Look Closely (22 page)

I scheduled a massage for Saturday morning at the hotel spa, and as the therapist rubbed the knots and stiffness out of my body, I wondered why I didn’t do this more often. After the massage, I sat in the outdoor hot tub, letting the bubbles swirl around me, the sun strike my face. I ordered a breakfast of fresh fruit and yogurt, which I ate on the deck of the spa, swaddled in a thick terry-cloth robe. By the time I checked out an hour later, I felt better than I had in weeks.

I decided to drive by Dan’s house, and then I would head to the airport. Now that it was light out, I could see, rather than simply sense, the desert spreading around me. I passed sandy hil s with occasional outcroppings of flat-roofed houses nearly camouflaged into the landscape. Sproutings of barely green tufted sagebrush and washed-out khaki-colored trees lay below the peaked outlines of the craggy brown mountains in the distance. I began to understand Dan’s article and his concept of uncommon beauty.

A woman on an old, low-rider Harley drove next to me for a while. She wore black-fringed chaps and a helmet painted in a black-and-white cow pattern. She looked to me like a woman who

knew

herself,

knew

her

place

in

the

world,

but

then

what

did

I

know?

I

was

judging

her

by

her

appearance.

Once,

I

hadheardtwosummerassociatesatthelawfirmtalkingaboutmeinthebathroom.Ihadfrozeninsidethe stal when I heard my name, scared that it was Paige or one of her crew ready to skewer me, to start some nasty rumor, but it had been very different. The two women, whose voices I soon recognized, were very kind, complimenting my clothes, my work at the firm,evencommentingthatIseemedtohavesomuch confidence. It was that last comment that depressed me. Sure, I was glad that I presented that image, but sometimesIfeltsoalone,notconfidentorproud,and the saddest thing was no one seemed to recognize it. Maybe Maddy, maybe my dad sometimes. But I knewthebiggerproblemwasme.Iwasn’tlettinganyone in on those occasional not-so-proud moments.

As the woman in the chaps rumbled past on the motorcycle, I noticed a green four-door about two car lengths behind me. It was in the same lane as the motorcycle, but as the motorcycle sped away, and the car had an opportunity to pass me, as wel , yet it dropped into the lane behind me, keeping a reasonable distance. I sped up and began passing cars, but the green four-door stayed with me, always a short distance away, making it impossible to see the driver by looking in the rearview mirror.

Soon, I reached the Albuquerque exits. I turned off at the first one, even though it wasn’t where I planned on leaving the highway. The green car did the same.

I drove to a gas station and quickly pul ed up to a pump. The green car slowed as it approached the station, then sped up again. I got out and stood by my car, pretending I was studying the gas prices, but behind my sunglasses, I watched the car drive a short way down the road, pul into a parking lot, turn around and come back toward the station. The car’s left blinker went on. It was about to turn into the station, but a number of passing cars in the other direction forced it to wait.

It was the opportunity I needed. Paranoia or no, I was going to lose this guy. I jumped back into my rental car and sped away from the tanks, back down the road, making my way toward the highway exit. Roaring up the ramp, I kept shifting my gaze to the rearview mirror. No sign of the green car, but I felt hot and flushed al over. I cranked up the air-conditioning, ignoring the decreasing speed limits into the city. I kept my foot on the gas until I was sure the car hadn’t fol owed me.

Final y, I found the exit I had original y intended to use. By then I had cooled down and I felt foolish. I began paying attention to navigating my way to Dan’s house.

If

Santa

Fe

was

a

hamlet

posing

as

a

city,

Albuquerquewasametropolis.TherewereWesterndesignsonafewofthebuildingsandsomeAmerican

Indiandecorations,butmostlyitseemedlikemany othercities.Skyscrapers,windingbyways,ghettos.

Dan’s house was easy to find with the directions Sharon had given me. I’m not sure what I had expected, but it wasn’t this. A large, aluminum-sided house painted gray-green that was identical to the other houses in the subdivision. They were al nice homes, but there was barely anything to distinguish one house from the other. A different car in the garage maybe or a baby strol er waiting outside another front door. And Dan’s house was barren of even those effects. Maybe I had anticipated something with more character, because I always pictured Dan as a writer more than a salesman, or maybe I was remembering the proud look on his face in that picture when they had just moved into the Santa Fe home.

I parked in the driveway and walked to the front door. I looked around a few times when I reached it, but there was no sign of the green car, just a couple of kids riding their bikes. I wondered if Annie had friends in this neighborhood. Did she like visiting her dad?

My knock made a hol ow echo inside the house. I wasn’t surprised. The mail was stuffed in the box next to the front door, some of the envelopes and magazines spil ing onto the concrete stoop where the postman had started stacking the rest of the mail.

I knocked again and again. Nothing. I walked around the house, but al the blinds were closed tight. No sign of life. It was time go.

When I reached my apartment, I col ected my mail and flipped through it in the elevator. As soon as I came to the fourth envelope, a large, manila one, I stopped and smiled.

Ty Manning,
the return address said.

I went into the apartment and let my bag fal onto the floor. I stuck my finger in the smal opening at the end of the flap and pul ed. Inside was a stack of paper.

The top sheet was plain but for a few handwritten lines.

Thought you might want to see this. It’s a copy of the police file on your mom’s investigation. Let me know if I can do anything else to help. Hope you’l come back to see us soon. Ty.

I set aside the top page and flipped through the others. Sure enough, they were police records. I was used to reading such records occasional y for certain cases, but now my mother’s name was on the face sheet, accompanied by phrases like “cause of death” and “severe head injury.” At the bottom there was a stamp that said, “Case Closed.”

I riffled through the other pages, noticing typed witness interviews and handwritten notes, but I couldn’t focus on the content.

I pul ed out my Palm Pilot and looked up Ty’s number. No answer at his house. I cal ed the front desk at the inn. He answered, and we chatted for afewseconds,butIwastooanxiousforsmal talk.

“Ty, how did you get these records?” I asked. Whenever I wanted a police report for a lawsuit, getting it was usual y a lengthy, detailed process that involved subpoenas and court appearances.

“I just asked the records clerk. Everyone knows me, so it wasn’t very difficult.”

“Does your dad know?”

Silence for a second. “I did ask him first, and he said he’d dig them up, but I knew he’d never get

to it.”

“So you went around him.”

“I guess.” Ty sounded uncomfortable now.

“I don’t want you to do anything that could affect your relationship with your dad.” I was feeling bad about my own relationship with my father. I didn’t need to hurt Ty’s, too.

“Wel , there isn’t much to affect,” Ty said in a wry voice.

“I thought you were close.”

“My dad is close to my mom, and that’s pretty much it. He was a good father in some ways. He brought home the money, went to a few footbal games, but he’s not going to win any father of the year awards.”

“Oh. I didn’t realize.” I thought of the feelings of affection I’d had when I was in the Mannings’ kitchen for dinner, the desire to have a family like that.

“It’s no big deal,” Ty said. “He just got beaten down by the work over the years. He’s seen too much, I guess. Too much ugliness. At least that’s what my mom says. Because he wasn’t always as hard. It’s why my brother and sister live away from home, though. They can’t deal with him on a regular basis.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.”

“Like I said, no big deal.”

Ty and I talked for twenty more minutes. I fil ed him in on my trip to New Mexico.
I have a niece named Annie,
I said. I told him the things I’d learned about Dan, and he told me stories about a group of rowdy guests that had stayed at the inn that week. The conversation was natural, easy.

“Are you coming back to Woodland Dunes any time soon?” he asked.

“Oh, I don’t know.” I surprised myself with a coy tone to my voice. “I’m not sure if there’s anything there for me.”

“Wel , there are about three kegs at the bar that you didn’t drink last time.”

“That’s a low blow.” We both laughed. “I am coming to Chicago this week. For a case.”

“Cal me when you get here, and if you can’t comeovertooursideofthelake,I’l cometoyou.”

“You’d do that?”

“Definitely.”

Before I read the police records, I tried Maddy once again. The number of beeps on her answering machine told me that she hadn’t checked her messages in a while. Must be staying at Grant’s place. Or maybe they had gone out of town. I felt a little pang of envy. I’d gotten messages from Maddy, but they were quicker than usual. She was always running out the door to meet Grant. I hadn’t even met him, and yet she always seemed to be with him these days. I tried her cel phone, but got no answer there, either.

I unpacked my smal bag, which took only a few minutes, and made some pasta with sauce from a jar. Once I’d eaten and watched an hour of mindless TV, there was nothing keeping me from reading the police records. I was anxious to get to them, and yet fearful of what I might find.

I could hear an increase in the volume outside, car horns and stereos and voices, signaling that the city was priming up for another long Saturday night. But I had no plans. Maddy was nowhere to be found. I didn’t want to cal my father, despite the number of messages he had left on my machine, so I was holed up in my apartment with a stack of old records cal ing to me from my coffee table. Final y, I settled on the couch with a mug of cinnamon tea, a far cry from the martinis and scotches that were being drunk around the city.

I picked up the face sheet of the police records. Its lines and boxes contained typed factual information. “Assistant Chief Manning” was listed as the investigation officer. The cause of death was there—“severe brain stem injury/hemorrhage”— as wel the date of death, “May 20, 1982.” I felt that date like a thud to my chest. The anniversary of my mother’s death was only a few days away.

I made myself continue through the rest of the information. The time of death was stated as “Approx. 1:20 a.m.” How had they determined that, exactly?

I flipped through the stack until I found the coroner’sreport.AuthoredbyDr.CharlesWinnaker,the autopsy was a clinical description of every organ of my mother’s body, every limb and nail bed. There was a rush of sickness in my stomach, the pasta I’d eaten seeming to slosh and churn. I was vaguely familiar with autopsies from the one or two medical-malpractice cases I’d worked on as a summer associate.Iknewthattheyinvolvedaliteralcarving of the body, the skin split from pelvis to neck, the ribs cut with a saw, the heart and liver weighed and documented like a butcher slaughtering livestock. This was al necessary, I knew, for the physician to determine exactly what had happened to the body, what had caused the eventual shut down, but the thought of my mother’s body undergoing that was grueling.

I put the records down for a moment.
Just read it all quickly,
I thought.
Skip the morbidly detailed inventory of body parts and get to the conclusion.

I lifted the autopsy report again and scanned it, trying to pretend this was just another case I was working on at the firm, that this wasn’t about someone I knew. Final y, I reached the end.

There, Dr. Winnaker stated that a massive hemorrhage in the brain stem had caused the death of Leah Sutter, and, based on the decomposition of the body, he believed she had expired at approximately

1:20 a.m. He did not conclude what had caused the bleed but stated that it was consistent with either a blow to the back of the head or a fal .

A blow to the head, I thought. That could mean physicalabuse,justasChiefManninghadoriginal y suspected. A fal was the other possibility that the doctor had decided on, though. I knew I should be relieved that a cruel but simple fal down the stairs might very wel have been the end of Leah Sutter. Nothing sinister about it. Certainly not murder. But why couldn’t I get myself to remember it? Why didn’t it sound right?

It was the letter, I decided. The damn letter suggesting murder. I went into my bedroom, dark but for the streetlights outside, and without turning on any lamps, I found it in my briefcase, bringing it back to the couch with me.
There is no statute of limitations on murder. Look closely.

For the first time, I wondered if maybe I had misinterpreted the thing. It had been addressed to me, no doubt about it, but maybe it hadn’t been referring to my mother after al . It had simply been an immediate, gut-level conclusion. But if not my mother, then who? I ran my mind over past clients, possible extended-family members. But I couldn’t think of any clients who had passed away, and as for family members, I didn’t know any. My father had taken care of that.

I took another sip of the cinnamon tea that had grown cool.
Enough musings,
I decided.
Quit putting it off.
I picked up the police records again.

The most interesting records were Chief Manning’s handwritten notes and the dictated, typewritten summaries of his interviews with various witnesses. He’d been diligent in his note taking,