She started to walk away then, into the courtroom, when I remembered something else.
“There was one other person your mother was in touch with that weekend, someone down in Portland. Do you remember any friends she might have had down there, someone she might have turned to in a crisis?”
DeAnn shook her head. “Not that I remember.”
And so, because I was curious, I called Barbara Galvin and had her dredge Kevin Stock’s name out of the file. But when I called DeAnn that evening and asked her about him, he still didn’t ring any bells.
A few days later, Mel and I drove to Vancouver, Washington, to meet with the family members of one of the last men to die at Anita Bowdin’s behest—a man who had been placed in a vehicle with the engine running and asphyxiated in his own two-car garage. We finished meeting with the family earlier than we had expected. Mel was anxious to head back north. But Vancouver, Washington, is right across the river from Portland.
“If you don’t mind,” I said, “there’s one more stop I’d like to make.”
“Where?” Mel asked.
“In Portland.” And I gave her Kevin Stock’s address, which I had looked up before we ever left Seattle.
“You just happen to have his address with you?” Mel asked.
“It’s a coincidence,” I told her.
Kevin Stock lived in a small condo overlooking the Willamette River near downtown Portland. I saw the family resemblance as soon as he answered the door. Kevin Stock may have aged twenty years, but he was still Tony Cosgrove. His daughter looked just like him.
“Anthony Cosgrove?” I asked.
“No,” he stammered. “You have me mixed up with someone else.”
“I don’t think so,” I said, handing him my card. “We need to talk.”
Just then a second man appeared in the doorway behind him. “What is it, Kev?” he asked. “What’s wrong?”
Tony shook his head and sighed. “All right,” he relented. “I guess we do need to talk.”
It took the better part of an hour. Sometimes it’s hard to realize how much things have changed since the early eighties. Then, on the other hand, many things have remained the same. Tony Cosgrove had fallen in love with another man. He was also a devout Catholic who didn’t believe in divorce or suicide. So he had chosen to disappear.
“I loved Carol,” he said, “And I told her if she ever needed me, to call. I always made sure she had my number, just in case. But she only called me once,” he added accusingly. “To tell me about you. She was afraid you were going to upset things. And you did, and you’re still upsetting things. Why are you here? What do you want?”
“I want you to think about your daughter,” I said. “And your grandchildren.”
“I think about DeAnn every single day,” he returned. “But at this point, she’s far better off without me.”
“I’m not so sure,” I said. “Her mother’s dead. Her husband’s moved out. She’s on her own with three preschoolers. And no matter what happened, Tony, she never once believed you were dead. She’s been waiting all this time for you to come home.”
“I can’t,” Tony said hopelessly. “Think about the insurance. If I turn up alive, she’ll have to pay it back.”
“Between having the money and having her father?” I asked. “For the DeAnn Cosgrove I know, there’s no question how she’d choose.”
EPILOGUE
While we were knee-deep in investigative alligators, though, neither Mel nor I lost sight of her one-word answer: “Okay.”
By now I’d had extensive experience with weddings. As the groom, I had survived the full-court-press June aisle-walker that had been my wedding with Karen and the three-day rush to judgment with Anne Corley. I had been the father of the bride for Kelly and the father of the groom for Scott. When it came to how Mel wanted to do this, I left the arrangements entirely in her capable hands. The resulting ceremony turned out to be a happy medium of all of the above.
We got married in Vegas at Treasure Island. Scott was the best man. Kelly, having recovered her equilibrium, was the matron of honor. Kayla was the flower girl and ring bearer both. Mel doesn’t do sexism even for weddings. In addition to the kids, the only other guests were Lars—and, Lars being Lars, the joke-wielding Iris Rassmussen. Ralph Ames convinced me to charter a jet and fly everybody in, and that’s what I did.