by Jaye Maiman
My first impulse was to fire off a round of questions, but I shifted gears reluctantly. Tony had taught me that a truly good detective had to size up people rapidly, and instinctively track the right path around his or her defenses. My guts told me Manny was a raccoon trapped in a hot attic, and I had better move slow and smart.
“Let me go inside first...” I said, gently taking hold of one elbow and leading her into the alcove. As we crossed the threshold into the house, she slumped against me. A whimper rolled through her and I squeezed her shoulder. She whispered something in Spanish as I eased her into a leather armchair. The house still smelled of alcohol, but the odor was fainter now. The silence, on the other hand, had grown palpable, rubbing against me like burlap against raw skin.
Manny shuddered again and moaned, “I cannot believe this is happening...” Her bottom lip was cracked and bleeding. My mouth went dry just from looking at her.
I turned away and asked, “Can I get you something to drink?”
“Please,” she said, but her hand was grasping mine tightly.
I knelt beside her. “Breathe deep. That’s it. Close your eyes.” She followed my instructions, but still I could sense her struggling for solace. She had to find that safe place in her head, a cool tunnel with no outlet, where thought and pain no longer had fuel to burn. I knew the place well — well enough to know that no one else could provide the directions.
I withdrew my hand and fled into the kitchen. The air was cold and acrid. I opened the freezer, found some coffee beans, and ground them with a vengeance. The aroma made the room feel somehow safer.
As I poured water into the coffee pot, Manny slipped behind me. “Do they suspect me?”
The question startled me. And made me instantly distrustful.
I faced her. Wearing a loose-fitting navy dress with a cinch waist, Manny was an attractive, heavyset woman, with the type of body Rubens loved to paint. But it was her eyes that made her truly extraordinary. Olive green and hungry, they probed my expression.
“Manny, what really happened last night?”
She shook her head and turned away. “The coffee smells good.”
She stood at the sink, her feet planted at the border of the stain that marked Noreen’s fall. The only sound in the room was the percolating coffee pot.
“Noreen was my lover.” She uttered the words as if they were a plea. I stared at her back and waited. Finally she turned around. “I am not a murderer.” Anger had replaced the grief, and I realized too late that I had stepped into a sinkhole.
“Why would anyone suspect you?” I asked, trying in vain for a neutral tone.
Her response was a sneer. “Thank you for the coffee, Robin. I think I will be better off alone for now.”
She had dismissed me, but I wasn’t ready to leave yet. I poured two cups of coffee and handed her one. My wrist almost gave way before she finally took the mug. I followed her into the living room and sat down opposite her. She leaned back in the sofa and glared at me as if we were enemies now and neither of us was about to make peace. “Can you think of anyone who’d have a reason—”
“To kill her,” she interrupted with a burst of anger. “Almost anyone she ever met.”
Despite myself, I felt accusation creep into my eyes. Manny picked up on it instantly.
“You think I killed Reenie.” It was a statement.
I tried to backtrack. “Why do you even assume she was killed? Everyone I’ve talked to assumes it was an accident.” Everyone but Manny and Helen, I noted with a chill.
Her eyes flickered with fear. Or perhaps recognition. Whatever it was, it convinced me that Manny knew more than she was saying. She wet her index figure with the pink tip of her tongue, then rubbed a spot on her black pump. “When I left here last night, she was alive.”
“What time was that?”
“Midnight.”
I made a mental note of the time. “Was she drunk?”
She gulped the coffee, then winced as if the liquid were too hot. I knew better. She was stalling for time. Lucky for me, Manny was a lousy liar. “Whiskey,” she said at last. Her voice was wavering again.
“I didn’t notice whiskey at the party,” I said doubtfully. Actually, I hadn’t looked further than the food.
“She wasn’t drinking there,” she said, her eyes darting everywhere but never resting on me. “It must have started afterward. When she got home.”
“Curious. There aren’t any bottles in the house. I know. I looked.”
Her head snapped up. The trapped-raccoon look had returned. “Who the hell do you think you are? This is my house —”
My internal alarm went off. “Tell me, Manny, who inherits?”
She stood up. “That’s enough, Robin.” “You inherit the house, don’t you?”
The open door and Manny’s fiery gaze told me everything I needed to know.
Or almost everything. I spilled my coffee on my lap. Honestly leaping up from the pain, I knocked over the lamp next to the armchair. Manny instinctively retreated into the kitchen for some paper towels, giving me time to scramble upstairs to Noreen’s bedroom. I retrieved the metal file that I had wisely forgotten to lock and started shoving papers under the belt of my jeans.
From downstairs I could hear Manny cursing my name.
“I’m in the bathroom,” I shouted to head her off. We met at the top of the stairs. I kissed her hot cheek before exiting the house, the stolen goods slipping halfway down my thigh before I reached the car.
I unloaded the crumpled papers from my pants and sat down in front of the smoldering fire. There was a birth certificate mixed in with the papers.
Noreen Sue Finnegan was born at 8:34 p.m. on August 3, 1952, to Adelaide and John Finnegan. Place of birth: Wayne County, Gladstone, Michigan. As I read her father’s occupation, my lips puckered with surprise. Apparently, John Finnegan had been a police officer. A row of dashes filled the occupation box under her mother’s name.
I marveled yet again at the wealth of information this one document yielded. I learned the name of the doctor who performed the delivery, the location of the hospital where Noreen was born, the family’s home address, the number of children Adelaide had given birth to previously (one), and that Adelaide Finnegan had been tested for syphilis during the pregnancy. I had no idea what I was going to do with this information yet, but that didn’t detract from my pleasure at having obtained it.
I called Jill back and asked her to check if Michigan had a state reunion registry.
After a moment she said, “You got lucky this time, Rob,” and read off the number for the state adoption department in Lansing. I jotted it down and started concocting my latest fiction.
The woman who answered was practically in tears by the time I finished explaining how I had two months to live and desperately needed to locate siblings before I passed away.
“I’d love to help you, honey, but I’m going to need a written request and a copy of your birth certificate.”
I’ve done adoption searches in the past. Few processes are more infuriating. Storming through the paper blockade was often a herculean task — one I didn’t have time for in this case. I reminded her that Thanksgiving was just days away, and then I went for the jugular. “Please. I have so little to be thankful for...” My voice trailed off mournfully. Let her fill in the blanks. Experience has taught me that few people can resist playing the hero.
I silently began counting to ten. I didn’t make it past five.
“Hold on. Let me see what I can do.”
Ten minutes later I was ready to hang up. My friend in Michigan returned just in time. “So sorry. We’re short-staffed this week.” I could hear file drawers squeaking in the background, then the line grew unnaturally quiet. Speaking with trained delicacy, she said, “Sweetie, you must have forgotten. You already registered with us.” Another uncomfortable beat of silence passed. “None of your siblings have contacted us.”
The problem with lying so convincingly is t
hat sometimes you fool yourself. Inexplicably, my eyes filled. My voice cracked as I said, “So no one in my family is looking for me,” almost forgetting that Noreen was the orphan and not me.
“At least not yet. But don’t give up. They may not know the registry exists.” She started rattling off a plethora of standard adoption-search techniques. I knew them well—well enough to know how rarely they work.
I hung up, strangely depressed. With that one phone call, I suddenly felt a kinship with Noreen I had never experienced while she was alive. Whether it helped the investigation or not, I was now determined to find the siblings she had so desperately sought.
The good news was that I already had more information than I commonly had when searching for an adoptee’s birth parents. I picked up the phone and dialed the National Locator Cross-Street Directory Service. By the time I hung up, my ear was bruised and the screen of my laptop computer filled.
John Finnegan’s name disappeared from the directory in 1964 which meant he had either moved or died. The service confirmed the date of death. October 15, 1964. I had to resist shouting “Bingo!” into the phone. I next obtained the names, addresses, and phone numbers of nine families living near the Finnegans at the time of their death. Only one of them was still at the same address. I tried that number three times before I got frustrated and forwarded the information to Jill, who made a disparaging comment about my pro bono generosity. I didn’t care. Noreen’s one-hundred-dollar deposit was still sitting on the dresser upstairs. I wasn’t about to let her down.
I could smell mothballs, and then fire. All at once, the closet was blazing and I was trapped in the corner. Handcuffs bound me to the wall and my mouth was filling with blood so fast I couldn’t scream. Then someone was slapping me, the palm slicing across my face like a metal bar. The gun barrel entered my mouth. The metal was scalding, tasting like charcoal. Clicking. Clicking.
My father’s face flared with revulsion as he pulled the trigger.
I jumped up, my heart racing and the entire length of my body damp with sweat. A new nightmare. A new reason to avoid sleep. I threw the blankets aside and stumbled for the light. A glance at my watch told me I had slept less than three hours. Four o’clock in the morning and my adrenaline was running haywire. I dropped to the floor and did fifteen pushups. When that didn’t work, I raided the kitchen and began assaulting the demons with Yoo-Hoos and Lucky Charms. I had resorted to picking the marshmallow rainbow bits out of the box of Lucky Charms, when I realized whatI needed.
K.T.
More than anything else, I wanted to curl up in her smooth arms and listen to her heartbeat. I didn’t care what time it was. I dialed the number of her Manhattan apartment and waited, each ring making my throat tighter. I was out on a limb whose strength could not be known. All at once, I began trembling uncontrollably. My fingers felt like ice and my cheeks burned.
“Hello.”
At first I didn’t recognize her voice, thick as it was with sleep and surprise. I hesitated. What if it was someone else?
“Robin?” She sounded suddenly awake. “Is that you?”
Every muscle, every organ, tripped into spasm, tugging at my words. I balled my fist and rhythmically pounded the kitchen counter. The pain wouldn’t stop.
“Robin,” she repeated. The sound of my name, stated so gently, struck me like a battering ram. I folded, dropping to the cold, tiled floor that still smelled faintly of flour.
“I need you, K.T. Please.” I hung up, more terrified than I had ever been in my life. And never more alone.
I was still huddled against the pantry door when K.T. arrived at the cabin, nearly two hours later. She came in with the sunlight.
The warmth hardened me.
I stood up and blew my nose with a paper towel. The roughness felt right. “Sorry about last night,” I said. “I had this stupid nightmare...”
“Stop.” KT. ran a finger along the base of my neck, following my hairline. Goose bumps rose at her touch. I reached around her, pulling her toward me, anxious to lose myself in her mouth.
She pulled back tenderly and shook her head. “That would be too easy.”
I hate intelligent women.
She wanted truth? Fine. “Yesterday I remembered that my father tried to kill me. After I murdered my sister. True poetic justice, don’t you think?” I was defiant, angry, and in control.
Break out the champagne. The real Robin Miller was back.
But then I looked into K.T.’s eyes, the color of blue spruce in early morning light. She saw through me and disregarded the bravado I had adopted so long ago that even I can barely distinguish when it’s real and when it’s not. K.T. saw me as I was. Frightened and needy and aching for something in which I no longer believed. And she didn’t avert her eyes.
In an instant, I transformed from oak to willow, my spirit bowing, accepting the hard wind blowing out of my past rather than bracing against it.
Suddenly, under K.T.’s silent gaze, I realized I would not break. I lifted her hand and kissed each knuckle. “God, I missed you.” And with those simple words, I crossed from nightmare to dream.
Sleep doesn’t come easy to me. I’ve had bouts of insomnia that lasted weeks, till I finally collapsed into near-coma states at friends’ homes or in restaurant booths. Once, I slept for three hours on a subway car and awoke to find both my briefcase and my shoes gone. With K.T. holding me to her breast, her steady heartbeat drumming in my ear, I fell asleep in minutes. When I woke up, I was curled around her like a vine around a branch.
K.T. tapped my nose with a square fingertip. “Dagnabbit, woman, you are one stubborn son-of-a-bitch. I knew you needed to sleep. When I was growing up in Wizard Clip—”
I burst out laughing. “I went to sleep with an angel and woke up with Daisy Mae, direct from Dogpatch.”
Concern flitted over her features, then she grinned. “Sometimes, chile, I is afeered that you is one brick shy of a full load.”
“Did you really grow up in a place called Wizard Clip?”
“Wizard Clip, West Virginia. Population...fifty-seven. Only twelve of them weren’t relatives. Nearest real town was Stinking Gut. That’s where the mine was located.” The tease had left her voice. I had the distinct impression that K.T. was contending with one of her own demons.
“Did most of them work at the mine?”
She sat up in bed, steepled her hands over her nose, then rubbed the corners of her eyes wearily and said, “All of them did —except the women, children, and my father.” Her smile was bitter. “He was the radical, the ‘hillwilliam,’” she added, then noticed my puzzlement. “Folks called anyone with aspirations a ‘hillwilliam’ or sometimes just a ‘biggety ole hillbilly.’ In other words, my father was a snob.” She said the words proudly. “I didn’t appreciate it then, but he was killing himself to get us out of that town. Away from that damn mine and the narrow-minded drones that worked there, day in, day out, carrying the coal home on their clothes, in their lungs, on their filthy lips.”
This was a side of K.T. I hadn’t seen before. When she spoke of the mine, her face distorted with rage. And something else. Shame or distaste. Perhaps both.
“What happened after your father died?”
She pursed her mouth and said in a tight voice, “Oh, life got real interesting then, believe me.” She gazed over my head toward the nightstand. “It’s lunchtime. Why don’t I head out to the store and stock up the house. Tonight, I’ll make you a southern dinner like you ain’t never seen.”
She had ended the history lesson a little too abruptly. K.T. was hiding something, but I couldn’t begin to guess what it might be.
I watched her slink out of bed and stretch luxuriously in the insistent sunlight. She was as sleek as an Abyssinian cat, with a body so tight my eyes could trace her muscles from across the room as surely as with my palm. Long and compact rather than slim, her body excited me in a new way. I was surprised to realize that I was slightly breathless and already aching for her to
uch.
I scampered across the bed and tackled her from the side, pinning her wrists to the floor with a mischievous laugh. “Now, you are mine,” I said in a mock German accent. “You vill not argue.”
Her eyes widened and her lips trembled. But the look wasn’t excitement. I rolled off hurriedly, slamming my hip onto the pine planks. As she sat up and crossed her hands over her chest, her shoulders shuddered as if a brisk wind had passed through the room. I wrapped my legs and arms around her from behind and rocked her gently. She responded with what at first sounded like a sob, but rapidly became a self-conscious giggle.
“You startled me. I didn’t realize you were such an insatiable beast,” she said lightly. I wasn’t buying the tone, but I wasn’t about to push her.
I nuzzled her neck and whispered, “You promised me a Southern dinner. You better deliver the goods tonight.”
Just then, the phone rang. I disentangled myself and hopped over to the bed.
“Robin Miller?” The male voice was tentative and familiar.
“Speaking.”
“How’s your volleyball serve doing these days?” He had to be Dean Flynn, my water-volleyball buddy who lived near Noreen. “Dean?”
“Dr. Dean to you,” he said playfully. “I understand that you wanted to talk to me. I’m free now, if you have the time.”
I glanced over to K.T., who was strapping a bra around breasts the color of marzipan. I sighed and said, “Give me five minutes.”
Chapter Six
The Flynn house was remarkable, even in a community known for its haute rustic architecture. A modern, cedar-shingled colonial with a wraparound porch and forest-green shutters, the house was rounded by young birch trees and thick rhododendron shrubs. The sun-dappled driveway was strewn with red ocher stones that rattled under my sneakers. I did a little tap dance and then headed toward the front steps. Dean was sitting on a glider watching me with amusement.
