Mourners

18

The weekend started off on a troubling note and kept getting progressively worse.

Kerry was still in a funk Saturday morning. Not the withdrawn, openly depressed, gloom-dripping variety; the kind that in some ways was even worse because it was all pretense and sham. False cheerfulness. Pallid little smiles. Chatter about anything and everything except what was going on inside her head, and evasions and circumlocutions whenever I asked her a direct question or tried to draw her out. At breakfast I suggested that the three of us go for a drive down the coast, have lunch in Half Moon Bay or a picnic on one of the beaches around San Gregorio. Wonderful idea, she said, but she needed to work on one of her accounts, the Harmony Dairy account; it probably meant a trip downtown to Bates and Carpenter at some point, hadn’t she mentioned this last night? Maybe tomorrow we’d go for the drive, if she could come up with the right copy for Harmony’s new ad campaign by then. Or maybe Emily and I should go today, just the two of us, she didn’t want to spoil our weekend just because she had to work.

She gulped coffee and excused herself and went away to her study. Her plate was still full of eggs and toast; she’d eaten no more than two bites of either. Emily looked at the plate, then looked at me with an expression of deep concern.

“Something’s wrong with Mom,” she said.

“I know,” I said.

“What? What’s the matter?”

“She won’t talk to me about it.”

“Me, either. I asked her, but she just changed the subject. What’re we going to do?”

“Wait until she’s ready to tell us. We can’t force her.”

“No, but… I’m really worried.”

“So am I.”

“What if it’s something serious? What if-”

“We’re not going to play the ‘what if’ game,” I said. “All that does is make the waiting and the worrying worse.”

“So we just pretend everything’s okay?”

“For now, for today. How about that drive?”

“I don’t feel much like it, Dad.”

“It’s clear here, it’ll be nice down the coast.”

“Can’t we just stay home?”

“You can if you want to. I need to get out for a while.”

Emily chewed her lip. “I guess I do, too. I guess I don’t want to stay home after all.”

Charles Kayabalian called at two thirty, just after Emily and I got back from lunch and a batch of errands. “Well, I wouldn’t want to go through that again,” he said. “Makes trial law seem like a walk in the park.”

“Troxell didn’t take it well?”

“Hard to say just how he took it. He didn’t put out any arguments or denials, didn’t seem upset by the fact that Lynn was having him followed or the contents of your report. Didn’t say more than a dozen words the whole time, most of them monosyllables. He just sat there like a stunned deer. The look on his face… Christ.”

“He agree to go to the police voluntarily?”

“Monday morning. With me along as counsel.”

“Why not today or tomorrow?”

“I suggested that, get it over with as soon as possible, but he wouldn’t go for it. Needs a little time to work himself up to it, I think. The three of us tried to be gentle, but we still hit him pretty hard.”

“Only three of you?”

“Lynn, Drew Casement, and myself.”

“What happened to the family doctor?”

“She decided against calling him. I can’t blame her.”

“But Troxell did agree to get help?”

“Well, he didn’t balk at the suggestion. That look on his face, the few things he said… poor bastard, he knows he’s in a bad way.”

“The sooner the better,” I said. “And there should probably be eyes on him until he does.”

“Lynn made him promise to stay home until Monday morning.”

“But will he keep the promise.”

“She and Casement will make sure he does,” Kayabalian said. “She hid his car keys where he won’t find them, as a precaution. The three of us talked about it afterward.”

“Shaky situation, just the same.”

“I know it. But what can you do in a case like this? There’s only one legal issue and we’ve got that covered. The rest of it… no right way or wrong way to handle it, it’s all psychological and emotional gray areas. All you can do is take it slow, feel your way along, hope for the best.”

Kerry had been gone when Emily and I returned; it was after five when she reappeared, laden with Chinese takeout that she’d picked up on the way home from Bates and Carpenter. Still cheerful, her smiles more genuine tonight, and full of apologies. “I know I’ve been in a terrible mood lately,” she said at the dinner table, “and I’m sorry for taking it out on both of you. I won’t keep doing that, I promise.”

Fine, but then Emily asked her why she’d been in such a terrible mood. And she said, “Let’s not talk about it tonight. Soon, okay? A day or two, and everything will be back to normal.”

“You promise that, too?”

“Yes, honey. I do.”

Big smile to go with the words, but it was a pretender’s smile that said the promise was built less on certainty than on hope.

The phone rang at seven thirty that evening. I was closest to it when it went off, so I picked up. And the caller was the last person I expected to hear from, this night or any other.

“This is James Troxell.”

After a couple of seconds I said slowly, to keep the surprise out of my voice, “Yes, Mr. Troxell. What can I do for you?”

“I’ve been reading your report to my wife,” he said. Deep voice, calm, measured, lacking any discernible emotion. “It’s very thorough, very detailed. Very revealing, too.”

“Yes?”

“I feel that I ought to thank you.”

“For what?”

“For helping me open my eyes. You must have found my actions bizarre. I find them bizarre myself, seeing them outlined in cold type.”

What can you say to that?

“It’s as though I’ve been wandering in a daze the past few weeks,” Troxell said. “But I’m seeing and thinking clearly now.”

“I’m glad to hear it. But I’m not the person you should be thanking.”

“You could have gone directly to the police. You didn’t have to allow me a grace period to do what I should have done in the beginning. I’m grateful that you did.”

I said, “Charles Kayabalian tells me you’ll be going in on Monday morning.”

“That’s the plan, yes.”

“It won’t be as difficult as you might expect.”

“No, I don’t think it will be. Once you finally understand and accept what has to be done, you wonder why you fought against it for so long. With help you can find the courage to go through with it.”

“Yes.”

“And I have all the help I need now. No more bizarre behavior, I promise you that.”

“I don’t understand. Why promise me?”

“It won’t be necessary for you to keep watch on me any longer.”

“You think you’re still under surveillance? Not by us.”

“You’re still working for Lynn, aren’t you?”

“No. Didn’t she tell you?”

“Nothing was said. I just assumed you were.”

“Not since yesterday morning. That report is final.”

“I see,” Troxell said. “Were you paid for your services?”

“In full.”

“Well, then. There doesn’t seem to be anything else to say, does there. Except thank you again.”

“Good luck, Mr. Troxell. I hope everything works out for you.”

“It will,” he said.

Strange, awkward conversation. The more I replayed it in my head, the odder it seemed. Something not quite right about it, off-kilter, disconnected, like a conversation in a dream. I was already on edge because of the situation with Kerry, and Troxell’s call sharpened it. I felt that I ought to do something. Call Lynn Troxell, call Kayabalian…

But what could I say to them that would help the situation, make a difference? Or do anything except stir up the pot again?