Authors: Michael Koryta
When
the drive curled around its final bend and came out at the base of the hill
that hid the house, I stopped and scanned the trees, searching for her. I gave
it a careful study, made absolutely certain she wasn't in sight, and then continued
forward. I'd taken at least five steps toward the hill when I finally realized
she was at the door.
I
hadn't seen her at first because the door was beneath that stone arch, covered
in shadows, and she was no longer standing. She was kneeling before the door,
and as I walked closer, in slow, silent strides, I saw that her head was bowed
and her arm extended, her palm resting on the oaken door.
It
was her. Other women might make a trip out to this home before the sun rose,
but none would drop to their knees and touch its door as if at an altar.
Alexandra
had come home.
I
stopped walking when I was about thirty feet from her, stood and waited. She
held her position for a while, maybe a minute, maybe two. Didn't move at all,
didn't make a sound, just knelt there with her head bowed and her hand on the
door. When she finally moved it was to rub her hand gently across the wood, and
then she got to her feet and turned and saw me.
"It's
a beautiful house," I said. "One of a kind. Do you miss it—"
Her
eyes left me and flicked to either side, searching for others.
"I'm
alone," I said, "and I don't intend to bring you any trouble. I would
just like to hear you talk for a while. I'd like you to tell me some things. I need
that very much."
She
stepped away from the door, out of the stone arch and into the light, toward
me. She was not tall, no more than five foot two or three, with a slender build
and graceful movements. When she came closer I saw that much remained from the
face that had stared at me in photographs—the fine bones and small nose and
mouth, the impossibly dark eyes. Her hair was different, chopped short and
close to her skull, but for the most part she looked the same.
"I
wear a wig most of the time," she said, watching me study her. "I
have glasses even though I don't need them. They're clear, no prescription. I
wear makeup now when I never used to, lots of eyeliner and foundation and other
junk that I just hate to put on my face."
She
came to within a few feet of me, then tilted her head, frowned at me, and said,
"You're Lincoln."
I
hadn't been mentioned in any newspaper article; there was no public record of
my involvement with any of the cases surrounding this woman.
"How
do you know that—"
She
ignored me, turned and looked over her shoulder at the door.
"You
were right," she said. "It is a beautiful home, and I do miss it. I
miss it terribly, the house and all of the other things I left behind. The life
I left behind."
"Alexandra,"
I said, "how do you know my name—"
"From
Ken Merriman."
I
stood still and silent and stared at the calm set of her face. Then I said,
slowly and carefully, "You don't mean that you spoke to Ken
Merriman."
"Of
course I do," she said. "I hired him."
The sentence
left her lips almost carelessly and struck me like lead.
"You
hired Ken Merriman—" I said. "You
hired
him—"
She
nodded.
"No,"
I said. "Joshua's parents hired him. That was in the papers. He'd been
looking for you for twelve years."
"He
looked for me for about nine months," she said, "and then he found
me.
"Explain
it," I said. It felt hard to get the words out.
"You
understand how it began. Joshua's parents hired him. If there is one thing I
felt worst about in all of this, it's the uncertainty they had to deal with.
That was terrible, I'm sure. They were not kind people, and Joshua's
relationship with them had been a painful and difficult one, but that was not
enough to justify what I did."
She
fell silent for a few seconds before saying, "There's probably no way for
people to understand the decisions I made. All I can say is that once I was
gone, once it was already under way, I wasn't brave enough to return. There was
nothing that could be done to bring Joshua back, not for me or for them."
"Tell
me about Ken," I said. The sun was beginning to show pink through the
trees. I could hear the birds and the wind but nothing of the road. "How
did he find you—"
"The
same way you did."
"He
watched the house—"
"He
asked everyone he talked with about the words by the door, the inscription
that's carved there. Everyone told him they'd not seen the carving until we
were gone, and he believed that it had been left as an epitaph. He was right,
of course."
She
lifted her hand and waved at the eastern sky, now beginning to glow red with
the rising sun. "Let's walk up top, okay— I loved to sit up there and
watch the sunrise. It's just gorgeous."
She
moved without waiting for my response, walked around to the side of the hill
and started up, following a flagstone path that was now almost completely
submerged in weeds. I followed.
When
we got to the top of the hill, she moved over to the old well house and leaned
against its side, facing the sun. Again I marveled at how completely hidden the
house was, nothing but grass and soil evident beneath our feet, only the lip of
a stone wall indicating the drop-off on the other side where the windows looked
out on the pond. I walked to within a few feet of her and stood silently, arms
folded, waiting. She seemed at ease, and for a while she just looked off at the
sunrise and did not speak. When she finally broke the silence, she didn't
bother to turn around.
"How
many days have you been watching—"
"Quite
a few."
She
nodded. "This was going to be my last visit, you know. It will have to be.
The house will have new owners soon. I can't very well come by then."
"If
you know everything that's happened, why didn't you announce yourself, prove
that you're still alive and keep the home— Why would you let it be sold—"
She
didn't answer.
"Did
you kill him—" I said.
Now
she turned, wounded. "Of course I didn't kill him. Joshua— I loved him so
much. So very dearly."
"Then
what are you hiding from—"
She stepped
away from the well house and dropped down to sit in the grass, cross-legged. It
was tall grass, rising well above her waist, but she settled into it
comfortably and pushed her sleeves up on her forearms. She was wearing dark
jeans and a gray fleece jacket, and there were simple silver bracelets on both
wrists. She had to be near fifty now, but she looked like a college student
settling down outside of a dormitory. If she weighed more than a hundred and
ten pounds I would've been stunned, and her skin was weathered but still
smooth, every thin wrinkle looking as if it belonged and added something that
you'd miss otherwise.
"Are
you going to continue standing—" she said, looking up at me. "It
makes me uncomfortable."
So I
sat in the grass with her, felt the moisture of day-old rain leave the ground
and soak through my jeans, and watched the sun rise behind her as she told me
the story.
Alexandra's
life was shaped very much by her father's, by the world of crime and violence
that had surrounded her childhood. The money he'd left was something she'd
viewed as an embarrassment at first and then decided to reinvest into the
reentry program. Her vision for Whisper Ridge as a sort of work farm had not
received the funding or support it needed. She decided to operate at a smaller
level and use success to grow the operation in the future. It was at this point
that she began to feel her husband's resistance.
"Joshua
was not a direct man in times of conflict," she said. "He wouldn't
come out and tell me flatly that he didn't want to open our home to this, but I
knew it was the case, and I pushed ahead anyhow. I thought he believed in the
ideals, and that time would take care of the rest. It was a selfish thing to
do, maybe. I've wondered about that a lot, and I think that it probably was,
but at the time I could not imagine… I'm sure you know I could not imagine what
would come."
What
came was an increasingly troubled marriage. Alexandra's version of events
meshed well with John Dunbar's. She described Joshua as growing withdrawn and
distrustful. Then Parker Harrison was hired, a move that exacerbated the
problem at Whisper Ridge.
"My
relationship with Parker was very close," she told me. "I'd say that of
all of them, of course, but not to the same level. Parker and I, we were
similar spirits. I found his story truly tragic."
"I
believe the family of his victim would agree," I said.
She
stopped speaking and looked at me with a frown that was more sad than
disapproving.
"To
say one is not to dismiss the other," she said. "Can you understand
that—"
"Can
I hear the rest of the story—"
"As
I said, my relationship with Parker was special. We were so close. I think that
fueled the resentment that was already in Joshua."
"You
say your relationship with Harrison was special. Was it also sexual—"
"No,
no, no. Absolutely not. Although during the first six months Parker was with
us, Joshua's personality changed. I now understand this was when he was in
contact with the FBI and being pressured to inform on my brother, but I didn't
back then."
"It
wasn't the FBI," I said. "It was one retired agent with some bad
ideas."
"Nevertheless,
my husband was withdrawing, and I finally began to understand just how much
damage had been done. Then we began to discuss who would replace Parker, and
Joshua told me that he wanted to do the interviews and make the offer, which
was something I'd always handled in the past. I was confused by that but agreed,
because I was so happy to see his enthusiasm returning. Then he decided on
Salvatore Bertoli, who was very far from the profile we'd agreed upon at the
start."
"You
didn't know Bertoli was associated with your brother—"
"No.
Salvatore didn't know who I was, either, because my name was Cantrell, and my
brother and I were not close. We saw each other, but only rarely, and we did
not discuss his… associates. All of that is in the past, though. My brother's
crimes. He served two years, and when he got out his life changed. He kept no
ties. Many who would've posed the greatest problems to him were in prison
themselves, and the others accepted his desire to step away. My brother has not
been involved with a crime in fifteen years."
"There
are police who would dispute that," I said. "I've met some of
them."
Her
arms unfolded and she leaned forward. "What proof did they show— What
evidence— What did they tell you that was current, not historic—"
"Nothing,"
I said, and then, as the satisfaction crossed her face, "but some of those
historic
events included murder. There are people who feel those things are
unresolved."
The
satisfaction disappeared, and she dropped her eyes again. "I'm sure that's
true. All I can tell you is that he's not been involved in anything criminal in
years, that he's led a life that benefits others. He's a businessman now, a
generous one. You should see the charities—"
"All
due respect," I said, "I'm not here to evaluate your brother's
tithing history. I'm glad you don't think he's killed anyone lately. I'd agree
that's progress, but it's not what I'm interested in."
I
expected that would get a rise, some defensiveness, but instead she just
considered me calmly. It was a gaze that made me uncomfortable, as if I fit
neatly into a mold she'd been studying her whole life and understood well. When
she began to speak again it was without rancor, leaving the subject of her
brother behind.
"I
was losing trust in my husband and had none in Salvatore. I felt bad things
coming into my home, and so I asked Parker to stay. I trusted him. That's the
decision that put Joshua over the edge. I didn't see it at the time, of course,
but apparently he'd had misgivings and was being bullied along by that FBI
agent, Dunbar. When I said I wanted Parker to stay, though, it incensed him,
and he decided to go ahead with it. The house became a very ugly place for a
while, a distrustful, silent place."