Afterthoughts (3 page)

She carefully moved toward
the door. She could hear a voice in the back of her mind
saying,
“Be calm Paige. Everything will be
fine. Just relax.”

As she opened one of the large double
glass storm doors, she could hear Sarah’s sobs echoing from the
parlor. What was left of her heart shattered into a million pieces
as she ran into the room. Sarah’s face was as pallid as death
itself. As she tried to stand and run to Paige, Sarah stumbled and
fell back onto the couch; knocking the throw pillows into the
floor.

“
Sarah …” breathless,
Paige ran to her. Their arms closed around each other as if hanging
on for their very lives. “Sarah, I’m so sorry!” she tried to
comfort her. Not knowing what to say, Paige sobbed along with her.
She rocked her back and forth, letting Sarah rest completely in her
arms like she was her own child. She stroked Sarah’s long blonde
hair, desperate to comfort her. Paige tried to embrace the pain
that Sarah was feeling, but she only felt numb. How could anyone
understand such grief? The tears fell down Paige’s cheeks as if a
faucet had been turned on inside her, but she didn’t feel the
tears. She wished she could feel the pain. How could she relieve
some of it for Sarah? What could she possible say to make things
better? Fragile and helpless, Paige did the only thing she could
do. She held onto Sarah as if she were her very life.

“
Sarah, I don’t know what
to say or do. I’m sorry, so sorry.”

Sarah nodded and hugged her tightly.
Paige could feel her relax a little as Sarah’s breathing slowed.
Hope, Paige had hope.

Finally, Paige opened her eyes, lashes
heavy with tears. Glancing up, she found Tom Miller, one of the
policemen on the scene, standing over them. She hugged Sarah once
more. “I’m going outside to talk with Tom for a minute. I’ll be
right back.” Sarah’s swollen eyes looked at her blankly. She nodded
her head as Paige squeezed her hand. When Paige stood to walk with
Tom, she asked another police officer to look after Sarah for a few
minutes and she and Tom headed for the door.

When they stepped out onto the front
porch, Tom looked out at the scene in the front yard. The news vans
and reporters were swarming the investigators while they were
taping off the scene. This was the second time in the same week
there had been a tragedy at Senator Steckler’s estate and the
reporters were determined to have answers.

A crowd of spectators were also
gathering around, shouting questions without concern.

“
She found him … she came
home tonight, opened the garage door and saw him there,” Tom
whispered to Paige as he pulled her from the crowd. “I’m surprised
the poor woman has any sanity left. She was at the station earlier
asking questions about the Senator’s murder. She swears Richie was
innocent. Now, I’m not so sure.” Tom sat down on the step shielding
himself from the crowd with the shrubs that lined the
porch.

“
If Richie was guilty, we
need to find out why,” Paige sighed as she sat beside him. “Did he
need money? Drugs? Did he hate his father enough to kill him? Was
it an accident in the state he was in that night? I have to find
the answers somehow. For Sarah’s sake!” Paige’s eyes filled with
tears again. She wouldn’t let them fall. Not anymore. She had to be
the strong Detective now, not the sobby sister.

That was the only way she could help
Sarah. Biting her lip, she stood up gracefully with what precious
little strength remained and walked back into the house with Tom
behind her.

Before she could enter the parlor, Tom
whispered. “They are going to be removing the body any minute now.
Maybe you should take Mrs. Steckler somewhere else in the house so
that she doesn’t see.”

“
Thanks Tom. I will,” she
said as she laid her hand on Tom’s arm with a light touch that
appeared to be out of concern but was more of trying to keep from
falling down. She slowly turned and walked into the parlor to where
Sarah was now laying on the sofa.

“
Come on, Sarah. Let’s go
upstairs and clean you up a bit.” Paige offered her hand to help
Sarah stand. She nodded and walked with Paige toward the stairs. As
they entered the bedroom, Paige suddenly felt ill again. Breaking
into a sweat as nausea swept over her, she fought the urge to rush
into the bathroom
. “I need to be strong
for Sarah because she really needs me now,”
she told herself.

As Sarah was changing clothes and
drying her face with a hand towel, Paige walked to the window and
looked outside through the blinds.

The EMT’s were pushing
Richie’s body, covered in a white sheet, into the ambulance. The
memory of the same scene with Anthony’s body caused Paige’s stomach
to lurch, yet again. As she watched the scenes unfold in the front
yard, she saw someone in the shadows behind the tree line. Watching
him as he moved from tree to tree along the back of the crowd, a
suspicious feeling came over her.
“Relax
Paige,”
a voice whispered.
“It’s just a curious neighbor or a member of the
press. No need to overreact this time.”
Rubbing the back of her neck, she turned her back to the
window.

As she glanced around the room, she
noticed the pictures on the desk and dresser. She walked over and
picked up a picture of Sarah and Anthony. They had their arms
around each other and they were both smiling happily. As far as
Paige knew, they had a nearly perfect marriage, even for a
politician. Fighting off a little twinge of jealousy, Paige placed
the picture carefully back on the dresser. She wondered if she
would ever find happiness like that.

She made her way to the
guest bathroom and splashed cold water on her face until she felt
better. As she looked at herself in the mirror she wondered what to
do next. “
I have to figure out if Richie
was guilty or if there is someone else. Did Richie kill himself for
another reason?”
Then it hit her. The
obvious question, “Has anyone found a suicide note?” she asked the
reflection in the mirror.

Sarah was back in the bedroom when
Paige came back in. Paige put her arm around her and led her back
downstairs to face more detectives, suspicions, doubts, and tears.
“I’ll be back in a couple of minutes,” she assured her and hugged
her tightly. Leaving Sarah with Tom as they reached the parlor, she
ran back outside to find Jay.

Before she could even ask the
question, Jay had the answer. “We found a note. It doesn’t make any
sense but it’s all we have,” he said as he handed her a note that
had already been sealed in an evidence bag.

Paige’s hands shook as she took it
from Jay and held it up to the porch light. She could barely make
out the words on the letter through the plastic in the dim light of
the garage.

Dear Mom,

I’m sorry for all of the
trouble I’ve caused you and Dad. I need help. I love
you.

Richie

“
I don’t understand. This
letter sounds like someone who is reaching out, not someone who is
… about to …” Paige was trembling.

“
Exactly,” Jay cut her
off. They looked at each other with complete understanding. They
had been partners long enough to develop a sense of what each other
was thinking. Paige likened it to a marriage where the couple could
speak to each other without saying a word. Jay was not only her
partner, but her friend. One she argued with frequently but
completely understood; even if she didn’t agree.

The rest of the investigation went
quickly. Perhaps it was because Paige was numb and could not
concentrate. After taking Sarah to stay at her Cousin Aileen’s
farm, she decided to go home.

She poured herself a large gin and
tonic with the juice of an entire large lime, crawled into bed and
opened her journal.

“
It’s amazing how quickly
things can change. You think everything is normal, fine, routine. I
mean, one minute I’m running bath water, ready to relax and the
next, I’m staring death in the face. Why Richie? Why did he have to
kill himself?”

She sighed and continued to write in
her journal as suggested by her psychiatrist.

“
I feel as if my world is
caving in on me. I’m getting smaller and smaller. I have no control
anymore. I want to reach out and help but I can’t. I’m helpless,
alone, insignificant.”

She toyed with the corner of the page
as she put her pen in her mouth, tears streaming down her face. She
wiped them on her sleeve, took the pen and continued.

“
I feel like I’m going
crazy. I can’t remember things, days even. Something is happening
to me. I thought I was better. I thought I had made progress.
Today, I started to visit my sister, Sarah, to check up on her and
it was like a voice was telling me to leave her alone. So, I didn’t
call. I didn’t call!”

She drew several
underlines.

“
I’m going out of my mind.
I should have been there. If I had, Richie would still be
alive!”

She gave up, slammed her journal
closed, and turned off her light. She sobbed herself to
sleep.

Chapter 5

As morning broke, the
bright sun streaked through the blinds onto Paige’s bed. Her
swollen eyes blinked as they adjusted to the light. She calmly
watched the dust float through each streak of sunlight until the
memories of the previous day invaded the stillness. Trying to put
the vision of Richie out of her head, she decided to get up and
make coffee. She sat on the side of the bed for a moment and ran
her hand through the sunlight. Watching the streaked light dance
across her arm and hand she thought,
“Such
a simple pleasure”.
One, she decided, she
would never to take for granted again. Life is too precious and she
had seen enough over the last year to make her appreciate what
little things she had been blessed with.

Suddenly, a vision formed in her mind
like a dream. She could see a small amount of light slicing the
cold darkness of a small room. The window appeared to be boarded
but the strands of light still fought their way through, streaked
across the room, and fell across her lap.

She felt a wave of nausea.

Holding on to the side of
her bed, she shook her head, “
What the
hell was that all about?”

She shook her head again,
as if shaking out cobwebs.
“Coffee,”
she reminded herself and
stood up to pull on her pink silk robe that lay casually across a
huge overstuffed chair.

Harry, Paige’s Labrador, looked up at
her hopefully. She reached down and rubbed his soft black ears. “I
guess you need out.”

He wagged his tail happily.

As she crept toward the kitchen, she
rubbed her eyes, ran both hands through her long brown hair and
rubbed her stiff neck. Harry pounced along beside her, happy to be
up and about. “A nice, long, hot bath is just what I need,” she
whispered to herself as she opened the door and Harry bounded
outside. She crossed to the counter and scooped coffee into the
filter.

As the coffee brewed, she stepped back
outside to pick up the paper. Instead of opening it, she tossed it
on the kitchen table, afraid to look at the front page. She knew in
her gut that the suicide of the late Senator’s son would be
front-page news and at that, she decided not to turn on the
television. Rolling her head from side to side, she walked over to
the phone on the kitchen wall, took it off the hook and laid it on
the counter. She had already turned off her cell phone the night
before. She knew that Sarah was with Aileen and would be
fine.

With a deep sigh, she paced the floor,
thinking.

Paige remembered when Anthony
approached her in college to talk to her about Sarah. “I’m crazy
about her, Paige. Do you think she’d marry me?” he asked her with
his big handsome smile. Paige could tell he was nervous about
asking her this question.

Paige tried to smile at him even
though she was a little jealous.

“
She’ll say yes in a
heartbeat. The two of you are made for each other. I wish I could
find what you guys have.”

Anthony gave her a big hug, “Sarah’s
lucky to have you. She loves you, ya know.”

“
Thanks. I love her too,”
Paige gave him another hug, smiling.

Paige thought of Richie’s
letter as she shuffled into the bathroom to draw a bath. She added
her favorite vanilla scented bath salts and lit all the candles
that lined the garden tub. This was the way Paige knew she could
think best. She loved to soak in a warm tub, surrounded with subtle
light and wonderful scents. This was the only pampering she did for
herself. She enjoyed a simple life with simple things. She didn’t
fuss over her hair or make-up and her furniture and apartment were
plain and not cluttered. Harry was her only personal responsibility
and if he had thumbs, he could let himself out.
Hmmm, maybe I’ll get a doggie door.

As the tub filled, she
returned to the kitchen to pour her coffee.
“A little coffee with my cream and sugar,”
she tried to laugh at herself as she poured most
of a container of half-n-half in her cup. She looked out of the
window and saw her neighbor walking the little Norfolk terrier she
brought home the month before.
“Amazing,”
she thought to herself,
watching Jeanne go back into her house with the little dog and
noticing that they both had short spiky orange hair.
“They’ve only been together a month and they
already look alike.”
Paige wondered if she
and Harry looked alike somehow.