Mr. And Mrs. Wrong

Leona talked briefly to the manager, then made her way to the common room where Terrell spent his days staring at the aquarium or working on his drawings. Today he had out a pad and pens and an assortment of colored inks and was sitting alone at one of the round tables they used for activities.

The years had not been good to him, and he appeared much older, more used up, than he should at thirty-eight. Deep lines etched his face. He’d once been a handsome boy, but now he was nearly bald on top, and the sides and back of his hair had turned the color of new tin.

He didn’t look up or acknowledge her presence, only turned to a clean page of his art pad. As he started a new picture, he rocked from side to side, a mechanism he used to comfort himself.

“Hello, Terrell,” she said, sitting across from him. “It’s Aunt Leona. I hope you’ve been well.”

She didn’t expect a response and didn’t get one. Terrell had never said a word, to her knowledge, but he could make sounds, and Margaret had told her he’d often cried all night as a child, as if life was simply too painful for him to bear.

She didn’t think he cried anymore. A few tears, the attendants said, once when they’d transferred him here and the second time when they’d drained the fish tank to clean it, and he hadn’t been able to watch the water.

The only problem they’d encountered was keeping him contained. Sometimes he scaled the wall and disappeared, not running away from the house but running to something, the irresistible something that drew him as strongly now as it had when he was a boy—the river. Years away hadn’t diminished his fascination with it.

As long as no one interrupted his routine, moved his things or tried to touch him, he was fine—almost invisible and seemingly content. He stayed closed up in his silent world and didn’t bother anyone.

He was a sweet boy, always had been. Never would she believe he had killed Eileen Olenick. Terrell didn’t have it in him to hurt anyone.

But thanks to Matt Mathison’s editorials in the Register at the time, Leona hadn’t been able to convince anyone of her nephew’s innocence. In truth, it was the Mathisons’ youngest daughter—Lucky they called her—who had really been the one to seal Terrell’s fate, and with only a few words. People had taken the unfounded fears of a child and accepted them as truth.

Leona removed her cross-stitch sampler from her purse and worked on the S of Home Sweet Home as she talked. Terrell continued to ignore her. He occasionally swapped colors. A couple of times he traded his pen for a brush and dipped it in an ink bottle or a small jar of water, swishing it lightly along the paper or painting with painstaking slowness.

Did he remember her house? she asked him. “Of course you do,” she answered for him. “Your mama used to bring you over to see me and Uncle Edwin and you’d make so many pretty pictures. Even then you had talent.”

Extraordinary talent, or so they’d discovered. He was a savant, Miss Olenick had said, because he could draw or paint anything and with the tiniest details, even things he’d only seen once.

Unfortunately, instead of being a gift that brought happiness, his art had been the catalyst for trouble. If only Miss Olenick hadn’t taken an interest in him, his life might have turned out differently.

Well, no use thinking that way, Leona told herself. What was done was done. No one could change the past.

She stayed for her usual hour, then put her needlework back in her bag. Edwin would be wanting his lunch and she still had to stop for bread.

“I’ll come back and see you again, Terrell,” she told him, standing. “You be good and Aunt Leona will bring you a plate of gingerbread next time. I remember how much you love gingerbread with apple-sauce.”

He removed the page he’d been working on and set it on the table, then packed his supplies into a plastic carrier and shuffled off in the direction of his room in that strange walk of his. He never looked back.

Leona came around the table and picked up the sheet, and her heart nearly stopped. He’d drawn a picture of Eileen Olenick as she had looked twenty-one years ago, a picture as vibrant and colorful as the woman herself had been, and so meticulously detailed it nearly resembled a photograph.

Leona might also have called it “lifelike” except for one thing. The body reclined in a pool of blood. He’d drawn her dead.

JACK CLOSED THE FOLDER on the Bagwell case and tossed it on the growing stack of files. For a town of its size, Potock had a fair share of accidents and crime. Burglaries and thefts, mostly. Husbands and wives trying to beat the crap out of each other. Every weekend some guy got drunk and showed what an idiot he was by urinating in public or pulling a knife and trying to cut one of his neighbors.

Right now they had open cases on sixteen burglaries, a weapons charge, the train death, two cases of vandalism, the bomb threat and a request for assistance from the feds on the sale of historical artifacts that might have been illegally obtained.

With only five investigators, including himself, and a jurisdiction of 24,000 residents, the workload was piling up. He needed more people, and the ones he had weren’t sufficiently trained.

Back at his old bureau, not even a first-day rookie would have screwed up like Swain had done this morning. Jack would recommend he be busted back to patrol if he didn’t need him so badly. Besides, Swain wasn’t the only one around here who didn’t know what he was doing. He, at least, had the excuse of inexperience.

Taggert and Domingo had more than fifteen years between them and were officers, yet sometimes acted as if they knew little more than Rogers and Whatley, who’d only recently passed their exams.

Sometimes Jack wondered what the hell he was doing in Potock. He’d once told Lucky that “Podunk” was a better name for it, given its backwoods atmosphere, but naturally she liked it for that very reason. The day he and Lucky ever agreed on anything, he’d probably fall over dead.

Taking his pen from his pocket, he circled a phone number on his legal pad. The call from Wes, his ex-boss in Major Crimes, had been a surprise. He’d decided to retire at the end of the year, and if Jack wanted to apply for the position, Wes would write him a recommendation. The commander and the assistant chief were also offering recommendations.

With Jack’s training and experience and the endorsements from his former superiors, he’d have an excellent shot at the job he’d coveted since he’d gone into law enforcement.

Except he was no longer in a position to go after it.

His excitement had lasted all of ten seconds before he’d thought of Lucky and how this news would go over with her. If he couldn’t get her to leave the cabin, he wouldn’t have a chance in hell of getting her to move out of state. Things were so strained right now, he didn’t dare bring it up. Talk about poor timing.

He tore off the page of notes, started to crumple it for the trash, then stopped. Wes wouldn’t announce his retirement until October, and it was only June. The selection commission needed sufficient time to take applications, do assessments of the candidates and make recommendations for the job and for various down-the-line promotions the opening would create. Nothing would be decided until January—or conceivably even as late as February or March.

He folded the paper and put it in his wallet. Maybe if he explained how much of a raise in pay it would mean and what a great opportunity it was, Lucky would go for it.

And pigs might grow wings, Cahill.

Laughter interrupted his ruminating, and he looked out the glass partition to see Taggert, Whatley and some of the patrol personnel huddled around Lucky in the division room. He glanced at his watch. Four o’clock. Somehow he’d let the time get away from him, and his growling stomach reminded him he’d again missed lunch.

No doubt they were congratulating her on the dirty trick she’d pulled on him with the film. He chuckled under his breath. The little monkey. She’d really gotten him good.

She broke away from the officers and came to the door. “Hi,” she said solemnly.

“Hi.”

“I kept waiting for you to storm the office with the SWAT team or fire tear gas into the upper story of the newspaper building. When you didn’t, I decided I’d better bring these and see how much trouble I’m in.” She shook the large envelope she carried. “Contact sheets and prints. I also typed out a statement and put it in there.”

This was awkward, and he didn’t know what he could say to repair the damage they’d done to each other this morning.

Apparently neither did she, because she didn’t come farther, but waited in the doorway with a wary look, as though she’d turn and run if he made the wrong move. Seeing her so uncertain of him put a knot in his gut. Marriage wasn’t supposed to be like this.

He picked up his own envelope from the desk. “Negatives only. I didn’t feel right wasting taxpayers’ money printing photos of produce.”

“I figured that. Will you consider an even swap?”

The small group beyond her was watching, obviously speculating on what was being said. Jack rose. “Come in,” he suggested. “We have an audience.”

She glanced over her shoulder, turned back and nodded. “I guess they’ve been giving you a hard time.”

“You could say that.”

Taggert was still snickering, the asshole. He was probably the one responsible for the stupid cartoon making its way around the building.

“You know I wasn’t trying to embarrass you by switching the film,” Lucky said, “but apparently I did. I was so mad I didn’t stop to think of the consequences.”

“I’ll live.”

He came around and closed the door behind her, and also drew the blinds for privacy. Picking up the phone, he punched in the secretary’s extension and asked her to hold his calls for a few minutes.

He and Lucky exchanged envelopes. She declined the chair he offered her, saying she preferred to stand. She moved restlessly around the room and examined the certificates on the wall as if she’d never seen them before.