“Not really,” I hedged. “I’ve been too caught up with coming down here, and processing everything that’s happened, to give the bullet much thought.” Ethan Sinclare seemed like a nice man, but I didn’t feel like discussing my medical symptoms or my private life with him. It was exhausting enough trying to keep up with them myself.
Sinclare insisted on picking up the check. As he walked me out, he pressed his business card into my palm and made me promise to keep in touch. “I don’t blog or do Facebook or any of that nonsense. But if you ever need anything, anything at all, call me. My cell number is on there. It would be an honor to help out the daughter of Boone Smith.”
? ? ?
I TOOK THE elevator back upstairs to pack.
I’d booked an afternoon flight from Atlanta to Washington. I needed to get home to meet the neurosurgeon tomorrow, and meanwhile Madame Aubuchon had e-mailed from the French Department to inquire whether I felt inclined to teach my regular Friday-morning class. Her tone was polite, but there was no mistaking that the correct answer would be yes. I wrote back to confirm that I would indeed be there.
I was looking forward to getting home. To resuming my normal life. I missed my campus routine, my hours in the library. And I was finished here. I had not achieved closure, whatever that meant. But it had been strangely comforting to sit at breakfast this morning, spooning up yogurt and listening to Mr. Sinclare rave about my birth father’s backhand. Apparently Boone had employed a weird grip, one hand so high up the racket it practically rested on the strings. Sinclare swore that it resembled a drunk man playing air guitar. But it had produced a ferocious topspin that left their opponents spitting with frustration, every time. I loved that detail. Not because I gave a damn about Boone’s tennis grip, but because I could glimpse him as a real person. I’d felt the same way when Cheral Rooney shared Sadie Rawson’s talent for scorching cookies. It was a relief to meet people who had known the Smiths, known them as funny, flawed, normal people—and not just as victims of a tragedy.
I started brainstorming whether there might be some way to honor my birth family. Perhaps a donation to a charity they might have supported? If any sort of inheritance ever did turn up, I could direct it there. Cheral might know whether Sadie Rawson had embraced any particular cause. It cheered me to have a plan. These last seven days had been wretched. So painful. But perhaps I was through the worst.
I began to hum as I threw the last sweater into my suitcase. “Sweet Emotion.” Aerosmith is hard to beat when you need perking up. Steven Tyler’s screech is too infectious. When had that song first come out? Midseventies, I was pretty sure. The radio stations would have played it nonstop. Boone and Sadie Rawson had probably owned the album on eight-track tape. They might have played it at parties, Boone playing air guitar for real, Sadie Rawson dancing so hard the gold Gypsy hoops flew off her ears. I stood grinning at the thought.
Then my cell phone rang.
? ? ?
THIS TIME IT was Leland Brett. People had been calling the newsroom in response to the story about me.
“Some real nut jobs out there,” reported Leland. “Not that that comes as any surprise after forty years in the news business. One lady says she’s a psychic, she can help you contact your parents beyond the grave.”
“Hah! That would be useful.”
“Yeah. So would winning the lottery, but that’s not gonna happen either, is it? But listen. This one guy. Says his name is Beamer Beasley.”
“Beamer Beasley?”
“Now, don’t laugh, sweetheart. It’s not such an unusual name for Georgia. His middle name’s probably Bubba. Anyway, he says he’s a cop. Says he worked homicides for the Atlanta PD back in ’79.”
“Why did he call?”
“He says he worked your mama and daddy’s case. I had Jessica check him out. He sounds legit.”
“And . . . did he seem to know anything that might be relevant?”
“I don’t know. He wants to speak to you personally. Asked me to pass the message along.”
I glanced at the clock. I had a couple hours before I needed to leave for the airport. I’d been planning to return a few phone calls, then go for a walk.
“Maybe I could meet him.”
“Sure. Why not? Tell you what. How about you meet him here, at the newspaper? Nice, neutral territory for you both. I could find you a quiet meeting room to use. And afterward, I’ll take you out for lunch.”
“Absolutely not. Not least because I’ll be racing straight to the airport to catch my flight.”
“Meet him here anyway.” Leland sounded disappointed. “Maybe he’ll agree to an interview after you and he are done talking. There might be material there for a follow-up story.”
? ? ?
AN HOUR LATER Beamer Beasley and I were seated across from each other in a small conference room.
He was African-American, older, perhaps in his seventies, with grizzled hair cropped close against his skull. Time had thickened him around the middle and left him stooped. But his eyes were clear and gray and intelligent. Beamer Beasley had a stillness about him. You sensed that he’d seen an awful lot in his years on this earth, and that there wasn’t much left in the repertoire of human depravity that might faze him.
“I came here to say two things,” he said, after Leland had finally been persuaded to leave us alone and shut the door behind him.
“I’m listening.”
“The first is that I’m sorry. For failing you. You deserved justice after what happened to you and your family. You deserved that. And we tried hard, but we failed you and I failed you.”
“I’m sure you tried your best—”