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“He’s very much alive.” She reached across the table and placed her hand over mine, squeezed a couple of times before letting it go. “He came into the station, the same station we’re in right now, to confess.”
I didn’t know what to say. “He killed Marc.” It wasn’t a question. Somehow, I knew.
She was guarded. “Yes. That’s what he’s confessed to. And right now, his story is credible. He knew details we hadn’t released—details only the killer would know.”
“Did he say why?” I took a sip of water. I was suddenly parched, as though my insides were drying out with each word the detective spoke.
She sighed and I could tell from the way her mouth was poised that she wanted to tell me more. But she caught herself. “That’s all I can say for right now.” She reached into her jacket pocket and brought out a card. “My card. You can call me in a few days and I can probably share more with you if the press doesn’t get to it first.”
I simply sat, slumped.
She smiled. “You can go. Do you need a ride?”
“I need a lot of things, Detective, but a ride isn’t one of them.” I stood. “I need to get home to my dog.”
“Go. I’ve got things from here. And I will keep you posted.”
As I was opening the door to exit, she called, “I’m sorry for all you’ve gone through, Mr. Blake. And I’m especially sorry for your loss. My condolences.”
I rushed from the room, found the nearest men’s room, plopped down in a stall and wept.
Marc was gone.
And nothing else mattered.
For some reason, as my tears abated an image arose—the beer bread Marc had made on the day he vanished. Something about that homely food—and the dinner we never shared—completely broke me.
Chapter 15
One Month Later—Sam
I
I held the memorial service for Marc at a small Unitarian church only a few blocks west of our condo on Morse Avenue. I’d waited a while because the authorities kept the body for the usual autopsy and to ensure all the possible evidence that could be collected had been. They still needed it, Detective Cawood explained, because even though there’d been an iron-clad confession, no one ever knew how or when things could change. Something that might have seemed inconsequential at one point might take on vast importance later on.
“Once the body is gone, there’s no going back,” she told me over the phone when she’d called to let me know I could proceed with funeral arrangements.
She’d been an unexpected source of solace through the trauma of losing Marc, the press’s insistence on making a big story of it, and the grief I experienced at suddenly finding myself alone. She and I hadn’t exactly become friends, but she seemed to care about me since the day I’d been interviewed. Although I didn’t want to put words in her mouth or thoughts in her head, I suspected her affection and protectiveness stemmed from the fact that she knew, deep down, that I could never have murdered anyone, let alone Marc. She kept me posted on developments with the case and told me things she probably shouldn’t have, like verifying the fact that it was only when Keith Walker had been shot coming out of a southside convenience store, that Hunter had been freed. Jeb, according to what she’d discovered, had managed to escape several months ago.
Marc had always wanted to be cremated, and I respected those wishes. The cremation had taken place last week and Marc’s ashes now rested in a bronze urn on a podium at the front of the church, sheathed by a small piece of fabric—his mother’s Hermes scarf the turquoise of a swimming pool. She’d always treasured it. Little did she know that her son had also always treasured it.
I was still in the process of figuring out what I should do with his remains (or cremains, as the funeral director had called them). I knew I could simply keep them and there was a comfort to that notion. They’d looked fine on the mantle at home, next to one of my favorite photographs of us, taken early on in our relationship when we’d driven all the way from Chicago to spend a week in August in Provincetown. A fellow gay tourist couple had snapped our picture as we walked down Commercial Street, hand in hand. We’d been young and carefree on that sweltering summer day, in tank tops and cut-offs, our smiles testimony to our insular passion. We’d become friends with the couple and the one, Robert I think his name was, sent us a print a few weeks after we’d come home.
And yet, I didn’t like that idea. It seemed selfish. I knew, sadly, that Marc had yearned for freedom from our life together. I’d tried not to take his desire personally, but it was hard. But I thought a better way to deal with the ashes was to liberate them, to set Marc free on a gust of wind. I only needed to find the right place, a location from which he could soar…
Mom had been a source of comfort through these turbulent times. She’d bravely flown out to Chicago a second time, just so she could stay with me for an indefinite period, leaving her job behind.
I wasn’t sure she’d ever go back to St. Clair. I was okay with that. I didn’t care if she simply lived with me for the rest of her life. Nor did I worry about the potential for jokes about the middle-aged bachelor living with Mother. We’d always had a special bond, a sort of me-and-you-against-the-world kind of thing. Just as she had when I was a little boy, she hugged me late at night when I woke, screaming, from nightmares. She soothed me with her home cooking, her love of old television game shows, and the occasional game of hearts.
Now, as I stood at the back of the church, looking over the assembled crowd come to say goodbye to Marc, I was a little disheartened to see so few people there—a ‘congregation’ made up of Marc’s boss, a couple co-workers, a guy from an LGBT book club Marc had belonged to a couple of years ago, and the dog walker we’d used. Of course, his mom and dad were there, a weeping indivisible unit in black, in the front row.
That was about it, except for one other person, who sat in the last pew, in a worn navy sweater and jeans, his head bowed. I squeezed his shoulder as I went by, heading for the front of the church. He clasped my hand for a moment, then let go.
I headed up front to sit next to Mom. She’d worn navy slacks and a white blouse. I don’t know if it was the passage of time or the trauma of what her only son had gone through, but she looked smaller somehow, older. Her shoulders were hunched. She’d freed the gray in her hair and now, after several months, her shoulder-length bob was almost entirely white. It looked good on her, but she’d never again be the youthful mom people mistook for my sister.
She looked up at me as I approached and a sad smile deepened the creases around her eyes and mouth. Her dark eyes were damp and red-rimmed. I thought of a card she’d once given Marc years ago for his birthday and her note to him inside was about how he was just as much a son to her as I was.
These thoughts brought a lump to my throat—the impermanence of it all. Mom leaned over to hug me and I did my best to hold it all in. I was on the verge of all-out sobbing and I definitely didn’t want to do that here. There would be time enough for more tears, yet another release, today and in the years to come. I knew I’d never fully get over this loss.
