Thinking back on the low turnout for Sam’s funeral, I decided to visit his grave instead of going to lunch.
Since I knew I didn’t kill him and figured he must know I didn’t kill him, I thought he’d probably appreciate some company. And I felt it was the decent thing to do, considering how he and I had left things. And part of me just wanted to get out of the newsroom.
The Lakewood cemetery office warned me his headstone wasn’t up yet but gave me directions to his plot and the names of other people buried nearby for landmarks.
The landscaping was lovely along the path to Sam’s final resting place, but when I reached the hill overlooking his grave, I saw I was not alone. And neither was Sam. An older woman sat on the ground by his burial site, dabbing her eyes on her sleeve and praying. Then she picked up a handful of loose soil and put it clumsily in a plastic bag and kissed it.
I hung back, not wanting to disturb her grief, yet curious about her relationship with the deceased. After a couple of minutes of watching her struggle to her knees, I realized she was having trouble getting up. I walked over, gave her a hand, and pulled her upright.
Tears streaked her wrinkled face, so I offered my condolences. She burst into noisy sobs, literally crying on my shoulder.
While I consoled her, I noticed a bouquet of wildflowers propped in the dirt of Sam’s grave. The vase held an unsigned sympathy card reading, “God Overpowers Those Outside His Extended Limitless Love.”
I had no idea what the message meant, but discreetly, I snapped a picture on my cell phone for later.
“Now, now,” I told her, directing her to a bench under autumn oaks. “Come sit a minute and rest.”
Neither of us spoke right away. Then she asked me if I’d ever lost a child. And I realized I must have been speaking to Sam’s mother.
“No,” I replied. “I’m not a mom.”
Answering her question out loud made me face a truth I’d been trying to push to the back of my mind since Hugh’s death. That I might never have a child. Most days I could live with that realization, but here, next to a grieving parent, it hurt. Seeing the pain of her loss made me understand how much I was missing. It was even harder than looking at the photo of Ashley Lind and her brand-new baby.
“Would you like to see a picture of him?” she asked.
“Sure.”
She pulled a photo of a much younger Sam out of her purse and handed it to me.
This was a determining moment. I had to admit I knew him or pretend I didn’t. Whatever choice I decided on would determine the course of our conversation.
“He’s a good-looking boy,” I said, stalling for time.
She wiped away a tear. “He deserved a better mother.”
I wanted to hear more, so that meant pretending Sam was a stranger. “I’m sure you did the best you could.”
She shook her head. “I had to choose between him and his father. I chose his father.”
Wild-eyed, she outlined a story similar to what Jeremy Gage had told me, that they cut Sam off because they objected to his lifestyle. Considered it sinful, even. “We didn’t go to his funeral. My husband said it would be like turning our backs on our beliefs.”
That seemed harsh, but I didn’t want to join their debate. “You came here today,” I said. “And that counts for something. You even brought flowers.” I didn’t really think the flowers were from her but just wanted to get that on the record and see where the trail led.
“They must be from his ex-fiancée,” she said. “She owns a floral shop in the uptown neighborhood and used to arrange blooms like that.”
She’d narrowed the geographical location of the flower shop, not realizing what a favor she’d done for me.
“Have you spoken to her since your son’s death?” I asked. “Perhaps that might bring you some comfort.”
“No. But my husband and I will see her later this afternoon at a law office for the settling of Sam’s estate.”
She had my attention now. “I’m sure that’ll be difficult. Will it just be the three of you and his attorney?”
“Not exactly. We always liked Daisy and would have welcomed her into the family.” Daisy, I thought to myself. An apt name for a florist. “But our son’s”—she paused briefly—“male friend will also be there. We’ve never cared to meet him and I fear it could be awkward.”
“Your husband will be with you?”
She nodded, explaining that he was waiting in their car, outside the cemetery gate, for her to return. To me, that seemed awfully cold, being that his only son was buried a couple hundred yards away.
She could tell I was thinking something along that line and started to become agitated. “We compromised. He agreed to drive the four hundred miles but wouldn’t stand by our son’s grave.”
I didn’t know how to respond, so I kept quiet.
“I’d best be heading back before he worries,” she said.
“Worries” wouldn’t have been the word I used, but I helped pull her up from the bench. I brushed some leaves from her jacket, then walked out beside her, amid her thanks. As I watched her climb into a blue sedan next to a white-haired gentleman, I made a mental note of the Illinois license plate.
In movies, the reading of the will is a fictional device to create suspense and surprise. In real life, there’s no legal requirement that the estate attorney read it aloud before the named parties, but the fact that Sam’s attorney was assembling a crowd gave me the feeling something unexpected was under way.
I glanced upward, telling Sam I’d come back for a proper visit later. Then I got behind my steering wheel and kept his parents’ vehicle in my sight line for the next two hours.
For the first fifteen minutes, they drove like they were lost. And they probably were. Normally, it takes multiple vehicles for a successful surveillance, but when it comes to elderly drivers, fewer can work.
Sam’s parents parked by a nondescript hamburger joint in Minneapolis called Matt’s Bar and went inside. Even though I was tempted to follow them and order a famous Juicy Lucy burger, I stayed outside, a newspaper in front of my face.
I always kept a paper in the car for camouflage should surveillance needs arise; unfortunately this one was about a month old, so I got to read a “Piercing Eyes” column blasting a high school coach for suspending a couple of football players for stealing pumpkins.
“Every boy should steal a pumpkin in his youth,” Sam had written.
I was just thinking that if I had been a public pumpkin pincher, Sam would have run a graphic of a jack-o’-lantern with my face on it. Just then his parents got back in their car, and I tailed them to the parking lot of a law firm. They appeared to argue for a few minutes before going inside.
I hooked a tape recorder up to my cell phone and used the next hour to call some of the gun felons. I identified myself as a Channel 3 reporter and said I was surveying some firearm owners about how well they thought the carry permit system worked. Already three had confirmed they owned guns.
I hung up on a fourth when a young woman carrying a toddler pushed through the front door of the law firm and headed for the parking lot. They looked like the same mother-child pair who had dropped the flowers off for me at the station.
Sam’s parents chased them through the parking lot. His mother and father moved fairly slowly, but the woman had to buckle her child into a car seat. So the contest for them to reach her vehicle before she started the ignition was essentially a tie.
Sam’s mother seemed to be pleading. I unrolled my car window and tried to listen.
“Let me hold him,” she begged. “I’m his nana!”
The child was crying. His mom was telling Sam’s mom to keep back.
Sam’s dad pulled at his wife’s arm. “You’re scaring him,” he told her, then said something about “later” and “lawyer.”
The young woman, Daisy, I presumed, gunned the accelerator, leaving them standing alone.
I turned my key, intending to follow someone, though I hadn’t yet decided which one. Then I saw Jeremy Gage leaving the building. I pulled up alongside him, unlocked the door, and gestured for him to get in.
He hesitated, surprised to see me, considering that the happenings inside were technically none of my business.
“Come on, Jeremy,” I urged him with a smile. “We need to talk.”
He sighed and climbed in, but the first words out of his mouth were not promising. “It’s complicated.”
Just then, Sam’s parents’ car started to move, and I found my attention torn between the man in the seat next to me and the couple getting away. I gave their vehicle a two-block lead out of the parking lot, then took off after them.
“Hey, stop the car,” Jeremy said. “Let me out.”
“Later. I need to keep them in sight.”
Again, Sam’s parents drove conservatively, making them easy to follow. Rush hour was just starting, so I stuck to their bumper to avoid getting caught at a light.
“Scrunch down a little bit,” I advised Jeremy. “Just in case they recognize you.”
He refused, so I handed him a Notre Dame baseball cap I kept in the car just for undercover emergencies. He gave an exasperated sigh but donned it.
“So what happened in there?” I asked.
“It’s complicated,” he repeated.
“I’m a smart reporter,” I told Jeremy. “No matter how complicated this mess is, I’m confident I can follow it.”
He paused, like he was trying to figure out just where to begin.
“How about if you start out telling me whose kid that was?” I said. “Or should I save time and suggest it was Sam’s?”
He shrugged but didn’t say anything.
“Don’t make me play twenty questions, Jeremy. Or you’ll never get home in time for dinner.”
Two months ago, he explained, Sam had stopped at Daisy’s flower shop for the first time since they’d broken up nearly two years ago. He needed a bouquet delivered and thought enough time had passed that he could give her the business without a fuss. The baby was asleep in a playpen by the cash register.
“Sam did the math and decided he was the father,” Jeremy said. “But Daisy refused to discuss it.”
“The Sam Pierce I knew didn’t seem the paternal type.”
“He felt it might be his only chance to raise a child. He thought he could do a better job than his own parents did.” He said Sam hired a lawyer, demanded a DNA test, and vowed a custody fight for visitation.
I followed Sam’s dad onto a freeway ramp, hoping they weren’t driving the six hours back to Chicago tonight.
“Is this why you two broke up?” I asked.
“He felt his odds in family court were improved without me.”
“Brutal.”
Jeremy nodded.
“So why were you at this legal meeting?” I asked.
“I handled Sam’s finances.”
He explained that Sam died without a will. Under the law, if baby Jimmy was his son, Jimmy would inherit the entire estate. If Sam was not his father, the estate would go to his parents. Estranged or not.
“Sam’s mother is praying for a DNA match,” he said. “She’d rather have a grandchild than the money.”
“Can’t be much money,” I said. After all, Sam worked for a newspaper—a dying industry. I noted some symmetry.
Then Jeremy informed me that Sam actually had a considerable estate from all his speechwriting.
“What speeches?” Occasionally I spoke before civic groups or journalism classes, and all that usually netted me was a thank-you and perhaps a luncheon buffet. The long-term hope was that the audience would become Channel 3 viewers.
“Sam wrote speeches for many corporate executives. General Mills. Best Buy. Medtronic. 3M. His rate was ten grand.”
The number was such a surprise, I almost rear-ended the vehicle driven by Sam’s dad. I slammed on my brakes, skidded to safety, then looked to see if Jeremy was joking. He wasn’t.
“That rate seems on the high end to me,” I said.
“I’ve seen the checks. Apparently he was worth it.”
I asked who, for example, Sam had written for recently and was impressed when Jeremy named a top CEO.
“He also wrote speeches for some politicians, but not very often.”
I was about to point out that such moonlighting might have posed a serious conflict of interest for Sam’s “Piercing Eyes” column when his parents suddenly slowed down for an exit off the freeway. I hung back as they turned onto a frontage road. When they pulled into a hotel parking lot, I pulled into a gas station across the street and watched them carry luggage inside.
Jeremy used that opportunity to open the car door and tell me he was catching a cab.