Once, during the months after she died, as I wept alone in our loft, I stupidly wondered what it would be like if Mel were only traveling through a tesseract and eventually found her way back to us.
Seconds later, as I’m about to return to the great room, Schmidt calls.
“I know you spoke to Logan,” I tell him after a perfunctory hello, “but I wanted the chance to talk to you as well.”
“Of course, not a problem,” he says. “I have to jump on another call in ... in ten minutes or so, but I’m free to chat until then.”
I snicker to myself over his word choice.Chat.Is that really how he’d describe a discussion about Calvin Ruck?
Plus, hearing his voice again has rocked me more than I expected. Despite how many years have passed, it’s so familiar—both the slightly distinctive cadence and the forced deep tone, his clear attempt to disguise a slightly higher-than-normal pitch. I used to wonder why he’d chosen to be a litigator since it meant working so hard each time he opened his mouth in court.
“Needless to say, I’ve read your letter,” I say. “Are there any updates I should be aware of?”
“Not really from my end, though as you probably heard, the police in Ohio and Pennsylvania have recovered the remains of the two other women Ruck claimed he killed. And I’m sure your husband told you that Ruck passed away not long after I met with him.”
“He told me, yes.” I’m about to correct thehusbandmistake but catch myself. Why should I advertise the extent of my losses to Schmidt, of all people?
“From what I hear, a distant relative arranged to have the body cremated,” he adds.
If only Ruck had been alive for that experience. But he was never going to get his due, even with two consecutive life sentences.
“And what about Ruck’s claim regarding my daughter?” I say. “What are your thoughts on that?”
“Gosh, I know it’s probably thrown everything into a horrible tailspin for you and your husband, but I’ve come to assume it’s true.”
“Really?You don’t think he was just pulling your leg?”
Silence.
“I did initially,” he says after a few beats. “He always seemed to get off on messing with people’s heads, especially the cops’. But based on the veracity of what he divulged about the two missing women, and the fact that he finally copped to the Plattsburgh murders, I’d say he probablywasn’tpulling my leg—or anyone else’s.”
“Oh, so he summoned you purely to clear his conscience,” I say with as much sarcasm as I can manage. “He wanted to confess his sins and also give a heads-up that Mel’s killer was never apprehended.”
I hear him clear his throat.
“I don’t believe Calvin Ruck had a conscience. No, in my opinion, this was all about ego.”
I feel my frustration mounting.
“What are you talking about?”
“I hate putting it this way—especially to you—but Ruck seemed to have a horrifying pride in what he’d done. In his handiwork, if you will. He wanted credit where it was due and not where it wasn’t.”
I can’t stay on a minute longer.
“Thank you for your time,” I say. “Good day.”
I end the call without giving him a chance to say goodbye. My hands are trembling, not only from talking so much about Ruck but also from the last thing Schmidt said, that Ruck wouldn’t want credit for an atrocity that wasn’t his own.
So what am I supposed to do with all this? Just bide my time at the chacra as things unfold—even unravel—over five thousand miles north?
I force myself from the armchair, take a seat at the desk, and open my laptop. I promised Logan I’d select some of Mel’s poems for the program, and I decide to do it now and take my mind off the call with Schmidt.
I don’t have a lot of her work, just one short story, a ten-minute play, and about twenty haikus, several of which were published in the campus literary magazine,The Muse, which Mel became editor of during her sophomore year. Logan and I found printouts of the others in a file on her desk—in the off-campus apartment where she was living at the time of her death.
I know all the haikus by heart and, as crazy as it sounds, the play, too. I’ve reread the poems countless times andstudiedthem, not only in the hope of understanding the full meaning of her words but also understanding Mel as well. I only wish there were more.
Because the thing that I’ve never shared with Sebastian—and that Logan was always decent enough not to draw attention to—is that Mel and I weren’t close when she died. In fact, we weren’t close during big chunks of her life.
