This Time

by Amy Reece

  “Oh, Seamus! You don’t have to do that. We can wait until they go to bed. I’m sure babysitting is the last thing you want to do tonight.”

  “Let me help, Nina. The girls don’t need to be around all this sorrow. Let them come with me and have some fun. I’ll wear them out so they’ll sleep good tonight. Maybe I can get Izzy to bring Janey over. She’s in kindergarten too, and I bet they’ll all get along great.” He pulled up to a red light and turned to her. “Come on, Nina. I’m a firefighter, trained in CPR and advanced first-aid, so I’m about the safest babysitter you’ll ever find. Plus, my mom will love them.”

  “Well, if you’re sure, it would be a great help. Thanks.” She reached for his hand and squeezed it briefly.

  Finn wasn’t at his desk when they arrived at the state police precinct, but Chris, Seamus’s sister-in-law and Finn’s partner, introduced herself to Nina and showed them to a small conference room. “Finn just stepped out for a few minutes, but he’ll be right back. I’m so sorry for your loss, Ms. Braden.”

  “Thank you. Call me Nina, please. You’re Hugh’s wife, right?”

  Chris smiled and nodded. “We’ve been married nearly a year.”

  “Congratulations. He’s a nice guy.”

  Seamus stepped out to call his mom while Nina and Chris chatted. She was, as expected, thrilled to host an impromptu swim party later that evening and said she would make sure Janey was there. He thanked her and hung up as Finn rounded the corner.

  “Sorry. I was in a meeting with some Border Patrol agents. Let me grab the file. How’s Nina today?”

  “She’s okay. She’s holding it together better than Neal’s fiancée.” Seamus put his phone away and followed his brother to his desk.

  “Yeah, we talked to her yesterday. I’m glad you’re there to help Nina get through this.” Finn clapped him on the shoulder and led the way to the conference room.

  Seamus claimed the empty chair beside Nina and held her hand as Finn handed her a copy of the note they’d found on Neal’s desk. She held it so he could read at the same time. It was typed except for the signature.

  My Darling Kira,

  I’m so sorry, but I just can’t live like this any longer. The pain of living every day, trying to put on a smile and pretend it’s all going to get better is too hard. Tell Nina I’m sorry.

  Love,

  Neal

  ***

  Nina

  Oh, God! This is rough! Neal, why? Why didn’t you talk to me? I had no clue you were so desperately unhappy! She sniffed, determined not to cry. She needed to keep it together here at the police station so she could get information about Neal’s death. She could fall apart later, and no doubt would, when Nick arrived. For now, there was serious business to attend to. “May I keep this?”

  Finn nodded. “Of course. We have to retain the original, but you can take this copy.” He pushed a box of tissue closer as he spoke. “We need to ask you some questions, Nina. I know this is hard, but we want to find out what happened. Okay?”

  “Yeah. Yes, of course. Go ahead.” She reached for Seamus’s hand again. She needed his strength to get through this.

  “Can you tell us about Neal’s state of mind in the days preceding his death? How was he acting?” Chris opened a small notebook as she spoke.

  “Um, he was fine, as far as I could tell. I saw him on Saturday when he came over to the house. He and Kira came for dinner. He seemed fine! God, why didn’t he tell me?”

  “What about you?” Finn addressed the question to Seamus. “When was the last time you saw or heard from Neal?”

  “We met up for a beer on Thursday. He talked about his wedding. He said he and Kira had finally set a date and she was getting all into looking at dresses. We laughed about it. Nina,” he said as he turned to her, “he was fine. I would swear he was fine. Why did he do this?”

  She shook her head, the tears escaping from her eyes against her will. “I don’t know.”

  Chris took over. “Were you aware he was taking a prescription medication for depression?”

  “What?” Seamus and Nina spoke at the same time.

  Chris reached into a box beside her chair and pulled out a plastic baggy containing a prescription bottle. She placed it on the table between Seamus and Nina.

  Neal M. Braden. Paxil (paroxetine) 30 mg. Take one tablet by mouth daily.

  “This doesn’t make any sense.” Nina smoothed the plastic over the pill bottle. “Paxil is an antidepressant, isn’t it? Why wouldn’t he tell me he was depressed?”

  “Did Neal own a gun?” Chris scratched notes in her notepad as she asked.

  Nina nodded, still staring at the prescription bottle. “He had several, I believe. My dad and brothers were big into hunting, so I’m sure Neal had guns.”

  “Was it unusual for him to go into the office on a weekend? His secretary found him early Monday morning and we have a time of death between 10 p.m. and 2 a.m.”

  “It was his company—his and Gordy’s—so they worked a lot. Nights, weekends, it didn’t matter. It was only this year that they’ve been able to afford to hire office help.”

  “And how was the company doing financially?”

  Nina looked up. “It was doing fairly well. He said they’d cleared a decent profit in the last few months and he felt like it was finally going someplace. I don’t know the exact figures; Neal only talked about it in generalities.”

  “What about you, Seamus?” Finn asked. “What did he tell you about his financial situation?”

  Seamus scrubbed his hands through his hair, setting it on end. “Not much. I would usually ask him how business was and he’d say ‘oh, it’s great,’ and then we’d talk about sports. I don’t know anything about computer cyber security or whatever it was he did. God, I don’t understand this! Neal was the last guy on earth I would have thought would kill himself! He had everything going for him! Why?”

  Nina reached her hand to squeeze his arm. She was eternally grateful he was here with her—she didn’t think she’d have been able to get through it on her own—but she knew it had to be killing him. She turned back to the detectives. “When will they release his body? The funeral director didn’t know, and I’d like to be able to set a date for the service.”

  Chris and Finn looked at each other, as if trying to decide who would field the question. Finn finally spoke. “We’re not sure. The Office of the Medical Investigator is requiring a full autopsy—”

  “Why?” Nina was shocked. “What does that mean? I don’t understand.”

  “Suicides are reportable deaths, meaning we are required to report them to the OMI, who investigates and eventually issues the death certificate. Neal’s body can’t be released to your family until they have determined the cause of death.”

  Nina frowned. “But it was a gunshot, wasn’t it?”

  Chris closed her notebook and stood, signaling an end to the questioning. “That’s for the OMI to determine. I’m sure we’ll hear from them in a few days and then you’ll be able to make the final arrangements. I know this is a difficult time for your family, Nina.” She suddenly switched from her professional demeanor. “Please let Hugh and I know if there’s anything we can do.”

  “Thanks, Chris. You too, Finn.” She attempted a weak smile. “My brother, Nick, is coming later today. Nathan can’t leave his wife right now, and my parents won’t be able to get here for a few more days, so maybe this delay is a good thing.”

  Seamus led her from the precinct and they sat in her SUV for a few minutes, both emotionally exhausted by the morning. “We need to eat, but I don’t think I can take sitting in a restaurant right now. What if we grab a couple sandwiches and find a park?”

  They stopped at a nearby deli and then found a picnic table under a tree at a park where Nina frequently took the girls to play. She picked at her sandwich unenthusiastically. “This is surreal, Seamus. An autopsy? This doesn’t happen to people like us. What’s going on?”

  “I don’t know. Al
l those questions made me realize there’s a lot about Neal I never knew. Depressed? Do you think it had anything to do with his headaches?” Neal had suffered from migraines since he was a kid.

  Nina shrugged. “Maybe. I know they still bothered him, but he never made a big deal out of it. He said Kira gave him something that helped more than anything he’d ever used, but he never said what it was. Maybe she got one of her doctor friends to prescribe something.” Kira was an ICU nurse at one of the local hospitals. “And I never asked. God! I never asked him anything! He rarely mentioned his headaches to me anymore, so I assumed they’d gotten better.”

  They both nibbled at their lunch for a while, then decided to head back to Nina’s. She needed to clean up the house and get some work done. They would both be returning to work the next day, Seamus for a twenty-four-hour shift. He volunteered to run the vacuum and dust, saying he needed to stay busy. She gratefully accepted his offer, glad for the extra time it provided her.

  Nina sat at her computer and planned for the next day’s classes, but her heart wasn’t in it. She usually loved creating PowerPoint presentations to go along with her lectures, attempting to make history as fascinating to her students as it was to her, but today she was going through the motions. She also needed to spend time on her article for The Western Historical Quarterly—publish or perish, after all—but found herself researching paroxetine instead. The lengthy list of possible side effects was horrifying, including suicidal thoughts or tendencies. Was this what had happened to Neal? Had this medication, designed to help him deal with depression, caused him to want to kill himself instead? Her doctor had wanted to prescribe an antidepressant in the wake of her divorce, but Nina had refused after looking into the side effects. Perhaps Neal hadn’t researched the side effects. Another website told her the off-label uses for paroxetine included premature ejaculation, migraine relief, and diabetic neuropathy. Migraine relief. Perhaps this was what Kira had somehow acquired for him to help with his headaches. Nina tried to remember if she’d seen a doctor’s name on the pill bottle but couldn’t.

  Seamus’s car was still parked at her house, so he was able to go to the airport to pick up Nick while she drove to get the girls from the after-school babysitter. She hoped they would be amenable to going with Seamus for the evening, but worried they would be shy around him since they’d only met him the day before. They tended to be clingy around strangers.

  She needn’t have worried. He mentioned swimming and they were putty in his hands, racing to put on their suits and find beach towels. She handed him her keys, saying it was easier than moving the car seats to his sports car. Nick was drinking a beer and talking about ordering in, so she finished packing the girls’ towels and a change of clothes for after swimming, then kissed them goodbye, watching as the SUV pulled out of the driveway. She turned to her older brother. “You want to see the note?”

  They talked for two hours, crying and cursing, as they tried to process the tragedy of the day before. Nick and Neal had been close, and he couldn’t begin to understand his little brother’s suicide. “What does Kira say? They were living together. Did she see any signs of depression?”

  “I haven’t had a chance to talk to her yet. She’s coming over later. Maybe she can shed some light on what was going on with Neal.” She chose not to mention her suspicions about the medication until she’d had a chance to ask Kira.

  Kira finally arrived, and Nina suggested they order Chinese food. She was starving, having had little appetite at breakfast and lunch. It seemed awful to be thinking about food when her twin brother was dead, but her body was demanding sustenance. As they waited for the delivery, she handed Nick another beer and poured a glass of wine for Kira. “When did Neal start taking meds for depression?”

  Kira sipped slowly before answering. “About two months ago. He was ashamed of it, Nina. He didn’t want anyone to know. He thought it made him weak. I’m so sorry, but he made me swear I wouldn’t tell you.”

  “But why was he depressed? I thought everything was going so well in his life right now.”

  Kira shook her head. “Depression is often unrelated to life events. It’s a mental illness and has biological causes. I tried to get him to understand this, but he wouldn’t listen. I was glad when he agreed to go on the medication. I thought it was helping.” She didn’t seem to want to meet Nina’s eyes.

  Nina frowned, sensing Kira wasn’t being completely honest. “I read online that it sometimes causes suicidal thoughts. Did he say anything about that recently?”

  Kira shook her head again. “He never said anything, but I noticed he was more withdrawn recently. I should have said something! God, if I had made him talk to me, maybe this wouldn’t have happened!” Tears streaked from her eyes, tracking through her black mascara. “What am I going to do without him?”

  Nina tried to comfort her brother’s fiancée, wondering the whole time how she could have missed his escalating depression. And how could she, herself, not known her own twin was going through such severe depression? She suspected Kira had gotten him the paroxetine to treat his headaches and possibly depression, though she was now worried the side effects had caused his suicidal ideation. But Kira was obviously heart-broken over his death and Nina couldn’t bring herself to voice her suspicions so soon.

  Chapter Four

  Seamus

  “Are we going to your house?” Lily asked.

  Seamus glanced in the rearview mirror, catching Iris’s somewhat unnerving stare. She didn’t say much, but he noticed she listened carefully to everything going on around her. Lily was much more bubbly and talkative, but he realized he would have to win over Iris in order to be fully trusted by either of them. She strongly reminded him of Nina in so many ways. “No. We’re going to my mom and dad’s house. I used to live there, but I have my own apartment now.”

  “Can we see your apartment?”

  “Hmm, maybe sometime. It’s not very exciting, though. For tonight we’ll stick with my parents’ house because they have a pool. So, I guess you two like to swim, huh?” He flashed a smile at Iris, but she simply looked at her twin without reciprocating. Yikes. Tough crowd. He turned his attention back to the road. “I hope you both are hungry because my mom is a great cook.”

  “We’re starving!” Lily exclaimed. She seemed to be the designated spokesperson for the twins.

  “Good. My niece, Janey, will be there too. She’s in kindergarten like you guys, so maybe you could all be friends.”

  “Okay.”

  He smiled at her easy acceptance. They drove in silence for the remainder of the trip save for the soft jazz music from the radio station Nina obviously favored. He wondered how the meeting with Nick and Kira was going, and hoped Nina would be able to eat something. She’d only picked at her sandwich at lunch, as he had, but his own stomach was now grumbling loudly, and he hoped his mom would have some sort of appetizers waiting. He worried for a moment about how shallow he was to be thinking about food when his best friend had died the day before, but then realized Neal wouldn’t care. He could almost hear him now. What, you don’t get to be hungry anymore just because I’m dead? Don’t be such a putz, DeLuca! That was Neal’s favorite derogatory term: putz. Seamus used to tease him that he sounded like an old man whenever he said it, but he’d give an awful lot to hear it again now. Shit, Neal! Why did you do it? Why did you kill yourself? You could have talked to me about whatever was bothering you! I would have done anything to help you. I thought you knew that. Damn it, Neal! I’m so fucking mad at you right now! The tears welling up were more anger than sorrow, and he squeezed his eyes shut as he pulled to the curb in front of his parents’ house to quash them. He caught Iris’s eyes in the rearview mirror again and knew she noticed. Jeez, she sees everything! It’s spooky! If anyone had told him even a few days ago that he’d have offered to babysit his best friend’s nieces, he would have scoffed. He knew nothing about kids, nor had he ever been interested in learning about them. But life had a way o
f smacking you in the face every once in a while, and here he was, babysitting of his own volition. Son of a bitch. He shook his head as he exited the SUV.

  The girls had already unbuckled their seatbelts and extricated themselves from their car seats by the time he opened the back door. He grabbed their pink duffle bag and led them up the walkway. Janey waited on the front porch but ran to meet them as they neared the house.

  “Uncle Seamus!”

  He scooped her into his free arm and kissed her cheek. “Hey, Munchkin. I want you to meet some friends of mine.” He set her on the ground and turned to the other girls. “This is Iris, and this is Lily.” He gestured to each one in turn. Was it only yesterday he had trouble telling them apart? Now they were such distinct personalities he knew he’d never mistake them again. “Girls, this is my niece, Janey.”

  Janey hugged his leg tightly, shy as always around strangers, but she smiled at them.

  Iris said nothing, but Lily obviously had no problem meeting new people. “I like your hair.”

  Janey melted at the compliment and reached to twine her fingers through her bouncy, brown ponytail. “Thanks. I like yours too. I have twins in my class, but they’re boys.” She managed to imbue such disgust into the term Seamus had to chuckle.

  “Eww,” Iris said softly.

  “Come meet my Grammy.” Janey turned and led the way into the house.

  Seamus followed, finding his mother in the kitchen prepping dinner. His brother-in-law, Mac, was setting a plate of small sandwiches on the counter. “Hey, Mac,” Seamus said as he reached for one and stuffed it in his mouth.

  “Hey. Sorry about your friend, man. That’s rough.” He turned back to the refrigerator. “Here.” He handed Seamus a beer.

  “Thanks.” Although they’d had a rather rough start to their relationship when Izzy had introduced him as Janey’s long-absent father months before, Seamus had since come to deeply appreciate the former Green Beret his oldest sister had married. “How’s Izzy feeling?”