Miss Me When I'm Gone

chapter 27



I found Gretchen’s piece on Dr. Skinner rather odd. First of all, given the outcome of her first visit, I couldn’t imagine Gretchen wanting to return. Had she? It seemed so sad and futile. But maybe Mrs. Skinner had encouraged her. And the reference to stealing mail? What the hell was that about? Whose mail? Frank’s?

“Good idea, Gretchen,” I muttered as I read it.

And a couple of things made me linger over the Kevin Conley piece, too. First of all, there was Gretchen using the word soulful to describe Kevin’s eyes. Gretchen wasn’t one to use such words. I wondered if she meant it—and if she did, it probably meant she liked him. And clearly, based on their e-mails, they’d grown comfortable with each other. How comfortable? I wondered.

Kevin hadn’t said much in his response to my e-mail, but he had written back with a phone number. I decided it was time to make use of it.

“Hi, Kevin?” I said when a guy picked up, then explained who I was.

“Can you talk for a few minutes?”

“Sure. I’m on a break period right now and I can’t talk long. But I have a few minutes, yeah.”

His voice was low and his words slow, but he sounded friendly.

“Oh . . . where do you work?”

“Plantsville High. It’s a high school. Here in Plantsville. I guess that’s . . . obvious.”

“You’re a teacher?” I asked.

Kevin yawned. “Not quite. An aide in the special ed room.”

“Oh. Well, I’m sure you’re busy. Should I call back sometime?”

“I’ve got a few minutes. It’s okay. I . . . uh . . . want to help.”

“All right. Well, I was recently there in Emerson . . . unfortunately I wasn’t organized enough to talk to everyone I should. I started with some of Gretchen’s family and—”

“Dorothy, right? And the ladies?”

“Judy and Diane, yeah. You’ve met them?”

“No.” Kevin paused for several seconds. “Gretchen talked a lot about them.”

Kevin sounded vaguely stoned to me, but given his job description, I decided to give him the benefit of the doubt. Maybe he was, like many teachers I knew, perpetually sleep-deprived.

“I think I’ll be going up there again soon, by the looks of it,” I continued. “Listen, when was the last time you saw Gretchen?”

“Oh . . . a couple of weeks before the accident. And I should say how sorry I am. I really miss her. And I know you were close friends. She talked about you.”

“Uh-huh,” I said softly.

“Anyway . . . uh . . . she came up here for a weekend and we hung out that Saturday night. She stayed at my place that night, actually.”

“Oh,” I said.

“We’d had a few drinks. And she crashed there.”

I didn’t reply. I wanted to ask if this meant what it sounded like—that they were seeing each other? Behind Gregor’s back?

“You know, it’s good to hear from you. As I said, she talked about you. Did you have your baby yet?”

“No,” I said, surprised. “Not yet.”

“Oh. I’m sorry. Is that a rude question?”

“Um . . . no. Not at all. Not over the phone, anyway. Uh, anyhow . . .”

“Anyhow,” Kevin repeated, and I wondered if I should interpret his tone as mocking.

“It sounds like you guys started seeing each other more frequently in the last few weeks . . . talking a lot?”

“Yeah. I don’t know how much she had written, about her and me talking . . .”

“I’ve only come across a little bit of that. It looks like the first time you met. Before you started to become . . . friends.”

“Okay. That doesn’t surprise me. The more time I spent with her, the less it seemed she was writing very much. But, um, did you have any questions about that? The little bit she wrote?”

“No. Seems pretty straightforward. The stuff about you being the paperboy and seeing Frank’s car . . . I was more interested because you guys seemed to become friends . . . Is that right?”

“Yeah. Definitely. For a few weeks, anyway.”

“So I just thought you’d have some insight into what she was up to . . . what she was writing.”

“Yeah. Sure.” It sounded now like Kevin was chewing something while he talked. “Whatever you want to ask.”

“Well . . . I don’t have any questions organized right now . . . so I think I’ll want to talk again, maybe in person, if I can manage it, but . . . oh, just for example . . .”

“Yeah?”

“I was recently reading these pages where she went to Frank Grippo’s house. Did she actually do that? Just drive right up to his house?”

“Yeah. Well, sort of. Actually, I drove her.”

It took me a beat to recover from my surprise. “She doesn’t write it like that. She narrates it like she went herself.”

“Well, I didn’t get out of the car. I had told her, look, if you need to do this, write it like I’m not with you. But don’t be stupid. Don’t do this alone. She agreed to that. I waited outside in the car while they talked.”

“Well, that’s a relief,” I said, before realizing what a dumb comment it was. Gretchen was still dead. “Um. Were there other incidents like that? Where you were there and she didn’t say?”

“Not that I know of. I knew she was harassing all kinds of people her mother used to know, but that was the only one I was worried would get her into big trouble.”

“Did she bring a voice recorder with her?” I asked. “And record her conversation with Frank?”

Kevin was silent for a moment. “Not that I know of.”

“Okay. So . . . the part about her going and parking in the McDonald’s lot . . . that’s not true?”

I heard a long, high beep in the background on Kevin’s end, followed by a woman’s voice saying, “Courtney Howell, please report to the guidance office.”

“I haven’t read anything she wrote,” Kevin said. “What does it say she did?”

“Just parked in the parking lot. And thought about Frank. Her ambivalence about her memories of him.”

“Well, then, that’s basically true. We parked at the McDonald’s together and talked about that for a few minutes. Before I drove her home. Just a little fudging, I guess. To make it look like she didn’t have a chauffeur. Um, I’m sorry, but I have to go to class in a few minutes.”

“No problem. It sounds like you were really close to what she was doing. I’d really like to talk more.”

“Anytime. But as I said, I didn’t know much about what she was actually writing. We’d just started . . . uh . . . hanging out. We didn’t talk about the book much.”

“I understand. But I think I’ll still have a lot more questions for you. If you don’t mind.”

“Do you want me to call you back tonight?”

“Uh . . . I won’t be home tonight. But sometime soon, I’m sure. Plus I’m thinking I might come up to Emerson again in the next few weeks. We could meet in person, maybe.”

“Um. Sure,” Kevin said. “Nice talking to you, Jamie. Let me know.”

“Thanks,” I replied. “I will.”

Kevin seemed nice enough. Why would Gretchen want to write Kevin out of the scene? Wasn’t it, in a way, more compelling that she had the old paperboy witness in the car with her? As I hung up the phone, I wondered what else Gretchen had left out.