“It’s not safe for you here,” he said.
She couldn’t figure out how she felt. Her body ached with something indescribable.
“Is my... mother buried here?”
“Yes.”
“Where... is she?”
“Does it matter?”
She didn’t know what to say. Maybe not.
“I see you,” he said. “You’re always working.”
Her body had started changing the year before. She wanted to hide her breasts. They hurt under his eyes.
But at the same time, she kind of liked it. It was like taking a bite of a fruit that tastes sweet at first but then tastes rotten.
He was maybe in his late twenties. Silver had yet to trace his hair, but the skin around his dark eyes was already creased.
She backed away, slowly, and he saw it. He suddenly relaxed, turned away, and shrugged, as if the encounter had no importance. He was not stupid. He knew how to reel them in.
“Maybe someday I’ll show you where your mother is,” he said.
“Really?” She stopped.
“Sure.” He was genuinely nice now. Why not?
8.
The factory Mitchell had worked at in Oregon was near the shoe company headquarters, in a suburb at the edge of Portland. Ruby found a gracious receptionist in the cool, scented lobby. Big corporations knew how to deal with members of a criminal defense team: They followed the law meticulously, and in this case, Ruby knew that the law was on her side. While she was in Georgia, she’d had Mitchell sign some releases, and those releases were like bars of gold for his case. They let her get the information even the police could not.
In moments, she was holding Mitchell’s old employment file in her hands. She saw with excitement that it contained information about his transfer to Georgia. Previous legal teams had not gotten this file. They probably thought it didn’t matter. But to Ruby, all information was valuable. You never knew what would lead to the truth.
His social security number had been blacked out. She smiled ruefully at that. Where he was now, Mitchell Brown was not at much risk for identity theft. There was an old employee ID picture of him, smiling shyly at the camera, his name badge on his shirt. One page held his last review:Excellent team member; works well with others. Nothing bad to say. Always on time. Trusted employee.
Ruby looked at his medication list. One time, she had exonerated an innocent man on the basis of his medication list: He took a sleep aid that would have knocked out a horse. The real killer, as it turned out, was a man who looked a bit like him.
But Mitchell Brown took nothing.
His initial job application was part of the file—they kept good records. She saw his neat writing. His date of birth. Address: post office, Chinook. Emergency contact: Solemn Brown. There were no parents listed. For his references, he gave a teacher and, interestingly, the sheriff. Mitchell Brown had been hired on standard probation and had flourished, driving to work in the rickety truck his grandfather had once driven.
Ruby read with a half smile the “About Me” section Mitchell had filled out, in his careful blue-ink prose.I grew up in Chinook. It’s a small town about an hour away, but I don’t mind driving. I live with my grandfather. For fun, I like to fish. I don’t like hunting. In high school, we went to Ashland to see the Shakespeare Festival there. Someday I would like to travel more.
After four years with the company, Mitchell had been offered the transfer to Georgia, leaving his grandfather in the hands of some hired help from town. Ruby scanned those pages and saw nothing particularly interesting, besides the name of an old supervisor in Union City she could look up.
She returned to the original application.
Describe a time you overcame a challenge,read one of the questions. She didn’t expect Mitchell to have written about losing his mother—she knew from experience that by the time Mitchell was eighteen, he would have learned not to bring it up. It made things awkward and ended conversations. No one wanted to hear about that level of pain.
So he wrote about something else. She could almost see him chewing on the end of the pen, filling out the application at the rural school the Chinook kids were bused to, sitting in the guidance counselor’s office, where a table held stacks of applications for local businesses like the sawmill, as well as applications for the military, which the counselors were not supposed to offer but often did. Or maybe he had driven here for the application, and filledit out right here in this lobby, taking his time, thinking of what he could say that would seem normal, approachable. Understandable. A challenge anyone might have that required overcoming.
My grandfather started going blind when I was about ten,he wrote, and Ruby saw his hesitation in the light ink.I ended up being responsible for more than some kids my age. There was a lot he couldn’t do, especially at first. Like go shopping at the market. Or pick up his social security check. The lady at the bank (it’s really just a counter at the post office) got to know me. Pretty much everyone in town did. Not that there are that many, ha.I found out that even people who are surly can be kind when they are asked to help. I got to meet people I wouldn’t have otherwise met. That’s how I met that challenge.
“Helpful?” came a voice from behind her, and she turned to see a man with sharp cheekbones and beautiful hazel eyes. In his finely cut suit, he could only be an executive, she thought. He was around her age, maybe a few years older. Mid-thirties, she guessed.
He held out his hand. “I’m Ronald. The receptionist told me you were here.”
