Beyond Suspicion

16

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It was two A.M., and Jack sat alone at the kitchen table wearing the pajamas his mother-in-law had given him for Christmas. They were a grotesque paisley print, the kind of garment that might ordinarily sit in a dresser drawer until old age seized his senses. So long as he and Cindy were in Mrs. Paige’s house, however, he figured he’d be the good son-in-law and wear them.

Since “the incident,” as they’d come to call it, Cindy and Jack had been staying in her old room in her mother’s house in Pinecrest. It was a temporary arrangement until they could find an apartment. Moving back into their house would never be an option, and Jack feared that even a fast-talking realtor would have a tough time selling it. And over here, Mr. and Mrs. Buyer, is a spacious master bathroom, which the owners have quite tastefully painted a very lovely shade of red to disguise the blood splatter on the walls.

The light from under the range hood cast a faint glow across the room. Beads of condensation glistened on the glass of water before him. A seriously flawed segment of Jack’s brain was forcing him to play the half-empty/half-full guessing game, so he raised the water glass and guzzled.

There, damn it. Empty.

Jack’s letter had gone off to the state attorney’s office that afternoon. It recounted his entire conversation with Jessie the night before her death. He’d labored over the wording for several hours before enlisting Rosa’s help to massage the final draft. She was totally sold on the concept. Jack hadn’t realized how unsold he was until after he’d wasted four hours trying to fall asleep. A written acknowledgment to the state attorney that his own client had scammed him would hardly bolster his standing in the Miami legal community.

“Are you okay?”

He turned and saw Cindy standing behind him. He’d tried not to wake her when he’d crawled out of the little bed they were sharing, but he’d obviously failed.

“Can’t sleep,” he said.

“Me neither. I thought I’d check the real estate section for rentals once more.”

“Good idea.”

As she searched through the recycle bin for yesterday’s newspaper, she looked up and asked, “Are you still thinking about that letter you wrote to the state attorney?”

“How did you know?”

“Because I know you.”

He lowered his eyes. “I feel like the teacher kept me after school to write five hundred times on the blackboard, ‘bullwinkle is a dope.’”

“You’re not stupid. You’re the smartest lawyer I know.”

“I did a pretty stupid thing.”

“You had no choice. Writing that letter is the only way to focus the state attorney’s attention where it belongs-on those investors who were threatening your client.”

“I didn’t mean writing the letter was stupid. I meant letting Jessie fool me in the first place.”

She quit searching for the newspaper and lowered herself into the chair beside her husband. The look in her eye told him that he was in for a reality check. “Jessie’s doctor was one of the most respected neurologists in Miami. How could you possibly have suspected that a man of his stature would falsify a diagnosis and defraud a group of viatical investors?”

“I deal with clever thieves all the time. I let my sympathy for Jessie get in the way.”

“Of course you did. Even I felt sorry for that woman. I’m the one who told you, ‘Go ahead and take the case, I don’t care if she’s your old girlfriend.’ Remember?”

“It still blows me away.”

“Me too. Especially the doctor. The more I think about this, the crazier it seems that Dr. Marsh would jeopardize his whole career that way.”

“Money,” he said, shaking his head. “I know a few doctors who love it.”

“There has to be something more at work. Something that we don’t understand.”

He could have detailed some of Jessie’s other persuasive powers, but that didn’t seem like a smart road to travel with his wife. “Let’s not worry about him,” he said. “How are you doing?”

“Okay.”

She’d averted her eyes when answering. He turned her chin gently. “What’s wrong?”

“I got my period,” she said quietly.

Jack tried not to show disappointment. “It’s okay. We’ll keep trying.”

“We’ve been trying for eleven months now.”

“Has it really been that long?”

“Yes. And I’m still not pregnant.”

“Maybe we should try doing it without our wedding rings. That never seems to fail.”

She almost smiled, but this was clearly weighing on her. “How worried are you, honey?” he asked.

“Very.”

“Maybe it’s me,” said Jack.

“It’s not you.”

“How do you know?”

“I just know.”

He wasn’t sure how she knew, but debating it wasn’t going to cheer her up. “There are plenty of things we haven’t tried yet.”

“I know. And there’s always adoption, too. But I’m almost afraid to think about that.”

“Why?”

She paused and said, “Because of the relationship you had with your stepmother.”

“That’s totally different from adoption.”

“It’s not, at least from a bonding standpoint. You were just a newborn when your mother died. Agnes raised you from infancy.”

“The fact that my stepmother and I never bonded has nothing to do with the fact that she was not my biological mother. My father was so desperate to find me a new mother that he married a woman who turned out to be a drunk.”

She took his hand, lacing her fingers with his. “How often do you wonder about your real mother?”

“I go in spurts. Times when I’m really curious, other times when I don’t think about her at all. Fortunately, I have my abuela to tell me all about her.”

“Doesn’t that concern you, about adoption? The idea of this mysterious person becoming part of our lives?”

“Adoption isn’t like that. There’s no abuela around to tell stories about the biological mother.”

“I didn’t mean an actual living person. I meant more like the essence of the birth mother.”

“That doesn’t seem to bother the millions of other couples who adopt.”

“I don’t think other people are as in touch with that sort of thing as I am.”

“What sort of thing?”

“Feeling someone’s… presence.”

Jack knew that she was talking about her father, and he feared that Jessie’s death had triggered something. “Is that why you’re awake? Were you having that dream about your father again?”

“No.”

“Are you sure?”

“Come on, I didn’t want to make this conversation about that. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry. This was a traumatic event for both of us. If you want to talk to me or someone else or even a counselor, it’s okay.”

She fell silent, then looked at him and said, “Actually, there’s something I’ve been wanting to show you.”

“What?”

“Wait right here.”

She rose and followed the dark hall to the spare bedroom that she’d turned into her temporary home office. In a minute she returned to the table and laid a ten-by-twelve photograph before him and said, “I shot a few rolls of film a couple weeks ago. Just a run-of-the-mill outdoor portrait of a little girl and her dog.”

Jack studied the photograph, shrugged, and said, “It’s a nice picture.”

“Look at the lower right-hand corner. See anything?”

He zeroed in. “Like what?”

“Does that not look like a shadow to you? As if someone might have been standing behind me?”

He looked again and said, “I don’t see any shadow.”

“You don’t see that?”

“The entire corner is a little darker than the rest of the photograph, but it doesn’t look like a person to me. Was someone there with you?”

“No. That’s the whole point. It was just me, the girl, and the dog. Yet I had a weird sensation that someone else was there during the shoot.”

“Cindy, please,” he said with concern.

“No, it’s true. Then I went back and took a really good look at the proofs, and I saw this.”

“Saw what?”

“This silhouette.”

“It’s just a dark spot.”

“It’s a person.”

“Cindy-”

“Just listen to me. I’m not losing my mind. I thought I was, to be honest. Between my creepy dreams and this shadow in the photograph, I was starting to think-well, I didn’t know what to think. But ever since this thing happened with Jessie, it’s beginning to make sense to me.”

“What’s making sense?”

She paused, as if to underscore her words. “Maybe someone’s following me.”

“What?”

“Jessie told you that some thugs were behind that viatical investment. She said they were going to kill her, didn’t she?”

“Yes.”

“What if those same thugs think her lawyer helped her pull off the scam? They could be out to get you, too. They could be out to get us.”

“No one’s going to get us.”

“Then why is this shadow in my picture?”

“I honestly don’t see it.”

Her eyes seemed to cloud over. She looked at the photograph, then at Jack. “You really don’t see anything?”

He shook his head. “If you want, we can hire another photographer to examine it. See if their professional judgment squares with yours.”

“No.”

“You sure?”

“Yes. You’re right. It’s not there.”

Jack recoiled, confused by her sudden reversal. “It’s not?”

She shook her head. “The first time I examined this proof, I was sure I saw a human shadow. Then I looked at it again tonight and I wasn’t so sure. You just confirmed it for me. I’m seeing things that aren’t even there.” She chuckled mirthlessly and said, “I really must be freaking out.”

“What happened to us is enough to push anyone to the edge.”

She moved closer, as if telling him to hold her. He took her in his arms and said, “Everything’s going to be okay.”

“You promise?”

“Everyone has fears. The imagination can run away with you.”

“Tell me about it.”

“It’ll pass. Believe me. We’ll be fine.”

“I know. Tonight’s just been especially tough. The whole day, really.”

“What happened?”

“It’s just that…”

“What?”

“After this horrible thing happened in our own house, I’d managed to convince myself that God had something really good in store for us. That’s why it hit me pretty hard today when I found out I wasn’t pregnant.”

“Good things are in store for us. There are so many options we haven’t even talked about yet. Fertility drugs, even artificial insemination, if you want.”

She smiled weakly.

“What?” he asked.

“An absurd image just flashed into my head. You sitting all by yourself in the back room of some doctor’s office, flipping through the pages of a dirty magazine…”

“It’s not like that at all.”

“Oh, really, stud? How do you think they collect their specimen?”

“I dunno. I just always assumed that’s why nurses wear rubber gloves.”

“Perv,” she said as she pushed him away playfully.

He pulled her back into his arms. “Come here, you.”

She settled into his embrace, put her head against his shoulder, and said, “A baby. What a thought.”

“Our baby. Even more amazing.”

“You ready for this?”

“Heck, no. You?”

“Of course not.”

“Perfect,” he said. “Why should we be different from everyone else?”

She flashed a wan smile, her voice seeming to trail off in the distance. “If only we were just a little bit more like everyone else.”

Jack wasn’t sure how to answer that, so he kept holding her. After a minute or two, she started to rock gently in his arms. It was barely audible, but she was humming the lullaby, “Hush, Little Baby.” In his head Jack was following along and enjoying the melody, until she stopped suddenly in midverse. It was a cold and abrupt ending, like hopes and dreams interrupted. He waited for her to continue, but she didn’t.

They stayed wrapped in each other’s arms, saying not another word, neither of them wanting to be the first to let go.