In Her Shadow

by Kristin Miller

  “He refuses to bad-mouth his boss. Doesn’t want to lose his job. He was probably paid off to keep quiet.” My thoughts reel as I recall our conversation. If Dean loved Joanna and believed Michael killed her, would he keep working for him? Not likely. “Apparently Joanna had multiple lovers, and I’m convinced the list includes Dean Lewis.”

  “I’m not surprised, considering how much time they had alone at Ravenwood. But you figure Michael Harris paid him off to stay away from us?” Making a shocked, whistle-like sound, Patel plants his hands on his hips and eyes the door. “You’re thinking what I’m thinking, aren’t you?”

  It’d be easy to lift up the door and search through those cabinets. Easy, but also illegal. Would I find a shovel—the one that shattered Joanna’s skull? Her missing wedding ring? Or a bunch of useless old cooking utensils? I start the short walk back to the cruiser.

  Patel follows. “Maybe Harris and his chef were in it together.”

  “Why would you say that?”

  “Love triangles never work out well in the end. Maybe they were both jealous of Travis Martin?”

  MICHAEL

  I’ve always hated funerals.

  Hands shoved deep in my pockets, I stand on the sidewalk under the awning of Morrigan’s Funeral Home, shielding my face from the steady drizzle of morning rain, and wait for Joanna’s sister to meet me. Heather flew in from Los Angeles last night and chose to stay at a hotel rather than at Ravenwood with Colleen and me. It’s probably best. The walls feel like they’re closing in as it is.

  We were allowed back into our home yesterday—having stayed only one night at the Martins’—but now the place has a completely different vibe. It feels violated, destroyed, as if its guts have spilled out for everyone to see. I don’t feel comfortable there. Not anymore.

  It might have something to do with the fact that they opened the locked rooms, making me confront things I wasn’t ready to. It still feels too soon. I don’t expect anyone, including Colleen, to understand.

  Or maybe it’s just that I can’t live across the street from the place where they found Joanna’s body.

  The reporters camping outside Ravenwood don’t appear to be leaving anytime soon. They’re attacking Colleen with questions every time she steps outside. It’s as if I’m a serial killer, and they’re trying to save my pregnant girlfriend from being my next victim.

  If I’m honest with myself, I know in the five years Joanna and I were married, I thought about killing her on more than one occasion. That’s normal, isn’t it? For married couples to hate as passionately as they love? Man alive, I hated Joanna, especially that final night. I wanted to wrap my hands around her neck and squeeze. I could even imagine the way her windpipe would collapse under my fingers, the way her blue eyes would pop out of their sockets as she looked at me one last time with the realization that she might’ve struck first, but I’d gotten her in the end.

  “Michael,” a small voice says behind me, and I whirl around.

  I was so lost in thought, I hadn’t heard anyone approach. Now, I force a smile as I greet Joanna’s only living relative with a tight embrace. Heather’s tiny in my arms, narrow and bony, just like Joanna, but on the inside I know she’s tough as nails. Just the way Joanna used to be. They were a lot alike, shared a close bond, and frequently talked on the phone.

  But last winter, something happened.

  Heather stopped calling, and Joanna stopped mentioning her. I supposed the sisters had gotten into some kind of squabble, and after some time had passed, they’d get over it the way they always did. A few months later though—probably around the time we found out we were pregnant—Joanna mentioned that Heather and her husband had taken an extended vacation in Spain. Joanna found out on social media, and wasn’t thrilled about it. From Heather’s pictures, it appeared she was having the time of her life. Joanna kept making snide remarks about how Heather’s taste in beachwear was pretty gruesome. Deep down, I think she was jealous. Even though I’d always given Joanna everything she could’ve ever wanted, she never understood why we couldn’t get up and leave whenever we wanted. The way Heather and her husband had. But managing a successful business meant I was tied to it. Married to it. I guess it wasn’t in Joanna’s makeup to understand that level of loyalty.

  “It’s good to see you,” I say, stepping back to look into Heather’s eyes.

  They’re bright blue like Joanna’s, with the same almond shape, lined with the same thick fans of black eyelashes. Heather’s irises are shadowed, her eyes rimmed with red as if she’s been crying, yet I still see Joanna in them. My gut clenches into a solid fist at the resemblance.

  I haven’t seen her in years, since Christmas before last, when we drove down to L.A. to spend the holidays together. Those were different times. Feels like decades have passed since then.

  “Wish it wasn’t under these circumstances,” I force out.

  And I wish Joanna hadn’t confided in her sister all the years we were married. For better or worse, the details of our marriage should’ve stayed inside Ravenwood’s four walls. Heather was never given the opportunity to make up her own mind about me. Her opinion was tainted from the start—her sister saw to that—and she’s never let me forget it.

  Heather doesn’t even try to smile. Her face stays sullen, her color as flat gray as the sky overhead. “You look well rested.”

  “Don’t be nasty. This is hard for all of us.”

  “How’s your new girlfriend?”

  “Fine.”

  “And the baby?”

  “Healthy, as far as we know,” I say, ignoring the bitterness of her tone. I open the door for her to walk inside. “She’s coming up on six months. What about you and Al?”

  “We’re good. Al got a promotion at work, so we’re moving back. We’re buying a new house in Corona. Should close at the end of the month.”

  “Congratulations.”

  The word rebounds off the deeply Victorian walls. This place is like a tomb—the air musty, the lights dim.

  We’re greeted by a forty-something woman in a pantsuit who steps out of the shadows. She’s much too chipper for her working atmosphere. Heather and I take the seat across from her desk and pick out a casket, followed by a funeral schedule and music. I let Heather decide everything, deferring to her taste and her beliefs in what Joanna would want. I know better than to toss my hat into the ring. Joanna and Heather shared headstrong, stubborn personalities. Which was probably what kept them from swallowing their pride and calling each other after their fight—whatever it was about.

  Heather chooses a rose-tinted casket, simple satin, programs, classical background music.

  “I’m thinking we should have her funeral at a Catholic church,” Heather states. And then she turns to me. “Don’t you agree?”

  “Heather, you know Joanna was an atheist.”

  “But the detective said she was found wearing a necklace with the Virgin Mary on it. Maybe she changed her mind in the end, and this was what she would’ve wanted. Don’t you think?”

  I don’t totally agree with Heather, but I’m the last person who would know what Joanna wanted. She’d changed so much in the last few months of her life. We both had.

  In the silence before I answer, realization creeps in. Whoever murdered Joanna could have given her the necklace after she was killed, like a token. Or maybe it was from her lover, our baby’s father—her baby’s father, I correct. I’d wanted a family with her so damn bad….

  I sigh. “Catholic church it is.”

  As the woman helping us disappears into the back to tally up the fee, Heather turns to me.

  “You’re on the news down there,” she says flatly.

  “In L.A.?”

  She nods.

  “Christ.” I scrub my hands through my hair. My face is plaster
ed on every local news station. I can’t go anywhere without people glaring, suspecting I’ve killed my wife. Now I’m making national news? The thought revolts me. People are too eager to gossip, to sink their teeth into this case. I’m guilty before the cops even have the facts. “What are they saying?”

  “Officially? Nothing. But everyone thinks you murdered my sister. And I might believe it too, to be honest.”

  Her resemblance to Joanna strikes me again. Their candor is nothing if not cunning.

  “Knocking up your girlfriend right after your wife was murdered doesn’t exactly help your case,” she goes on, keeping her sour gaze locked on mine. “Honestly Michael, it looks like you killed Joanna to get her out of the way so you could whore around with your secretary.”

  “Jesus, Heather, I know how it looks! It’s all I can think about.” Knives pierce my temples. I attempt to rub the pain away. It doesn’t help. “But Joanna left me, not the other way around. I’m sure she told you.”

  She shakes her head. “You know the thing I don’t understand, Michael?”

  Here she goes.

  “I know the kind of hot-cold relationship you and Joanna had. I remember how thrilled she was to marry you—I’d never seen her so happy. But then she’d call late at night, sobbing, locked in the second master bedroom because she couldn’t stand to lie next to you.”

  “I remember those things too.”

  With ugly, painful clarity.

  I couldn’t sleep those nights, when the sound of her weeping seemed to fill our home. When I let my anger get the best of me and said things I didn’t mean. But Joanna could push my buttons so easily, flirting with men right in front of me. Spending outrageous amounts on bags or shoes or dresses she’d never wear, just to wave the bill in my face. She’d go out partying with Rachael or Lora and stay out until dawn, and then confront me as if I were the one in the wrong. Like clockwork, I’d lose control first. She’d forgive me in the morning of course, when tempers simmered down, but I never deserved her mercy. She would push me to say horrible, unforgiveable things that no husband should ever say to his wife, no matter the circumstances. On the surface, to everyone around us, we had everything. We were so much in love, with the perfect house, the perfect life. The perfect marriage. But hatred and bitterness simmered beneath the surface.

  “Tell me something, then.” Heather’s voice is getting a little shrill, and I flinch. “If you loved my sister so much, why would you let her walk away without making the slightest attempt to get her back? She was carrying your child, Michael. The last time you talked to her was in July, when she left you? The baby would’ve been born in November, and you—not one time in the months since then—never thought about getting in touch with her? About calling her up and asking how she and your child were doing? Even if you didn’t kill her, you have to understand that makes you a different kind of monster, but a monster just the same.”

  “You don’t know anything,” I bite out. “I wanted her to come back. I waited for months.”

  “All that waiting must’ve been so difficult while you were banging your secretary.”

  “That’s not fair.”

  “Fair?” she seethes, stabbing a finger into my chest. “I’m about to bury my sister, and you don’t think I’m being fair to you? You probably did kill her, you narcissistic bastard!”

  “I’m sorry,” a voice calls from the door. It’s the woman in the suit. She stands in the doorway, a fat binder cradled in her arms. “I’ll give you two another minute….”

  “Thank you,” I manage, but I feel sore, beat up, my insides pulverized.

  I don’t even give a damn what she overheard. What does it matter if one more person believes I killed my wife?

  Without saying another word, I fish my cell out of my back pocket and press the messages app on my phone, leading me to a long list of texts. There, near the bottom, is Joanna’s final message.

  A reminder of what I lost.

  “I haven’t showed anyone this,” I say, handing over the phone. “Not even the police. It was the last text Joanna ever sent me. Maybe you’ll understand.”

  “July sixteenth, 10:04 P.M.,” she reads aloud, her voice sounding eerily like Joanna’s. “Michael, I don’t know how to tell you this, but the baby growing inside me isn’t yours. I’m in love with the baby’s father, and the only way we can have a future is if I bury you in the past. I’m sorry. Please understand. J x.” Heather pauses, and then looks up into my eyes. “She never mentioned any of this to me.”

  “It doesn’t matter. That’s the reason I didn’t try to win her back, Heather. Right there.”

  She hands the phone back with a curse.

  “She’d been cheating on me,” I say. “That baby was his, whoever the hell he was. What good would it have done to call her, or check up on the child that wasn’t mine?” A dull numbness blooms through my chest. “It wouldn’t have changed anything. I was so hurt. And angry. I’d lost her, Heather. She didn’t want to come back.”

  She stares at me a moment. Then she snatches back the phone and rereads the message. “Wait. According to what the police told me, Joanna should’ve been five months along at the time she was killed, but she was no longer pregnant. That means she either went into labor before the murder—and the baby wouldn’t have survived—or she miscarried.”

  Suddenly my thoughts come together. Joanna staying in the second master in May, avoiding me for weeks. That could’ve been when she lost the baby. If only I’d known, I would’ve been there for her and helped her through it. Things between us could’ve turned out so differently.

  “All of that makes sense. But this doesn’t.” I point to the text. “She had to have been pregnant when she sent this. Look—she says the baby is growing inside her. And this was in July.”

  “The timeline doesn’t match up at all! Oh, Michael! Why haven’t you shown this text to the police?”

  “Because they’re going to pin this as my motive. They’re going to think I had nothing to lose, that everything was being taken from me. That I killed her because I lost my head in some kind of insane jealous rage.”

  “Did you?” she blurts, her tone accusing. She’s crying now, ugly tears dribbling down her cheeks.

  Leaning forward, I take her hands in mine. “Heather, I had nothing to do with what happened to Joanna or the baby. I swear to you I’m innocent. If I show them this, I’ll become their number one suspect.”

  She jerks away and smacks me in the chest with my phone. “You already are! If you showed them her text, it might lead them to another suspect. Maybe it’s the guy she left you for. Who was it?”

  “I don’t know. She never told me.”

  God forgive me for trying to rip the name from her throat.

  Heather’s eyes narrow to slits. “And you have no idea?”

  “None.”

  “Were you that neglectful? Did you not pay attention to how she was spending her time at all?” Before I can defend myself, she says, “No wonder she was so unhappy.”

  I don’t argue with her. Because I know I didn’t treat Joanna right, and I’ve been tormented with guilt since the last moment I saw her.

  “I’m sorry to rush you,” the woman in the suit bleats from the doorway, “but we can nail down the funeral date at another time, and we have an appointment arriving in just a few moments. Which one of you will be paying for the services today?”

  “That’s me,” I say.

  As I remove the wallet from my pocket, the woman places a binder on the desk in front of us. Opening it up, Heather peeks at the bill, swiping tears from her eyes with the back of her hand.

  “Ouch, that’ll make a dent,” she says, making a twisted face. “I guess it’s a good thing you just came into a bunch of insurance money, isn’t it?”

  DETECTIVE SHAW
r />   July sixteenth, 10:04 P.M. Michael, I don’t know how to tell you this, but the baby growing inside me isn’t yours….

  Adjusting my laptop screen to eliminate the glare from the sunlight pouring through the windows of the Point Reina Distillery, I reread Joanna’s last text: I’m in love with the baby’s father, and the only way we can have a future is if I bury you in the past….

  “Isn’t this crazy?” Patel’s frowning, stroking his coffee mug. He should lay off the caffeine.

  “I know. Joanna wasn’t pregnant in July when she died. It doesn’t make sense.”

  “Not that. This,” he says, pointing to the big-screen television mounted over the bar. “Sixty-footers are rolling in now. Those guys could die just trying to get out there.”

  He’s referring to the surfers participating in the Titans of Mavericks—a big-wave surfing competition held off Point Reina’s rocky coastline. Storm surges and monster waves in January and February beckon the most daring and reckless surfers in the world. Today, the distillery has opened early to accommodate spectators who’d rather watch the show on television and benefit from the close-up camera angles than fight the crowds on the beach. At the moment, every seat in the place is filled with a riveted surfing fan, and all eyes are glued to the big screens. All but mine.

  “Doesn’t look like Joanna contacted anyone after leaving her husband. Not her sister in Los Angeles, or the people at Harris Financial,” I say, though I don’t know if Patel’s really listening. I sip my coffee. “Michael Harris’s phone has a record of receiving the text. But he didn’t respond.”

  “At least not through a device,” Patel says glumly.

  “You think he responded by killing her.”

  He shrugs. “You know what I think about the guy.”

  “Joanna’s cell service has been left on all this time,” I argue. “If Harris killed her, it’s strange that he continued paying for service for two lines, don’t you think?”