Chapter One #3
I make an unconscious sound like huh, as an anchor of doubt pulls at my guts.
“They’ve already had it?”
“Yes,” she says. “It was about to start when the policeman called. It’s only by chance they even thought of me. The police chief there remembered my mom, remembered that she’d had a daughter. Otherwise, I might never have heard.”
It is quick for a funeral, I think.
“Why wouldn’t they have an autopsy?” Katie asks.
“You said he was bit by a snake. I’m sure the cause of death must’ve been fairly easy to discern.”
“But he was asking for help in my dream and then…”
“Katie—” I start, thinking I’ll remind her—hopefully tactfully—that this happens to everyone.
Someone dreams that their spouse or sister or friend dies and then they wake up to the very real and tragic news of that person’s demise.
It’s a coincidence, a statistical eventuality. But it feels like more.
“I saw my father dying, crying for help, in my dream. But then I was awake when I saw the hand,” Katie says, as if she’d known exactly what I was going to say. “I was awake.”
“There’s a thing called hypnagogia,” I try. “I’ve had it myself. Your body wakes up before your mind stops dreaming. You’re more prone to it when you’re exhausted. I think—”
But Katie stops me and says, “I get it. Normally, I’m the first person to say ‘Oh, it was just a dream, don’t worry,’ but I can’t shake the feeling that I need to do something about this. That it’s my responsibility as his daughter. I mean, he didn’t have any other family.”
“None?”
“No,” she says. “Just me. I’m all that’s left of Ezra King.”
“Have you talked to your mom about this? Did the police get in touch with her as well?”
A short breath of bitter laughter forces its way out of Katie’s chest. She raises a hand and gently scratches at her temple, her eyes cast down to the floor.
She says, “My mom and my stepdad passed away while I was in college. Car accident.”
“Oh, Katie, I’m so sorry,” I start, but she shakes her head, looks up at me again.
I lean back in my chair and meet her eyes. Red-rimmed and tired but firm, resilient. Katie is determined, I realize. She isn’t going to let this go.
“Katie, what exactly is it that you’d like me to do?” I finally ask. “Do you have any reason to believe there was foul play?”
“Only a feeling,” she says. “I mean, does it surprise me to learn that my father was finally bit by a snake and died? Under normal circumstances—no. I don’t think so. But why the lack of the autopsy? Why the rushed burial? And, my God, why this dream?”
“If there’d been evidence of wrongdoing, I’m sure the local police would’ve investigated.”
“I know,” she says. She lets out a frustrated groan and then continues.
“My emotions about my father are conflicted. Even more so now that I’m a parent.
I’m angry with him for never reaching out to me, but I’m also angry with myself for the same thing.
I need to understand what happened to him.
I need … I need to understand him so I can understand myself.
Does that make sense? I don’t really know who he was. And … with this dream and—”
She pauses to take a deep breath and then says, “I’m not qualified to wander back into that town, asking questions. But you could. Miss Gore—”
“Annie, please.”
“Annie,” she repeats with a soft, relieved smile. “Annie, you could do it.”
“I don’t know,” I say. “Are you sure you don’t want to take some time to cool down? Get some sleep? At least let yourself get through this holiday weekend, this heat wave…”
She shakes her head and I watch as tears well up in her eyes and color blooms in her cheeks before she says, “Please. I can pay you cash.”
Leaning to the side, she opens her purse and pulls out a wad of money. She counts out a grand and presses it onto the desk between us. I try not to look longingly from the pile of money to the broken air conditioner on the floor but don’t quite manage it.
“A thousand to start,” Katie says. “Just to ask questions. Please. Even if all you’re doing is confirming what they’ve already told me, it would help. At least then I would know I did what I could. At least then I would know the truth.”
Tears sparkle suddenly in her eyes and slip down her cheeks but she keeps her gaze steady, determined.
And, despite my doubts, I can’t help seeing beyond all the outward differences between us.
Beyond the clothes and hair and money and baby.
Under it all, this is a woman carrying the scars she incurred as a girl.
When I look at Katie, I see a version of myself.
A girl who needs to understand her father in order to understand herself.
If I’m being honest, I don’t believe Katie’s dad died of anything but his own risky actions. A quick death certificate and next-day burial are odd but not unheard of, especially in small towns, and dreams—however prescient they may feel—are not a logical basis for an investigation.
I look across the desk, prepared to explain all of this, but instead what I say is “Okay.”