“Got it in one.”
“I’ll witness a complaint. But I can do concrete, as well.” I pulled the box close and took off the lid. Beneath the princess band-aids and the hot water bottle sat a gallon-sized baggie full of several dozen foil blister packs. “This is what Pat was looking for. Jenny found it out in the garage the other day. According to Pat, my sister took it from him. She was planning to turn him in.”
Curzon squeezed the bag, smooshing the foil packets around inside. “They’re samples. Handed out by the pharmaceutical companies to doctors as trial medicine for patients. Not tracked like other medication because they’re supposedly available in limited quantities.” He looked at the labels. “These are popular on the club scene.”
We both took a few calming breaths. Curzon finally sat back down on the couch.
“I have one more thing to show you.” From the bottom of my backpack I pulled out Tom Jost’s cell phone and put it on the table. “Jane Q. Public wants to turn this in.”
“Christ, O’Hara! I’ve been looking everywhere… Where did Jane get it?”
I thought of the old man in the plastic hospital tent and his daughter in Grace’s car, both struggling to heal in isolation. Curzon was right. I needed to keep their secrets. “Jane doesn’t remember.”
The sheriff did not look happy with that answer, so I kept talking. “The phone numbers in memory show that Tom Jost called the authorities and invited them to his pending suicide. He also called his dad. And Pat.”
Curzon nodded. “I looked those calls up with dispatch after Jane gave me her last tip. Didn’t know about the dad or Pat. But that fits.”
“Fits how?”
“Am I still speaking to Jane? Or am I speaking to Maddy O’Hara?”
“Maddy’s story is in the can. Jane is merely curious.”
“Tom did write a note. He mailed it to the fire chief. Didn’t say he was going to kill himself, but he confessed that he’d failed to discourage Pat from engaging in harmful activities and the fire chief might want to investigate.” Curzon waved the sample packet in the air. “Figured it was something like this. I tried to use the note as leverage for a warrant but there was too much blow-back. How could the judge trust the word of a guy who was obviously unstable?”
“Shit.”
“Pretty much.” Curzon flicked at the edge of the foil tablet packaging with his thumb, an angry, nervous gesture that reminded me of someone playing with a cigarette lighter. “In the letter, the guy apologized to the entire universe. Then he warned the chief they’d need someone to cover his shift days from now on.”
A tired sigh deflated me. “No way.”
“There are some things I will never understand.” Curzon tossed the packet into the box. He held out his empty hand.
I took it.
“There’s more to the story, isn’t there? Pat’s no evil genius. There’s no way he got into this all by himself.”
Curzon tried to stonewall but the man had just spent the last two hours eating pizza and insulting the intelligence of cartoon characters with me. The blank face no longer worked as a disguise.
“Am I wrong?”
“Press and police sit on opposite sides of the fence, O’Hara. Most of the time.” He tugged my hand and pulled me beside him on the couch. The dip in the cushion rolled me toward him. “Your sister’s death was a tragedy. The man responsible is going to jail. Don’t get focused on the wrong thing here. What happens with you and Jenny now, that’s the part you can do something about.”
I thought about the fight with Pat. Jenny’s safety, physical and mental, all that mattered. Still, “I want to know what happened. I want to know the rest of it.”
“So do I.” He said the words with quiet conviction.
I believed him. “Can I help?”
“No.”
“Can you stop me from helping?”
“No?” he replied, rhetorically, then leaned forward and oh, so gently, touched my cheek. “I haven’t done this sort of thing in a while.”
“Me neither.”
Overcome evil with good.
In Curzon’s eyes, I saw goodness. It reminded me of something I didn’t tell Ainsley. Sometimes what we see describes half-forgotten dreams of what might yet be.
“Kiss me?” he asked.
I thought of Curzon’s words and the truth he’d told me so far. This was another part that mattered, another part that I could do something about.
Slowly, I felt myself tilt toward him in a motion both grand and imperceptible as the earth shifting on its axis.
Tomorrow would be soon enough for all the unasked questions.
All the untold stories.
About the Author
J. Wachowski writes stories, screenplays, school excuses and anything else that pays.
She lives with her family on the midwestern edge of civilization, but is often sighted lurking at jwachowski.com.
