I pushed images of Greg in a sinking car out of my mind. I thought back to the hairbrush and other personal items of Greg’s that the police had taken from the house. “What about DNA?” I read the news, and knew they could do amazing things with bones.
“Normally, yes, we could work on that, but contrary to what you see in the movies, it’s nearly impossible to extract a viable DNA sample from bones that have been underwater for almost a year. So we went back to Melissa Richards. Richards had been reported as missing around the same time as your husband, and her case was closed a month ago when it was concluded that she was in the car. She was from Syracuse. Did Greg have any connection to Syracuse at all that you can think of?”
I shook my head. “Nothing other than the obvious connection to Rochester.”
“I’ve been working with the Syracuse police, and they’ve dissected every avenue of Richards’s life. We looked into boyfriends, family members, and friends. There is no other person in her life that would be an obvious candidate for the passenger. She was last seen alone.”
“Matt,” I began finally, not exactly sure what I was going to ask with the questions tumbling fast and furious over each other in my mind. “Do you really believe Greg was in the car with her?”
“It’s worth considering,” he replied heavily. “But I don’t know that we’ll ever know for sure.”
After Detective Reynolds left, I called Mom and relayed the whole conversation.
“How are you? Are you okay?” she asked.
“Yeah, I’m okay. I’m just so tired of it. I had the memorial. I need him to be dead in my mind. Isn’t that terrible? That’s awful. I can’t think about it anymore. I am so sick of wondering where he is, and this isn’t any better. It’s not any closer really to having a definitive answer. As far as I can tell, they aren’t going to be able to prove it’s him. So I’m not actually any better off.”
“What does Detective Reynolds think?”
“He never says what he thinks. He just says what he can or can’t prove. I’m so frustrated. I need this year to be over.”
“Do you want me to come over?” Mom asked.
“No. I need to go meet the bus in an hour or so anyway. Thanks for listening.”
We hung up, and I checked on Leah before going upstairs to Greg’s study. I braced myself for the smell as I opened the door, but it seemed to have dissipated and didn’t hit me as hard. I grabbed his brown leather journal and went back downstairs to sit at the island in the kitchen so I could keep an eye on Leah.
Slowly turning every page, I looked for any reference to a Melissa or MR or Syracuse. Nothing. I studied the note Call Karen at Omni S.D. When had it been written? I tried to figure it out based on the location in the book, but it was jotted sideways, so if he couldn’t be bothered to turn the book upright, then would he have made sure to turn to the next available page? No, probably not. On the next page of the book, “2009 Resolutions” had been written and underlined twice. If the chronology was to be believed, Call Karen was written sometime in late 2008 or early 2009. I didn’t think that was likely if Karen was the mystery woman. Our marriage was great in early 2009. No, I believed the note had been jotted on the backside of a randomly opened page, sideways, in a hurry.
I reread all the pages. Some comments were still endearing. Others were more puzzling. I carry your heart with me. I carry it in my heart. A line from a poem, maybe? And jotted next to it was “C!” which may have been intended for me. But Greg hadn’t liked poetry much. Or at least the Greg I knew didn’t. I felt a pang of tenderness. I wish I had known the real Greg. He had held everything close to the vest, protected. What were you protecting yourself from, Greg? I closed the book and got Leah ready to go pick up Hannah from the bus stop.
Chapter 28
We awoke on Christmas Eve morning to discover an unexpected snowstorm had hit Clinton. Almost ten inches of snow had fallen, and the grass and trees were covered in a marshmallow blanket that evoked Christmas spirit. Among the clamoring of high voices, I dug out snow suits and boots from the previous year—too tight all around, but good enough for one day.
After building a lopsided snowman and having a snowball fight that ended in tears—because with a three-year-old, most activities involved some tears—we retired in the comfort of the living room with mugs of hot cocoa. We hunkered down for the evening and played Memory and Candy Land.