Needled to Death

by Annelise Ryan

  “Is it okay if we go upstairs to Toby’s room?”

  She glances up the stairs, and a cacophony of emotions plays over her face: fear, sadness, reluctance, doubt. “Why don’t you go on up there and I’ll join you in a bit. I want to go pack my lunch for work.”

  “Okay, if you’re sure you don’t mind?”

  “I don’t. You go ahead.” With that, she turns and enters the dining room, presumably on her way to the kitchen.

  I head up the stairs, carefully navigating the narrow steps and keeping a grip on the wooden banister, its surface worn smooth from the touch of hundreds of hands like mine. At the top there is a small landing, and Sharon’s homey touch is apparent here, too. Off to one side is a rocking chair with wide, flat arms, its seat and back padded in material that boasts a rustic cabin-in-the-woods type design. Behind it is a standing lamp, and to one side of it is a small square table with a paperback resting open and facedown. A glance at the cover tells me it’s a romance novel, and it makes me wonder about Sharon’s love life, if she has one. I make a mental note to broach this topic at some point.

  There is a small bookcase against the wall at the top of the stairs. On its top shelf are three framed photographs: one with Sharon and what must be a younger Toby, around age seven or eight, and two pictures of a handsome teenager with a thick mop of dark hair, large brown eyes, and a charming smile. The resemblance to Sharon is notable. The lack of any sort of father figure is also notable.

  The door to Sharon’s room is open and the interior is lit with the soft glow of a couple of lamps. The décor is the same collection of used, mismatched furniture I’ve seen elsewhere, though it’s all tied together with scattered touches of maroon, dark green, and gold present in the lamp shades, a throw on the chair, pillows, a comforter, and an area rug that covers the floor at the foot of the queen-sized bed. Like the rest of the house, the room looks inviting, comfortable, and cozy.

  Feeling a smidge guilty at this intrusion, I turn away and move toward Toby’s room. The door is closed, as is the door to the spare room. I consider peeking into the third room, but decide not to do so, at least not now. Time is limited, and I want to spend as much time in Toby’s room as I can.

  The door, a four-panel affair like the others, is plain and painted white. As I reach for the doorknob, I wonder if Sharon keeps the door closed all the time, and how often she’s ventured inside since her son’s death. Am I about to enter a shrine to Toby? Has she changed anything in there since he died? I’m inclined to think not. His death is too recent.

  When I open the door, the hinges squeak slightly, making a shiver race down my spine. The room is dark, and I fumble along the wall in search of a light switch. I find it and flip it, and as light floods the room, I suppress a gasp.

  Chapter Five

  Toby’s bedroom is the antithesis of the rest of the house. It looks like someone set off a bomb in the middle of it. There is stuff everywhere: clothing, papers, gaming equipment, books, shoes, plates—some dirty but empty, two with remnants of food still on them—and an assortment of soda cans, water bottles, and coffee mugs. I can barely see the surface of the floor, or the tops of the desk and dresser.

  There is a twin bed pushed up against the wall, the sheets and blankets a crumpled heap that is half at the foot of the bed, half on the floor, the pillow resting in a chair by the desk. The top of the desk is covered with miscellany that forms a moat around a laptop computer: pens, papers, mugs, cups, some silverware, two dirty saucers, a pocketknife, books, an assortment of charcoal and mechanical pencils in a plastic pencil holder, a box of colored pencils, and a nearly empty tape dispenser. I’m surprised to see the laptop, because I thought the police would have confiscated it when they investigated Toby’s death. Then again, maybe there wasn’t much of an investigation. If Sharon’s version of events can be believed, the police determined the cause and nature of Toby’s death based on where and how they found him. I make a mental note to ask Sharon if she’ll let me look at the contents of the computer.

  I turn my attention to the walls, which are covered with taped-up drawings that explain the nearly empty roll in the tape dispenser on the desk. After studying the display for a minute or so, I realize that some of the drawings have been done on what looks like basic copy paper, others on more official art papers. The colored pencil drawings are on the heavier art paper and feature anatomical parts such as hands, feet, torsos, eyes, and a couple of vague facial profiles. The copy paper drawings are done in basic gray or black pencil and feature sketches of structures: buildings, castles, and some bridges. Neatly printed in the right lower corner of each drawing are two initials: TC.

  The artwork is impressive—clearly Toby was talented—and I wonder if he switched his focus from human subjects to inanimate structures, or if it was the other way around. Or perhaps he traded off now and then, moving back and forth between the two. But something about the paper choice makes me think he was focusing solely on one subject matter before deciding to change. What triggered that change, I wonder?

  Even though the artwork is fascinating and something I could study for hours, I know my time is limited, so I pick my way across the debris-covered floor to Toby’s desk. Behind the laptop I discover some game cassettes for use in the machine beside the TV on his dresser. Beneath the games is a notebook of lined paper, and when I slide it out and look at the contents, I see that the first few pages are filled with gaming codes and clues. There is one drawer on the right side of the desk, and when I open it I discover more drawings rendered on plain copy paper. I take the stack out and flip through it. Like the other drawings done on plain paper, these are pictures of a structure, but unlike the others, every one of these is of the same structure and done in color. It’s a footbridge built from wood, arching over a small brook. Some of the drawings contain the bridge only, others the bridge and the underlying water, while still others contain surrounding features: trees, bushes, riverbanks. Some of them appear to be a fall setting, while others show a winter scape. I slide one of the more elaborate pictures out of the stack and set it on the chair seat, then I return the others to the drawer.

  I open the laptop and hit a key to see if it is asleep or off. The screen comes to life almost at once, prompting me for a password. Just for grins I type in the word password, but it doesn’t work. I make a mental note to ask Sharon if she knows the password and move on to the dresser.

  The top surface is layered in dust, letting me know that Sharon hasn’t ventured into her son’s room much, if at all. The rest of the house is too neat and orderly, and I now understand Sharon’s reluctance—or at least part of it—to let me into her son’s bedroom. I would think the state of his room is an offense to her neat, homey sensibilities and possibly something of an embarrassment.

  The dresser drawers don’t reveal anything of interest other than the expected clothing. I even squeeze all the rolled-up socks to check for hidden contraband, and bend down and examine the undersides of the drawers to make sure nothing has been taped under there.

  I look under the mattress next, where I find a dog-eared copy of a girlie magazine, but nothing else. Then I move on to the closet. There is a shoebox on the shelf, but all it contains is a collection of baseball cards. I check the hanging clothes for pockets and examine every one, but they yield no results. I’m in the process of looking inside the shoes on the floor when Sharon’s voice sounds behind me, startling me.

  “Why are you looking at his shoes?”

  I glance at her over my shoulder and smile. “It’s a common hiding place kids use. Believe me, I know them all. I spent a lot of time in the foster system, and I learned early on that hiding things was often the only way of hanging on to them.”

  “Are you looking for drugs?” she asks. I think I detect a hint of resentment and disappointment in her voice.

  “Yes and no,” I say. “I’m looking for anything that Toby might have hidden, anything that he might have wanted to keep secret.”

 
; “My son had no secrets from me,” she says in a hurt tone.

  I give her a sympathetic look. “Sharon, every child has secrets they keep from their parents. It’s a normal part of growing up and separating themselves in preparation for making their own way in the world. It’s nothing to be ashamed or embarrassed about.”

  She folds her arms over her chest and looks away from me, her face pinched with pain, the fingers of one hand tapping out an impatient beat on her arm.

  “If it helps, I haven’t found anything in here that indicates Toby was using drugs. No paraphernalia, no literature, nothing. Though there might be something on his computer.”

  I toss this possibility out there like bait on a line, the fish I’m hoping to snag being her interest—or, at the least, her cooperation with letting me examine the device. Silence bobs in the air between us for a few seconds, and then disappears beneath the surface of her resistance.

  “I looked at it after . . . when he . . . after the police came,” she says. “It’s password protected.” She pauses, shooting me a pained look. “That’s new, both the computer and the password. He never used to hide his computer activity from me, but he got that new laptop when he went off to college. Bought it with some of the scholarship money he received.”

  “Do you know the password?” I ask, even though I’m pretty sure what the answer will be.

  She shakes her head. “I tried all the obvious things, and after several attempts I got a prompt asking for a fingerprint.”

  “Fingerprint protection?” I say, perking up.

  Sharon shoots me a curious look. “Why do you sound happy about that? It’s not like we have his fingers.” Her face pales then, and her lips clamp together in a thin white line. After a few seconds, she says, “You aren’t . . . you wouldn’t . . . he’s already buried.” There is a look of horror on her face, tears welling in her eyes.

  “No, no, nothing like that,” I say. “We don’t need his actual finger. If the ME’s office had possession of his body, they have a set of fingerprints on file. There might be a way to use those to gain access.”

  She stares at me as she considers this possibility and I know that now is the time to seize the moment.

  “Will you let me take the computer with me?” I ask her. “I’ll give it to Detective Richmond and explain what I want. He may be willing to help me. And who knows what we might find?”

  Sharon doesn’t answer right away, and I suspect she’s weighing the possibilities. We might find something on the computer to support her theory that her son was murdered, but it’s also possible we might find something that supports the current theory regarding his death, that he was a drug user. Apparently, she finds the courage of her own conviction, because she nods. “Sure, okay. But I want it back when you’re done.”

  “Of course.”

  “Do you really think this detective will listen to you?”

  I bite my lip. “I don’t know,” I tell her, feeling compelled to be honest. “But I’m going to try my best.” I pause and look around the room. “It would help if there was anything else I could take to him, anything else that seems wrong about your son’s death.”

  “The whole thing is wrong,” Sharon says, squeezing her eyes closed and pinching the bridge of her nose as she fights back tears.

  “What I mean is, was there anything else odd that happened in Toby’s life, or anything here in this room that seems out of place, or not right, or just way off plumb?”

  Sharon blinks hard and looks around the room, scanning the bed, the desk, the dresser, and finally, the drawings on the wall. Her eyes move lovingly over each one, and I see her tears start to well again. Then suddenly her expression changes, her eyes riveted on the drawing I placed on the chair seat.

  “That bridge,” she says. “There was something about it that bothered him. He drew it repeatedly, claiming he couldn’t get it quite right. That’s all he ever drew after quitting school.”

  Sharon’s comments about the picture trigger a thought and I look around the room. I finally spy what I’m seeking in the knee well of the desk and give myself a mental slap for overlooking it in my initial search. After moving the chair away, I reach beneath the desk and pull out a plastic garbage pail. In it are a dozen or so wadded-up clumps of paper.

  I grab one from the top, unravel it, and see that it is another picture of the footbridge, also drawn in color. I compare it to the one I kept from the drawer. Both include a thicket of trees, the leaves rendered in the colors of autumn, and a small path leading from the far side of the bridge into the trees. There are some minor differences in the two pictures, in the width of the path, the size of tree thicket, and the colors of the leaves.

  I take out the other wadded paper balls in the trash one at a time, opening them and smoothing them as best I can. All of them are pictures of the bridge and its setting. There are subtle differences in each, sometimes in the layout and locations of certain features, sometimes in the colors, sometimes in both.

  Like the ones in the drawer, there is a mix of seasonal backgrounds. The winter scenes show bare tree branches dark against a pale gray sky and the bright white of snow. I note how Toby let the white of the paper portray the snow, cleverly adding in subtle lines and perspectives that made the snowy areas stand out from the rest of the white paper background. The kid had some serious talent, and it saddens me to think that it’s now gone.

  “Toby did all of these drawings after he quit school?” I ask. I’m almost certain Sharon said that a moment ago, but I want to verify it because of the seasonal variances in the drawings.

  “Yep,” Sharon says. “That’s the only thing he drew. He even doodled it on magazines or paper napkins.”

  I’m intrigued by this. What was it about that bridge that had Toby so fixated? And why were the drawings in the trash discarded and the others kept in the drawer? My years of surviving in the foster system imbued me with a strong gut sense, something I’ve come to refer to as my Spidey sense. And my Spidey sense is telling me these pictures of the bridge are important. I don’t know how or why, but I know it’s something I’m going to pursue.

  Sharon glances at her watch and says, “I need to go to work.”

  “Of course.” I unplug the laptop, close it, and tuck it and its cord under one arm. Then I pick up the drawing on the chair and add it to the pile of pictures I removed from the trash. “Is it okay if I take these, too?” I ask Sharon.

  I see a play of emotion on her face and for a moment her expression is so sad and pathetic that I know I won’t be able to bring myself to push the issue if she says no. “Tell you what,” I say. “How about if I just take this one?” I show her the picture that had been on the seat.

  The look of immense relief I see on Sharon’s face tells me I’ve made the right choice. No doubt, her son’s drawings are dear to her, some small piece of him that she still has.

  I start to leave the room, but Sharon stops me with a hand on my arm. “You do believe me, don’t you?” she says, her eyes pleading. “You’re not just humoring me as some way of counseling me, are you?”

  I look her in the eye the best I can, though it’s difficult since she’s a tall woman. “I believe that you believe,” I tell her. “And I’m open to the idea that your belief may be right. I can’t promise you the outcome of all this will be what you’re hoping, but I will do my best to get you the truth. I think that’s all any of us really want or need. The truth.”

  Her expression relaxes, and she flashes me a tentative smile. “I sense there is some personal truth that you’re seeking as well,” she says.

  “There is,” I admit, impressed with her sense of empathy. “But mine will likely be harder to find.”

  Chapter Six

  I’ve lived alone my entire adult life, so I’m used to coming home to an empty house. For the past three years, however, I’ve had Roscoe there to greet me. Roscoe is my dog, a dark red golden retriever with soulful brown eyes, a loving, mild temperament, and a healthy
dose of smarts. He came to me by chance when a patient who was brought to the ER following a car accident died from her injuries and the EMTs brought the twelve-week-old puppy that was in her car—fortunately in a crate, which saved him from incurring any accident-related trauma—to the ER with her. Her sole relative in the area was a niece named Deborah, who had no interest in some “dirty, smelly dog that probably isn’t even housebroken.” Deborah announced her intention to drop the pup off at a shelter, but after one look at those huge brown eyes and one lick of my hand by that tiny pink tongue, I knew that plan was a no-go. I asked Deborah if she would mind if I took the dog, and she was more than happy to agree.

  I should have known the niece was going to be a problem when she insisted on correcting everyone who called her Deb-ra, or Deb, or Debbie, stating irritably that her name was Dee-bor-ah, enunciated with three distinct syllables and an emphasis on the middle one. Two weeks later Deborah showed up at the hospital with the paperwork associated with the pup, which she had found while going through her aunt’s things. Since she hadn’t bothered to remember my name or title from her initial visit, she had to do some asking to figure out who I was. It didn’t take long, since the ER staff knew the story of me and the pup. When I met Deborah in the ER waiting room and she showed me the AKC paperwork for the dog, my first thought was how kind it was of her to bring it to me. Silly me. It turned out her motives were far less benevolent. Once she discovered that her aunt had paid a thousand bucks for the dog two weeks before her death, a thousand bucks Deborah now thought she should have by selling the pup to someone rather than just giving it away, she demanded that I either pay her or give the pup back.

  Giving him back wasn’t an option. During that two-week interval we’d had together, I had bonded big-time with Roscoe, a name I found imprinted on a tag on his collar, a name I think his owner gave him because he came from Roscoe, Illinois. His sweet personality and obvious intelligence won me over easily, and the thought of giving him up literally made my heart ache. Roscoe was an orphan, just like I had been, and abandoning him at this point was something I simply couldn’t do. After a bit of haggling in the ER waiting room, during which Deborah had refused to go anywhere else without either the money or the dog and had also made it clear that she had no qualms about creating a loud and upsetting scene, I agreed to pay her the money. I offered to write her a check, but she insisted on cash. Given that I didn’t have that kind of money on me, I told her I was going to have to go to the bank.