Chapter 8

Bellingham, Washington

Thursday, February 20, 2020

As I left Renton and headed home through traffic, it was late enough in the day that southbound 405 was already bumper-to-bumper

for miles. I was northbound, and traffic there wasn’t nearly as bad. I was approaching Everett when my phone rang. I was surprised

to see Kelly’s name showing in caller ID. It was coming up on a week since our big blowup over Kyle. Other than the tense

series of calls regarding school records on Monday, I hadn’t heard a word from her.

This is going to be fun , I thought. “Hey there,” I said aloud, doing my best to sound jovial. “How’s my favorite daughter?”

Once upon a time, back when, as far as I knew, I’d had only one daughter, that had been a running joke between us. Now with Naomi in the picture, I realized that I’d just stepped in it. I was busy wondering how I’d go about fixing that blunder, when Kelly stunned me with her opening line.

“I’m sorry, Dad,” she said. “Sorry about everything. How’s Kyle doing? Did you get him enrolled?”

“This is only his third day,” I told her. “I’ve been working a case in Seattle, so I won’t find out how things went today

until I get back to Bellingham, but all things considered, he seems to be okay. And there’s no need for you to apologize.

It sounds as though the whole family has been through hell.”

I heard her draw a deep breath. “You know, this isn’t the first time Jeremy has cheated on me,” she said finally.

Of course, that was something I’d already learned from Kyle, but I was glad to hear it from Kelly.

“I’m so sorry,” I said. “Mel and I had no idea anything was amiss.”

“I know,” Kelly replied. “When it comes to being an enabler, I’m at the head of the class. I’ve covered for him for years.”

That was heartbreaking to hear. “I always thought you and Jeremy were happy.”

“I was at first,” she said, “and I thought he was, too. You never said it aloud, but I knew at the time how much you disapproved

of our getting married. But once I caught him cheating, I didn’t want to admit it to anyone—most especially to you—and have

to tell you that you were right and I was wrong. I was afraid of disappointing you.”

“I’m disappointed as hell in Jeremy,” I said, “but I’ve never been disappointed in you. Even with small kids at home, you picked yourself up, went back to school. You got your GED, and earned both a bachelor’s and a master’s. First you started your own com pany and then, after selling that, you’ve gone on to hold demanding jobs. Getting people to cough up charitable contributions isn’t easy.”

“It’s easier than getting a divorce,” she put in.

“Yes,” I agreed. “I suppose it is.”

“Anyway,” she continued, “when I decided to move out, I really did give Kyle a chance to decide what he wanted to do—whether

he would move in with Kayla and me in Eugene or stay on in Ashland with his dad. Considering it’s his senior year, when he

chose to stay, I thought that was a reasonable decision. I don’t understand why he changed his mind all of a sudden or why

he decided to go running to you, either. Why didn’t he come straight to Eugene?”

I couldn’t answer that question without betraying Kyle’s confidence. I may have been his grandfather, but in asking me to

look into his family situation, I was functioning as a private investigator. That meant that whatever passed between us was

confidential information. Rather than answering her question, I deflected it instead. “Sometimes, teenage boys are as much

of a mystery to themselves as they are to their mothers.”

“I suppose that’s true,” Kelly said. “But do you think he’s going to be okay? Really?”

That was the Kelly Beaumont Cartwright I had always known and loved, the sensible girl who cared for her children more than

life itself.

“I think he’ll be fine,” I said. “He’s a likable, responsible kid with a good head on his shoulders. What he needed was some

distance from the situation.”

“You mean distance from me.”

“No, I mean distance from everything. Being away may let him gain perspective on what’s happened. Right now it all seems like the end of the world, or at least the end of the world as he knew it. Eventually he’ll be able to figure out that’s not the case.”

“But what if all the schools end up getting shut down because of Covid?” Kelly asked.

I may have been on a self-imposed news blackout, but Mel wasn’t. She, too, had raised concerns that school shutdowns were

most likely coming sooner than later.

“I’m telling you the same thing I told Mel,” I said to Kelly. “We’ll cope, and Kyle will cope. I said we’d look after him,

and we will, come what may, but Mel and I are both going to have to upgrade our cooking skills.”

“I miss him,” Kelly said sadly.

“I’m sure you do,” I agreed, “but try to think about it this way. Kyle’s eighteen. Even with all the family upheaval, chances

are he’d be leaving home to go to college in the fall. How about trying to think of this short stay at our place as his getting

an early start on that?”

“You mean look on this as an opportunity for him rather than a failure on my part?”

In that moment I wanted desperately to take my grieving daughter in my arms, hold her close, and tell her that, no matter

what, everything was going to be okay.

“Look,” I said, “it strikes me that your whole family is trying to make the best of a very bad bargain, including Jeremy,

I suppose. He may have been a crappy husband all this time, but he’s always struck me as a good dad, and that catch-colt baby

of his is going to need a father.”

“What kind of baby?” Kelly asked.

“A catch-colt,” I explained. “It’s something my mother used to call me—her little catch-colt. When I was little, I thought it meant I was part horse. It wasn’t until years later that she told me it was an old-fashioned term for an out-of-wedlock baby. All it really meant was that she and my father weren’t married at the time I was born.”

“So, illegitimate then,” Kelly said.

As a catch-colt myself and with both an out-of-wedlock daughter and granddaughter, the word illegitimate when used in regard to children rubs me the wrong way. If I were Kyle’s age, I might even say it “triggers” me.

“No, Kelly,” I said. “The parents may be screwed up six ways to Sunday, but I don’t think babies are ever illegitimate—they’re

all just fine.”

In that moment it occurred to me that eventually the same statement would apply to Caroline and Jeremy’s baby as well—that

he or she would be perfect, too, but I was smart enough to not say that out loud. Instead, I changed the subject.

“So tell me how you and Kayla are doing? How’s the new job?”

You’ll notice I also had brains enough not to ask anything about whether or not Kelly had a new man in her life. Maybe there’s

something to be said for getting older and wiser.

The remainder of the conversation had to do with what would happen to both Kyle and Kayla in the event schools did shut down

in the face of the coming pandemic. I tried to reassure Kelly that one way or the other we’d all get through it, but I doubt

she was convinced. Come to think of it, I’m not sure I was, either.

I arrived home in Fairhaven in time for dinner. Mel had brought home a heat-and-serve meatloaf. Kyle had made macaroni and cheese. It wasn’t gourmet, but it was food, and no one left the table hungry. After dinner, Kyle took charge of the cleanup, which, according to Mel’s “rules and regulations,” was going to be one of his primary duties.

Once he finished and disappeared into his room, Mel and I settled in the living room for some privacy. I brought her up-to-date

on my long conversation with Matilda Jackson, including showing her the contents of the envelope that had contained Darius’s

personal effects. She went through them one by one. When it came time to examine the hundred-dollar bills, she held one of

them up to the lamplight.

“There’s no security strip,” she announced. “So these bills are either very old or very well done counterfeit. There’s no

way to tell how they happened to be in Darius’s possession?”

“When I found them, I could tell from Matilda’s immediate reaction that she was afraid he might have been dealing drugs. Considering

Darius’s history, that’s a reasonable assumption.” Then, after a momentary pause, I asked, “How long ago did the US mint start

printing bills with security strips?”

Without a word, Mel picked up her iPad and typed in a few words. Moments later she provided the answer. “It says here that

happened in 1990.”

Putting down the iPad, Mel picked up one of the bills and ran her finger over it. “This doesn’t feel that old,” she objected.

“And it doesn’t feel used, either.”

“So who goes around buying drugs with thirty-year-old cash?” I asked.

“Or maybe it’s counterfeit,” Mel suggested, “but if that’s the case, whoever printed it did a hell of a good job.”

I thought that was the end of the conversation, but it wasn’t. We were in bed and I had almost dozed off when Mel said one more thing, and that final comment turned out to be the most important one.

“Drug users don’t ever shoot up with their nondominant hand,” she told me. “That never happens.”

She fell fast asleep after that. I didn’t. Maybe someone else had given Darius that fatal dose of fentanyl, but finding out

who was responsible for that wouldn’t fix everything. Darius Jackson may have stopped using, but if it turned out he was selling

drugs, learning that was bound to break whatever was left of Matilda Jackson’s heart.