Mr. Ames told his secretary not to disturb him for the next ten minutes, then ushered Max into his office.
“Office” was an understatement. The room was larger than her New York apartment, in a corner, glass on two sides with a view of the San Francisco Bay. The Dumbarton Bridge was visible in the clear morning. The furniture was modern, leather and glass, but with warm accents of plush burgundy rugs and attractive classical art that Max suspected were either originals or damn good reproductions of originals that Mr. Ames owned but kept in a more secure location.
Though considering the security in this building, Max couldn’t imagine his house was more secure.
He motioned for her to sit on the couch. He put his briefcase on his desk, but came back to the grouping of couches and sat across from her.
“I’m sorry about Saturday night.”
He looked at her, perplexed.
“The police?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Kimberly hadn’t told Mr. Ames that she’d visited.
“I’ll backtrack. On Saturday, I received a message that implied it was from you, essentially threatening me not to look into Lindy’s death.”
His face clouded almost imperceptibly. He was still grieving over the loss of his only daughter.
“I didn’t come back to investigate Lindy’s murder,” Max said. “But I have some questions that were never answered at the trial, and, simply, I need to know who killed her. I’m really sorry if you don’t want to know, but I feel like I have an obligation to clear Kevin O’Neal’s name, to find the truth, so everyone—your family, me, Kevin’s family, all our friends who’ve been divided over this for thirteen years—can finally put it to rest.”
He didn’t say anything for a long minute. He wasn’t even looking at her, and it wasn’t until later that Max realized he had been staring at a picture of Lindy on the bookshelf behind her.
“I never left a message for you, nor do I know of a message,” he said. “I don’t threaten people. Everyone, including the police, believed Kevin killed Lindy. Everyone but you.”
“I know.”
She wished she could read his mind, but Mr. Ames had a poker face. Sad, but still unreadable.
“I liked Kevin,” he said.
Max didn’t push or question. Mr. Ames had things he wanted to say, and maybe he’d never felt comfortable saying them before now.
“I’d always felt there were so many unanswered questions. Why? Jealousy? It seemed so … common.”
Perhaps, but jealousy—envy—was the root of so much evil in the world.
“If there’s a chance he didn’t … didn’t hurt my daughter, that means someone else did,” Mr. Ames said.
“Yes.” Max didn’t want to hurt Mr. Ames. But, if he told her to back off, could she? Would she? Was the truth more important than this man’s grief?
“I can’t give you my blessing,” he said, “but I’m not going to ask you to stop looking. I want to know what happened, even though I don’t want to relive the pain.” It was a conundrum faced by many survivors.
“Sir, if I may, you’re still in pain.”
He rose and walked around to his desk. “I don’t think you can possibly understand how I’ve suffered these thirteen years.” He sat down, putting physical distance between them, a way of self-protection and exerting his authority. “Jerry and Lindy are my children. Now Jerry is working for Doctors Without Borders in countries where he is in danger because he’s trying to help people, and I worry about him as much as I’m proud of him. And Lindy’s gone. My daughter. My princess. You can’t know.”
“You’re right.” Max left it at that. She’d been accused by many of not being able to understand grief. It was a defensive mechanism on their part, a way to separate themselves from others as well as to try and bring others closer, a way to say, You can’t understand, but I wish you could so you would know what I feel.
But Max did understand. She hadn’t lost a child, but she’d lost a mother to the void—a place where she just disappeared and Max didn’t know what happened to her, whether she was dead or alive. She’d lost her best friend Karen, whom she knew was dead. The blood and violence—but there was no closure. No body, no witness, no conviction. She’d lost Lindy, a friend she’d had for years, who’d pushed her away for no reason Max understood, only to end up dead and leaving Max in the position of defending the man accused of killing her.
She understood loss, violence, death, as much as anyone. But she wouldn’t say it, because Mr. Ames, or the other survivors she faced, wouldn’t believe that she knew how they felt.
“What do you want from me?”
“I already got it. I wanted to know if you’d threatened me.”
He tilted his head quizzically.
She didn’t answer his implied question. Instead, she got up and sat in the chair across from Mr. Ames. “I came to talk to you at your house on Saturday before I went to visit my grandmother. Kimberly called the police, who told me to leave or they’d arrest me.”
Mr. Ames frowned. “I’m sorry about that. Kimberly thinks I need protecting.”
She wondered if Kimberly was protecting him from memories of Lindy, or from remembering her infidelity. Obviously, he’d forgiven his wife and they’d made their marriage work, unlike Max’s Aunt Joanne who’d walked out on Brooks. Maybe Kimberly had been telling the truth, and Brooks had been her only indiscretion. Unlike Brooks, who had repeatedly cheated on Joanne.
“Mr. Ames, Lindy’s murder affected everyone in Atherton. There were mistakes made by a lot of people.”