Helpless

Chapter 69

As was customary in the Jewish faith, Marvin Pressman’s funeral took place as soon as possible. He’d been dead for less than forty-eight hours. In a few hours more, he’d be laid to permanent rest in the ground. His parents lived in Connecticut, but they were too distraught to drive themselves north. Tom arranged for a car service to bring them to the funeral home. Hundreds attended—colleagues, judges, and clients—joining Marvin’s extensive family in a heartbreaking celebration of his life.

Tom sat next to Rainy in the back row of the packed funeral home. The service was brief and dignified, befitting a life lived the same way. Rabbi Toby Hurwitz delivered a thoughtful eulogy, but Tom’s tears came at the end of the service, when Marvin’s mother spoke. Afterward, people in the front rows began to file out.

Rainy turned to Tom as she pulled a tissue from her purse, and whispered in his ear, “Are you all right?”

Tom nodded. “It’s just so senseless,” he said. “So sad and wrong. It was an honor to call him my friend. But hearing his mother speak tore me up inside. It made me think about my mother. It made me miss her. No parent should bury a child. It just isn’t right.”

“I agree, it isn’t,” said Rainy.

Tom wished Jill were beside him. He wanted to hug her close and keep her safe.

Tom had rarely let Jill out of his sight since Lindsey’s disappearance. But he couldn’t make her come to Marvin’s funeral. Not with the memory of her own mother’s service still fresh in her mind.

Tom recalled the phone call from Marvin’s assistant that had shattered his world.

Marvin’s dead, she had said. Marvin’s gone.

Police had found his bloodied body on a running trail in Willards Woods. Later that day, on an anonymous tip, they arrested a serial felon in Millis and found in his possession Marvin’s wallet and the murder weapon.

A bloodstained knife.

Tom had jumped into action, planning the funeral. It was all he could do to help. Marvin’s sister, Amanda, the other lawyer in the family, and a few relatives lived in or near Shilo, but they were distraught and welcomed his help.

The planning was over. Now Tom could ponder the magnitude of what had occurred. Now he could allow himself to grieve.

The crowd soon thinned out, and he and Rainy stood to leave. Outside the morning sun gave way to clouds, and a chill fought its way into the air.

They stopped in front of a missing persons poster tacked to a telephone pole. Lindsey Wells’s cheerful face seemed to be watching them. Instructions on the poster detailed where to meet for the afternoon search.

“Is Jill going?” Rainy asked.

“No. I can’t let her. Believe me, she wants to.”

“Because you think Lindsey’s disappearance might be connected to what Jill found on Mitchell’s computer?”

“Exactly for that reason. Until I know what’s going on, she’s either with Vern and his kids or at home with me. She’s never alone.”

“I see.”

“I wish I could go on the search,” Tom said. “I’m trained, and with a phone call I can get a dozen military-trained search-and-rescue experts here in a blink.”

“Did you offer?”

“I did.”

“And?”

“Lindsey’s father wouldn’t even look me in the eyes when he said no.”

“Why?”

“Because he’s thinking what everybody around here is thinking.”

“What’s that?”

“That I had something to do with Lindsey’s disappearance. That I did something to her to keep her from testifying against me.”

“You told me you didn’t. Should I still believe you?”

Tom glared at Rainy but softened the angry look that flashed across his face.

“Yes, you should believe me,” he said. “Why do you even ask?”

“Because in my profession, I deal with liars all the time. Do you know anything about antisocial personality disorder?”

“You mean a sociopath? Some, I suppose.”

“These people make a lifestyle out of their criminal behavior. They lie without remorse. But they’re not delusional. They don’t believe their lies. They’re just unbelievably good at lying.”

“The navy trained me in kinesics. I got pretty good at telling when people were lying.”

“Well, I’ve come across sociopaths who are so good at lying, they can fool a lie detector.”

“Not a hard thing to do.”

“These people can fool seasoned FBI investigators, spouses, children, parents… kinesics experts, too.”

“And you think I’m a sociopath and a liar?”

“No,” Rainy said. “I just asked if you were.”

“Well, if I’m that good a liar, why would you ever believe me?”

“Because I want to believe you,” Rainy said.

Tom made sure to look Rainy in the eyes. He knew all the tells of a liar—rapid blinking, excessive face touching, smiling with just the mouth, even a defensive posture.

“I had nothing to do with the disappearance of Lindsey Wells,” Tom repeated. Tom didn’t say anything more. Rainy would know liars often overexplained themselves, offering more details than requested.

“What’s the real reason you asked me to come to Marvin’s funeral, Tom?”

“Let’s go to your car, and I’ll tell you on the way to the cemetery.”

Rainy’s sedan brought up the rear of a forty-vehicle-long procession. Tom sat in the passenger seat. He had not forgotten that his last trip with a law enforcement officer was spent handcuffed in the backseat.

Rainy spoke first. “Are you ready to talk?” she asked.

“I wanted you to see how much Marvin was loved. I wanted you to get a feel for who he was as a person. Because I wanted you to care about his death.”

“Care in what way?”

“You don’t really believe Marvin died the way they said he did, do you?”

“What am I supposed to believe?” Rainy answered. “They caught the guy who did it.”

“But he’s denying having anything to do with it. He says the evidence was planted in his apartment. It’s a frame job. I told you what Marvin found out.”

“About Boyd’s stock-trading scheme?”

“You know this wasn’t a random attack. You know to look for connections.”

“Possible. But how do you prove it?”

“Look, we’ve got to come down hard on Cortland,” Tom said. “If you don’t want vigilante justice, than that’s what you’ve got to do.”

Rainy sighed and gave Tom a disapproving look. “I could talk to some people,” she offered. “There might be something we can do to investigate Cortland. But it’ll take a lot of paperwork, a lot of meetings, and I’m not promising anything. Okay?”

“I reserve my judgment until I see how much you do,” he said.

“Tom, no joke. You can’t go after these guys yourself, just because you think they did this to Marvin.”

“I know they did it to him,” he said. “Just promise me that you’ll do your best.”

“I promise,” Rainy said.

At the cemetery Marvin’s pallbearers stopped seven times while carrying the casket to the grave. Mourners followed behind as a show of respect. A misty rain fell as Marvin’s casket was lowered into the ground. Mourners used the back of a spade to shovel dirt into the hole, a symbolic gesture of their unwillingness to part with the departed.

Tom expressed his condolences to the parents and relatives waiting in two rows to receive them. Tears prickled his eyes again. He promised to pay a condolence call during shivah, the customary seven-day period of deep mourning.

The rain fell harder on their walk out of the cemetery. Tom held a black umbrella high enough to let Rainy stay dry, too. As they passed underneath the cemetery’s iron gates, Tom turned and looked behind him. He could still see mourners clustered around Marvin’s grave.

A sour taste washed the back of his throat. It’s my fault you’re dead, Tom thought to himself. Marvin was trying to help him, and it cost him his life.

Back inside her car, Rainy turned the ignition and put the vehicle into drive. It was a quiet ride back to the funeral home parking lot. Rainy pulled up next to Tom’s car.

“I’m so sorry about Marvin,” Rainy said, with the sedan’s engine still idling.

“Rainy, I’m glad you came. I know you’ll do whatever you can to help. I’m going to get some of my military friends involved, too.”

Tom broke from her gaze. Rainy touched his arm and brought him back to her.

“Tom, do you need me to stay longer?”

The moment she asked, Tom realized that he did. He needed her to stay more than anything. He had wanted Rainy to come to Marvin’s funeral so she could see the man Marvin had been, but just as strongly, Tom had wanted to be near Rainy again.

“You’d do that?”

“I’m not seeing this case the same way I did when I first came to Shilo.”

“What’s changed?”

“Now I’m seeing a father who loves his daughter more than anything in the world. And then I’ve got a laptop computer that was obviously tampered with to make the log file dates sync up. I’ve got a plausible reason for somebody to frame James Mann, evidence your daughter found on Mitchell Boyd’s computer that could link Boyd to PrimaMed, and then, suddenly, Lindsey Wells goes missing? Marvin was right. The evidence against you fell into my lap. It was too neat and pat. And you’re right, too. I know better than to overlook a coincidence.”

“Marvin died because he got too close to the truth.”

“Speaking of truth, if I find out you’re lying to me, I swear to you, Tom Hawkins, I’ll put you down so hard, you’ll never get back up.”

Tom smiled. He found the fierceness in her voice irresistible.

“I’m supposed to bring pizza home for dinner.”

“I love pizza,” Rainy said.