The Shadow of Your Smile (18 page)

Eli heard the phone ringing but let it go to the machine as he eased off her boots. The message was just kicking in as he came into the kitchen.

“Noelle? It’s me, Eric. Call me soon. I’m starting to get worried.”

Eli played it three times, his heart thundering in his chest, before his finger hovered over the button.

Then, with a push, he erased it.

“Thanks for faxing the file over, Marc. I think our vics are related here.” Kyle sat at his cubicle, a desk lamp spotlighting the autopsy report, the forensics lab report, and the crime scene report of the coffee shop shooting in Harbor City. “It looks like the bullet pulled out of Billy Nickel matches the bullet used on Cassie Mitchell.” He always preferred putting a name to a victim—kept it more personal, his attention engaged.

“Did forensics pick up anything from your crime scene?” Marc asked. He’d been überhelpful since Kyle had called him with Billy’s murder and their new evidence.

“I sent the car to Duluth, to the crime lab there. We’ll have results in a few days. I did notice, however, Billy’s missing class ring. A real bruiser—it had a ruby, his year written on it.”

“Could be a robbery. Those rings are worth a bit of nice change,” Marc said.

“I’m going to alert the pawnbrokers in Duluth, see if it comes through them. Did you ever get a hit on that fishing knife you found at the scene?” Kyle was paging through the papers and pulled out a photograph of the knife.

“No usable prints. We have two fish houses in town—both of them confirmed using a similar type of knife. However, their knives are stamped with the name of the processing plant. This one’s blank.”

“I’ll check the fish house in Deep Haven, see what I come up with. Most of the kids in town do a shift or two during the roe season, and Billy had a coat that reeked of fish. But as far as I know, the season ends before Christmas.”

“Let me know if you find out anything. In the meantime, I’ll check on the pawn places for you, if you can find me a picture of the ring.”

“Appreciate it.”

“Hey—how’s your mom?”

Kyle had turned to a picture of the crime scene, the body of the young high school clerk sprawled in her own blood. His voice tremored. “Alive. But she still can’t remember anything, so . . .”

“So we need to find this guy before he finds your mother.”

“Thanks, Marc.”

Kyle hung up, grabbed his coffee, and walked to the break room, shoving the cup into the microwave. There were only so many times you could reheat a cup of coffee before it was considered nuclear waste. Still, it kept him awake.

That, and the image of Emma’s face—angry, hurt—as she glared at him.
Convenient?
He still couldn’t get past that word.

He wanted to call her. But what, exactly, would he say? He’d given it his best shot, tried to convince her that Deep Haven could call her home.

When the microwave beeped, he pulled out the coffee. It burned his lips, tasted like tar. He poured it down the sink.

He just didn’t like failing, was all.

Returning to his desk, he grabbed his coat and the picture of the knife.

The Harborside Fish House remained one of the few enterprises that sent out fishermen in the morning who returned with a catch of herring, trout, and whitefish by noon. As a kid he’d watched them head away from the harbor, their nets dangling over the side, and wondered what mysteries he might find out there beyond the mist. During the summer, the fish house offered fresh fish cakes, fish and chips, and smoked fish—a delight of the tourists.

Throughout the fall, the smokehouse turned out smells that made for free advertising, as they hauled in trout heavy with red roe. Employing as many menial laborers as they could scrounge up, they armed fifteen-year-olds with fillet knives and taught them how to clean a fish, collect the roe. This they packaged and slapped with a designer price.

Kyle’s father had taught him how to find the roe, and they made their own caviar at home.

Since the beginning of Deep Haven time, when fishermen rowed out in the lake, the Steg family had run the fish house, their daughters marrying seamen, their sons taking over the fleet. But like a dock under relentless waves, they’d eroded down to only Bonnie and her husband, Chuck, weather-weary, resilient Norwegians.

Kyle found Bonnie in a pair of insulated rubber boots and a green Army jacket, leaning over an ancient PC in the back room of the fish house restaurant. They only opened for lunch hours during the winter, few people hankering for chilled herring when the mercury dropped to twenty below. The café overlooked the snowy, waveless harbor, the open waters still promising mystery beyond the break wall. Fish in icy drifts lay openmouthed in the glass cases.

He had the sudden craving for a herring sandwich. “Hey, Bonnie, you got a second?”

“Kyle. I haven’t seen you in years. Look at you all spiffy in your new uniform.” He had a feeling she barely suppressed the urge to pinch his cheeks.

“I’m here on official business, although I could do with a herring sandwich. Or some of that homemade trout chowder.”

“I’ll fix you up both,” she said, shucking her coat and moving behind the counter. “How can I help you?”

“Do you know a kid by the name of Billy Nickel?”

She grabbed a Styrofoam soup container. “Sure. And his brother, Ryan. They worked for me. Good workers—Billy especially could clean a fish in record time.”

“So he worked here this past season?”

“Longer, actually.” She ladled out a scoop of the trout chowder, and Kyle was nearly woozy with the smell. “I kept on a skeleton crew, processing the fish and the roe we brought in until the lake got too cold. Billy was one of my best cutters.”

She put the cap on the soup container, set it on the counter. “I gave him and the rest of the crew their bonus and cut them loose about three weeks ago.”

“Bonus? Cash or check?”

“Cash, but it’s all legit, of course. Billy was going to use his to buy a ring for his girl. Yvonne.” She reached into the case and pulled out a premade herring sandwich wrapped in cellophane.

“I met her. She and Billy were definitely together, but I didn’t see a ring.”

Bonnie bagged the lunch items. “Well, maybe he hasn’t popped the question yet. He did tell me that he was headed down to Duluth to see what he could find. You know, this close to Valentine’s Day and all.”

“I’m sorry, Bonnie.” He fished a ten out of his wallet. “Billy was found dead in his car up at the Spoon Lake gravel pit.”

She stared at him as she took the ten. “No, that can’t be. I just saw Hugh yesterday and he said that he and Billy would be coming back in the spring.”

“Who’s Hugh?”

She shook her head. “Billy was such a promising young kid. Had his problems, for sure, but he showed up on time, did his work.”

Promising? Maybe Kyle had seen the wrong kid. “Billy Nickel? Thin kid, blond?”

She nodded, her eyes glistening.

“Can you describe his friend Hugh for me?”

“I don’t know. Big. Dark hair, about chin length. I made him wear a hairnet. Might have played football, but I don’t think he was from around here. I thought he might be related to Billy—he recommended him.”

He sounded like the man Kyle had seen outside Billy’s. “Also a nice boy with promise?”

“No. He was . . . rough. I never felt comfortable with Hugh Fadden around. But he could clean fish, once I taught him how.”

“Did you give him a bonus too?”

“He and Billy came in together. I think maybe they were both on their way to Duluth.”

He held up the picture of the knife. “Does this look familiar to you?”

She took the picture, her mouth slacking. “That’s my daddy’s knife. I thought I lost it while I was teaching the new cutters how to clean fish.” She returned the picture to him. “Where did you find it? I’d like to get it back.”

“Actually, it was involved in a homicide in Harbor City.”

His words registered on her face in a ripple of shock. “Oh. My.”

“Do you have any idea who might have taken it?”

She shook her head. “I sometimes would put it down and then forget it.”

“Are you sure this is your father’s?”

“It has to be. The rest of our knives have our logo stamped on the handle. And—” she reached for the picture again—“this handle, the grooves? That’s my daddy’s work. It was hand carved and passed down to me. It’s my knife, all right.”

Kyle picked up his bag of lunch. “Let me know if Hugh comes by again, will you?”

“Will do. He told me he was working at a restaurant in town. Don’t know where.” She handed him back the ten. “I was always a fan of your old man, even after the tragedy with your sister. It wasn’t his fault. Sometimes life just backfires on you, is all. Lunch is on me, Deputy. Keep us safe out there.”

“Are you angry with me for some reason?”

Noelle sat on the truck seat beside Eli. He could feel her eyes on him, burning, lifting the layers he’d bundled over himself since hearing the phone call yesterday.

I’m starting to get worried.

He shouldn’t have deleted the message. An impulsive, angry, desperate act, driven by panic.

Who was Eric?

“No,” he said, but it came out more clipped than he meant.

“Right,” she said. “I know I don’t remember much of our marriage, but I do remember the man who brought me home from the hospital. You might not be angry at me, Eli, but I know you well enough now to recognize when something is eating at you.”

She knew him well enough now. And he felt as if he didn’t know her at all.

But he wanted to. For the first time in longer than he could remember, he wanted to know—again—this woman he’d spent the majority of his life with.

“I think we need to call the doctor in Duluth, see if I can get another brain scan. There has to be some reason I’m not getting my memory back.”

He said nothing, not wanting to argue with her. But what if bringing it back only brought back Eric, too?

“When do you want me to pick you up?” he asked as they arrived at the art colony.

She wore a blue parka, pink knit mittens, a cute knit beanie that had once belonged to Kelsey. For a second, as she’d emerged from the mitten bin with it, he’d seen his daughter. Bright, smiling, those beautiful blue-green eyes so full of life.

Noelle had often joked that Kelsey was her clone. Indeed.

“A couple hours. If I haven’t started anything by then . . .” She lifted a shoulder. “I’m beginning to think this is futile.”

He reached out for her—not sure why, just following a desperate urge to keep her in this pocket where he was still her hero—and squeezed her hand. Smiled.

She smiled back.

Eli waved as she entered the art colony, then drove down to the café. He just needed to feel normal again.

After hanging his jacket on the coatrack near the door, he passed by the table with the usual suspects—Jerry the mayor, Anthony the hotel owner, Pastor Dan, Joe Michaels. Caleb Knight had pulled up a chair at the end. Their plates, runny with egg yolk or syrup, had been shoved to the center of the table.

“Eli. How are you?” Jerry lifted his cup to him. “Heard about your wife’s fall. How’s she doing?”

“Better, thanks,” he said, not stopping, not meeting Pastor Dan’s gaze. Thankfully his usual spot in the back was open, a newspaper stuffed into the otherwise-empty menu holder. He slid in, opened the paper, read the police report. A few reports of disturbances, one speeder, a couple drunk and disorderlies. On the page next to the blotter, the report of a death at the Spoon Lake gravel pit caught his attention.

Billy Nickel. Eli had ticketed his brother Ryan a few times for speeding. Kyle would probably catch the case.

“Hey, Eli.” Melanie set the menu down. “I’m dropping this off, just in case, but do you want your usual?”

“Please.” He pushed the menu away. Two eggs over easy, a slab of French toast. And coffee, black.

She picked the menu back up. “Good to see you. I missed my favorite sheriff last week.”

Melanie had voted for him, even when the town rejected him. But she had a son in the Army, one who might not have gotten in if it weren’t for Eli’s willingness to go easy on him when he’d busted the kid for buying liquor with a fake license.

Actually, Eli could eat free all over town if he called in the favors he’d done over the years.

He turned to the front page, reading the weather report.

“Hey, Eli.” Dan slid into the seat opposite him.

Normally he liked Dan, the town pastor and volunteer fire chief. He had a hands-on idea of church, a desire to help people as he preached the gospel. Brown hair, warm smile, the look of a man who ate a few donuts while he counseled the lost. But Eli had seen him pull men out of burning buildings and talk a man down who had found himself at life’s precarious edge.

And he’d been a friend, or tried to be, during those dark days after Kelsey’s death. But they were past those days now.

Eli continued studying his paper. “Pastor.”

“Nice to see you at church on Sunday. It’s been a while.”

Eli grunted.

“And of course, we’re all grateful Noelle is okay, especially after the shooting. Terrible. How is she doing?”

Eli ground his jaw. The entire thing exhausted him. Finding answers for others, for himself. He reread a sentence about the hospital board meeting minutes.

Dan just sat there, the annoying man, saying nothing.

“What?”

“It’s just that . . . well, I thought that might be a rough time for you both, Eli.”

“Noelle’s fine.” He wasn’t sure where the heat came from, but he glanced around to see if anyone had heard him.

Two snowmobilers sat at the counter. Joe and the others had left.

He stared out the window at the lifeless sky.

“I see,” Dan said, but apparently he didn’t see because he stayed right there in the booth.

“What do you want, Pastor?”

“I want to know who kicked you in the teeth. Why you stormed by our table like you didn’t know us. Why you look like you’ve lost your best friend.”

“I don’t have any best friends. Not since this town turned on me.”

“No one turned on you, Eli. They were afraid. And you were hurting. You needed to be home with your wife.”

Eli pursed his lips.

“But that’s not what’s eating you, is it?”

Melanie set down a cup before him and poured his coffee. “Eggs will be out in a jiff. Pastor, you want a cup?”

No, please.

“Absolutely. Thanks, Mel.”

She grabbed one from the counter, filled it. Dan lightened it with creamer to a soft mocha color.

“Pastor—”

“Eli, I’m your friend. Even if you don’t know it. And I’d like to help.”

“Okay, answer me this. Maybe you can help me figure out how to forgive my wife for something she doesn’t remember doing.”

To his credit, Dan didn’t crack a facial muscle. “Forgiveness is not optional, Eli. God expects it from us regardless of the crime because He first forgave us.”

“I figured you’d say that.”

“Do you want to tell me what your wife did that she doesn’t remember?”

Eli shook his head. “It doesn’t even matter, I guess. Maybe she didn’t do it, but we wouldn’t know because, see, Pastor, my wife can’t remember me.”

Oh, the relief of letting that truth out.

Dan frowned at him, sat back. Folded his arms.

“Yeah,” Eli said. “When she fell, she lost all twenty-five years of our marriage. She can’t remember Kyle or Kirby—”

“Or Kelsey.”

“Right. And especially me. It’s taken two weeks for her to trust me, but the crazy thing is . . . we haven’t gotten along this well in years. It’s like I have my old wife back, the one I married, before we had kids. She’s funny and sweet and she makes oatmeal for the dog. And even though I know she can’t remember anything, it’s like there’s a part of her way down inside that does remember. A shadow of the woman she used to be—or maybe could have been if . . .” He looked out the window again. “If I hadn’t taken it from her.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I don’t know.” He played with the rim of his cup. “When I met her, she was a junior in college. She was an art major, but I thought it was one of those fill-in majors that people declare when they can’t think of anything else. We had this whirlwind summer romance, so I admit I didn’t know her that well. When I asked her to marry me, she dropped out of school and moved up here, and I had no idea that she liked to paint.”

“She’s an artist?”

“Apparently. She rented a studio at the art colony—has about ten paintings, all of photographs Kelsey took.”

“I had no idea.”

“Imagine how I felt when I discovered them. It’s like I’m finding things out about her . . . things I’d forgotten or things I didn’t know, and . . . I feel like a creep because a big part of me doesn’t want her to return to the woman she was. I was losing her—I knew it, and I didn’t know how to stop it. And then . . . then she gets this call from some guy named Eric.”

Dan leaned forward. Met his eyes.

“Yeah, I don’t know who he is. In fact . . . I deleted the message he left on the machine.”

Dan raised an eyebrow.

“Don’t look at me like that—I already know. I should have let her hear it, should have kept the number. But what if . . . what if he’s . . .” He gritted his jaw and looked away, hating the sting in his eyes. “What if my wife was going to leave me for another man?”

“Eli. That doesn’t sound like Noelle. She’s always been a God-fearing woman.”

Eli pinned him with a look that held everything dark he knew still stirred inside him. “Yeah, but I haven’t been a God-fearing man. After Kelsey died, something went with her, and I started wandering. I didn’t . . . I didn’t have an affair, but I wouldn’t have stopped it if I could have.” The image of Lee looking at him, his hands tangled in her hair, made him wince. “I substituted fishing and hunting and anything else I could do to get out of the house for my wife.”

“For intimacy.”

“Maybe.”

“Absolutely, Eli. When we lose someone we love, of course we grieve the part that has been ripped away, that part of us they take with them. And it leaves us hollow and empty, desperate to fill it. Your marriage is missing the intimacy God intended to heal it.”

“I don’t even know what intimacy is, Pastor.”

“It’s belonging and believing and being loving to each other. It’s vulnerability to the one person you trust most. It’s saying, ‘Here’s my ugly, battered, wounded heart. I’m going to let you see it and trust you with it.’ Did you ever let her see your grief?”

Eli leaned back as Melanie set the eggs down in front of him. Only, he wasn’t exactly hungry anymore.

“It wasn’t like I didn’t want to. It just . . . it wasn’t easy.”

“Who said marriage and intimacy—the way God wants them to be, a depiction of His intimate love for us—would be easy? Marriage is not a conditional act. It’s loving no matter what. It’s how we’re supposed to be with God—trusting Him with all our fragile parts.”

“Yeah, and what if God never shows up? What if He doesn’t care?”

“He always cares, Eli. That’s the loving part—He loves you. He wept with you over your daughter’s death, and He longed for intimacy with you, to care for you, for you to have faith in Him. And I know you were afraid you wouldn’t get the right response—that He’d let you down. After all, He hadn’t protected Kelsey.”

“That was my fault.”

“Oh, deep down, Eli, you believe more than that.”

Maybe he did. Maybe that was the bigger problem.

“That’s where your faith really kicks in. Trusting God, being vulnerable even if you don’t get the response you want. You’re doing the same thing to Noelle you did to God—you’re afraid your wife can’t love you the way you need to be loved. And maybe she can’t, not right now. But that doesn’t mean you’re not supposed to love her, be intimate—at least emotionally—with her.”

Eli pushed his uneaten food away. “I don’t know. Yes, I’m afraid that she’ll get her memory back, remember this Eric guy, and leave me.” He shook his head. “But I’m also afraid of her never getting it back, never knowing her daughter. And I feel like such a jerk for not telling her—”

“She doesn’t know about Kelsey?”

“No. I thought it would be best, but it was such a stupid idea. And now I don’t know how to tell her without her feeling completely betrayed—”

“And destroying this new relationship you’ve built with her.”

He nodded. “Then there’s the fact that I wasn’t a real prize before the accident, and I don’t want her to remember that. I want her to remember me as the guy I’m being now . . . or trying to be.” He scrubbed his hand down his face. “It’s all a giant mess and I don’t know how to figure it out.”

“Your job is not to solve this. I know you’re a cop and that’s what you do, but your job is to love your wife, however God gives her to you—memory or not.”

Melanie came by, eyed the uneaten eggs, but didn’t stop.

“I’ve known you for a long time, Eli. Back when you were going home for lunch with Noelle. Back when you and she sat together for every basketball game, when you attended all of Kelsey’s play performances. You were good once, but maybe God is giving you a chance to be better.”

“Even if she doesn’t remember us?”

“It says in Song of Songs, ‘Place me like a seal over your heart . . . For love is as strong as death.’ When you two pledged yourselves in marriage before God, He sealed you both for each other, and that is stronger than the death of the last twenty-five years. Faith is believing that. And faith pleases the Lord, even when it feels overwhelming.”

Overwhelming, like admitting that he’d made a mistake that got their daughter killed. Overwhelming, like wishing he could take it back, protect his wife from grief. Overwhelming, like him two weeks ago, sitting at the lake, not sure how to love his wife.

Maybe God was bigger than even
overwhelming
.

Dan met his eyes. “Let your wife into your life, Eli. Tell her about your daughter. For both your sakes.”