“The farmer said that speaking with Mr. Fordham ended up reminding him of an old friend, who happened to be Mr. Aiken’s mother. She’d gone missing years before, and his friends, who were her parents, died shortly after. He began wondering where the young, or not-so-young woman now, was. So he came to us. He asked if anyone else had wondered or come by.”
“Forgive me, but I’m confused about why you’re telling me all this. That’s nice he looked out for Aiken and all, but Aiken’s gone. Left town, or whatever, without an explanation about three weeks ago. Haven’t heard from him since. I assume his house will go up for sale soon.”
“There’s no easy way to say this, so I’ll just come right out. We believe that Mr. Fordham’s mother, Jeannie George Fordham, was involved in the blast the night your daughter was killed.”
It felt as if a thousand sticks of dynamite exploded inside my heart, ricocheting through my spine, bone and blood splattering inside me. I had no rational thoughts, my brain turned to mush.
“Our first clue was when new information came forth regarding the death of Mrs. Fordham’s parents. A local mechanic who was selling some of the parts from their car came across a clipped wire. It’s crazy, I admit. Because of the untimely deaths, that car sat rotting on the end of his lot. Nobody wanted it. Not that it was worth much, but he decided he’d scrap it. When he found the wire, he said it was too clean of a cut to be due to age. They never looked at the wires after the accident. It was an older car, and everyone assumed either brake malfunction or user error.”
I didn’t respond, only nodded and encouraged him to get on with it. Better to rip the Band-Aid off quickly. The sooner he got his story out, the sooner I could be rid of him.
“The mechanic brought the wire to us. We looked for fingerprints, and right there was Jeannie’s print. We looked a little deeper and found she’s in the system for some altercation during a protest in college. There was a screening of a documentary about a rapper’s life and the challenges he faced growing up destitute amid a drug war. He apparently used drug money seeded in violence to get out of the ghetto. The protest was outlandish, considering they were protesting with violence. In the end, it looks like it was based on a black/white thing. Do you need a minute?”
He stopped dead in his monologue and stared at my shaking hands, which also happened to be dripping with sweat. I wiped them on my robe and shook my head. I needed him to hurry up and finish, leave, get out of my life for good.
I felt psychotic. I felt as if I needed to do something rash, and I didn’t really care. I wanted to act on the crazy that I’d felt for so long. Impulsivity coursed through my veins, and I fucking loved it. I’d wanted to let go for so long. It was long overdue.
“Anyway, when we found the print and the info about the past altercation, we snooped some more, and as it turns out, another mechanic said Jeannie hung around his shop one day while getting an oil change and asked a lot of questions. It appears as if she played a role in the untimely deaths of her parents. At the time, we didn’t share this with the farmer informant. He later came back to us to see if we had discovered anything more on Jeannie. He’d finished his business with Mr. Fordham, but said he knew the young gentleman still wanted to find his mother. Then, a few weeks ago—two, to be exact—police thwarted a second explosion at a concert—a concert by the same rapper your daughter went to see.”
“What?” My voice was weak, almost not audible.
Two weeks. When Aiken left. After we woke in each other’s arms, he’d gone out to get the paper and was gone later. His house sat empty and dormant, like my heart.
Of course, Mary had started acting weird about the same time and began giving me a million research papers to look over, keeping me busy with work over spring break, and burdening me with her lackluster personal life.
She’d intentionally buried me in work, and I had been able to barely come up for a breath.
I had literally run myself ragged with work and emotions until I physically took sick.
“Yes, another explosion. Thankfully, the blast was intercepted and the real suspect apprehended, who happened to be none other than Jeannie Fordham. It was in the national papers, no memorial services though, since no one was injured.”
“I didn’t hear anything about it,” was all I said.
“It was hot news for a few days. We thought you’d see something and come to see us, but when you didn’t…we waited to be sure we had all the facts. Ms. Fordham recently admitted to arranging the explosion at the arena here too. More of her racist hatred. I assume that’s why she targeted the rapper.”
“My paper hasn’t been out there in the morning. I keep calling—I like a real paper newspaper. The smell, the feel. Anyway, they keep saying my subscription was suspended and asking for payment. I know I paid them in full, but they refuse to honor it. I’ve been so busy with work, I haven’t had the energy to fight it or care. I’ve been too tired to get on the Internet. I don’t know, I haven’t been myself.”
Why the hell am I explaining myself to this guy?
Who stopped my newspaper?
“Christ.” I stood, suffocating myself with the tie to my robe, squeezing it tighter and tighter against my abdomen, until I felt as if I was going to throw up.
“Ma’am, I didn’t mean to upset you. We thought you should know.”
“Don’t be so meek.” I turned on my heel and stared the cop down. “My daughter died. I didn’t even know you’d reopened the case. Have you told the other parents?”
“Well, they came to us when the story broke on the Internet. But you didn’t.”
I’d been busy acting like a heartbroken baby when the younger guy I fell for skipped town. Now I knew the truth. His mother killed my baby.
“Did they say if they were going to contact me?” My voice was shrill, my nose leaking.
“They said it was in your best interest not to know, that you were going through a rough time and we should be sure before we told you anything.”
“Jesus,” I swore. “Why does everyone act like I’m an emotional wreck?”
“I didn’t mean to get in the middle of this…”
