Friday Edition, The (2 page)

Within the hour, they had gone from the police department to the coroner’s office and Sam had identified her sister, Robin Marino, as the body under the thin white sheet.

Sam wanted to touch Robin, but she would not. No matter how much she wanted to, she could not—she had not touched a dead body since fifth grade, when she reached into the coffin of her favorite teacher and touched her hand. Sam had recoiled quickly from the clammy, metallic feeling. She backed away from the coffin and for days could not erase the memory. Sam had expected the usual warm touch her teacher had when she patted her on the back. Instead that reassuring touch had been replaced by something stiff and cold.

Sam looked at the assistant coroner and nodded. “It’s my sister.” She backed away and watched as the assistant pulled the sheet over Robin’s body. Sam quickly left the room and found Jonathan talking to another detective. She retreated to a quiet corner down the hall to wait for him. She fell heavily into a chair, suddenly aware of an intense pounding in her head. She closed her eyes and massaged her temples with her fists. She sighed deeply, thankful for a quiet moment. She opened her eyes when she felt someone lightly squeeze her shoulder.

“Hi, Sam.”

Judie Rossetti’s soft-spoken voice put her at ease and she smiled at the first welcome sight of the day. “What are you doing here?” Sam asked. “Aren’t you here enough during the week?”

“I came as soon as I heard,” Judie said. She was still wearing a red and green apron dotted with little white Christmas trees. “I’m so sorry about Robin.”

“Yeah,” Sam said and cleared her throat. She wanted to cry. If she could break down before anyone, it would be Judie. There was something about her that Sam found reassuring. Sam took a moment to study her. Judie wore a navy blue silk blouse and matching slacks. Her short hair fell in soft waves around her face. It was the salt-and-pepper color that Sam found attractive on some women. Sam noticed Judie’s tiny 14-karat gold loop earrings, which were always 14-karat gold loops. All that changed about them was the size of the loop. Her blue eyes were framed by reading glasses, which Judie always wore because she didn’t like to bother with taking them on and off.

Judie, the deputy coroner, was her source at the Truman County Coroner’s office, and a friend. Their relationship had developed when Sam was a reporter with the
Denver Post
. After being fired from the daily, Sam managed to land a reporter’s job with the
Grandview Perspective
, a weekly community newspaper.

“Can I join you?” Judie asked.

Sam patted the empty chair beside her.

“I didn’t realize Robin was drinking again,” Judie said.

“Robin hasn’t touched a drop of alcohol in years,” Sam said looking at Judie, her eyes glassy with tears. “I know when she took her last drink. I was there. Remember? I’ve told you that story a thousand times.”

“I know, but they found an empty bottle of Jack Daniels on her kitchen table last night.”

Sam nodded. “Jonathan told me everything. Sometimes I’m glad he’s a detective. He was one of the first to arrive after the 9-1-1 call came in. He said Robin drank the entire bottle. He said she went on the balcony and probably lost her footing by the sliding glass door. There was broken glass on the floor. I know that’s what they think, but I simply don’t believe it. I can’t. It’s just not my sister. She would have never done that to me. We promised each other.”

Sam sighed heavily and closed her eyes. “Jonathan said Robin left a note?”

Judie nodded. “It’s a hand-written note addressed to you…”

“I want to read it,” Sam said and her nausea returned and she clenched her jaw, hoping it would subside. She forced herself to return to the conversation when she heard Judie say, “For some reason Robin had gone on the balcony and God knows why she jumped.”

“Or she was pushed,” Sam said.

“It’s not a homicide yet, Samantha.”

Sam flashed Judie a skeptical look.

“The fall killed Robin,” Judie said. “She most likely died the moment she hit the ground.”

Sam sat motionlessly and stared at the ceiling. The room filled pleasantly with the soft scent of Judie’s perfume, reminding Sam of baby powder.

“It’s just not possible,” Sam said finally. “We went Christmas shopping the other day and she was fine. You know how happy she’s been. Work’s great and she’s so happy with Todd.”

“I know,” Judie said softly.

Sam went on. “I know no one is above suicide, but this would be a little more believable if it was a different day. But on Christmas?” Sam shook her head.

“What makes you say that?” Judie asked.

“I know, believe me, I just know.”

The tone in Sam’s voice told Judie whatever was on her mind, she wasn’t sharing. She looked at Judie, her eyes pleading for understanding. “You know Robin. She was one of the best assistant DA’s in Truman County. She was admired by prosecutors and respected by judges because she knew the law and she knew her way around the courtroom.” Sam stopped and smiled. “Plus, she’d just received her first really big break as a DA. Why would she throw that all away?”

Judie nodded. “You told me she had been named to a three-prosecutor team to handle that Miller murder trial. That’s going to be one complicated case.”

Sam shook her head. “Are they calling her death a suicide?”

“Suspicious,” Judie said. “For now. There’ll be an investigation.”

Judie looked at Sam evenly. “And an autopsy, Sam.”

Sam nodded, trying to keep her emotions from surfacing. “If my sister had gotten into a bathtub and slit her wrists, I might believe suicide,” she said.

For what seemed a long time, silence fell between them. Sam’s shoulders were hunched forward, her hands clasped tightly, resting on her lap. She seemed fixed on a nonexistent pattern on the wall. Judie put a hand on Sam’s shoulder and rubbed lightly. “Are you going to be all right, Sam?” she asked softly. “I can come over.”

Sam thought about going home to an empty apartment. She had spent so much time alone in the past year that there were times she ached to have anyone around. Now she just wanted to be alone. “No thanks, Judie. Besides, you should be with your family. Thanks for coming. I know you didn’t have to. You’d better go before they come looking for you.”

Judie smiled. She had been blessed with a warm, loving family. She had been married for nearly forty years and had six children and more grandkids than Sam could count. ‘Jewels,’ as she liked to call them. Judie stood up. “Call if you need anything.”

Sam watched until she walked down the hall and disappeared around the corner. Then Sam was alone, with Judie’s words still ringing in her ears.
Suspicious death. Suspicious death. Suspicious death.

Judie’s words took the place of Jonathan’s car radio on the return drive to her apartment. When she arrived home she went straight to the couch and dropped hard against the pillows. She closed her eyes and sat holding her head in her palms for a long time, feeling her head throb like a bass note. The pressure made her feel as though she were swimming at the bottom of the ocean. She reached for her purse and rummaged through it for an aspirin bottle. It was empty. She threw it and her purse across the room. The purse hit the wall with a thud and went crashing to the floor, contents spilling everywhere. “No!” She shouted and threw herself back against the pillows. She buried her face and screamed. “Robin, you promised me!” She cried hard until she fell asleep.

When Sam woke later that afternoon, she got up slowly and walked to the window. The sky was brooding now, decked with an expanse of mackerel-colored clouds, covering the landscape. Sam was surprised to see snow. She couldn’t say whether it was snowing when Jonathan drove her to the morgue, or if the weather had changed since coming home.

The sight of the freshly fallen snow made her remember Robin.
Suspicious death.
Sam shook her head slowly, sadly.
She had no reason to be drinking
.

Sam was moving away from the window, picking her way around the littered living room floor, when the answering machine caught her attention.

The little red light was blinking. Sam counted the number of times it blinked off and on. One, two, three times.

Each call came in on Christmas Eve. Sam realized she had not checked her messages, and did not hear the phone ring once last evening.

The first call came at 7:21 p.m. “You’re twenty minutes late. Are you coming or not?” Jonathan’s voice was sharp. “April’s waiting for you.” He had slammed the phone down without saying good-bye.

She quickly realized the cause of his anger: She was supposed to have April on Christmas Eve and had blown it. A stab of pain pierced her heart and she felt sick to her stomach. This would not be easy to explain.

The second message took her mind off April when she heard Robin’s voice. Sam listened a moment then frowned. Robin sounded different. Her usually bubbly voice seemed drawn and heavy. Almost nervous. “Hey, Sammie, it’s me. Are you there? Pick up the phone.” Robin hesitated long enough to give her sister time to get to the phone and answer. “Sammie? OK, so you’re not there. Call me the minute you get this message. We need to talk, but I don’t want to say anything ’til I see you. Call me as soon as you can. Ciao, sis.”

“Ciao, sis,” was the way Robin said good-bye. Sam felt her face flush as a wave of sadness washed over her.

The last recorded message came at 11:17 p.m. It was Jonathan again. The hostility had disappeared from his voice. He spoke so low that she could hardly hear him. Never mind coming to get April, he told her. He had been called out on a possible suicide and had taken April to her grandmother’s.
A death? He must have been going to Robin’s.
Sam listened to Robin’s message several more times.
Was she trying to tell me something?

She looked around the apartment; suddenly it felt as if the walls were closing in around her. She needed to leave. Sam headed toward the bathroom and caught sight of her bedraggled appearance in the hallway mirror. “Look at me,” she muttered as she moved into the bathroom and flicked on the light.

She hesitated a moment before looking in the mirror over the bathroom sink. When she did, she saw that her blue eyes looked as flat as January light. The dark circles beneath them seemed to stand out like beacons. She rubbed at the circles as if that would make them disappear.

She leaned closer to the mirror, her breath spread quickly across the glass then faded. She tried to ignore the first traces of laugh lines starting to form around her eyes and the weight she had gained showing beneath her chin. She felt so much older than her thirty-two years. Her blonde hair was ash now and had been since April was born. Her mouth turned down at the corners. She tried to remember the last time she had smiled, but nothing immediately came to mind.

She splashed water on her face and neck. It eased the tension and tightness in her head. She scrubbed her face with soap. With her eyes closed she groped for a hand towel. When she finished drying, she put the towel on the counter and turned off the light. She deliberately avoided looking in the mirror again. It never told lies. It would reveal more of something she did not want to see. And she wasn’t interested on this Christmas Day in facing any more of the truth.

She grabbed her coat and left her apartment. The snow had stopped, but the iron sky still threatened. The hard shadows across the snow and amber glow from the street lamps made it seem late. Sam checked her watch. Still only three-thirty.

The wind had picked up. She turned her coat collar against a cold blast of air and followed her breath toward her car. She stopped suddenly as if the cold had frozen her in her tracks. She was hurrying, but didn’t know why. There was no place to go. Sam wanted someone to shake her to her senses and tell her that Robin’s death was a terrible dream. But the picture of her sister lying in the morgue wouldn’t go away. She remembered the aspirin bottle, still lying on the floor in her apartment and headed for the corner convenience store. The walk gave her time to collect her thoughts.

Some Merry Christmas
. Robin was gone. Then there was April. She could see her daughter sitting by the Christmas tree waiting for her to come. The thoughts stabbed at her memory so hard that she pushed them into the corners of her mind.
Will she speak to me again?

When Sam reached the convenience store, her cheeks were flushed and she couldn’t feel the tip of her nose. She had no gloves and had pulled her jacket down over her hands to keep them warm. The sudden blast of air inside the store made her shiver and she blew on her hands to warm them. She found the aspirin and presented a bottle to the impassive-looking clerk behind the counter.

“Three-forty-nine,” the clerk said. He was less than cordial and Sam guessed him to be about twenty-five. His pasty white skin gave him a transparent, unhealthy look. Both earlobes had been pierced several times and the peach fuzz on his upper lip provided the shadow of a mustache. The short-sleeved jacket he wore revealed a dragon colorfully tattooed on his right forearm.

His name, the tag on his pocket informed Sam, was Christopher. Christopher was the first person Sam had seen since Jonathan brought her home. He wouldn’t pass for Santa Claus, and didn’t wish her a Merry Christmas.

Sam went for her purse, but realized she didn’t have it. She patted her coat pockets and found a wadded tissue in one and a movie ticket stub in the other. She felt the pockets of her jeans. Nothing. “I forgot my money,” she said feeling her frustration begin to mount, “but my apartment is just around the corner. Can I take the bottle? I’ll be back in a few minutes to pay for it. You can trust me. It’s Christmas.”

She stared at Christopher, hoping that he could sense her need for the aspirin. If he felt any sympathy, however, it wasn’t registering in his eyes. He pointed impassively over her shoulder, as if to inform her to return the aspirin bottle to the shelf. She felt too defeated and too cold to argue.

“Put it back yourself,” Sam grumbled and turned to leave.

The pounding in her head took on new force when she stepped into the cold. She turned in the direction of her apartment. As she trudged toward home she thought of her father. She should have left the store the moment she saw Christopher. His sullenness and the very way he pointed his finger at her reminded Sam of the way her father used to point at her just before he’d slap her. Or worse. She would not, however, allow herself to think of that. Christopher’s pale, pasty skin reminded Sam how her father looked the last time she saw him alive.

The best thing that ever happened to Sam was their father’s death. Just before her twentieth birthday, he finally succumbed to the disease that he had fought all his life—alcoholism. He was so drunk one night that he walked home from a bar, oblivious that it was six degrees below zero. When he did not come home, Sam called the police. Officers found the frozen body in a park, less than a mile from home.

Sam thought one thing when she heard the news.
I am free of him, finally.
She felt no remorse over his passing. And she was grateful that he would not have the chance to look on Robin the same way he had her.

Her memories had a nasty way of doing that to her, springing images of her father on her when she least expected them. She didn’t think it was possible to feel worse. Her father always had a way of doing that to her. Even from his grave, his memories could move over her skin like a dull razor. She wondered if she could ever be free of him.

Sam picked up her pace, determined to outrun what he had done to her so long ago. She began to sprint to shake his memory, but it stayed beside her like a shadow. Given the extra weight she now carried, she was winded and gasping for breath when she reached her apartment. Even if she could have run forever to try to escape what he had done to her, it would not have mattered. His shadow would always be with her, moving beside her, invading her in unthinkable places. Places she did not want him to be.

Sam went inside her apartment only long enough to grab her purse. The rest of the day she wandered aimlessly. She drove by her sister’s condo. Her heart sank as she envisioned Robin falling from the black sky, arms flailing in the air.

It was 8:05 p.m. when Sam downed a burger and fries with a cup of strong black coffee. Before she would allow herself to go home she had to make one more stop. She had gone there so often that she navigated the streets without thinking. She drove along a quiet, tree-lined 20
th
Avenue, then right onto winding Glen-Garry Street. But she stopped just before reaching the last house on the corner. She didn’t have to go the rest of the way to see the house, the white-clapboard two-story home that sat back from the street on a one-acre plot. She feared being seen before she could gather the strength to go to the door.

If Jonathan looked out the window, he could easily spot her red 1966 classic Ford Mustang. He had helped her buy the car, her pride and joy. From here she saw what she came to see. April’s bedroom window faced the street and the light was on. She checked her watch. The blue digital numbers read 8:40 p.m. Twenty minutes until bedtime.

She forced herself to drive into the driveway. She walked to the door. When she extended her finger to ring the doorbell, she saw that her hand was shaking. The day and the cold were starting to catch up with her.

Sam felt the warmth of the interior cover her face when Jonathan opened the door. Smells of Christmas dinner came from the kitchen. She stood in a circle of wan light as they exchanged unsettled glances. He was dressed in a red polo shirt and black nylon sweats. She was still wearing the same blouse and skirt she had slept in. “Can I come in?” she asked, wanting to melt with April in front of the fire.

Jonathan hesitated. “I was just getting ready to put April to bed.”

“I was hoping to tuck her in tonight,” Sam said. Despite her weariness, she made it a point to keep her voice strong.

“Another night, Sam.”

“Jonathan, please. I feel terrible about Christmas Eve.”

There was a heavy silence between them.

“I have April’s presents in the car,” she said, hoping that would sway him.

Jonathan considered her words then shook his head. “I don’t want you to upset her. Not tonight.”

“I won’t. I’ll only stay a few minutes.” She was pleading, but couldn’t help it.

“I’m sorry, Sam. Perhaps another time. I’ll tell April you were here.”

Sam opened her mouth to speak, but Jonathan closed the door softly and quietly before she could. She stared at the door for what seemed a long time, hardly drawing a breath. Tears fell softly, stinging her face as she walked in the cold to her Mustang.

At five minutes after nine, her daughter’s bedroom was dark. Sam found herself imagining Jonathan walking from her bedroom back to the study, where he spent much of his time. There was a fireplace in that room and tonight it would be roaring.
It would be safe there. And warm.

It was late now. There was no place else to go and she returned to the apartment. Sam never referred to the apartment as her ‘home.’ It was a place with four walls and nothing more. The only message on her answering machine had come just after noon. “Sam, it’s Nona.”

Sam smiled and, for only the second time that day, felt human. “Howard and I had so hoped to see you today, dearheart. I am just sick about Robin. Please come to the house. We don’t want you to be alone today. Jonathan came for April about noon. He wouldn’t stay for Christmas dinner. He took that child out of here kicking and screaming. It was all Howard could do to keep from interfering.”

After Sam talked to Nona for nearly an hour, she realized her headache had finally subsided, but her stomach felt raw. She opened a bottle of wine. She had resisted the temptation all day. But she rationalized the wine would calm her nerves. She poured a glass and flipped on the TV. Before the alcohol touched her lips, however, the thought hit her. Sam began to look for her cordless phone, found it and dialed the number from memory. She looked at the clock on the mantel as the phone rang. Judie answered in a bright and airy voice. It was 10:15 p.m.

“Judie, it’s me.”

“Do you need me to come over?” Judie asked without hesitation.

Sam smiled. “No thanks, Judie, I’m okay.”

In the background Sam could hear the muffled sound of the television and laughter coming from Judie’s family.

“Sam, what is it?”

“Didn’t you tell me they had found a bottle of Jack Daniels on Robin’s kitchen table?”

“Yes. Why? What’re you getting at?”

Sam didn’t respond and Judie asked again. “Sam? What’s going on?”

“Robin had reached a point with her alcoholism that she would’ve resorted to drinking anything, mouthwash, cough medicine, you name it. But if she were drinking again, I know it wouldn’t be Jack Daniels. That’s bourbon and Robin hated it. She’d drink vodka, gin, scotch or whatever before bourbon. If she was drinking again, she wouldn’t start with Jack Daniels.”