Read Online Trace of Doubt by Erica Orloff - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Erica Orloff
Tags: Suspense
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existence, born into perpetual darkness and despair, doomed to perpetual sorrow and crying. When she’s represented in Greek art, to me, she is grief personified. You are like Achlys. Perpetual darkness and sorrow until we find the killer and you can move beyond the dark realm.”
I glanced over at Lewis, my brows knit together. Another one of Lewis’s mythology-spouting pals. He seemed to gravitate toward them. But, like Tommy Two Trees, I sensed Ben was a man of his word, a warrior. So now I had a new partner to sift through the dust of the past to try to solve my mother’s murder.
“That sums up how I feel sometimes. Wandering in perpetual grief.”
“We start tomorrow,” Ben said resolutely.
I nodded and promised Ben I would meet him the next night at nine at a bar in Hoboken after I visited my father. I was supposed to bring Ben all my research, summarized, which was easy to do. For as long as I had been trying to piece together my mother’s murder, I had kept neat file cabinets filled with press clippings, theories, notes and interviews. As I became more computer savvy, I had scanned most of it and compiled it by subject.
I looked over at Lewis. He had found me a warrior, not unlike myself, Lewis, C.C., Joe.
And a warrior was what I needed. Perhaps now I would get the answers that had eluded me my whole life.
Chapter 10
M y father has never been what you might term forthcoming about his life. I understand why, of course. But I knew if I was going to bury my mother—really bury her in peace—then he and I were going to have to lay all our cards on the table once and for all.
I pulled into my father’s driveway early the next evening, parked and got out. The air was stifling, and I wished the approaching sundown was going to cool things, but I knew it wasn’t. I took a deep breath and strode up the slate walkway and into my childhood home, musing for probably the thousandth time how little had changed about it.
We lived in a typical suburb of manicured lawns and white picket fences when I was young. My father chose our town for its good schools and chose our house so Mom and he could fill it with children and she could have a garden. It was a big Dutch Colonial with five bedrooms and hardwood floors and real plaster walls. A picture window looked out the front, and there was a treehouse hidden in the old oak tree in the backyard that extended to “the woods.” When I was little, it seemed like an impenetrable forest, but it was actually just a hundred-year flood line, so no houses were allowed to be built back there.
When I entered the house, I looked at the wooden staircase leading upstairs, pegs on the wall opposite it. Now my father’s jacket hung from one peg and his keys from another, but when Mikey and I were little, the foyer was a messy zone of childhood. Our coats, galoshes, lunchboxes and book bags were always scattered, along with baseball gloves for my brother and library books for me.
“Dad?” I called out.
“In here,” he called back.
I wandered into the kitchen. He was standing over a pot of boiling water. Spaghetti with jar sauce was about the extent of his cooking repertoire—and mine, come to think of it.
“Hey, Daddy.” I smiled at him and walked over to kiss his cheek. The kitchen was right out of the seventies. He had never bothered to update it. The countertops were avocado green, and though he’d gotten new appliances over the years as things broke down, he still had the old-fashioned range from when my mom was alive. The effect was kind of kitschy.
“Hi. Garlic bread is in the oven, if I don’t burn it. Sit down. Wine is breathing. Your brother will be here in about ten minutes.”
I sat at the long rectangular table and poured myself a glass of red wine—not so coincidentally the same vintage as my likely stolen Australian brand.
“Dad…I went up to Little Siberia on Sunday.”
“God, what a hellhole.”
“Yeah, pretty much…. You know Marty
I glanced over at Lewis, my brows knit together. Another one of Lewis’s mythology-spouting pals. He seemed to gravitate toward them. But, like Tommy Two Trees, I sensed Ben was a man of his word, a warrior. So now I had a new partner to sift through the dust of the past to try to solve my mother’s murder.
“That sums up how I feel sometimes. Wandering in perpetual grief.”
“We start tomorrow,” Ben said resolutely.
I nodded and promised Ben I would meet him the next night at nine at a bar in Hoboken after I visited my father. I was supposed to bring Ben all my research, summarized, which was easy to do. For as long as I had been trying to piece together my mother’s murder, I had kept neat file cabinets filled with press clippings, theories, notes and interviews. As I became more computer savvy, I had scanned most of it and compiled it by subject.
I looked over at Lewis. He had found me a warrior, not unlike myself, Lewis, C.C., Joe.
And a warrior was what I needed. Perhaps now I would get the answers that had eluded me my whole life.
Chapter 10
M y father has never been what you might term forthcoming about his life. I understand why, of course. But I knew if I was going to bury my mother—really bury her in peace—then he and I were going to have to lay all our cards on the table once and for all.
I pulled into my father’s driveway early the next evening, parked and got out. The air was stifling, and I wished the approaching sundown was going to cool things, but I knew it wasn’t. I took a deep breath and strode up the slate walkway and into my childhood home, musing for probably the thousandth time how little had changed about it.
We lived in a typical suburb of manicured lawns and white picket fences when I was young. My father chose our town for its good schools and chose our house so Mom and he could fill it with children and she could have a garden. It was a big Dutch Colonial with five bedrooms and hardwood floors and real plaster walls. A picture window looked out the front, and there was a treehouse hidden in the old oak tree in the backyard that extended to “the woods.” When I was little, it seemed like an impenetrable forest, but it was actually just a hundred-year flood line, so no houses were allowed to be built back there.
When I entered the house, I looked at the wooden staircase leading upstairs, pegs on the wall opposite it. Now my father’s jacket hung from one peg and his keys from another, but when Mikey and I were little, the foyer was a messy zone of childhood. Our coats, galoshes, lunchboxes and book bags were always scattered, along with baseball gloves for my brother and library books for me.
“Dad?” I called out.
“In here,” he called back.
I wandered into the kitchen. He was standing over a pot of boiling water. Spaghetti with jar sauce was about the extent of his cooking repertoire—and mine, come to think of it.
“Hey, Daddy.” I smiled at him and walked over to kiss his cheek. The kitchen was right out of the seventies. He had never bothered to update it. The countertops were avocado green, and though he’d gotten new appliances over the years as things broke down, he still had the old-fashioned range from when my mom was alive. The effect was kind of kitschy.
“Hi. Garlic bread is in the oven, if I don’t burn it. Sit down. Wine is breathing. Your brother will be here in about ten minutes.”
I sat at the long rectangular table and poured myself a glass of red wine—not so coincidentally the same vintage as my likely stolen Australian brand.
“Dad…I went up to Little Siberia on Sunday.”
“God, what a hellhole.”
“Yeah, pretty much…. You know Marty
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