Authors: James Grippando
Liz slept late on Sunday. She’d had trouble falling asleep. Yesterday’s court appearance had given her the jitters. They’d lasted all day, keeping her up most of the night. Not even a bottle of Merlot had calmed her nerves. She’d never testified in court before. Jackson had told her she was terrific, but she didn’t have the stomach for it. Thankfully, Ryan’s lawyer hadn’t come after her. She knew that wouldn’t be the case, however, if the legal battle continued. Yesterday had been a victory for sure. But it had taught her something. She was far less interested in courtroom warfare than her lawyer was.
Still, she wasn’t about to back down. Last night, drifting in and out of near-sleep, her mind had wandered to places she hadn’t visited for some time—scenes from her childhood. She was at the Prowers County Fair, and she was nine years old. It was funny how so many of the games at the fair revolved around money, at least the way Liz remembered it. There used to be a flagpole smeared with grease, with a twenty-dollar bill taped on the top. Kids would line up all day to take a shot at climbing up for the prize. Liz was the one who got it. Instead of wearing old shorts like most of the kids, she’d worn a skirt with her bathing suit underneath, using it like a rag to wipe off the axle grease as she climbed so she wouldn’t slide down.
Her mother had slapped her face afterward. “What kind of stupid fool are you, Elizabeth? You don’t ruin a twenty-dollar skirt to get a twenty-dollar prize.” Liz understood the logic, but it seemed beside the point.
Nothing
could dim the feeling of winning that twenty bucks.
The phone rang on the nightstand. Liz rolled across the bed and answered. It was Sarah.
She sat up quickly, wiping the sleep from her eyes. She listened in shock as Sarah told her about Brent.
“Sarah, I had no idea.”
“Then why was your lawyer down here this morning?”
“Phil was in Piedmont Springs?”
“Came right to my house to offer me a deal. He wants me to help you squeeze more money out of my brother. Says you’ll give me a cut of whatever I can get you.”
Her mouth fell open. “Sarah, I swear to you, I never even talked to my lawyer about this. I wouldn’t. I would never try to turn you against Ryan. All I’m looking to get is my fair share. I’m not looking to destroy you guys.”
“I’d like to believe you.”
“You have to believe me. Please. Let’s work this out.”
Sarah fell silent for a moment. Finally, she said, “I’ll make you a deal.”
“What?”
“The way I see it, that snake you hired is going to cost us all a fortune. You’re going to spend a lot of money trying to get your share, Ryan is going to spend a fortune trying to protect the estate.”
Liz nodded to herself, seeing the logic. “Okay. I’m listening.”
“I think Jackson uses people. He used Brent. He’ll use you. And he won’t stop until every dime my father stashed away is lining the pockets of his three-piece suit.”
“He is aggressive.”
“He’s a shark, Liz. And he’s circling all of us.”
“What are you proposing?”
“From what I’ve been able to tell, it seems Dad wanted you to share in the family fortune. I’m willing to honor those wishes. On one condition. Fire Phil Jackson.”
“You want me to fire my lawyer?”
“Immediately. Jackson is going to screw everything up for everybody. And in the end, the only winners will be the lawyers.”
Liz said nothing, but she couldn’t disagree. For a split second she was nine years old again, thinking of that twenty-dollar skirt she’d ruined to get the twenty-dollar prize. One Pyrrhic victory was enough for anyone’s lifetime.
“Let me think about it,” said Liz. “This might just work.”
Amy drove nonstop back to Boulder, returning just after noon. Taylor was having a tea party in her room with Barbie. Amy was just in time to join them, but she was able to convince Taylor that the affair was much too formal for someone who had traveled clear across the state without showering. Taylor pinched her nose, hugged her as if she were covered with garlic, and sent her mommy marching off to the bathroom.
Amy had just about made a clean getaway when she heard Gram’s voice.
“Not so fast, young lady.”
Gram was leaning against the headboard, read
ing in bed. Amy was almost too tired to talk, but that was irrelevant to her grandmother. She wasn’t about to settle for the
Reader’s Digest
version, let alone a simple “Tell you later.” It took thirty minutes, but Amy sat obediently at the foot of the bed and recounted every detail. She even let Gram read the letter. At first it was difficult, but telling the story seemed to energize her. By the time she’d finished, her second (or perhaps third) wind had kicked in and she was ready to brainstorm.
“Why would Marilyn make the whole thing up?” asked Amy.
“Why does any woman make a false accusation of rape? Maybe they had sex and he dumped her. Maybe she got pregnant and couldn’t tell her parents she’d engaged in consensual sex. This was the 1950s, after all. Marilyn did come from a very proper family. Her grandfather founded the biggest law firm in Colorado.”
“But the letter doesn’t explain any of that.”
“Probably because Frank Duffy
knew
why she had lied. He just never was able to prove it.”
“What does this prove, though? It’s just a letter from my mother saying that Marilyn was never actually raped by Frank Duffy.”
Gram took another look at the letter. “It’s more than that. It says Marilyn and your mother attended their twenty-fifth high school reunion together. They had a few drinks, got to talking about old boyfriends. And then Marilyn admitted to your mother that Frank Duffy didn’t rape her.”
“What’s the difference?”
“To me, it makes the letter more believable. It’s not a secret your mother kept bottled up for twenty-five years and then, for no apparent reason, she decided to write a letter to Frank Duffy. She
apparently wrote this letter not too long after Marilyn told her the truth.”
“Do you believe she wrote the letter?”
“What reason would I have to doubt that?”
Amy took the letter back. “I don’t think the handwriting looks all that much like Mom’s. Look at it. It’s shaky.”
Gram took another look. “There could be any number of reasons for that. Maybe she wrote it the night she came back from the reunion, when it was fresh in her mind. She could have been dead tired or even drunk.”
“Or scared,” said Amy.
“Scared of what?”
“This was a very courageous thing to do. Marilyn Gaslow was married to Joe Kozelka at the time. That’s a pretty intimidating duo. Not everyone would do the right thing under those circumstances.”
“Meaning what, Amy?”
“Meaning that she might have feared some retaliation. She could have been afraid…afraid for her life.”
Gram groaned. “Now you’re going off the deep end again.”
Amy was even more serious. “I don’t think so. Look at the evidence. I never believed Mom really killed herself. Not the way she talked to me that night, the way the door was tied shut even though she knew I could crawl out through the attic. I never knew why anyone would want to kill her. But this letter—that’s a reason, isn’t it?”
“Nobody killed your mother, Amy. Your mother killed herself.”
“I don’t believe it. She wasn’t the type to just check out on an eight-year-old daughter.”
“Amy, we’ve been over this so many times. Your mother was terminally ill with a very aggressive cancer. By the time she took her life, she had only weeks to live.”
“According to one doctor. Another gave her as long as three months.”
“Who told you that?”
“Marilyn. Years ago.”
“That’s not
her
place,” snapped Gram.
“Wrong. It’s not
your
place to keep things like that from me. The longer Mom had to live, the less likely it was she killed herself.”
“You’re grasping at straws.”
Her eyes blazed with anger. “Just because you’re convinced it was suicide doesn’t give you the right to hide the true facts from me.”
“I just didn’t want you to see your mother as a coward who left her little girl sooner than she had to. How can you fault me for that?”
“Because she’s my
mother
, that’s why. I have a right to know what happened.”
“And I had a responsibility. I didn’t want you to end up in counseling all your life. I was just looking out for you.”
“Well, damn it, just
stop
already. I’m twenty-eight years old. Stop treating me as if I were Taylor’s age!”
Tears welled in Gram’s eyes. “I’m sorry. It was a decision I made for your own good.”
“Let
me
make those decisions,” she shouted, rising from the bed.
“At least let me explain.”
Amy felt the urge to bolt, but the weary look in Gram’s eyes wouldn’t allow it. She sat back down on the edge of the bed.
“When your father was killed in Vietnam…”
Her grandmother paused, struggling. “I had to know what happened to my son.”
Her voice was cracking. Amy touched her hand to console. Gram continued. “It wasn’t enough just to hear he’d been killed in action. I needed specifics. I asked everyone who knew him, other boys in his platoon. Most of them gave me vague answers. I wouldn’t stop until I found someone who would be completely honest with me. Finally, I found someone. To this day, I wish I never had. I thought it would give me closure to know exactly how it had happened.” She dabbed a tear, then looked her granddaughter in the eye. “There’s no closure in the details of violent death, Amy. Only nightmares.”
Amy leaned forward and embraced her. Gram squeezed back with all her strength, whispering in Amy’s ear, “You’re the child I lost, darling. I love you like my own.”
Amy shivered. It had surely come from the heart, but perhaps it was one of those self-evident sentiments that was awkward to articulate and best left unsaid. They hugged a little tighter, then Amy tried to pull away. But she couldn’t move.
Gram would not let go.
“Mommy?”
Amy broke away at the sound of Taylor’s voice. She was standing in the doorway, wearing Gram’s big pink apron. “What, sweetheart?”
“Are you coming to my tea party now?”
She smiled. “Mommy still has to shower.”
Gram grabbed her by the dangling apron strings.
“Come here, Taylor. Let me tie your apron before you trip and hurt yourself.”
It was too big to tie in the back, the way it was supposed to tie. She wrapped it around Taylor’s
waist and tied it in the front. Taylor watched carefully, still at the age where something as simple as tying a knot was utterly intriguing.
“You tie funny,” said Taylor.
Amy said, “That’s because Gram is right-handed. You’re left-handed, like me. And like my mommy was.” She stopped for a second, as if struck by lightning.
Gram watched with concern. “Taylor, go check on Barbie. I’ll be there in a second.”
“Okay,” she said as she hurried from the room.
Gram asked, “Amy, what’s going on in that head of yours?”
“The knot.”
“What knot?”
“I was just thinking about the rope that was tied to my bedroom door—that kept me in the room the night Mom died. The theory is that Mom tied me in my room so I wouldn’t find the body after she killed herself.”
“Right.”
“If she tied the knot, then it would have been tied the way a left-handed person tied it.”
“Nobody ever said it wasn’t.”
“But did anyone ever say it
was
?”
Gram just sat there, silent.
“I didn’t think so.” Amy looked off to the middle distance, deep in thought. Finally, she glanced back at her grandmother. “I have to go back there.”
“Back where?”
“Our old house.”
“That’s crazy. You don’t even know who lives there now.”
“I have to try. Don’t you see? I’m not saying I’m going to go back and remember which way a little knot was tied. But this just drives home the point
that I’m missing the details. If I could just remember more about that night, maybe that would resolve the questions I have. Going back there is the only way I can think of to jar my memory.”
“Amy, accept what I’m telling you. Your mother made a quick escape from a long and painful illness.”
“Lots of people get cancer and don’t kill themselves.”
“That may be. But doesn’t what I just told about your father mean anything?”
“Yes,” she said sincerely. “It means we’re all different. Some of us are better off not knowing. Some of us would rather die than carry on without knowing. You’ve known me all my life. Deep in your heart, which kind of person do you really think I am?”
Gram showed no encouragement, but the fight had drained from her eyes. “All right. But I’m going with you.”
Marilyn lacked focus. That was the consensus opinion of her prep session experts. They offered numerous explanations for her subpar performance. She was too serious. She was too flip. She was overprepared. She was underprepared. All of them were off the mark.
Way off the mark.
It was only midafternoon, and already Marilyn had been at it for a full eight hours. A fresh group of interrogators had replaced the morning team at lunchtime. The procedure had remained the same, however, and it was getting tedious. Each member of the mock Senate Judiciary Committee would ask a question. Marilyn would answer. The experts would critique. It was enough to fry a woman with a clear head. It was unbearable for someone as preoccupied as Marilyn.
“Let’s take a break,” said Marilyn.
“Second,” shouted one of the mock committee members. The chairman banged his coffee cup like a gavel, and the others eagerly shifted out of role. Some stood up and stretched, while the others drifted toward the leftover sandwiches and chocolate chip cookies at the lunch buffet table. Marilyn headed in the other direction.
“You’re doing great, Marilyn,” said her consultant.
Marilyn forced a smile. She knew she was lying. “Thanks. If you don’t mind, I think I’m going to lie down for about a half hour. Clear my head.”
“Excellent idea. We won’t go much longer today. I promise.”
“Good,” she said, then headed back to her bedroom.
The walk down the hall was her first real opportunity to think. The effect was immediate. Her headache was back before she even reached the bedroom door.
She stepped inside the master and closed the door. This time she locked it.
The bedroom was her sacred sanctuary, a place for retreat. More than any other place, it reflected her own tastes and preferences. Here, she didn’t need the power look of her corner office. She didn’t even feel the decorating constraints that governed the rest of the house, where furniture was arranged to accommodate party flow and rugs were selected on the basis of whether they were resistant to red wine and shrimp sauce. This was her space, and hers alone. There had been men, of course, some of whom she wished she had never invited. But that was the point. Pleasant or not, they had been
invited
. This morning’s fax was altogether different. In this room, nothing could have been more intrusive.
She opened the top drawer of the nightstand and removed the fax. The choice of venue was interesting. Cheesman Dam. It wasn’t the makeout spot Cherry Creek Dam was for Denver teenagers in the fifties, but it was one of the more remote spots to watch the proverbial submarine races. Marilyn hadn’t been there in over forty-five years, since she was fifteen. Her one and only visit. She
and her boyfriend, Joe Kozelka, on a double date with Joe’s friend Frank and some ditz named Linda. The four of them had taken a day trip down to Pikes Peak in Frank’s car, as Joe didn’t have a license yet. Two other couples followed in another car. On the way back to Boulder, they stopped at Cheesman Dam, sharing a bottle of hundred-proof Southern Comfort as the sun set. They ended up staying longer than they’d planned. Longer than they should have.
The headache was getting worse. Her temples were throbbing, and a blinding light pierced her eye. It felt like a migraine. She tried to focus on the pillow across the room, but it only made her dizzy. Her mind swirled with memories. She shook her head, trying not to go there, but it was too late. The woozy feeling, the blurred vision—it was much the way she’d felt more than four decades ago on that warm summer night in the back seat of Frank Duffy’s Buick…
“I’m
drunk
!” Marilyn snorted as she laughed, smiling widely.
“I’m
glad
,” said Joe. He took a swig straight from the bottle of Southern Comfort, then moved closer.
Marilyn scooted forward. The view through the windshield brought a gleam to her eyes. Cheesman was an old stone masonry dam that rose more than two hundred and twenty feet above the streambed below. Tonight, the moon hung low over the gaping canyon. Bright stars blanketed the sky. They glistened off the placid waters of the reservoir behind the dam. With all she’d had to drink, it was hard to tell where the stars ended and their reflection began. “So pretty,” she said. “Let’s go for a walk.”
“That’s a great idea,” said Joe. “Frank, why don’t you and Linda go first.”
Frank was resting comfortably behind the wheel, his girlfriend’s head on his shoulder. “I don’t want to go for—”
Joe thumped him on the back of the head, knocking sense into him. Frank looked back and glared, then smiled thinly. “You know,” said Frank, “I could use some air. Let’s go, Linda.”
The door opened. Frank and his date slid out. The door slammed shut. Marilyn and Joe were alone in the backseat.
“Let’s go, too,” said Marilyn.
He took her arm and stopped her. “Have some more to drink.”
“I don’t want any more.”
“Just have some.”
“It’s making me kind of sick.”
“That’s because you’re mixing in too much Seven-Up. You have to drink some straight whiskey. If you don’t get the right balance, you get sick. Come on. Drink up.”
“I don’t think I can drink it straight.”
“Don’t think about it. Just chug it.” He handed her the bottle. She hesitated. He tipped the neck toward her, helping it along. “Go on. Trust me, Marilyn. Just trust me.”
She brought the bottle to her lips. Her head went back. The whiskey touched her lips. It burned her throat. She wanted to stop, but Joe held her head back and kept the bottle in place. She swallowed once, twice. She was losing count. The burning stopped, but the whiskey kept flowing. She was feeling dizzy, then totally numb. She pushed the bottle away. She blinked to focus, but Joe was a blur. He was smiling and moving closer.
Her mouth moved, but she couldn’t even form a sentence in her head, let alone with her lips. Her body tingled, then she lost all sensation as her head rolled back and the lights went out…
Marilyn opened her eyes. She was lying on the bed. The headache had lessened somewhat. Slowly, she sat up and glanced across the room. She could see again. Her gaze landed upon the fax machine across the room. The receiving bin was empty, which came as a relief. No more threats.
It
was
a threat, she’d decided. On the heels of her appointment, there was no other way to interpret it. The timing could not be coincidence. The header on the fax said it was from the 719 area code, which included Piedmont Springs. At the lunch break she’d confirmed it was from a drugstore in Prowers County, one of those places that will let anyone send a fax for a couple of bucks. She figured it had to be from
someone
in the Duffy family, which could not be good. True, the message was vague. It didn’t say, “Do this, or else.” But it didn’t have to be explicit to be threatening. And she knew what she was supposed to do if ever she felt threatened.
She drew a deep breath, then picked up the phone and dialed Joe Kozelka.