Severed Relations

by Rebecca Forster

  When they were far enough away, Finn broke into a run. He flew over the ground, graceful and fast but not without notice. The man he wanted to talk to saw them coming and made a break for a car parked on the wide boulevard that wound through the cemetery.

  "Go!" Cori called.

  Faster and faster Finn went until he hit a patch of mud around a newly dug grave, slipped and fell hard. He cursed the fancy Italian shoes and their slick soles. Just as Cori reached for him, he took off again, but the distance was too great and precious seconds had been lost. The car was already moving, heading out of the cemetery. Finn sprinted to the middle of the road and kept running until the car disappeared around the bend. Slowing to a trot, then to a walk, Finn finally came to a stop and stood looking down the empty road, phone in hand, calling in what he had. It was fresh, urgent and clear. There was a good chance someone on the street would grab the car fast. Then again, cops were stretched thin and there was just as good a chance that the man would slip through the cracks.

  Kicking at the asphalt, scuffing the toe of those fancy shoes, he made his way back to Cori who was resting against the wrought iron door that barred the entrance to the crypt. He paused at a gravestone and let his hand rest on the head of an anguished angel hewn out of rough stone.

  "Did you get a good look?" she asked.

  "Caucasian. Medium build. Light brown hair. There was a passenger. Darker hair. Smaller."

  Finn bit his lip. He wiped the sweat off his brow and pulled at the knot of his tie. He popped the top button of his shirt, and then he smacked the stone angel upside the head.

  "Blast, we were close."

  "I'm getting too old for this." Cori doubled over and took a very deep breath. When she righted herself, she fussed with the bow on her go-to-a-funeral blouse. "Maybe it was just somebody visiting one of the folks down under. We probably gave them a heart attack. I'd be scared if I saw us coming."

  "The devil…"

  Finn cursed and he pivoted toward the road, shaking his head in disgust. When he did that he saw something he had overlooked. Finn retraced his steps, stopped at the edge of the grass, and bent down.

  "Cori," he called. "I'm needing some tissues."

  Cori walked over and handed him two. Finn used one to pick up a greeting card lying in the dirt, and then put it across the tissue that covered the palm of his other hand. Cori put her hands on his back and peered over his shoulder as he opened it.

  "That's the ugliest thing I've ever seen."

  The white card was made of cheap stock. On the front was a black cross and at the base of the cross was a lamb that looked more like Jack Black with a sheep's rump. Inside was a most interesting message.

  Sory abut you kids

  "Still think it was an innocent we scared off?" Finn asked.

  "No, I do not," Cori whistled.

  Finn stood up and wrapped the card carefully, putting it in his breast pocket. He took off his sunglasses, inspected the lenses, and wiped them with his tie. In the distance, people were leaving the Barnett funeral. Elizabeth, Sam Barnett and Elizabeth's mother lingered near the caskets. Finn put his glasses back on and touched the small of Cori's back to usher her to their car.

  "That car was a rental," he said. "I saw a Bargain Rent-a-Car sticker on the bumper."

  "Excellent. I'll check and see if the lab has identified the tire tracks," Cori said.

  "Could be we'll get some prints off this card, too," Finn said.

  "Good stuff, O'Brien."

  Before they parted to get in their car, he raised a fist that Cori dutifully bumped with hers.

  CHAPTER 23

  Such a shame. A house isn't a house without children…

  Did you sell your place?…can't believe they wouldn't negotiate…

  Couldn't bear up as well as Elizabeth. Class all the way…

  Red…convertible should be red…besides, there was a waiting list for black…

  "Hey. Did you try this?"

  Cori poked Finn with her elbow.

  "Sorry. What?"

  He looked from her to his empty plate. He'd been lost in the bits and pieces of conversation among the people snaking around the gleaming table. It was laden with enough food to feed them all ten times over.

  "I asked if you tried the salmon."

  Cori flipped the wide silver fork she was holding toward a platter. At one time, there had been a whole fish on it. Now the poor thing's glassy eyes stared at the ceiling as if afraid to look at its cannibalized midsection. When Finn shook his head, Cori dug out a piece and put it on his plate. She added a devilled egg, but before she got to the pastries Finn put his plate aside and walked away. Cori picked it up, shouldered through the people at the buffet, and followed him to a spot in a short hallway by the stairs.

  "What's with you? Eat." She shoved the plate at him and he pushed it right back.

  "You're not my mother, Cori," he said. "I'll eat when I'm hungry."

  Cori lowered her eyes, turned around, and put the small plate in an alcove that at one time probably held the only phone in the house. She checked her anger even though Finn couldn't have wounded her more if he tried with that one. She put her back up against the wall and said:

  "What are we waiting for, Finn? Why don't we get out of here?"

  "I thought there would be something. Someone," Finn muttered.

  Cori turned her shoulder to the wall. "That guy at the cemetery isn't going to saunter into this shindig. I'm telling you, we're done here."

  Finn wasn't listening. He was looking into the living room. His attention was on Elizabeth Barnett. Cori didn't have to look to know that.

  "Don't hang your wash on someone else's line," she warned. "That woman may have a heap of trouble but she's got folks to help her."

  "Did you see the way her husband clamped down on her at the cemetery?" Finn asked this as if he hadn't heard her.

  "Good grief. What is she, Rapunzel waiting to let down her hair? Did it ever occur to you that maybe he needed her to stick with him? She's not the only one in a bad way."

  "I don't like him."

  "Now there's a news flash." Cori's lips turned up in a sad little smile. Finn's dislike for Sam Barnett was almost as obvious as his infatuation with the man's wife. Finn and classy broads; Cori would never get it. She pushed off the wall. "I've got to hit the little girl's room. When I get back we're going."

  Finn put his elbow on the banister and watched Cori cut through the crowd. He was thinking about his partner's good heart and good sense when he realized he was looking into Elizabeth Barnett's deep blue eyes. She held his gaze while she offered a word to the people she was talking to. When she walked toward the kitchen, Finn followed because she wanted him to. He was sure of that. The other thing he was sure of was that Cori had been mistaken. There was something for him in this house after all.

  "My husband thinks I shouldn't bother you. He says you'll tell us when you have something to say."

  Elizabeth started talking as soon as the swinging kitchen door closed behind them. She was about to face him when a caterer's assistant hurried past with a platter full of open-faced sandwiches, the third Finn had seen. Elizabeth moved on, pushing open the screen door and going onto the wide raised landing outside the backdoor. Finn caught the door so it wouldn't slam shut. Outside he noticed things he hadn't seen the night he came in search of Elizabeth Barnett. There was a straw-bristled hedgehog near the door, a smile painted onto its stone face, its back ready to clean shoes dirty from playing outside. Next to the hedgehog was a beach towel. There was a pot of basil nestled in the crotch where the two, old wooden railings met at a right angle. The swing set. A sand box.

  "It's so crowded in there." Elizabeth Barnett pulled his attention back to her.

  "It's good to have many friends to share your sorrow with," Finn said.

  "Don't be fooled. I can count on one hand the number of people who are here to grieve with us: my mother, my friend Mercedes, her husband, and the girls' teachers." Elizabe
th put her palms on the railing and pushed down hard, testing it to see if it would hold her weight. "Most everyone else is here because it's like slowing to look at an accident on the freeway. You hope no one was hurt, but the truth is you're just really happy you're not the one lying there dead. They are here because they are curious, horrified, and relieved all at the same time. It's human nature. I can't fault anyone for it."

  She narrowed her eyes and Finn saw the macabre glitter in them. Her cynicism, while honest, was disconcerting.

  "You're living in this house again, are you?"

  "This is my home," she answered. "Besides, you would never know anything happened here. It's strange how some people make their living, isn't it? Can you imagine spending the day wiping blood off walls? What do those people say when they go home and their husband or wife asks how their day was?"

  Finn knew the answer but so did she. There was no need to speak it out loud. The people she was talking about said their day was fine. That was the same thing Elizabeth told the people inside her house. I'm holding up. I'm fine. Finn had told the same lie when Alexander died and he had gone back to school. But he wasn't fine, he just couldn't stand being home and watching his parents rip themselves apart with sorrow.

  "Sam found the idea of Stephen frightening." Elizabeth said this as if their conversation about Stephen Grady days ago had been on going. Then she threw the switch and the train they were on changed tracks again. "Do you have a cigarette?"

  Finn shook his head. "I don't smoke."

  "I quit when I got pregnant. Guess that was a wasted effort." She laughed a little. "I don't really want one, it's just that I feel like it. Sometimes I feel like I need air even though I'm breathing. The sight of food makes me sick, but I eat anyway."

  Her voice trailed away. Then she sighed. Finally, she confessed.

  "Stephen came here once."

  CHAPTER 24

  Elizabeth passed her hand over her forehead as though she found the colors of her make-up constricting, making it hard for her to think. She sighed again. Her fingers worked themselves into a knot.

  "I don't usually lie, detective, but Sam, well, he is rigid. He is a good husband. I want you to understand that. I never wanted to cause him worry or give him reason to distrust me, but when I met Stephen I had to do something for him despite Sam's disapproval." Her lashes fluttered. Her fingers went to her lips as she tried to find words to explain herself. "It was such a little thing in the grand scheme of my life, and such a big thing for a man like Stephen. Do you see?"

  "No, not really," Finn answered.

  She moved just then. One step back, two to the right, one back again: box steps in a dance of agitation. She held onto the old railing and looked into some distance where she was only herself and not a wife and mother.

  "Before the schizophrenia, Stephen was a scientist but nobody cares about that. They just care about what he is now. But I cared about who he was. I wanted to do for Stephen what I would want someone to do for me in the same situation. I wanted Stephen to feel useful. I wanted him to feel that someone was truly seeing him. I thought that would make him stronger and the sickness weaker. I think sickness of the mind is the worst of all, don't you?"

  Elizabeth didn't wait for an answer. She smiled at Finn as if she pitied him a prejudice because he didn't agree with her.

  "Anyway, I brought him here. He cut some bushes. I paid him a little. I drove him back to the clinic. He said thank you. That is all there was to it."

  When she looked at Finn, there were tears in her eyes.

  "Please don't tell Sam. You saw how angry he gets about this. I don't want to make him angry."

  "Are you afraid of your husband, missus?"

  She shook her head, "I only want to keep thing calm. He's on edge. We both are. You won't tell him, will you?"

  "Not if I don't have to," Finn answered.

  "Thank you."

  It was clear she had not heard Finn qualify his statement. He would have Cori go back to the housekeeper and the neighbors to find out if anyone had seen Stephen Grady in this house or near this place more than once. He would tell Sam Barnett about Stephen Grady's visit if it meant finding the persons who killed those children.

  "I doubt Stephen could find his way back to this house much less get through security. I wanted you to know that. I didn't want you to be hard on him when you speak to him."

  "We can't be sure that he couldn't find your home again. Etta said he became very upset while you were gone. If he considered your family a road block to him getting attention from you, he could have lost it."

  "I volunteer at an outpatient clinic, not an asylum," Elizabeth said. "If you met Stephen then you would know he's incapable of that kind of rage. He would hurt himself before he hurt anyone else."

  "You've never taken him in? Your children never met him?"

  Elizabeth shook her head. "No. And that's the truth."

  "What else can you tell me about him?" Finn asked, wanting to hear her speak about this man so he could find a rhythm to her truth.

  "He has dark wavy hair. Mostly he cuts it very short. When he sits, he entwines his legs and his arms like a child with no friends on the playground." One of Elizabeth's hands moved over the railing as if she was polishing it. "He has brown eyes and he wears jeans. He has a favorite red plaid shirt. I gave him a new one but he wouldn't wear it. His nails are long. He scratches himself with them when he's anxious. You can always tell when he's been off his medication too long. He always has scabs on his arms from scratching himself. I think he's missing a tooth just here."

  Elizabeth opened her mouth slightly and pointed as she turned her head for Finn to see. She had small, straight teeth. Her lips were rimmed with the last vestiges of a peach color lipstick. Finn noticed a small mole below her ear and heard how vividly she spoke about Stephen Grady.

  "I do wish you could find him. I'd like to know that he's all right," she said.

  "We're looking," Finn assured her and that was the truth.

  The day before he had searched under the 101 freeway, skid row, and even climbed into the Hollywood Hills to an encampment that someone said was the place the truly hopeless lived. Finn never had much faith in Stephen Grady as a suspect, so he was only tired, not disappointed, when he didn't find him. That man could not have subdued Rachel Gerber much less shot her. The noise made by a terrified little girl would probably have terrified him back. The man's fingerprints weren't found in the Barnett home, and a bipolar male off his meds wouldn't have meticulously cleaned up after himself.

  The killers had left little behind other than a few hairs and that fingernail. He and Cori knew one of the people they were looking for had red hair and one had brown, and they knew that whoever lost the nail did coke, they knew that the ginger had kinky hair. Both hair samples were long; a man with a shaved head would have left nothing of use behind. One of the killers used a well-honed knife with a nick in it, the other had a gun and no homeless, insane man was going to have those things much less care for them.

  There was matter taken from beneath Rachel Gerber's fingernails waiting for a suspect to match. Finn was sure it wouldn't be Stephen Grady. Still, he would like to have a DNA sample just to be sure. He would also like to see the man who Elizabeth Barnett seemed to have more concern for than she had for her husband.

  "Are we all right, now?" Elizabeth's voice startled Finn. He shook his head and gave her a small smile.

  "Yes. We're fine. I'm glad you told me."

  "I am, too. I don't like secrets and lies. Quite frankly I despise them, but they are necessary at times. You must understand, though, that Stephen is fragile. He doesn't deserve to be caught up in this."

  "Still, missus–"

  "Elizabeth?" Elizabeth Barnett's mother stuck her head out the door, interrupting Finn. "The Rigolis are leaving now. I thought you'd like to know."

  "I'll be right in."

  Elizabeth Barnett's mother nodded at Finn, clearly concerned about the porch conferen
ce, but she said nothing. When she was gone, Elizabeth asked:

  "What happened at the cemetery?"

  "Nothing important."

  Finn thought about the card he had found that was now in the car in a plastic bag. It would be dusted for fingerprints, they would track down the store it came from, they would analyze the handwriting and, once all that was done, he might tell Elizabeth Barnett about it. Showing it to her now would only cause heartache and horror. When she spoke again, Finn realized it didn't matter about the card. Elizabeth Barnett had lost interest in talking to him.

  "Well, then, I suppose I should go. Now that I've been honest about Stephen."

  He moved to the door and opened it for her but as she passed the toe of her shoe caught on the flashing of the door. She stumbled and Finn caught her, one hand on her elbow, the other at her waist. It was so narrow that Finn was sure he could have put his hands around her and his fingers would have met in the middle. Elizabeth's head swung toward him. Her eyes were downcast. Her lips parted. When she finally looked at him, her gaze was steady. It seemed that she was going to say something; it seemed as if she might smile. When she didn't, Finn let her go.

  Elizabeth Barnett murmured her thanks. Finn caught the kitchen door and followed her inside, but she didn't look back. She glided through the kitchen, past the caterers and into the muted chaos of her home. She went straight to her husband's side. Sam Barnett kissed her grey hair and she wrapped her arm around him. Finn O'Brien saw the couple they were to the outside world. He saw the man and wife who took comfort in one another, loved and respected each other.

  What he was seeing was a far cry from what he had been hearing and Finn O'Brien would have to decide what to believe: his eyes, his ears, or his Irish heart.

  CHAPTER 25

  DAY 4 – EARLY EVENING