Kathleen Creighton - Memory of Murder

Driving north on I-5 was like heading into night. With the short autumn day and the ominous darkening blue-gray sky ahead, most cars had their headlights on even though it was still mid-afternoon. As he drove, Alan told Lindsey what he and Carl had found out so far, being careful to lay out for her only the facts, keeping their suppositions to himself.

She sat quietly listening, looking through the contents of the file folder he’d brought, and when he’d finished, she tapped the printed copy of the article from the Richmond paper.

“And…you believe this woman, the one the fishermen found, is the same one that disappeared in Baltimore along with her husband? The one you believe is my mother?”

You ID’d her yourself, he thought, but only said cautiously, “It’s a possibility. The timing’s right.”

She made an impatient gesture and dropped the article back into her lap. “It’s a terrible picture. I can’t tell anything from this. Nobody can.”

“She fits the general description,” Alan pointed out. “And the head injury matches.” He waited a beat, then added gently, “According to Richmond PD, a man claiming to be the woman’s husband showed up three days later. Apparently, she had no memory of him whatsoever. He produced documents-a birth certificate and marriage license-as proof Jane Doe was his wife. According to those documents, the couple’s names were Roger and Sally Phillips. She was released into his custody, and that was the last anyone saw or heard of them.”

“Okay, so…?”

“Documents are easily forged. Don’t forget, that was before computers and national and international databanks. Long before DNA. Wanna know what I think?” He gave her a quick glance and saw anger-or maybe tears-bright in her eyes. “I think Roger and Sally Phillips ceased to exist the day they walked out of that hospital in Richmond, Virginia. And that they were reborn sometime thereafter in San Diego, California, as Richard and Susan Merrill. And, there’s one other thing.” He paused, fortifying himself, knowing how hard this next bit of news was going to be for her. “When is your birthday?”

He heard her soft intake of air. “My birthday? May twelfth, 1970-why?”

Keeping his eyes fixed on the road ahead and his voice even, he told her. “According to the hospital records, Jane Doe, aka Sally Phillips, was approximately four weeks pregnant when she was fished out of the Chesapeake Bay in early September, 1969. She might not have even known herself she was pregnant, at the time. But her baby would have been born, most likely, sometime around the first to the middle of May…1970.”

The silence inside the car seemed profound, even eclipsing the roar of freeway traffic beyond the windows.

Alan said, “Lin-” but got no further before she interrupted, shaking her head vehemently “ Don’t. Just…don’t…say anything.”

He waited patiently while she struggled with it, and wasn’t surprised when she finally drew a reinforcing breath and spoke in a calm voice, tight with self-control. “I don’t care what you think. I will not believe my father-my dad -could have done anything to hurt, much less kill , my mother. Maybe he did claim her at the hospital, even gave a fake name-and you don’t have any proof he did, by the way, do you?” Alan shook his head. She settled back in her seat. “Even if he did, that doesn’t mean he was the one who shot her.”

“She says he is,” Alan reminded her.

She dismissed that with a gesture. “She’s confused. Why on earth would he try to kill her, then-” her voice wobbled and she caught a breath in an unsuccessful attempt to control it “-take her home and…care for her all those years? Why would someone do that? He loved her. He loved me . It doesn’t make any sense.”

The tears in her voice were hard to listen to. He felt them like a weight on his shoulders, and shifted irritably, trying to ease the burden. “Dammit, Lindsey, I know it may not make sense to you. But the facts-”

“Facts? You don’t have facts, you have theories!”

“Theories that fit the facts. Face it-your father, the man you know as Richard Merrill, has been lying to you all your life. He’s not who you believed him to be. When are you going to accept that, and deal with the truth?”

She turned to him in a fury. “And when are you going to understand? This is my father . The man who was always there for me. How would you feel if it were your father? Your dad who-”

“My father ,” Alan lashed back, “was an abusive jerk who drove my mother to drink and eventually to suicide. He was never there for either one of us, and quite frankly, it’s been a long time since I felt anything for him whatsoever.”

Silence once again enveloped the car. For several minutes the only sounds he was aware of were the thumping of his own heartbeat and the voice inside his head reading him the riot act for unloading on Lindsey like that. He wished he could say he didn’t know where his outburst had come from, but of course he did know. Hearing his old man’s voice after so many years had definitely stirred up some sleeping demons. But she sure didn’t deserve the fallout.

He was searching for a way to apologize to her when she drew a quick, unsteady breath and said, “Well. I guess that explains a lot.”

Yeah, he supposed it did. He gave a humorless snort of laughter and didn’t say anything, but he was thinking it was a damn good thing he’d told himself no, earlier, when he’d been on the brink of making a huge mistake. There was just no way in hell it was ever going to work between him and Lindsey Merrill, no matter how much he liked, respected, admired and wanted her.

And God help me, I do want her. Still.

They made good time. Traffic was open and fairly free-flowing all the way into downtown L.A. Since it was still early enough, they didn’t have to contend with Music Center traffic. There was some congestion around the I-5/101 interchange, which Lindsey imagined was pretty standard, even early on a Saturday evening, but at least it wasn’t raining. The Alaskan Express seemed to be holding off, for the moment.

When they exited the freeway onto Hollywood Boulevard, she was startled to see the streets already festooned with holiday decorations beginning to sway, now, in the winds that heralded the storm’s imminent arrival. Christmas had seemed a long way off in San Diego-or maybe she’d just been too preoccupied with her own troubles to notice.

The first raindrops smacked onto the windshield as they turned onto Laurel Canyon Boulevard where, thankfully, most of the traffic seemed to be going the other way, as residents of the Valley headed for the entertainment centers in Hollywood and Los Angeles. Even armed with a Mapquest printout and with Lindsey helping to search for house numbers, they drove past the address the first time and had to go up to Mulholland Drive to turn around. But at last they pulled into the miniscule driveway in front of a street-level garage tucked up against the steep side of the canyon.

Alan turned off the motor, and for a few minutes they sat, not talking, listening to the ticking of the cooling engine, the patter of rain on the roof of the car, and the swish of cars passing by on the street behind them, neither of them, apparently, quite ready to face what lay ahead. Lindsey watched Alan’s fingers tapping restlessly on the steering wheel, then looked over at him. Silhouetted intermittently against the headlights, his profile seemed tense…even grim.

“What’s wrong?” she asked after a moment. What aren’t you telling me?

He shook his head but didn’t reply.

“Alan?” Unexpectedly, her voice had begun to tremble. “Okay, you’d better tell me why we’re here, because I’m not getting out of this car until you do. You told me this man is a private investigator who once looked into the case of that couple missing from Baltimore. You said he might have some details, be able to fill in some blanks.”