“The woman in the river,” Dr. Huntley states. “I saw the news. Heard your 9-1-1 call on the news this morning.” My heart sinks. Not one of my finer moments I’m sure. He extends his hand, inviting me to take a seat. I sit, wanting so badly to examine every inch of his office, curious to learn more about my husband’s medical school friend. I’m afraid that I will miss what he is saying so I keep my eyes locked on his thin lips. “You were remarkably composed under the circumstances,” he says. “Not too many people would respond so calmly when unexpectedly faced with a dead body.”
I’m surprised but pleased with Dr. Huntley’s interpretation of the 9-1-1 call. While speaking with the dispatcher, I felt anything but calm and composed.
“Thank you,” I say.
“The woman you found. The woman in the river—did the police identify her yet?” he asks. I know there is a good chance that Dr. Huntley knows Gwen too, but if the police haven’t made an official announcement as to who the victim is, I’m sure not going to.
“As far as I know they haven’t identified her yet.”
“So very sad,” he says. “I can’t imagine.” Dr. Huntley lifts a mug, leaving a damp ring behind. He says something else from behind the rim of his coffee cup and upon seeing my confusion, lowers it. “I’m sorry. I asked how you learned to read lips. You do very well.”
“Mostly by necessity, I guess. You learn the basics pretty quickly, but to have a true conversation with someone I needed to learn much more. I started by taking an online course.”
Dr. Huntley raises his eyebrows. “I never knew there was such a thing.”
“Yes, it was very helpful,” I explain. “I watched a series of videos, practiced, took quizzes. But that wasn’t enough. I work with a speech pathologist, as well.”
“David says you were an exceptional nurse,” Dr. Huntley says, leaning back in his chair.
“I still am,” I say, bristling at the past tense description of my abilities. “My licensing is up-to-date. I’m knowledgeable, reliable and good with my patients. For the past three months I have been working with my speech pathologist on my enunciation, medical terminology and scenarios that relate to patient care. I’m hoping to go back to nursing soon.”
“David’s a good judge of character,” Dr. Huntley says. “We graduated from med school together. Kept in touch ever since. Did he ever tell you how he came to practice medicine in Mathias?”
I figure it was because his ex-wife, Trista, was from here but I wasn’t about to say that to Dr. Huntley so I just shake my head.
“I grew up here and David came home with me one weekend from the University of Iowa. He fell in love with the town.” And Trista, I think, but he doesn’t mention her. “Said he was going to set up shop here one day and he did. Man of his word,” Dr. Huntley says.
“Yes,” I say out loud. To myself I add, except when it comes to sickness and health.
I know I’m not being fair. I put David and Nora through hell. And though I know our marriage is over, I want us to get along. I want to play a part in Nora’s life.
“We offer a variety of cancer treatments here, including chemotherapy, and we’re the only provider of radiation therapy in the tristate area—over twenty-five thousand procedures per year,” Dr. Huntley says, getting back to our interview. “We battle cancer aggressively.” My eyes are locked on his face. His passion is mesmerizing. “Patients have to be willing to trust me, trust my staff. That’s the only way they will get through the battle. They come here desperate for answers, desperate for help. They want someone to tell them what needs to be done to save their lives. My staff must be able to handle the most challenging and heartbreaking of cases and must be able to wake up each morning and do it all over again,” he says, his face filled with pride. I wonder if he’s married and has children. I look around his office for any photos or hand-drawn pictures. Nothing. It seems to me that his entire world is probably this clinic.
“I understand,” I say. “I’m reliable. Nothing will get in the way of my professional responsibilities. Nothing,” I add just in case any tales of my earlier public drinking displays have reached his ears.
“As a nurse you know how important it is to be a reassuring, soothing presence for patients.”
“I do know. I worked for fifteen years as an emergency room nurse and for three years as a sexual assault nurse examiner.” I feel my confidence grow. I can talk for hours about the cases I’ve seen in the ER, about the women and, while less common but no less violent, the men brutalized by domestic abuse.
Dr. Huntley tilts his head and regards me thoughtfully. “You can start on Monday. Right now I can offer you twenty hours of work per week. Eight to noon. You will do clerical work, filing, word processing and the like. Unfortunately, no patient care. But maybe one day. We’ll see.” He stands and smiles down at me and I realize that I have a job. Not a nursing position, but at least I’ll be working in a medical setting. A step in the right direction.
“Thank you, Dr. Huntley... Joseph,” I say gratefully as he walks me to his office door.
“Congratulations, Amelia. Glad to have you aboard.”
I stop by Barb’s office and she has me fill out the needed paperwork and hands me a piece of paper with an overview of my hours and the duties that I’ll be responsible for. A surge of anxiety rushes through me. Except for the time I spend with Nora and Jake I’ve become pretty adept at avoiding all people and social situations. Now I’ll have to interact with an office full of people I don’t know and for a moment I’m sure this is all a huge mistake.
“What about dogs?” I ask, thinking of Stitch. “I have a service dog that helps me with day-to-day tasks. He’s well-behaved and good with people. Do you think Dr. Huntley will be opposed to me bringing him to work?”
Barb hesitates, not sure how to respond. I’ve seen the same look on others when I bring Stitch into a place of business. Some people don’t think that dogs belong in the workplace or just don’t understand how important service pets are to their handlers. Stitch isn’t only my ears but a calming presence in a hearing world that I don’t belong to anymore.
I feel a hand on my elbow and I turn to find Dr. Huntley at my side. “Of course you can bring your dog. The more the merrier,” I read on his lips. “Just bring the paperwork in with you and I’ll see you on Monday.” He hands Barb a file folder and pats me on the arm before taking his leave. I can see why Dr. Huntley has such a good reputation in town for his bedside manner. I haven’t even started the job and already I feel like a part of the team. I push away the doubts that David has planted in my head. Maybe this will work out, after all. Maybe this really is a new beginning for me.
7
Whenever I had good news to share I’d call David. When I finished my training and got the job as a sexual assault nurse examiner with the county I called David. When I testified in my first court case that resulted in the conviction of a rapist, I called David. When I was named Health Care Worker of the Month at Queen of Peace I called David. I want to call him now, but he’s been clear that he isn’t thrilled about me working at the center. Instead, I decide to go to police headquarters to share my good news with Jake and to go over my story about finding Gwen’s body again.
The Mathias Police Department is like most of the buildings located in the downtown area. Old. Built in the 1850s, the Old Jail as it’s fondly called is on its last leg. An addition to the structure was erected in the 1940s, but crime in the area grew with the population of Mathias and the building will officially close in a few months when the newly constructed police department, located three blocks away, is scheduled to open. The Mathias Historical Society already has plans to transform the jail into a museum. I find a parking spot on the street in front of the jail and push through the front door. I forgo the elevator and take the steps up to the second floor where official police duties are conducted.
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The temperature inside the building is as cold as the air outside despite the steam rising from the cast-iron radiators that punctuate the hallway. A receptionist talking on the telephone sits behind a glass partition. Scuffed gray tiles lie beneath a charcoal industrial rug, and ash-colored walls add to the gloomy feel of the space. The receptionist, dressed in a thick woolen sweater, her nose tipped red and looking miserable, hangs up the phone and starts tapping on her computer. I know the office Jake shares with two other detectives is down the hallway and I can probably just walk right past her without her noticing me but I also know that is frowned upon.
Finally she looks up from the computer. “May I help you?”
“I’m here to see Detective Jake Schroeder,” I say.
“Your name, please?”
“Amelia Winn,” I answer, and this gets me a double take.
“You found the woman in the river,” she says.
“Yes,” I say, trying to sound patient. “Detective Schroeder wanted me to stop by to answer a few more questions.” She picks up her phone, speaks into it and within a minute, Jake pokes his head outside his office door and waves me toward him.
“Earhart,” he signs, “come on back.” He waves me into his office, a small cramped room that houses three desks, a coffeemaker, a portable whiteboard and a wall lined with mismatched file cabinets. The room is empty except for the two of us. Jake swipes a rolling chair from behind his neighbor’s desk and pulls it up to his.
“Is there any more news about Gwen?” I ask as I take a seat.
“Actually, a lot has happened. Marty Locke officially identified his wife’s body yesterday, just before she was sent to Des Moines for the autopsy. There’s going to be a press conference in about an hour to announce it.”
It’s still surreal. “I can’t believe it’s her. Do you know how she died yet?”
“She has a nasty wound on the back of her head,” Jake signs. “And from the mark around her neck that I saw when we pulled her from the river, my guess is she was strangled.”
I hadn’t noticed any injuries to Gwen’s neck when I found her and though I suspect she hadn’t died from natural causes, it’s disturbing to learn. “Who would do that?” I ask in disbelief. “Do you have any suspects?” I have no plans to stop hiking in the woods or walking along the river’s edge, but I’d sure feel a lot better knowing whoever killed Gwen was safely behind bars.
“The murderer—my bet is on the husband. It’s always the husband. We have some more work to do before we can make an arrest, though, but don’t even think about going out on the river alone until we arrest him, you hear me?” Jake says. I don’t like being told what to do, so I pretend I don’t know what he’s saying and I peel off my coat.
“What about the shoe Stitch found?” I ask. “Did it belong to Gwen?”
“We don’t think so. That’s one of the first things we checked out. Gwen wore a size seven and the shoe was a size nine.” Jake eyes me curiously. “Hey, why are you so dressed up?”
“Oh, just this little thing called a job interview,” I say coyly.
“At the cancer center? That was today? How’d it go?”
“I got the job,” I say with a smile.
“Of course you did. I didn’t doubt it for a second.” Jake stands and takes my hand and twirls me around on the chair’s casters. He spins me around faster like he did when we were kids playing on the merry-go-round, except back then his goal was to get me to tumble off and onto the ground.
When he stops we’re both laughing and I’m dizzy. It takes a few seconds for me to steady myself and the muscles in my cheeks ache. I haven’t smiled like this in months. When we emerge from his office the secretary raises her eyebrows knowingly and I begin to correct her misunderstanding but then stop. Let her think what she wants.
Jake walks me down the hall to the conference room for my follow-up interview with the certified interpreter and I spend the next hour going over everything I remember about yesterday morning. It’s no less heartbreaking the second time. When we’re finished, I sign my statement and Jake and I walk together out to my car.
“Let’s go celebrate tonight,” he signs once I’m in the driver’s seat and just about to shut the car door.
“Celebrate?” I repeat to give me time to process what Jake’s saying.
“Yeah, celebrate your new job. We could go out, get something to eat. Somewhere nice.” Jake looks down at me hopefully. Jake and I are friends: we go to sign language classes, go to an afternoon hockey game or two, even grab lunch once in a while, usually a burger at some dive bar near the police station. What we don’t do is go somewhere nice. I know much of the time Jake spends with me is out of a sense of duty. Jake and my brother, Andrew, are as close as brothers and my parents had always been like surrogate parents when his own couldn’t quite pull it together. I know because of this he feels obligated to keep an eye on me.
When I don’t respond right away, Jake backpedals. “Hey, another time.” He taps the top of my Jeep with a closed fist. “Talk to you later, Earhart.” He clasps his hands together and gives them one firm shake, the sign for congratulations.
I watch as Jake looks both ways for traffic before trotting across the street back to the police station. Is he just being a good friend offering to take me out to celebrate my new job? He knows that the majority of my friends ditched me when David did. Maybe he felt sorry for me having only Stitch to go home to, having no one else to share my good news with. But I think I might have seen a flash of disappointment in his eyes when I didn’t respond. For years I had hoped that Jake Schroeder would show some interest in me beyond friendship, but I was always Andrew’s little sister, then there was Sadie and then there was David.
Now there’s no Sadie, no David.
I drive away from the curb and travel three blocks before taking a detour in the parking lot of a pharmacy. I pull into a parking spot and take out my phone and before I change my mind I begin texting.
How about Lo Schiavio’s at six thirty? I’ll meet you there.
I wait for what feels like an eternity, staring at my screen. Finally, I give up and begin the twenty-five-minute drive back home. He is probably in the middle of questioning Gwen’s husband or is out on another call. It’s ridiculous for me to expect him to immediately respond to my text. Or, I think glumly, I had my chance and he thought better of the whole “going out to dinner on a grown-up date” thing. Or I’m insane and reading way too much into the invitation. I settle on the latter and decide that Stitch and I will celebrate on our own this evening with a pizza, hot chocolate minus the Baileys and a good mystery novel.
No pizza place will deliver to my house out in the boonies so I stop at a local restaurant and order a medium taco pizza buried in seasoned beef, lettuce, tomatoes, sour cream, taco chips and jalapeño peppers that make your eyes water. It takes a good twenty minutes for them to fix the pizza, so I sit in a dark corner of the restaurant and sip on a Diet Coke and pick up an abandoned newspaper, the Mathias Daily Miner. Though they don’t include her name, on the front page is a photograph of Gwen Locke’s body being loaded into the ambulance by the EMTs. The headline screams in big black letters: Murder on Five Mines. The story takes up the entire front page and continues on to page three. In a smaller inset box is the transcript of my call to 9-1-1. Just as in the television news story, I’m not mentioned by name but I have a feeling that it won’t be long before the press figures out who I am and comes knocking at my door.
Jake is quoted as saying that due to the ongoing nature of the investigation, he’s not at liberty to discuss specific details of the case, but can say that they are following a number of leads. In an hour his chief will announce to the world that Gwen has been murdered and the husband is the primary person of interest.
I think back to what Jake said in his office. It’s always the husban
d. I only met Marty a few times but he always seemed easygoing and affable. I know Gwen’s mother lives in town and that she will likely be the one to take care of Lane if Marty is arrested. The article goes on to list a variety of theories as to who the murderer might be: a husband, a boyfriend, a drifter, an unknown man or woman who had been linked to two similar homicides in northern Wisconsin.
A waitress approaches with a cardboard pizza box and the spicy scent of peppers and onion fills my nose and my stomach rumbles. I return to my Jeep and set the box on the passenger seat next to me, start the engine and begin the drive home. I don’t last two blocks before I lift a corner of the box and pinch off a slice of pizza when my phone vibrates in my pocket. I pull it free and smile at the text message waiting for me.
Lo Schiavio’s it is.
8
I stand in front of my closet trying to figure out what to wear to dinner. I refuse to label this as a date—even in my own mind. Nothing seems to fit the occasion. Jeans and a sweater are too casual and a dress seems like I’m trying too hard. I settle on a simple tunic, leggings and flats.
Stitch is not pleased when at six o’clock he realizes I’m planning on leaving the house without him again. Twice in one day is a record for me. Stitch turns up his nose at the slice of taco pizza I cut up and put into his food dish as a peace offering and doesn’t even look at me when I rub his ears and say goodbye.
Jake is waiting for me at the front entrance when I arrive, and my stomach does a not-so-unpleasant flutter when he smiles. “You look nice,” he signs when I reach him.
“Well, I guess this is what an employed person is supposed to look like,” I say. “Or so I’m told.”
Housed inside a tall building, Lo Schiavio’s has the best atmosphere and food in town. It’s an authentic Italian restaurant owned and operated by a family that immigrated to the United States just before World War II. Claudio and Serafina Lo Schiavio opened the restaurant in the late 1950s and it’s been a Mathias institution ever since. Though Serafina died a few years ago, the Lo Schiavio daughters have taken over. Claudio can often be found sitting at the bar chatting with the regulars but I don’t see him there right now. The exposed brick walls are covered with framed black-and-white photos from Claudio and Serafina’s early life on the Amalfi Coast, and the wooden beams that crisscross the ceiling are wrapped with twinkling fairy lights. The tables are covered in heavy linens and illuminated by small candles. Efficient waitstaff dressed in black pants and white shirts move gracefully between tables, filling water and wineglasses.