Nine Years Gone
Authors: Chris Culver
| Nine Years Gone |
| Chris Culver |
| (2014) |
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CHRIS CULVER
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
Copyright © 2014 Chris Culver
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping, or by any information storage or retrieval system, without the written permission of the publisher.
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Contents
I had anticipated it being a horrible moment. I expected a dark ripple to pass through the room, or a ghostly voice to call out in a low, slow moan that only I could hear. None of that happened, of course; the actual event was much more anticlimactic. One moment, Dominique Girard’s chest moved, and the next it didn’t.
Prior to last night, prior to witnessing him die, I thought seeing Dominique’s execution would so fundamentally and radically change me that I’d be able to demarcate my life into two distinct spheres, one before and one after. Instead I felt . . . relieved. Dominique Girard was finally dead, executed by the state of Missouri for a murder he didn’t commit, a murder that didn’t even happen. I hate to say it and I hate to believe it even more, but no one had ever been more deserving.
I shrugged my shoulders into my jacket for my evening walk and smiled at my niece. She grinned back at me, a gap-toothed smile that made the rest of the world disappear for the briefest of moments. Even though I saw her every day, I never got tired of that grin. She hadn’t done enough of it in her short life, and I had made it one of my goals to bring it out as often as I could. I looked at my wife Katherine next. It was a Monday evening, her half-day off and the best day of the week as far as I was concerned. Before Ashley moved in with us, Katherine and I would spend the entire afternoon at home in bed on those days, usually not saying a word. We go out more often now, but I still look forward to Mondays when she’s home. I think we all do.
I zipped my jacket up before helping Ashley with hers. It was a little before five on a chilly November evening, and the evening sun barely registered as an orange sliver in a cloudless pastel-blue sky. My wife slipped her hand into mine, causing an almost electric tingle to pass over my skin. We hadn’t been married long, but we purposefully avoided overt displays of affection in front of our niece. Even something as tame as holding Katherine’s hand in public carried the thrill of the forbidden. I winked at her and then put my free hand on my niece’s upper back to prod her forward.
“Lay on, Macduff, and damned be him who first cries ‘Hold, enough!’”
Ashley cocked her head to the side and then looked over her shoulder at me, her brow furrowed.
“Who’s MacDuff?”
My wife stepped in before I could respond. “Uncle Steve is feeling Shakespearean. He wants you to go first.”
“Why didn’t he just say so?” she asked, shaking her head. I knew her well enough to figure that she was probably rolling her eyes, and that made me smile even wider. Simon, my golden retriever, led us from the house and onto the sidewalk. Ashley, Simon, and I walked those streets every evening, and we saw the same things every time. The staid but modern architecture of the bank at which I opened my first checking account, the old stone church where Katherine and I were married, the Italianate brick building out of which my father and grandfather practiced law. Nearly every major event of my life had occurred within the comforting confines of those streets, beneath the canopy of trees so old the city had passed ordinances to protect them. Webster Groves, our hometown, had become a part of us, and my family had become a part of it. We couldn’t have left it behind even if we wanted to.
About ten minutes after we headed out, my cell phone buzzed. Katherine raised an eyebrow but didn’t say anything, so I shook my head to let her know I didn’t plan to answer. I had made enough phone calls lately; my family deserved some time alone. A short walk later, we reached Bristol Elementary School, and I took a seat on a bench overlooking the playground while Katherine and Ashley went to the equipment. My wife is a physician in the last year of a neonatology fellowship at the St. Louis Children’s Hospital, so with her hours, I’m my niece’s primary caregiver. As much as I enjoy my time with her, I know she misses her Aunt Katherine. Monday nights are their nights, and I was glad to see them laughing together on a teeter-totter.
My phone buzzed again. I knew what Katherine would say if I picked it up.
You don’t need to give another interview. You’ve talked about him enough.
She’d be right, too. In the week before Dominique Girard’s execution, I gave almost a dozen interviews and told so many lies I had to start writing them down to keep everything straight. As a professional novelist, I at least had practice with that. Since Katherine couldn’t see me, I took my phone out and looked at the screen.
Unknown caller.
I tapped the ANSWER button.
“Hello?” I paused and waited for the caller to respond. “You there?”
“Yes, I’m here.”
It was a woman’s voice, one I knew well, but also one that shouldn’t have been calling me.
Katherine caught my gaze across the playground. She furrowed her eyebrows into a shallow V-shape, pursed her lips, and shook her head just enough to let me know she disapproved of the interruption to our family time. Ashley continued to giggle, so I didn’t think she saw the look. I held up a finger and mouthed that I’d only be a minute.
“Who is this, please?” I asked, refusing to acknowledge what my ears were telling me.
“I’m an old friend, and I have information you might be interested in. I’d like to meet you.”
“My friends have names. Who is this?” I asked.
“For now, call me Holly Olson. It’s important that I talk to you. I think you’ll want to see me.”
Somewhere, perhaps carried by the breeze, I heard the crack of a baseball bat striking a ball and the shouts of children, encouraging their friend.
“If this is who I think it is, you know how dangerous it is to call.”
“I thought you would want to know that I’m okay.”
I softened my voice. “I’m glad you’re okay, but we still shouldn’t be talking. I’m sorry, but I’m going to hang up.”
She didn’t respond, so I started to pull the phone from my ear, but stopped as she spoke words I didn’t want to hear.
“If you know who this is, you know why I’m calling. I need to talk to you about Dominique Girard.”
The cold fingers of a very black memory, one I wished I could forget, scratched at the back of my mind, and without conscious direction, my shoulders and body tensed up. “I don’t know what there is for us to talk about.”
“We killed my stepfather. I believe there’s a lot to talk about.”
Katherine and Ashley walked to the swings. Both waved at me, and I forced myself to smile and wave in return.
“We can’t do this. I’m going to hang up now.”
“It’s important that I see you,” she said. “I can meet you at your dad’s old office in ten minutes. Or I can even stop by your house, if you’d like. I wouldn’t mind seeing Katherine again.”
The pit in my stomach grew. “You’re in town?”
“Yeah. I’m on Manchester Road in Glendale.”
That put her about five minutes out.
“Not at my house. Where do you want to meet?”
“Bread Co., on Lockwood Avenue. Do you know it?”
Even after nine years, Tess still got the St. Louis vernacular right. To the rest of the world, the St. Louis Bread Company—Bread Co. to the locals—became Panera Bread several years ago. Not in town, though. Clinging to the name of a local restaurant chain may seem silly, but St. Louis, for good or ill, values its past. It was one of the things I liked most about the area.
“Yeah, I know it.”
“I’ll be there at six.”
I looked at my wife and niece, happily playing, not a care in the world. My wife is my best and closest friend, but she didn’t know everything. She knew about my relationship with Tess, what she had meant to me, but I never told her what I had done for her, and I hoped to God that she’d never have to find out
“I’ll see you there,” I said.
“Good. I look forward to catching up.”
Tess hung up before I did. I stayed still for a moment, and then slipped my phone in my pocket, my hands trembling.
From the day I met her in kindergarten to the day she left in our sophomore year of college, I planned to spend my life with Tess Gerard. Then I found something out that no one should ever discover about a loved one, and I had to make a choice. It was the hardest choice I’ve ever made, and one I’ve regretted having to make ever since. I gave her up and helped her escape her very wealthy, very powerful stepfather by framing him for murder. With some help from my Uncle Simon and two friends, it worked. Dominique is dead now, deservedly so for the things he’s done, and while I didn’t throw the switch that sent the lethal drugs into his system, I set the course of events into motion.
As punishment, the universe gave me everything I’ve ever wanted. I lost Tess, but over the course of several years I fell in love with and then married Katherine. For the first time since losing my old friend, I was happy. And that’s the punishment. Every day, I wake up wondering if today is the day in which my past catches up to me, if today is the day I’ll lose my wife, my niece, my friends. I had thought Dominique’s death would end that anxiety, but one five-minute call reminded me how much I still had to fear.