“Look,” I said, “this is all going to be in the news soon, so you might as well know. Hell, everybody at school is going to hear about it too.” That realization just hit me. My life would become an even bigger soap opera, the kind of story passed along to each new class of graduate students. Yeah, her mom was murdered. And her mentally handicapped brother did it. “It’s Ronnie,” I said. “He confessed to killing my mom this morning.”
There was a long pause. I thought the call had dropped. Then I heard an intake of breath. “Jesus,” he said. “I’m so sorry.”
“So am I,” I said.
“Jesus,” he said again. “Where are you? Are you at the hospital?”
“I’m home now,” I said. “Or almost home. I’m in the parking lot of my building.”
“Do you want me to come over?” he asked.
“No,” I said right away. I knew my voice sounded sharp, almost harsh. I didn’t want to dismiss him. I just needed a moment to… I don’t know what I needed to do. I just didn’t think I needed Dan there right then. “I’m okay,” I said. “I have some calls to make. I’ve already talked to a lawyer for Ronnie. My uncle’s going to call and let me know what’s happening. And I have to go back to Dover Community later. I’ll call you, though. In a little bit, I’ll call you.”
“Okay,” he said. “Sure. Call me when you want.”
He put on a brave face, but I could sense the edge of disappointment in his voice. He wanted to be Johnny-on-the-spot for me.
“I’ll call you,” I said. “I promise. You know how I am. I have to sort through this first. Give me a little bit of time to absorb all of this.”
“Sure,” he said. His voice had some starch back in it. “I’ll let you absorb. I understand.”
“Okay,” I said. “Bye.”
As soon as my right foot hit the bottom step, I heard someone call my name from behind me.
“Ms. Hampton?”
A man’s voice. Ms. Hampton. A cop? Richland?
But the voice sounded gruff and older.
I turned around, taking my foot off the step.
“Elizabeth Hampton?” the man said.
The man who faced me was short, almost squat. He looked to be as tall as me, about five feet, five inches. And he was squarely built, his body bulky and thick through the stomach and chest. His legs were short. He wore a dark sport coat and matching pants, a white shirt open at the collar, and no tie. I guessed he was about seventy years old, maybe older. But despite his age, his body gave off a sense of power and strength.
He smiled at me. “I’m sorry,” he said. “Sneaking up on you like this.”
He looked familiar. I had seen him somewhere before, but I couldn’t place it. And I didn’t know his name.
“Do I know you?” I asked. I backed up a step, returning my foot to the bottom step. I placed my hand on the banister. My phone was in my hand.
“Could we talk?” he asked. “Maybe in your apartment?”
I shook my head. “No,” I said. “And if you don’t tell me—”
He smiled but didn’t show any teeth. He had a small mouth and a weak chin. “I get it,” he said. “After what happened to your mother, you’re cautious. I understand—I really do.”
When he mentioned Mom, the connections in my brain sped up. That was how I knew him. He had something to do with Mom.
“Were you—?”
I stopped. I saw it in my mind. At the cemetery, the man Paul was talking to while I was with Dan. The man who seemed so agitated with whatever Paul was telling him. That was the man standing before me.
“You were at the cemetery,” I said. “You were talking to my uncle.”
“Paul,” he said. “I’ve known Paul most of my life.”
“Were you friends with my mother?” I asked.
“More than friends,” he said. “Are you sure you want to do this out here?”
“Yes, I’m sure,” I said. “And what do you mean you and my mom were more than friends? Did you date her?”
He smiled again, but his eyes looked sad. It seemed put on, forced, as if he wanted to play the role of sad puppy dog.
“What do you mean?” I asked again.
“Your mom and I were high school sweethearts, and we were married for more than fifteen years.”
Chapter Thirty-three
I remained frozen in place, one foot on the stairs, one foot on the ground. I might have blinked a few times or shook my head, like someone confronted with something that simply didn’t make any sense.
“My mother was only married once,” I said. “To my father.”
The man in front of me, the man whose name I still didn’t know, only smiled. And his smile looked self-satisfied and smug. Even as I said the words and issued the denial about my mother’s past, I understood that I was stepping out on a limb. I thought of my trip through her house looking for documents after my meeting with Mr. Allison. I remembered the lack of pictures from the past, the lack of mementos or artifacts that might explain her life to me.
But that was just because Mom was private, right? Or because she simply didn’t have much of a life before I was born?
She didn’t even tell me about Ronnie… About the police coming… About any of it…
The man’s smile loosened. “I’m sorry that I’m the one who has to tell you about this,” he said, although he didn’t look sorry at all. “I know it would have been better coming from your mother or your uncle.”
“I don’t believe you,” I said, my voice quiet from lack of conviction.
The man sighed a little. I was the thickheaded and exasperating child who refused to see the lesson right before her eyes.
“It’s all true,” he said. “Are you sure we can’t talk somewhere? Somewhere more private maybe?”
I looked down at the phone. “I’m calling my uncle,” I said. “I’m calling Paul.”
“You can do that,” the man said. “But he and I don’t exactly get along. He may say some awful things about me.”
“What’s your name?” I asked.
“Gordon,” he said. “Gordon Baxter.”
Paul’s phone rang. It rang and rang and then went to voice mail. I didn’t know if I wanted to leave a message or not.
Then the man said, “Really, I’m happy to tell you whatever you want to know about me or about my relationship with your mother.”
Relationship?
The word froze me. My mother didn’t have relationships. She was married, yes. Once. To my father. But that was a marriage. It was simple and clear-cut. They married and they had children and then Dad died. And Mom lived her life until she was murdered. That was it.
Relationship? No, my mom had relationships only with Dad and her children and her brother.
I hung up the phone.
“Have you been to my apartment before?” I asked, thinking of the robbery. The man before me possessed the same short, squat figure as the man who’d brushed past me on the stairs the night my apartment was broken into.
He didn’t bat an eye. “I came by a day last week, but you weren’t home.”
“Did you let yourself in?” I asked. “And trash everything?”
“That sounds pretty brazen, doesn’t it?”
But you haven’t denied it, have you?
“How did you find me?” I asked.
“Your name was in the obituary online,” he said. “And you’re listed in the phone book. I’m a curious man, that’s all. Curious.”
I was in the phone book. As “E. Hampton.” Why did women think using an initial protected them?
I brought my foot down off the step again. “You can’t come in my apartment,” I said. “I don’t know you. I won’t be alone with you.”