Cold Truth

3

Cass stepped over the heap of mail that lay like poorly dealt cards on the floor inside her front door. She snapped on the nearest lamp-an ugly old porcelain thing that had belonged to her grandmother-and picked up the litter, which she proceeded to sort. Junk, junk, junk, bill, bill, junk, magazine, junk. She took the entire pile into the kitchen and tossed the junk into the trash before setting the two bills and the magazine on the counter.

She turned on the overhead light and opened the refrigerator, took out a beer, twisted off the lid, and took a long, steady drink while she listened to the messages on her answering machine. Cass wasn’t sure which aggravated her more, the hang-up, or the message from her cousin, Lucy, reminding her that she’d be coming into town next week but hadn’t yet decided how long she was staying and hoped that Cass wouldn’t have a problem with that.

Damn.

The last thing Cass wanted right now was company, who would have to be, at the worst, entertained, and at best, tolerated, for an indefinite period of time. Even if that company was one of her closest living relatives and had been, once upon a time, her closest friend.

Her rumbling stomach reminded Cass that she hadn’t eaten since breakfast, and suddenly that seemed like a very long time ago. She pulled one of the two chairs from the table and sat down, then pushed back the other and rested her feet on the seat and her head in her hands. Seeing the dead woman’s body that morning had shaken her more than she’d let on. Being reminded that she’d have to share her home with Lucy for the next month was merely the icing on that day’s cake.

Between now and Thursday, she’d have to find time to put fresh sheets on Lucy’s bed. Stock the kitchen with real food. Have something to drink in the refrigerator besides a six-pack of beer and some iced tea from the local convenience store.

And she’d have to find time to vacuum. Dust. Clean the bathroom. All the chores she generally put off until she could avoid them no longer. She bit the inside of her lower lip, wondering when, in the midst of a homicide investigation, she’d find time to make the house hospitable.

The fact that Lucy’s ownership in the beach house was equal to hers wasn’t lost on Cass. Their grandparents had left everything to be equally divided between their only two grandchildren. That Cass had chosen to live in the house year-round had never been an issue between the two women. Lucy, who was married and had a lovely home in Hopewell, was content with her month at the Jersey Shore every year and couldn’t care less that Cass had made the bungalow her permanent residence. God knew Cass was grateful that the other eleven months of the year she had the house to herself. And she should be grateful-she was grateful-that Lucy was coming alone this year and not bringing her husband and her two kids with her as she had every other year.

What was up with that, Cass wondered as she took another swig from the bottle, well aware that she was deliberately focusing on Lucy as a means to avoid thinking about the body they’d found in the marsh.

The phone rang, and Cass stood to glance at the caller ID before answering. She picked it up.

“Hello.”

She listened for several moments without response, then said merely, “Thank you. See you in the morning.”

The body now had a name and a story.

Linda Roman.

Cass leaned back against the counter and picked at the label on the beer bottle until only slim shreds remained intact, the peeled-away slivers tucked into the fist of one hand.

Linda Roman had been thirty-one years old, a year younger than Cass. She lived in Tilden, she worked in a branch of Cass’s bank, and she had a husband of four years and an eighteen-month-old daughter.

Too young to really remember her, Cass thought. All that child would ever know of her mother she’d learn from others.

Cass sighed wearily. At least she’d been older when she’d lost her family. She had vivid memories of her mother and her father and her sister. If she tried really hard, she could almost recall the sound of their voices. Almost, but not quite. It had been a long, long time ago.

Twenty-six years this month.

And now another little girl would have a sad anniversary to mark, year after year. It occurred to Cass that what Linda Roman’s daughter would most remember of her mother would be the date on which she died.

Cass emptied the bottle into the sink and tossed it into the bin, which she rarely, if ever, remembered to put out on recycling day. She opened the refrigerator and searched for something she could reheat in the microwave for dinner, but nothing appealed to her. She called in an order for takeout and took a quick shower in the bungalow’s one small outdated bath.

It was long past time to renovate the bathroom-not to mention the kitchen-but every time Cass thought about it, and considered the options, she got a headache. Once last summer, at Lucy’s insistence, she’d made it all the way to the local home-improvement store to check out what was available, but she’d returned home in less than forty minutes, her head spinning. All she’d wanted was a simple tub with a shower, a new toilet, a new sink. Some new tile. But she’d found all the selections overwhelming and left with less of an idea of what she wanted than she’d had when she’d set out.

I like things simple, she was thinking as she dried her hair and towel-dried her legs. Simple, easy, basic.

The only real improvements she’d made since she’d moved in were to purchase a new microwave-a necessary fixture because it enabled her to reheat leftovers or takeout faster-and a new refrigerator, because the other one had given up the ghost three years ago. Other than those two items, she hadn’t even bothered to change the color of the walls or the old carpets.

But I will, she assured herself. As soon as I have time, I will.

She recognized her procrastination for what it was. Just as she recognized that for the past hour, she’d thought of anything but the body in the marsh.

Linda Roman.

Cass dressed in sweatpants and an old rugby shirt left behind by an old boyfriend, and slipped into a pair of rubber flip-flops. She rarely wore anything else on her feet in the summer months when she wasn’t working, though she’d be hard-pressed to explain why they appealed to her so much. They were not very practical, as foot-coverings went, and yet she’d bought them in almost every color she could find. Pink, yellow, red, blue, white, turquoise, and this year’s new favorite, orange.

She walked the four blocks to the new Mexican take-out restaurant and picked up her order. She considered staying and eating there-the place was almost empty-but the owner of the restaurant was all too eager to discuss the crime with her.

“Hey, Detective. You in on that investigation? The body down by Wilson ’s Creek?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“Well, were you there? Did you see it?”

“Yes, I was there.”

“Must have been something, eh?”

“Yes.”

“So, you guys got some clues? Suspects? I know they’re saying on the TV that you got no leads, but sometimes they say stuff like that to throw off the killer, you know?”

“The investigation is just beginning.” She had her wallet out, waiting for him to give her a total for her order so she could pay and escape, but he was holding on to the bag containing her food as if it were a hostage. He held her captive and was going to take advantage of the situation, so he’d have some inside dirt to dish with the breakfast crowd in the morning.

“I heard they just found out who she was. Linda Roman was her name, they said. Didn’t ring a bell with me. Did you know her?”

“No. I didn’t know her.”

“Someone who was in earlier said they knew her from the bank. You bank there?”

“Yes. Now, if I could just-”

“Say, I’ll bet my cousin Roxanne knows her.” He snapped his fingers. “She works for that bank. Different branch, but I bet they all know one another. I think I’ll give her a call and see if-”

“Dino, I hate to cut this short, but I need to get moving here.”

“Oh, right, right. Sorry.” He laughed self-consciously and rang up the total on the old-fashioned cash register. “It’s just so weird to have something like this in Bowers Inlet, you know? When I heard about it this morning, I said, ‘Hey, no way.’ Then when some of the guys from the newspaper stopped in at lunch and told us what was going down, I said, ‘No shit!’”

Cass handed over a ten-dollar bill and waved off the change, anxious to leave the small storefront and its owner’s excited curiosity. She pushed open the screen door and headed back onto the quiet streets of Bowers Inlet. The sidewalks were deserted now at almost eight P.M., the other year-round residents no doubt all at home watching the special news reports pertaining to the murder. She wondered who among them might have known Linda Roman; who, behind the shades of the houses Cass now passed, might be grieving over her death. As a cop, Cass knew she shouldn’t let it get to her, but it did. God knew, it did.

She turned up the narrow walk in front of her small house, noting that once again this year the grass grew in stubborn tufts from the coarse sand in the front yard. This weekend she’d make it a point to pull it all up and rake out the sand so that it lay flat and weedless. Maybe she’d even put a pot of some kind of summery flower out there near the sidewalk. If she got around to it. Which she probably wouldn’t.

Gramma Marshall used to keep pots of petunias out there at the end of the walk. Red petunias. The pots were still in some forgotten corner of the garage. Cass had never tossed them out, but neither had she ever filled them. Lucy, on the other hand, would look for them if Cass suggested it. Lucy couldn’t sit still for more than five minutes, and had never been one to let things be.

She went up the worn wooden steps and through the screen door that opened onto the porch that ran across the front of the house, noted the screening that encased the entire porch had a rip here and there. Put it on the list of things to do, she told herself as she unlocked the front door and headed for the kitchen. Just put it on the list.

Cass slid some of the burrito from the take-out container onto a plate, and took a bottle of water from the small pantry. She tucked the bottle under her arm and grabbed a fork from the drawer next to the sink and carried her dinner into the living room, where she sat on the same worn sofa she’d sat on as a child, and looked under the cushions for the TV’s remote control. She caught the special report on the day’s events on the local station, and stared at the screen as the anchor repeated all the details of Linda Roman’s sad death.

Cass sat the bottle on the coffee table and rested her elbows on her knees. She’d been fighting off a bout of melancholy since early that morning, carrying it around inside her and trying to pretend it wasn’t there. Everything she’d done all day-from the interviews she’d conducted, to the photos she’d viewed and the reports she’d written, to the beer she now swallowed-everything had been calculated to keep her from focusing on what had happened to Linda Roman in that marsh, because thinking too much could take her down roads she did not wish to travel. It was too late now, however. She’d made eye contact with the still photo of Linda and her family. She’d allowed herself to feel what Linda Roman’s child would feel, and she knew she was lost.

“Son of a bitch,” she whispered as videos of Linda Roman appeared on the television screen. Linda with her husband on their wedding day. Linda with her newborn daughter. Linda and her sister on the beach with their babies not two weeks ago. Watching was making Cass sick.

Literally.

She put the water down on the table and went into the bathroom, and threw up until there was nothing left in her stomach to be expelled. Only then did she return to the living room, where she turned off the television and the outside lights, picked up her plate of food, and carried it into the kitchen, where she dumped her food into the trash. She checked the lock on the back door, and went to bed. Once under the covers, Cass curled up in a ball and mourned for Linda Roman and for all the Linda Romans whose beautiful lives had been taken from them for no reason, other than that someone had wanted to, that someone could.

Sleep had been a long time coming, and had not lingered long enough for Cass to shake the fatigue that had been plaguing her. On top of everything else-or perhaps because of it-the dream had come back, and in its aftermath, Cass had dressed and fled the house, heading for the deserted beach. From half a block away she could hear the pounding of the surf, and it led her on through the night. She walked directly to the ocean and welcomed the cold spray as the waves threw themselves with abandon onto the shore, welcomed the sensation of the swirling tide tugging at her ankles in the dark.

She walked along the beach to the nearest jetty, where she sat in the company of her own ghosts until the sun came up. Then, knowing if she was to do her job she’d have to keep her own emotions in check, her memories at bay, she retraced her steps to the bungalow, her focus regained, her back straight with determination. She dressed for work, committed to bringing justice to Linda Roman, ready to begin the search for the man who had killed her.