One More Day (25 page)

The neon Budweiser sign buzzed in the window. From behind, it appeared rusted and cracked, and whenever someone at the pool table broke a gaggle of balls, it rocked against the glass, threatening.

John had never been there before. It was on the edge of the city, well outside his township and the police district, and if the pool table was ringed with men younger than he was, the bar stools were occupied by men far older. As if someone had given up seats on the bus, out of respect.

He wore a cap low on his head, nursed a beer, and waited. He'd arrived earlier than he was supposed to, leaving Carrie and Danielle to clean up the dishes after lunch. He felt jittery, on edge, although he didn't know why. He was doing nothing wrong. He wasn't the one worried about being caught. Finally, the door opened, and Forrester came in. He gestured to the bartender, who opened a bottle and brought it over without a word, just a nod.

“You're a regular?” John asked.

“He's my uncle,” Forrester replied.

“Ah.”

“I wouldn't trust going anywhere else.”

“I thought cops always drank at a bar together.”

“Not the smart ones,” he said and smiled. “Although plenty of cops drink to avoid talking about the job.”

“It's a hard job.”

“Thanks for acknowledging that.” Forrester drank his beer, swallowed. He looked John right in the eye. “Look, I thought you should know, we're very, very close to making an arrest.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. He's still in for questioning, just letting him stew a little.”

“How?”

“I found a witness who gave us a partial license plate, tracked it down. Just have to, well, break him now.”

“Wow, that's great. That's…great.”

Forrester lifted his glass, clinked John's.

“Yeah. A couple things don't quite add up, but the guy's jumping out of his skin. He'll talk. He wants to tell someone what he's done.”

“Like what doesn't add up?”

“It's…a little delicate, John.”

“I want to know.”

“I'm not sure you do.”

“I do,” John said firmly.

“Well, the body was…pretty decomposed.”

“But…it was him? It was Ben?”

John had almost gotten used to saying
was
. The past tense of being a parent once but no longer. A friend of his mother's, whose son died in a car accident, always told people that she had two children. One in New York, and one in heaven. Her son was gone, but she would always be his mother.

“Yes, yes, of course. The dental records matched. DNA too. But the decomposition doesn't…match the time frame, the theory. It's been a mild fall, but…well, the water simply wasn't warm enough for it to happen that quickly. Unless something was added to it or done to the, uh, remains… I…well, I just don't know.”

John's face turned pale.

“I've said too much. I'm sorry. It's disturbing, I know.”

“So this guy could get off because of that. Is that what you're saying? On a technicality or something?”

“I don't want you to worry. We have his car. We have an eyewitness who fingered him in a lineup. We even have the motive. It's just the one piece that we can't figure out.”

“I don't think I want to know the motive,” John said. He swallowed hard, the beer suddenly swelling in his throat.

Forrester nodded. “It's important to the prosecution but not always to the family. Sometimes the why is worse than the how or the…when.” He threw up his hands. “That came out wrong. I'm not explaining it very well, am I?”

“No, no, I—I get it. And I—we—appreciate all that you've done. All the information. It means a lot to me, to us. To Carrie.”

John finished his beer in one long swallow and stood up.

“One more thing,” Forrester said as John slid a dollar under his coaster. Those were the words Nolan always said to Carrie. To make her nervous, pay attention. Did both of them know that?

“What's that?”

“It looks like…the guy might know Carrie.”

“You mean because of the photos? I thought he took those at the Y—”

“Beyond that. There are connections. But we're not 100 percent sure how well he knew her. Also, I have to mention something else, just to be thorough. The reason Nolan keeps circling back to Carrie.”

John blinked. He stood in the middle of the dark room, halfway between the table and the door, like he wasn't sure if he should stay or go.

“The Google search history,” he said.

“She was helping a friend,” John replied quickly. “She told me.”

“Which friend would that be?”

John swallowed before the name came out, garbling it. “Chelsea. I…don't know her last name.”

Forrester nodded. “John, I would be remiss if I didn't say to you what Nolan would say to you right now: that if you know something and you tell us now, we can, well, we can offer you immunity.”

John breathed as deeply as he dared to. He feared his breath and his panic might become audible, that he'd be panting, if he let it go too far.

“You know I always thought someone was after her, not Ben. I always thought that.”

“But why, John? Why?”

He shrugged. “I can't explain it really. Just…well, people look at her. Notice her when she walks by.”

“Attractive women on the street and all?”

“Yes. But…I don't know. She… It's like she has a light on her, you know? She just…shines.”

Forrester smiled, took another drink.

“Well, I guess I should get home,” John said finally, turning away. Through the window, he could see that it was darker outside, and the traffic was less heavy than when he'd arrived. Just like that, everyone had gone home.

Forrester nodded. “How well did you know her?”

“What?”

“Before you got married? How well did you know your wife?”

“We dated for six years.”

“You met in college?”

“Yeah.”

“But you didn't know her in high school?”

“No,” John said. He reached for the door, the old metal knob cold in his hand. He opened the door, then turned back.

“But I know her now,” he added.

Forrester kept nodding his head. Even after John left him alone at the small wobbly table. Like he was reminding himself to stay positive.

Five hundred people attended Ben's funeral. They filled the soaring church behind Carrie and John, and she could hear their breathing, whispering, quiet coughing, the rough clearing of their throats. But she didn't turn to take it all in as John did, swiveling around and back, waving and smiling to people he knew.

In the first pew, next to them, John's family and Carrie's mother. One mother crying into a monogrammed hanky, the other into a tissue, grieving for their grandchild. John's brother, Luke, and sister, Nan, red-eyed and sniffling behind their dark glasses. But no glasses for Carrie and John. John looked the same way Carrie did: pale and exhausted. He had made his own calculations about the number of attendees, comparing it to a baseball stadium, then marveling at it. Would that many people come to an adult's funeral? To his, to his wife's? Then he shelved the thought, deep in the back of his brain, as being too sad. He was tired of being sad, as she was, surely, but he needed to deflect it as much as he could to get through his life.

But Carrie believed she would always be sad, in a low-level, constant way, something she carried around in her bones. Not the big, showy displays anymore; those were in the past. She'd had plenty, more than her share, and now she just had this permanent condition. That was why she was tired. Not because she continued to have nightmares of abductions, not because she saw ghosts, but because she couldn't sleep. She was tired like a villager carrying water over mountains, a person who'd lost too much and had too little and had been carrying grief like a millstone forever. This wasn't the kind of grief people wanted her to have; she'd never had the right kind, she knew. No, she'd gone from shrieking maniacal breakdown to weariness and missed the phase that looked best: sniffing back tears, mouth downturned, eyes half closed. Where John's family lived, eternally.

When the reverend finished his eulogy, Carrie crossed herself, and before they slipped out the chapel door for a private moment alone with Ben's ashes, she turned around to look at the crowd behind her. What did a wall of grief look like? Finally, she allowed herself a glance at the full church, just to appreciate it in case she never saw such a spectacle again. A sea of the expected faces, the TV news version she'd never summoned. John's hand pulled her forward, propelling her toward duty, and she did what his hand told her. She met the reverend's half smile with one of her own, the one that signals seriousness, not joy, before she could think about who those people in the church actually were, who'd come early to get a good seat, who came because they felt guilty, who came because Reverend Carson was such a great orator, who came because they were gathering evidence still, and who sat on the aisle not to weep for a child but to observe other people less lucky than themselves.

In the chapel, John closed his eyes as they stood over the silver urn. Carrie put her hand on it, warming the cold surface, and thought of how Ben had looked in the morning light, his eyes so happy to see her walk into the room. How John had always looked to her. She lifted her face toward the stained glass windows, throwing dappled light across the room, the pale colors dancing across her husband's face. She thought of their honeymoon in Italy, paid for by his parents, walking through the streets, touring the churches. Their first day in Florence, she had asked John what he thought of it, and he had squirmed a little and said, “I don't know. It's awfully religious.” John, always looking for lawn over stone, for trees, not buildings. His faith was outside, not inside. She squeezed his hand to open his eyes. He smiled and said they should probably go join everyone, and she nodded. They had mourned their child everywhere. They would mourn him every day. They didn't need to stay here and do it.

“We'll get past this,” he said.

“Will we?”

“We'll take a vacation,” he said. “Somewhere sunny. Somewhere Ben would have liked.”

She smiled. But then she wanted to ask if Dr. Kenney would be coming with them, or if she'd awake one morning to find her mother in the suite down the hall.
Will you ever be able to handle me alone again, John? All these years of following me, on my trail, and now what will you do, alone with me?
But she said nothing. Not now.

They walked out the back door and down the stone path slowly, slower than John usually walked. They passed the small cemetery, the stands of linden trees, to the rectory. The reception room was large and high ceilinged, swollen with people. Painfully loud, like an auditorium. Carrie looked at the blue plates and napkins, the trays of cheese and shrimp and finger sandwiches, the blue frosted cupcakes she probably hadn't ordered enough of. She looked at the food first and then the diverse crowd of people waiting to say how sorry they were and to gently remind her and John that it was a blessing, at least, to have closure. Closure? The word made her ill. Carrie knew better. Things were never, ever closed.

Everyone from Saint David's was there, from the reverend's wife to the day-care coordinator to the janitor. John's family, of course, but also his coworkers—his fellow salespeople, his assistant with her mascara running down her face. The mothers from the Y, still wringing their hands with guilt, especially now that the suspect had been identified. All the teachers and parents from preschool. Carrie's college roommates, Tracie and Chelsea, standing near twenty of John's fraternity brothers. Dozens of couples Carrie remembered vaguely from her wedding, who had to be friends of John's parents. Libby and Anna, holding hands as if to steady each other. Nolan, standing at the corner of the room, silently eating skewers of cheese. And the man with the dog—Neil—running up to shake John's hand, paying his respects. The dog was tied up outside in the shade, being pet by a small group from the ladies' guild, and Carrie's mother, nuzzling it close, just in case her daughter was right.

They split up to work the room, John going left, Carrie going right. Dark clothes balanced by bright eyes, white smiles. The timpani of whispers and blowing noses.

When Forrester walked in with a dark-eyed little girl wearing red clogs and a quilted skirt, Carrie assumed she was his daughter. She smiled as they approached her, thinking they were headed for the cupcake table, which was at her elbow. No one else had dared to bring a child, but children were exactly what the occasion called for. Life. Hope. The future.

They stopped short of the dessert table.

“Mrs. Morgan,” Forrester said, “there's someone who wants to meet you.”

Carrie smiled, but the little girl didn't smile back. She simply cocked her head as if curious.

“And who might this be?” Carrie broadened her smile, thinking the girl had to be nudged further. Such a solemn, formal occasion; she needed permission, perhaps. Funny that it had never occurred to Carrie that Forrester might be married and have children himself. Shame on her for not wondering. John probably knew this, knew everything she didn't.

“This is Raina,” he said.

“Hello, Raina.”

“Hi.”

“That's a pretty name. Is it a family name?” She looked at Forrester quizzically.

“Oh, no,” he said. “I mean, I don't know. You see, Raina's the witness who was across the street from the Y.”

“Oh,” Carrie said, blinking. “Oh my goodness. I thought…well, I assumed—”

“I'm not married,” Forrester said.

She nodded. “I'm sure I knew that. I just…well…”

He shrugged. “Well, now you can see why there was some initial skepticism about her. Though not on my part. I always thought she was credible.”

“I appreciate you staying on top of things,” Carrie said and smiled, and he smiled back. Forrester had done it all; Forrester had always believed she was innocent. She glanced across the room at Nolan, who took in the crowd as if he trusted no one. Didn't it work better when you did things Forrester's way? When you listened to your gut? But Carrie remembered Nolan bent over, ailing, at the doorway of her house. Being eaten alive from the inside out. Something was wrong with his gut. Stomach cancer, she thought with terrible clarity. She must find a moment to hint at this later to Forrester, so he could urge his partner to see a doctor.

She bent down to talk to the girl. “You were very, very brave to tell what you saw.”

“You are brave too,” she said.

Carrie's eyes opened wider. She exchanged a glance with Forrester, who offered a small smile.

“What…do you mean, sweetheart?”

“It's brave to say what you believe. Especially when people don't want to hear it,” she continued.

Carrie swallowed hard. Was this just coincidence? What was she talking about exactly?

“I'm afraid I—” Carrie felt tears threatening at the corners of her eyes.

“Now's probably not the best time to talk, and of course she can't discuss the case with you or anything,” Forrester said. “But Raina wanted to meet you, and her mother had to work, so I said I'd bring her here.”

“Well, that's very kind. My mother worked too, when I was your age.”

“I know.”

“You…do?”

“Raina's mother runs Psychic Connections,” Forrester explained. “Family business.”

Carrie's mouth formed the word
oh
, but she wasn't sure if she spoke it out loud. Her body felt a kind of electric current that had rendered her temporarily numb.

“Well, surely you're too young to be put to work,” she said finally.

“I greet people at the door sometimes. But I can't see what's going to happen, only what has already happened. And everyone who comes wants to know the future, not the past.”

Carrie put a hand over her mouth.

“She's a firecracker, isn't she?” Forrester said and smiled.

“Your son was beautiful,” she said solemnly. “I saw you in the parking lot sometimes.”

“Raina,” Forrester cautioned. “We can't talk about that, remember?”

Carrie's right knee started to shake. “Thank you,” she whispered.

“And that man—I saw him too, before, but I didn't know, you know? My mother would have known, but I didn't know or I would have told. I swear to you, I would have told.”

Tears sprang to Carrie's eyes. She crouched down, took the child's hands in hers, and pulled her into an embrace. “Of course you would have.” Her new dress brushed against the wooden floor, then blew up slightly from an unseen vent.

Raina's lips were nuzzled close against Carrie's hair. “But I didn't tell them everything,” Raina said.

“What?”

Her breath was hot on the shell of Carrie's ear. Like Ben trying to whisper, breathing too much, talking too loud.

“I didn't tell them that you weren't there,” she whispered.

A group of people, wearing their grays and blacks, started to swim and swirl in front of Carrie's eyes. She tried to stand. She clung to the small ballast of the girl while the hem of her dress swayed to and fro and her knees threatened to buckle beneath her.

“I feel sick,” Carrie said, and Forrester knelt beside her.

“Sit down,” he said. “Put your head between your knees if you need to.”

“My dress,” she said dully.

“Doesn't matter,” he said. “Take some even breaths now.”

He radioed to Nolan, told him to call an ambulance.

Carrie sat cross-legged on the floor, her head hung down, her hair forming a curtain on either side.

“You should come visit me sometime,” Raina said. “Maybe we could help.”

Carrie raised her head and wiped her eyes with the edge of her cobalt sleeve. Help? Help with what? What would this child do with what she knew? Who else might she tell? And would it matter now, with the man in custody?

Her spaniel posture, looking at Carrie as if she were the only person in the room. What was this child offering to help her with? Was she saying that seeing ghosts, experiencing the dead, was something she needed help using? Was she offering Carrie some kind of job? Or giving her a lifeline—a way to predict that nothing this terrible was ever going to happen to her again?

“My mother could tell you whether you're going to have another baby.”

Even on the dusty floor, surrounded by feet and legs and crumbs, Carrie felt something rising in her chest, bubbling, a mixture of hope and fear. She felt the buzz of the crowd, the fizz of the drinks. She smelled the chocolate cupcakes in their hands, the sugar on their lips.

They were alive, all of them. They were alive, and they still had time. Time to help each other, time to change. Time to go on, accomplish, remember. Time to heal and forgive each other.

Her head swam with the truth of this; she looked over the girl's head for John's face in the crowd. Across the room, in a cluster of blue blazers, listening and not listening, he raised his eyes to meet hers at the exact same moment.
Run after me
, she wanted to call.
Follow me. Don't let me go.
But he was already moving. Already on his way to her, wherever she needed or wanted to go.