by David Bell
I started moving forward, slowly. There were people on both sides of the little road through the cemetery, talking in small groups and getting into their cars, hugging and commiserating. I knew none of them, so I rolled on by, trying not to interfere with their grief.
On my left, I saw two clusters of people. There were four mourners in one group and five in the next. Middle-aged, well-dressed. I gave them a quick look.
In the daylight between them at a short distance, I saw a woman striding away from the service, head down, moving quickly. The way she walked, her posture . . . it struck the same chord in me as the night in the grocery store when I saw Emily. The familiarity was too much, too powerful.
She had red hair, thick and pulled back. I’d know her anywhere.
“Marissa!”
I hit the brakes. Hard.
The car stopped, and my body kept going, snapping my head forward and then back, the seat belt restraining me even though I hadn’t been going more than twenty miles an hour.
I put the car in park and unbuckled, fumbling for the door handle. I looked up one more time, and I saw the woman—Marissa?—moving farther and farther away. As I pushed the door open, a horn honked behind me.
I turned around. A car sat right behind mine, and it wasn’t just any car. It was the police cruiser that had escorted the funeral procession from the church to the cemetery. I saw the officer behind the driver’s seat, the rack of lights on top. At first, I thought he wanted to question me about Emily again, but then the cop pointed at me, his hand encased in a black leather glove, and he made a shooing gesture, telling me to get out of the way.
The people to my left, the ones who had originally caught my attention, were staring at me, probably wondering who the idiot was who had decided to stop his car in the middle of the tiny cemetery road.
“Shit,” I said.
I pulled the door shut again and put the car in drive. I twisted the wheel to the right and quickly eased over to the side of the road, my tires crunching the already dead grass. I turned the car off and waited. The police cruiser eased past me, and as it did, the officer turned his large head in my direction, his giant aviator sunglasses making his face look like an insect’s.
I pushed the door of my car open and stepped out into the road.
I hustled in the direction I had seen the woman walking, moving through the two groups standing on the side of the road. A few of the people looked at me as I passed, their heads swiveling to follow me, but I didn’t care.
For a moment, I lost sight of her. The road where my car was parked, the main one through the cemetery, intersected another road just about fifty feet past where Emily’s service was held, and that’s where I saw the woman I was looking for. She was on that other road, a good seventy-five feet from my spot, and she was opening the door of a car and getting inside.
I started running through the tombstones, my hand raised like a child in school.
“Hey,” I called. “Marissa?”
The woman didn’t hear me. Or if she heard me, she didn’t respond. She shut her door and started her engine. I couldn’t close the gap quickly enough. By the time I made it to where she’d been, she had driven off in the opposite direction, toward a side entrance of the cemetery, out onto the street and turning right, heading away.
It looked to be an out-of-state plate, not one from Kentucky, but I hadn’t managed to catch a single number.
She was gone. Simply gone.
* * *
I walked back to my car in something of a daze.
I wondered if I had really seen what I thought I had—Marissa at Emily Russell’s funeral.
Or was I just doing what Heather, and to a lesser extent Laurel, had already accused me of . . . seeing things that weren’t really there because of my unresolved feelings for Marissa? My twenty-year-old wound continued to warp everything I did in the present.
“You didn’t get her?”
The voice snapped me out of it, and I turned around and saw one of the men from the group of people I’d seen milling around after the service. He looked to be in his sixties and had a lot of white hair and a ruddy face.
“Did any of you talk to her?” I asked.
They all looked at one another. No one said anything fast enough for me.
“Did you talk to her?” I asked again. “Do any of you know her?”
A woman who stood near the man with the white hair said, “I’ve never seen her before.”
“We didn’t talk to her,” the man with the white hair said. “But I saw her in the back of the church.”
“Was she alone?” I asked.
The man gave me a long look, the corners of his mouth turning down while he studied me. “You seemed to know her,” he said. “You called her name. ‘Marissa.’ Didn’t you say that?”
I looked at all of the faces. Some showed concern, and I could tell others were thinking more about getting on to the next thing and then going home.
“I thought I knew her,” I said. “I thought she was an old friend, but maybe I was wrong.”
I started to walk away, but the man’s voice brought me back.
“You might think you were mistaken, but I don’t think you were,” he said. “While you were over there talking to that woman in the heavy coat, that woman whose name you called, that Marissa, she was standing over here, staring in your direction. She didn’t take her eyes off you for one second.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
For his part, Riley acted happy to see me. When I walked into the room, he bounded over and sniffed at my pants leg, wagging his tail. Then he gladly accepted some ear scratching. His food bowl looked almost untouched.
“We’ve got somewhere to go, boy,” I said. “Not home just yet.”
I gathered up my things, hooked Riley to his leash, and carried my one bag out to the car, hoping no one saw the dog. Then I stopped up front and paid my bill. On my way back to the car, my phone rang. It was work.
“Nick?”
It was Olivia Bloom, and she sounded cautious and cheery. She always sounded that way, as though she wasn’t sure she was as happy as she thought she was.
“How are you, Olivia?”
“I wanted to check in with you,” she said. “Has anything else happened with that . . . police case or whatever it is?”
“Police case?” I asked. “You mean the murder investigation.”
“Yes, that.”
“I don’t know anything else,” I said. “They haven’t solved it as far as I know. And I’m a person of interest, whatever that means.”
“I see,” she said, clearly thinking my situation over.
“I’m at the girl’s funeral right now, down in Kentucky.”
“The dead girl?” Olivia asked.
“Yes, the dead girl. Emily Russell.”
“Is that a good idea, Nick?” she asked. “What if someone sees you? You know,” she said, her voice lowering to a whisper, “sometimes the police look for the killer at the victim’s funeral.”
“I didn’t kill her, Olivia,” I said. “I just felt compelled to be here.”
There was a long pause while Olivia processed what I had just told her. Tried to process, I guessed. It was a lot to take in, having a person of interest in a murder case working in your office.
I reached the car and slid in. Riley was in the backseat, chewing on a biscuit I had given him. He gave me a look that said, Home, please. I held up my index finger to him, asking him to wait. Was I on my way to that special place reserved for people who talked only to their pets?
“What did you need, Olivia?” I asked. “Are you calling to tell me to stay away longer because you think I’m a killer?”
“Nick. How could you say something like that? We’re not firing you. I was actually calling to ask you back. You’d have to work in the office for a w
hile, until all of this is cleared up. I’m not sure we can have you out in the field yet.”
“Of course.”
“You can come back tomorrow morning,” she said. “And we’ll be happy to have you. We miss you. And, let’s be honest, you’re one of our very best caseworkers. We need you.”
I looked at the clock. It was just after noon. If I started driving right then, I’d be home within three hours. I could get a good night’s sleep and head into the office first thing in the morning, bright-eyed and ready for whatever the world threw at me.
But if I stayed away longer . . .
“I have vacation saved up, don’t I?” I asked.
“Yes. Quite a bit,” she said. “You haven’t used it for a couple of years, even though I try to get you to. Would you like to go on a vacation? Maybe that would be good for you.”
“I’m not going on a vacation,” I said. “But I’m going to use the time I have saved. I’m taking the rest of the week off. And maybe next week as well.”
“Next week?” she asked.
“Yes. Is that a problem?”
Olivia’s concern only deepened. “Nick, level with me about this. You say you didn’t kill this girl.”
“Emily,” I said.
“Emily. Right. You say you didn’t kill her, and I believe you about that. You’re so kind and compassionate. I know you’d never hurt someone. But are you in some kind of trouble? You don’t really sound like yourself. You sound distracted and maybe a little down. Is there something I can do to help you with this?”
I started the car and turned the heater on. The day was turning bright and clear, but still cold. “I’m going to ask you something that may sound a little off the wall.”
“Shoot,” she said.
“Do you ever think there are things going on that are bigger than us and maybe beyond our comprehension?” I asked.
“Are you speaking in existential terms?” Olivia asked.
“Real terms. In the here and now.”
“Nick, I work for a small government agency. I feel that way all the time.”
“Then you have a sense of how I’m feeling,” I said. “And I don’t think there’s much of anything you can do to help me with that. But thanks for understanding.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
The Russells lived in an upscale neighborhood. The houses on both sides of their street rose high above me like soaring, elegant castles, with wide, expansive lawns, and I felt lucky no one stopped me at the entrance to the subdivision and asked to see my papers.
I wound through the streets, a dwarf among the mansions. Riley made a little whining noise from the backseat. He knew we’d gone off in some different direction, one that brought us to a place rather unlike home.
I made the last turn and saw some cars in front of a house at the end of the cul-de-sac. I turned my head slightly and said to Riley, “I won’t be long.”
When I came closer to the group of cars, I saw two police cruisers sitting at the end of the driveway.
I slowed down and took in the scene. Three uniformed officers stood in the driveway talking to some of the well-dressed mourners. I made a slow, easing turn around the cul-de-sac. Maybe the police were there providing moral support. Or maybe they were there because someone fell and hit their head. Or because someone had chest pains, and the ambulance was on its way. Or maybe they were looking for a person of interest, someone they suspected of something more sinister.
I decided not to stay.
Except as soon as I completed my circle around the cul-de-sac and prepared to accelerate up the street and out of everybody’s lives, someone in the driveway pointed at me.
It was the man with the white hair from the cemetery. He pointed at me, and then one of the police officers turned and walked toward the street. He waved his hand, asking me—ordering me—to slow down and stop.
For a brief moment—a very brief one—I considered just leaving.
But I didn’t.
I stopped the car in the middle of the street and waited for the officer to reach me.
* * *
When he did, I powered down the window. The cop was young with jet-black hair slicked back against his skull. He wore short sleeves and stood next to my car with his hands on his hips. I looked behind him and saw the man with the white hair gesticulating wildly to the other two officers. Occasionally he pointed at me.
Now what?
The cop asked me for identification, which I provided. And then he asked me what I was doing at the Russells’ house. An image of Mick Brosius flashed across my mind. Should I call him? But what could he do? And I figured there was no lie I could tell, nor any reason to tell one. The man with the white hair had seen me at the cemetery. Why else would I be showing up at the Russells’ house?
“I was at the funeral,” I said. “I came by . . . honestly I came by because I wanted to see if someone I knew was here.”
“And are they?” the cop asked.
“I don’t know. I haven’t been inside yet.”
One side of his mouth curled up a little.
“Can you tell me who this person is you’re looking for?”
Not an easy question to answer. Not an easy question at all.
“An old friend of mine. From college,” I said. “Someone I haven’t seen in a long, long time. It looked like her, but when I said her name at the cemetery, she didn’t turn around. I think I was mistaken, but I came here just to make sure.”
The cop made a noise in the back of his throat. “Hmmph.”
I didn’t know if it was a good noise or a bad one.
“I’m probably just going to go home,” I said. “I need to get back to Ohio.”
“Ohio?” He still held my license. He looked down at it again. “Eastland?”
“Yes, that’s where I live.”
“Isn’t that where Ms. Russell was killed?” he asked.
“Yes, it is. That’s how I know about her. Because I live there. In fact . . .” It crossed my mind that I shouldn’t be revealing the next part of the story to this officer, that he would almost certainly take it the wrong way. But I assumed he would find out pretty quickly anyway. “She might have been looking for me when she died.”
“Really?” he asked. “Why might she have been looking for you?”
“I don’t know.”
I told him about the encounter in the grocery store and the address in Emily’s pocket. I couldn’t tell if he knew all these details or not. I assumed someone in Richmond did, a detective or someone important in the police department. The officer I was speaking to listened patiently, his face calm and encouraging. When I was finished, he looked at my license again.
“Do you mind sitting tight, Mr. Hansen?” he asked.
“I do want to get on the road.”
“This won’t take long.” He started to move away, and then turned back to the car. “You aren’t going to drive off, are you? While I’m gone?”
“You have my license,” I said.
He didn’t say anything.
“No,” I said. “I’m not going to drive off. I’m going to sit here with my dog.”
The officer flicked his eyes toward the backseat at Riley. Then he walked over to the cruisers and the other officers. The man with the white hair had wandered off, satisfied that the police were handling me.
I waited for fifteen minutes. I thought about calling Laurel and asking for advice, but what could she tell me to do? Cooperate? I did call my lawyer, Mick Brosius, but the call went to voice mail, and I decided against leaving a message. I figured the police would be letting me go on my way momentarily, so why get Brosius worked up.
While the first officer, the one with my license in his hand, spoke, the other officers surreptitiously glanced in my direction and then went back to listening. Then the first officer go
t in one of the cars, and I saw him using a cell phone.
I still didn’t know why the police were even there. As Olivia had mentioned, I knew they sometimes came to the funerals of crime victims, hoping to see if the perpetrator showed up. But they wouldn’t be so obvious if they were doing that, would they?
The officer finally came back, tapping my license against his thumbnail. He handed it back to me and said, “I spoke to Detective Reece in Eastland. He confirmed your story.”
“Good.”
“I also spoke to my supervisor here,” he said, tilting his head toward the cruiser. “We considered bringing you in to talk some more, but in the end, we’re going to let Detective Reece worry about you. He seems to have the investigation under control.”
“Thanks.”
“Do us all a favor, Mr. Hansen.” He pointed in the direction of the Russells’ house. “Please leave the Russell family alone. They’ve been through enough. Considering your proximity to the crime and possible involvement, you’d be better served by keeping your distance and letting them grieve in peace.”
“Sounds like good advice,” I said. “But I wasn’t involved in the way you’re implying.”
“Not my problem.”
“I just have one question,” I said.
The officer made that low sound in his throat again. “Hmmph.”
“Why are the police here in the first place?” I asked. “Is something wrong?”
The officer looked back at the Russells’ house, and then he swung his head back in my direction. He leaned a little closer. “There was a disturbance earlier, just after the family returned from the cemetery.”
“What kind of disturbance?” I asked.
The officer’s eyes narrowed. “Did you not just hear the advice I gave to you, oh, maybe thirty seconds ago, Mr. Hansen?” He pointed up the street, telling me the direction to go.
