifer was crying on any available shoulder, pleading for answers. “What should I do?” she demanded to know, and Lynn’s response was always the same.

“Stay away from him. He’s no good. He wants the ego stroke of knowing there’s a woman who wants him.”

“Then he never should have come on to me. If he didn’t want to follow through why start?”

“You’re right. He’s wrong. Move on.”

But Jennifer couldn’t leave it alone. She was determined to “push the envelope”. Whatever that meant. Lynn told her not to issue ultimatums. Ultimatums close off escape routes, and men must have a way out to feel in control. Corner them, and anxiety turns them vicious. Jennifer said she understood, then took Rojilio a plate of lasagna she made because he liked Italian food. She was Italian. Accepting food from her meant he liked her. She could find meaning in cow dung.

Lynn opened her office door. One look at Jennifer’s swollen eyes told her she’s been weeping for hours. “I have to talk to you, Lynn," Jennifer said sailing past her into the living room.

“I have a client coming at eleven thirty,” Lynn said. 

“I need you to tell me what to do. He says we need to keep this “professional”. Can you believe that?”

“So, back off and take him at his word,” Lynn said.

“He wasn’t acting professional when he grabbed my arm and kissed me on the cheek for Mother’s Day.”

“That was May, this is October. Things change.” Lynn was trying to sound like a supportive clinical psychologist. Humane but authoritative.

“Does this look professional?” Jennifer pulled back her brown hair and showed Lynn the knuckle-sized hickey on her neck. “Well?”

Lynn inspected the purple mark, trying to gauge if it was recent. “Uhh….Did he give you that today?”

“Day before. I brought you a picture of him.” Lynn rolled her eyes. Jennifer opened her brown leather hand bag – the one that went with everything she owned – and shoved an 3X5 black and white into her hand. “I got it off the internet.”

Lynn stared at the chubby-faced Hispanic face glowering towards the camera. He looked like the doctors she saw daily at the Birchwood Institute for Psychological Research: arrogant, white-coated, well groomed, not a black hair out of place. If it weren’t for the stethoscope dangling from his neck, he could have passed for a dentist or a pharmacist, or a vet. “He’s ordinary,” she said.

“He just looks ordinary. He’s not. He’s… he’s…”

“A son-of-a-bitch,” Lynn offered.

“No. He’s crazy,” Jennifer said.

“A crazy son-of-a-bitch.  So’s my alcoholic ex-husband. You see how that turned out.”

Jennifer took back the picture and held it lovingly in her hands, close to her breast. “I went to see Sister Clara."

“The psychic-on-Market-Street Sister Clara?” Jennifer nodded yes. “So why come here when you can get expert advice for twenty dollars?”

Jennifer made out a check to Dr. Lynn Kretzer, scribbled her name at the bottom of  #3325, ripped it from the pad, and handed it to Lynn. “Name your price, friend.”

“Don’t be silly.” Lynn went to her desk, pretending to recheck Mr. Eleven Thirty’s appointment time and hoping to change the subject.

“I was desperate, Lynn,”

“You’re always desperate about something.”

“Yeah, but...," Jennifer started to say and then swallowed her words. Lynn said “yeah-but’ was a game she didn’t like to play.  “Sister Clara said I should find out what a passive-aggressive is.”

The familiar term intrigued Lynn. Although the psychological community no longer used it, she was surprised Sister Clara offered it when she heard Jennifer’s catalogue of woes. “Sister Clara's right. Why didn’t she explain it to you?”

“My twenty dollars was up and she had regulars waiting.”

“I know how that goes.”

“You’re the only psychologist I know.”

Lynn sat down in her “shrink’s chair” and gestured for Jennifer to take the client’s chair. The large-framed woman snuggled into the soft black faux-leather. “A passive-aggressive doesn’t want to admit or deal with his own anger. He contrives to make it seem that the other person's at fault, thus relieving himself of personal and public responsibility for his actions. Actively aggressive people beat the crap out of you. A passive aggressive person makes you beat the crap out of yourself as he innocently watches and remains morally superior.”

Jennifer stiffened. “No one can make you do what you don’t want to do.”

“That’s my point. But someone can encourage you to do what you do want to do, and never commit to anything. Look at it this way. If Rojilio’s wife finds out about your visits to her husband, he can truthfully say, Honey, I told her we’re just professional colleagues, but she keeps coming to my office on the thinnest pretext. She’s stalking me. Is he lying to his wife? No. He’s just not telling her that when you come to see him, he’s friendly and kisses you good-bye. She says, Honey, did you ever tell her you love her? And he says—again truthfully—no, dear. You get it? He gets to have his cake, eat it, share it and still have some left over.”

Jennifer listened intently, but Lynn had seen her listening before. She always appeared to be a sane and sensible person when she was away from the hospital where Rojilio worked. Ten minutes later she was suicidal. Again.

“Ok. I guess I’ll just have to get used to being alone again,” Jennifer said. She packed up purse and headed for the door. Lynn walked with her as a friend of someone who’s a pain in the ass. How long before she realized she left Rojilio’s picture behind was another issue. She looked at it once more before she stuck it away in Jennifer’s file. Men are expert game players. They should be, they’ve been playing for a long time and they have the professional coaches.

*

Mr. Eleven–thirty arrived at noon, apologizing three times for being late before he made it down the hallway to Lynn’s home office. “I really did have a flat. See, here’s the auto club receipt. I guess most guys know how to change a tire, but I never have. Do you think it’s because I’m gay?”

Lynn smiled and said no despite her suspicions. Her cousin, Mark, had never changed a tire either, and she often suspected him of being gay. “Don’t worry about it, Mr. Eleven … ah Wilson. I think we’re almost done. You’ve seemed to have conquered your fear of working. You’ve been on the job six months now.”

Mark Wilson wore Hawaiian print shirts, khaki cotton slacks, and sandals with white socks. He was a computer repairman and got a job at Best Buy. Because he worked in the back, he didn’t have to wear a blue polo shirt. Lynn believed that’s what tipped the scale in favor of his recovery.

“There’s nothing left to do but settle accounts, then,” Mark said. He took out his checkbook and Lynn thought of Jennifer. “How much do I owe you for today?”

Sister Clara popped into Lynn’s head. “Twenty dollars,” she said.

When Mark left, a thoroughly satisfied customer who promised he'd send tons of business her way, Lynn poured herself a glass of cranberry juice and said a silent prayer of thanks. No clients for the rest of the day, and she didn’t have to be back at the Institute till ten tomorrow. Life was good, except for the occasional Mark or Jennifer she had to deal with. Most of her clients had real problems. Mark and Jennifer just hadn’t grown up. Time would cure them. Funny how alike people are without even knowing each other. She stamped “closed” on Mark’s file and was about to put it in her “to file” box along with Jennifer’s when a hazy memory, like a whiff of honeysuckle from her garden in the first days of summer, wrapped its arms around her.

She lifted the cover of Jennifer’s file and saw the picture of Rojilio Carena glaring at her. She did recognize him. But from where? That’s going to bug me, she thought, holding the picture upright in front of her. She booted up her computer and typed ROJILIO CARENA into Google. Nothing. Jennifer said she’d gotten the picture off the internet, but it was obviously a lie. Lynn laughed at her suspicions of skullduggery. Jennifer had taken the photo and didn’t want her to know the obsession with Roljilio included taking photos of him—perhaps with her cell phone camera? That would explain how and why Jennifer had the picture, but didn’t explain away her own nagging feeling she’d seen him somewhere before. She called Jennifer and left a message: Call me. This is Lynn.

Jennifer didn’t call, and by the week-end Lynn was worried. If things were better, Jennifer would certainly call for a shot of friend-approval. If things were worse, she’d be in need of a fix-me fix. She called Jennifer’s mother, promising herself she’d play the unanswered message off as a machine malfunction. Her call met a reflection of her own concern.

“It’s not like Jenny not to call. She knows I’m worried about her going to school in Mexico. Ensenada might not be Nuuevo Laredo, but it’s still dangerous for a single  woman to live down there. And those hospital people….I don’t trust them. Jenny offered to help get them a used nuclear cardiology testing machine, and you know what they said? No. Can you believe that?”

“Yes, Mrs. Appleton, Jennifer told me a bout that. Do you have any contacts in Ensenada who could check on her?”

“No. That’s the problem. You think I should call the Federales or the Border Patrol?”

“Both,” Lynn answered. Mrs. Appleton would be calling back. Jennifer was dead. Maybe her body would be found, but the why and who of her murder were like Jennifer’s unanswerable questions. “Have the police call me. Maybe I can help,” she told Mrs. Appleton when, two hours later, the clam, dry-voiced women confirmed what Lynn already knew.

Jennifer had been found in Calexico, a border town abutting Mexicali, in the Imperial Valley. An autopsy report said she'd died of an overdose of black tar heroin. Probably injected against her will, her mother insisted, because Jennifer hated drugs; her ex-husband had been an in-and-out of rehab addict.

“I met Jennifer at an Ala-non meeting,” Lynn explained to Detective Steve Ryan. “We hit if off immediately.”

“Is that the reason you went into psychology—interest in addiction?” Ryan wore an official's costume: navy blue suit and tie, and a soft mint-green shirt. He acted official too, never talking his eyes off Lynn except to jot down notes, treating her like a suspect. He must have been in the military because he sat up straight in the chair Jennifer had nestled in.

“Actually I always liked figuring out people. Jennifer liked it too, but she wasn’t good at it. Obviously.” Psychology—the fourteenth step. The last refuge of those touched by the insanity of other peoples' behavior and obsessed with trying to rewrite history.

Ryan flipped the page of his notebook. “You think she knew her killer?”

Lynn handed Ryan Jennifer’s unofficial file. He opened it and inspected Rojilio’s picture. “Who’s this?” Ryan said.

“Rojilio Carena, a cardiologist at the Centro Medico de Ensenada. She’d dreamed of being a doctor all her life.”

“So her mother said. How come she didn’t go to med school in the states?”

“It's too expensive, and she's too old. Americans find lots of things cheaper down South.”

“She involved with this guy romantically?”

“She wanted to be. He’s married.”

“Meaning he didn’t want to be,” Ryan said, as if to himself.

“Didn't want to be married or involved?”

“Both.”

Lynn winced. While she and Hank were still married, she’d had an affair. She did want to be married, but sex with an alcoholic was so rare, she didn’t want to be married too. Maybe Rojilio felt the same way. Relationships were rarely simple. “You’d have to ask him. I don’t think they ever screwed. She never talked about him that way."

“What way is that?"

“You know, sharing intimate details." Ryan was still wearing that I-don’t-understand look. “Size. Shape. Taste—she would have told me if they’d screwed in detail.” That was half the fun of having a therapist. Reliving one’s life and telling it to somebody who hadn’t seen the movie.

“So he kept her on the string. Hmmm. Could she have been a mule?”

That possibility never occurred to Lynn. Jenny could've had a reason to feel betrayed beyond the usual pain of unrequited love, and drug running definitely created a motive for murder. “I don’t think so, but you never really know about people.”

“I’ll need a copy of Rojilio’s photo.”

Lynn obliged. Ryan left her wondering if maybe she wasn’t as good at figuring out people as she thought. He’d promised to keep her informed about the investigation, but if drugs were the reason for Jenny’s murder, Ryan wouldn’t tell her diddly squat. He did, however, attend Jenny’s funeral. Probably wanting to see if Rojilio showed. “Can the Federales help at all?” Lynn asked as they walked to the graveside for final prayers.

“Sure. The question is will they help. I wouldn’t hold my breath on that one. What did she say about him,” Ryan said.

“Mostly, no always, about how he mistreated her. Hot and cold—you know the type. Kept her jumping up and down, made dates then broke them. No explanation. Hid behind his marriage, his religion, anything to excuse his behavior. Said he loves his wife, then talks about sex. Flirts.”

“And she put up with it.”

“Women do stupid things when they’re in love.”

“So do men,” Ryan said,” Believe me.”

“Talking from experience, Detective?”

They stood together as Rev. Witten read the thirty-second psalm, and they said the Lord’s prayer together. They expressed their condolences to Mrs. Appleton. They went to dinner. When Lynn got home, she wrapped herself in her royal blue snuggie, sipped hot cocoa, and wished she could call Jennifer to tell her she was in love with Detective Ryan. Jennifer would be speechless. She’d wonder if Lynn had lost her reason and she’d be right to wonder. Lynn felt fourteen again, the way Jennifer must have felt when she was around Rojilio. Why had Ryan stood so close to her at the funeral? Why had he asked her out to dinner? Was he starting something with her, or did he just want information? All those unanswered questions. They were enough to keep Lynn staring at a dark ceiling most of the night.

Ryan called her every day. They had lunch at Barini’s Italian Ristorante and lattes at Starbucks. He brought the wine and she cooked dinner, and they talked for hours about how police work depended on psychological information. She felt they made a good team. He told her to call him Steve. It wasn’t going to be difficult to solve Jennifer’s murder with both of them working on the case. “Rojilio certainly fits the profile of a frustrated middle-aged man. If he’s runnin’ heroin across the border to supplement his income, he’d have good reason to want Jennifer out of his life. Nothing complicates things like a stalker,” he said to her as they sat in front of the fire place, enjoying a nightcap after their moonlight dinner on the Bahia Belle.

What he didn’t say was that Mrs. Steve Ryan was waiting for him to come home for a parent-teacher conference at Bethune Elementary school. Lynn found that out when she called his office and the secretary said “It's your wife,” when she handed Steve the phone. He apologized for missing the meeting with Becky's teacher before he realized who he was talking to.

Lynn hung up after saying she understood why he hadn’t shown. When Steve went home, he'd tell his wife he was glad she understood, and hand her a dozen roses. Mrs. Steve Ryan would understand too.

Lynn could forget him. Years of living with a jerk had taught her they never change. You just have to walk away. But when Steve called, she made a date to see him to “clear the air”. The Jennifer excuse.

“I knew it was you on the phone, Lynnie,” he told her. “The lie was for the secretary. You think I want her to know I’m seeing another woman? You think I want her to know I’m working with a civilian to solve the Appleton murder?”

“Why didn’t you tell me you were married?”

“Because when I’m with you, I’m not married. I’m not thirty-six years old either. I’m six-teen and playing varsity football and ready for sex when I say your name. Like I said, men do crazy things when they’re in love.”

*

She cooked breakfast for him. Scrambled eggs and black coffee never tasted like caviar and champagne before, and she had an unfamiliar ache between her legs. Honeymooners ache, they call it. That's why women don’t care if their boyfriends turn up married.

Steve loved her. He said so. Didn’t he? The doubts returned by noon, lurking in the shadows with Jennifer, dark miasmas guarding the door to reality. This is different, she told herself, but it was Jennifer’s voice she heard saying, no it's no different, you sap.  So what if we enjoy each other. It’s not like I think we’re getting married. I know he’s never leaving his wife for me. Lynn couldn’t believe she was saying Jennifer’s lines in a melodrama that was supposedly hers. Maybe it was time she “saw some one”. She called her Ala-non sponsor.

“He knew you were vulnerable, Cheryl said. "Your friend had just been murdered, for God’s sake. He knew you needed comfort and support, and you're not the type to call his wife. The worst you’ll do is yell at him and hang up the phone a few times before you call it quits. Eventually your self-regard will win out and everything will be okay for both of you. You’re not gonn’a off yourself or anything.”

Cheryl's words rattled around her head like wayward ball bearings. Suicide was a possibility she’d dismissed in Jennifer’s case. People have killed themselves over broken hearts. No man was worth it, but maybe Jennifer thought Rojilio was. Lynn went to see Marylin, Jennifer’s sponsor. “Did Jennifer ever talk to you about a guy named Rojilio?” She let the forty-something woman who looked terrific in sweat pants and an eighties headband study Rojilio's picture.

“Yes,” Marylin said. “But she stopped talking to me about him when I told her she was addicted to him, the bastard. I’m afraid I wasn’t much help to the police.”

“You know its bad when the victim starts protecting the perpetrator,” Lynn said, and was tempted to tell Marylin she was lucky she didn’t have anything to tell Ryan about Jennifer. He might have wanted her to help in the investigation too. 

“It’s up to you, Jenny,” she told the ghost who followed her around like a three-year old. “If we’re gonn’a make any sense out of this, you gott’a talk to me.”

She pulled Jenny’s file, and read her notes. They were lengthy at first, then shorter as Jenny’s confession became repetitive and her demands for explanations became annoying. She hadn't stopped listening. She’d just begun to realize that Jenny wasn’t really talking to her anymore. She was talking to herself with Lynn in the room. She had to vomit out the pain, and Lynn’s job wasn’t to force feed her advice, but to hold her head the way she did in the ladies room on prom night. Maybe that’s the reason Sister Clara sent Jennifer away. No smart business person sends a paying customer packing off to a competitor unless the customer's being a pain in the ass.

But maybe Sister Clara wasn’t a typical business person. Some of these psychics, Lynn learned in grad school, were actually astute students of human nature. Under different circumstances, they might have become licensed counselors, or priests. “This is Lynn Kretzer,” she told Sister Clara. “A friend of mine recommended I see you.”

*

Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd. runs from downtown San Diego all the way through Barrio Logan, passing through the black neighborhood of South East San Diego. Lynn hadn’t been there since she did an internship as a school counselor at Gomper’s Magnate Middle School. She remembered Sister Clara’s place— a white house surrounded by a white wrought iron fence laced with ivy and blue Morning Glories—and looked for the sign in the front yard. Bold black letters proclaimed Palm Reading and Psychic Services, M-F, 9-9. By appointment only. The phone number was there too, the digits severing the life-line of a crudely drawn hand.

Lynn rang the door-bell and waited, noticing the birdbath, and thinking how unmysterious the place looked. The house could have belonged to a retired church lady. The black woman who answered the door was dressed in a saffron chemise with a purple sari draped around her shoulders and waist. The gold hoops dangling from her ears gleamed like real gold. If they were as real as the diamonds she wore on her fingers, the ethereal world paid better than the research institute.

“Come in—the both of you,” Sister Clara said.

Lynn looked over her shoulder to see if another customer had joined her on the porch. “I’m alone,” she said as she stepped inside the house. The pungent aroma of sandalwood and myrrh filled her nostrils, and the retro beaded doorways took Lynn back to the hippie movies her parents had watched when she was a kid. 

“You say that, but you know better. Your friend is with you. I see her at your side. She’s dead.”

“Can you see her face? Who is she?” It was a fair test.

“She's one of my own children." It was a cryptic answer psychics are famous for. Sister Clara took her to the kitchen table that stood next to a wall covered with pictures: Jesus—black and white, Moses, a green plaque with Arabic writing, Buddha, Kali, and several versions of Mary—Lourdes, Guadalupe, Fatima. All the biggies were there.

“You keep good company," Lynn said, as she sat down.

“Oh my, yes. I'm never alone. All them spirits—good and bad. Yep, those bad ones gives me a terrible time. Now what you want of Sister Clara?"

Lynn hauled out Rojilio's picture. “You ever see this man before?"

“A man come here a few days ago asking the same question. Always people want answers to the same questions."

“Detective Steve Ryan." Lynn said. "Tall. Green eyes. Black hair —thinning."

“He show me the picture of the man and your dead friend. I say, yes, I see the man but not the picture. I see him with your friend. He's a bad spirit, that one. He follow her around. Always stabbing her in the heart." Sister Clara was gently stabbing at the table with her fist.

“Did he kill her?"

“No. The other one. The one that has the little girl." Sister Clara said. “You don't know about the little girl. She don't tell you about that sweet little girl. Half white. Half brown."

“Will you tell me?"

“Your friend had the sickness. She don't want to know the future. She want to control it. Make God do what she wants. Give her everything she wants and when she get it, she don't want it no more. Keep God on his toes. Never say thank-you." Sister Clara knew about narcissism and hadn't paid thousands of dollars to learn about it—a financial blessing if not a spiritual one. “She say all men bad. Treat her bad. But I tell her it's not so." Sister Clara pointed to a picture of St. Joseph. “To get a good man, you have to  be a good woman first."

Lynn scanned the room for Sister Clara's self-help library. People who spoke in guru clichés usually displayed where they came from. “Where is the little girl now?" Mrs. Appleton never mentioned the child. 

“In the Valley with her Auntie," Sister Clara said.

“Did you tell Detective Ryan about her? What's her name?"

Sister Clara closed her eyes, and rocked sideways, slowly, like a metronome. “Poor little flower. Mama call her Jasmine, but that not her name."

“But, did you tell Ryan about her?"

The wrinkled eyes flew open and Sister Clara stopped rocking. “You stay away from Ryan. He no good. I tell you. Get the child. Her Auntie's a nurse. Go to school with Jennifer."

*

Lynn paid her twenty in cash, and drove home dreaming of the look of admiration she'd get from Ryan. She'd obtained information without a badge or a pistol or subterfuge. She was valuable to the case. To him. They were a great team.

But before she could tell him about Jenny's Jasmine, Ryan let out a loud "Goddamnit! You realize you might have compromised the entire investigation?"

“No. I did what any friend would do under the circumstances," Lynn said, fighting back tears. 

“How's that? Nosing around. Asking questions of possible suspects..."

“Suspect? Sister Clara? You gotta be kidding."

He grabbed his jacket off the back of one of Lynn's dining room chairs. “I think we ought to cool it till I'm done with the case, Lynnie. You're getting too involved and this could turn ugly."

“As in someone might find out about us?"

“Think what you want." Lynn watched him walk to the door, car keys in hand, and leave as politely as he'd entered her office. She wanted to say something to him, something that would hurt but not anger, something to make him stay but make him stay because he wanted to, something to make him explain what he meant by his words: think what you want. She wanted to think that he cared about her, that “ugly" meant dangerous, and that he didn't want her to get hurt because he loved her.

“If he meant he loved you, he would have said so, Lynn," Cheryl said after her half-hour explanation of Ryan's hasty exit. “As it is, he's made the situation conveniently ambiguous. You may see him again, or not. It's his way, no double hits."

“What the hell does that mean? Doesn't anyone speak plain English anymore?"

Cheryl laughed softly to herself. “Did you never play tetherball?"

“The ball hitched to a pole with a rope? No."

“Before the game, one of the players calls out the rules of engagement. My way means that guy gets to choose which way round the pole he'll smack the ball. It's an advantage, especially to left-handed hitters. And no double hits means no stopping the ball and then hitting it. No taking time to set up the hit."

“Oh." Lynn had preferred volleyball where players were supposed to set up hits. The better the set-up, the better the assist.

“Ryan's let you know he makes the rules, Lynn."

“But it's information he needs..."

“And if you call him, you'll be signing on to his rules."

“But this is about the case, not us."

“It's been about nothing else but 'us' from the day you decided to screw him—for him anyway. He's a guy.” Cheryl held up her hand as if to stop the buts. She turned off her tape recorder and handed the tape to Lynn.

“Take this home and listen to it. Psychologist, heal thyself.”

*

Was it really her talking to Cheryl, or was it Jennifer? Or Mister Eleven-thirty. Or the people who spoke at the women's closed Al-anon meeting. "It is what it is," she said to herself out loud. And then cried into her pillow the way she did when her ex passed out in the living room after telling her she was a nothing bitch no one else would touch. She was still a nothing. Steve didn't need her to tell him about Jenny's kid, or her ex-husband, or the Auntie in the Valley. He'd find out where Jenny went to school, and who with, and if the ex killed Jenny. Nobody's life is secret anymore, least of all for people like Jenny who told everyone her business. Even strangers.

Lynn's cell phone played Steve's ring tone: Peter Gun. The screen stayed lit, meaning he was leaving a message; a blinking red light beckoned her to listen. It'd been 48 hours. Enough time for her to miss him, but not enough time for her to get the Steve-drug out of her system. Perhaps there'd been a break in the case. Perhaps he regretted treating her so shabbily. Perhaps he'd been back to Sister Clara's and knew she had information. If she didn't call him back, he'd be at her doorstep. The Lynn-drug wasn't out of his system either. The tears dried. The sobs ceased.  It's not like she didn't know the game.  Only this time it would be her way, no double hits.

*

Resolve dissolves. That's the magic of passion. Somewhere between the joneses and the end of physical addiction, in that gray time when sanity hangs in the balance, God willing, no Steve would appear and she'd be ready to replace him with—ABS. Anything BUT Steve. Running, aerobics, dishing out macaroni and cheese at the homeless shelter.

But Steve was a professional too. He knew he had to make contact soon or Lynn would be running to the homeless shelter, spoon in hand, after her aerobics class. She heard his familiar tap-tap tap-tap-tap at her door, took a deep breath and opened the door a sliver. "I don't have time now, Detective, I'm seeing a patient in five minutes."

He gave her a full-body once over with greedy eyes, and pushed in the door. “Bull-shit."

Lynn pulled out her cell phone and hit 911. Then off, then 911 again. “Who're you callin'?" Steve demanded.

“My appointment," she lied, and gave him a smile. When the operator answered, she said, “This is Dr. Kretzer I have an emergency here. A patient of mine is in crisis."

“Can you give us more information?" the operator said.

“No, that's not possible."

“We're sending help."

Steve was in the kitchen, rummaging through the refrigerator. “Got anything cold?"

“No alcohol, but there's juice."

He came to her as she stood in the doorway and wrapped his arms around her. Had he worn the Gray Flannel aftershave she’d given him just for her? “I got some juice for you, Babe." he said smothering her neck with warm lips. She tried to unwind from him but he held her tighter. “Where you goin'? You know you want some of this." He forced her hand to his crotch.

She felt herself jolt from adrenaline. Wasn't this the way it always started? Somehow the other guy sensed you wanted to be polite and safe, and all those good manners did was make the other guy want to show you what a geeky fool you were. In an instant, this wasn't a man and a woman playing love games, it was a victim and a perpetrator in the opening round of a fight that never ended well. Thoughts of Jenny's corpse lying on a autopsy table in a cold green room flashed before her.

“Don't do this, Steve. You've got a family and a career to think about."

“Well, a career anyway. The family thing is history," he said. He'd moved his arm around her neck. If she turned away from him, he'd have her in a choke hold.

“Tell me what happened," she whispered.

“You called my wife."

Now she knew the source of his anger. “Not me, Steve. I wouldn't do that. You know that." But I would, she heard Jenny's voice say, and I did.

“I know you bitches talk too much. I'm not here to talk." She heard him unzip his pants, felt his shoulder holster press into her back.

“Then let's not waste time in the kitchen when there's a big bed in the next room..." The second he let her go, Lynn heard a voice: Run! Run! And run she did to the hall and yanked the fire alarm, grabbed the hose, and turned, ready to fight. Steve was at her heels, his face red with rage. But when the first neighbor pulled open his door, he backed up. “Hurry, Mr. Crenshaw, get your wife! Call the fire department!" Lynn screamed.

“What the hell's goin' on here?" Crenshaw said, and put himself between Lynn and the demon. Steve stood against the wall, glaring at them as Lynn panted and clung to the plump woman who'd come into the hall behind her husband. “Take her inside, Mother," Crenshaw said, but before the women took a step, two uniformed policemen hurried towards them. “There ain't no fire, I saw this son-of-a-bitch zippin' up his fly," Crenshaw said, “and she's got a bruised neck...look at her...this son-of-a-bitch was tryin' to rape her...I swear he was.."

Lynn couldn't move. Could barely speak. “He was trying to kill me," she sobbed. “He was. He was." 

*

Ryan declined a plea bargain and got three to five years for assault and battery. Cheryl and Marylin were with her throughout the trial. “Serves him right," Cheryl said after the sentencing. “That's what arrogance gets you."

Marylin avoided her pleading eyes. “You came close to gettin' burned—it's what playin' with fire gets you, Lynn Kretzer.”

But Sister Clara got it right. “Jenny show you what happened to her. He take her love, her body, her life. She say get her girl. You owe her.”

When she saw Steve sitting in the defendant's chair, she never looked away. She didn't shake or cry or mumble. Jenny was by her side like Sister Clara said she'd be. And in time, she and Jenny would untangle their lives and their deaths, just like Sister Clara said they would. “She your ghost friend now. Good to have friends on the other side.”

But Lynn was a professional with professional distance trained into her. She understood why Steve acted the way he did. He'd lost his family. He was as much a victim as she was. The prison psychs would help him see that. He needed help and she needed to forgive him—for closure. She'd arranged for Mrs. Appleton to meet little Jasmine. She’d brought a family together. She'd helped heal the wounds of loss. It can be done. If only Steve could see that. Understand that. Know that. She could help him accept that. Dear Steve, her first letter began...