| |
It was Thanksgiving morning and Phoebe had her UHIGH blanket, a thermos of coffee, and pom poms in the school's colors. Keith was meeting her on the bleachers and for the first time in 11 years, she was going to sit in the stadium and watch her parents' alma mater play.
Keith had also invited her to eat dinner with his parents that evening, but she just couldn’t do that. She was afraid that she would see pictures of Louis or get in a fight with his mother. It wasn’t worth it. Louis survived the removal of the tumor and the rounds of chemo and radiation. He was headed back to prison. She wondered if hospital turkey was better or worse than prison turkey.
Keith promised her that they would have their own Thanksgiving celebration after the school break. She was looking forward to cooking a little turkey and playing house with her honey. Larissa emailed her a recipe for easy pumpkin mousse, she was going to test out.
After the game today, Phoebe was going to bring Keith back to her dorm room since Joan was already home for the holiday. Then they would have to get a lot of loving in to tide them over for the four days that they would be apart.
As much as it felt like a betrayal, though, Phoebe was grateful for the small break from everything. She’d have the dorm room to herself, and she was going to spend four blissful days not thinking about Louis Freeman or her parents. Things had been a little tense ever since Keith gave her Louis' letters to read. Her first reaction was to start a bonfire and toss them in unread.
But curiosity got the better of her and she read them. The first one started off:
Dear Phoebe,
I am so glad you're alive. Your mother would have been so proud of you. She loved you very much. I hope you can find it in your heart to forgive me.
"Fuck you," was her reaction to the plea for forgiveness.
Louis went on in his letter, explaining almost verbatim what he told Keith.
We all would have had a very nice life together. I think about that a lot. I have a Hawaii calendar in my cell and when I get lonely, I dream of things that might have been.
“Good for you.” She handed that letter back to Keith so if the D.A. wanted to open the case again, he would have a signed confession. Personally, she didn't see the point. Jarvis was dead. Her parents were dead. Soon Louis would be too, an extra murder charge on his record or not. Hell, he could kill ten more people and the bottom line of his sentence would never change.
That really sucked.
The rest of the letters were more of the same pity me, ‘I’m the real victim,’ bullshit. Still, when he talked about her mother, she got the feeling that he really had cared for her.
Debra’s smile lit up the room. She was kindness personified. I think I fell in love with her the first time I saw her. She was wearing an apron and was baking you applesauce cookies.
Phoebe’s throat tightened. She remembered those cookies. Over ten years later, she could practically taste them as they came out of the oven.
She tucked the letters away in a drawer in her dorm room. One of these days, she would destroy them, but for whatever reason she just couldn’t do it yet. It didn’t stop her from investigating Louis’ story, though. Just because her mother was sleeping with him, didn’t mean she plotted murder against her husband.
Phoebe tracked down her father's mistress. It hadn't been Tamara Linn, after all. But Tamara did know who it was. As clichéd as it was, her father had been banging his secretary, Nancy. Nancy had caved as soon as she saw Phoebe. Admitted to the affair, apologized profusely, groveled. Phoebe assured her that she didn't care about any of that, just stuck to her story that she missed her father and wanted to connect in any way with someone who knew him.
Nancy sat her down with a pot of tea and fed her while she talked about her father. The poor woman was still in love with him. She showed her pictures of a vacation they took together when her mother thought they were at a lawyer's convention in Myrtle Beach. Her father looked relaxed and happy. But he didn't look like her father. Phoebe wondered if she had forgotten the details of his face or if he just had two lives and she wasn't a part of this one.
“He did have a nasty temper, as I’m sure you remember.” Nancy was slim and beautiful in a helpless butterfly sort of way. She was so unlike her mother, it almost made sense that he was having an affair. Her father could have the best of both worlds. A strong, independent woman at home and a meek, submissive one on the side.
Phoebe had played along, fiddling with her teacup. “Did he...did he ever hit you?”
Nancy had sucked in a breath. “I don’t like to speak ill of the dead.” But then she reached out and touched Phoebe’s necklace. “Wait here,” she said.
What the?
Nancy had gone upstairs and then came back down wearing an identical pearl necklace. “It was how he apologized, wasn’t it?”
When Phoebe could only gawk, goose bumps popping up on her arms, Nancy went on with the story.
“He had just lost a major case and was blaming everyone. He had done the best he could. Sometimes, you just can’t predict how the jury is going to swing.” Nancy sighed. “I made the mistake of trying to talk him down. I got him a drink, sat on his lap.” She shook his head. “It just brought his attention to me. I suppose I should have known better. But he was devastated after. Promised he’d never do it again.”
“Did he?” Phoebe croaked.
Nancy shrugged and looked away. “That hardly matters now. I’m glad you don’t hate me. I was never allowed to come to the house. But he showed me pictures of you. He loved you very much.”
Phoebe had to take a break from being girl detective after that. She went back to writing about kinky shower sex and how it’s important to put down a non-slip pad on the floor of the bathtub. She rubbed her head where she banged it. Keith made a joke that sex must give her a headache.
She looked around the stadium, but didn’t see him. She hoped nothing was wrong. She sent him a quick text.
I’m by the fifty-yard line, mid way up. i lub u.
It was their little thing now. He said it again when he wasn’t drunk and it had filled in all the cracks of her heart. She still worried that it was going to be snatched away in a heartbeat. Like right now, her heart was pounding. What if he had been in an accident? But then he texted back:
I just parked. BRT. ILU2.
It wasn’t love poetry in French, like Maryanne got from her boyfriend, but to Phoebe it meant the world. Especially because of all the stress the thesis and his uncle had placed on their relationship.
Keith hadn't been sitting on his thumb either these past few weeks. His investigation centered more on his aunt. He was able to check the books around the time period. Both Louis Freeman and Martin Jarvis had made a service call to Phoebe's old house. Martin Jarvis was one of Louis's helpers. Keith's Aunt Sally didn't like him. She thought he was a thug who had a problem with women. She had fired him a few weeks before the murder.
Phoebe had asked Keith how his aunt knew his uncle was having an affair and he said the usual ways, lipstick stains, perfume on his clothes, and oh and a half used pack of rubbers in his work locker. Aunt Sally was on the pill. Keith didn't tell his aunt that he knew who his uncle's mistress was, but Aunt Sally had her own ideas and gave him a list to chase down. Luckily, her mother’s name hadn’t been on the list.
“Sorry I’m late,” Keith said, stepping through a few people to climb up to the bleacher she was sitting on.
“It’s okay,” she said, pouring him a cup of coffee while he spread the UHIGH BRO? blanket over both of them. “Is there something wrong?”
Keith averted his eyes. “Nope. All good.”
“Lying through your teeth,” she said, lightly. But it hurt that he did it.
He sighed. “Can I tell you after the game? I don’t want to ruin this.”
“Too late,” Phoebe said. “If you don’t tell me, I’m going to stew about it all game.”
The marching band started up on the field and a twinkle of nostalgia came over her. Keith leaned in and said in her ear, “Louis escaped from the hospital.”
Her cup fell from her nerveless fingers and splashed hot coffee on the people below them.
“Hey, watch it!” The man turned, yelling.
Phoebe shrieked and pulled back, seeing Louis Freeman. But it wasn’t him.
“Calm down, lady. Jesus.” The man brushed at his coat while Keith tried to clean off the coffee with the blanket.
By the time everyone had settled down and the players for both teams were being announced, Phoebe had gotten herself under control.
“Sorry,” she said to Keith. “Sorry,” she said louder to the man in front of them, who just waved his hand in disgust at her. “Sorry,” she whispered again.
Keith put his arm around her.
“How could he have escaped? He’s a convicted murderer?”
“From what they told us, he pretended to be weaker than he was. He faked a fall, one of the guards caught him. He took the guard’s gun and held him hostage as he left the floor. He killed him.”
Phoebe stifled a scream, staring at Keith in shock. “When was this?”
“This morning. The staff was light because of the holiday. He shot the guard in the stairwell and then just walked to another floor and disappeared. They locked down the hospital. It’s possible that he’s still in there.”
“Where do you think he’s going?”
“Who the hell knows? Hawaii maybe?” Keith rubbed her shoulders. “He’s not coming here. He has no idea where you are.”
“Are you sure you didn’t tell him we went to the same college?”
“I didn’t tell him anything about you.”
She blew out a shaky breath.
“But I think you should come home with me after the game.”
“No way, what if he goes there?”
“He won’t. Besides if he does, there are a half a dozen police cars in our neighborhood.”
Phoebe shook her head. “No. I’m not changing my plans just because Louis Freeman is on the prowl. He has no idea how to even start looking for me.” She glared up at him. “Did you tell your Mom about me?”
“I told her I had a girlfriend and I was looking forward to introducing you to her soon. I wanted to wait until Louis was either dead or back behind bars.”
“Did you think something like this could happen?”
“No. He looked like he was dying. The surgery should have weakened him. And if that didn’t, then the chemotherapy and the radiation should have leveled him.”
“What’s his end game?” Phoebe asked, as Highland College kicked off to Prattsville State University.
“Get away with murder? Hell, maybe he’s heading down to Mexico as we speak. Vaya con Dios, asshole.”
“Where would he get the money?”
“He stole the guard’s wallet and credit cards. But even if he made it to an ATM before the cards were cancelled, he probably wouldn’t have been able to get more than a few thousand dollars in cash.”
“That would be enough for a train ticket to California. Then he could lay low until he stole enough to get a boat to Hawaii.”
“He could steal a boat.”
“Does he know how to pilot a boat through the Pacific Ocean?” Phoebe scoffed.
“It would be better than dying in a jail cell.”
“I hope you’re right,” she said. “I hope he’s on his way to Hawaii right now.”
“They’ll have a hard time catching him.”
“Cancer will get to him first,” Phoebe said, holding his hand.
“And you’re okay with that?”
“He’s going to die alone and in pain. Yeah,” she nodded. “I’m satisfied. I only hope they catch him before he kills someone else. He’s got no incentive not to.”
“That’s a chilling thought.”
“I’m done with your uncle. Let’s enjoy this game and them go back to my place to warm up.”
“Go UHIGH!” Keith shouted and waved his banner.
She didn’t feel like waving her pom poms. But then they scored a touchdown and she was on her feet with the rest of the home crowd.