Somebody I Used to Know (8 page)

“This is turning into therapy,” I said.

“Wait until you get my bill.” Laurel looked at her watch. “Try to do something else with your life. Get outside yourself. Volunteer more. Try Internet dating. Get a dog.”

“I have a dog.”

“That’s right,” she said. “I forgot.”

“He’s kind of quiet, so that happens.”

“You’re still young,” Laurel said. “You can still have a great future. You can even get married and have a family.”

“You think?”

“Of course.”

“That’s nice to hear. You know, I do still want to get married again. And I’d love to have a kid with the right person. I guess I’d like to think that if it can happen once, maybe . . .” I scooted forward in my chair. “Thanks. I know you have work to do.”

“I’m sure you do, too.”

“I do.” But I didn’t stand up. I sat on the edge of the chair, leaning forward just a bit. “I do want to know something else, though. Why did Marissa do it? Why did she break up with me out of the blue and leave school? I went and talked to Heather Aubrey about this, and do you know what she said to me?” I took a deep breath. I didn’t know if I could give it voice.

“What did she say?” Laurel asked. She sounded skeptical.

“She said that on the night Marissa died people saw her out at a bar, Razer’s, and she was with another man. An older man. Heather implied they were having some kind of romantic relationship, that they were dating. And that’s why Marissa dumped me out of the blue, because she was involved with this other man. Some old guy.”

While I spoke, I stared at the carpet, and when I looked up, Laurel was eyeing me and not saying anything. I watched her for a moment. She clearly knew something she wasn’t saying.

“That story’s bullshit, right?” I asked. “It’s just Heather telling me something to make me feel bad. Isn’t it, Laurel?”

“I agree that Heather probably just wanted to hurt you,” she said. “Or, more accurately, she wanted to give you a bad impression of Marissa.”

“But? You’re acting like you know something.”

She didn’t say anything.

“What is it, Laurel? It’s a lie, isn’t it?”

Laurel looked unsteady. “It isn’t. I know because I was in Razer’s that night, late, and I saw Marissa with that man.”

“Were you with Heather?” I asked.

“No, Heather wasn’t there. Not with me. I was with some other friends. I liked Razer’s because students rarely went there, but we walked in and we saw Marissa. My friends didn’t know her, but I did.”

“Well—”

“I’d met her parents when they visited once,” Laurel said. “That man wasn’t her dad. And Eastland is a small campus. I’d been the student representative to the faculty senate. I knew most of the professors, at least by sight. I didn’t recognize this man. I don’t think he was a faculty member, and even if he was, why would she be in a dive bar with him late at night?”

“But if they were trying to hide whatever they were doing, why go out in public?” I asked.

“Who says they wanted to hide it?” Laurel asked. “Look, did you ever go to Razer’s?”

“Rarely. Maybe two or three times.”

“Right. Most of us went to places where students hung out. It’s a fluke I saw Marissa there. And we didn’t stay long. There were bikers there. Townies. We didn’t stay.”

I tried to steady myself by placing my hands on the armrests of the chair. “So all of my friends knew about this, but no one told me?” I asked.

“Think about it, Nick,” she said. “Marissa died that night. Why would any of us tell you something like that right after the fire? The two of you had broken up, and then she died. You were devastated. A lot of people were torn up over her death. Marissa had a lot of friends, Nick—she was a wonderful, warm person. People were just trying to protect your feelings. I know it must really suck to hear about this now, but we were thinking of you.”

“But what Heather said isn’t true. She said they were acting . . . intimate. As though they were really involved with each other. That’s not true, is it? If she wasn’t there . . .”

Laurel pressed her lips together, and then she said, “I’m only telling you this so that everything is out in the open. You seem to want to know it all, and maybe that’s for the best. But when I saw them, they were holding hands across the table. And it looked like Marissa had been crying. I don’t know what it means. I didn’t talk to them. Believe me, I may not have dated much in college, but I recognized the signs. Those two people were
involved
with each other.”

CHAPTER TWELVE

I
was at my desk, compiling a case report. A landlord in a building mostly occupied by residents on welfare “forgot” to pay the water bill, leaving seventy-five people high and dry for a day and a half. Despite the grim event, I’d lost myself in the problem solving, a good feeling. Then my cell phone rang.

“What are you doing right now?”

“Laurel?” I asked.

“You heard me,” she said. “What are you doing?”

It was just before noon, and I’d spent the previous evening at home trying to forget everything I’d been told about Marissa over the past couple of days. No matter how hard I tried, I kept seeing her in Razer’s, that dark, shadowy bar. I could see her in my mind’s eye, sitting at a table, her hand entwined with that of an older man. Handsome. Graying. Distinguished.

Who the hell was he? And why was he haunting my imagination twenty years later?

“I’m working,” I said.

“Are you hungry?” Laurel asked.

“Kind of. Do you want to go to lunch?”

“Meet me out front in ten.”

She hung up.

*   *   *

Laurel drove away from downtown, and we headed east toward the interstate, passing restaurants on every block. Seventies music played on the car stereo, and Laurel hummed along with it, her head bobbing slightly. Then she entered an on-ramp.

“Do I get to know where we’re going?” I asked.

“I’ve been thinking of you.”

“Thanks.”

“Seriously,” she said, turning the music down. “We’ve been friends a long time. I hated to see the way you looked yesterday when we were talking about Marissa and that guy in the bar. I know it hurts, even after all these years.”

“You were right to tell me.”

“But I hated to do it.” She reached over and patted my knee. “You’re a good guy. You deserve good things. And I know what you need.”

“Can you really tell me what I need?” I asked. “I’ve been trying to figure that out for years.”

“By the way, did you call the lawyer? Mick Brosius?”

“I did,” I said.

“What did he say?”

“He seemed like a nice guy,” I said. “Kind of young. I met with him this morning, and he looked like he should be in high school.”

She flicked the blinker on and changed lanes. “You’re getting old. What did he tell you?”

“He said to keep my mouth shut and not speak to the police unless he was there,” I said. “Then he told me not to worry. I always worry when people tell me not to worry.”

“Just listen to him,” she said. “Do what he says.”

Traffic was light, the lanes ahead clear. “You said you were thinking of me? And you know what I need?”

“Yes,” she said. “You need proof. Once and for all you need proof that the part of your life involving Marissa is over. That’s what we’re doing today.”

“We’re not going to a cemetery to dig her up, are we?” I asked.

Laurel turned her head a little, giving me a look that said she didn’t share my sense of humor. So I remained quiet. I knew Laurel well enough to know that when she set her mind to something, she finished the task. She would have been an excellent life coach or drill instructor. So she made a dogged investigator, and I just sat back and let her drive me to whatever she had in mind.

We went two exits and ended up in a modest subdivision six miles from Eastland. The houses looked to be about twenty years old and smaller than the new ones being built even farther out. Laurel’s GPS told her where to turn, and we parked in front of a home with white siding and black shutters. An Ohio State flag fluttered limply in the light breeze. The yard was immaculately cared for, even in late winter. So much so I wondered if someone came out and painted the grass green once a week.

Laurel turned the car off, but we didn’t get out.

“Is my lunch inside?” I asked.

“I still have a lot of contacts with the police, as you know,” she said.

“I remember your days as a cop.”

“I got the name of the detective who investigated the fire. He’s retired now, but he agreed to talk to us.”

“I don’t need to do this.”

“If you have any questions, you can ask him. He’s sharp.”

“Look.” I reached over and rested my hand on her arm. “I appreciate this. I really do. You’ve always been a good friend. But I don’t need to do this.” I saw a small coffee splash on my pants leg, and I scratched it off with my fingernail. “I know I said some crazy things yesterday. I implied that Emily might be my child. I don’t really think that. I was sad and feeling sorry for myself. I don’t need to rehash this. Can you just call this old guy and let him get back to his retirement? I’ll buy you lunch.”

Laurel shook her head. “It’s sweet of you to say those nice things about me. But we’re going in.”

*   *   *

Nate Denning no longer looked like a cop, if he ever had. He resembled a good-natured math teacher, the kind of guy who was eager to help you understand the quadratic formula or story problems. He greeted us at the door wearing jeans, a polo shirt, and a kitchen apron tied over the top of his clothes. He apologized for being slow to answer the bell, saying he’d just put a cake in the oven.

“My wife still works,” he said. “People think it’s funny, but I’ve taken up baking in my spare time. And I have a lot of spare time.”

We walked through an orderly living room and then sat at his kitchen table. Nate carried a little gut around his middle and wore a pair of glasses on a chain around his neck. I placed his age in the early sixties as he offered us coffee, which I accepted and Laurel turned down. The kitchen felt warm and smelled like a bakery, making it a strange place to discuss the deaths of four young people.

Once we were settled, I apologized to Nate for disturbing him. I said we really didn’t need to pick his brain, that Laurel was just being an overly concerned friend. Nate told us he didn’t mind, that he liked to think about old cases sometimes just to keep his brain active.

“It’s more interesting than crossword puzzles.” He sipped his coffee, and then his face grew serious, his brown eyes turning sad. “I understand your girlfriend died in that fire back in ninety-three.”

“That’s right,” I said.

“I remember that case very well,” he said. “I was the lead for the police, but, of course, a fire investigator from the state handled the bulk of the work.” He shook his head. “Four kids that young. It happens every once in a while, especially on a campus. Kids die. Accidents. Fire. Drinking. It’s no good.” He looked at me, his face sincere. “I’m sorry for your loss.”

“It was a long time ago,” I said.

“Whoever said time heals was lying,” Nate said.

“What do you remember about the investigation?” Laurel asked. She was sitting on my left, her legs crossed and one hand resting on the table.

“That four kids died,” Nate said. “That we had to notify four sets of parents about the worst thing they could imagine. I’ve never felt like cops need to make a lot of money, but when you have to do one of those notifications, then you’re really earning your pay.”

“So you used dental records to prove who died?” I asked.

“Not exactly,” Nate said. “It can be tough to identify remains found in a fire, especially back then. We didn’t have DNA to rely on like we do now. Fires are messy things. Buildings fall in. Firefighters tramp through debris. The temperatures get too high. Things get burned or crushed beyond recognition.”

I looked over at Laurel. Her face remained impassive.

I asked Nate, “So what did you do then?”

“As I recall . . . we were able to use dental records for two sets of remains. For the other two, well, you rely on different things. Who was supposed to be home and in what part of the house. If there were no missing-persons reports filed after the fire, then it’s easy to assume the four kids who died were the four who were supposed to be there. No one else was reported missing from campus, so it was a safe bet we had our four victims.”

I hated to hear those words, to hear Marissa referred to as a “victim” or her body described as “remains.” It sounded dehumanizing, and I started to get a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach as Nate spoke. The coffee tasted bitter, and I pushed the mug away.

“What caused the fire?” Laurel asked.

“It was an accident,” I said. “Wasn’t it?”

“It was,” Nate said. “It was right before Halloween.”

“And someone left a candle burning,” I said. “Right? A candle or a pumpkin, something like that caught on fire while everyone slept. That’s what I remember hearing back then.”

Nate still looked sympathetic. “You’re right. We knew Halloween was a big party time on campus, so it’s possible the residents of the house had been drinking. No way to really tell that either with the condition of the remains.”

“Can you stop using that word, please?” I said without thinking. The words jumped out of my mouth, as though someone else controlled my vocal cords.

Nate looked over at me. “What word?”

“‘Remains,’” I said. “It’s so . . . clinical. So cold.”

“It’s an old habit,” Nate said. He shrugged, as though trying to plead his own innocence. “We use certain terms on the police force.”

“I think we’re done,” I said, looking at Nate. “I’m sorry we took up your time. I know you’re just doing what we asked, but I’ve heard enough.”

I pushed back my chair, but didn’t stand. Something ticked on the other side of the room. Ticking and ticking. I recognized it as the sound of a kitchen timer, counting down the minutes until Nate’s cake was ready.

I held out my hand to Nate. “Thank you,” I said. “I see the whole picture. I really do.”

“Can I throw out one more question?” Laurel asked Nate.