Miss Me When I'm Gone

chapter 48



“My Favorite Lies” floored me.

I’d brought a stack of Gretchen’s notebooks to the motel, and found this piece sitting alone in a brand-new-looking Muppets notebook. It was followed by about ninety-seven sheets of spotless college-ruled white paper. Gretchen gave no indication she was sure of what she was saying. I imagined she was, given that she had lab results—however cryptic to me. So who did she try next? After Bruce? After this resolve to accept the unknown as a “gift,” she’d obviously changed her mind at some point and pursued the father question again. What had made her decide to do that? Regardless, I remained very curious about this Bruce character who had perhaps attended Gretchen’s final reading. I still intended to meet him.



The following day at noon, I had an appointment to talk with Kevin Conley over lunch, which left me a little free time in the morning for one impromptu interview.

I didn’t really have time to set out for Bruce’s town of Williamsburg, so I set my GPS to one of the addresses I’d looked up beforehand: Clark Street Pharmacy. I doubted Phil Coleman worked Saturdays, but I’d start there.

Once inside the store, I pretended to examine wrapping paper in the back, trying to steal a look at the pharmacist behind the little window. When I saw that it was a woman, I left the store and returned to my car. There I went to the White Pages on my iPhone and looked up Phillip Coleman in Emerson, New Hampshire. I got an address: 422 Cider Mill Drive. I put that into my GPS and drove.

Cider Mill Drive was a cute street with a few miniature McMansion-type houses and a cul-de-sac. As I approached 422 Cider Mill, I realized I had no plan for what I was going to do there. All I wanted was to get a look at Phil Coleman, for now. I could ring the doorbell and try to think of something creative to say. In my condition, I wouldn’t pass for a Girl Scout. And what were the chances Phil Coleman himself—and not a wife or a kid—would answer the bell?

I decided efficient and honest was the best way in and out. I struggled out from behind the wheel, then made my way down the brick steps.

“Can I help you?” someone asked from the general direction of the manicured hedges.

“Oh!” I jumped as a woman stood up from behind them, holding a small shovel in her gloved hands.

“Can I help you?” she asked again, lowering her eyes to my stomach, which was looking particularly prominent today in the unfortunate plum-purple cami I’d chosen. It looked like a giant blueberry poking out from under my black cardigan.

“Um. I’m looking for Phil Coleman. Is he in?”

The woman, who appeared to be about fifty, pulled off her gloves slowly. “Yes. Who shall I say is . . . visiting?”

“My name is Jamie Madden. Mr. Coleman doesn’t know me. It’s regarding the Gretchen Waters case?”

“Oh.” The woman gave me a blank look. “Are you with the investigation, or . . . ?”

“No. I’m her literary executor,” I said, figuring that had an air of officiality to it.

“Oh,” the woman said. “Um. I’ll grab him, then.”

A few seconds later she led out of the house a tall, overweight man with thinning gray hair. He was wearing ill-fitting navy dress pants and a white undershirt.

“Hi. I’m here about Gretchen Waters. I’m assuming you know who that is?”

The man nodded. I tried to take in his features as I babbled on. Thin lips. Thick neck. Big, dark eyes. Full, expressive eyebrows. Not bushy, though. Relatively pale skin tone. Not superpale—but pale enough.

“She was working on her second book, as I imagine you know, because she interviewed you as one of her sources.” Wide face, slightly jowly. Straight nose kind of like Gretchen’s. “You had an interview with her, correct?”

“Correct,” Phil said, glancing at his wife.

“Now, I’m asking people generally. Do I have your permission to use all or portions of that interview in a final version of her book? Provided I sent you the relevant parts of the book to look over for verification?”

“Uh . . . sure, I guess. Are you close to that point? You must be working awfully fast.”

I could feel the woman’s eyes on me, which I tried to ignore.

“Getting there,” I said. “I’m sorry to bother you at home here. Gretchen had your address in her files, but I couldn’t locate an e-mail contact. If you give me that address, I can send you material that way, when the time comes.”

“Sure,” Phil said. “Let me just go get a pen.”

After he’d slipped back into the house, his wife said to me, “Literary executor. Did Gretchen’s family hire out for that, or are you close to the family?”

“I’m an old friend of Gretchen’s,” I said. “That’s why her mom asked me.”

She nodded. “I’m sorry for your loss.”

Phil came out with a slip of paper and handed it to me.

“Happy to help,” he said. “Did you have any other questions for right now?”

“No . . . well . . . actually. Now that you ask. Someone just told me a story about Shelly at the pharmacy, and I was wondering if you could confirm it.”

Both Phil and his wife stared at me. I had a feeling I’d made a mistake. Still, I quickly explained.

“I’m told that at one time Shelly gave the wrong prescription to the wrong patient. Gave something to a kid that was supposed to be for an adult with a similar name. Got mixed up. Could’ve made the kid really sick, but the kid’s mom caught it just in time? Shelly nearly got fired for it?”

Phil’s wife glanced at Phil.

“No.” Phil shook his head. “That never happened.”

“I know it was a really long time ago, so—”

“Shelly only worked for me for a brief period of time. That never happened. I would remember if it did. Because that would have been a fireable mistake. Who told you that? Was it something Gretchen wrote?”

“Oh . . . no. It was a story someone told me about Shelly. Probably they were misremembering. It was a long time ago.”

“Yeah,” Phil said. “I’m sorry, but that story’s just not true.”

“Well . . . sorry to have bothered you.”

“It’s no bother,” said Phil, rubbing the back of his fleshy red neck. “Let me know if you have any other questions.”

The woman put her gardening gloves back on. I got the distinct feeling she didn’t want me to linger.

“Thank you,” I said to both of them, and then got back into my car.