Her Last Letter (32 page)

“I don’t know.”

“I think we should open it now, find out for sure.”

He wasn’t going to budge. There was no way to avoid this.

I slowly tore away the paper. Eventually, a black lacquered jewelry box appeared, one I recognized immediately.

“Well, I was right,” I said. “It is from Caroline. I saw this in town and looks like she decided to buy it for me. I’ll have to call and thank her.”

“Why would she drive over and just dump it on the porch? Especially since you just saw her.”

“I don’t know. Maybe she wanted to surprise me.”

“Yes … maybe.” He eyed me, then turned his back and headed through the foyer toward the living room.

Quickly, I carried the box out of the kitchen and down the hall toward my studio. I entered, holding onto Kelly’s old jewelry box tightly, a box I hadn’t seen since she died. Hands shaking, I undid the small latch and lifted the lid.

Inside was a note, and below it a cylindrical metal canister used for film. I opened the note.

This is what he was looking for. Watch out! I’ll contact you soon. I have something else. Could be proof if I’m right.

I heard Trevor approaching and hid the note and film container behind my back, then realized how suspicious that looked, and chucked them both onto a nearby table. The canister rolled until it found the edge of the table and dropped to the floor.

“So did you call her?” Trevor stood in the doorway.

I stared down at the jewelry box I still held in one hand, aware that my face was reddening despite willing myself to be calm. “No, I’ll call and thank her tomorrow.”

“Won’t she want to know that you got it okay?”

“She won’t care.”

“I think you should call her. Why wait to thank her? I might want to thank her too.”

“All right. If it will make you happy, I’ll call.” I dialed Caroline’s number at home, but she didn’t answer, and I was not about to leave a message. If she called back, Trevor might get to the phone before I could. “Not home,” I said, hanging up.

“Probably left for work,” he said, “or went out with Nate.”

“Yes, probably.”

He stood there quietly. “Why don’t you tell me who really gave you that jewelry box?”

“I did tell you.”

“Josh gave it to you, didn’t he?”

For a moment, I was struck dumb.

“Why don’t you tell me the truth? Are you seeing him again?”

“No, Trevor. I’m not.”

“Then where did the box come from?”

“I told you. Caroline.”

“Look at you. Your face is red all the way down past your neck. You’re not a very good liar, Gwyn.” He turned to leave, then an instant later popped back in the doorway. “You met him just now, didn’t you? Did he forget to give you a present? You know, if you really want that weird son of a bitch instead of me, don’t worry. I won’t fight you. I’m sick of it all.” He smacked the doorjamb with the butt of his hand, then stalked off.

For a moment, I was tempted to go after him, then remembered the film canister down on the floor. I dropped to my knees, still watching for him to make another appearance, then felt under the table for the container. I grabbed it from behind a table leg, scrambled up, and hid it behind a cup of sketching pencils. I took the note and placed it beneath a magazine.

I waited, listening, but couldn’t tell from the relative silence where Trevor might be in the house. Deciding to chance it, I grabbed the can from off the table and ran for the hall bathroom.

But Trevor appeared suddenly from around a corner, blocking the hallway. “Are you really going to try and deny it?”

“Yes-I am. Excuse me, please.” I pushed past him to the bathroom and locked the door behind me. Taking a few quick breaths, I screwed off the cap and shook out the contents. It was developed film, two strips of five frames. Not much. Maybe Craig had kept the remainder of it.

I handled the faded negatives as carefully as possible with shaking fingers, trying not to smudge the images. I tilted them up to the light. At first, I couldn’t even guess at what I was seeing, and then it became agonizingly clear. Kelly, naked, her body parts flagrantly exposed, was with a man, his genitals also open for viewing. Considering the angle of the shots, they must have taken the photos themselves. But I couldn’t see the man clearly, his face was turned away or looking down, the top of his head cut off . Even squinting, I couldn’t tell anything for sure. I placed the film back in the container, then flushed the toilet in case Trevor was standing outside the door.

He wasn’t.

I hurried to my darkroom and hid the film canister at the rear of a drawer. Leaning back against the counter to steady myself, I closed my eyes. I could still see the images. It could have been Trevor. It could have been, but I wasn’t sure. As soon as it was safe, and with sufficient time to do it right, I’d develop the negatives into prints.

I found Trevor sitting in the kitchen, his face in his hands. He straightened as I walked in, glanced toward me, then away. His face seemed swollen, as if he’d been crying.

“I’d appreciate it if you could
at least
be honest with me,” he said. “I know you’re lying. Caroline did not bring that over.”

I didn’t bother to reply.

“How long has this been going on? What did he do? Stop over when I was out of town? And it went too far?”

“No.”

“Just tell me the truth, Gwyn. You don’t have to worry. I won’t leave. I know you’ve been having some serious emotional problems, and I haven’t helped. I’m not around like I should be. You going to him … it’s probably my fault. So I’ve decided to forgive you, because we’re
married
, and we made a
commitment
to stay together. I made a
commitment
to you. And I’ve kept my end, because I love you.”

“Is that right?”

His mouth hung open. “What? How many times do I have to say it? How could you believe anything else?”

I turned, walked away, afraid I would blurt everything out.

“Gwyn, don’t turn your back on me. We need to talk.”

“I don’t feel like talking.”

I continued to my studio. He didn’t follow me. A few minutes later I heard the side door slam and saw Trevor backing his Cadillac down the drive. I watched as he turned into the street and sped away.

It was my chance. I ran to the garage and grabbed Kelly’s bear out of the Jeep, carried the bear upstairs. I stopped to find a pair of nail scissors, then entered the room containing Kelly’s bedroom furniture. I shut the door and sat on the bed.

I unzipped the plastic bag and eased out the bear. On the way home from the old house, I’d discovered something. The seam along the left side of the bear didn’t quite match the right. It appeared to be hand-stitched. I picked up the scissors and snipped away at the threads.

Roosevelt was the bear’s official name, but not its original. As a toddler, Kelly had called her favorite toy, teddy, like most children. But the halting words issuing from her baby lips sounded less like teddy, and more like, tee dee. She’d decided to rename the bear after entering kindergarten. During a history lesson, her teacher glowingly explained the origin of the teddy bear, how it was named after President Teddy Roosevelt and his one particularly unsuccessful bear hunt in the wilds of Glenwood. From that day on, Kelly had asked our family to call her teddy bear, Roosevelt. We had, and that’s why I didn’t remember. Kelly, I suspected, may have found the name change difficult, and eventually reverted back to her original and beloved, T.D.

I carefully opened the seam to expose the bear’s stuffing, then slipped my fingers inside and poked around, working my way toward the center of the bear’s belly. I hit pay dirt. One by one, I pulled out the items, laying each of them out on the bed. Before me was a U. S. passport, a slip of paper wrapped around a key, a compact roll of cash, and a folded airline ticket.

I picked up the ticket. The designated airline was Alitalia, the destination Milan, Italy. It was a one way ticket, the departure date, October sixth, the day after Kelly died. The name printed on the ticket was Lydia M. Linden. It didn’t sound familiar.

I put the ticket down and picked up the passport, and as I did, several items fell from it, a driver’s license, a social security card, and a photo of Kelly’s smiling face. I studied the photograph for a moment, then examined the driver’s license. An identical photo of Kelly appeared there, but instead of Kelly’s name, the name listed was again, Lydia M. Linden. The passport held Kelly’s likeness also, but again with the wrong name and wrong date of birth, likewise the social security card.

Obviously, Kelly had planned to fly off to Europe with fake identification, but was murdered a day before it could happen.

I picked up the roll of cash, five one hundred dollar bills. I wondered if this token amount could be from the cash Kelly had withdrawn a few days before her death. According to bank records, she’d withdrawn three hundred and fifty thousand dollars, all in cash, the majority in one hundred dollar bills. We’d never figured out what she’d done with it, but now I wondered if possibly she’d forwarded it to another bank account, maybe to her destination in Europe … under her new name.

I looked at the key wrapped in paper, unfolded the paper and studied it. Kelly’s handwriting was on the paper, but I could make no sense of what she had written. It appeared to be a code of some kind.

4 TL HE 3 TR IS 2 TL ME 1 TR STP.

I fingered the key. I had no idea what lock this key might be meant for either. The only thing that did appear familiar was the actual words interspersed within the code, HE … IS … ME, and the numbers in a backwards sequence, 4, 3, 2, 1.

He is me
. What was that supposed to mean?

I placed the items in Kelly’s drawer. Though the code made no sense to me, I wondered if it would to Craig. But I’d have to wait to find out, until he contacted me again.

Trevor showed up later, carrying a pizza box. He placed it on the kitchen table.

“We have to eat,” he said.

“Yes.”

We ate in silence until finally Trevor set his slice of pizza down and his stillness drew my attention. “I’m sorry,” he said when I looked up. “I’m sorry I lost it. If you say nothing’s going-”

“Stop.”

He did, and stared at me.

“I don’t think it’s a good idea for us to talk right now. Okay?”

“Okay.”

Later, we watched television, Trevor on one side of the room, me on the other. Occasionally he’d look over at me, but didn’t speak. He finally rose from his chair and started up for bed, saying only “goodnight” as he passed by me.

It was one o’clock in the morning before I felt safe enough to enter my studio. I closed the door silently behind me and then stepped into the darkroom. Opening the drawer, I drew out the film container and held it. I stood there, thinking. These were color negatives, and I didn’t have the proper chemicals on hand to make color prints. More than that, I rarely worked in color, preferring to work in black and white which allowed me use of a safelight.

I listened for any hint of movement upstairs, then reached over and locked the darkroom door.

Because I was printing color negatives on black and white paper, I would have to use a special paper, Panalure. And as with color, I would have to do the developing without a safelight, without any lights at all, in total darkness. I lifted my hand and stared at it. It was shaking. I sighed deeply, then began.

With the lights still on, I mixed the developer, diluting it with water according to instructions, then poured thirty-two ounces into my graduate, a measuring device. My four trays sat before me on the counter, clean and empty, ready for use. The first tray would contain the developer, the second the stop bath, the third the fixer, and the fourth I would use to wash the prints. I had done it all many times, but only a very few times in total darkness, and never as nervous as I was, with the stakes so high.

I filled each tray, then looked around to check my bearings. I decided to do a preliminary trial run.

Eyes closed, I pretended to position the invisible sheet of eight-by-ten photographic paper in the easel, remembering I would need to set the enlarger’s height for proper magnification before actually turning out the light. I then pretended to turn on the timer to expose the paper. Eyes still closed, I carried the nonexistent paper to the first tray and felt for the edge of the counter, located the first pair of tongs.

Normally, a photographer would use bare hands, especially in a situation like this. But I’d developed an allergy to the chemicals. Even a brief exposure brought on severe swelling and itching. Hardly worth it, considering I was fairly adept with tongs.

I secured a corner of the imaginary paper, then pretended to dip it into the developer and to agitate the tray. Timed perfectly, I moved to the next step, the stop bath, repeated the process with a clean set of tongs, then finally, placed the print in the fixer. After the fixer, I opened my eyes. The rest I could accomplish, without harm, with the light on.

There were two strips of negatives, each with five frames. I looked them over and chose a frame with a fairly decent head-shot of the man, then transferred the remaining strip to a clear negative sleeve, for possible use later. I took another deep breath.

Before beginning in earnest, I listened once more for any sound from outside the door, then reassured, positioned the frame in the negative carrier, adjusted the composition of the image and the focus on my enlarger.

I gazed around to get my bearings, then turned out the light. I waited for my eyes to adjust, making sure no light from any source had infiltrated the room. But it was as if I were blind.

I pulled out a sheet of Panalure paper, held it by one corner, then secured the one remaining sheet. Positioning the photographic paper in the easel, I suddenly stopped ... froze. Had I remembered to re-adjust the f-stop to f-8, my normal working aperture? I’d been experimenting with different settings earlier in the week. No, of course I’d remembered. I was worrying for nothing.

Familiar with the position of my enlarger timer, I hit the switch-projecting light through the negative onto the paper for real.