So Weeps the Willow - 24. Salix Bablyonica - 2 - Haunted

Salix 2 – Haunted

Twyla sipped her herbal tea, which she’d laced with a bit of brandy. Okay, it was more than a touch. But, it helped her sleep. It was hard getting to sleep lately. The news earlier in the day may have made it a little easier, or so she hoped.

Her husband was sleeping on the couch with a slight grin on his lips. Steve looked peaceful and relaxed. His face was gaunt and his skin had a grayish hue to it, but otherwise he could be a resting child, innocent and calm.

Twyla picked up the stapled pages on the end table next to her chair. She read the top line again, and then set it back down. She didn’t have the courage to read it, not yet. She needed to collect her thoughts and consider her next step.

Her family came first, and as she looked back over at Steve, she remembered the appointment. The one she didn’t want to remember.

“The cancer is slowing.” Steve looked at Twyla, his mouth slightly opened in astonishment.

“Let me emphasize the word, slowing,” his oncologist said. “Steve’s not out of the woods yet. The aggressive treatments are causing him problems, like weight loss and nausea, but it seems to be working. If you want to fight this, it will be difficult, but we are seeing positive signs.”

“It’s working, though. I did hear you right?” Steve asked.

“Yes. We probably need to increase the dosage, and we are looking at using an additional trial drug, if you’re willing to consider it,” she answered.

“He’s so weak now,” Twyla said, looking at Steve’s ashen face, now showing a little spot of color in his cheeks. “How much more can he take?”

“Honey, I’m fine,” Steve patted her hand and squeezed it. “There is hope then?”

Twyla could hear the fear around the kernel of excitement in her husband’s voice. Or, was she feeling the fear she had for him--? And her? And the kids. Fuck!

“Steve’s liver and kidney functions are good. The tests show his system is handling the toxicity with no problems so far. The team thinks he is a good trial candidate for even more aggressive treatment. That is, if you are willing to do so.”

“Twyla and I need to talk about it,” Steve said, suddenly. “Can we have a minute?”

“You can have the night if you like,” Dr. Sirtis said, leaning forward. “You don’t have to decide right now.”

“Can you give us five minutes,” Steve said to her. “I want to do this, but I need to talk with Twyla first.”

“Sure,” the doctor said, getting out of her chair. She moved quickly from the room, looking back at Twyla with a look of concern.

“What’re your thoughts?” he asked, looking straight into her eyes. Steve looked intense, but not grim. His face was flushed, excited, and vital. She could feel something he’d been missing. Her husband was exuding confidence.

“Are you sure you can handle this?” Twyla asked knowing the answer.

“I need to do this. It’s my only chance, and it looks like I can beat this. For the first time since we found out, it’s like I have a chance,” Steve said earnestly.

“It’s so hard watching you suffer,” she said, swallowing her tears. “You barely eat, and you can’t sleep.”

“Listen, my buddy, Mark, has connections, and he is going to hook me up with some pot. The anti-nausea medication doesn’t work, but maybe if I get stoned, it will help.”

Twyla tried to picture her buttoned-down, asthmatic husband toking on a joint or sucking on a little brass one-hitter, and smiled. “You’re kidding right?”

“I’m not,” Steve answered. “And there are these brownies they make…”

Twyla then remembered a night in college. It was right after they’d met. Steve took her to a party and a bowl had been passed around. She toked on it a little, more for appearance’s sake than to get high. Steve had taken it from her, and winked.

He sucked deeply on the joint, and that had started him coughing. He couldn’t stop, hacking so hard, it sounded like it hurt. After a couple of minutes, his friends razzing him about his choking, Steve stood up, covered his mouth, ran to the bathroom.

She followed, somewhat amused, but also worried. Sounds of him vomiting could be heard from the other side of the door. After a few disgusting minutes, he emerged and they left.

Steve never talked about that episode, and he’d never smoked anything since then.

If Steve was desperate enough to smoke pot, he’d do anything.

She told him to have the treatments, to accept the aggressive dosages and they’d do it together. As long as she had hope, it was worth it. When the doctor returned, Twyla repressed her doubts. They were doing it.

The treatments started that very day, and now Steve was sleeping. He hadn’t eaten. He wasn’t well. But, he was trying.

Trying was the best they could do.

Though what a trying day it had been.

Twyla picked up the pages again, looking at the writing at the bottom of the first page. It warned, Confidential Materials for Attorney Eyes Only. Someone had accidentally left it in the folder with the papers that Twyla had to sign.

Twyla stole these papers. Something made her do it, but now gave her pause. Why did she do it? What was in this report? Was she wrong about Jake’s case? Was she losing her mind? She thought about the meeting a couple of hours earlier, at the law firm, after hearing about Steve’s chances.

Twyla sat listening to Laura and felt such relief.

“Unfortunately, that means we must stop looking into the matter, for now. The police have determined this is a possible homicide, which overrides our ability to gather information. We’ve been told to stand down. Criminal investigations always take precedence over civil matters. I’m sorry about that.”

Twyla knew that’s why they were meeting. Jake’s case was being suspended and she needed to sign papers acknowledging the situation and holding the firm harmless for their inactivity. Discovery, this bizarre stage in the case of collecting facts and information, was formally over. Discovery now stopped as the firm sent their reports and depositions, police inventories and call records over to the sheriff’s department.

“I want you to know, we don’t think it’s a criminal matter. The police are required to look into it, but I’m sure in a couple of weeks, it will go forward,” Hardinger said, and yet it sounded unpersuasive.

Twyla, who had been rather numb since getting there, spoke up.

“Do you really think it’s not a criminal case?”

The attorney sitting across from her looked up and cocked her head to the side. “Of course, we think—”

“No. Laura, do you really think my brother wasn’t murdered or do you have to say that?” Something in Twyla made her doubt the attorney’s affect. She wasn’t telling her the truth. Akind of bell rang out in her head like it did with her mother, and like it had with Jake so many times.

The attorney shook her head at first and then slowly stopped, and gave the other woman a sad look. “I don’t know Twyla. I really thought we had a good case. It seemed pretty clear cut and the heater obviously killed him, but…” her voice trailed off.

“I appreciate everything your firm has done,” Twyla said. She’d struck a chord in the other woman. That was obvious. “The whole point of this was to make the guilty party pay. I wanted someone to be accountable, but not the wrong one.” She stopped for a moment noticing Hardinger was now quietly listening and absorbing every word.

“If a guilty party murdered my brother, I want that person to pay for the crime. Everyone seemed so sure he died in a horrible accident. I wish that were true, but it never did feel right.”

“What do you mean?” Hardinger asked, leaning closer.

“You never knew my brother,” Twyla began. “He was a very self-destructive person sometimes. Oh, he was smart and lovable, but he also had this side to him that seemed lost and afraid. He did horribly reckless things in his life, and for a heater to accidently poison him seems a little too out of character.”

The attorney squinted and peered at Twyla. “I’m not understanding your point. How is an accidental death to a person who was reckless out of character?”

Twyla sighed deeply. “I don’t know how to explain it right.”

“I’m very confused, I admit,” Hardinger said. She opened the folder and pulled out papers. That’s when Twyla saw it, the report with the warning at the bottom. Something about it seemed to call to her.

The attorney got up, turned to the credenza behind her, and without thinking, Twyla fished the report out. Without looking at it, she rolled it up and thrust it into her bag, folding it so it didn’t show.

When she looked up again, Laura was looking at her. There was a question posed on her lips.

“Let me see if I can explain myself,” Twyla said, cutting off the other woman’s question. “Let’s say they found Jake dead from alcohol poisoning or from an overdose. I would expect that. If I got a call and Jake had been beaten to death by some guy in an alley, I wouldn’t have been surprised. Even if I found he’d been shot and died from a gunshot wound or had been stabbed with a knife, I’d have been sad and shocked, but that was Jake. His life was a mess especially when he was using.”

“We know he’d stopped using though. He was a week sober if his diary can be trusted.”

Twyla nodded. “That’s true, and I do think he’d stopped, but it wasn’t the alcohol or the drugs that made him take risks. It was a part of him that was scared and so he’d do things that proved he was brave, or worthy or something. Foolhardy things, like when he was quarry diving in Wisconsin.” Twyla threw up her hands in frustration. She noticed the attorney was no longer fussing with things, and was paying attention to her.

Laura had settled in her chair. The papers were forgotten. The case wasn’t going anywhere anytime soon, and Twyla found the courage to continue explaining.

“Jake went with some friends when he was first in college to a party at a farm in Wisconsin. On this farm was an old quarry, limestone, and it had filled with water. Some of the guys were jumping from a lower ledge into the water, which was only a few feet deep. The rim of the quarry wasn’t far from the water so it really wasn’t very dangerous.

“However, there was a high ridge on the other end of this quarry. It was tall, very high, and a couple of guys were bragging about diving from that cliff into the water. Keep in mind, this was solid rock, unforgiving, without any sand or silt to cushion the blow.”

Twyla paused and took a breath and, then continued, “Some of the guys were daring him to try it. The water was pretty low since it was August or something, so no one else was going to try. They were just kidding him. I know that now, but at the time….”

“So, you were there?” Laura asked.

“I was there with Steve. We were tanning on towels alongside the quarry. There were the normal sounds of people swimming and joking and playing, and all of a sudden, we heard a splash and then a wail. It sounded like a cry from hell, it was so bad.”

“We jumped up and looked over the edge and I saw my brother, swimming towards us and shouting. He was struggling in the water and a couple of his friends jumped into the water and helped him get to the edge. They had to lift him up and we pulled Jake by his right arm. His left was broken, his shoulder dislocated, and he was bleeding from a deep cut in his forearm.

“I was so mad at those guys for goading my brother into something so stupid. I was pissed at Steve too, because he joined the other guys in taunting Jake.”

“That was dangerous of them,” Laura said.

“No, it wasn’t dangerous to anyone except Jake. My brother always had to prove he was just as good as anyone else, and so he found trouble every chance he had.”

Twyla finished her story, and Laura then nodded and said, “You think something else caused the heater malfunction. You think Jake was targeted.”

Twyla wiped her eyes. “I hate feeling this way and it makes me sick to think such things, but Jake got himself into trouble. From the moment we got the call and they said it was an accident, I knew they were wrong. Jake’s whole life seemed to be headed for an early grave and it seemed so unlikely a faulty heater killed him.

“The worst part is, I feel guilty about having such feelings about my brother, who I loved dearly.”

“It’s hard when we lose people, especially ones we worried about.”

Twyla nodded and looked over at the attorney. “Thanks for your help, but I’m guessing this is goodbye.”

Laura Hardinger began handing her client papers and Twyla started signing.

Twyla picked up the pages next to her and began to read. It was a memo to the file about the defense counsel’s work.

The company that made the switch had hired a private investigator. The investigator had contacts in the police department that leaked him leads about connections between Jake and the other guy, Wylie, found later. Apparently, they were both regular customers at Gallivant’s, which Twyla avoided like the plague. It was a creepy place with overly strong drinks, strange people, and the rough type of crowd, the kind Jake loved.

This guy they found later was probably gay, or at least bisexual, and there was speculation he and Jake had hooked up. Steve Wylie, the other guy, had a kinky ad on some personal dating site. They found text messages in the guy’s phone from Jake’s phone. They were pretty graphic, according to the author of the memo.

The memo concluded that Jake’s case was dead in the water. The connections between Wylie and Jake suggested a double murder had occurred and there would be no civil case in the end. The heater had been tampered with, probably by someone with a mechanic’s or electrical background.

Twyla set down the pages and smiled. Laura Hardinger knew it and kept this from her. Her lawyer outright lied to her. That meant she couldn’t be trusted. However, she now had a lead. She had a name and a phone number that could provide her some answers.

Rush Romer.