A Deadly Fall (7 page)

“That sounds great.”

We drove along in silence. I was still thinking about Sarah and how little I seemed to know about her lately. Once I’d gotten the job in New York, our relationship had lessened. It didn’t change; we could always pick up where we’d left off. But the time we spent together was so much less. Sam and Judy knew her better than I did just before she died.

“Where’s Lynn these days?” I asked Sam once I brought myself back to the present.

“I don’t know. She left,” he said. I stifled my surprise.

“When?”

“Six months ago,” Sam said, not offering anything else.

“Sorry to hear that. I thought your wedding would have been the next time I visited,” I said, not realizing how stupid and insensitive it was until it was out.

“I didn’t see it coming at all. One day she was packed, I came home and she said she was leaving. Haven’t heard from  her since.”

“Strange.”

“How’s your job going? I hear you’re a tenured professor now,” he said, changing the subject.

“Yup. Youngest in the department too! This is my first sabbatical,” I said proudly. I wondered who was telling him about me. Must have been overheard from Sarah and Judy catching up.

“That’s great. What are you planning to do with the rest of your sabbatical?”

“It looks like I’ll be a guest lecturer in Ottawa. That should be confirmed in the next few days. Normally I wouldn’t have been able to take it yet, but when. . .all this. . .happened, the department chair made an exception and let me take the semester. So everything is very last minute for being finalized.”

“That’s really nice of them to give you that much time away at the last minute.”

“Sure is,” I said. We’d reached Tandoor and got out of the car. Judy spotted some other friends also just arriving and decided to eat with them instead. She’d remained completely closed off, so Sam and I were both fine letting her go.

“Do you want a drink?” Sam asked me when we sat down together.

“I would love one. Or three. This week has been a mess.”

“How about we get a bottle of wine? Red or white?”

“Red.”

“Great.”

“This food looks great too,” I said, thinking this was starting to feel like a first date—not what I’d intended and I had a feeling Sam hadn’t either.

Sam – September 2009

I woke up with a hangover. Marissa and I had split two bottles of wine over Indian food the night before and I never drank. I got the impression she didn’t either. But I think she needed it after the week she’d had and the funeral of her sister. It was really easy to be with her over dinner even though we’d barely ever exchanged two words before.

My phone vibrated on the floor next to my bed. I guess I hadn’t even managed to plug it back in. I hoped Judy had driven us both home and I hadn’t, but I had no memory of even getting home.

Are you feeling as crappy as I am?
the text from Marissa said.

Sure am. How about a big egg breakfast to work it out of us?
I wrote back.

Not sure about the big, but I’m definitely up for breakfast. I’ll meet you somewhere. Where?

Over Easy is the best breakfast place in the state as far as I’m concerned. You know it?

Yup. Meet you there in 45 minutes?

See you then.

I needed a shower and some black coffee before I could even think about eating, but 45 minutes would be enough time for both.

“I’m glad I’m not the only one who can’t drink a whole bottle of wine anymore!” Marissa said, laughing when I got out of my car at Over Easy. It was good to see her laughing.

“It’s been a long time since I did that!” I agreed.

“I can’t remember the last time. But thanks for taking me to dinner last night. I hope I thanked you last night. It was perfect after the week I had. This breakfast’s on me.”

“I can’t argue with that,” I said and we walked into a crowded restaurant.

“Two?” the teenage hostess asked when we walked in.

Marissa and I both nodded.

“The wait’s about 20 minutes. You can help yourselves to coffee while you wait,” she said and we both gravitated toward the tiny paper cups sitting next to the coffee pot. Neither of us added cream or sugar. We both drank it black.

“Marissa, tell me again about upstate New York. I’m sure you did last night, but I need my memory jogged,” I said when we’d taken a seat outside to wait.

“It’s about as exciting as this town! I always thought I’d move to New York City. I was ready for some excitement after growing up here. I went to Boston for my freshman year of college, then transferred to NYU, and after three years in the city, I knew I needed to get out. So I went to grad school in California for a change and then got a job in upstate New York. It really is just this town in another state!” she said laughing.

“Why’d you want to go to the city? Ever since I moved here, I’ve had no desire to live in a concrete jungle.”

“I wanted some excitement. I thought I’d meet someone famous, live an exciting, fast paced life and have fun. But then it was expensive, smelly, and everyone was rude. When the time came, I couldn’t get out of there fast enough. But I didn’t want to come back here to a group of people who had never left, who hadn’t experienced the world. I felt like I’d be held back by surrounding myself by the people I’d lost touch with during college. So I found the equivalent and moved there.”

“And now that Sarah’s. . .gone. . .you have no reason to visit here again,” I said, knowing that I wanted to stay in touch with Marissa, but also knowing that we had one night of being friends so the chances of many visits were slim.

“We’ll see. Life has been surprising me lately, so who knows what the future holds,” she said, looking me right in the eyes.

***

Monday morning was a world of difference from Sunday morning. I woke up ready for work. Sarah’s autopsy report had been delayed because of a family emergency for Dr. Liddell, and we were all anxious to see the results that should be finalized today.

Marissa had left after breakfast the day before and I already felt her absence. I chastised myself for feeling anything for her. She had enough to deal with after Sarah’s death, and I promised myself not to be pushy or take advantage of her while she recovered. She was heading home for a week, then she was going to take the opportunity of her sabbatical to do some work in Ottawa, not far from her home.

“Morning Sam,” Allen said when I reached the office.

“Morning Allen. You have a good rest of the weekend? How’s Krista doing?”

“She’s back to taking it easy after Saturday. We stayed home yesterday. Saw Marissa on her way out, she stopped by.”

“Oh good. How was she?” I asked. He just knew we’d gone to dinner on Saturday, he didn’t know how much fun it was or that we got together the next morning.

“You should know, sounds like she’d just been with you,” he said, smirking.

“We met for breakfast. It’d been really easy to have dinner with her and she had to eat before she drove!” I said defensively.

“Mmhmm.”

“You get a copy of the autopsy report yet?” I asked, changing the subject.

“Yeah, here’s one for you,” he said, handing me a copy. “Looks like she was pregnant again. Could have been the surviving one.”

“Oh man. Do Krista and Judy know this? Or Jack?” I asked.

“Don’t know. She wasn’t far along, just about six weeks.”

“What about these old bruises?” I asked, scanning the report.

“Kickboxing. She took classes in college and kept it up until the first time she got pregnant,” Allen explained. “Krista and Judy were going through old photos last week and came across some. Otherwise I would have had the same question you just did.”

“Cause of death?”

“Blunt trauma to the head. Hit it hard on the way down. Broke her neck, but she was already dead.”

“That’s quite the fall. I’m going to give Marissa a call about this. She should know. You give Jack a call, let him know.”

“You sure you don’t want to call Jack instead? I could call Marissa,” he said with the same smirk.

“Just call him,” I said, smiling back and walking to my desk. It was a work call, so I’d keep it work related.

“Good morning, Marissa. This is Sam,” I said when she picked up after the second ring.

“Good morning. How’s it going? Wake up feeling better than yesterday?”

“Sure did. How was the drive back?”

“Uneventful, the way it should be,” she said.

“I’m actually calling because we got the autopsy report for Sarah and I thought you should know a couple things. She was six weeks pregnant. She might not have even known. I don’t think any of her friends did.”

“Oh no. I didn’t think she was still trying,” Marissa said, her mood changing drastically.

“The other thing is the cause of death. Do you want to know that?”

“No. It won’t change anything. It won’t bring her back.”

“OK. I thought you should know about the pregnancy, though. You gonna be OK?” I asked stupidly.

“I’ll be fine. I have a lot to do before going to Ottawa. Plenty of distractions. But thanks for calling.”

“No problem. Have a great week. Bye,” I said and hung up. I felt empty without her on the other end, so I quickly put the phone down and turned back to work.

Marissa – October 2009

I’d been in Ottawa for over a month, but I couldn’t stop thinking about Sarah’s pregnancy. It didn’t seem right. She would have told Judy. They seemed to know everything about each other.

I couldn’t stop thinking about Sam either. We’d talked almost daily since Sarah’s funeral and emailed even more frequently. It seemed like we could talk about nothing for hours. Not that we weren’t talking, but that we could talk about anything, no matter how inconsequential.

One time I called because I couldn’t get over how clean Ottawa was. I then learned that it was ranked in the top ten cleanest cities in the world and I felt the need to share that fact. From there, our conversation had turned into talking about the giant floating trash island in the Pacific ocean, to scuba diving and how pollution is affecting the reefs, to deep sea drilling and finally to electric cars. All because Ottawa is clean. And the conversation lasted over an hour.

So for a long weekend, I decided to visit Sam—partly for Sam, but mostly for myself. I wanted to see Jack, to find out if he knew about Sarah’s pregnancy and to see how he was coping. Things just were sitting well with me.

***

“It’s so good to see you!” Sam said when I arrived at his house late on Thursday night. I was taking Friday off for a mental health day.

“You too!” I hugged him, and for the first time since Sarah’s death, life felt like it made sense. It’d been years since I’d let myself depend on another person for anything, so I released him and turned back to my car to get my bag.

“Let me help you,” he said, coming to take the bag.

“I’m OK. Just get the door for me,” I said stubbornly. There was only so much support I could accept. “How’s Judy doing?”

“She’s OK. She’s thinking of starting classes again in January. But going to UVM instead of doing online classes. I think with Sarah gone she’s having a hard time focusing on anything here, so she’s away again, back to her old traveling self. We’ll see what she decides to do when January rolls around.”

I’d assumed Judy would be staying at Sam’s still.

“Do you still see Jack much?” I asked, following Sam up the stairs to the second bedroom.

“I didn’t see him much before. Sarah, Krista and Judy were all close, but Jack had his own group of friends. Allen saw him once in a while, but mostly it was just the girls getting together. So now they don’t see him much either.”

That was news to me. I thought he’d been a much better match socially for Sarah than I learned now. Maybe they hadn’t been the perfect couple I’d always thought they were. We left my bag on the bed and walked back downstairs to the living room. It was too cold now to sit outside and it was getting dark already.

“And Krista and Allen—how are they?” I asked when I took a seat on the couch. Sam sat across from me on  La-Z-boy. I’d never even met them until the funeral, but from all of our conversations, I knew Sam was close with them, so I knew I should ask.

“Krista is on bed rest now. Not self imposed anymore. She’d taken it extra easy from the get-go because of the challenges she’d seen with Sarah’s pregnancies, but with twins, and her tiny frame, she’s officially been on bed rest for the last week. She still has three months until her due date, so they’re hoping she can make it at least another two months. I guess twins always come early.”

“That’s what I’ve heard. Twins run in our family. My mom was surprised she never had any,” I said. I was exhausted and starving, so changed the topic suddenly. “Want to head to Tandoor for dinner? I haven’t eaten since breakfast.”

“That’d be great! A repeat of last time?” he asked and laughed.