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She scoffs again. “Oh, I doubt Korina said anything as poetic as that. But, yes, that sounds about right. David was troubled all right. I knew him well enough to know he’s bad news and that I shouldn’t get involved with him. But I did anyway. He was just such an exciting guy, always. Like everyone else just paled in comparison. The adventures we used to have…” her face softens considerably as she lets her voice trail off. But then she frowns, squares her shoulders and glares at me. “Except when he was down.”
“It sounds like David might have been suffering from manic depression,” I say.
“That and a bunch of other things,” she says. “You name it, he had it, according to his doctors. He hated being diagnosed with so many mental diseases and was always trying to prove the doctors wrong. I used to think I could save him from it all, that my love could cure him, but how dumb is that, right? Excuse me.”
Her voice started shaking as she spoke and she turns away from me. But then she straightens her back, and walks to the baroque-style desk she was sitting at when I walked in. When she turns back to me, she’s dabbing at her eyes with a tissue and I should give her a few more moments before asking more questions.
She’s wearing a gold pencil skirt and a white blazer over a loose silk blouse-an outfit that looks good on her, but also matches the gilded frames of the oil paintings they sell here, along with arm chairs, chests, vases and various other old things.
I’m all for an odd antique piece here and there, but generally the smell of them makes me nauseous and it’s quickly becoming unbearable now. I think it’s just a dust allergy and these items carry about a century of it. But if I don’t focus on it, it’ll go away. I hope.
“I did love him,” she says as she tightens her fist around the tissue. “But he wasn’t easy to love and in the end, it became impossible. I’m afraid I drove him into a very dark place when I left. He wouldn’t have been out there if I were still living with him.”
“So you think he wasn’t out that late at night returning from a gambling session?” I ask.
She shakes her head. “He only gambled online. He was no good at live games and he knew it. Always lost at those.”
“Could he have been meeting someone? Perhaps to borrow money or buy drugs?”
The smell of old dust and the nausea are quickly overwhelming me. I don’t know how many more questions I can ask before I absolutely have to leave this small store for the fresh air outside.
“His dealer was a close personal friend of his and would deliver the drugs right to his living room,” she says. “As for borrowing money, he didn’t need to do that after his mother died. She left him a nice sum, and he had such a lucky streak with it that he almost doubled it.”
I shuffle over to the nearest chair—an old farm-house chair with flowers carved into the back rest. It would look awesome in the nursery back at the cabin.
“May I?” I ask but sink into it without waiting for an answer. It creaks and wobbles, yet holds my weight just fine. My daughter is worth it, but I could do without my body failing me like this randomly.
“Yes, I’m sorry, I should’ve invited you to sit. Would you like some water or something?” she says and strides to a small room in the back, returning with a small bottle of mineral water, which is very welcome. I thank her, then proceed to drink about half of it, not really caring how it looks. Afterwards, the nausea is less pronounced.
“Why do you think David was out so late that night?” I ask.
“He had a habit of taking long walks at night. He was so hyper that he never could sleep well, and with all the coke he did, he could barely sit still. I told him I’d only marry him if he stayed away from the stuff, and for a while he did, but then he started using again. I forgave him so much, and I always looked the other way, but this time, I couldn’t anymore. I’m like you.”
I was taking another sip and I swallow hard as I look at her questioningly.
She giggles. “Pregnant, I mean. He was happy when we first found out or seemed to be. But then he started going on and on about how the child might turn out like him and how it’s wrong for us to have it. Crazy stuff like that. Stuff I’d always put up with until now. But I wasn’t willing to let my child go through that.”
“I understand,” I say and drink some more of my water.
“Oh, good, because I don’t,” she says. ”If only he’d been stronger, if only he could admit that he did have problems, then my child could’ve had a father, however faulty.”
“But he was in therapy, wasn’t he?”
She shrugs. “We’d agreed to try couples counseling again, but he missed every appointment I made. He really didn’t have much use for therapists beyond using them to get prescription sleeping pills and such.”
That’s more or less what his aunt told me as well.
“Did David like taking long walks along the river?” I ask and she looks at me with wide, surprised eyes.
“Maybe, I don’t know. He’d walk all over the city center at night, as far as I know. And the river takes up a large part of that. He wasn’t the sort to get sentimental about things or anything like that.”
She takes a deep breath and glares at me with a very pensive, deep sort of look in her eyes.
“I know the police think he owed money to a loan shark or something like that, but it’s also possible he argued with someone that night,” she says and takes another deep breath. “He was in a foul mood the last couple of weeks before he died. And when he was in a foul mood, you had better stay out of his way. He was never violent to me, but he was easy to get a rise out of and he was quick to make an argument physical. It’s just how he’s always been. So maybe someone made him mad that night and that someone was the wrong person to start a fight with.”
She’s clearly been thinking a lot about this. And I agree, if David had owed money to someone, I’m sure the police would’ve found that out by now. They’re still in the dark as to who might have killed him. They don’t even have a person of interest in his case, let alone a suspect.
A man in a long, expensive-looking dark gray wool coat walks in. The three piece suit he’s wearing under it looks custom made, and his shoes look like they cost more than the coat and suit combined. He’s in his late forties with thinning sandy blond hair parted at the side and eyes so brilliantly blue they somehow light up the whole room. He pushed the door open using his elbow, because he’s holding a small dark wood box in both hands like it’s a treasure. He’s very careful not to touch too much of the color drawings the box is covered inwith. The scene is of a lovely flowering field with a castle in the distance and birds flying overhead.
