At First Sight

Chapter 13

Paige woke up each morning and for a second would think everything was fine, but then her memory would return, crashing into her like a rogue wave, knocking her spirit flat, leaving her unable to rise. It left her dead inside, consumed by a feeling of complete loss. She felt used up and hollow. She would often lie in bed for an hour, unable to get up and face the day, looking at the black horizon that was now her future. How could she get up and slog through that darkness day after day?

The intense anger came later.

She would finally make it out of bed and wander into the bathroom, look at her tangled, sleep-tousled hair and tearstained, bloated face. For a moment, she would contemplate what to do with the mess. She generally just ignored it, grabbed for a scrunchie, and pulled her hair back and knotted it. No lipstick, no eye shadow, no powder. She would then wander downstairs, pale and wan, clutching the banister with a vacant expression, looking like the tragic ghost in a black-and-white movie. Her heart was sinking. She was totally unable to cope.

Each morning her friends showed up to console her-mostly people from the school where she and Chandler taught. Teachers and administrators filled her house wearing anxious expressions. Nobody knew what to say to her, so they mumbled nonsense cliches: "Only the good die young… God only takes those who have finished their work." She would nod and whisper her thanks.

They would hold both her hands in theirs and look deeply into her eyes, searching for some spark of life, some evidence that their well-meaning sentiments had raised her spirits. But Paige's eyes remained vacant, her whispered responses hollow.

These interactions were predictable and ultimately useless to her. But she felt an obligation to be there for her friends, to help them with their mission of mercy on her behalf. Without her pretending to be encouraged by their efforts, the whole scene would have been even more hopeless. So Paige made the best of it. As she struggled to entertain them, at least they forced her to point her thoughts outward, away from the suicidal depression that burned inside.

And there were things that needed to be done.

There was a funeral to plan, people to call, out-of-state friends to contact who might not have heard, although everyone must know by now. The network news shows had been running clips for days.

The first forty-eight hours passed in a blur of faces and decisions.

They picked a cemetery and then a gravesite. She bought two-one for herself right next to his. She couldn't wait to fill it.

They picked the clothes that Chandler would wear. Someone stupidly suggested his quarterback jersey. But she would never do that. He had moved way beyond football. She spent an hour in his closet before she finally selected the suit he'd been married in. It hadn't necessarily been his favorite outfit, but it was hers. She loved the way he looked in that suit.

By Wednesday, she had taken care of most of the essentials. She booked a minister, the pastor at their Episcopal church. She picked the pallbearers, mostly people from the school, along with two cousins Chandler had been close to. His best friend in college, a wide receiver named Clarence Rutledge, helped her organize it. She picked the time-2 P. M. Saturday. She made hotel reservations for Chandler's mother and father.

She had been reading the Bible, looking for a verse that Chandler liked so she could put it on the cover of the memorial program. She had narrowed it down to a few but hadn't decided on which one yet.

On Wednesday afternoon she went down to the Charlotte Police Department for a meeting with Detective Butler. He was waiting in the lobby with a tight smile. He didn't smile so much with his mouth as he did with his eyes. She liked that. He understood the weight of her grief because he carried it himself.

He didn't hold her hands in both of his and mutter platitudes like her nervous friends at home. He told her she looked very tired.

Honesty. He took her upstairs to a noisy detective squad room and they sat in his cluttered cubicle. There were pictures of a woman with a plain but friendly face displayed in ornately engraved silver frames. In several of the snapshots, older children in their twenties stood next to her. Bob Butler was pawing through a box at his feet, searching for something. He looked up and caught her staring at the photos.

"Is that your late wife?" she asked.

"Yep," he said, and the tight smile returned. "I'm sure you want to get through this as quickly as possible. You told me that Chandler went to the drugstore to get medicine for your back. We found the bottle:' He continued searching the box and finally held up an evidence bag. "This the stuff?" He showed her the plastic bottle full of pills sealed in the baggie.

"Yes, that's it-Darvocet. I have a back problem from running. Normally I get Percocet when it flares up, but Dr. Baker couldn't prescribe it without seeing me again so he prescribed this to hold me over:' She thought she'd already told him that, but repeated it anyway to fill the silence.

"Okay?' He put it back in the box. "Just give it to me quick-by the numbers. He left your house driving the Suburban. Go from there."

"Yes, it was twenty minutes after eleven… "

"That doesn't track. The woman who found him in the parking lot called the paramedics. The call was logged in at exactly eleven-twenty. It takes fifteen minutes to get to Walgreens from your house. I know 'cause I drove it. Another five to pick up the meds… "

"Right. Then working back, it must have been around eleven when he left."

"Then, what? No calls from him or anything? Like maybe from the car on the way, asking if you needed anything else?"

"No sir."

"Call me Bob."

"Okay."

"Did he ever mention having any enemies?"

"You think somebody did this on purpose?" she asked. The idea had never occurred to her.

"Well, it's never a good idea to take anything at face value. Coulda just been an accident where the driver panicked and took off. Coulda been something more complicated. I like to look at everything."

"Well, no… Everybody loved… They loved… Everybody… " She couldn't finish. She felt herself sliding over the edge. Bob saved her.

"You know what I think you need?"

"What?"

"Coffee. Lemme get you a cup." He got up and left her alone to pull herself together. She fought the tears down, battling them like a warrior, finally managing to slam the door hard on her emotions. She wasn't going to come unglued. Not in the office of the man who would try and catch Chandler's killer. That wouldn't help. She wanted this murderer brought to justice. She needed to stay calm and precise because suddenly she had stopped feeling empty. Suddenly, she was filled with a need for vengeance.

And then, the first flash of white-hot anger. Her face burned with rage, and it startled her. For the first time in her life she was angry enough to kill the one who had done this to Chan. The feeling passed, but in its wake Paige was left shaken by the memory of its fury.

Detective Butler was back a few minutes later with two Styrofoam cups full of coffee, packets of sweetener, and nondairy creamer. He lay everything, along with a plastic spoon, down in front of her.

"Is that good?" he asked.

"Yes sir."

"Bob"

"Bob."

He smiled at her, with his eyes this time as well as his mouth. "Okay. No enemies?"

"No"

"He taught at North High. Any problems there?"

"No"

"L. D. kids. That's like troubled children, right?"

"They're kids with learning problems; they're not troubled. You can talk to them. They loved him, at least most of them did. He… he… " She started to tear up again. First tears, then rage, now tears again. Get ahold of yourself she thought angrily.

"Okay. Not troubled kids-learning disabled. Got it," Butler said, writing in his notebook. Then he looked up. "And nothing noteworthy or out of the ordinary happened in the day or two leading up to the event?"

She shook her head and he made more notes.

"Okay, that's it for now. Good job."

"Have you got anything?" she asked. "Are there any, you know, clues or anything?"

"Yes, we have a few leads."

"Would it be… Is it possible for me to know what they are?"

"Sure." He leaned back and looked at her. A sleepy look crossed his face. "You weren't planning on getting a divorce or anything, were you?" he drawled, unexpectedly.

"Huh?"

"Everything okay in the marriage? No girlfriends in Chandler's life, no fights where stuff got thrown?"

"Fuck you." The rage suddenly returned. Who did this skinny jerk think he was?

"Perfect answer," Butler said, made a note, then looked up and smiled apologetically. "Gotta ask. Wouldn't be doing the job 'less we looked at everything. Even though I believe you, I'm still gonna check around. Just to make sure. Everybody's a suspect 'til I get my focus. All of this is for Chandler, just remember that. In a wrongful death, my job is to speak for the dead. I'm Chandler's last advocate. He's my guy now… my client. I gotta look at everything. If you'd killed him and I didn't check on your relationship, then I would've let my guy down."

"Give me a lie detector test." She was still smoking mad. Did he really think she was a suspect?

"Don't need to. At least not yet. For right now, 'less your friends tell me different, your anger was all I needed to see."

She sat across from this man with his rumpled suit and cracker smile and felt her anger recede. In retrospect, she knew he was right. He had to look at her. It was possible that she could have done it, or hired someone to kill Chandler. She took a deep breath to calm herself and nodded.

"So, we friends again?" he asked.

"Yes."

"Okay. Here's what we got. CSI's found some paint fragments on his body. We're analyzing it now. We've got one good tire impression. A Firestone with what looks like a factory flaw across the midline tread on the right side. The preliminary paint analysis should be able to give us the make and color of the car. Looks like it was blue?'

"That sounds like you have a lot."

"Better than nothing. We're looking for a blue car, probably with some right front fender damage and a cut center tread on one of the right-side tires. So that's something."

"That's wonderful," she said again, then asked, "How long will they let you work on this? I know that once an investigation is a few weeks old, the police will make it a cold case and stop working it. You have to stay on this until it's solved, Detective Butler. Don't let them take you off."

"Where'd you get that?"

"I read a lot of crime novels:'

"Okay, here's the headline. You wanta know how long I'll work the case? I will work it until thorns start popping up on orchids and butterflies grow fangs. I will work it until my brain turns to applesauce. In short, Mrs. Ellis, this guy who hit your husband has got a bulldog on his ass-excuse the language. I won't quit. This folder will never be off my desk. I ain't necessarily the smartest cop on the force, but I'm sure the most stubborn. If I don't solve this case and you come up here unannounced two years from now, Chandler's folder is gonna be sitting right here-right in front of me. We square on that?"

She nodded, clutching her purse in both hands. For the first time, Paige felt a glimmer of hope. "But why? You didn't know him."

"Because we didn't catch the one who ran over Althea, didn't get whoever did that. Course, I couldn't work that case. Out of policy for me to work my own wife's death. These guys around here gave it both knees, but we never cleared it. Chandler is gonna get better service. Got my promise."

She left by the side door and drove back to the house, feeling somehow better. But the memory of the white-hot anger lingered. She'd heard that anger often followed the death of a loved one, but she certainly hadn't been prepared for it to be such murderous rage.

There were ten cars parked out front when she arrived. A flower delivery van was wedged in the driveway. More flowers… just what she needed. She walked up the stairs to the front door and confronted the crowd of anxious friends. They hovered and fretted. Lots to do. Plans to make. "Do you want to rent the extra room at the mortuary for the reception after the funeral or use the rectory at the church?" "Who's going to call all these people from out of state and tell them when the funeral is?"

"I will," she said, suddenly needing something to do. She took the stack of file cards. One of her friends had gone through her Rolodex and separated out business and personal contacts, then written a name and number on each card and alphabetized the stack. She went into Chandler's office and sat by the phone. The top card read:

BEAU AND SUE AVERY, MIAMI, FL

She started dialing, telling friends when the funeral was. Ten cards down she finally hit Chick and Evelyn Best.