Redemption Lake

by Susan Clayton-Goldner

  He flipped on the light and went through the same procedure, checking each dresser and nightstand drawer. He found a gold cross pendant that matched the earrings Crystal wore. He picked it up, stared at it for a moment, wondering why she’d put it in the drawer instead of her jewelry box on her dresser. He looked under the bed and was about to leave when he changed his mind. He pulled the chair beneath the window into her closet and parted her skirts and dresses. Her clothing released a smell that reminded Radhauser of the wildflowers he’d picked for Laura on their mountain top honeymoon in Whistler.

  Everyone told him the first year was the hardest, that it got easier after all the anniversaries had passed, but so far, two days into his second year without his family, he saw no traces of the grief easing up.

  He stood on the chair and ran his hand along the top shelf of Crystal’s closet. Tucked into the far back corner, he felt a small rectangular box and pulled it out. The shoebox held two stacks of unopened letters, each secured with a wide blue rubber band. They were addressed to Travis Reynolds and postmarked from the Arizona State Prison in Florence—from an inmate named Mitchell T. Reynolds. Either this was Travis’s grandfather or Crystal had lied to her son and his father was still alive.

  Radhauser took the box into the kitchen, sat at the table and leafed through the letters, checking the postmarks. The first one was sent in August of 1974. Travis would have just turned three years old. The last one sent in February of this year. Radhauser lifted out both stacks. On the bottom of the shoebox, he discovered a folded piece of paper with Travis’s name neatly printed on top. Radhauser opened it.

  Dear Travis,

  I know how kids like to snoop, so don’t think I’m mad at you for finding these letters. But if you’re reading this note, it means you know I lied to you about your father. I was seventeen and Mitch was only a year older—much too young to be married with a baby. There never seemed to be enough money, and after you were born he started running with a bad group of boys. He got into drugs and alcohol. Mitch was a mean drunk and I was often afraid for you and me. To tell you the truth, I was relieved when the cops arrested him. I figured you’d have enough to cope with having me for a mother.

  School kids can be cruel and I wanted to spare you the shame of having a father in prison. So I moved us away from Phoenix and down here to Tucson. You’re a smart boy, Travis. I wanted you to feel good about yourself and where you came from, so I made up the story about your father being shot down in Vietnam. I could have thrown his letters away—but I saved them, planning to give them to you on your eighteenth birthday. I thought about opening them, but they were addressed to you, so I didn’t. Sometimes men turn themselves around in jail, get their GEDs and even take college classes. I hope with all my heart Mitch is one of them. He’s paying for what he did and, who knows, maybe someday he can be a real father to you. Believe it or not, I hope so. It’s hard being a single mom. I didn’t always do it right. But I always wanted to.

  Love, Crystal

  There was something vulnerable and deeply honest about her letter. Crystal would remain alive to her son as long as he learned new things about her and what she’d wanted for him. He read it again. Crystal had done what she’d believed was the right thing for Travis.

  Radhauser carefully refolded the page and returned it to the bottom of the shoebox. He placed the two stacks on top, then tucked the box under his arm, turned off the lights, locked up the house and got back into his Bronco. It went against police procedures to take the letters, but he needed to do it. They weren’t evidence related to the case. And even if they were, he needed to honor Crystal’s wish that Travis receive them on his eighteenth birthday. And he needed to track down Mitch Reynolds.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  After his calculus final on Tuesday morning, Matt drove to the Mountain View Clinic in Catalina. He’d seen the appointment with Dr. Cunningham on Crystal’s calendar. Maybe the doctor had given her a reason to be depressed that had nothing to do with Matt or his father. Maybe she had cancer or something.

  Once inside, he found the bank of elevators, checked the list of physicians on the plaque between the doors. Cunningham was an obstetrician and gynecologist. Not a doctor Travis was likely to visit. Restless energy burned through Matt. He pushed the button for the third floor, then changed his mind and ran up the three flights of stairs.

  He took a moment to catch his breath, then stepped up to the receptionist window, praying Travis had never come here with Crystal. Matt’s hands curled into fists at his sides. The room smelled like new carpet.

  “May I help you?” The receptionist’s blonde hair sparkled under the fluorescent light. She was in her early twenties. Over her chinos she wore a bright red smock printed with teddy bears.

  Matt stared at it for a moment, wondering if he would ever be able to look at the color red again without seeing that bathtub of blood. For a moment, he couldn’t breathe.

  “Did you want to make an appointment for someone?”

  Matt avoided making eye contact. “I’m Travis Reynolds. My mother, Crystal, was a patient of Dr. Cunningham. He saw her last Friday.”

  She nodded.

  “I know this is an unusual request,” Matt said, a slight tremble in his voice. “But my mother died Saturday night and I’d really like to talk to her doctor.”

  “I know about her death,” she said. “A police detective was already here.”

  Holy shit. Radhauser didn’t waste any time. Matt tightened his elbows against his sides to keep himself upright. He told her about coming home from the dance and finding his mother.

  Her green eyes widened. “You poor boy,” she said, just as Matt had hoped. “Could you show me some identification?”

  Oh crap. He hadn’t anticipated this. “You mean to prove I’m really Travis? What do you need?”

  “A driver’s license or insurance card would do.”

  He slapped the back pocket of jeans. “I’m such an imbecile. I left without my wallet,” he said. “I’ve been so messed up since it happened. My backpack is in the car. I probably have a textbook with my name inside. Or a blue book essay I wrote for English. Would that do?” He paused, looked her straight in the eyes and shrugged. “I mean, really, who else would I be?”

  “Let me see if Dr. Cunningham is available.” She directed him to wait in the lobby.

  Matt took a seat and watched her walk away. Her hair danced across her back in a golden sheet when she moved. She twisted it in one hand and pulled it forward into a glossy rope over her shoulder.

  A few moments later, she called out Travis’s name. “Dr. Cunningham will see you now.”

  Matt looked around, half expecting Travis to be standing in the doorway.

  She ushered him through a door, down a hallway with examining rooms on both sides, and into an office with an oak desk, corner windows, and pictures of a family on the credenza. “Have a seat,” she said, gesturing to a chair facing the desk. “He’ll be with you in a few moments.”

  Matt sat and looked around the office. Dr. Garrett Cunningham was a graduate of the University of Arizona’s Medical School. He’d done a residency in OB/GYN at UC San Francisco. He was a father to three boys and one girl. The room smelled like pipe tobacco, something more orange than the one his dad smoked.

  The door opened and Dr. Cunningham entered. He was short, round-faced, and slightly overweight. He wore his white lab coat unbuttoned, his belly hanging a couple inches over the belt of his dark pants.

  Matt stood.

  “Your mother talked about you a lot, Travis,” he said, giving Matt a firm handshake. “She was very proud of you.” His horn-rimmed glasses were thick and made his golden brown eyes look huge. He was sandy–haired, and had a dark mole on his cheek where women sometimes drew one. “I’m truly sorry for your loss.” His voice was deep and his hands as big as catchers’ mitts.

  Matt smelled their clean, soap and water scent.

  Cunningham pulled out his chair and sat behind
his desk. “Now, how can I help you?”

  Matt’s voice came out in a long, strangled rush. “I had a fight with my mother right before she died. When I came home, she—” He stopped and gazed out the window into the desert where two ocotillos were still in full bloom, a flag of red flowers waving from the tip of every leafed-out branch.

  “What do you want from me, son?” Cunningham’s voice was gentle, as if he talked to a child.

  Matt tried to crawl inside Travis’s skin, tried to think and talk the way he would. “What did you say to her on Friday, man? Was there some test result that made her feel hopeless? Like did she have cancer or something?” Matt couldn’t believe he wasn’t crying. But ever since Crystal died, the tears seemed to have dried up and disappeared. “I want to know it wasn’t my fault.”

  Cunningham shook his head sadly, but didn’t look at Matt. “Patient confidentiality prevents me from discussing this with you or anyone else. I told the police detective he’d have to get a warrant.”

  “I’m not a detective. I’m her son. And what difference does confidentiality make now? My mom’s dead. They’re doing an autopsy,” Matt said. “So eventually I’ll find out. Please, you have to help me. I won a full baseball scholarship to Arizona, but how can I go, thinking I caused her to—” He stopped, swallowed, decided he didn’t need to say more.

  There was a knock at the door. The receptionist opened it and stuck her head inside. “It’s Dr. Richardson about Mrs. Parker’s biopsy.”

  Dr. Cunningham’s brow furrowed. He picked up the phone, made some notes on a pad beside the phone. “No, that’s okay. I’ll call her.” When he hung up, he steepled his fingers on the desk and looked over them at Matt. “The autopsy report will reveal anything I may have told her.”

  “Yeah,” Matt said. “Like they’ll give me a copy of that.”

  “It’s public record,” Dr. Cunningham said. “All you need do is request a copy. They’ll mail it to you or you can stop by the Medical Examiner’s office and pick it up. You may have to pay a fee.”

  “Don’t you think I’ve paid enough? I’m so upset I can’t think straight. It’s finals week. If I don’t take them, man, I might even lose my scholarship.” Matt tried to mimic Travis’s speech pattern.

  Dr. Cunningham looked down, as if gathering words, preparing himself to say something he really didn’t want to say. “Your mother came in because she’d missed three menstrual cycles. She suspected early menopause. She had some other vague complaints that led me to do an internal examination.”

  “And?” Matt didn’t know much about menopause, but could understand why it might make Crystal feel as if her life were slipping by. “Was it?”

  Another knock on the door. “It’s your wife. Line two.”

  “Tell her I’ll call her back,” he said, a hint of impatience in his voice. He turned to Matt. “I need to cut this short. I’ve got patients to see. Your mother was about three and a half months pregnant.”

  Matt leaned over and gripped his knees with his hands—a dark ball of dread in his stomach. “Pregnant? My mother?” Stupidly, he wondered for one terrible instant if he could have impregnated Crystal with their unprotected sex. And then he realized it was impossible. But he was vaguely repulsed by the idea he’d had sex with a pregnant woman. “Was Mom upset when you told her?”

  The doctor stood. “It was hard to say. She was shocked, of course. We did a sonogram to confirm.”

  “Was she depressed?”

  “Not really,” he said, taking a step toward the door. “As I mentioned, she was shocked, but after a few minutes she seemed almost excited about it.”

  “Did my mother tell you who fathered the baby?”

  “I wouldn’t disclose that information if she had.” He opened his office door.

  Matt hastily thanked Dr. Cunningham for his time, tried to smile at the receptionist, then stumbled out into the hallway.

  In the windowless stairwell, the overhead light bulb fizzled, then flickered out. With the darkness, Matt was consumed by exhaustion. His arms and hands, even his legs, seemed to thicken, and when he started down the stairs, his body moved heavily as if he’d just taken on a burden.

  Outside, drawn by the sound of water, Matt headed toward the front of the building where a man-made waterfall cascaded over rocks. It flowed into a pond filled with orange, yellow and white Koi swimming in circles. It smelled like fish food and garden soil after rain had fallen.

  Matt stood in front of it, staring into the dark pond, its rock sides too high for the fish to ever escape. The harm he’d done to Crystal and to Travis seemed bottomless. The sound of water striking the pond’s surface got louder—white noise cranked up. It was as if his brain could no longer filter out what didn’t matter. Everything mattered.

  * * *

  On Tuesday afternoon, Radhauser tapped on Crenshaw’s office door. The Medical Examiner sat at his desk, still wearing his lab coat. He stood and motioned Radhauser inside. “I’m glad you’re here,” Melon said. “I completed the autopsy on your waitress and found something interesting.” Crenshaw paused and grinned. “Sometimes I just love this job.” He was so excited his yellow-tinted skin flushed—ripe as a peach.

  Out of respect for the dead, Radhauser removed his Stetson.

  Melon liked to show off in front of the detectives, and often took them into the autopsy room. “Follow me.”

  Radhauser would stroke Melon’s ego if it meant getting the autopsy results more quickly than waiting for his written report.

  Crystal Reynolds’ body was laid out on a stainless steel table with a drain at one end and a lip around all four edges. On a steel cart beside the table, Crenshaw’s gleaming instruments lined up as neatly as a surgeon’s. As usual, when he listened to Melon pontificate in his autopsy suite, Radhauser wished he had sunglasses. The room smelled of disinfectant, formaldehyde, and some other, darker odors Radhauser never tried to identify.

  Melon slipped his hands into a pair of latex gloves and pulled back the sheet.

  Again, Radhauser was struck by her small body—her resemblance to Laura.

  “I haven’t dictated the report yet. But I knew you’d want to see this right away.”

  Crenshaw tossed a pair of gloves to Radhauser, then grabbed a small, stainless steel measuring device—a narrow ruler about six inches long. He slid it into the wound on Crystal’s neck. His excitement was palpable.

  Radhauser pulled on the gloves.

  “Read that,” Crenshaw said.

  Radhauser bent over the body. “Three and a quarter inches.”

  “Good,” Crenshaw said. “You can read. Now what else do you notice?” He did a little dance around the table.

  “Now that it’s cleaned up, I can see that the cut is smooth, but looks a little like a z.”

  “That’s right. There’s still hope for you, Radhauser.” Crenshaw smiled his gap-toothed grin. “And here’s another thing. When cutting is associated with suicide, there are almost always hesitation wounds—less severe cuts caused by attempts to build up resolve to inflict the fatal cut. As you can see, our victim has none.”

  Crenshaw walked over to his supply cabinet and came back with a single-edged razor blade. He set it on the table and placed the ruler beside it. “Well?” Melon wore his excitement like donut glaze, shiny on the surface of his skin.

  Radhauser checked the measurement. “Looks like a half inch,” he said, knowing exactly what it meant. There was no way Crystal Reynolds slashed her own carotid with a razor blade. The cut was far too deep and wide. But Melon loved to make his pronouncements, so Radhauser played dumb.

  “The official cause of death was exsanguination,” Crenshaw said. “But this was overkill. This little lady’s neck was cut deep enough to scrape bone. Scissors leave a wound that is broader than a typical knife because the scissor blades are much thicker. That z you noticed reflects the one scissor blade over top of the other.” Melon flashed Radhauser a big smile. “Look for a pair of scissors with about f
our to five inch blades. And a murderer who was really pissed off.”

  “Could the victim have cut her hair with the same scissors?”

  “Almost certainly,” Melon said.

  “What about the razor blade?”

  “No traces of hair on the blade, just some sage green paint. I suspect she used it for cleaning the tile. It looked to me like the bathroom had been recently painted. Looks like you’ve got yourself a double homicide.”

  Radhauser shot him a questioning look.

  Melon grinned again. “Pregnant.”

  Radhauser understood what Dr. Cunningham was so reluctant to tell him—no warrant needed now. “Can you pinpoint the time of death?”

  “No rigor mortis. A small amount of post-mortem lividity and the body temp was 95.2. But, of course, we have the temperature of the water in the tub to take into account. I withdrew fluid from her eyeball to determine the level of potassium. It rises after death at a predictable rate. All things considered I’d say she died between 10:30 and 11:30pm.”

  “Did you do the rape kit?”

  Crenshaw rolled his eyes. “You’re not dealing with an amateur here, Radhauser. There were no vaginal tears or visible signs of bruising. She had some semen in the vaginal cavity. Very possibly compromised because of the long bath, but I sent it off. The water in the tub may have affected body temp. Time of death might have been as early as 9:00 or as late as midnight.”

  “The 911 call came in at 11:44, so we know she was dead before then.”

  Radhauser’s thoughts shifted to Loren Garrison—his suspicion Crystal had been more than a family friend. He wondered if Mister Morality and Ethics would kill his pregnant girlfriend in order to avoid a scandal.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Matt was cramming for Thursday morning’s Advanced Placement chemistry final when Travis stepped into the bedroom they’d been sharing. He’d gotten his hair cut short, and dressed differently. All he needed was a necktie and he’d look like one of those Mormon boys proselytizing door-to-door. Tempted to tease him about his church-approved outfit, Matt held up the study guide instead. “You want to quiz each other on all those laws of gas we memorized?” He made a farting sound and waited for Travis to pick up on the joke.