A Deadly Fall Read online

  “Thank you,” Jack said, taking the bag, not able to make eye contact. He rubbed the few tears away that were forming in his eyes.

  “Jack, let’s go sit down. I have to ask you a few questions,” I said and took him by the elbow to lead him back upstairs to the office.

  “Do I have to do it right now?” he asked quietly, letting himself be led.

  “Yes. Let’s get it over with so you can start to heal and move on,” I suggested.

  “OK,” he relented easily.

  “You were out of town on business until this afternoon, correct?” I asked once we were both seated and a tape recorder had been turned on.

  “Yes.”

  “When did you leave?”

  “Friday morning.”

  “When was the last time you talked to Sarah?”

  “Saturday night.”

  “Where did your business trip take you?”

  “Yellowstone.”

  “What was the business purpose of the trip?”

  “I had meetings Friday and Saturday. Then Sunday through this morning I was outside of cell phone contact surveying an area for a cell phone tower. I had told Sarah that I would see her when I got home before we hung up on Saturday night. She hated that I was without communication for days at a time sometimes.”

  “Did Sarah mention anything about her plans for Sunday when you talked to her un Saturday?”

  “Yes. She told me she was planning to go hiking. But she always brings our dog Casino and hikes all the time so I didn’t think anything of it. She goes alone at least half the time, but has always let someone know when and where she was going if I wasn’t home. Where is Casino?” he asked, suddenly realizing that the dog hadn’t been found with Sarah’s body.

  “I don’t know. I would check shelters in the area. Those are all of our questions. We’ll be in touch if we need anything else from you,” I said and turned off the recorder. We both stood and he turned to leave.

  “Jack, if you need anything, you know where to find Allen and me,” I said to his back.

  “Thanks man, that means a lot,” he said without turning.

  Marissa – September 2009

  “Marissa, thanks for coming and staying with me. I can’t do this alone,” Jack said the second morning I was staying with him. The house was lonely without Sarah. I’d only been there a few times, but I always came for her. Especially the last time, after her miscarriage.

  “I can’t either. There’s so much to think of and make sure it gets done. And all for what? She’s just going in the ground,” I said cynically. We had three days left until the funeral. Jack had taken the week off, if not more, and I had gone on sabbatical at the last minute. It was unconventional, but given the circumstances, my department had nearly demanded it.

  “Have you looked at the list this morning?”

  “No. I’m trying to pretend things are normal still and Sarah’s going to walk down the stairs. Give me a few more minutes of my ignorant bliss,” I said, cracking a false smile. We’d been playing this game since I’d arrived. One of us would be stuck in reality while the other was grasping at straws to remain oblivious to the truth that Sarah was never coming back. We’d both try to bring the other into our world, only to flip flop and never be thinking on the same plane.

  I’d made a list of things that had to be done before the funeral: flowers, hors d’oeuvres for the wake, newspaper listing musicians, finalizing details at the church and the cemetery. Sarah had lived here all of her too-short life and the entire town was expected to show up. She’d been involved in everything since she was a kid—sports and band throughout her school years, community gardens and volunteering as an adult, and working at the assisted living center. The list of things to do seemed to never end. And we never seemed to get anything done because people were always stopping by to help, but they ended up getting in the way of our progress instead.

  Judy was spending most of her time here too. She’d dropped her online classes immediately, against my suggestions, thinking that a distraction might be what she’d need, but who was I to give her advice she’d listen to?

  So instead of dealing with the list in this rare moment of no extra bodies, I thought about a weekend I was visiting home during college. Sarah and Jack had been seriously dating for three years by this point, having gotten together in middle school. No one expected anything to happen since they were so young then. But that initial relationship had turned into best friends and then boyfriend and girlfriend in a way no one had foreseen.

  They must have been 16 because she had asked to borrow my car. Mom and Dad hadn’t kept an old one for her since they thought I’d have bought my own by then. Instead they let me keep the one extra car so I could more easily visit them at home. So Sarah only had wheels when I was home. They didn’t let her drive their cars, even if they weren’t driving them.

  I reluctantly said she could take it out for the night. I had already lost touch with most of my childhood friends, so when I visited for a weekend, I stayed mostly at home. And this weekend was no different. She took the car and I didn’t expect to see her again until the next morning.

  But when she got home, she came into my room and curled up next to me. I rolled over and tried to ignore her. She used to get in my bed all the time as kids, but she hadn’t done it in years.

  “Marissa, are you awake?” she asked.

  “Mmmf,” I told her. Trying to stay just on the borderline of sleep so I would fall back into dreamland once she left.

  “Marissa, wake up. I did it tonight,” she said. She was wide awake and wasn’t going to leave.

  “Did what?” I asked groggily. My back was still turned to her and I was refusing to open my eyes.

  “Jack and me. We had sex for the first time,” she said. I could hear the smile on her face.

  “That’s great. I figured you’d already had sex,” I said. They’d been together so long.

  “No. We were waiting until we were both ready. Well, I think he was ready a while ago, but he waited with me. We’d done plenty of other things, but we’d never had sex,” she rambled on.

  “That’s great,” I said again.

  “Marissa, does it always hurt?” she asked, worry in her voice.

  “No. You’ll enjoy it. And he’ll figure it out so it gets better too,” I said, finally waking up and rolling over to face her. I could see her eyes in the dark. They were wide with excitement.

  “I think I’m going to marry him one day,” she said with a smile.

  “Not tomorrow you’re not. Go to bed,” I said. She got on these dreams every time something good happened with Jack and tonight was just the same. I’d heard this dream countless times in the past.

  “No, for real. I know I’m going to marry Jack. Will you be my maid of honor?” she asked in all seriousness.

  “Sure. Just go to bed,” I said again.

  “OK. But promise you’ll be my maid of honor.”

  “Of course I will. We can talk about it when you’re engaged. Good night,” I said and she got out of my bed.

  What I wouldn’t give, now, to have one of her dreamy planning conversations again. This time it would be about kids, but I could put up with that instead.

  “OK, Jack. I’m back. Ready to call the next place,” I said, my daydream finished. I could get back to work to say goodbye to my sister.

  ***

  “Sarah completed me,” Jack started at the funeral. He was the only one speaking. No one else thought they could get through a speech. “She was the better half of us. She always put someone else first, putting her needs on the back burner. I know you all know that, though, because you’re here to say goodbye. One of my favorite memories with her is actually from high school. Judy had brought Sarah swimming in the river one weekend, something Sarah would never do alone, never mind instigate it with someone else. They’d gone at midnight. Sarah told me about it the next day and I could tell something had clicked in her. So the next weekend, we both sn
uck out of our houses and met at the same spot in the river that Sarah knew. The moon was full and we went swimming. She was a completely new person. I’d already known her at least five years. I didn’t think I could love her anymore, or that she could surprise me. But that whole night was so completely out of the ordinary for rule-following Sarah. And that night, I knew that I would marry her. Sarah,” he continued, turning to the casket, “you will forever be mine and I will forever be yours. You are my brown-eyed girl.”

  With that, we all proceeded out of the church to the cemetary, led by Van Morrison’s Brown Eyed Girl.

  “Marissa, right?” I heard next to me as I walked down the steps. I turned to look.

  “Yes. Sam?” I asked. He was walking with Judy and I vaguely remembered his face from the last time I’d gone out with Lynn and she’d reintroduced us.

  “Yeah. I’m so sorry for your loss,” he said. I’d heard those words so often that they meant nothing to me anymore.

  “Thanks,” I said robotically.

  “How are you doing?”

  “I’m getting by.” That question came as often as his previous statement and there was no good answer for it. If I said I was doing fine, I sounded like a cold-hearted sister, but if I said I wasn’t fine, they wanted to offer to help, but there really was nothing they could do. So I stuck with the middle ground that really meant nothing.

  “Judy’s been having a hard time too. Thanks for keeping her busy the last few days leading up to this.”

  “Of course. Jack and I couldn’t have done it by ourselves anyway, and Judy was more of a sister to Sarah than I ever was. It’s hard on everyone, even you I’m sure.”

  “It’s not easy, that’s for sure,” he agreed as we reached the hole in the ground where Sarah would rest for eternity. We stopped walking and stood beside each other.

  ***

  “Marissa, let me take you and Judy out to dinner,” Sam offered at the end of the service. “You need a break from having to take care of things.”

  “That’d be nice,” I agreed. And it would be nice. I wouldn’t have to think, and I could give Jack some space. I knew he had plans with some friends who were trying to keep him busy and his mind off things.

  “Did you drive here or can we bring you back to Jack’s to change?” he asked. Judy followed him, completely lost in her head.

  “A ride would be great. Jack drove earlier. Let me just tell him I don’t need a ride and that I’m going to dinner so he doesn’t look for me,” I said and went to find him.

  When I found him, he was getting into his car already, having forgotten about me altogether, so I let him go and turned back to find Sam and Judy. They were standing and talking to Allen and Krista. I’d met them earlier in the week.

  “Are you joining us?” I asked as I joined their circle.

  “No, we’re heading home. But we hope to see you again before you go back to New York,” Krista told me. She looked exhausted from all the standing.

  “I’ll make sure to stop by before I go,” I promised.

  “Have a better night than the last week has been,” Krista added and we went our separate ways.

  Judy climbed into the back seat of the car, still not saying anything, so I took the passenger seat.

  “Do you want to go to The Lazy River or something a little less bar like?” Sam asked when he was settled into the driver’s seat.

  “How about Tandoor?” Judy spoke up.

  “I don’t know that one, what is it?” I asked.

  “It’s a new Indian restaurant. It’s only been around a few months. I’m not sure they’re going to last. But don’t worry, the food’s great! There’s just too much competition for the small market, at least in the winter without the tourists. Then, the skiers just want something fast and cheap!” Sam said.

  “That sounds great.”

  We drove along in silence. I was still thinking about Sarah and how little I seemed to know about her lately. Once I’d gotten the job in New York, our relationship had lessened. It didn’t change; we could always pick up where we’d left off. But the time we spent together was so much less. Sam and Judy knew her better than I did just before she died.

  “Where’s Lynn these days?” I asked Sam once I brought myself back to the present.

  “I don’t know. She left,” he said. I stifled my surprise.

  “When?”

  “Six months ago,” Sam said, not offering anything else.

  “Sorry to hear that. I thought your wedding would have been the next time I visited,” I said, not realizing how stupid and insensitive it was until it was out.

  “I didn’t see it coming at all. One day she was packed, I came home and she said she was leaving. Haven’t heard from her since.”

  “Strange.”

  “How’s your job going? I hear you’re a tenured professor now,” he said, changing the subject.

  “Yup. Youngest in the department too! This is my first sabbatical,” I said proudly. I wondered who was telling him about me. Must have been overheard from Sarah and Judy catching up.

  “That’s great. What are you planning to do with the rest of your sabbatical?”

  “It looks like I’ll be a guest lecturer in Ottawa. That should be confirmed in the next few days. Normally I wouldn’t have been able to take it yet, but when. . .all this. . .happened, the department chair made an exception and let me take the semester. So everything is very last minute for being finalized.”

  “That’s really nice of them to give you that much time away at the last minute.”

  “Sure is,” I said. We’d reached Tandoor and got out of the car. Judy spotted some other friends also just arriving and decided to eat with them instead. She’d remained completely closed off, so Sam and I were both fine letting her go.

  “Do you want a drink?” Sam asked me when we sat down together.

  “I would love one. Or three. This week has been a mess.”

  “How about we get a bottle of wine? Red or white?”

  “Red.”

  “Great.”

  “This food looks great too,” I said, thinking this was starting to feel like a first date—not what I’d intended and I had a feeling Sam hadn’t either.

  Sam – September 2009

  I woke up with a hangover. Marissa and I had split two bottles of wine over Indian food the night before and I never drank. I got the impression she didn’t either. But I think she needed it after the week she’d had and the funeral of her sister. It was really easy to be with her over dinner even though we’d barely ever exchanged two words before.

  My phone vibrated on the floor next to my bed. I guess I hadn’t even managed to plug it back in. I hoped Judy had driven us both home and I hadn’t, but I had no memory of even getting home.

  Are you feeling as crappy as I am? the text from Marissa said.

  Sure am. How about a big egg breakfast to work it out of us? I wrote back.

  Not sure about the big, but I’m definitely up for breakfast. I’ll meet you somewhere. Where?

  Over Easy is the best breakfast place in the state as far as I’m concerned. You know it?

  Yup. Meet you there in 45 minutes?

  See you then.

  I needed a shower and some black coffee before I could even think about eating, but 45 minutes would be enough time for both.

  “I’m glad I’m not the only one who can’t drink a whole bottle of wine anymore!” Marissa said, laughing when I got out of my car at Over Easy. It was good to see her laughing.

  “It’s been a long time since I did that!” I agreed.

  “I can’t remember the last time. But thanks for taking me to dinner last night. I hope I thanked you last night. It was perfect after the week I had. This breakfast’s on me.”

  “I can’t argue with that,” I said and we walked into a crowded restaurant.

  “Two?” the teenage hostess asked when we walked in.

  Marissa and I both nodded.

  “The wait’s ab
out 20 minutes. You can help yourselves to coffee while you wait,” she said and we both gravitated toward the tiny paper cups sitting next to the coffee pot. Neither of us added cream or sugar. We both drank it black.

  “Marissa, tell me again about upstate New York. I’m sure you did last night, but I need my memory jogged,” I said when we’d taken a seat outside to wait.

  “It’s about as exciting as this town! I always thought I’d move to New York City. I was ready for some excitement after growing up here. I went to Boston for my freshman year of college, then transferred to NYU, and after three years in the city, I knew I needed to get out. So I went to grad school in California for a change and then got a job in upstate New York. It really is just this town in another state!” she said laughing.