“I’m just thinking about Ryan. Mom, it was horrible. All that blood. His head. It was…oh, my God…Mom, it was so terrible.”
I covered my face with my hands and cried heavily into them. Mom walked around the kitchen counter and wrapped her arms around me once more. I could smell the Chanel No. 5 on her blouse and in her hair. She had worn that perfume since before I could remember, and the smell of it now brought back so many memories, the good and the bad. It made me cry even harder. Life had dealt me several very shitty hands, but the one good card I had was my mother, and in that moment, I thanked God for her.
She pulled back slightly from our embrace and wiped my face with her smooth hands. Her shirt had dark blue circles all over from my tears and snot and I instantly felt bad for ruining her pretty blouse.
“We will get through this. You will survive this,” she said, brushing my hair back behind my ears with her fingertips. “You have always been a survivor. A fighter. Don’t you dare give up on me now. You need to fight now, maybe harder than you ever have before. But I know you, and I know you can survive this. I’ll be right here by your side.”
Now I really felt guilty. Here was my mother, as always, standing by my side, encouraging me, loving me, believing in me. But what if I did kill Ryan? What then? I wouldn’t be worthy of any of the love and support she was now offering me. She never asked me if I did it. She never would. Even if she doubted me, she would never say a word. So, I had to be the one to voice the fear I was certain we both shared.
“Mom, what if I did it?”
“What?”
“What if I did kill Ryan?”
She took a couple of steps backward and I instantly regretted saying it out loud.
“Libby, listen to me,” she said, looking very serious. “You listen to me. You did not kill Ryan. Do you hear me? It’s impossible. It’s the most ludicrous thing I’ve ever heard. Don’t you start doubting yourself now. I have no doubt you are utterly incapable of killing another human being, especially the man you loved.”
“But I don’t remember anything from that night. What if I blacked out and went on some crazy rampage and killed my husband? Shot him right between the eyes?”
Mom looked horrified, but I could see that tiny little seed of doubt I had just planted in her mind.
“I don’t believe you are capable of killing anyone, especially the man you loved so dearly. But, if you have even the slightest doubt in your own mind, then you need to call an attorney. Immediately. I will not lose you like I lost Randy.
If
you did this thing, and it’s a big
if
, I will still stand by you. I’ll love you no matter what. You’re my little girl. My only child. I will not lose you. So find yourself an attorney, because that detective won’t waste any time trying to pin this on you, guilty or not.”
“You’re right, as usual,” I said.
“And Libby?”
“Yeah, Mom?”
She put her hands on both of my shoulders and looked me straight in the eyes. “No matter what, you never, ever say you killed Ryan. Even if you regain your memory and it turns out you did kill him—never, never say it out loud. Do you hear me? Never.”
“All right, I hear you. I won’t say anything.”
“Good,” she said, picking up her coffee mug. “Now, go call an attorney. Now.”
Later that evening, as I lay in my daybed trying to process everything that had happened to me in the past twenty-four hours, I picked up the remote and turned on the television. Time for a little distraction. I changed the channel to Discovery ID, a channel which plays only true crime drama. You would think I would get my fill of crime day in and day out being a criminal defense paralegal, but I can never get enough. Ryan used to say I was obsessed. Maybe he was right. I did have a tendency to consume anything and everything crime-related. Perhaps it was because of my father, but it had been that way for as long as I could remember. I followed the OJ Simpson trial with rapt attention. Then, years later, I was mesmerized by other high-profile cases like Ray Carruth, Robert Blake, Scott Peterson, and Casey Anthony. I watched the CNN and Nancy Grace coverage of all of these trials every chance I could.
I was especially drawn to anything involving death. At work, whenever we would sign a client charged with murder, I would get excited and it was as if a switch was flipped inside me somewhere. When I got the files, I would spend more time than was necessary pouring through the autopsy reports, witness statements, police reports, and especially, the photos. It wasn’t like I was sexually aroused by them. I’m not
that
twisted. It just excited me in a way I can’t explain. Luckily, I was able to hide my obsession from my coworkers, so no one knew just how much of a thrill I got from my work. I was lucky I not only enjoyed my work, but I was fascinated by it. How many people can say that?
Perhaps the reason I didn’t pass out when I found Ryan the way I did was because I had become desensitized to violence. I had seen so many graphic crime scene photographs and videos in my career, there wasn’t much I hadn’t seen.
I would never forget the first major case I worked. My client was accused of a violent bank robbery wherein two tellers and a customer were all blown away by shotgun blasts. I remember the day I received the photos from the prosecutor’s office, pursuant to a subpoena. I sat at my desk with the large manila envelope in front of me. My hands trembled as I picked up the envelope and slid my finger along the top to open it. I dumped the pictures onto my desk and threw the envelope into the trashcan. I picked up the large, glossy eight by tens and flipped through them one at a time. The first few pictures were taken from a distance and I could only see the customer lying on the floor in front of the teller’s window. Finally, toward the end of the stack, were the up-close pictures of the victims. The customer, an elderly lady, had a large hole where her right breast should have been. The first teller was slumped in a sitting position against a wall and there was a large bloody circle in the middle of her abdomen. The second teller was found a few feet from the safe with half his face blown away. I was horrified but fascinated at the same time.
This is not to say I’m detached or uncaring about the suffering of the victims of violent crime. My heart breaks every time I see the violence that some people are capable of doing to one another. Oftentimes, I close the door to my office and have a good cry. Especially when children are involved. In fact, if possible, I try to avoid working on cases that involve children. Even though I’ve never had children of my own, I think most decent human beings, even those like me who are a tad obsessed with crime, can’t imagine how anyone could ever harm a child.
But all of this changed the moment I found Ryan murdered in our bed. I knew from that moment forward I would never be able to look at crime the same way again, not now that I was the wife of a victim. From that point onward, I would look at violent crime differently and the victims would no longer seem like strangers, but rather members of a club, which I now felt I was the captain of. The club for people with broken lives.
***
I slept off and on most of Sunday while Mom brought me my meals on a dinner tray. I would wake up long enough to eat a bite, and then it was back to sleep. It was as if my body was craving rest from all of the crying I had done the first twenty-four hours. I thought I might have trouble sleeping Sunday night, but it was no trouble at all, especially with a little help from one of Mom’s tiny blue sleeping pills.
Monday morning, I woke up, padded into the bathroom, and climbed into the shower. Letting the warm water run over my body, I debated on whether to go to work or call in sick. After all, my husband had just been murdered two days prior. Who goes to work that quickly? On the other hand, I enjoyed my job and it was the only thing I could think of to take my mind off the fact that I was now the prime suspect in my husband’s murder.
I caught a glimpse of myself in the bathroom mirror. I hadn’t looked at myself since Friday, and it was just as bad as I had feared. While I’d finally gotten a chance to wash my hair, the roots were terribly obvious. Dark semi-circles had taken up residence under my hazel eyes from lack of sleep, and my typically smooth, cream-colored skin was all blotchy and rough looking. I immediately wished I had my makeup kit with me, but that too, was at my house.
After drying off, I pulled on a pair of black business slacks, a silk purple shirt with purple sequins and slipped on a strappy pair of black sandals, just like I would any other work day.
When I made my way down the stairs, Mom was sitting at the kitchen table sipping coffee.
“Where are you going so dressed up?” she asked.
“I’m going to work.”
“Are you sure about that? After everything you’ve been through? Do you really think it’s wise, honey?”
“I have to do something, Mom,” I said with a shrug of my shoulders. “I can’t just sit here and do nothing all day.”
“Well, I guess I can understand that. But take it easy, okay?”
“I will. I promise. Can I borrow your minivan?”
“Of course you can.”
I thanked her, grabbed my purse and Mom’s keys, and headed out the front door.
It took about forty-five minutes to make it to the parking garage of the Big Blue Building in Lexington, thanks to morning rush traffic. I parked Mom’s minivan on the third level and walked through the garage until I came to the double doors that opened up to Logan and Logan. I stood there for a moment, willing myself to open the door. I wondered if I had made a mistake. Could I really walk in there and act like nothing was wrong? Would I be able to concentrate on my cases knowing my husband was lying on a slab in the morgue and that I was quite possibly responsible for him being there? I was about to find out.
I lay my hand on the door handle and pulled open the glass door with Logan and Logan written across it in gold stenciled letters. The cool air conditioning juxtaposed against the stifling hot air of the parking garage nearly knocked me over. But it felt cool and refreshing. I straightened my back, pulled my purse up higher on my shoulder, and began walking confidently toward my office.
The receptionist wiggled her fingers at me as I walked past her desk. Logan and Logan employed about fifty people, and my office was in the back, near my boss, Mark Logan. As I did every other morning, I stopped at his door and poked my head in.
“Good morning, Mark,” I said.
He looked up from his computer and smiled. “Good morning, Libby. How was your weekend?”
I had only seconds to decide if I was going to tell him what had happened or try to hide it. I decided he would find out about it soon enough and that not mentioning it would be weird.
“I have some bad news, actually.”
“Is everything okay?”
“Not really. My husband died this weekend.” I tried like hell to keep from crying, but the tears came nonetheless. I wiped them away and suddenly felt a bit embarrassed for displaying my grief in front of my boss.
His face became white as a sheet and his mouth gaped open. “Libby, are you serious?”
“I’m afraid so.”
“What on earth are you doing here? You should be at home.”
“I just couldn’t sit there all alone. The walls were closing in on me.”
“Libby, I’m so sorry. How did it happen?”
I explained everything to him, but left out the bit about being interrogated by Nicholasville police.
“Libby, I’m sorry, but I really think you should go home. Of course, my main concern is your well-being, but beyond that, I don’t think you could concentrate on your work. Don’t you have a funeral to plan?”
“I have to wait until the autopsy is complete. They sent his body to Frankfort. They said it could take several days.” Tears fell down my cheeks again. “Plus, I really need a distraction. Please let me at least try.”
“Well, if you insist. But the minute you feel overwhelmed, I want you to go straight home. Are we agreed?”
I nodded my head. “Thanks, Mark.”
I walked a few feet to my office and sat down in my chair. I logged on to my computer and instantly saw that I had fifty new emails in my Outlook inbox. One by one, I began answering emails and before I knew it, an hour had gone by and I hadn’t thought of Ryan.
My friend Amy appeared in my doorway suddenly, causing me to jump a little in my seat.
“Libby! Oh, my God! I just talked to Mark. He told me what happened to Ryan. Why on earth are you here?”
I explained to her, just as I had to Mark, that I needed a distraction and that sitting at Mom’s house all alone with nothing to eat away the time, would have just driven me mad.
She nodded. “I guess I can understand that. Is there anything I can do?”
“I’ll let you know if there is. For now, I just need to focus on work. Keep my mind off everything.”
“Okay, well, you know where I am if you need me.”
Amy walked away and I returned my attention to my inbox. It took me another hour and a half to read and respond to the rest of my emails. Next, I looked to the edge of my desk where the mail clerk had apparently set my mail without me even noticing. I used my letter opener to open each piece of mail, one at a time. There were medical records and cell phone records I had subpoenaed from various victims and witnesses. There were letters from prosecutors responding to certain discovery requests I had made. I went through them all and put them all in the appropriate files. The last envelope I opened was from the Fayette County Coroner’s office. For a split second, I thought it might be Ryan’s autopsy report. Then I realized it was too soon and that it wouldn’t be coming from Fayette County. I opened the envelope and slowly unfolded the papers inside. It was the coroner’s report in one of my cases where our client was accused of killing his boss after he was fired, one year shy of his retirement.
I read through the report and felt a cold chill up my spine. It was too similar to what happened to Ryan. The victim, our client’s boss, had been shot behind his right ear with a .22 caliber pistol. The report went into a detailed description of the extensive damage the bullet had done to his brain and then finished with a graphic description of the exit wound. I felt nauseous. I could see Ryan’s head, or what was left of it, vividly in my mind.
Typically, I was not bothered by such gruesome details. In fact, I was usually enthralled. But this hit too close to home. The room began to spin around me and I couldn’t catch my breath. I’d never had a panic attack before, but was quite certain this was what I was experiencing. I stood up, but as soon as I did, I nearly fell over. I had to place my hand on the wall to keep from passing out. What had I been thinking, coming back to work so soon after Ryan’s death? Reading and responding to emails was a welcome distraction, but reading an autopsy report of a gunshot victim was more than I could handle.
After taking a few deep breaths, I was able to steady myself enough to walk out of the office. I grabbed my purse, slung it over my shoulder, and walked out into the hallway. A few steps later, I came to Mark’s office. He was looking at his computer when I appeared in his doorway.
I shook my head and fought back tears. “I thought I could do it…I just can’t.”
“Go, go,” he said, waving his hand as if to shoo me away. “Call me if you need anything.”
I nodded and kept walking down the hallway. I heard Amy’s voice calling after me and I turned to see her standing just a few feet behind me.
“Are you okay, sweetie?” she asked with a look of genuine concern.
“I came back too soon,” I admitted. “I just can’t do it.”
“I understand,” she said. “Everyone understands. We couldn’t believe you came back today in the first place.”
“I just couldn’t sit at home,” I explained.
“I know,” she said. “But maybe you just need some time alone. My God, Libby. Your husband was just murdered three days ago. Go home and grieve. It’s healthier than ignoring it.”
“You’re right,” I said. “I’m going home now.”
“Good decision. Call me if you need me,” she said. “For any reason. Any time.”
She reached out her arms and pulled me into a tight hug. It felt good to have someone’s arms around me, so I melted into her embrace. Eventually, she pulled back and looked me straight in the eyes.
“I mean it, Libby,” she said earnestly. “Call me anytime. I’ll be here for you.”