I climbed the steps of the wide front porch. It wrapped down both sides of the house, bedecked with Adirondack chairs, palm-blade fans, and three different swings. A red plastic bucket in the corner brimmed with toys. Damn. It hadn’t occurred to me to ask Parker how old the kid was. What was I getting into, here?
The front door stood open behind a wood-framed screen, and soft chimes rang through the house when I pushed the doorbell.
A petite woman whose honey-gold skin and sun-streaked hair said she spent a good deal of time outside appeared in the entry. She tried to smile, but it didn’t come off.
“Nichelle Clarke, from the Richmond Telegraph?” My words sounded more like a question than an introduction because her face portrayed a level of pain I wasn’t sure I wanted to tackle, no matter how big the story was. I didn’t want to let Parker down, though. “Grant Parker sent me.”
She nodded, snagging a friendly-faced Golden Retriever by his thick red collar as she pushed the door open. “I’m Ashton Okerson. Please, come in.”
I stepped into a perfect oasis, my heels clicking on travertine just the right shade of blue-gray to match the panoramic views of the Atlantic I could see through each of three doorways.
“I’m so sorry for your loss,” I said, shaking her hand. She didn’t look much older than me.
“Thank you for coming to help us. Tony says Grant swears this interview will make it easier. I don’t see how anything could.” She closed her eyes for a long blink. They shone bright with tears when she opened them. “But thank you. Make yourself at home in the living room.” She pointed to the doorway straight ahead. “I’ll get my husband.”
The wall to the right of the dining room held an artful collage that showed off a gorgeous family. I studied the center photo. Tony Okerson’s blond, all-American good looks were framed by a flawless sky, his arm slung around Ashton, the surf in the background. An equally-handsome teenager knelt in the sand in front of them, a football tucked under one flowy-white-beach-shirted arm. Twin little girls with pigtails the color of sunshine leaned from behind Ashton and Tony, grinning.
I stared at the boy. He was the reason I was there, because he was the only male child in the picture. What could bring such tragedy to this peaceful place?
Looking around, I didn’t see or hear any sign of Ashton or Tony. Maybe he’d gone for a walk. I would. If I lived in that house, I wouldn’t even need shoes, and I could eat as much white chocolate and southern fried everything as I wanted, because I’d walk a million miles up and down that beach every day.
I strode to the open glass wall that ran the length of the living room, searching the shoreline before a soft sob pulled my attention from the water.
One of the little girls from the picture. Hugging a football and crying. I froze. I didn’t want to scare her, and I was a stranger. My throat closed and tears burned my eyes. Before I could get my mouth open—though I wasn’t sure if it was to speak to the child or call for her mother—I felt a hand on my shoulder.
I turned to find myself face-to-face with one of the most famous athletes in the Western Hemisphere. The anguish in his green eyes screamed that he’d give back every trophy and Super Bowl ring to have his son safe upstairs.
Oh, boy.
I closed my eyes and hauled in a deep breath, pasting on a smile and putting my hand out.
“I’m so sorry to have to meet you under these circumstances, Mr. Okerson,” I said, clearing my throat and brushing at my eyes. “My allergies are giving me the hardest time today.”
He nodded, offering a small half-smile. “I understand,” he said, and his gentle handshake told me he did. “Please, call me Tony. Come, have a seat.”
I gestured to the little girl.
He peeked around the corner, his broad shoulders slumping. “She won’t talk to anyone.”
I followed him to a sprawling azure sectional. Ashton came in from the hallway and bustled around the kitchen, disappearing out onto the deck with a plate of cookies.
I shot Tony a look and started to get back to my feet. “Can I help her with something? I feel like she should be, um, not doing housework.”
He shook his head. “She’s been like this since the sheriff left. Keeping herself busy with mundane things. Almost like she can fix it.” He watched his wife fill a pitcher with iced tea and put glasses on a tray, lowering his voice so only I could hear him. “Like part of her thinks if she goes about a normal Thursday, TJ will come home and this will be a bad dream. God, I wish she was right.”
I nodded, trying to smile when Ashton brought the tray in and set it on the coffee table. She filled the glasses and handed me one, then offered one to Tony, who waved it away. Ashton sank into the couch next to her husband, laying her left hand on his knee.
“I’m not sure…?” She let the question trail off, her turquoise eyes begging me for guidance.
“What to tell me? I understand that.” I leaned forward and put the glass on the table, studying them.
Sorrow seeped from every pore. Clearly, I shouldn’t vault into asking them about TJ’s death. “I want to write a story more about who your son was than how he died, though I’m afraid I need to know that, too,” I said. “What kind of music did he like? What was his favorite color, food, time of the year?”
Ashton opened her mouth and her face crumpled. One hand flew to her lips and a muffled sob escaped. “I can’t. I can’t talk about my beautiful boy in the past tense. My God, he’s really gone, isn’t he?” She buried her face in Tony’s orange polo. “How did this happen to us?”
“I’m so sorry,” I said, her anguished tone tugging at my heart.
Tony nodded over the top of his wife’s head. “Thank you. I know you didn’t mean any harm. We asked you to come here. Grant said he dragged you out of a rare day off. This is just…surreal. We’re still trying to process it.”
“I’m sure that’s a difficult thing to do,” I said, my thoughts running back to the little girl on the deck. It would be especially hard for her to understand. I knew.
They sat for a moment, him staring at nothing, smoothing her hair as she cried. I tried to blend into the sofa. Some days my job felt more voyeuristic than I’d like. When Ashton sat up, I turned my attention back to them.
“TJ’s a good kid,” Tony said. “Good grades, lots of friends. No trouble. He’s an old soul in a young man’s body. Didn’t ever seem like he wanted to be anything but grown up and responsible. He loves his little sisters, is really active in the church.”
I scribbled as he talked, my Benadryl-fogged brain trying to pick through that to a place where this boy had killed himself. Nothing about that said “suicide.”
“Girlfriend?” I asked.
“All the girls chased TJ,” Ashton said, sniffling. “But Sydney was the only one he ever wanted.”
Maybe unrequited teenage love?
“Did she want him, too?” I asked.
“Oh, yes. They’ve been dating seriously for over a year. Talking about growing up and getting married, like we did. They’re in love.” She glanced at her husband and he squeezed her hand. “We’re not stupid. We told them they had to wait until they were through with school. Do it in the right order. We had TJ when we were still in college. We managed, but it was hard.”
I nodded, jotting that down.
“Had the two of them had a fight?”
“No. She’s studying in Paris this semester. She wants to be an artist. They Facetimed and talked on the phone every day. She’s coming home next week, and he’s so excited to see her,” Ashton closed her eyes and tightened her grip on Tony’s hand. “I guess she’s coming home tonight, isn’t she?”
Maybe he missed the girl? I put a star by that.
“Forgive me, but I have to ask: is there any history of depression in your family? Had TJ ever shown signs of it?”
I bit my lip. Past stories had taught me that teen suicides almost always fall into one of two camps: kids who are outcasts or bullied, or kids who are
struggling with the onset of mental illness.
“No,” Ashton said, her face serious. “I’ve been over every minute of the last three weeks in my head today, wondering if I missed something. I have a psych degree gathering dust in the attic. I know the signs. For TJ to spiral that far, that fast, we’d have noticed. I’m a full-time mom and Tony’s retired. We have nothing to do but helicopter our kids.”
Hmmm.
“How many sports does TJ play?” I asked. They were obviously more comfortable with the present tense.
“Football and baseball.” Tony tried to smile. “Quarterback and pitcher. Grant says he’s better at baseball. I disagree.”
I nodded, another lump forming in my throat at the thought of the hurt I’d heard in my friend’s voice on the phone. Parker had been a breath away from being a major league pitcher when a blown rotator cuff ended his baseball career.
“He said y’all were old friends?” I knew Tony Okerson was a UVA alum, like Parker. “From college?”
Tony nodded. “The summer before my senior year, they assigned me a freshman buddy from the athletic program. I had fun showing Grant around the campus. He was serious. Laser-focused. I knew he had the stuff to make it in professional sports five minutes after I met him. He’s a good friend.”
“That he is,” I said. Or, he had been since he’d forgiven me for suspecting him of murder. I’d played matchmaker as a peace offering, setting him up with our city hall reporter at the end of summer. They were getting serious.
I looked out the window at the surf, then back at Tony and Ashton. They didn’t want to be there. Didn’t want me there. Didn’t want to deal with any of this. Their son’s death was a circus trainload of elephants in the room, but I couldn’t flat-out ask them to describe it. So I chose the roundabout road.
“Tell me about TJ,” I said, raising my pen.
And they did. They told stories and laughed and cried for an hour. I wrote down everything from Ashton going into labor at a UVA football game (Tony made it through the third quarter before the offensive line coach whisked him off to the hospital just in time to see his son come into the world) to TJ’s first day of kindergarten, to his belief that wearing the same socks and underwear for all of January helped his dad win the Super Bowl (ick, but an endearing sort of gross). When the story came around to that morning, Ashton dissolved into sobs again.
“He wasn’t in his room,” Tony said, clearing his throat. “I went to get him up because we always run in the mornings, and he wasn’t there. I thought maybe he was already outside. It’s spring break, but he’s been up early every day. He went to a party last night, though, and we told him he could stay out late.”
Party? My ears keened on the word. I stayed quiet.
Tony stared past me at the dark flatscreen TV on the wall over the fireplace.
“I ran, probably a mile and a half down the beach. The shore gets rockier the further you go around the island. I saw the remnants of a campfire, and I know the kids build them this time of year when they’re out on the water late. Then I saw TJ’s jacket. I picked my way down to the water. He was slumped on a rock. It looked like he was sleeping.”
I frowned. What about that screamed “suicide?” I hadn’t heard anything to make me think this kid had killed himself, yet his parents told Parker he had. How was I going to ask them that without making Ashton cry harder?
I tilted my head and caught Tony’s eye.
“I’m afraid I don’t follow…” I said.
He nodded, his eyes gleaming with unshed tears. “There was a bottle of Vicodin in his pocket. It was empty.”
Ah.
“He’d just picked it up yesterday,” Tony continued. “His knee has been bothering him since he took that bad fall in the state championship game in December, and he twisted it in baseball practice last week.” He bent his head and buried his face in Ashton’s hair, tightening his arms around her. I ducked my head, jotting notes and trying to sort through their story.
A whole bottle of narcotics would do it. But why?
I looked around. The mirror image of the little girl I’d seen outside, but wearing a Mathews High football jersey that swallowed her tiny frame, waved at me from the kitchen doorway. There was a ring of chocolate around her mouth and a light missing from her blue-green eyes. The combination broke my heart.
I wiggled my fingers at her. She stepped into the living room.
“Mommy?” She paused at the end of the couch, and Ashton and Tony broke apart, wiping their eyes.
“What is it, angel?” Ashton flashed a half-smile and opened her arms. The little girl ran to her and climbed into her lap.
“I want TJ to come home,” the child said, her whisper muffled by Ashton’s shirt.
Dear God.
Tony Okerson looked at me over his daughter’s head, pain and pleading twisting his famously-handsome face. “Please, Miss Clarke. Don’t let the press turn my family’s loss into a sales pitch.”
I wasn’t sure what I could do to stop it, but I offered a shaky smile as I stood, promising him I would, anyway. There was nothing else to say.
“Thank you for coming,” he said, tears falling faster than he could brush them away.
“Of course. Thank you for sharing your memories with me.”
I scratched the dog behind his soft, floppy ears as I let myself out the front door, tugging it to make sure he couldn’t escape. I climbed back into my car, the effects of the medicine washing away with the adrenaline and emotion of the afternoon.
The image of the Okersons clinging to their wounded little girl burned the backs of my eyelids as I dropped my head and let the tears fall for a few minutes.
By the time I rubbed my hands over my face and started the car, it was after six, the sun low in the sky.
I wondered where the drugstore was. Another dose of Benadryl was definitely in my future. And since I was poking around town, I might as well meet the local law enforcement.
I glanced at the Okerson house one more time in the rearview as I started up the driveway. Something wasn’t right. The details didn’t add up. And I was already too invested in these people and their story to walk away without trying to find out why.
2.
Welcome to Mathews
A dazzling pink sun sank into the Chesapeake Bay, rings of orange, violet, and gold flowing across the horizon and into the water. I slowed the car and watched from the rock-lined road that ran along the north side of the island, letting the beauty erase some of the turmoil I’d lugged from the Okerson house.
A dull honking behind me broke my reverie, reminding me I’d stopped in the middle of the street. I checked the rearview to find a John Deere occupied by an older man in starched jeans and a white straw hat. I waved an apology and gunned the engine.
I hadn’t passed anything but churches and seafood places on the island itself, so I drove back across the little bridge, wondering as I breezed through the only stoplight in town if it ever turned red.
I stopped at the 7-Eleven on the corner that led back to the real world and shuffled inside, hoping they had cold medicine of some variety to get me through a couple more hours and then get me home. Leave it to me to take a sick day and wind up working ’til ten o’clock. The news doesn’t wait for pollen. Or anything else, in the age of Twitter.
I found a packet of Sudafed and a small vat of Diet Coke. Sipping the soda, I moved to the register.
“You’re not from around here,” the words were flat—a statement, not a question—from the wiry redhead behind the counter.
“Just passing through,” I replied, trying to smile through my sinus pain.
“There ain’t nothing out here but fields and water and the people who work them,” she said, pulling my change from the till with a raised eyebrow that said she wanted to know why I was there. “You come here, you leave, but you don’t pass through.”
“Seems like a nice place.” I turned for the door.
I hauled myself back into t
he car, shivering in the breeze and thinking I probably needed a couple of Advil, too. I laid a hand across my forehead. Fever. Hooray. After swallowing the Sudafed, I dug a vial of Advil out of my bag and took two, leaning my head back to rest for a second.
I tried to search for the sheriff’s office address on my Blackberry. No signal. Great. There weren’t but so many places for the sheriff to be in a mapdot this tiny. I turned the opposite of the way I’d come into town. I could find the office.
Or not find it. I tried following the arrows through the halls of the big red courthouse with the sign out front that said “Sheriff’s Office.” It was locked, paint buckets outside and drop cloths covering everything I could see through the window.
Twenty minutes later, I’d circled town three times and wondered if the police had closed up due to remodeling. I stopped in the parking lot of an ancient service station that had been reborn as an antique store. The old-fashioned gravity-fed gas pumps out front were topped with blue and white globes emblazoned with “Esso extra” and flanked by vintage Standard Oil signs. The front walk displayed a charming array of merchandise.
If I wasn’t crunched for time and feeling craptastic, I’d have browsed for an hour. As it was, I dragged myself to the door and asked the gray-haired gentleman behind the counter where I could find the sheriff.
“At the courthouse,” he said, bustling around the end of the high, polished wood counter. His brow wrinkled deeper with concern when he stopped in front of me. “Why don’t you come in and have a seat, sugar? You don’t look so good.”
“Allergies,” I said. And decongestants for dinner.
“What business d’you got with Zeke?”
Zeke? Sheriff Zeke. All right. “Just a few questions.”
“You look like death on toast.” He settled on a stool behind the counter. “Sit down.”
“I appreciate the hospitality, but I need to go talk to the sheriff,” I said with an effort at smiling. From the look I got in response, I probably managed a wince. “I tried the courthouse, and the office looks like it’s being painted.”
He nodded. “They moved out of the new office for the painters and back to the old office. At the courthouse. Go to the stop sign up yonder and turn right, then go behind the shops on Main.”
Small Town Spin Page 2
