Too Far Under

by Lynn Osterkamp

  Of course if I really wanted control, I could have told him our planned story over the phone. Maybe I should have. But I told myself that it would be less awkward in person and also I’d be able to see his reaction. Truthfully, though, there was a little something else drawing me toward seeing him again. He might be a Scientology nut but he still had those smoky eyes, and that sexy smile when he wanted to use it. Given the way my relationship with Pablo was going, I guess I felt like kicking up my heels a bit.

  He sounded surprised to get my call. “Hey, Cleo. Good to hear from you. I didn’t mean to upset you the other day. Can we write that off, start over, and be friends again?”

  “Friends? Is that what we were? I’ll have to think about that. But, yeah, I’d like to make a fresh start, and I have some information for you. Can you drop by my office for a cup of tea this afternoon? Anytime between 3:00 and 5:00 works for me. I’ll be here preparing for my class tomorrow.”

  “Sure. But don’t keep me guessing. What kind of information?”

  “I can’t go into it now, Brian. My next client is due any minute. Come by later. I’m at 736 Pearl.” As soon as I said that, I remembered that he knew everything I’d been doing for days, so he probably knew quite well where my office was. And now I’m inviting him in. Elisa may be right about my need for excitement.

  He showed up at 3:15, so I guessed he must be eager to hear what I had to say, eager to see me, or both.

  He was all smiles and charm with an autumn bouquet of sunflowers and chrysanthemums in hand. “Again, I apologize for Sunday—and, come to think of it, for Saturday night too. I know I was pushy. I promise not to do it again.”

  “Fair enough,” I said. “Thanks for the flowers.” I took the bouquet and led him back into the counseling room where I had turned on my electric teakettle and set out mugs and an assortment of tea bags.

  “Nice office, and in the high-rent district, too,” Brian said. “Your practice must be doing well to afford this.”

  “I’m doing pretty well,” I said as I got a vase out of a cabinet, filled it with water and stuck the flowers in. I didn’t want to get into explaining about how the endowment for my Contact Project pays the rent, or even mentioning the Contact Project. So I let that topic drop. “Help yourself,” I said, gesturing toward the kettle. “I think the water’s hot enough.”

  We each made ourselves a mug of tea and moved over to the seating area, where I sat in my usual wing chair and Brian sat on the couch opposite me. Earlier I had put a plate of cookies and some napkins on the coffee table.

  “Hey, oatmeal cookies with raisins. My favorite. You remembered,” Brian said picking up a cookie and a napkin.

  Hmmm—had I remembered that? I had taken a quick trip over to the tiny Lolita’s grocery a few blocks up on Pearl to get some cookies. But I wasn’t aware of specifically trying to get Brian’s favorite. “Enjoy,” I said.

  Brian took a big bite of his cookie, chewed slowly, then picked up his mug and sat back, looking quizzically at me. “So what’s the information you mentioned?”

  I took a drink of my tea to fortify myself before I plunged in. Then I said, “I thought about your question about whether Mirabel’s kids know if she made a new will. There’s no reason not to answer that.”

  Brian looked up sharply. “Really? They told you something? What do they know?” He sounded like an impatient prosecuting attorney who would not be denied an answer.

  His sudden intensity put me on edge. But I kept that feeling under wraps. After years of experience with volatile people I know how to keep my voice calm. I replied carefully, “They have some information that she did make a new will and that it had some big changes.”

  Brian slammed his mug down on the table, slopping tea over the sides. “What kind of changes?” he demanded, wiping at the spilled tea with his napkin.

  Whoa. I wasn’t prepared for him to react so strongly. I felt like telling him I’d made a big mistake inviting him and that he should leave. But I was also curious about his vehement responses. Why was he this upset about a possible new will? Did he have reason to believe that Mirabel would have disinherited the Church of Scientology? So I said, “They don’t know what might have changed. What changes do you think she might have made?”

  He got up and took his mug and the soggy napkin over to the counter where I had put the kettle. I figured he was trying to regain his composure, so I waited quietly. He walked back over to the couch and sat down again, looking less agitated. “I have no idea what changes she might have made, Cleo,” he said. “But any changes could have a big financial impact on the Church of Scientology. That’s why I’m asking you. Does Derrick Townes have the new will?”

  “They don’t know that either.”

  I could see him trying to control his anger, but it welled up in his face like mercury rising in a temperature gauge until he lost the struggle and boiled over again. “Christ! Why don’t they just ask him?” he asked furiously.

  I was beginning to worry about what Brian might do next. Shane’s plan had been to tell people not only about the new will, but also that Mirabel might have been murdered. If Brian got this upset about a new will, how would he react to the rest of my story? But I had signed on to the plan, so I continued. “Derrick’s children aren’t close to him. You probably know he’s been having an affair for a long time. And they’re worried that there’s something suspicious about how Mirabel died.”

  Brian glared at me. “What do you mean, suspicious?” he challenged. “I thought the police said it was an accident.”

  I felt myself shrinking in response to his aggressiveness, but I took a deep breath and forged on, speaking slowly and deliberately. “They did rule it an accident. But that doesn’t mean it was. The police have been wrong before.”

  Brian finally got a grip on his emotions. His face relaxed and his voice softened. “Will the case be re-opened?” he asked.

  “I don’t know.”

  “How are they going to find the will?”

  “That’s all I can tell you, Brian.” I rose to signal him that it was time to leave.

  Brian didn’t get up or say anything, just sat there looking at me for a minute. As a therapist, I’m used to letting silences build rather than filling the space, so I waited quietly. Finally he stood up and said, “I do appreciate your telling me about the will, Cleo. I don’t mean to be pushy again, but I sure would like to know where that new will is, if there is one.”

  “Now you know what I know, Brian. What are you going to do with this information?”

  “You have no idea how important this is, Cleo,” he said, looking defeated.

  I walked out into the hall moving toward the front door. He followed. “Thanks for coming by,” I heard myself say as he went out the door. I wasn’t really glad he’d come. In fact, I regretted inviting him. But the automatic social response slipped out anyway. I hate it when I do that.

  After Brian left, I spent another couple of hours preparing for the next day’s class, which was going to be about the Afterlife Encounters Survey, a five-year international study of friends and family members’ reports of their encounters with deceased loved ones. The study, completed in 2002 by a former hospice worker and director of the Elizabeth Kubler-Ross Center, found that ninety-eight percent of the 596 respondents who had experienced at least one afterlife encounter reported that their encounters brought them comfort that did not diminish over time. This finding is one of the reasons I believe so strongly in the benefits of my Contact Project.

  I got so involved in the material that I was able to put Brian and the Townes family drama out of my mind until I was on my way home. But then my regrets about my interaction with Brian resurfaced. What was I thinking? There was no way I wanted Brian back in my life in any ongoing way. We had problems when we were together years ago and that was before he became a Scientologist. Plus now he seemed kind of threatening.

  I realized I was missing Pablo. Usually when we have a fight we each need a
few days to cool off, but it was Thursday and our fight had been Sunday morning. We should be over it by now. As it turned out, Pablo was thinking along the same lines. About ten minutes after I got home, he showed up at my front door with a pizza and a six-pack of Fat Tire—my favorite local microbrew beer.

  “Hey, babe. We got off track, but let’s not rehash it. We know by now that we don’t have to agree about everything to have fun together. What do you say?”

  “I say I’ve been missing you too,” I said, as I took the beer from his hand and headed for the kitchen to put it in the refrigerator. He followed me, put the pizza box on the kitchen counter, and turned toward me with open arms. I flew into those arms and squashed myself against his solid body. It felt like home. We hugged, kissed and headed for the bedroom, leaving the pizza cooling on the counter.

  Later in the kitchen as we quenched our thirst with frosty brews while we reheated the pizza, Pablo said quietly, “Cleo, do you understand why I don’t want you getting involved in investigating a possible murder?”

  “Because of what happened last summer?”

  “That and the fact that you’re not a trained crime investigator and you have no backup if things escalate. I know you’re following your heart when you try to help people, but I don’t want to lose you because you got in over your head.”

  His tenderness disarmed me. I put my beer down on the table and gave him a hug. “Pablo, I know you’re coming from a caring place when you try to protect me. But it feels too protective, like you’re limiting me, smothering me a little.” I pulled him over to the table and we both sat sipping our beers for a few minutes.

  Then I reached for his hand and continued making my case. “Remember, I’m not the twenty-one-year-old art student you were in love with sixteen years ago. After you left me for your grand adventure, I grew up and learned to enjoy my independence. Helping people is my career and I’m good at it. I’m a professional and I find it upsetting when you try to tell me how I should work with my clients. Advice is one thing, but I have to make my own decisions. Surely you can see that.”

  He gave my hand a squeeze. “I hear what you’re saying, but it’s hard for me to watch you driving off a cliff without trying to do anything about it. As a cop, I see a lot of ugliness and I don’t want you to be caught in that.”

  I let go of his hand and went back to my beer. “Pablo, you have to trust that I’m being careful. I learned some hard lessons last summer and I won’t put myself in that kind of danger again. Can’t we just drop this and enjoy our pizza? Like you said, we don’t have to agree on everything.”

  “Okay, Cleo,” he said reluctantly. “But can you at least promise that you’ll call me right away if you find yourself in danger—that you’ll let me help before it escalates?”

  “I will,” I said. “Let’s get another beer and take our pizza in the living room. I have this week’s episode of Boston Legal recorded. Watching that should take our minds off this discussion.”

  We ate and drank as we laughed at Alan Shore and Denny Crane resorting to outrageous tricks to win questionable cases. I mused to myself about how easy it is to see how television characters overreach and how hard it is to recognize that tendency in myself.

  Pablo left about 10:00 p.m. to go back to his Longmont apartment because he had an early morning meeting. I reviewed my notes for the next morning, took a long shower and went to bed.

  But I tossed and turned, unable to sleep as worries crept in like a bunch of slimy squiggly garden worms creating tunnels in my mind. I was too stubborn to admit it to Pablo or Elisa, but deep down I was beginning to agree with them that I might be in over my head. The more I thought about it, the less I liked it. I had agreed to help because Angelica touched me in a way I couldn’t explain. And because Tyler had repeatedly insisted that I must help her. But now I was involved in a duplicitous plot with Lacey, whose emotional stability was erratic at best, and Shane, a slacker and petty criminal. None of this felt good to me.

  I slept fitfully for a bit, then woke up in a sweat. What if Elisa’s warning about my safety was right? What if the trap Lacey, Shane and I had set did lead to another murder? I’m the adult professional here. Should I pull them back? Otherwise, wouldn’t a bad outcome be my fault? I needed to step back and rethink my involvement. I resolved to call Lacey and Shane the next morning to call off the plan. We should go back to everyone we had lied to about what Mirabel had said and tell them the truth.

  Unfortunately, my second thoughts came too late.

  Chapter 29

  A frenzied pounding on my front door woke me up at 6:00 a.m. My first sleepy inclination was to pull the covers over my head and hope whoever was making the racket would go away. But the knocking continued. As I grew more alert, I panicked. What if something had happened to Pablo and the police were here to tell me about it?

  Swallowing my fear, I jumped out of bed, ran to the living room and looked out a side window. No police. Instead I saw Lacey, disheveled and weeping, banging frantically on my door. “Cleo, wake up. Open up,” she howled.

  I was so relieved not to see cops that I wasn’t even irritated at Lacey for waking me with one of her dramatic tantrums. I just opened the door and stood there waiting to find out what she wanted. She nearly fell into my living room. “Something horrible has happened,” she shrieked. “Grandad is dead.” She fell against me, sobbing on my shoulder.

  Okay, just because someone is a drama queen doesn’t mean she never has a reason to lose it. I had misjudged her. This time her hysterics were merited.

  I hugged her and rubbed her back until her sobbing subsided. Then I led her to the kitchen, sat her at the table, and put the kettle on for tea. Once she calmed down, I asked her to tell me what had happened.

  “Grandad fell down the stairs last night and died.” She began crying again.

  “What a horrible accident, Lacey. I’m so sorry,” I said, handing her some tissues.

  She dabbed at the tears, but kept crying. “It’s worse than that,” she moaned. “I have a terrible feeling it wasn’t an accident.”

  I almost lost my cool and bombarded her with questions. I wanted to know all about his fall and why she thought it might not be an accident. But I didn’t want to set her off again. “Who was there when he fell?” I asked.

  She blew her nose and grimaced. “No one knows. Maybe he was alone, maybe not. Maybe he tripped. Maybe someone pushed him.” Her voice was shrill and her words tumbled over each other.

  I put my arm around her shoulders and spoke quietly. “Slow down. Why would you think someone pushed him? Tell me what you know.”

  Lacey wiped her eyes and took a deep breath. “Glenna called the whole family from the hospital last night. Grandad was already dead when I got there. Glenna said she’d been out at a church meeting and got home around 11:00 p.m. She said that when she got there, she found him unconscious at the bottom of the stairs and she called 911. An ambulance came and took him to the emergency room, but he never regained consciousness. He died right after he got there.” Lacey put her head in her hands and sobbed.

  Her recounting the details wasn’t only to satisfy my curiosity. It’s what people do after a traumatic event. Reviewing the particulars aloud has a grounding effect that helps the sufferer cope with shock. Lacey needed to talk. I got her some more tissues and comforted her.

  After a bit, she stopped crying, sat up and faced me again. “Dad and Glenna got into a huge fight at the hospital,” she said. “She yelled at Dad that it was all his fault. She said Dad came over in the afternoon to see Grandad and that they argued and after Dad left, Grandad was upset and drank a lot. She said that’s why he fell down the stairs. Dad yelled back at her, saying if Grandad wasn’t safe to be alone why didn’t she stay with him.”

  My kettle was boiling, so I got up to turn it off and get a couple of mugs and a selection of tea bags. “What did Glenna say about that?” I asked as I put the mugs and tea bags on the table.

  Ignoring the tea
stuff, Lacey plowed on with her story. “Glenna said she offered to stay, but Grandad said he was fine and she should go ahead and go to her meeting. Shane thinks Glenna may be lying and that she actually pushed him down the stairs. He says a few days before Mom died she told him that Glenna had gotten Grandad to give her money and had probably convinced him to put her in his will. Shane says Glenna could have easily come home earlier than she said she did and pushed Grandad down the stairs and then pretended he had fallen before she got there.”

  Lacey finally stopped, took a deep breath and turned her attention to the tea bags. After we had each put a tea bag in our mug, and I had filled them with boiling water, I returned to my chair and the conversation. “What do you think happened on the stairs?” I asked.

  She looked down into her tea. “I don’t know. Maybe someone killed him.”

  I wondered whether our misinformation plan had anything to do with Vernon’s death. “Did you talk to your dad and your grandad like we planned?” I asked. “Did you tell them that you contacted your mom and that she told you she had made a new will and that someone had murdered her?”

  She nodded. “I told Dad, but I didn’t get a chance to tell Grandad. Dad was all excited thinking he’d get more money in a new will. I guess that’s why he went to see Grandad.”

  “Do you think your dad came back after Glenna left for church and got into another argument with your grandad and pushed him?”

  She began to cry again. “I’m afraid that could be it. I feel terrible. We never should have made that plan. But now you have to help me find out what happened. I came here because I have to contact Grandad right away to ask him how he fell.”