THE SUITCASE
By David J. Montgomery
The Bakersfield Police Department holds auctions of unclaimed property every six months or so. Basically, whatever they pick up that doesn't become evidence, or gets turned in by some helpful citizen, heads for the auction block after a while if no one ever comes in to claim it. Since the original owners are frequently folks living on the shady side of the law, and thus aren't terribly likely to visit the local police department and show their ID ("You can wait over there, sir, while we look for your property...and while we run your name through the computer to check for outstanding warrants."), a lot of stuff goes unclaimed.
Ordinarily, the thought of going to an auction of other people's crap in the back parking lot of the police station is about as appealing to me as poking through their crap at a yard sale or rummaging through their crap at a flea market. I'm just not into other people's crap. But Laurie and I had only been dating for six months and she wanted to go, and we weren't at that "Sweetie, there's no way in hell I'm going there" stage in our relationship yet, so like it or not, that's how we were going to spend our Saturday morning.
To tell the truth, the experience ended up not being all that bad. Turns out Laurie's interest in the auction was fairly tepid, and we only stayed for an hour or so. Even more surprising, I actually bought something. When the auctioneer offered up a hard-sided, tan Samsonite suitcase, just like the one my Dad had when I was a kid, I decided to get it. I didn't really need a suitcase, and I especially didn't need one that was a relic from the Seventies, but for seven bucks, I figured I could indulge in a little nostalgia.
Laurie teased me the whole way back to my place, since I was the one who didn't want to go in the first place, yet I was also the one who bought something. But I didn't mind. We were still at the point where I found everything she did unbearably cute and endearing, even her teasing. She dropped me off with plans to get together later in the day, and I headed inside with my new treasure.
My home was one-half of a duplex around the corner from a small shopping center on the southern end of town. It was a nice enough place, especially for a guy of twenty-four still at his first job out of college. My side of the house had three bedrooms and two baths, with a large living room, decent dining room and narrow kitchen. It was a lot of space for one person, but I had in the back of my mind that maybe Laurie would be moving in someday. Call me a dreamer.
I didn't have enough furniture to fill the space, so one bedroom was left completely empty and the living room contained more electronics equipment than it did things to sit on or objects that would hold your beer up off the floor. At least the dining room had a scarred old table that my parents had given me, and there's where I set the suitcase.
The exterior of the bag was dirty beige with a faint marble pattern, a bit battered here and there, but solid. I ran my fingers over the tarnished metal letters that spelled out "Samsonite" near the clasps. My father had traveled frequently on business when my brothers and I were growing up, and he'd always used a suitcase just like this one. Whenever he got it out of the closet, we knew Dad was going to be gone again for a few days or maybe even a week or more. It was always a little sad, since we'd miss him, but it was also exciting, like he was embarking on some great adventure. In reality he was probably just going to Reno or Fresno, at best someplace like Chicago. But it still seemed pretty cool to us.
I released the metals clasps that held the suitcase closed with a loud snap. Flipping back the top half of the suitcase released a dank, musty odor that immediately filled the air. It wasn't unpleasant, really, but it was distinctive. It took me a moment before I finally placed the smell. The suitcase smelled like my Grandma's house, the one in Arizona we'd visited every summer as kids. It was the reek of stale cigarette smoke that did it. Whoever had owned the suitcase before had obviously been a heavy smoker – just like Grandma had been.
There was nothing inside the case, as I had expected. In the back of my mind I suppose I had secretly hoped that it would contain some fascinating secret, like a stack of $100 bills or bags of cocaine. Of course, it was a helluva lot more likely to have contained soiled underwear or used condoms, so maybe being empty was a blessing.
The interior of the suitcase was lined with a yellowish, tan fabric, which I noticed had come loose in a few places. I tried to tuck it back in at the sides, but my efforts only made it come away even more. Annoyed, I decided to just tear it out, grabbing hold of the fabric's edge and giving it a sharp tug. The rotten polyester cloth gave way immediately and ripped out of the frame of the suitcase. I gathered up the fabric and dropped it on the floor.
Immediately, I noticed that the suitcase was not completely empty as I had first thought. The lining had in fact covered an oversized manila envelope, fastened to the side of the case with mottled brown tape. The envelope itself looked old and the tape was brittle, so God knows how long it had been there. Forever, probably.
I removed the envelope and lifted up the flap, which wasn't sealed, and slid the contents out onto the table. There was a faded 8x10 color photo and a half a sheet of notepaper torn from a spiral notebook, the little nubbins of paper still connected in a row along the top edge.
I studied them both briefly before picking up the picture. The subject was a young woman, mid-to-late teens, I guessed, formally posed like the pictures they took every year at school and then tried to sell your Mom. She was wearing a dark patterned sweater and a necklace of beads, both looking vaguely out of fashion to my mind.
She was a pretty girl, looked a little like Meg Ryan in "Sleepless in Seattle," but younger, with blue eyes and a lot of blonde hair piled up on top of her head. The more I looked at the picture, the more I thought she also resembled my cousin Sarah, whom I'd last seen the summer I turned sixteen. I hadn't looked at a picture of Sarah in a while, but now it was almost like she was staring me in the face.
I was no expert on clothing styles or hairdos, but the photo looked like something from the Seventies, kind of like that awful TV show that somehow keeps lasting on Fox. Turning the picture over, I saw "Katherine McCarry, 1979" written on the back in faint pencil.
Silently congratulating myself for successfully identifying the era of the photograph, I picked up the piece of notepaper. There were a handful of lines written in blue ink, the words cramped and hard to decipher. I squinted and struggled to read it.
My Dearest Suzanne,
I'm very sorry for everything that happened. I know that you will never forgive me and I don't blame you. Here is the picture of Katie you always liked so much. I thought you should have it.
I don't know what else to do.
Yours always,
Tom
Now that sounds like the end of a sad story, I thought to myself. Whoever Tom and Suzanne were, things had obviously ended badly. I wondered how Katie fit into the picture. My guess was that she was probably their daughter.
I looked at my discovery and considered what to do with it. I felt kind of bad about keeping the picture, since apparently it had meant a lot to someone at one point. Even if that were a long time ago, I still thought they should have it. My interest was also piqued by Tom's note. I could only imagine what the story there was, but it sounded like an interesting one, and I've always been fascinated by other people's problems. (They're so much easier to deal with than my own.)
I decided to see if I could find out anything about Katherine McCarry. I went into my office (the other bedroom, the one with a computer desk and chair and not much else) and fired up the computer. When it was ready, I entered Katherine's name, enclosed into quote marks, into Google and hit return. I knew right away that hers was a unique name, a rarity in itself, as the search only returned three results. By comparison, there were 33,000 for my name, Steve Hoffman.
The first hit was a compilation of high school track results, from a school in Memphis in 1998. (Why the hell are there so many websites that list high school track results? Is there something going on that I don't know about? Who are all these people and what are they running from?) I disregarded that site, as Katherine was clearly not a high school runner in the late-90s.
The next entry down the list was a roster of students from the University of Ulster. I was pretty sure that Ulster was in Northern Ireland (I recalled reading the name once in a mystery novel that had something to do with the IRA), so I knew that wasn't my girl either.
The third hit, though, had promise. It not only had the name Katherine McCarry, it was on the website of the Bakersfield Californian, the local newspaper. That had to be it, I thought, as I clicked through the link.
The article had the headline "'Cold cases' still haunt retiring detective," and was dated three years before. I skimmed through the first few paragraphs. The story was about Lester Ward, a lieutenant with the Kern County Sheriffs Department, who was retiring after twenty-nine years on the job.
The story was the standard "local man makes good" piece, discussing how Ward had joined the Sheriffs Department after graduating from East Bakersfield High School and doing a hitch in Vietnam. He'd worked his way up from patrol to become one of the department's best detectives, with a clearance rate that still stood as an unofficial record. In the last few years of his career, he'd been promoted to lieutenant, the position at which he was retiring.
Although I hadn't read the newspaper regularly in years, not since I'd graduated from college and moved out of my parent's house anyway, the story still sounded vaguely familiar, probably from the local news.
I kept reading, and the fifth paragraph down is the one that really caught my eye. Ward was quoted as saying that the worst part of being a detective was not the awful things that people did to each other ("You either got used to that or you soon left the job," as he explained it), but rather the cases that were never solved, the bad guys who got away with it.
Chief among them was the "cold case" of a local girl, seventeen year-old Katherine McCarry, who'd gone missing shortly after her graduation from Highland High School in June 1981. Katie, as she was known to her friends and family, had just started her summer job working as a waitress at the Wool Growers' Restaurant downtown, a temporary position until she went off to Cal Poly San Luis Obispo in the fall. On her third day of work at the restaurant she never came home.
Despite the pleas of her parents, the sheriff's deputies hadn't shown a great deal of alarm (an oversight which Ward in retrospect called "a serious lapse in judgment"), assuming Katie had gone off with a boyfriend or something similar. It wasn't until her cream-colored 1975 Datsun was found abandoned west of town, on the side of the road near the Mesa Marin Racetrack, that they had begun investigating in earnest.
Forensic tests weren't nearly as sophisticated in those days, the lieutenant explained, but they had found traces of blood which matched Katie's type on the passenger seat of the car. They were convinced that it was hers – but that was the only evidence they ever found. Ward personally pursued the investigation full-time for nearly two months, and part-time for the next ten after that, but the search for Katie McCarry quickly went cold.
"It's fair to say that case haunted me," Ward confessed in the article. "I accomplished a lot during my time on the force, but I would have liked to have brought Katie home to her folks."
McCarry's parents divorced the year following their daughter's disappearance, the newspaper said, and her father, Thomas, had since left town. Although Suzanne, Katie's mother, still lived in Bakersfield, she was not willing to comment for the story.
Before closing the browser window, I decided to look up my cousin Sarah's name. I recognized several of the most prominent results that Google returned, but I didn't have the heart to read them again. I shut down the computer.
That was a helluva story. I could only assume that Katie McCarry was long gone, although clearly not forgotten. I was particularly struck by the vigilance that Detective Ward had shown regarding the case. You read about things like that in books, but I'd never come across a story like that in real life before.
When Laurie showed up a few hours later (it was time to make our weekly pilgrimage to the mall, then to dinner), I told her about what I'd found. I suppose she could tell from my enthusiasm that the story had really grabbed me, but she clearly didn't share my interest. She was polite enough to feign interest, but even when I mentioned the resemblance to Sarah, Laurie didn't seem to get it. I was a little hurt inside that she didn't remember and understand.
The rest of the day, I kept thinking about Katie, her family and Detective Ward, their story popping into my head at random moments. Like a good book that you don't want to put down, this real life drama was something I couldn't stop thinking about.
The next morning, Sunday, I decided to see if I could find out more. I loaded up Yahoo! Yellow Pages on my computer and entered Lester Ward's name. I didn't know if an ex-cop would be listed in the phone book, but he must have been a trusting sort, since he was. I found a phone number with no address listed.
I was nervous about calling him, like I was asking a girl out for a first date. I rehearsed in my head what I wanted to say, carefully choosing my words, before finally deciding I was being silly. I picked up the phone and dialed.
A man's voice answered on the second ring. "Hello?"
"Hello, I apologize for disturbing you on a Sunday," I said. "I'm trying to locate Lester Ward. He was a detective with the Kern County Sheriffs."
"This is Les Ward. How can I help you?" His voice was polite, but neutral, deeper than mine which made me feel like a little kid.
"Um, hello, sir. My name is Steve Hoffman. I found something that might pertain to one of your old cases and I didn't know what I should do with it."
"Which case is that, son?" he asked, his voice took on a new, more authoritative tone.
"Katie McCarry. I found this picture, you see—"
"Hold on there, Steve," he interrupted. "Why don't you start from the beginning."
So I told him the story of the suitcase and finding the picture. I was nervous and the words came tumbling out quickly, but I think I got them all in there and in close to the right order. When I finished, Ward was silent for a moment.
"Where are you now?" he asked.
"Home, sir." I gave him the address.
"I'll be there in fifteen minutes." He hung up the phone.
Those fifteen minutes seemed to drag on for close to an hour. I sat in the living room, trying to read a magazine, but glancing at the clock every few minutes. Knowing that a cop was coming to my house, even a retired cop, made me nervous. Not that I'd done anything wrong, of course. But I still felt uneasy. When the doorbell finally rang, I jumped up in relief.
Opening the door revealed a tall, fit man with gray hair. He was probably around my father's age, but in much better shape, his back straight and his face and arms tanned. I presented my hand to him. "Detective Ward?"
"Call me Les," he said, gripping my hand and giving it a solid, single shake. "I'm retired."
"Right. Please, come in."
Les strode through the door, his eyes peering about the room, obviously alert. I felt a little embarrassed at my lack of décor, the same way I did anytime my parents visited. If he cared, though, he didn't show it. Instead, he asked, "Where's the suitcase?"
"In the dining room," I replied and led the way.
We walked into the dining room and Les immediately moved to the table and looked over the suitcase, picture and note, which were laid out next to each other. I noticed that he didn't touch any of the objects; instead he leaned over the table and got his face down near them to take a good look. I didn't know if he was actually concerned with fingerprints, but it was probably a lifelong habit with him at this point.
I heard him grunt softly when he looked at the picture. "That's Katie all right," he said. "We ran a copy of this photo in the newspaper and showed it on the news. Didn't do any good." He shifted his focus to the suitcase.
After a couple minutes of awkward silence, I asked, "Do you think she's...um, you know...Dead?" I don't ordinarily talk like a Valley Girl, but he was making me nervous.
Les turned and looked at me, an intimidating, piercing stare that made me shiver inside. I don't know how he did it, but Les had me ready to confess five minutes after walking through the door, and I hadn't even done anything.
"Probably," he replied. He resumed his study of the objects, squinting over the note.
"The note's a little strange," I said, wanting to fill the room's silence, which was making me feel increasingly uncomfortable. "It sounds almost...I don't know..."
"Guilty," Les said.
"Yeah."
"Parents often feel guilt when a child disappears or is killed. Fathers especially. They feel like they should have been there to protect their child. Breaks up a lot of marriages, too."
"The article I read said they divorced soon after Katie went missing."
Les looked at me again. "You seem to know a lot about this."
"I was just curious, so I looked it up on the internet. The picture...something about the picture. It got to me, I guess. She was pretty. Looked like a nice person."
"Yeah," Les said. "She was. I know it shouldn't matter, that a case is a case and it shouldn't be important who the victim is. But that's not the way it really works. It does matter."
"You liked her."
"I did. I never met her, never looked her in the face, but I felt like I knew Katie. I even read her diary at one point. It was embarrassing, but it had to be done. She was such a sweet girl. Smart, too. Got a full ride scholarship to Cal Poly. She wanted to be a teacher or maybe a nurse. She wasn't sure yet."
"Did you have any suspects?"
"Can't talk about that. Open investigation, you know."
"Oh, right, of course," I said. "Sorry."
Les turned to me and winked. "I'm just teasing. Don't suppose it matters much now. Yeah, we looked at a couple people. Her father, ex-boyfriend, of course, just routine. But nothing ever came of it. We never even found any evidence that a crime was committed."
"What about the blood in the car?"
"You found all this information on the internet?" he asked.
"In the story the Californian did on your retirement."
"Right...I knew I shouldn't have cooperated with that story. I'll never live that one down. Anyway, the blood. There was a small amount of blood on the passenger seat of Katie's car. Might have been hers, might not. It's evidence, but evidence of what, we never knew. It was dry by the time we found it, so it could have been old. Could have been a nosebleed. No way of knowing without more information."
"I guess that makes sense," I said.
"Was there anything else in the suitcase when you found it?"
"No, just those things. They were hidden behind the lining, taped to the side in that manila envelope." I pointed to where the tape had been stuck inside the suitcase.
"Can't believe nobody spotted that before they sold off the damn thing," he muttered. Louder, he asked, "Do you have your receipt from the auction?"
"Uhhh, yeah, I think so. Let me check." I went into the computer room, where I kept my records – a pile of old bills stuffed in an accordion folder and a shoebox full of receipts. I found the paper from yesterday's auction and returned to the dining room.
"Here you go." I handed him the slip of paper.
"Thanks," he said. He took his cell phone out and dialed a number. When the call was answered, he greeted the person by name (Mike) and made brief small talk. After a moment, Les asked him if he'd look up the property number from the receipt and read it out. He waited for several moments, listened to the response, then thanked Mike and hung up.
"Suitcase was found in one of those old fleabag motels down on Union Avenue," Les explained. "1982. Guy who checked into the room committed suicide."
"Who was it?"
"John Doe. Vic was unidentified."
I considered that information. "Do you think it was Tom McCarry?" I asked.
Les smiled again, wider than before, something like a glint lighting up his eyes. "You catch on fast there, Steve. I like that. Let's find out."
We rode in Les' car downtown to the police department headquarters. It was only the beginning of June and the heat was already getting oppressive. Stepping out of the car, I could feel a sweat coming up on me. Of course, maybe it wasn't the heat. The inside of the building was a cool and comfortable temperature, but I was still sweating.
We stepped up to the front desk in the lobby and Les showed his ID. He introduced himself and asked to speak to Lieutenant Miller. I'd never been to the BPD headquarters before, and now I'd been there twice in two days. I could feel the butterflies flitting around in my stomach. Clearly I had chosen my career correctly, not going into a life of crime. If a mere visit to the police station had me nearly shitting in my pants, it was obvious that I wasn't cut out for the rough stuff.
We stood around waiting for several minutes before a uniformed officer with a lot of decorations on his sleeves and chest walked out of a door with an electronic lock. He was about Les' age and it was clear they were old friends from the affectionate way they greeted each other.
Les introduced me to Lieutenant Mike Miller and asked if we could speak in his office. Miller agreed and led us back into the secured area. When we were seated in the cluttered and cramped office, the lieutenant told us to say what was on our mind.
I started by telling the story of the suitcase again, after which Les filled in the rest of the details, including his suspicion that the John Doe suicide was probably Tom McCarry.
Miller listened attentively and made a few notes while we spoke. He smiled at Les when he finished talking. "I thought you were retired."
Les grinned a little sheepishly. "I know. It's hard to leave behind, but I've done a good job of it. Until Steve here called me this morning."
The lieutenant looked at me then. "I'm curious. What made you contact Les?"
That was a good question, and one I hadn't really considered before. "Well, I thought somebody should know. And the article I read said that Detective Ward had been in charge of the case. So I called him. I thought it might be important."
"You might just be right about that," Miller said. "Let me talk to a few people. There will be prints on file from the John Doe, if someone can dig up the records. I reckon the Sheriff will have rule-outs from Tom McCarry, from when they printed his house during the investigation."
"Definitely," Les nodded.
"Okay. Be back in a few."
Miller exited the room and Les and I looked at each other. He nodded, pleased with our progress, but with some sadness lingering underneath. "I saw it more than once," he said. "Some folks just can't get over the death of a child."
I nodded back, because I didn't know what to say. We sat in silence after that, the loud ticking of a crystal clock on Miller's desk the only sound in the room. The whole building was eerily quiet. You'd think a police station would be filled with the sounds of prisoners screaming or perps being beaten with rubber hoses or something like that, but there was nothing. It might as well have been an office filled with accountants, for all the activity that was going on.
After nearly a half hour, Miller came back in. Les and I stood up as he entered. "Sorry for the wait, guys. Computers really are something, though, aren't they. The Sheriff's Department faxed over McCarry's ten card and my tech eyeballed it. He's pretty sure they're the same."
"I'll be damned," Les said.
"He wants to do a comparison with the actual card," Miller continued, "but I think we've got it. We'll know fore sure in a day or two. I'll give you a call when we do." His last comment was directed at Les.
"Thanks, Mike," Les said, and they shook hands. "I appreciate all the help."
I was surprised to realize that was all that was going to happen, so when Miller clasped my hand, all I managed was to mumble a quick thank you.
Back outside, despite returning to the heat and the bright sunlight, I started to feel a little better. At least, I wasn't nervous anymore. I was feeling a little disappointed, though. As Les drove me back to my house, I asked him, "So, what happens next?"
"Mike will make sure the prints from the John Doe are compared to those on file from Tom McCarry. If they match, and I think they will, the PD will close out the suicide in their files. It's really more paperwork than anything else, but at least there'll be a name attached to the body."
"What about Katie?"
Les glanced sideways at me, a note of concern on his face. "What about her?"
"Well, we found the note," I said. "And the picture. Shouldn't they reopen the case or something?"
"I can give the note to the Sheriff's office, if you'd like, but it's not going to make any difference. It's just like the blood in Katie's car. It might be evidence, but evidence of what, we have no idea. Chances are better than good that it's nothing."
"I just thought...you know, maybe this would lead somewhere."
"Aw hell, son. I guess I did, too." A noted of sadness entered his voice. "But we both have to face the facts here. Katie's been missing for almost twenty-five years now. It's almost certain that she was dead before her parents even called us in."
"But you searched for her. You investigated for a whole year."
"I did. And I would have looked longer if I'd thought it'd do any good. But she's not coming home. Even if by some miracle she is still alive, she's missing on purpose and it wouldn't help anyone to bring her back now."
I tried to digest what he'd said. It made sense, of course, and I suppose I had already realized it somewhere in the back of my mind. But hearing it all stated so plainly was still a shock.
"She looked a lot like a girl I knew once," I said. "Katie, that is. She looked like my cousin Sarah. We grew up real close, more like brother and sister than cousins."
"I know just what you mean. I got a cousin like that, too."
"Sarah was great. She was a little less than a year younger than me, but she could outdo me at just about anything. School, sports, you name it."
"Sounds like a helluva girl."
"Yah, she was. She'd just turned fifteen when she was in a bad car accident. She, uh...she never woke up."
"I'm sorry to hear that. That's an awful thing to have happen."
"When I saw Katie's picture, she reminded me of Sarah. I guess it just brought all those feelings back."
"You don't have to explain. I understand."
It felt good to say it, and even better to say it to Les. I felt like he really did understand. I wanted to say more, but the man was still a virtual stranger to me. It wasn't right to burden him with my emotions.
When we were almost to my house, I spoke up finally. "What about the picture?"
"What about it?"
"Shouldn't we give it to her mom? Tom's note said he wanted her to have it"
Les considered that for a moment, then said, "You're right. She should have it."
We stopped briefly outside my home and Les waited while I ran in to get the picture of Katie and the note. Once I was back in the car, Les didn't even need to look up the address for Suzanne McCarry. He just started driving. Apparently, he knew it by heart.
I studied the photo while he drove, wanting to commit the image to memory before I gave the picture to her mother. I thought that someone other than her family should remember Katie McCarry. I knew that Les would, and I wanted to join him in that.
We pulled up outside a modest ranch-style home on a quiet residential street in the Olive Drive section of town. Les shut off the car and turned to me. "You don't have to do this," he said. "I can give her the picture myself. It might be...awkward."
"I know," I replied. "I want to be there."
He nodded and got out of the car. I followed him up the driveway, past the lawn which was covered with brown spots and in need of cutting, and walked to the front door. Les rang the bell once.
The door was opened almost immediately by a woman around sixty, with gray hair and a drawn, narrow face. "I heard the car," she offered by way of explanation. She seemed so eager, I got the impression that she didn't have many visitors. There was a pause while each side waited for the other to say something.
"Mrs. McCarry, it's Detective Ward," Les said.
Her eyes flashed as she fixed her gaze on him. "Oh my! Of course, detective. I should have recognized you sooner."
"Well, I'm retired now. You got used to seeing me back when I still wore a suit and tie."
"I'm sure you're right," she said, a pained smile crossing her face, but never reaching her eyes. I'm sure she was thinking about why it was that she got used to seeing him. "What brings you to...Did something...Did you find something about Katie?" The anguished hope in her voice was almost too painful to bear.
"No, ma'am," Les replied. "I'm afraid nothing with that has changed. We did find something, though, that we thought you'd like to have."
"Oh, I see," she said. The disappointment in her voice made my stomach sink. She put on a brave face, though, and asked "Would you like to come in?" She led us to the front room, a dimly-lit space with fake flowers and heavy furniture that seemed barely used. The house was immaculate, but out-of-date, and a strong smell of potpourri permeated everywhere. Mrs. McCarry gestured for Les and I to take seats on the sofa, and she sat perched on the edge of the adjacent love seat.
I didn't trust myself to speak, so I handed her the manila envelope without saying anything. She opened it slowly and withdrew the contents. I heard her sharp intake of breath as she saw the picture of Katie. She didn't say anything, but a few silent tears slowly rolled down her face.
Mrs. McCarry stared at the photo for so long I started to feel even more uncomfortable, before she finally set it aside and held up the note from Tom. She read it quickly, obviously not having the trouble with his handwriting that I'd had. When she was finished, she sighed softly and looked up at us. "He's dead, isn't he."
"We're not certain," Les replied. "But I believe he is."
Mrs. McCarry nodded sadly, staring off into the distance. "I always thought he might be. He couldn't take it when Katie went missing. He blamed himself for what happened. They had a fight the night before she disappeared, you know. He was so angry. Tom always did have a temper..." She stopped and looked at us again. "But you don't want to hear about that. Tell me, please, where did you find this?"
For the third time that day, I told the story of the suitcase and finding the envelope inside. It's a good thing I had it down by then, as I don't think I could have gotten through it otherwise. I had a hard time not choking up as it was.
"Why do you think he hid the envelope?" she asked.
"No way of knowing," Les replied. "A man about to do something like that to himself, though...He's not in his right mind. Maybe he was afraid someone would steal it."
Mrs. McCarry considered that, then nodded, accepting the explanation. I started to stand up, but she leaned over to me first and clasped my hand in hers. Her hand was dry and bony and felt strange against my skin. "Thank you for doing this," she said. "A lot of people would have just thrown away the picture, but you didn't. You can't know how much it means to me to have this back."
"I'm glad, ma'am. You—You're welcome." I didn't know what else to say.
Les and I declined her offer of something cold to drink and excused ourselves. I knew she needed to be alone with her thoughts, and it was too painful for me to stay. I couldn't wait to get away from such open and potent grief.
Once we were back in the car, I asked Les what he thought of Mrs. McCarry's statement about Tom's fight with Katie and his temper. "Do you think he killed her?"
"Anything's possible," Les said. "But we checked Tom out pretty thoroughly at the time and he came up clean."
"Maybe it was some kind of accident."
"Maybe," Les agreed. "I think it's best just to forget about that now, though. There's no good left to be done here."
"It's hard, I guess...not knowing."
"That's police work for you. Sometimes you just have to accept that you can't answer all the questions."
With that final note, we said goodbye.
That same night, lying together on the couch in my living room, I told Laurie the story. She cried when I told her about Mrs. McCarry and her daughter's picture. It made me feel good that she understood. I think I cried a little bit, too.
THE END
Copyright David J. Montgomery