Vincent Zandri - The remains

I shared an elevator with Caroline and Franny.

Staring straight ahead, I caught my reflection in the chrome-paneled doors. My face stared back at me, distorted, black-and-blued, unfamiliar, like a beat-up funhouse mirror reflection.

Almost tranquilly the elevator descended three stories to the first floor where we proceeded along the extended length of the narrow corridor to the exit. But Franny and I were barely through the automatic sliding glass doors before we were besieged by the scattered reporters who shouted out questions regarding mine and his overnight ordeal of one week ago.

“Do you plan on bringing a class action suit against Albany County for negligence, Ms. Underhill?”

“Is it true Whalen abducted you and your twin sister thirty years ago?”

“Do you fear for your life now that Whalen’s body has yet to be located?”

The questions were machine-gunned as microphones were shoved to within inches of our faces even while we made for the parking lot.

Until Caroline took control.

She stopped the chair, stepped around to the front, blocking any and all access to Franny and me.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” she exclaimed. “Please leave us in peace. In time, we’ll release a statement regarding last week’s ordeal. But until then we ask for patience and understanding while the process of convalescence continues. Thank you.”

As soon as I was seated besides Franny in the front of Caroline’s old truck, I decided to break my silence.

“That was eloquent, Caroline,” I offered, eyes planted on the open road up ahead.

Throwing the automatic transmission into drive, she said, “I’ve had a lifetime of protecting Francis from vultures like that.”

For a moment I was reminded of Franny’s upcoming cable television debut. But I thought better of mentioning it now.

While she motored the truck out past the city limits, over the South Troy Bridge and along Rural Route 2, Caroline brought me up to speed on a few developments that had transpired over the past twenty-four hours.

First item of importance was that Robyn had been transported to her mother’s home in the Albany suburbs where she continued to recover. Silently, I brooded over my best friend and partner not having called or come to visit me. But then, I knew something about post traumatic stress. I knew about wounds that change a person, make them withdraw-wounds that even time couldn’t heal. Caroline went on to say that the FBI still had no clue as to the whereabouts of Robyn’s attacker, and in all likelihood would not until someone either caught him in the act, or was able to make a positive ID in a line-up.

The next item was very important; it was believed that traces of Whalen’s body were uncovered in the deep woods not far from Mount Desolation. Having been left to the elements and the animals, his body was assumed to be badly decomposed. Specifically recovered were several bones that might belong to his right hand. Not even the press was aware of the discovery since the remains were now arriving at the FBI forensics’ lab in Albany for DNA verification.

“Is Mr. Whalen dead now?” Franny asked, his eyes staring out the windshield onto the pine tree-lined road.

I took hold of his hand, held it.

“Yes Franny,” I said. “You don’t have to worry.”

“What if he’s not dead? Does Mr. Whalen come back for us?”

I’m not sure if it was a conscious move, but Caroline tossed me a tight-lipped glance. I knew what she was thinking without her having to say it. That all DNA tests aside, until Whalen’s entire body was uncovered, she would not believe he was dead.

Neither would I.

I spent another full week at the Scaramuzzi’s farm recovering from my wounds. Exactly two weeks to the day he was murdered, Michael’s body was released for burial. It took some effort, but as a part of his eulogy I read a few pages from the Hounds of Heaven and it didn’t surprise me one bit that not a dry eye could be found inside St. Pious Church-the same church where we buried Molly and my parents all those years ago.

After the church ceremony, I rode to the cemetery in the front seat of Caroline’s truck (Franny was allowed to stay home and paint by himself). While a handful of us surrounded the gravesite, the priest said a few more prayers on Michael’s behalf. The day was cold and blustery. When we set red roses on his casket the red petals shivered in the wind gusts.

As the service came to an end and everyone scattered away from the grave, I stood alone with my husband. I told him I loved him. I thanked him for what we had during the final week of our lives together. I set a hand on my belly, told him I’d take care of our son for us. I didn’t know for certain I was going to have a boy, but whenever I tried to picture the baby inside of me, I saw a little Michael.

While Caroline stood waiting for me by the open door of her truck, I felt my husband’s loss like a person might feel a limb that has suddenly been amputated.

“I’m sorry we ever left one another,” I said, brushing away a tear from my eye. “I will always love you and I will always love our child.”

When I walked away from the grave I knew it would be a long time before I returned to the cemetery.

Caroline and I didn’t say a whole lot on the way back across the river to Rensselaer County. I had assumed we’d drive straight to her house for the small reception she was putting on for those who’d attended the funeral. Instead we took the long way around the backside of Mount Desolation. When she pulled off the main road onto an overgrown two-track, I turned to her.

“Where are you taking us?”

“Closure.” She smiled, as the truck shook and lumbered to and fro. “I can’t think of a better place for it to happen.”

The two-track was hardly even a two-track anymore; it was covered with so much growth. We must have driven two miles before we could go no further. Not without getting the truck caught up on some heavy rocks that blocked the parallel tracks. Obstacles no doubt placed there by Whalen himself.

Caroline got out.

“We walk from here,” she said.

But before she got out, she reached into my purse.

“I’m doing this for you,” she said, her eyes locked onto mine. When she pulled out my old copy of ‘Mockingbird’, I had no idea what she had in store for it. Nor did I ask. I just slipped out, shutting the door behind me. That’s when I saw her reaching into the truck’s cargo bed, where she picked up an old metal gasoline can imprinted with a yellow and black Sunoco logo on its side.

“Let’s go,” she ordered, that same subtle smile painted on her face.

To some of the animals who watched us from their hideaway dens, we must have been some kind of sight. Two grown women, dressed all in black, making their way through the woods, one of them still sporting a heavy cast on her right hand. I almost felt like laughing. Instead I just kept quiet and followed Caroline for the thirty minute walk into the dark woods.

I’d never before come upon the front of the old Whalen house. I’d always approached it from the backside. As we emerged through the woods, I felt that familiar pressure in the stomach; the organ slide in my intestines. My eyes gazed upon the warped and mold-covered roof shingles, the gray-brown siding, the decayed and now completely detached front porch. I eyed the picture window, the glass now shattered and leaving only jagged edges. I imagined that at one time it would have offered a view of a front lawn, two little children playing on it. A boy and a little girl. I imagined a mother looking out the window onto the children, maybe while she dusted the furniture, while a stew or maybe a chicken was cooking in the kitchen.