“You didn’t find out about Marie until last fall, when you went through your husband’s old footlocker. You came across the letters she wrote him. Tied up with them was a lucky charm she’d given him, a religious chaplet. She’d told him to keep it by his heart, which is where you left it.”
Her only defense was a half-hearted one. “I didn’t open the locker. I didn’t find any letters.”
“Then your fingerprints won’t be on them.”
Since I’d dragged us down to the sordid level of clues and evidence, I asked, “Where did you get the gun?”
Her chin descended, slowly but steadily. “James always had one around.”
“It wasn’t registered to him.”
“He didn’t believe in that. He had principles in some things. Things that didn’t involve women. You must think I’m a terrible person, Mr. Keane. A silly person. I let my whole life be misshapen by a decision of a seventeen-year-old girl. I’ve let one mistake dictate my life.”
“You’re not silly, Mrs. Petrone. And you’re not unique.” I felt the abyss of autobiography looming before me and, drawing back from its edge, I nodded toward the girl in the photograph. “What would she tell you to do?”
“She’d say, ‘Tell the truth,’ ” the old woman replied. “Will you go with me, please, to the police?”
It all Adds Up
by Thomas Kaufman
Shortly after readers receive this issue, Thomas Kaufman’s first novel, Drink the Tea, will be published by St. Martin’s Minotaur. The book was a winner of the yearly St. Martin’s Press/Private Eye Writers of America Best First Private Eye Novel contest. For his EQMM debut, the Maryland writer decided not to employ the private eye from that novel. Instead, he follows the exploits (and misadventures) of a life-coach for adult sufferers of ADD.
That first day, Colin was ready to kill Royce. When he walked into Royce’s house, he nearly turned and walked out again. Setting off a bomb would be an improvement. Burning the place to the ground, with its stacks of newspapers, pizza boxes, rat turds, fast-food wrappers — that would be an improvement.
Colin just stared, then sighed. Well, he’d known about Royce already. Why act surprised? Early on Colin had decided on four clients at a time — tops. Sure, he could have more, but you had to weigh safety against the money you might make to come to the right decision. His four clients were Royce, Joanie, Gupta, and Clarice.
Royce and Joanie had government jobs, which was good. They’d have to really try to get themselves fired. Gupta worked as a lab assistant in a medical practice. And Clarice? Well, Clarice was different.
What did they have in common?
They all had ADD.
Lots of people think ADD is just something kids get, that adults aren’t affected. That’s wrong. And while ADD has been misdiagnosed — that happened frequently in Colin’s opinion — it was very real for his clients. A kid acting out in class — interrupting, forgetting his work, talking nonstop — may get a trip to the principal’s office. An adult does this, he’s fired.
How can you tell who has ADD? If a person has trouble paying close attention to details, makes careless mistakes, can’t focus on work, has trouble listening when someone talks to them — they could have ADD.
Likewise, folks with trouble organizing their lives, folks who are always losing things, folks who get distracted by just about anything — you get the idea.
The adults Colin saw needed help. They needed a doctor to prescribe meds. They needed to take their meds every day. Dosage was critical — too little and they’d get discouraged. Too much and they’d have a heart attack. A lot of them needed coaches.
Like Royce, a guy in his mid thirties who didn’t know he had ADD. In school he just couldn’t focus. His grades were terrible. It didn’t help that his dad was a jerk-ass who would slap Royce whenever he brought home his report card. Colin hated when parents made things worse. Royce went through life screwing up one job after another. His mother cried and his father yelled. Portrait of a family.
Then Royce heard a friend talking about ADD. Sounds like me, he thought. So he got a book and read it, then went to see a doctor, who confirmed what Royce read in his book — that he was not stupid, not lazy, he could function if he had the right tools. This doctor said Royce was going through life with his vision all blurry. He just needed a good pair of glasses.
Well, for Royce this was huge. It meant his dad was wrong — Royce wasn’t stupid or lazy, he just had ADD. It was almost too good to be true.
So Royce got his meds. In this case, it was time-released Ritalin, which is like speed, and you’re probably thinking that’s the last thing a guy like Royce needs, a guy who flits from project to project, never finishing anything. It’s counter-intuitive, but people who have ADD generally do better with some kind of amphetamine medication.
Meds alone won’t do it. He had to get organized. He needed a coach. That’s where Colin came in. He’d run an ad in Bethesda magazine, offering his services as an ADD coach. Colin didn’t work with kids because that required more patience than he had. Plus, when he coached adults, the money was better. Colin went to their homes, spent all day with them, and pored over every little detail they needed to talk about. Royce’s life was like a bowl of spaghetti. Colin had to untangle all the pieces. This took time, but at seventy-five dollars an hour, Colin had the time.
At first Royce was guarded. Colin couldn’t blame the guy. After all, until recently Royce was, in his own mind, America’s number one screw-up. So there was an embarrassment factor. Then there was his house, with its stale smell of decay and desperation. The floor gritty beneath Colin’s feet.
Fortunately Colin knew how to hide his feelings. Plus he’d gone to the trouble to place an ad, and this poor schmuck went to the trouble to answer it, and now Colin was gonna walk? That didn’t make sense. So Colin sighed, smiled at Royce, and said, “Let’s just start at the beginning, okay?”
Well, a few more visits and things started looking better. Royce’s house wasn’t a candidate for House Beautiful, but at least now he knew where things went.
Colin helped him develop a system so he could locate the things he needed when he needed them. For instance, the IRS had sent Royce some nasty letters. The guy hadn’t paid taxes in years, though he had the money. Colin helped him with that mess, got him an accountant. Royce invented a part of a search engine, and the monthly royalty checks came to ten, twelve thousand. He kept them in a desk drawer. See, he knew he should deposit them but just couldn’t bring himself to do it.
Colin said it had to do with Royce’s relationship with his father, that because his father didn’t understand what was wrong with Royce, Royce felt unworthy. Now everything was different, Colin said.
“Because I’m taking drugs?” Royce asked.
“No, because you know what your problem is and you’re doing something about it.” The poor guy started to cry. Colin hugged him, told him it was okay. That day Colin really earned his money. And Royce never noticed that every few weeks some of those endorsed checks went home with Colin.
Now Royce is straight with the IRS. He’s got money in the bank. His house is in better shape than it’s been in for years. He’s got a girlfriend. And in addition to the money he paid Colin, Colin got a little bonus.
See how this works out for everybody?
Joanie was twenty-eight, blond, cute, and worked for OMB. That’s Washington’s Office of Management and Budget. It was funny Joanie worked there — she was terrible at managing her time, and she never lived within her budget. Joanie lived at home with her mom and worked as an accountant.