Before He Finds Her (14 page)

A few people, maybe a dozen, were walking along the boardwalk, looking straight ahead, and Melanie wondered how they could not all be staring east. How could their knees not be weak?

She walked north along the boardwalk a few dozen yards until a gap allowed her to descend to the sand. There, some reptilian part of her brain knew what to do: She kicked off her shoes and socks, cuffed her pants to mid-calf, and walked across the cool sand toward the water. Back at the hotel the air was calm, but here a strong breeze whipped and snapped her hair, which she brushed away from her face with her hand. She wondered if this could be the same spot where the photograph of her mother was taken.

Away from the boardwalk, she was alone. The only sounds were the waves, the wind, and the gulls.

Where water met sand, the ground became rockier and full of black shells and seaweed. She stepped more carefully, bent down, and cupped water in her hands. Tasted the salt, swooshed it around her mouth before spitting it out. When another wave pushed water past her and up over her ankles, she held her ground and her feet got sucked into the wet sand. The sensation was surprising, even a little frightening. And although the shoreline might have looked the same at every scale, she didn’t feel like a fractal any longer, having removed herself from the old pattern. The waves, the gulls, the salt air all went a long way toward erasing any lingering doubt about having come here.

Behind her, the sun dropped over a thin band of clouds, turning the sky astonishing shades of pink and red and orange. She couldn’t care less. Sunsets put on their gaudy show everywhere. Not this, though: waves smashing onto the shore, and beyond it the water rising and falling and colliding into itself, and still farther the wide, endless stretch to that thin, perfect line where sky and earth meet.

Her lack of planning was its own strategy. Planning ahead would mean imagining all the potential pitfalls—just the sort of thing that could have her packing her car and returning to Fredonia. So the next day, instead of calling ahead to the hospital, fretting over whether Arthur Goodale was allowed visitors (or, she hesitated to think, whether or not he was even alive), she simply showed up at Monmouth Regional Hospital and hoped for the best.

She dressed like she imagined a journalist would: skirt, blouse, more makeup than she felt comfortable wearing. Hair pinned up. She ditched the backpack and carried a spiral notebook, its first three pages containing the questions she’d written last night and this morning. She stuck a pencil behind her ear.

Her hands were clammy, but she felt refreshed from a surprisingly good night’s sleep and energized by the fact that she had actually done it, had traveled here on her own to New Jersey, to this hospital. The place was vast and sprawling, nothing like the clinic back home. Yet somewhere within these walls, Arthur Goodale was waiting to talk with her. He just didn’t know it yet.

She parked the car and followed the signs for the main entrance. Inside, she scanned the signs on the wall for the critical care unit, then rode the elevator to the second floor. Two women in white coats stood behind a high desk labeled N
URSES
S
TATION
. Seeing Melanie, one of them smiled. Melanie approached the desk. “I’m here to see Arthur Goodale,” she said to the smiling nurse. “Is he still here?”

The nurse asked, “Are you family?”

“Me? No.”

“May I ask your relationship with Mr. Goodale?”

“Actually, we’ve never met.” When the nurse squinted at her, she added, “I’m a reporter.”

“With...”

“The
Star-Ledger
.” The biggest paper in the area.

“We try to restrict visitors in the unit to family and close friends.” She exchanged a glance with the other nurse. “I’ll have to ask the patient if he’s willing to see you. Assuming he’s awake. May I ask your name?”

“Alice Adams,” she said. “Would you please tell him it’s about the Ramsey Miller case?” She hadn’t said her father’s name aloud more than a dozen times in her life.

“One moment.” The nurse walked down the hall and entered a room on the left. Seconds later, she was back in the hallway—-remarkably, waving Melanie over. “He’s all yours.”

The door was already open, so Melanie stepped into the room and was struck by Arthur Goodale’s compromised state: shirtless, thin blanket pulled halfway up his chest. Several monitoring devices ran underneath the blanket. His left hand was connected to an IV. His face had several days of white stubble, the hair on his head was white and wispy, uncombed, and his pale blue eyes were set within a dense web of wrinkled skin, with dark bags underneath. Were their situations reversed, she wouldn’t be accepting visitors.

“I’ll admit, you’ve piqued my interest.” The strength of Good-ale’s voice surprised her. “Who are you again?”

“Alice Adams.”

“I’d shake your hand, but I’m attached to too many machines,” he said. “A horror show, getting old. Though I’m told it beats the alternative. Please, hand me my glasses.” They were on the bedside table. She did as asked, and he fumbled a bit sliding the glasses into place. “Much better.” He smiled. “Take a seat.”

Melanie moved the room’s lone chair away from the wall and sat.

“So how can I help you?” he asked.

“I’ve read your blog,” she said.

Apparently, this was the right thing to say, because his eyes lit up a little. “Is that so?”

“I only started recently, but I went back and read everything about the Miller case. And everything you wrote about it in the
Silver Bay News
.”

“Going back how far?”

“Everything.”

He attempted a whistle, but it was all breath and no tone. “It’s a fascinating case.”

Fascinating wasn’t the word she’d choose. “It’s terrible, what happened.”

“It was. But I think it’s finally becoming ancient history. I had a nurse in here the other day—a local—who knew nothing about it.” He cleared his throat. “So what’s your interest in the case?”

How, she wondered, had this already become his interview? “I work for the
Star-Ledger
.”

“Crime beat?”

“Sir?”

He blinked a couple of times. “How long have you been writing for the paper?”

“About a year.”

He scratched the stubble on his cheek. “You’re not from New Jersey.”

“No, sir—I grew up in a small town in North Carolina.” She opened her notebook. “Mr. Goodale—”

“You can call me Arthur.”

No way could she do that. She wasn’t brought up that way. Now she’d have to call him nothing. “From what I can tell, you know more about the case than anyone.”

“Well, the police obviously know more than I do.”

“Do you think?”

“The police? I should hope so.”

“Even now that the lead detective has retired?”

“Well, the file’s still there.”

She nodded. She dreaded going anywhere near the police station, but knew she probably couldn’t avoid it if she wanted all the facts. “I plan to look at that,” she said.

“At what—the file?” Goodale’s eyes narrowed. “The investigation is technically still open.”

His point escaped her. “So...”

“So with an open case, the police won’t let you see a thing.” He gazed out the window. The view was of a brick wall, another wing of the hospital. He looked back toward Melanie. “You can imagine that a hospital is a fairly depressing and extremely boring place to be. And I’ve never been a TV watcher.” He sighed. “So I hate to do this, because it’s refreshing to have a visitor, and a pretty one at that—but you’re either the worst journalist I’ve ever met or you’re lying to me about being one.”

“Pardon me?”

“You’re very polite—and I can tell that’s genuine. Ingrained. Your parents raised you right, and I mean no condescension in that.” He licked his lips. “But what is this? If you’re simply interested in the Miller case, you’ve come to the right place. I’m happy to chat about it—I hardly ever get to, anymore. But you don’t have to pretend to be a journalist.”

“I’m not pretending, sir.”

He smiled. “Ronny Andrews is an old friend of mine. I know the kind of reporters he hires and the sort of assignments he—you don’t know who that is, do you?” Another smile. She was starting to seriously dislike that smile. “Ronny Andrews edits the news desk at the
Ledger
. He’d be your boss.”

This was all a game to him.

“May I ask why you don’t think I’m—”

“A pencil behind the ear? Come on. And you display no knowledge whatsoever about how journalists get their information.” He paused. “Also, you look fifteen years old.”

“I’m way older than that.”

“Anyone who says ‘way older’ isn’t way older.”

“Well, I am.”
What am I doing?
She ordered herself to quit arguing with the one person who could help her, who also happened to be in critical care.

“Then how about this: You haven’t asked me how I’m feeling.”

“Sir?”

“Even a reporter who’s all business would ask me that. And we’ve already determined that you’re ingratiatingly polite.” She made a mental note to look that word up. “So I can only conclude that for whatever reason, you’re pretending to be reporter when in fact you’re something else.”

Plan A was to pose as a reporter for the
Star-Ledger
. Plan B didn’t exist. “How are you feeling today?” she asked.

“Tired and uncomfortable. But thanks for asking.” His smile had softened, or maybe she just chose to see it that way.

“You’re welcome, Mr. Goodale,” she said.

“Call me Arthur.”

She forced this much-older man’s first name from her throat. “
Arthur
... I want to know everything there is to know about the Miller case.”

“Now
that
I believe,” he said. “It’s what I want, too. I’ve wanted it for fifteen years. But I’m a journalist who spent much of his adult life in this town. What’s your reason?”

His voice, his eyes—they betrayed the rest of his body, this hospital room. He wasn’t a frail man.
He knows
who I am
, she thought for an instant—though of course he couldn’t.

“You’re a really good interviewer,” she said.

“Thank you, Alice. That’s flattering. And I’m thrilled that you’ve read my blog. I really am. But I’m frankly not thrilled at all with the way you come in here and start telling me lies. So how about we start again. Who are you? And what’s your real interest in this case?”

She respected his investigatory instincts, but he was driving her mad. For her, this was life and death. For him, it was an entertaining break from soap operas and his view of the brick wall.

She summoned all her courage. “Mr. Goodale, would you really like to know who I am?” she asked, lowering her voice to add drama.

“I truly would.” His voice had lost its tinge of superiority, become plainer—the voice of an unassuming journalist seeking a source’s trust.

“Can you keep a secret?” she asked.

“Yes, Alice,” he said. “I really can.”

She held his gaze as long as she dared. “Well, so can I.”

She stood, turned her back on him, and walked toward the door. She was halfway into the hallway when he uttered a single word that meant nothing to her.

She stepped back into the room. “Sorry?”

“Magruder,” he repeated. When she didn’t respond, he said, “David Magruder.”

Alice frowned. “The TV guy?” She pictured the square jaw and cleft chin, the thick salt-and-pepper hair, the dramatic interviews with storm survivors, criminals, antiwar activists—and quite often of late the spouses and children of soldiers who were overseas.

“Fifteen years ago,” Arthur said, “he was only a local weatherman. Listen, this is probably nothing, but—” He sighed. “Did you mean it when you said you can keep a secret? Or was that just a clever exit line?”

She remained just inside the doorway. “Both, I guess.”

“Fair enough,” he said. “Shut that door, please. Don’t go. I don’t want you to go.” She shut the door. “Now take a seat again. Please.” She sat and waited. Finally, he said, “I’m going to tell you something that I haven’t written about.”

“I thought that was the point of your blog,” she said. “You can write whatever you want.”

“No, not everything. I’m not going to slander a man like David Magruder, even on the blog. That’d be asking for a lawsuit.”

“I’m not a real journalist,” she admitted, sensing that a bit of truth might go a long way.

“You aren’t going to stick a needle into me,” he said. “That’s enough for me.”

“What if I spill your secret?”

“You won’t.” He shrugged. “Or you will—what do I care? I’ll probably be dead in a week.”

She smiled at his attempt at gallows humor, opened her notebook, and removed the pencil from behind her ear.

It wasn’t much, what he told her. Before David Magruder started on his path to fame and fortune (a path, Arthur made a point of saying, that included cosmetic surgery and a hair transplant), he was a weatherman on the local TV news. He happened to live just down the street from the Millers. And of the few dozen people who attended the block party, he was one of them.

“Sounds like he was just being a neighbor,” Melanie said. Yet she had trouble imagining David Magruder as being anyone’s neighbor, or having come from anywhere other than the TV, already fully formed and photogenic and wearing perfectly fitted suits.

“Exactly,” Arthur said. “But that’s what makes it strange. Magruder wasn’t a neighborly man. I knew him then—not well, but well enough to tell you that he was already too big for this town. In his eyes, anyway. So I’ve never understood why he attended a party thrown by some trucker he probably didn’t even know.”

Maybe it was relevant, Melanie thought, or maybe Magruder had simply found himself with a little free time that day. Maybe he liked hamburgers. “Is that everything?” she asked.

Arthur shook his head. “In the days after the crime, the police questioned everyone who attended the party. Which is what you’d expect. But Magruder—he was questioned more than once.”

“How do you know?”

“Alice, I’ve lived here my whole life. I have friends on the force.”