A Welcome Grave

“But I need to know. I’ve heard some of it from the police, and I need to know the rest.”

______

We stayed outside while we talked. Sat on the steps in front of the house, side by side.

“If what the police think is true,” she said, “then Alex always knew that Andy Doran was innocent.”

I held her eyes for a moment before I looked down.

“Here is what I can tell you, Karen. Paul Brooks killed Monica Heath. He confessed to it in front of me. Andy Doran thought your husband’s son killed her. So did I, for a while. We were both wrong.”

“But they knew,” she said. “Alex and Matthew, they knew what had happened.”

“Yes,” I said, and a swell of sorrow passed through me when I saw the look on her face.

“Alex helped,” she said. It was not a question. “He helped put Doran in prison when he knew who had really killed that girl.”

“It cost him a lot. He lost his son, Karen. Saved his client’s son from the proper punishment and lost his own.”

“Lost his son,” she echoed. “Yes, he did. And when his son committed suicide . . . when his son shot himself in the head because he thought someone else was going to do worse, he blamed Alex for that. Didn’t he? He thought Alex was the reason it was happening.”

“I think he blamed himself, too. He wasn’t a child, Karen. He was encouraged to identify Doran, yes, but the decision was his own.”

She was quiet for a few minutes, then said, “You think Alex was evil, don’t you? How could you not? He helped send this innocent man to jail, made a profit from it. You think he was evil.”

I shook my head. “No, Karen. I don’t. I think he deferred to money and power on that night, and once he’d deferred, he felt trapped. I don’t think he envisioned what would happen as it continued, and once it got rolling he didn’t know how to get out of it. And he paid dearly for what he did. More than he should have. More than anyone should have.”

She sat with head bowed, silent.

“Have they told you why he died?” I said.

“Paul Brooks was afraid of him. Afraid he’d tell people what he knew.”

“He was going to do that, Karen. He told Gaglionci he was ready to talk to the police and tried to convince him to do the same. He wanted to send Gaglionci back to find Doran and give him his money and assure him that he’d be cleared. He just needed a few days to prepare for it, I guess. To talk to you, I’m sure. He might have gone to jail. Probably would have. Even in the best case, his career would have been over, and he would have been shamed in a way that’s tough to imagine. He was willing to let that happen to get his honor back, Karen. To protect his son, to set right what he’d made wrong.”

She was crying.

“I think when he found you, it helped him,” I said. “Gave him an escape, almost. You were young and good and so far from being in his world, and I’m quite sure that he needed to be with someone who was all of those things.”

I was thinking of her on the boat again, the smile she’d had that I would never forget, the overwhelming sense of youth and energy and joy she gave off back then, like a pulse. I imagined Alex Jefferson meeting her in the aftermath of his greatest sin, and I understood what she would have done to him. I understood it very well.

She used her fingertips to wipe tears from her eyes. I reached out and rubbed her back, squeezed her shoulder until she ran out of tears. When they’d stopped, I put my hand on her neck and turned her face to mine.

“You told me that Alex said you healed him. That when he said that, you felt like he needed you in a way you couldn’t fully understand.”

She nodded.

“That,” I said, “was probably as true a statement as you’ll ever hear, Karen. And it should matter to you.”

We sat there for a while, and then I got to my feet. She stood with me, and I hugged her and held her and then it had gone on too long and was accomplishing too little, and I walked to my truck and drove away and left her there with her grief. Sometimes, that’s all you can do.

46

I didn’t talk to her again in the weeks that followed, but I saw plenty of her. Unplugged the television so I wouldn’t have to stumble across another picture of her on the screen, listen to the commentators explain her husband’s actions, tell the sad story of Andy Doran.

Soon the newspaper was reporting she’d left town, gone to stay with family. Two weeks after Doran and Paul Brooks were killed, movers were taking furniture out of her house, loading it into trucks. A real estate agency had control of the home, but the word was they’d wait a few months before putting it on the market. Tough to sell a place that has news crews camped out on the lawn.

Sometimes, I thought about calling. The day Cole Hamilton was arrested on charges of conspiracy was one. The day traces of Alex Jefferson’s blood were found in Tommy Gaglionci’s van was another. Gaglionci had washed the van with bleach and water, but that’s the thing about blood—it’ll find places to hide, crevices perfect for disappearing, and just when you think it’s washed out of your life, it makes another appearance.

I never called, though. Lacked the words, and without them the telephone’s pretty damn useless. Maybe a call around Christmas, I thought. Maybe a card. Maybe she’d call me. Maybe there was nothing to say.

______

The media coverage was relentless. I had to change my unlisted home number, then my cell number. The more enterprising reporters took to waiting in the parking lot beneath my apartment, but they didn’t get any quotes, either. Nobody did. My involvement was the subject of endless questioning in the newspaper, my relationship with Karen became a fifteen-minute feature on one of the morning news shows, and numerous mentions were made of the arrest warrant for murder even though I’d never been charged. My attorney called to suggest a lawsuit against Targent and the department for wrongful arrest. I told him not to call again. If I required his services, I’d let him know.

Since I ignored the phones, reporters took to sending letters requesting interviews. Going through a stack of them one day, I found a postcard from Indiana. On the front was a photograph of a covered bridge in autumn, surrounded by crimson trees. I flipped it over and read the short note.

Mr. Perry—

It appears I was wrong about you. Please accept this admission, and my apology. Also, please do not ever return to my county.

Best Wishes,

Lt. Roger Brewer

I flipped the card back over and moved my hand to cover the bridge, so all I could see were the trees. It was easy to imagine they stood above a pond and gazebo, an orchard nearby. The leaves would all be gone by now, just bare limbs watching over cold water.

I went to Indiana for the money. That’s what I told Joe and Amy. If not for the money, just because I wanted to help. An honorable thing. I’d wanted to help. In my more dishonest moments, I could try to leave it there. Not anymore, though. Not with Karen gone and Matt Jefferson and Andy Doran dead.

What took me to Indiana was the Jefferson family secret. I wanted to have it before Karen had it. Wanted to know why the son cut Alex Jefferson off, what evil he’d seen in his father. He was supposed to tell me, and I’d get to tell her. I’d be the one to explain what a bastard her husband had been. Validation, the nice word. Revenge, the true one.

I’d wanted Matt Jefferson to tell me what his father had done that was so wrong. Now, both of them dead, I wanted ten seconds to tell him what his father had been about to do that was right.

I found a magnet and put the postcard on my refrigerator. Isn’t that what you’re supposed to do with the things you need to remember?

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