Emma Higginbottom was waiting in line at the hotel breakfast buffet. She had a solitary croissant on her plate, and was watching as her lover took waffles from the steamer, watching with love as she dolloped them with fresh butter and poured on hot syrup, blueberry and maple. Two kinds, because Patricia said conferences were madness.
They made their way to a square white-cloth-covered table, among the others. The newscaster on the television hanging in the corner droned on about heat waves and humidity, crime and a state recession. The baby panda at the zoo was celebrating a birthday.
“You need to eat more than that,” Patricia chided Emma, before she saw a woman with a lanyard around her neck approaching them, and knew that their life was about to change.
“I thought I recognized you,” Ruby said, taking the extra chair at their table after introducing herself.
“How did you know it was me?” Emma asked. She still had the pink cheeks of youth, ruddier now with worry.
“I looked you up,” Ruby said. People were still getting used to how the internet made them easier to find. “Your picture was in theAlaskan Herald. It was from when you won that teaching award. Then I found a listing of you here, this week, as a conference attendee. So here I am.”
Emma looked at her white plate and the croissant, clearly overwhelmed. She had made a call, maybe even impetuously, and suddenly a woman wearing a license and black trousers appeared in her life.
“I’m sorry,” Ruby said.
“Do you know something about her mother?” Patricia asked. She was steadily eating her waffles. Ruby looked over at the buffet, at the teachers lining up for scrambled eggs, biscuits, and gravy.
“Maybe. I’m working the Mitchell Brown case.”
She watched Emma’s face.
“That’s what started this,” Emma said. “We saw the article.”
“Did you know him, back in Chinook?”
“I wasn’t allowed to play with him,” Emma said. There was hesitation in her voice. “But I did get to know him more in school. He was a few years older than me. He was a nice guy. Not that it doesn’t mean he wouldn’t...”
“Kill someone and make them disappear?”
“Yes.”
“What can you tell me about him?” Ruby asked.
Emma looked down. “I don’t want to break a confidence.”
Her lover spoke gently, wiping syrup from her chin.
“He’s going to die soon, honey.”
Emma cleared her throat. “Mitchell is gay.”
Ruby was shocked. For whatever reason, that was not what she had been expecting, and she had to question her own prejudices as to why.
“How do you know that?”
“He told me. It was in high school. I think we... just knew.”
Ruby nodded.
Emma took a deep breath and continued. “He was a good kid. I mean good inside. I just have a hard time believing that he would...anyhow, I was the one he confided in. I don’t think he told anyone else. At that time, in that school, in that area, you didn’t say you were gay. Everyone who was had to stay closeted. That included Mitchell, and that included me.”
Her lover snuck a glance around the room to make sure no one was listening, and put her hand over Emma’s fingers under the table, where no one would see.
“Some things don’t change,” Ruby said.
“No, they don’t. Mitchell was scared, and I didn’t blame him. I don’t think he dated anyone from around there. I know I sure didn’t. We both waited. I didn’t really see much of him after he graduated. He got that job, and I moved after graduation.”
Ruby thought of prisons and how this would be the last thing Mitchell would tell his attorney.
