Half Life (A Sam Larkin Mystery)

by Helen Cothran

  .

  So it was that the afternoon after I met Angel, I headed out for the Thorntons’. On my way, I stopped at Oasis Shop N’ Save and bought a bunch of cheap flowers. The bouquet of yellow carnations looked a trifle cheery for condolences, but it would have to do. I was counting on the flowers to make Matthew and Faith feel obligated to invite me in. They would not be happy to see me, but they had doubtless been raised to observe social niceties, such as welcoming someone who comes to give condolences.

  I hoped I was right as I stood on the Thorntons’ doorstep in the brutal wind. One icy gust nearly knocked me off the stoop. After what seemed an hour, Matthew finally opened the door. He looked at me, looked at the flowers, looked back into the house. He just stood there staring at me, his mouth flaccid, blue eyes wide. I guessed that he was wondering what Faith would want him to do. Politeness required that he invite me in, but his expression suggested that Faith would expect him to get rid of me, and fast. While he stood there vacillating, I thrust the flowers into his hand and took a step forward. Automatically, his fingers curled around the bunch and he took a step back. Grudgingly he mumbled, “Come in.” At least I think he did, I could hardly hear him. Maybe he said “shove off,” but I ignored this possibility and scooted past him into the house.

  The Thorntons’ home felt close and dark and silent. If the kids were in residence, they had been hushed to within an inch of their lives. No homey scent of baking cookies or fresh coffee filled the house this time, and without their warmth the house seemed dreary. Maybe this was what grief did, strip away the illusion of home as safe haven, demolish the cozy belief that when you are home nothing bad can happen to you. Life long ago punctured that illusion for me. My mother died at home. Enough said.

  While I thought about the chill stillness of his house, Matthew didn’t move an inch. He still stood by the open door, flowers in hand, staring at me. I opened my mouth to say something that would move things along, when Faith leaped into my vision.

  “Matthew, shut the door!” She barked at him, more to wake him up than to get the door closed. She turned slowly toward me, her protuberant eyes fierce.

  Matthew closed the door like an automaton. He slumped up to us, shoulders sagging, head down. He handed the flowers to Faith.

  She snatched them out of his hand and narrowed her eyes at me.

  I smiled weakly, said in a croaky voice, “I wanted to give my condolences.”

  Faith frowned at me and tossed the flowers on the hall table like so much trash. No lovely vase for my sensitive gesture, I guess. Before she could tell me to get the hell out, I walked past her into the living room and plopped down on the sofa. To Matthew, who stood there like a wood carving, I said, “I am so sorry about Dr. Cornwell’s passing. You can’t imagine how shocked I was when I read about what happened.”

  Matthew blinked a couple of times and swallowed hard. He inched away from Faith and sat down gingerly in the battered chair across from me. He looked at me with his big beautiful eyes, his expression full of hurt and need.

  Faith strode into the living room but did not sit down. She stood beside the sofa, presumably so she could look down on me—which she would have in any event since she is about a foot taller. I knew she wanted to be there to keep Matthew from saying anything stupid. I also got the impression she didn’t sit because she wanted to let me know what she thought of my visit. She emphasized her disapproval and disdain by pulling a cell phone from her pocket and starting to text. I wasn’t fooled though—I could see her eyes glance at me every few seconds, and her whole body radiating anger. While her thumbs worked away, I guessed she was merely writing nonsense. Or possibly her thumbs typed, “I will kill Sam Larkin.”

  Matthew stared at Faith, probably perplexed that she was making him handle this visit. Usually, she took over. I was a bit flummoxed myself. Maybe she couldn’t trust herself to talk with me without doing grave bodily harm. Or maybe Cornwell’s death and their grief simply made my presence in their home insignificant.

  I knew Faith wouldn’t put up with me for long, so I quickly asked Matthew, “How are you holding up?”

  He swiped a black curl of hair out of his eyes and mumbled, “It was a shock. I just can’t believe it.” He looked pale and exhausted. Despite the fatigue, though, he twitched with nervous energy. He tapped his foot, and his fingers picked at his cuticles, which were red and ragged. His frequent glances at Faith were pregnant with emotion, but it was hard to tell what exactly he was feeling. Irritation for sure. Confusion. And something else. Fear? Anger? His blue eyes darted from me to Faith and back again. He picked at his cuticles.

  Faith, on the other hand, looked cool and controlled, though I knew she was pissed as hell at me. She ignored Matthew’s glances and our conversation and continued texting with deliberate calm. What the hell was she typing, a novella? Nobody but a teenager would have that much to say. Her purposeful shunning of me was starting to get on my nerves.

  Just to irk her, I said, “So, Faith, when will the service be held?”

  Her thumbs paused over the keypad, and she turned her broad flat face toward me slowly. It was like watching the moon rise over the horizon. “They haven’t released the body yet,” she said as though this were my fault. “Arrangements can’t be made until then.”

  I thought her use of the term “the body” seemed a bit callous from someone who knew the man intimately. I thought most people would probably say “his body” or “him.” Cornwell was the man responsible for her marriage, he had convinced Matthew he was straight, had put the two of them together. She owed the man the life she was living—one would have thought she’d be a little more distraught. Then again, things had soured lately between Cornwell and her husband, for whatever reason. Maybe neither one of the Thorntons was as distraught as I had expected both of them to be.

  After treating me to a grimace of displeasure, Faith went back to texting.

  Two could play at this game. “Will you be helping with the funeral arrangements?” I asked her.

  Her sigh was audible. “Of course.”

  I looked at Matthew. He stared at Faith, picked at his cuticles. I realized that he didn’t really look sad. His eyes were clear, no hint of redness or puffiness, so he had not been crying. He just looked stressed and nervous. And Faith looked irritated and angry. As I sat there thinking about my next move, I realized that the tension in that house was explosive. I had expected grief, and certainly irritation at my visit, but not this—what? Discord for sure. And somehow, inexplicably, anger.

  What did this mean? I was assuming that one of the Thorntons had killed Cornwell—and perhaps Pete, too, if Cornwell himself hadn’t done so. Did the emotion in this house support my theory? Matthew was more nervous than usual, but he was still his usual rabbity self, shy and unconfident. Faith, too, was characteristically aloof and bossy. Their relationship felt the same, as well—cool but congenial, Faith orchestrating their relations, Matthew conforming. But it felt different, too, less warm, less trusting, less loving, though I had never felt much of any of that between them. Did this mean that one of them was a killer? Or that both were? Or that one was covering for the other? Or did it simply mean they were reeling from the news of Cornwell’s murder?

  All of these musings had eaten up valuable time. Faith was going to throw me out if I stayed much longer. Hurriedly, I asked, “Do you think the deputies are right in thinking that some drug dealer killed Dr. Cornwell?”

  Faith kept pretending to text, but I saw her thumbs stop moving. Matthew, on the other hand, immediately jumped to Cornwell’s defense. Despite their recent differences, Matthew obviously felt some respect for the man or at least an obligation to defend him. “No way. Dr. Cornwell did not take drugs. The cops are crazy if they believe that.”

  Faith gave up all pretense of texting. She glared at her husband, listened fiercely to every word. When he finished talking she turned to me, her bulbous eyes searching my face. It was like having your mind probed by an alien. W
hat the hell was she doing?

  When she didn’t say anything, I asked Matthew, “If a drug dealer didn’t do it, then who did? Someone killed your friend.”

  A blank look came over his face, and I could see him retreat inside his head. His body grew still, hands tense but motionless. “I just can’t imagine who would do that,” he said finally, his voice cracking. “I mean, maybe he did do drugs. Maybe I liked him too much to see it. Maybe I don’t want bad things said about him. He was very good to me, he changed my life. I guess it’s just hard to think he would do something like take drugs. I looked up to him. But I guess he could have. I didn’t know everything about him.”

  First Matthew insisted Cornwell wouldn’t do drugs, then, when pushed, he said he might have. Interesting flip-flop. And quite a wandering one, too. That’s what Matthew did when he found himself in a corner: He babbled. As I studied him I could feel Faith studying me. I knew I was about to be thrown out.

  I tossed out a bogus theory to see how Matthew would react. “If Cornwell was killed because of drugs, then Pete Castillo’s murder must have been because of drugs, too.”

  Matthew flinched when I said Pete’s name, his whole body retracting. I saw his eyes flit to Faith, then away. His fingers started tearing at his cuticles again. “Yeah, someone like Pete was probably into drugs,” he said, seeming to forget that he had told me he didn’t know Pete.

  Without warning, Faith slammed her phone down on the end table and stomped over to me. Her bulky body loomed over mine, and her giant head filled my vision.

  Uh-oh.

  She growled, “I don’t know what you mean by coming to our house in our time of mourning to grill us. I think you’d better leave. Now.”

  I continued to sit there despite my thumping heart. “I’ll go,” I said mildly, glancing first at Matthew, then at Faith. But one more question. “Matthew, on my previous visit, you told me you didn’t know Pete. But just now you acted as if you did. I’d like to know why you lied to me before.”

  His eyes grew wide and his fingers dug into his cuticles so deeply they drew blood. He would need a transfusion at this rate. “I didn’t say I knew Pete. I didn’t know him at all. I was just speaking, like, generally. Like how you do when you know something about someone, like him being gay, without really knowing the person. You know.”

  I hadn’t told Matthew that Pete was gay. His nervous rambling was getting him in deeper every second. Before Faith could intervene, I said quickly, “And why did you at first dispute the theory that Cornwell was killed because of drugs and then two seconds later endorse it?”

  Faith had had enough. Before Matthew could get into more trouble, she grabbed my elbow and pulled me off the couch. For a moment my left foot actually dangled off the floor, she was that strong. “That’s enough,” she spat. “I mean it. Leave this minute.”

  She wrenched my arm and started propelling me toward the front door. Her breathing was loud and labored, and her grip was so tight I lost circulation in my arm. She yanked open the door and pushed me through the open doorway onto the porch. Before she slammed the door in my face, she hissed, “I’d watch my backside if I were you.”

  When the door hit home, I could have heard the slam at my house two miles away.

  Faith had threatened me.

  Good.

  Now maybe things would shake loose.

  32

  The morning after my “condolence” visit with Matthew and Faith I took Lacy for a long run in the desert. I needed to clear my mind, get back into my exercise routine. My nose felt almost normal now, and my finger didn’t throb much as long as I kept it elevated. The dog and I needed to get out, burn some calories, breathe the cool fresh air of spring. I loved running in desolate places. The quiet solitude and open space provide a healthy reprieve from people and their dramas. This run was especially enjoyable because the desert looked gorgeous. Every day that passed saw the arrival of more wildflowers until the hills were covered in pink, yellow, and lavender. The air was cool and still, the gray light making the wildflowers glow as if lit from within. Rain threatened, but if any moisture fell, it would be a gentle misting, not the torrential rainstorms we get in August. The beauty and peace of the remote trail I was running enticed me to go farther than I had planned. I strode along, running shoes crunching on the sandy trail, heart working hard, muscles warm and fluid. Lacy ran up ahead in search of jackrabbits. Every so often she circled back to check on me.

  As I chugged along over the rolling hills covered in verbena and lupine, my mind drifted. The first place it went was to Hattie’s puzzling allegory. My old friend had chastised me for being happy that Eddie was sad about Gabby. Then she had launched into a tale about her sister Agnes, who lost her best friend Mary Beth by acting jealous. This story had been followed by revelations about my mother’s appreciation of my independence. I had been trying to make sense of these seemingly disjointed threads without success. Hattie has an oblique way of making points, but she is wise and knows me well. I figured that if she had taken the time to construct this riddle, it was worth figuring out.

  As I jogged along under the low black clouds, I guessed that her stories weren’t about Eddie or Agnes or my mother but about me. Hattie had been trying to tell me something about myself, something I wasn’t in tune with. She had called me “independent.” But that was no revelation, I understood that about myself. Or did I? What did independence mean, exactly? Did it mean I should never marry? Or even live with someone? Hattie had said my mother appreciated my independence because it meant I would never suffer like she had from the loss of a man. Of course, that didn’t necessarily mean she was saying I’d never be with a man, only that if he died or left, I wouldn’t feel devastated as my mother had when my dad died. Did that mean I would never love anyone as completely as she did? And what did all this have to do with Eddie?

  Hattie had told the story about Agnes losing her friend Mary Beth presumably to show me that jealousy would inevitably work against me. In Agnes’s case it was more than jealousy. She had been hanging on to a friendship that was never going to last because the girls were too different. One liked to read quietly indoors, the other liked to be outside riding horses. Eventually, their differences would have killed the friendship anyway.

  Was Hattie saying that Eddie and I were too different, that our friendship was doomed? But we’d been good friends for years and had many common interests. We liked to play tennis and hike and play pool down at the Hideaway. We liked the same music (rock and roll) and the same movies (thrillers). Our friendship didn’t seem to be in question. The problem, as Hattie seemed to see it, was that I had been happy that Eddie and Gabby were splitting up. Why was I happy about it? Why did I care? If Eddie and I were such good friends, and only friends, why had I been so bothered when he started seeing Gabby again? My face flushed with heat as I remembered how upset I had gotten when I found out they were sleeping together. But what did I expect from Eddie? To always be there for me, to eschew relationships with other women just to be friends with me? With the clarity that hard exercise brings, I saw how unfair that was. Eddie, like most people, needed more than just friendship. He needed intimacy, sex. Commitment.

  Then I remembered with a wave of nausea what he had said to me that day after our tennis match with Gabby. When I called him out for sleeping with Gabby, he had noted that most normal people want to have sex, that healthy individuals desire intimacy. As if I weren’t normal. Then I recalled that Connor had also called my normalcy into question because I didn’t seem to need a “warm body” like other people. Then Vanessa popped into my mind with her accusation that I feared commitment.

  So much for my vaunted “independence.” I might see myself as brave and strong, but others see me as cowardly and deluded. Like Agnes in Hattie’s story, I wanted to keep Eddie around for my own convenience, even to his detriment. I lacked the humanity to need intimacy, the passion to need sex. I was independent Sam. Feisty Sam. Selfish and jealous Sam. Cut off from my e
motions Sam. A user.

  In agony I realized that I was running flat out, lungs heaving, heart bursting. I sucked in mouthfuls of air, and tears sliced my cheeks. I slowed down to a jog before I collapsed, then stopped. I grabbed a tissue from my running pack and swiped at my face with shaking hands. Lacy bounded up to me, nearly bowled me over, obviously wondering what was wrong. I bent over, put my hands on my knees.

  This was all wrong. The people who cared about me most surely couldn’t think those things about me. I was a good person. I had the capacity to love. I loved Eddie, didn’t I?

  But how did I love Eddie? As just a friend? Wasn’t that the criticism?

  When had I last had a serious relationship? The casual physical relationships I had didn’t count. I hadn’t been tied romantically to anyone, not seriously. Certainly not with Eddie. Good, safe, dependable Eddie. My good friend. Whom I flew into a jealous rage about when he hooked up with his gorgeous ex-girlfriend. Surely I was just looking out for his best interests. I cared about Eddie. But thinking of him and Gabby together, in bed—God!

  Damn Hattie and her infuriating riddles! What did the old woman know about me, anyway? How presumptuous of her and Eddie and Connor and Vanessa to think they know who I am, what is important to me, what moves me. How dare they! To hell with them all!

  I looked down at Lacy with gratitude. Granted, she seemed determined to send me to the emergency room on a regular basis, but at least she didn’t judge me. She didn’t care if I were married with five kids or lived alone for the rest of my life. She just loved me, no questions asked, no strings attached, no expectations. No wonder people love dogs.

  I hugged her, she licked my face, and together we started back toward the car at an easy jog.

  .

  We had run about a quarter mile back when suddenly rifle shots cracked the air. I flinched mid-stride, nearly rupturing my Achilles tendon. Lacy sprang straight up, turned a half-circle, then slammed into me on her way down. We stood huddled together, gasping and shaking, looking at the empty desert around us. I felt the adrenaline subside, which cleared my head and allowed me to remember: Rifle shots are common in the desert. People like to line up the old cans and bottles that can be found virtually everywhere out here and blast them to smithereens. In fact, an unofficial rifle range has been constructed at the dump just to the west of us, which was undoubtedly where the shots were coming from. It made me think of Raul and his unofficial dump. It made me think of the proposed nuclear waste repository. Couldn’t people leave the poor desert alone?