Dead Ringer: Chapter Seventeen
A big welcome to new subscribers and big thanks to those who have become paying subscribers! (Adding two more paid subscriptions would get me to my goal of adding 5 by the end of this month.) Y’all are amazing, and I’m so grateful for every single one of you who have come along for this ride. Today I was looking at photos from my Chasing Light journey, and many of you have been here for a long time! Means the world to still have you as part of the entourage. XO
Okay, here we go with the next chapter. (Here is a link to Chapter Sixteen.)
Buckle up.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Chad sat quietly as I reached for a box of tissues, blew my nose and wiped my eyes. He carefully looked toward the window as if to give me a moment of privacy while I collected myself.
Then he turned his attention back to me. I saw he held a notepad and pen. “So you knew Ms. Roper well, then?”
“No,” I said, grabbing a fresh tissue. “That’s the thing. I really didn’t. But there was something…I don’t know, she was such a wounded bird, you know?” I looked at him.
Apparently he didn’t know, as his face remained an unreadable blank.
“How did she die?” I asked. “And when?”
“A nurse found her unresponsive around 11:00 a.m. That’s all we know at this point. I’m curious, though, why you went out there this morning. And what time was that?”
I shook my head, still a bit dazed. “I got there just before 9:30,” I said. “I wanted to speak with her again. I just felt so unsettled. I felt like she didn’t want to be there.”
“Well, most people don’t really want to be in a hospital,” he said.
“No, it was more than that. She was afraid of something. Or someone.”
“She said that?”
“Yes. When I saw her Monday afternoon.”
“What exactly did she say?”
“I asked her why she’d called me in the middle of the night, and she said, ‘Because I was afraid,’ and I said, ‘Of what?’ and then Weston interrupted us.”
He scribbled something on his notepad.
I wanted to say more about Weston, to reiterate my suspicions, but I bit my tongue.
“And that phone call was when?”
“I spoke with her early Sunday morning,” I said. “That’s when I came to see you.”
“Right.” Chad sat with the point of his pen on the notepad and gave a few taps.
An awkward silence was building. I broke it with, “Look, I ordered a pizza last night. And I spoke with Mark Danner. Both calls from my landline. The pizza around 7:15, Mark five minutes later. And the pizza delivery guy can attest he handed me the pizza a little after 8:00.”
“The call to Mr. Danner was to his landline?”
“Yes,” I said. But the instant I’d spoken I realized that right then I couldn’t exactly recall whether I’d called him on his cell or at his office, and I remembered my certainty someone had been with him. I didn’t edit my response, though.
“And after that?” Chad leaned forward ever so slightly.
“After that I was home all evening.”
“Okay,” he said. “Anything else you’d like to tell me?”
Actually, I’m wondering if there’s anything you’d like to tell me. Like what happened to Rachel? And why are you here asking me all these questions?”
He seemed surprised. “Well, at this point it does appear she died of natural causes,” he said. “And I’m here in part because you were concerned enough about her well-being to come speak with me in person when you believed she was in some kind of trouble, you called to let me know you’d located her and told me…” he flipped through his notebook and read, “‘she was safe with her brother.’ And then you stopped by just this morning and according to Lilly and a couple officers, you definitely seemed agitated. So you can understand my curiosity.”
In that moment, I fervently wished I’d never met Chad Miller.
“You said you’re here in part.”
“I’m also here becauseI wanted you to hear the news from me,” he said.
Wanting to be the one to tell me was far less likely about Chad’s deep well of compassion and more about wanting to gauge my reaction to the news. Cops are wired different. Was there a test and had I passed?
“I appreciate that,” I said. “Will there be an autopsy?”
“I wouldn’t think so,” he said. “If she died of natural causes at a hospital, the attending will sign all the paperwork.”
“But how can they be sure?”
“Above my pay grade,” he said and closed the notepad and stood, reaching into the breast pocket of his shirt and brought out a business card. “If you think of anything, please don’t hesitate to call.” He paused a moment and gave me a pointed look. “I’m very sorry for your loss.”
“Thank you,” I said.
I sat staring through the open door for several minutes after he left. My loss. What exactly was my loss?
What was it about Rachel that had gotten to me? Of course, the story she’d told me was tragic enough. But there was more. Was it Sean and the always-sticky Velcro of family dysfunction with its multiple hooks, resulting in the Savior complex we were warned against in seminary by our pastoral theology professors? The woundedness of our own families we feel compelled to go around trying to heal in others?
But I knew what it was. I still carried the weight all those pills Tari took after the truth came out about her affair with Nathan, the pills she took because I’d shut her out, or at least that’s how it felt. My counselor had told me over and over again I was not to blame for Tari ending her own life, but I did blame myself. I did. I still do.
And something about Rachel’s search for her daughter, which I fully believed to be based in truth, felt similar to Tari’s continual search for love and connection, a sort of desperation she’d clung to as long as I’d known her, ever since college days. After her death, I could even feel a sort of understanding for her and Nate getting together. In so many ways it made perfect sense.
I raked my fingers through my hair, shook my head and tried to center myself, then walked to the outer office and said, “Mavis, we can pick up the scheduling calendar another time, yeah?”
She nodded. “Is everything okay?” She asked it like she meant it, but I was pretty sure she also wanted to hear more about Chad Miller.
“Everything’s fine,” I said. “Thanks. And could you forward any calls to my voicemail?”
She nodded. “Of course. Anything else?”
“Not that I can think of.”
Mavis waited a beat. “Did I see a badge clipped to his belt?”
I sighed. She wasn’t going to let it go, and skirting the issue was only going to pique her interest more. “Okay, so here’s the deal. A woman I provided pastoral care to here at St. Regis has died under…unusual circumstances. Detective Miller wanted me to know.” I’d explained nothing, but that was all she was going to get. Anyway, it would be enough for her to feast on for a while. “Now, I’m going back into my office and I’d like my calls forwarded to…”
“Voicemail, I got it the first time.” Mavis said it with a little edge in her voice.
I shut the door behind me and called Mark. No answer. I made a split-second decision to not leave a message. I had no words anyway. I tried his cellphone with the same result. I’d make some pastoral care visits here and then drive over to his office. Maybe he could help with the agitation that had overtaken me.
I felt like I had to do something, I just didn’t know what. I thought about calling Lamar Gustafson, but we hadn’t left on the most congenial terms. I could still hear his accusatory voice, telling me Rachel had to be given additional sedation because of how much I’d upset her. And now she was dead.
I wanted to drive out to WindDancer, to confront Weston. To ask him what happened, maybe to heap coals of blame onto him, but I knew that I’d just be transferring my own feelings of guilt. And anyway, Weston wouldn’t still be at WindDancer, would he? Arrangements would have already been made, paperwork signed. His sister’s body would likely already be in a drawer in a mortuary somewhere.
I imagined the somber scene. Two men wheeling a gurney down a back hallway and out through a tastefully concealed side door that led to a private loading area. I envisioned the blue body bag on the gurney with Rachel inside, heard the clank of metal as they collapsed the gurney and slid it into the back of the hearse. Tears welled in my eyes again. Just goddammit. The end of poor Rachel Roper who never got to meet her daughter.
The question was, where would Weston be now? And what if he was getting ready to leave town? A sudden urgency came over me. I had to find him. I needed to know what had happened.
The idea of never getting any answers stirred me to action. I could visit my St. Regis patients later, or even assign them to one of the rotating chaplains or Benny the Intern. After all, I was sort of the boss now. I grabbed my tote bag and headed out, giving Mavis the barest wave as I hurried past her desk.