Shadow Notes

by Laurel S. Peterson

  The rest of the room had pressed its irritated community lips together. I would have to take Hankin up on his offer of an appointment, see what came of it. Maybe he would help me after all.

  I sped home to change into something more decorous. I didn’t want to give Pete Samuels the wrong idea, so I chose a long, straight wool skirt with riding boots, and a thick hand-knit sweater over a silk tee shirt. I didn’t even know why I was going out with him. Some part of me kept insisting I shouldn’t trust him—even though I hoped he would tell me about the investigation into my mother. I was a walking bundle of contradictions.

  Pete arrived promptly, wearing black jeans and a black leather jacket over a brilliant blue shirt that highlighted his eyes. He shook his long dark bangs from his eyes, like a small boy getting ready to pitch a baseball, and gestured toward the car, a new-looking Range Rover. I wondered how could he afford that on a cop’s salary?

  “Been saving for it for six years,” he said. “Drove a clunker the chief kept telling me to get rid of, because he was never sure if I was going to make it to work or not.” He grinned, opened the door for me. The interior still smelled of new leather.

  We made small talk for the twenty minutes it took to drive to the restaurant and get a table. Despite the lateness of the hour on a weeknight, the place was packed with people who hadn’t yet figured out that they lived in the suburbs. The maître d’ put us near the fireplace. I shrugged out of the sweater, too warm in the close room.

  We ordered salads, beef bourguignon, and a bottle of wine—a cozy late dinner. Pete settled back in his chair, and I noticed how his shoulders muscled out the seams on that blue shirt, even if his eyes were cold. “So Clara. Tell me about you. I only know what I’ve read in the police reports.”

  That was unsettling. “What do you already know? I wouldn’t want to repeat anything.”

  “It’s more interesting hearing it from you.”

  I decided to go all intellectual on him. “Pierre Bonnard, the artist, said that the precision of naming takes away from the uniqueness of seeing.”

  “Pierre who?”

  “Bonnard. He did glorious impressionist paintings, many of them with garden elements.”

  “Ah, that’s the connection. Do you have favorites?”

  “Artists?”

  “If you wish. I meant gardens.”

  I nodded and raved about the plum trees at the Kairakuen garden in Japan and the formal Drummond Castle Gardens in Scotland through the salad course. He let me do it, and I could feel the letting, like he was feeding out rope.

  After the waiter served the main course, he took my hand. “I’m more interested in the real you. Like for instance, if you’re going to listen to the warning that guy gave you the other night.”

  He ran his thumb slowly up and down the back of my hand. My inner voice yelled loudly. I gently pulled away. In the next moment, I got a sharp pain in my arm, as if I’d twisted it.

  “The real me wants to know why you all think my mother is a murderer.”

  “You all? You mean all us cops? Or our new King of the Jungle?”

  I looked at him, slightly shocked. He raised his eyebrows at me. “Oh don’t get all hoity-toity on me. I don’t mean anything racist, but I don’t know why your mother felt she had to go out of state to find a new chief.”

  Petulance didn’t suit him.

  “I don’t know anything about that.”

  He held up the rejected hand and counted off on his fingers. “Motive: She and Hugh recently broke up. Hugh took it hard. Means: Anyone could have picked up that poker, but she’d used it before. Opportunity: She had keys to his house and/or,” he switched up a new finger, “he would open the door to her, ex cetera, ex cetera.”

  I resisted correcting his Latin. “All circumstantial.”

  “DNA will prove it.”

  “Where’d you get DNA?” My arm throbbed again and I rubbed it.

  He looked the tiniest bit smug, but softened it by cocking his head. “Skin under his fingernails. Results should be back this week.”

  “Mother and Hugh were having an affair. There are all sorts of reasons for her DNA to be on him.”

  “Maybe,” he said, “but they’d already broken up. That means he scratched his killer.”

  “Did Mother have scratches on her?”

  He shook his head. “I can’t talk about that.”

  “People have sex after they’re broken up. Sometimes it’s rough.”

  His eyes flicked over the V in my silk shirt. “Mrs. Montague told Chief DuPont she’d met someone new—and unmarried—and she wanted a different kind of relationship.”

  “She’s got a new boyfriend? Who?” Why hadn’t she told me?

  He picked up his fork and speared a cube of beef. “She won’t say. The chief’s going ballistic, as you might imagine.” He looked sideways at me.

  I pretended Kyle was just another man. “Oh, I can imagine all right. But if she had moved on, why kill Hugh?”

  “He was hanging on to her, messing things up.”

  “That doesn’t sound like Hugh. Or my mother.”

  Pete shrugged. “Doesn’t matter. We’ve got enough to make our case.”

  Pete’s confidence, like a curtain of ice, descended between me and the future. Had Mother really killed Hugh? If she had, why would someone be worried about my checking into her past? The pain in my arm migrated up to my shoulder.

  “Enough about your mom,” Pete said. “Just reassure me you’re not going to poke your nose in any further. Stay safe, Clara. You’re better off leaving it to us to handle.”

  I couldn’t do that. My little voice was muttering something I couldn’t quite hear, something ornery and contradictory, something that refused to believe Mother was a murderer.

  So I rallied, because that’s what good Connecticut girls did, and we drifted into small talk about weather and politics. Pete, a die-hard Republican, supported Andrew Winters. As we drove home through the dark, I heard how Winters could get people jobs—the right people, of course, not those illegal immigrants—and help us keep our hard-earned money, if we would only elect him to the Senate. I wasn’t sure if the evening had been worth it or what I’d learned, but I figured I was pretty safe from another date with Pete Samuels, especially since, the moment he dropped me off, my arm felt fine.

  Chapter 12

  I called Gary Hankin’s office the next morning to make an appointment. I had to find out what the notations in Mother’s medical file meant. At first, his receptionist refused to schedule me, claiming the doctor wasn’t taking new patients. After I explained what I wanted and waited for seventeen minutes on hold, she gave me an appointment five weeks out. Feeling desperate, I thought about what I needed to know and who could help me. At the core of it all was still my ignorance of Mother’s trauma. If I could understand that, understand her, I might understand why she refused to talk to me, why she refused to talk at all.

  Why did other people get to know more about my mother than I did? And why hadn’t their knowledge seeped out into gossip? Surely, some kid in school should have heard adults talking and made up some miserable name to call me like WitchyPoo or LoserMama’s Baby. Or Paul and Richard would have heard and told me, right? Then again, maybe only a few knew: Mary Ellen, Mayor Nat, and the Hankins, perhaps.

  Mother had said I should learn to meditate. Last night’s arm pain was my body’s way of trying to warn me, but about what? Maybe learning to meditate would help me figure it out. Maybe the meditation would help me figure out how to get Dr. Hankin to talk in sooner than five weeks. Yeah, sure.

  I called Paul. His receptionist gave me an appointment in thirty seconds for five o’clock that afternoon. I wondered if I could persuade him to give me the file we’d stolen at Hugh’s funeral…or at least tell me what was in it.

  At ten o’clock, I left to work at
the campaign office. The day passed in the usual tedium as I surreptitiously wrote a stream of notes in a tiny notebook I’d secreted in my purse. I’d created a spreadsheet on my laptop, and started entering the data I was collecting from the campaign and from my conversations, hoping a pattern would emerge. Eventually, some little item would appear, and when I typed it into my list, all the seemingly random items might make sense.

  Around noon, the office registered that their Democratic competition had gained in the polls. Claims about Winters integrity were getting airplay, stories about city contracts and trading favors during his time on the city council. Suddenly, everyone wanted updates on everything, including my progress. I had long experience placating an exacting taskmaster, and reassured Mary Ellen at least seven times that I was “on it.” At a quarter to five, I collected my coat and left.

  Paul’s ground-floor office was located in an old Victorian house two blocks off the main street, and abutted a backyard garden where he grew medicinal herbs. He was always researching the best herbal combinations to treat his patients, and had begun corresponding with ethnobotanists about possible traditional medicines that could treat HIV. We didn’t talk about it much, but I knew that his helplessness in the face of Richard’s disease ached in him, like a swirl of red locked inside a glass bird. The office was decorated in a monochromatic palette of greens: deep on the carpet, medium on the chairs, pale on the walls. His receptionist had left for the day and his door was closed, so I sat and tried to calm down by practicing a few of the breathing exercises I’d learned in Switzerland. They were only marginally successful. In a few minutes, Paul walked out with Maria Leiber.

  “Clara.” She came immediately to me, holding out her hands. “How are you holding up?”

  I took them into my own. “I’m fine, thanks. Mother seems to be doing well, even if she’s trying the patience of the detectives working her case. And you? How are you managing?”

  “It’s so much to absorb. Finding referrals for Hugh’s patients, settling the estate, selling the house, it seems as though I’m going to be stuck here forever.” She laughed, rueful. “I know you all love it, but I miss my Montana skies.”

  “I hope it goes quicker than you think.” I smiled. “If there’s anything I can do…” I could use that drift off as well as anyone.

  “Of course.” She leaned forward to kiss my cheek, whispering in my ear, “We should have lunch before I leave town, talk about, well…you know.” She gave me a dark look. I’d almost forgotten her comments about Hetty.

  I let go of her hands. “Whenever you like.”

  She collected her coat and closed the door ever-so-softly behind her.

  “She’s good people,” Paul said. “You shouldn’t take her for granted like that.”

  “What do you mean? What did I do?”

  “She offered to help. I know you, Clara. You didn’t mean a word you said.”

  “The last thing I need is a second mother,” I huffed. “I can feel her wanting to involve me, like octopus tentacles wiggling through the water. I feel every single person is looking at me and they all know something I don’t. The fact that I don’t know it is going to sink me, but no one will freaking tell me what it is.”

  He just raised an eyebrow and gestured toward his office. “What’s up?”

  “I need my mother’s file.”

  “Not yet.”

  “Why not?” I flopped into my favorite comfy velvet chair, my stomach churning.

  “You’re not ready.” He sat, crossing his legs, and waited.

  “You haven’t forgiven me yet.”

  “For what?” he said. “Stealing the file?”

  I nodded.

  “I’m working on it.” He smiled to take the sting from his words. “Is that why you made an appointment? To collect the file and find out if I was still upset? You could have stopped by the house.”

  I made myself sit up straight, like a grown up. “Mother has decreed I should learn to meditate.” I squared my shoulders.

  “Do you want to?”

  I shrugged, reverting to grumpy teenager. “It’s why I made the appointment.” At least partly. I was behaving like an idiot, but it bugged me that Paul felt he could chastise me about Maria Leiber, never mind about the file. I had left because this place was beyond claustrophobic. When there was a secret, it sucked up all the air and no one could breathe. Acquiescing to my mother’s demands about meditation and whatever else she dreamed up used up more air—air I needed, thank you very much.

  “Why does she want you to learn?”

  “You think she’s told me?!” I nearly exploded out of the chair. Paul squashed against his upholstery in surprise. I began to pace. “She doesn’t tell me a damn thing. She speaks in riddles, like a Jungian therapist. ‘Beware of fire.’ ‘Learn to meditate.’ What in the hell am I supposed to do with messages like that?” I put my hands on my hips. “And no one else will help me or tell me anything either!”

  Paul said mildly, “Meditation might help.”

  “Will it teach me to read her mind?”

  “No. It will teach you to read your own. Since you and she are genetically connected, you might access the information she wants you to access simply because your brains are wired the same way.”

  “Why can’t she talk to me like a normal person?”

  “Which one of you is normal?” He smiled again.

  I felt the heat of my anger leave me. I sat down again, put my head in my hands. “I don’t want to be wired like her.”

  I felt his hand on my shoulder. “Not true. What you don’t want is her coldness—and you don’t have it. I’m not even sure that coldness is her true self….” He paused.

  I looked up. “I’ve had a perfectly good life for fifteen years without any of this.”

  “No family connection? A failed marriage? A series of jobs you couldn’t care less about? Every time we’ve visited over the last fifteen years, you’ve been miserable.”

  “You’re wearing me out.”

  “Listen to me: Learning to meditate might help. It calms the mind. Doesn’t that sound good?”

  I looked around. The office felt cozy and warm with its plush cushions and lacy jacaranda tree. Paul had brought the seeds back from California. Since the little tree would never survive the bitter northeast winters, he grew it indoors. Against its fetching greenery were three neon pink geraniums he’d turned into perennials. Behind them, two windows offered views of the garden. At this hour I could see nothing but blackness.

  “Meditation feels like chaos, but if it will help Mother, I’ll do it.”

  “It’s for you, Clara, not your mother.”

  “Fine. Whatever.”

  He had me shut my eyes and took me through the process of relaxation, one muscle group at a time—tense and relax, tense and relax—until my body melted like honey in hot tea. I lost track of time, sinking into an emptiness filled at first only with the senses, almost as if the senses were heightened by the calming of my mind.

  Even the part of me that stood apart and mocked and worried was lulled into quiescence. I heard the clock tapping the minutes out, the wind batting leaves against the windows, Paul’s breathing. Thoughts about Mother and Hugh and my divorce drifted through, but Paul counseled me to let them float by, as if I were watching clouds from the comfort of warm sand on a summer afternoon.

  After a while, he suggested I imagine a safe place, either somewhere I loved or a retreat I created. My mind conjured up my mother’s little house at the stable. I walked through it, room by room, claiming it as my own, changing the pillows from turquoise to peach, painting the walls a delicate taupe, filling the kitchen with Tippy Assam tea and the chocolate chip cookies my father used to bake. When I was comfortable, he said, “Ask for an animal to guide you, to nose out the deceit.”

  For a moment, nothing came. Then I loo
ked out the window of the little house and saw a gray wolf, his head turned toward me, as if in invitation. I could see his damp black nose surrounded by white, caramel and gray fur, his hazel eyes a match for his thick coat. While I watched, he howled, long and plaintive. Within moments, as if they had fashioned themselves from air, other wolves drifted from the trees, adding their voices to the chorus. The cabin was surrounded, wolf pack upon wolf pack howling into the moonlit sky.

  I felt loved and protected for the first time in a long time.

  Paul and Richard fed me dinner that night. Paul and I had talked about the wolves and what they meant in the office, but we didn’t agree. Richard took one look at us and opened a bottle of wine.

  “I can see that my day at work was cake, compared to yours,” he said. “I’m making coq au vin for dinner. Clara, can you get the chicken and mushrooms out of the fridge? Paul, could you set the table?” Richard removed the Baccarat from the walnut cabinet in the dining room and poured generous glasses. Paul gave him a funny look, but didn’t comment.

  They’d bought those glasses a couple of months after Richard’s diagnosis. The pattern was called Perfection—a simple, thin crystal. They’d been in hysterics in the Madison Avenue boutique, joking about the dark irony of claiming perfection as their own, a magic wand to clean up their messy and complicated lives.

  I’d tried to talk them into Massena, a heavier, dramatic design with deep cuts in the crystal base, but they said it was named after a fortified city, and they didn’t want to think about war when they were drinking wine. I told them that was Masada, not Massena, and that the design was actually named after a French general, but they said that was the same thing, and dissolved into another round of giggles—an act of hope against the dark.

  Richard raised his glass in a toast. “To us,” he said. “To good friends who will see you through.” Our glasses clinked and the wine trailed its warming way down my throat. He set his glass on the counter. “Okay, Clara. You’re in charge of wiping mushrooms and finding the tomatoes in the pantry. I’ll chop onions. Paul, your job—should you choose to accept it—is to keep Clara plied with wine.” He slid the papery skin off the first onion and attacked the root with a small paring knife.