by Tom Fowler
“We set up a scholarship in her name after she . . . passed,” my mother said. I noticed her eyes glistened. “Every year since, we’ve helped a girl go to college when she might not have had the opportunity. I know Samantha would want to be a part of something like that.”
“She would,” my father said. He fidgeted in his chair. He looked at me again like he wanted to say something but said nothing. I never saw him act this way at one of these dinners before.
“Samantha loved the idea of peace and brotherhood,” my father said. “She thought violence was ugly and war was dreadful. In high school and college, she involved herself with student groups who rallied around things like nonviolence and equality. I know she would have gotten a job helping people if she hadn’t been . . . if she hadn’t died so young.” My mother and father exchanged a glance. I frowned anew.
Esmerelda walked back in and cleared the salad plates away. She returned a moment later, setting a juicy slab of filet mignon before each of us. When she joined us again, Esmerelda put a bowl of steamed asparagus and four baked potatoes onto the table, then disappeared into the kitchen.
We passed the asparagus around and worked on our steaks. Esmerelda used a dry rub and marinade on the meat. I have been to many a steakhouse in my day, and I’ve never tasted a steak to top Esmerelda’s. I stopped trying. She spoiled me for premium cuts.
When I felt full about two-thirds of the way through my steak, I set my knife and fork down and took a drink of water. The rum and soda would have helped, but I downed all of it except the last bit, which I needed to save. Now it was my turn to talk. Even though I would say the same things I said every year, nerves clawed at me. Maybe having Gloria here amped me up. The familiarity of the whole thing should have helped.
“I had a few friends growing up,” I said. “None of them were better than Samantha, though.” My vision swam as my eyes welled. I took a deep breath. “I called her Sam a lot because I knew she hated it.” I smiled at the memory. “We saw a lot of things differently, but she was always there for me like a big sister is supposed to be. I hoped I could be there for her when she needed me.” Past my blurry vision, I saw my father fidget again. What was going on with him tonight?
I paused to use my handkerchief. Once I could see again, I raised my glass. “To Samantha Elizabeth Ferguson,” I said. “Daughter, sister, friend, and the finest person we’ve known.”
“Hear, hear,” everyone said and took drinks from their glasses. I let out a long, slow breath. Gloria squeezed my hand again. I smiled at her.
“Thanks,” I said.
“You were great,” she said. “I don’t know if I could have done that.”
“It never gets easier.”
“Good job, son,” my father said.
“Thanks, Dad.”
My father looked at me. He shook his head so slightly I almost didn’t see it. He’d been out of sorts all night. I wanted to ask him about it but not while my mother was still in the room.
“I think it’s time for dessert,” my mother said as if on cue. “Esmerelda and I are going to put the finishing touches on something amazing.” My mother walked into the kitchen. Esmerelda came in to take our plates. I gathered mine and Gloria’s and carried them in over her objections. She’d done more than enough tonight.
Back in the dining room, my father stood behind his chair. He managed to fidget even while standing. I looked at Gloria; she shrugged. My father inclined his head and walked toward the hallway. I followed him.
“What’s going on, Dad?” I said. “You look like you can’t sit still, and I get the feeling you want to tell me something.”
“I do,” he said, “and I don’t.”
“Should we flip a coin?” From the kitchen, I heard a whirring sound. Esmerelda must have been using the blender while my mother supervised. Each did what she was best at.
My father looked back at the pictures of Samantha. Her smiles could provide all the light the room needed. “We never told you,” he said after a minute.
“Told me what?”
He looked at me, frowned, and shook his head. “Forget it,” he said. “Just forget it.” He started to walk away but I grabbed his arm.
“I can’t, Dad. You’ve had something on your mind all night. What’s going on? Are you all right?”
“Hell, I’m fine. Your mother’s fine, too.” He paused, sighed, and bit his lip. I don’t ever recall seeing my father bite his lip before.
“Now you have me concerned,” I said. “What’s going on?”
He looked around at nothing. Kitchen appliances still whirred and buzzed across the corridor. “I wish we would’ve told you.”
“Told me what?”
“I shouldn’t be telling you this now.” He shook his head. “I shouldn’t be.”
“After all this buildup, Dad, I think you have to. What’s wrong?”
My father looked down to the floor, then looked up at me and took a deep breath. He was gathering his courage for something important. “When Samantha died,” he said, “we told you it was natural causes.”
A rush of blood pounded in my ears. I didn’t like where this was headed. “A heart defect, you said.”
He nodded. “She didn’t die of a heart defect, son. Someone killed her.”
If I held a glass, I would have dropped it. “What?”
“Don’t raise your voice.”
My mouth fell open. I wanted to say something, but I couldn’t form any words. From behind me, I heard Gloria’s shoes on the hardwood. “You lied to me,” I finally said. “All these years, both of you lied to me!”
“We wanted to tell you, son.”
“But you didn’t.” I punched the wall hard enough to dent it.
“You took her death so hard already,” he said. “It . . . it seemed like piling on.”
“You should have told me thirteen years ago, goddammit.”
My mother popped out of the kitchen, saw what was happening, and frowned. “What’s going on?” she said.
“Dad told me how you two have been lying about Samatha’s death all these years,” I said.
“Robert!”
“The boy should know. He should have known long ago.”
“There’s the problem, Dad: I’m not a boy. I’m not fragile. You should have told me.” I snatched my keys out of my pocket.
“Coningsby, where are you going?” said my mother.
“Away from the two of you. You can both go to hell.” I stormed toward the door. Gloria followed me.
“Son, come back,” my father implored.
“Coningsby!”
I opened the front door, let Gloria pass me, and turned around. “Anything else you want to tell me? Maybe I’m adopted! Why not?”
“Son, don’t be like this.” My father’s eyes were down. He couldn’t meet my stare.
“Like what? The most important person in my life dies, and you can’t even tell me the truth about it.”
“We did it to protect you.”
“A fine job you did of it.”
My mother’s head appeared in the doorway. “Coningsby, come back inside.”
“Go to hell. I hate you both.” I slammed the door in their faces, marched to the Audi with Gloria, got in, tore out of the driveway, and never looked back.
Chapter 4
I threw the door open and marched down the hall to my office. Gloria closed and locked up behind me. Her footsteps followed me. I’d already logged into my PC. “Are you all right?” she said.
“No,” I said. I thought of a much harsher answer; it was a stupid question, but I knew Gloria meant well.
“Can I do anything?”
“No.”
“Do you need any help?”
“No.”
Gloria stood at the edge of my desk for a minute. I saw her in the periphery of my vision as I hunted for information on Samantha’s death. My parents’ deception gnawed at me. Gorge rose in my throat.
“Can I bring you anything?”
Gloria said.
“A soda would be good.”
She went to the kitchen and came back with a can of Coke Zero. I took it from her, muttered something meant as gratitude, cracked it open, and took a drink. Gloria kept standing at the end of the desk. I understood she wanted to be with me, to help, to try and do something, but I didn’t want her there. I needed a way to tell her gently.
“Would you . . . rather be alone?” she said, giving me the opening.
I looked at her. “I would.”
Gloria offered a tentative smile. “I understand,” she said.
No, she didn’t, but I appreciated the effort.
* * *
I couldn’t believe I’d been so naïve at sixteen. My parents shouldn’t have lied to me, but I should have sniffed something out back then. No one in the family showed a history of heart problems, yet I believed my sister simply dropped dead of an undiscovered hole in her heart one day. The shock and grief must have made me stupid. I could think of no other explanation.
Self-reproach didn’t help. I took a deep breath and focused on what I wanted to do. Samantha was murdered thirteen years ago. When pretty college girls get murdered, there tends to be a story about it. I went combing through The Sun’s archives to see what I could unearth. As I looked for a story, I wondered if I really wanted to find anything. Unearthing a story would mean my parents lied to me, Samantha was indeed murdered, and I’d lived oblivious to this cruel ruse for almost half my life. Not finding a story wouldn’t have made any of it untrue, but it would have softened the blow.
My parents called. I ignored it. A story popped up. Greg Elliot wrote the article about the murder of a pretty blonde college freshman at Penn. The victim’s name was not released out of respect for her family. I read the article as my eyes welled again.
The unnamed victim—I knew her name, dammit—engaged in extracurricular activities at Penn. She popped home for a long weekend and ended up in Patterson Park for unlisted reasons. Stabbed a dozen times, and any of them could have been fatal. The police announced no motive and no suspects.
Patterson Park. I could get there in ten minutes. I grabbed the keys to the Audi and started out. Gloria sat in the living room. “Where are you going?” she said as I opened the door.
“I found a story saying Sam’s body was found in Patterson Park,” I said.
“C.T., that was thirteen years ago. What do you expect to find tonight after all these years?”
“I don’t know!” I shook my head. Yelling wouldn’t solve anything, and I didn’t want to drive Gloria away. “I don’t know,” I said in a softer tone. “Something. Anything.”
“What do you want to do?”
“I want to find the bastard who killed my sister.”
“And then what?”
I patted the gun holstered at my side. “Then I’m going to shoot him in the head.” I stormed out of the house.
* * *
Patterson Park is a huge place, bordered by Eastern Avenue, Patterson Park Avenue, South Linwood Avenue, and East Baltimore Street. The bulk of it is square in shape and at least 1500 feet per side. Across Linwood Avenue lay a couple more baseball diamonds and some jogging trails. Even without this additional acreage, Patterson Park comprised over two million square feet. The article offered a general description of where someone found Samantha’s body. It helped.
I left the Audi and walked through the commons to the area mentioned, the quadrant near the Baltimore-Linwood intersection. I didn’t know what the area looked like thirteen years ago; now it was mostly tennis courts, softball fields, trees, and jogging trails. It probably hadn’t changed much over the years but regardless, I faced long odds of learning anything useful. The police would have found obvious physical evidence. Non-obvious proof would have been washed away in the rain, frozen in the snow, boiled in the summer heat, or any of a number of fates.
I needed to try. I needed to feel like I accomplished something. Darkness had long settled in, and even though streetlights illuminated the surroundings, not many people availed themselves of Patterson Park tonight. I took out my flashlight, found a useful stick on a tree, and used it to help search the ground, the trees, the dirt on the baseball diamonds, anything I could find looking searchable. I found a couple bottles, cans, papers, wrappers of various types, and two used condoms, but nothing I could point to as relating to Samantha’s death—to her murder. I needed to think of it the right way. Thirteen years of deceit led to a hard mental habit to break.
My fruitless search cost me over an hour and a half and earned me my share of funny looks. True to form, no one said anything as if a dashing, well-dressed man with a flashlight and stick could be seen most nights in the park. I got back into the Audi and drove toward home, wondering what my next move would be.
* * *
On the way to my house, I detoured into downtown and stopped at the medical examiner’s office. I walked in and headed back to the morgue. I sucked in a deep breath and pushed the door open. The rooms were well ventilated, but I always wanted to be ready if the system failed. I walked to the rearmost part of the examining room to see who was working tonight. In a stroke of good fortune, Dr. Gary Hunt looked up from a fresh cadaver. He frowned at me like he always does, and said, “Come to exploit your devil’s bargain some more?” he said.
“You entered the bargain, doctor,” I said. “I don’t mind wearing the horns.” A year ago, I discovered Dr. Hunt took a bribe to release a woman’s body to her killer. I sorted the whole mess out, managed to keep Dr. Hunt away from it, and came to him for information when I needed it. He never seemed happy with the arrangement even though he got to keep his job.
“What is it this time?”
I sat on a stool at a desk near the table where Dr. Hunt worked. “Thirteen years ago tonight, my sister died. I just found out she was murdered.”
“Wow.” He looked up. “I’m sorry.”
I nodded. “It’s an old case, and I don’t know what I can find at this point. I’m . . . I don’t know what I’m doing. I have to figure out who killed her.”
“Thirteen years is a long time for a trail to go cold. I’m not sure what I can do for you.”
“I found an article. It said she was stabbed a dozen times in the chest.” Hunt winced. I couldn’t blame him. “Do . . . do you think she suffered?”
He put his tools down and sighed. “I don’t know,” he said. “For her sake . . . and for yours . . . I hope not, but I can’t say without examining the body. If forced to guess, I would say she didn’t suffer much. A deep stab wound in the chest is going to be fatal. More only speeds the process along.” He paused. “Sorry, I’m sure my explanation sounded indelicate.”
“It’s OK,” I said.
“If you uncover any evidence and want an opinion on it, come by and talk to me.”
“I’m not sure what I can find after all this time but thanks.”
“Don’t mention it. Please.” Hunt gave me an uncertain and tiny smile.
“I won’t.”
I left the ME’s office and got back into my car. At least I could rely on Dr. Hunt if I found any evidence.
Now all I needed to do was find some.
* * *
I went back home and scoured any records I could. Thirteen years ago, the Internet had not been built into the technological behemoth it has become. Still, newspapers went online, people maintained blogs, the death spiral of newsgroups hadn’t finished yet, and those combinations gave me more options for my search. I also jotted down a note to find and contact Greg Elliot. Maybe he remembered some detail of the story omitted from the final edition.
Before, I combed through The Sun’s archives. Now I expanded my search to other papers. The Baltimore City Paper and other assorted small local rags made a good place to start. I also looked for blogs and newsgroup posts related to Samantha’s death. While my searches crunched, Gloria came down the stairs and poked her head in. “You feeling about the same?” she said.
; I nodded. “Yes. Probably will be for a while.”
“Your parents called me.”
“Did you tell them to drop dead?”
“I would never say something like that to them. You shouldn’t even think it.”
“You’re right,” I admitted. “Suffice it to say I won’t be talking to them anytime soon.”
“I told them you were mad.”
I looked up at her. Something in my expression made Gloria frown. “’Mad’ doesn’t even begin to cut it.”
She leaned on the doorframe. “Do you want to talk about it?”
“Not now. I still have too much to do.”
“Are you coming upstairs at all?”
“I don’t know. Sleep isn’t high on my priority list right now.”
“I understand,” she said for the second time—and for the second time, she was wrong. I let it go, though.
“Thanks,” I said. I looked at my screen in time to see a newsgroup result. The gruesome alt.local.baltimore.homicides featured something about Samantha. The author was some twit with a handle I didn’t want to figure out. He reiterated the information from the Sun article without adding anything new save some useless commentary on the frequency of crimes happening near Patterson Park. I checked responses and posts for the next few days on the newsgroup and found nothing related to Samantha.
The City Paper featured only a brief story of four paragraphs in length. It laid out the bare facts and little else, telling me nothing I didn’t already know (though doing so with an impressive paucity of words). I jotted this reporter’s name, Brad Allen, down as well, in case he knew something he didn’t incorporate into his story.
It hit me how I’d exhausted all the options for finding news about a story happening years ago. No one knew much about what happened to Samantha. If I found any evidence, I could take it to Dr. Hunt, but I needed a lot more information before I could even figure out where to search. I couldn’t give up. This was my sister’s murder. I needed to solve it. I felt driven to succeed where everyone else failed. She deserved it.
