Miss Me When I'm Gone

chapter 51



I shut off CNN when Sam called me that night.

“Jamie. We need to talk,” he said sharply.

His tone made me uneasy.

“Okay,” I said.

“You didn’t tell me they’d found new evidence in Gretchen’s death.”

“What, you mean her purse?” I tried to say it casually.

“Yes, I mean her purse! Christ, Jamie, when were you going to tell me?”

“How did you find out about that?” I asked.

“Chris from work told me. He saw it on some news or other. And he was asking me, ‘Didn’t you say that was a friend of your wife’s? How tragic. How is your wife holding up?’ ”

“I’m holding up fine.”

“Uh-huh. So this is why you were in such a hurry to get up there?”

“Kind of,” I admitted.

“Jamie . . . are you researching Gretchen’s book . . . or are you investigating?”

“Well . . . A little bit of both.”

Sam groaned into the phone. “Don’t you think you’re putting yourself in harm’s way a little bit?”

“A little bit,” I admitted.

“And is that a smart idea right now?”

“When is it ever a smart idea?” I asked.

“Jamie, I think you should come home.”

“I’ve got a couple of people I’m talking to tomorrow,” I said. “I’m here now and I may as well just get it done.”

“I was thinking I might come up and join you.”

“It’d be a complete waste of time. If you drive up tomorrow morning . . . by then I’ll be nearly done.”

Sam was quiet for a moment.

“How about you call me a couple of times tomorrow, at least,” he said reluctantly.

“Absolutely,” I said.

I felt a twinge of guilt as I hung up—and even considered calling Sam right back to apologize. But I wasn’t confident he wouldn’t keep trying to talk me back home. So I put my phone aside and took out Tammyland to take my mind off him.

I reread Gretchen’s piece on Patsy Cline, which I liked—and then felt compelled to open my computer and find some of Patsy’s music online. I wasn’t really a fan of much of the other music Gretchen wrote about—but I did like Patsy. I went online and started with the song Gretchen used for the title of her piece, “The Heart You Break May Be Your Own,” then moved on to some of Patsy’s more famous tunes. Halfway through “She’s Got You,” Charlie Bucket started to move around very animatedly. I played the song again, then turned it all the way up and stuck my stomach as close as I could to the laptop microphone.

“You’re right,” I said. “That voice is really something.”

It seemed to me he was kicking in tune to it. The poor boy hadn’t heard much very pleasing in the past few weeks. Just me crying and whining and asking lots of grim questions about two dead women. He deserved to have someone sing to him, as I’d done occasionally before Gretchen died.

Then the kicking stopped and I tried “Sweet Dreams.” Nothing more from Charlie. Maybe Patsy had sung him to sleep.

I returned to Gretchen’s favorite and played it again.

“The heart you broke was not your own, turns out, Gretchen,” I whispered.

I closed her book and turned the TV back on.