Playing Dead

wouldn’t be there long enough for the neighbors to call the police.

Just as he was about to get up from the bench, Claire’s Jeep pulled into the driveway. She jumped out, ran into the house. That had been close. He wasn’t ready for another confrontation.

He’d put the letter in her mailbox after she went to bed. Hope she checked it early. He could call her, tell her it was there.

Less than ten minutes later, Claire emerged from the house once again. She’d changed from her slacks and blazer to black jeans and a lacy tank top. As she walked to her car in spike heels, she pulled a purple T-shirt over her head. She drove away, speeding through a yellow light and turning onto the on-ramp of the freeway a block over.

Now. What are you waiting for?

He crossed the street, trying not to walk too fast or too slow. His heart pounded. She was his daughter, but she also believed he was a killer. He had to accept the fact that she might turn him in or set him up.

He expected that she’d have an alarm, and was surprised when he didn’t encounter one. Maybe she didn’t have one because of her animals. Perhaps he could stay a little longer.

The dogs in the back barked. There were three or four. A golden retriever gazed through the glass pane on the back door, tongue hanging out, looking as if he’d much rather lick an intruder than attack him. Claire always had a soft spot for animals. Lydia had been severely allergic to dogs and they’d never had one.

An orange and white cat wound around Tom’s legs and he bent to scratch the animal behind the ears, tears burning behind dry eyes.

Bill Kamanski, a detective and the father of a good rookie cop Tom had trained, had become Claire’s guardian. Tom didn’t want to go to prison and leave his daughter with anyone. He’d wanted to be her father, dammit! He’d raised her, he loved her. He hadn’t killed anyone. .

After sentencing, but before Tom was transported to Folsom Prison, Bill met with him in lockup. Reality had finally hit Tom. He was going to be in prison for the rest of his life-until he was executed. He had appeals, but for the first time since he was arrested, he realized he might never be free again.

“Tom.” Bill sat across from him, his face hard but his eyes compassionate.

“What do you want?” he’d asked. This man already had his daughter. Tom was no longer a father to Claire; the court had given-with Tom’s reluctant approval-custody of his only child to a virtual stranger.

Not completely true. Claire had known Dave Kamanski for three years. Tom liked Dave, but he was too young to accept the responsibility. His father Bill was a widower, owned a home, and was a respected member of law enforcement.

There really had been no other choice. Lydia had never gotten along with her sister Joyce, who lived three thousand miles away in Boston. How could Tom send Claire cross-country to an aunt she’d seen maybe three times in her life?

“I wanted you to know that I’ll take good care of Claire,” Bill said. “I’ll do everything I can to protect her from the media, to give her as normal a life as possible.”

Tom said nothing. He wanted to hit someone, rage against the injustice of being sent to death row an innocent man. But he couldn’t. No one had believed him during the trial, no one would believe him now.

He had wanted desperately to testify on his behalf, but he knew that would have been foolish. The D.A. wanted him on the stand, and anything he said they’d twist and turn to set his temper off. That’s what they wanted to do, his attorney insisted. And Tom became convinced his attorney was right. Now, he couldn’t help but wonder if it would have made a difference. He’d never know.

“This is hard for you,” said Bill. “No matter what happened, I know you love your daughter.”

Tom’s voice cracked. “Don’t-don’t talk about me to her. She already believes I’m guilty. Don’t rub it in.”

“I won’t say anything negative about you to Claire, Tom. I promise.”

He nodded, unable to speak.

“Claire doesn’t want to see you.”

Tom had feared that. The court had allowed a thirty-minute visitation with his daughter before his transfer. But his daughter didn’t want to come.

“That may change, and I’ll bring her when she wants to-”

“No. I don’t want her to step foot in a prison.”

“Be that as it may, if she wants to see you, I’ll bring her. But if she doesn’t-I’ll write to you and let you know how she’s doing.”

Tom nodded.

Bill stood and started for the door. “Watch your back, Tom.”

“I didn’t kill them,” he whispered.

Bill left.

True to his word, Bill sent him letters twice a year, sometimes with photos of Claire. It was a kind of bittersweet hell receiving them. He craved the information, then he’d fall into a dismal depression. It should have been him, not Bill, who was there for Claire’s graduation, when her best friend was killed by a drunk driver in college, when she got her PI license, or when she bought her house.

Swallowing the bitterness, Tom looked around Claire’s cozy home. He could see his daughter here, while at the same time realizing how much he didn’t know about her, Bill’s letters notwithstanding. The house was clean but cluttered, much like her old bedroom. Hardwood floors and simple furniture, with brightly colored pictures of Ireland decorating the walls. Claire had told him she wanted to go to Ireland, where his mother had been born. Before she died when Claire was twelve, Deirdre O’Brien had doted on her only granddaughter, and told her stories of Eire, real and made up.

Tom wondered if Claire had gone. He hoped so, but Bill had never said anything.

In her bedroom, classic movie posters dominated the walls, from Casablanca to The Wizard of Oz to Star Wars. Claire had always loved the movies.

Her room was more colorful than the rest of the house, with a dozen brightly colored pillows scattered on a white down comforter. She’d done a half-ass job making the bed, the blankets hanging askew. The cat jumped onto the bed as if he owned it, sat down and stared at Tom.

Being here, seeing how she lived, disturbed Tom on so many levels. He needed to get out of here. Maybe he should never have come back. Claire was better off without him in her life.

You’re innocent. Claire needs to know it, believe it, prove it.

Claire had a small office off her bedroom. It might have been a large closet with the doors removed. He placed the folded letter under her keyboard, leaving half of it protruding. He grabbed a sticky note from a stack and wrote CLAIRE in block letters, stuck it on the edge.

Turning, he glanced over at a picture on the wall separating her makeshift office from her bedroom. It was framed in pewter and placed in such a way that it could only be viewed if you intentionally pivoted to look at it.

He crossed over, took it off the wall, tears clouding his vision.

It was a picture of him and Claire when she was eleven. They’d gone camping in Yosemite for a week that summer. Lydia had even joined them because they’d rented a cabin and she had a real bed to sleep on. It was the last family vacation they’d shared, and they had an incredible time. He and Lydia had reconnected-or so he’d thought then-and Claire was still a little girl, though she’d begun to show signs of the beautiful woman she’d become. The picture reflected a perfect moment in time.

He and Claire sat on the porch swing of the cabin. The colors at sunset were vivid and surreal. But the sheer joy on their faces was something Tom hadn’t remembered until now.

If Claire had hung this picture in her office, even in an out-of-the-way corner, somewhere in the back of her mind she must still love him. Still believe in him.

He clung to that hope. It was all he had, but it was more than he’d had this morning.