Photo, Snap, Shot (16 page)

I drove home in
silence, mulling over what I’d learned. Of course, it was entirely possible that Ella was lying to me. But I doubted it. Her explanation made too much sense. At the end of our conversation, she promised to talk with Jim Hagg about letting Detweiler speak to Corey. I explained that the detective was on her son’s side. I couldn’t be sure Detweiler would talk to Corey—or even if that was a good idea, given the politics of the police department. But now that the coach was out of jail, maybe it wasn’t a problem. Besides, according to Ella, Corey needed all the support he could get. The chances of him going back to work at CALA were slim and none. The poor man would have to rebuild his life while a felony hung over his head.

“These past few days have really done a number on him. He’s lost weight. Hasn’t slept. It didn’t seem to matter that they arrested him. He’s devastated by Sissy’s death. He’s tried to communicate to the Gilchrists through Jim Hagg, but their attorney won’t hear of it. He’s worried about Christopher. Evidently Christopher’s father Danny Gartner filled his head full of nonsense about how blacks kill white people. What a jerk. Corey thinks Danny poisoned Christopher’s mind just to make life more difficult for Sissy. He knew Christopher would meet all sorts of people at CALA,” and here Ella shook her head. “I can’t fathom that kind of hate.”

“Be glad you can’t,” I added.

This explained the boy’s reaction in kindergarten. I briefly considered telling Ella about the scene Christopher had caused, but I figured it would only upset her.

“The empty tag on my tree was for Corey. I’ve found him. I don’t want to lose him.” Ella’s eyes shone with moisture. “But at least we’ll be able to stay in touch when he moves.”

I longed to ask how the kids were accepting their new brother, but Ella clearly teetered on the edge of exhaustion. We hugged goodbye and drove off in separate directions.

After I got home and let the dogs out, I dialed Detweiler’s cell phone, and still no one answered. The voice mail didn’t even pick up. This was unusual. He checked his personal cell frequently.

Maybe, I thought, he’s out having fun with his wife.

I noticed Ben had called me. He left a message which sounded somewhere between urgent and ticked.

I didn’t phone him back. I couldn’t handle any more drama. Instead, I crawled into bed in my underwear and fell asleep.

___

While the dogs watered and fertilized my fenced-in backyard on Thursday morning, I depressed the plunger on my French press and turned my radio to a local talk show, sniffing the air appreciatively as the robust fragrance of coffee filled my small kitchen. In my last house, I’d decorated this space with white second-hand curtains, but they didn’t fit the windows here. I’d also framed art from fruit crates, but that proved too small for the walls, and the images floated aimlessly about in the space. I’d found a pair of curtains I’d liked, put them up, and came home to find Sheila tearing them down. “These look cheap,” she said. “I’ll have a decorator come in and measure.”

Unfortunately, since she’d loaned me the rental deposit, she now acted like my house was an annex to hers. I bristled at the invasion, but I also had to hold my temper. She had, after all, given me the money to make this place affordable. Her taste was more upscale than mine. I really didn’t have a good reason to complain about her bringing in a decorator.

Or did I?

I’d dodged the interior designer’s phone calls. (She’d quickly corrected me when I called her a “decorator,” and let me know none too subtly that the term was offensive.) Maybe if I held off long enough, I could gussy up this place myself. I was due a little money from the settlement of my husband’s old company, Dimont Development. Nearly six thousand dollars was coming my way. Maybe, with some of it, I could repay Sheila and decorate my home on my own terms.

I had hoped to claim a reward for clearing up a mystery last spring involving a dead scrapbooker. But, that didn’t happen. I lived on the Missouri side of the Mississippi, and the reward was offered by a company on the Illinois side. Since the Illinois police carted the killer away, they were the ones in charge of closing the case. Local politics being what they were, money tended to stay on one side of the Mississippi River or the other. I hailed from “the other.”

As if she knew I was sitting in my kitchen thinking of ways to outwit her, Sheila called. “Ben has been trying to get in touch with you. You’re being very rude, Kiki, and I wouldn’t blame him if he lost interest.”

I groaned. “I’ve been working really hard. You know, that CALA alumni paper takes up my time, and Dodie—”

But Sheila wasn’t having any of it. “Get your act together,” she said and hung up on me.

There was no help for it, but to make the most of every waking minute. If I hurried while getting dressed, I could put in a solid two hours on my confidential project. As I pulled on a yellow cotton sweater over a paler yellow cotton tee, I listened to the local news.

“Repeating our top story, police are investigating a suspected suicide attempt by Corey Johnson, a basketball coach at CALA, the private school rocked last week by the murder of one of their teachers, Sissy Gilchrist. The Major Case Squad confirms that Johnson was a person of interest in the investigation. However, Commander Steve Fenders said, ‘The investigation into the Gilchrist murder is ongoing.’ Unnamed sources mentioned an uncooperative attitude by school administration as hampering progress in the murder investigation. Officials at Barnheart Hospital say Johnson is in serious, but stable condition.”

Stable condition.

That was promising, wasn’t it? I mean, it was a step up from critical. I didn’t know much hospital lingo, but it sounded to me like Corey was out of danger. I dialed Detweiler and Ella alternately and listened to busy signals. My helplessness consumed me. What could I do? How could I help? I paced my kitchen, and the dogs marched back and forth with me, Mr. Gibbes jumping up and down, convinced this was all a fine game.

Finally, I did the only thing I knew to do: I lit a candle and I prayed. “Dear God, please hold Detweiler and Ella in the palm of your hand. Give them strength and courage and succor. Please be with Corey Johnson. Let him see how much he is loved. Please God, please help all of them.”

I set it in the enamel sink where it wouldn’t burn down the house. As I pulled out of my driveway, I noticed the reflection of the flame dancing in my kitchen window.

At least I’d done something.

___

I’d been working on the confidential album for about an hour, and sipping coffee, when I made a run to the bathroom. I was zipping my jeans back up when I heard a pounding on the back door. I dithered. I couldn’t let anyone see the album. I ran to my work area and shoved my stuff back into the briefcase. By the time I made it back to the rear of the store, the pounding became frantic. The dogs barked with a vengeance like Lassie always did when Timmy was in trouble. I threw open the back door and caught Detweiler mid-thump. His eyes were red-rimmed and blurry, and he hadn’t shaved. His normally crisp shirt sported wrinkles and damp spots under the pits. A distinct odor of alcohol formed an aura around him.

“I’ve been trying to call you,” I said. “What’s happening with Corey?”

The detective looked—and smelled—like a guy who’d been on a bender. He crumpled. I grabbed a chair and shoved it behind his knees.

“Corey. He’s gone.”

“Gone? Gone where?”

“Dead.” Detweiler sank into the chair, lowering his head onto his hands. I pulled over a folding chair and joined him. For what seemed like forever, we sat there side by side, shoulder to shoulder, saying nothing.

My arms ached to hold him, to reach for him. I knew it was a bad idea. But for all he’d done, he was still my friend, and even if he hadn’t been, I’d have comforted a stranger in pain. And oh, the pain. It came off him like the heat around an incinerator. Finally, gingerly, I slid my arms around him in a loose hug. For a moment he stiffened, then relaxed. He buried his face in the crook of my neck, resting himself against me in a semi-embrace. I held him tight. I patted him and murmured soothing noises. We rocked together, back and forth in that comforting rhythm every mother knows. I’d never felt closer to any human being.

This was dangerous. For both of us. And we knew it.

Finally, he pulled away and reached into the pocket of his khakis to retrieve a white cotton square so he could blow his nose.

In spits and spurts, he told me a revolver bullet had entered Corey’s left temple on an odd angle, and tunneled around his skull, traveling under the skin and exiting at the back of the head. He named a surgeon—a name I recognized as one of the best in the city—who operated on Corey. The procedure went as well as could be expected, but since brain swelling would follow, Corey was put into a chemically induced light coma. The plan was to bring him up and out slowly this morning after monitoring his vital functions.

Detweiler was surprised when he saw Ella Walden take a seat next to his friend’s bed, but a nurse explained she was his next-of-kin. That was how the detective learned about his friend’s ties to Old St. Louis, and the identity of Corey’s birth mother.

Ella sat beside her son all night. Detweiler slept on the sofa in the family lounge. He had his phone turned to vibrate, but as he tried to get comfortable on the couch, it fell out of his pocket. At six, he’d risen to the beeping of the alarm on his watch, grabbed his phone, and wandered back into the Intensive Care bullpen area, hoping to at least wave to his friend before going to work. Everything went as planned. Corey was floating back to consciousness. “Mrs. Walden stroked his face. She talked to him, told him she was there. His eyes didn’t focus, but he sort of looked at her, sideways, through all those bandages. I stood outside. They got those cubicles. And there’s stuff like shower curtains? Around them? I wasn’t family, but my badge got me close. I didn’t want to push it. So I stood there, and I heard …”

His voice cracked. His Adam’s apple bobbled furiously as he swallowed over and over. He stopped, got control of himself, and spoke in a rasp. “I heard him say, ‘Mom.’ Clear as could be. Just that. Just one word. Then she said, ‘Love you.’ And the alarms started ringing. All heck broke loose. Nurses came running. The doc on duty came barreling around the corner. I moved over, but I tried to see, and they threw Mrs. Walden out, I mean threw her. I grabbed her because she nearly toppled over. All these bells and alarms kept going. They called, ‘Code Blue,’ and more and more nurses and equipment showed up. A big man in scrubs came round the corner with a cart. I pulled Mrs. Walden back—and she fought me—because she wanted to see what was happening. A voice yelled for a drug, stat. Then for another drug. Someone said defibrillator. They called for paddles. I heard a man yell, ‘Stand back …’ ”

His breath caught in his chest with a rattle. He covered his face with his hands. I could smell sweat, overnight sweat, the kind of tired body odor that comes when a meticulously clean person doesn’t shower for a day. I stared down at the back of his neck with all those fresh hairs, filling in after a haircut, vulnerable and new. He leaned against me and took my hand in his. After a bit, he raised his head and began again.

“It didn’t stop. Over and over, they shocked him. Mrs. Walden just … just let go. She was howling. She yelled, ‘No, no! Not my son!’ and then, then there was nothing. No sound but the beeping and the alarms. A voice said, ‘Call it.’ Another said, ‘That’s all we can do. Must have been a blood clot. They break loose like that.’ But they didn’t leave. They were cleaning him up. Making his body presentable—” caught on those words, Detweiler jumped up, knocking over the lightweight folding chair. He ran for the bathroom.

I listened to gagging noises and the sound of the toilet flushed repeatedly. Water ran, and splashing followed. I rummaged around in the refrigerator, retrieved a bottle of Coke, opened it, and handed it to him when he stepped out.

He downed it in two long swallows. “I don’t get it. It doesn’t make sense. We corroborated his alibi with Mr. Beacon.” Detweiler rubbed his eyes miserably. “Corey’d told Hagg that he wanted to talk. He was coming in today. Yeah, Hagg—that pit viper—told him not to, but he was going to anyway. Then I hear he’s shot himself and left a typed message saying he can’t live with the guilt! What guilt? For what?”

“So it’s over,” I said. “Case closed.” Now Anya was safe. Now I wouldn’t have an excuse for seeing Detweiler. Now life would go back to normal, or at least the “new” normal.

“I can’t accept that he lied. What did Mrs. Ventner say?”