S. Tooley - When the dead speak

She walked over and leaned on the table. The obituary was on Samuel and Melinda Casey. It was very complimentary, listing all of Melinda’s charitable work and Samuel’s literary awards. It mentioned the only surviving relative as their five-year-old daughter, Samantha. No mention was made of the car accident. Only that they were pronounced dead at the scene.

Jake asked, “You’ve never seen this before, have you?”

“No.” She sat down and read the obit again. It contained pictures of the happy couple, youthful and vibrant.

Jake placed his hand on top of hers and gave it a squeeze.

“You okay?”

She didn’t look at him, couldn’t take her eyes off the page. But she felt the electricity flowing from his hand to hers. She felt her hand squeeze back, hold on tightly. His skin was warm, almost hot. Her eyes moved from the page to his hand and he quickly removed it.

“I guess I expected it to say more about the accident,” Sam said.

“Maybe it’s in the Wednesday edition.”

He turned the pages as he worked his way back through the hard bound volume. It wasn’t in Wednesday’s paper or the one prior to that. But it did make the headlines in the Monday edition.

Sam inhaled deeply, her breath coming in short gasps.

EXPLOSION KILLS AWARD WINNING REPORTER AND HIS WIFE

Sam picked up a small, white box sitting on the island counter. Inside was her father’s lightning bolt pin hanging from a fourteen-carat gold chain.

Walking up behind her, Jake said, “Don’t say I never pay my own way.”

“You did this?”

“Actually, Alex modified the pin to a pendant. The chain was mine. It was too tight for me.” Sam unclasped the chain. “Here, I’ll get that.” Jake grabbed the necklace from her and reached around her neck.

That familiar pounding in Sam’s ears was distracting. She was close enough to see the yellow speckles in his soft brown eyes.

“Perfect fit,” he said as he pulled away.

They heard a beep from the computer and walked to the study. “Great,” Sam said. “Tim found Cain.” She waited for the sheet to come off the printer. “Instead of focusing on Dallas, he focused on any repeat traveler who flew into Chicago, then Dallas, and back to Chicago. He used the name Al Morgan.”

The one page gave a post office box number in Brooklyn. “Clever,” Jake pointed out. “He never paid by charge card and even changed the post office box several times. It will be hard to prove anything. Let me handle this one.” Jake took the page from her, folded it up and slipped it under his keys on the bar.

Abby and Alex entered through the patio door carrying bags of groceries.

“Abby,” Jake said, “we really need to talk to you.” He pulled out a stool for her at the counter. Sam took a seat next to her.

Alex placed the bag of groceries on the counter saying in an indignant voice, “And Abby needs to talk to you, Sam. Using your gift to have those mourning doves do such a disgraceful act.” He rested his gaze on Jake as if he were the one who instigated it. “Bad influences.”

“Another time, Alex.” Abby turned to Jake. “What did you want to ask me?”

“What happened the day Sam’s father died?” He recapped the Hap Wilson case, informing her of the pins, the death of George Abbott, Preston Hilliard’s possible involvement, Elvis’s efforts to find someone from Korea who might have known Hap.

Sam showed Abby a picture of Hap Wilson and the pin hanging from the chain around her neck.

“You found this in your father’s jewelry box?” Abby touched the pin.

“Yes,” Sam replied.

Abby sighed. “Are you sure you want to hear this? It’s been so long.” When Sam nodded, Abby started. “I am not aware of what story he had been working on but it was something big. After receiving a disturbing phone call, he made arrangements to go out of town. He was going to fly Melinda to Connecticut to stay with friends and wanted me to take Samantha to the reservation. He asked me to bring Samantha to the office to say good-bye. Samuel and Melinda then climbed into their car. He turned the key in the ignition and,” Abby stopped and took a deep breath.

“And we know what happened next,” Jake said.

Abby nodded. “It was a horrible sight.” She looked into Sam’s eyes, touched the back of her hand to Sam’s face. “You watched it all from the window, Sweetheart.”

“The newspaper said the police had ruled out a car bomb.” Jake told Abby.

“Yes. Nothing indicated that it was anything other than a freak incident, a gas leak, a spark from somewhere. I didn’t really understand the explanation.”

Sam tried to visualize the scene, search her memory, to no avail. “Why don’t I remember anything?”

“The last time you saw your father, you saw his head blown through the windshield and the rest of his body blown apart. Your mind has blocked out everything that happened that day. You were catatonic.” She brushed a wisp of hair from Sam’s face. “You didn’t speak for two years. That’s why I always thought it best not to ever tell you about that day.”

Alex said, “Abby did what she thought was best for you, Sam. Back then, clinics believed in shock therapy and drugs to bring patients out of catatonic conditions. She took you where our medicine could do you the most good.”

Abby reached across the counter and patted Alex’s hand. To Sam she said, “Your mind still blocked out that day but at least you started talking again.”

Sam hugged her mother. “I understand. It’s all right.”

“But you haven’t seen the pin before?” Jake asked.

“No. And I don’t remember ever meeting this Mr. Wilson.”

Frank walked in from the patio. They gathered in the study where Jake told him about his conversation with Sheila Ames, the daughter of Leonard Ames, one of Preston’s unit members who, two days before driving his car off a cliff, had drawn a shape of a lightning bolt on his calendar.

“Something occurred to me while talking to her,” Jake said. “Sheila told me her father was a trial lawyer before his sudden death.” He handed them a sheet of paper explaining, “Sheila faxed this article regarding a case her father had worked on that caught the national media.”

“I vaguely remember this one,” Frank said. “The Blalock wife who hired the hit man to kill her husband. The case was used in a law class I took. Ames defended her?”

Jake pointed to the date of the article. “What if Hap had been searching for Preston and his buddies all along, lying low?”

“And then he found Leonard Ames in 1976.” Frank skimmed the article. “This gives the name of the law firm, the city.”

Sam shook her head. “For the purpose of murdering him? I don’t think so.”

“I don’t either,” Jake agreed. “But maybe what he wanted from Ames was information on how to find the rest. Maybe getting one of the pins and finding out where Preston, Parker Smith, and George Abbott lived, he would have something substantial for an ace reporter like Samuel Casey to work with.”

Sam’s fingers instinctively ran up past her medicine bundle to the lightning bolt pendant. “Sounds probable.”

“Damn probable,” Frank echoed. He described his interesting visit with Amos Washington, the lively war veteran.

“And you don’t think he was just being overly sensitive about prejudice?” Jake asked.

“No. I believe Amos. He’s completely coherent. Still has a great memory. He’s seen a lot in his seventy-five years and I think he was pretty fair and honest with me.”

“Had he ever heard the term, lightning strike?” Sam asked.

Frank shook his head no. “And he wasn’t assigned anywhere near Hap Wilson in Korea.”