David Bell - Never Come Back

“She’s tough,” Ronnie said.

“Is that right?” my paramedic asked.

“ He’s tough,” I said. “He saved me.” I looked to the house. It glowed with light, and the front door stood open. Richland and Post were inside talking to Beth. “They both did,” I said.

The wind picked up, rustling leaves in the street. I shivered.

“Should he go to the emergency room?” I asked.

“He’s fine,” Ronnie’s paramedic said. “He should take some ibuprofen and sleep it off. He’ll be back to his old self in a couple of days.”

“Thanks,” Ronnie said.

“Have they taken the body out?” I asked.

My paramedic turned and looked at the house. “Not yet. Usually the medical examiner and the cops take their sweet time with that stuff.”

I knew that well. Two bodies removed from the house in just over a week. Another big night for the neighborhood. They were going to ask us to leave—or turn us into a reality show.

“So she killed him just by smacking him with that lamp?” I asked.

My paramedic nodded. “He was probably gone before he hit the floor. You can do that to someone if you get them in the right spot.”

I hoped that was the end of all of it.

Ronnie and I gave our statements to Detective Post. We took turns sitting in the backseat of her warm sedan while Richland remained inside talking to Beth. It didn’t take that long. I could recall the events vividly, could still hear the sickening sound of that lamp against the back of Gordon Baxter’s skull.

When I finished my statement, Post told me she needed to get back inside to wrap things up.

“Can I ask you something?” I said.

“Sure.”

“Beth,” I said. “My… half sister… What do you make of her?”

“She seems like she’s been through a lot,” Post said. “Hard years. We see a lot of people like that in our business. People whose lives just don’t go the way a life is supposed to.”

“Yeah,” I said.

“Is there something else you want to know?” Post asked.

“I guess I just want to know if you believe her,” I said. “If I should believe her.”

“I think you know I can’t decide that for you,” she said. “She’s your family, so you have to make up your own mind about her.”

“I thought you might say something like that,” I said.

“My cop instincts say she’s on the level,” Post said. “She saved your life and your brother’s life tonight. That’s not a small thing.”

Saved my life . I never thought I’d be the kind of person who would need her life saved.

“And,” Post said, “if you want to know something else, we looked into the story she told you about why she disappeared back in 1975. It turns out there’s a detective still alive from back then, an old guy named Ron Forest. They broke up a ring of drugs and pornography in Haxton about a year after your sister ran off. The guys who were behind it were involved with a lot of things, and it doesn’t look like Mr. Baxter’s name ever came up in association with that investigation. But something like that was going on in Haxton back then. It’s a little corroboration for her story from a reliable source. And I guess learning something like that about your father when you’re fifteen years old could really strip your gears, you know? It might take a long time to get over that.”

“Or never,” I said.

“Indeed,” Post said.

“Maybe thirty-seven years of anger, thirty-seven years of living the wrong kind of life brought that lamp down on his head tonight.”

The car started to feel too warm. I still had the blanket wrapped around my body, so I reached up and loosened it from where it rubbed against my neck.

“Are you going to stay here tonight?” Post asked.

“It doesn’t sound that appealing. I need to call my uncle and tell him what happened. Maybe Ronnie and I can stay over there until… the house is cleaned up.”

“Would you like a ride there?” Post asked.

“Is Beth… is she finished?”

“Soon. Do you want to talk to her?”

“Yes, I do. I should wait and see where she’s going to stay tonight.”

Post patted me on the leg. “Sit tight. I’ll tell her you’re still out here.”

She climbed out of the car, leaving me alone with my thoughts in the dark.

Uniformed police officers and paramedics remained at the house, milling around and discussing town and work gossip. They took turns showing Ronnie their cruisers and wagons, listening patiently as he asked questions about the most common reasons people dialed 911.

I used the phone while we waited. I called Paul and told him about the events of the night. He offered help immediately, insisting on coming over to the house to make sure we were all okay.

“No, it’s all right,” I said. “We’re almost finished here. In fact, we’re going to need a place to stay tonight. I don’t think I want to stay in the house after… you know, another dead body and everything.”

“Of course,” he said. “You can stay here.”

“We might have to sell this house,” I said. “It keeps accumulating bad memories.”

“Absolutely. Your mom was never attached to those kinds of things very much. Get a new house.”

“Okay,” I said. “I’ll worry about that tomorrow.”

“Are you sure you don’t want me to come over there and pick you and Ronnie up?” he asked. “I can.”

“I don’t think so. I’m going to wait for Beth. She might come along with us. I don’t know if she’ll be up for driving back to Reston Point.”

Paul fell silent for a moment. “Okay,” he said. “I just… Is she doing okay? Overall. You know?”

“I don’t know the answer to that either,” I said. “But I guess I have to find out now. She’s my sister.”

It took another half hour for Detective Post to come back out of the house. Beth walked beside her, wearing a Dover Police Department sweatshirt against the cool night air. I walked up the sidewalk toward them, and the three of us met halfway. Post didn’t stay long. She excused herself, saying she needed to consult with someone from the medical examiner’s office out in the street.

I immediately wished she would have stayed.

Beth and I faced each other on the narrow sidewalk. It took a moment, but I reached out to her, opening my arms. “I hope you’re okay,” I said.

We hugged. She felt thin and insubstantial, almost as if she might slip away at any moment. She held to me longer than I held to her. When we let each other go, Beth said, “I think they’re going to bring the body out soon. I could tell they were getting ready to move him.”

“Would you like to leave?” I asked.

“I guess I should,” she said. “There isn’t much else to do here. And it’s a long drive in the dark.”

“I don’t mean go home,” I said. “I don’t think you should go back there alone.”

She looked at me, waiting.

“I talked to Paul,” I said. “We can go to his house and stay there. He has room, and it looks like it will all be safe now.”

“I don’t know,” she said. “I don’t—” She looked around at the night. She looked at the yard and at the sky. Then she turned back to me. “I can’t be here with you if there’s any chance you believe those things that Gordon said. Either about me or about Mom. I’m a mess—I admit that. But I’m not like him. I’m his daughter, but I’m not him. All I ever wanted was to see Mom again. If you can’t understand that or accept it, that’s fine. But it’s not true. None of those things he said were true.”

I looked back at the house. It was still full of light, but it felt farther away than ever. Mom was gone. Dad was gone. At some point, a page had been turned. It was time to move forward, and I could do it alone or with the help of others.