“He’s back,” Charlotte says.
Robb makes his excuses and retreats outside, taking the garage stairs two at a time. When he returns five minutes later, the flip-flops have been replaced by lace-up shoes, and he’s changed into clothes without any holes, without any ironic messages printed on them. For the past six months or so, ever since he finally resigned his position out in the suburbs, after much soul searching, to join Murray Abernathy at the outreach center, he and Gina have been living in the apartment over the garage. A temporary arrangement that, as far as I’m concerned, can remain permanent. Charlotte’s warmed to the couple, too, grateful at last to have tenants who never throw parties and never leave bottles strewn across the yard. She’s even talking about going back to church regularly, and dragging me along, kicking and screaming or otherwise.
The doorbell rings and I switch into host mode, but it’s only Bridger arriving as a harbinger.
“How did it go?” Ann asks.
“Brilliant. There were more people than seats, so I guess that’s a good sign.”
“Is he on his way?”
“He’s coming. They all are.”
Brad Templeton’s article about the case, when it ran in the Texas Monthly, set off another firestorm of interest, and is set to be anthologized with the rest of the year’s best crime reporting. His full-length account is fresh off the presses, another fat paperback. I fulfilled my promise to him, and this time, instead of dreading the publication, I feel relieved. I only left the signing at Murder by the Book early to fulfill Charlotte’s last-minute request for ice, dawdling pensively along the way.
The final chapter in the book is the only one I’ve actually read. Going further might spoil my reconciled equanimity. A few days after Christmas, in the bathroom of a Buenos Aires luxury hotel, a man who was later identified as Chad Macneil, the missing financial wizard, was found dead, his head submerged in a half-full bathtub. There was no sign of the missing fortune, but Brad made much of his theory that it was Reg Keller who did the deed before vanishing once again. Something tells me he’s right, but I haven’t admitted it to anyone. Sometimes, in the dead of night, I find myself hoping that restored wealth will keep him from ever coming back to fulfill his threat of revenge. And then I feel like a coward and tell him to bring it on.
After describing the book signing for the benefit of the ladies, Bridger slips out the back for a cigarette. I join him under the moonlight, grateful for the break. He tells me he’s still thinking about quitting, or at least cutting back.
“I just had a bit of a shock,” I say. “Did you know the Paragon closed down?”
He regards me thoughtfully through a cloud of smoke, then shakes his head.
“It’s all gone.”
“You make it sound like such a tragedy,” he says.
We stand there quietly, a couple of loners steeling themselves for a night of mandatory entertaining. Bridger exhales, then chuckles on the smoke.
“Something funny happened today.” His eyes light up in the dimness. “Just before heading out to the bookstore, I was in line getting coffee. I guess I looked impatient, because the lady behind the counter asks me why the rush. So I tell her about the book signing, and I have to explain what it’s all about, of course. I mention Hannah’s name, and she starts nodding. ‘What a tragedy,’ she says, ‘and she was just ten years old.’ ”
“She was seventeen.”
“Right. But this lady had her confused with that other kid, the one they found in League City.”
“The Bonham girl?”
He shakes his head. “You’re thinking of the other one, but she was older. This lady meant the little Latina girl, the one who disappeared from the playground.”
“They never found that one’s body, I thought.”
He shrugs. “She was confused. The point is, I tell her, ‘No, this is the one they found during the hurricane, the one that died trying to find her friend.’ And she gets this vague look in her eye, like she kind of remembers, then she just gives up. ‘There’s been so many,’ she says, waving her hand in the air. I couldn’t believe it. This was all over the news, twenty-four seven, and she couldn’t even remember. I told Templeton at the signing and he looked disappointed, like that was one less person to buy his book.”
The door opens behind us and Carter Robb slips out. Bridger drops his cigarette and covers it with his foot, exaggerating the move so that Robb can’t miss it, his way of razzing the new tenant, even though Robb has never said a word about his smoking, or any other vice. The faults Robb occupies himself with tend to be his own.
“Everybody’s showing up,” he says.
But he makes no move to go back inside, and neither do we. Instead, we all stand there, shuffling our feet, taking final breaths, preparing mentally for the inevitable.
“Then there’s the appeal,” Bridger says, picking up on his theme. “That’s going to put the story back in the headlines, I bet. Assuming it gets that far. Templeton’s gotta be hoping it does.”
Frank Rios would be sitting on death row today if Donna Mayhew hadn’t made her appeal at the sentencing, asking for mercy on behalf of her daughter. Not many people understood that gesture, and she declined all opportunities the media offered her to explain. Now he’s in the Walls Unit up at Huntsville, working on an appeal. His defense team reached out to Ann, hoping she’d do some pro bono agitating on their behalf, but she had the good sense to decline.
“Whatever happens,” I say, “he’s not going anywhere.”
Before we can go inside to fulfill our duty, the door opens again and Theresa Cavallo slips out, shutting it firmly behind her.
“I thought so.”
“Pull up a chair,” I say, though nobody’s sitting.
“You got out of there early, I noticed.”
“Charlotte told me to come back with a bag of ice or on it.”
“Great.” She takes up a position beside me, arms crossed, and I glance down at her ring finger, where a wedding band is finally coupled to the engagement rock. Her fiancé came back from Iraq long enough to tie the knot, then he shipped out again for Afghanistan. I was there for the ceremony. She made a beautiful bride. It was hard to believe that in all that foamy white silk, I’d ever watched her exchange gunfire with Tony Salazar, or ever seen the blunted bullet embedded harmlessly in her vest. Her new husband kept shaking my hand, as if he owed me something.
“Bridger was just telling me something strange,” I say, shaking off the thoughts. “He met a woman today who couldn’t remember who Hannah was. She got her confused with some other kid. It’s hard to believe, don’t you think?”
Nobody replies. Nobody has to. We ponder the way of the world, the object of so much searching eventually forgotten, relegated to the dustbin of missing daughters. None of us will ever forget, or ever confuse her with anyone else.
“All right,” Cavallo says. “It’s probably time to go inside.”
We exchange looks, but none of us go. We’re all waiting to see who will make the first move.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
J. Mark Bertrand has an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Houston. After one hurricane too many, he left Houston and relocated with his wife, Laurie, to the plains of South Dakota. Find out more about Mark and the Roland March series at:
