Cast into Doubt

THIRTEEN

The balance of her day passed in a blur. She left Markson’s and did a multitude of errands in Center City. Her last stop of the day was at the office of Dr Cliburn, where Chloe had worked. Shelby had been avoiding the task of picking up Chloe’s belongings and having to come face to face with Chloe’s co-workers. But all of the young women who had worked with Chloe treated Shelby gently, fully aware of the difficulty of her errand. One of them had placed Chloe’s belongings in a shiny, sky-blue shopping bag. Shelby glanced in at the contents and saw a pair of clogs, a coffee mug, a cardigan sweater, and a framed photo all neatly packed. Dr Cliburn, a big, gruff man in his fifties, came out of his office and offered his condolences. Shelby felt claustrophobic under their sympathetic scrutiny. She couldn’t wait to flee the cheery office full of parenting magazines and baby photos on the wall. She felt a headache beginning to form over her eye, and all she wanted was to escape their kind wishes and solicitous glances. A text from Talia arrived just as she was getting back into her car. ‘GLEN HOME,’ it read. ‘CALL.’

Glen, she thought wearily. Was he in trouble again, she wondered? Glen was the youngest of the three Winter siblings, and the only one of the three who, despite his keen intelligence, had never seemed to have any goal in life other than to get high and avoid responsibility. He worked sporadically, stayed with friends and acquaintances, and eschewed all entangling emotional alliances. He had frequent skirmishes with the law, which usually resulted in an indignant rant against the police. His visits home were infrequent. Mother must be worse, Shelby thought. Glen wasn’t visiting for a social call. Shelby wished she could block the whole problem out, but there was no avoiding it. No use pretending that she hadn’t seen the text.

The only thing more unsatisfactory than a face-to-face conversation with Talia was texting her or trying to talk to her on the phone. Shelby was in her car and already near the college. She decided to go directly to Talia’s lab and get an update directly from her sister.

The parking lot at Franklin University was full of cars and Shelby had to park far from the computer lab. The façade of the lab building was mostly glass. The staircases and hallways were industrial pipe and pressed metal walkways that contrasted with the warmth of the interior brick walls. The building seemed to glow in the twilight as she walked toward it. She entered the building and descended the stairs to the computer lab and Talia’s office.

A thin, pleasant-looking woman with a shaggy haircut was seated at a computer desk, frowning at her monitor. Shelby tapped on the open door.

The woman looked up. ‘Yes?’

‘Faith?’

‘Yes,’ the woman said, surprised, her eyes widening.

‘I’m Shelby. Dr Winter’s sister.’

Faith smiled. ‘Oh hi. Come on in.’ She indicated a chair by the desk, and Shelby sat down.

‘Is she in there?’ Shelby asked.

Faith glanced at the computer monitor. ‘She should be along any minute now,’ she said. ‘This is her early night.’

‘You look like you’re involved in something,’ said Shelby.

‘I am. I have to finish this research. But I never have enough time. My husband and I are renovating our house ourselves. Going home is almost worse than being at work,’ she said with a good-natured smile.

‘Don’t let me interrupt you,’ said Shelby. ‘I can wait in the hall.’

‘No, wait right there,’ said Faith. ‘It doesn’t bother me. She’ll stop in on her way into the lab.’

Shelby nodded and watched the hallway as students carrying laptops came and went. Her headache began to throb. She knew that a visit home was unavoidable. If Glen was there, that would make it more tolerable. Despite his shortcomings, Shelby still liked seeing her brother. But she dreaded seeing her mother in the throes of her terminal condition. And the house itself was encumbered with their dismal family history. She almost envied her mother the fact that she was losing her ability to remember it.

Just then, Talia came around the corner wearing pants with a stretchy waist, a cardigan, and rubber-soled shoes. The frown lines in her face were permanent. Shelby stood up.

Talia looked startled, and reached out a hand to her sister, as if to shake it. Or was it to push her away? Shelby stared at her sister’s hand in confusion. Talia wiped her hand on her pants.

‘I got your text,’ said Shelby. ‘About Glen. What’s going on? Is mother worse?’

‘About the same,’ said Talia. ‘But when he called the other night I told him he better get himself over to see her. Before it’s too late. You better go over there too. I’m tired of telling you.’

Shelby sighed. ‘Why don’t you come with me?’

‘When I’m done. Right now, I have work to do.’

‘I haven’t seen either one of you . . . since Chloe . . .’ Shelby stopped speaking.

A look of annoyance crossed Talia’s face. ‘I can’t just drop everything like that. These programs have to be run.’

‘Can’t it wait?’

Talia shook her head. ‘The world does not revolve around your schedule.’

Shelby knocked on the door of the home where she had grown up. Their neighborhood was an anomaly in the city – block upon block of free-standing houses. When their father was alive and teaching algebra at a city high school, this neighborhood had seemed idyllic to young families who could afford to buy there. In the years since he died, the area had been colonized by Russian immigrants, and the street signs were now written in both English and Russian. In her childhood it had been a neighborhood of families with kids in the local school and a playground across the street. She supposed that it still was, except that now the families were poorer, the cooking smells were denser, and, if you closed your eyes, it might sound as if you were in Moscow. Talia did the minimum of upkeep on the family home, none of it cosmetic, so the place looked much bleaker and more run-down than it actually was.

Glen opened the door. He was still in his thirties, just barely, but his thick hair was graying. He was dressed in layer upon layer of t-shirts and flannel. His jeans were faded and full of holes. ‘Shelby,’ he cried. He held his arms open and pulled her in. She could hear his muffled voice in her ear. ‘I’m so sorry about Chloe. I just couldn’t believe it when I heard. That child was an angel.’

Shelby could barely conceal her surprise. For a moment she wondered if Talia had told him. ‘Thanks, Glen. How did you know?’

‘I do read the paper from time to time,’ he said. He leaned back and looked her in the eye. ‘You know I loved her. She meant the world to me.’

Shelby sighed. He had never remembered Chloe’s birthday, or attended any of her school events, but he would occasionally arrive, unannounced, on the doorstep with some book he had stolen from a library, or some toy he had picked up at Goodwill. In his own way, she supposed, he meant it when he said he loved Chloe. ‘I know,’ she said.

Glen looked over her shoulder into the quiet street. ‘Where’s Dr No?’ he asked playfully.

‘Still in the lab,’ said Shelby, smiling in spite of herself.

‘Quick. Get in here before she swoops in on her broom. I got us a bottle of wine. And food.’

‘You bought food?’ Shelby said in amazement.

‘I did.’ Glen led the way through the dark house. The drapes were drawn over the picture window in the living room. The dining room had been turned into Talia’s office, with computer equipment as well as piles of papers and folders on every surface. They went into the kitchen, which had the same counters, the same scuffed linoleum it had had in their childhood. On the counter was an open bottle of wine and a hunk of cheddar cheese still in its plastic wrapper, along with a box of saltines.

Shelby sat down on the stool opposite her younger brother and smiled as he poured out the wine into juice glasses and opened the cheese to slice it.

‘How’s mother?’ said Shelby, accepting a piece of cheese on a cracker with the realization that she was very hungry.

‘Asleep,’ he said.

Shelby could picture her mother’s old bedroom, dimly lit, smelling of sweaty clothes and beer. ‘Talia said she’s pretty bad.’

Glen shrugged. ‘Talia got her painkillers, so she’s washed them down with gin and she’s feeling fine. Just the way she likes it.’

They had survived their childhood with the aid of gallows humor. There was no reason to change that now. ‘Nirvana,’ said Shelby. ‘So what brings you here?’

‘What brings me here?’ he asked. ‘This is a family crisis.’

‘Mother’s condition?’

‘Mother’s condition is her own doing. Sad, but . . . hey. I meant Chloe’s death, of course,’ he said.

Shelby smiled wryly. ‘Thanks. For a minute I thought maybe Talia had contacted you about it but then I realized . . .’

‘Nah,’ he said. ‘For quite a few reasons.’

‘She sent me a sympathy card,’ said Shelby. ‘I couldn’t believe that. A sympathy card.’

Glen shook his head. ‘She’s f*cked up.’

‘So is everything OK with you?’ Shelby asked, grimacing as she waited for the answer.

‘Everything is the same with me,’ he said. ‘But we’re not here to talk about me. I want to know about Chloe.’

‘I don’t know how much you already know,’ she said.

‘I read that she was drinking and fell overboard,’ he said bluntly.

Shelby recoiled from the indictment. ‘Geez, Glen.’

‘Hey, it was in the news,’ he said.

‘Well, that was the official version. But I’ve asked the head of security at Markson’s to look into it,’ said Shelby.

Glen looked at her in surprise. ‘Really?’

Shelby told him briefly about Janice Pryor’s visit and the Overboard website.

‘It just seems wrong to accept this unquestioningly.’

‘I agree,’ said Glen. ‘But why the security chief at Markson’s?’

‘He used to be a homicide detective here in Philly,’ said Shelby.

‘Well, that doesn’t make him an expert,’ said Glen derisively. His contempt for the police was well known to Shelby. Years of living on the razor’s edge of the law, protesting one drug or DUI arrest after another, he had come to see himself as a victim, and the police as an organized entity out to get him.

Shelby short-circuited the familiar rant. ‘There are no guarantees, of course. In the end, I may have to accept the official version of events. But I need to know for sure.’

Glen frowned. ‘Did you know that Chloe was drinking?’

‘No. Apparently she didn’t want anyone to know. Including me. Even Rob didn’t know it until she had an accident with Jeremy in the car. She drove off the road and up on to a curb. Fortunately they weren’t hurt.’

‘Did anyone report it to the cops?’ asked Glen, swilling the wine in his glass and pouring himself another.

‘No. Luckily Rob got to them before the police could get involved. But she promised him she would stop drinking after that.’

‘That’s what Rob told you.’ He shook his head.

Shelby frowned at him. ‘Yes. Why are you shaking your head?’

‘Hey, if nobody reported it, that means there was no police report,’ said Glen. ‘No breathalyzer. No hearing. Believe me, I know what happens when you get caught drunk driving.’

Glen spoke, Shelby knew, with the voice of authority on this one. ‘I suppose you’re right,’ Shelby said.

‘Of course I’m right. Chloe didn’t lose her license. There’s no proof that it ever even happened the way he said,’ he persisted.

‘Well, whatever happened, it was enough to make her go to AA.’

‘He says,’ said Glen, waving a knife with a pale hunk of cheese in the air.

‘What do you mean?’ Shelby asked.

‘I mean how do we know she went to AA? It’s anonymous.’

Shelby frowned at him. ‘Well, why would he say that?’

Glen shrugged. ‘Is it possible that it’s not true? That she didn’t have a drinking problem? That he just wanted you, and the police, to think that she did?’

‘Glen, that’s paranoid. Rob wouldn’t just make that up. Besides, I saw a security video of Chloe on the boat at the bar, ordering drinks. They have video of her passing out at the bingo table, for heaven’s sakes.’

‘You saw her ordering something at the bar,’ Glen said. ‘It could have been a soft drink.’

‘No. No. The bartender told the police it was vodka.’

‘Maybe the bartender was lying. Maybe someone paid him to spike her drink. To make her appear inebriated.’

‘No,’ said Shelby, trying to remember the video. ‘Why would anyone . . . Look, Glen, this is bad enough without one of your conspiracy theories,’ Shelby said impatiently.

Glen lifted his hands. ‘Hey. You can believe what you want to believe. I’m just saying. Her husband said she’s a drinker. But you have no proof of that. Frankly, I don’t see why you’re taking his word for it. Anybody could have slipped a drug into her drink so that it would be easy to toss her over the side.’

Shelby blanched. ‘No,’ she protested. ‘Why? You’re just . . . No, it’s impossible. If drugs were involved they would know that from the . . .’

‘How? From the autopsy?’ Glen asked triumphantly. He shook his head. ‘Think about it, Shel. There was no autopsy. They don’t have her body. There’s no way to ever know.’

‘That’s true,’ Shelby whispered. She set her wineglass down on the table because her hands had begun to shake.