Look Closely - Laura Caldwell [72]
I parked in the driveway and walked to the front door. I looked around a few times when I reached it, but there was no sign of the green car, just a couple of kids riding their bikes. I wondered if Annie had friends in this neighborhood. Did she like visiting her dad?
My knock made a hollow echo inside the house. I wasn’t surprised. The mail was stuffed in the box next to the front door, some of the envelopes and magazines spilling onto the concrete stoop where the postman had started stacking the rest of the mail.
I knocked again and again. Nothing. I walked around the house, but all the blinds were closed tight. No sign of life. It was time go.
When I reached my apartment, I collected my mail and flipped through it in the elevator. As soon as I came to the fourth envelope, a large, manila one, I stopped and smiled.
Ty Manning, the return address said.
I went into the apartment and let my bag fall onto the floor. I stuck my finger in the small opening at the end of the flap and pulled. Inside was a stack of paper.
The top sheet was plain but for a few handwritten lines.
Thought you might want to see this. It’s a copy of the police file on your mom’s investigation. Let me know if I can do anything else to help. Hope you’ll come back to see us soon. Ty.
I set aside the top page and flipped through the others. Sure enough, they were police records. I was used to reading such records occasionally for certain cases, but now my mother’s name was on the face sheet, accompanied by phrases like “cause of death” and “severe head injury.” At the bottom there was a stamp that said, “Case Closed.”
I riffled through the other pages, noticing typed witness interviews and handwritten notes, but I couldn’t focus on the content.
I pulled out my Palm Pilot and looked up Ty’s number. No answer at his house. I called the front desk at the inn. He answered, and we chatted for a few seconds, but I was too anxious for small talk.
“Ty, how did you get these records?” I asked. Whenever I wanted a police report for a lawsuit, getting it was usually a lengthy, detailed process that involved subpoenas and court appearances.
“I just asked the records clerk. Everyone knows me, so it wasn’t very difficult.”
“Does your dad know?”
Silence for a second. “I did ask him first, and he said he’d dig them up, but I knew he’d never get to it.”
“So you went around him.”
“I guess.” Ty sounded uncomfortable now.
“I don’t want you to do anything that could affect your relationship with your dad.” I was feeling bad about my own relationship with my father. I didn’t need to hurt Ty’s, too.
“Well, there isn’t much to affect,” Ty said in a wry voice.
“I thought you were close.”
“My dad is close to my mom, and that’s pretty much it. He was a good father in some ways. He brought home the money, went to a few football games, but he’s not going to win any father of the year awards.”
“Oh. I didn’t realize.” I thought of the feelings of affection I’d had when I was in the Mannings’ kitchen for dinner, the desire to have a family like that.
“It’s no big deal,” Ty said. “He just got beaten down by the work over the years. He’s seen too much, I guess. Too much ugliness. At least that’s what my mom says. Because he wasn’t always as hard. It’s why my brother and sister live away from home, though. They can’t deal with him on a regular basis.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.”
“Like I said, no big deal.”
Ty and I talked for twenty more minutes. I filled him in on my trip to New Mexico. I have a niece named Annie, I said. I told him