Chapter Thirty-Three
Riana hugged me in the parking lot. “I’m so glad to have met you, Sheila. Even more, I’m so glad to know you and O’Teague are together.”
Quincy patted me on the shoulder, then grinned. “Me, too.”
We said good-byes without promises to talk or stay in touch.
Unspoken was that the future relied on Teague’s reaction, and that depended on what — and how — I told him about this.
And then there was . . . if I told him.
I had a lot to think about driving back to Kentucky.
I reran the conversation with Riana through my head, reaching her assessment that Teague required a jolt to shake him loose from his self-punishment as I passed a truck slowing for an exit.
My mental re-run jumped to Friday night, when I said to him that we all made mistakes with people and his, Yeah, we do.
He thought he was the person his cousin’s son made the mistake about.
The pain of that . . .
Something edged into the corner of my mind. Instinct told me that if I grabbed at it, it would skitter away.
I drove zoned-out from everything except the road and traffic until signs appeared for the next exit.
Injury . . .
Teague had healed as well as he could from the physical injuries, including the damage to his eye, and adapted to what wouldn’t heal.
Moral injury . . .
The concept I’d thought of recently in connection with Clara’s reaction to dogs not being treated well. Struggling with something that clashed with the conscience.
Especially something a person held himself responsible for.
I made a call.
“Kit—”
“Where are you? Sounds like you’re driving on a highway.”
“Roads all sound—”
“Alike? Not at all. Have different rhythms.”
I should jump into my questions.
Instead, I told Kit the gallows history from Urban.
She listened to it all, then said, “As long as you’re talking gallows, what about the coping mechanism of gallows humor?”
That came close enough to what I was avoiding that I emulated Willow Yost with a skitter. “Doesn’t help the person about to die.”
“Gallows humor’s viewed as psychologically beneficial for physicians, military members, first responders, so I don’t see why it wouldn’t be a way of distancing, of releasing pressure for people about to die.
“The English hanged prisoners in public at Tyburn for six-hundred and fifty years, starting in the twelfth century. You can’t tell me there weren’t one-liners from any of those who died.
“There’s a story of an infamous poisoner named William Palmer, condemned to hang in the mid-1800s, asking the executioner about the trap door, Are you sure it’s safe.
“St. Lawrence, executed nearly eighteen hundred years ago by being burned on a gridiron, is said to have told those killing him, Turn me over. I’m done on this side.”
Having matched Urban in the realm of history, she added etymology.
“Sources say the phrase gallows humor comes from a literal translation of the German Galgenhumor, cited in 1909. Others attribute it to American writer William Dean Howells in 1901.”
“You know that all off the top of your head?”
“Hah. You think I know Galgenhumor in 1909 and William Dean Howells in 1901? Or the dates of Tyburn? Of course not. I’m looking it up as we talk.”
I chuckled. Mostly at myself for assuming Kit did know it off the top of her head.
“You could say the game Hangman is a form of gallows humor, call it gallows entertainment,” she added.
“Hangman. I haven’t thought of that in forever. Grandma had us cousins playing that one rainy day at her house. I’m not sure all of us could spell yet. It was not a big hit.”
She snorted. Amused, but impatient. “Is this why you called?”
“No.” Easier than talking about Teague, though.
“Didn’t think so.” That was downright smug. “You have that I’m-screwing-things-up-with-Teague-by-hiding-the-truth tone.”
“You’re back on James Joyce and secrets’ tyranny?”
“He wasn’t wrong. Secrets can bind people or separate them.”
The secret about Abandon All bound Kit and me. Then it separated Teague and me. What were his secrets doing?
“Kit, tell me about moral injury.”
She paused a quarter of a beat. “Can come from what the person did, actions that contradicted their morals or ethics or values. Can also be from what others did.”
“What others did?”
“Take a medical professional whose ethos is to try to save everybody, who had to triage patients in an emergency when there were inadequate resources to treat everybody. That person could blame him- or herself. Or could blame the hierarchy that made the decisions that led to inadequate resources.”
“Or blame both,” I murmured.
“Certainly. At different times, could apportion blame in different degrees. Moral injury can result from what wasn’t done — by the individual, by others.”
“Is it part of PTSD?”
“I believe experts would say no, though they can coexist and exacerbate each other. One guy told me the rough shortcut is moral injury doesn’t usually have the element of visceral fear that PTSD does.
Though I wouldn’t be surprised if experts come around to thinking repeated moral injury can trigger PTSD.
I got to know a guy who learned a lot about it.
He was glad to have it added to the DSM, the—. ”
“Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders.”
“Glad you remember that. What does it have to do with you driving on a highway?”
“Go ahead, gloat. You’re right. I’m on the interstate, heading back to Haines Tavern after lunch outside Lafayette, Indiana.”
“Purdue?”
“That’s West Lafayette.”
“Gloat standoff,” she acknowledged. “Why did you have lunch outside Lafayette?”
“I met Teague’s former partner—”
“Quincy.”
She knew that from Clara. Possibly knew more of their interactions than I did.
“—and Teague’s cousin. They grew up together.”
“Oh?”
Fifteen years as Kit’s front person on Abandon All taught me a lot about the world, publishing, marketing, writing, and about Kit herself.
In that second, I knew my great-aunt already knew Teague’s story.
“How do you know?” I demanded.
“About his cousin’s son dying and Teague’s injuries?”
“Of course about that,” I snapped.
She said evenly, “Looked him up. Found news articles. It was no deep dive, no calling on sources, no feat of research. You could have done the same thing. You have the skills. I taught them to you. Better question than how did I know is why didn’t you apply those skills to finding out about his past? ”
“I . . . I don’t know.”
But I did.
Before I’d told Teague about my past, I hadn’t wanted to risk introducing the topic of secrets.
Then why not bring it up in the months since New Year’s? My secret was out. Why not research his background, as Kit had?
Our secrets were different.
He’d suspected my connection to Abandon All early and researched it well before we . . . connected.
By the time I acknowledged there was something between us, I didn’t ask because I was afraid he wouldn’t tell me. I didn’t research because that would be admitting I didn’t think he would tell me.
“Well?” Kit demanded that I abandon my I-don’t-know excuse.
A notification popped up on the car’s screen.
“Clara’s calling, Kit. I need to answer.” Before she could dispute that, I offered, “I’ll let you know right away if it’s something big on the investigation.”
“Go. Bye.”
Saved by Clara and by Kit’s murder case curiosity.
* * * *
“I have so much to tell you,” Clara said, instead of hello.
“Maybe I should step out of an inquiry more often.”
I’d aimed for lightness.
She said seriously, “No, no, no. I never know if I’m asking everything that should be asked and you always pick up on things that never occur to me.”
“Same back atcha.”
I heard her grin in her next words. “We make a good team — stronger together. That’s why I asked Willow to meet us to talk before training tonight. I told her I’d check with you. If you’re not going to be back in time—”
“Should be there in a couple hours.”
“Great. I also picked up more on Bryon Georger. Word is he hasn’t been officially charged.
They have time before they have to make that decision.
Some said seventy-two hours — that was talk around town, not legal opinions.
Speaking of legal, he has a lawyer. But the grapevine says he’s cooperating. ”
“What about the suitcase? Was he trying to leave the area?”
“Nope. Going to stay at a hotel.” She snorted. “That doesn’t stop loose lips around town from saying Zoley kicked him out because she knew — or strongly suspected — he killed Damon.
“But I heard from two people at yoga class, along with Ruby at the Post Office, that he wasn’t kicked out. He chose to leave. Word is, they had an argument yesterday, over Pammy being there.”
“You’ve been busy.”
“That’s just the start. Glenn Selka called back.
He’d heard of Damon and knew his reputation, but never had dealings with him.
They’re not in the same business universe.
That’s not Glenn saying that. That’s me.
Glenn said people who knew he was from here brought up Damon, with nothing positive to say. ”
“That matches what Rich said.”
“And Urban. Gundy—” That was Gundy Vance, owner of Shep’s Market. “—agrees, though lacking details. He kept saying all he knew were rumors. I kept telling him any hint could point us in a direction or eliminate other directions.”
“What were the rumors?”
“Pretty much what we’ve already heard. Damon sucking in people, taking their money, then saying it was gone. Some tried to get their money back, but it was like it fell into a black hole.”
“I wonder if Pammy could shed light on that. We need to talk to her and Zoley again. Might be harder with Bryon being questioned. Closing the gates, being more defensive.”
“We’ll get to them,” Clara said confidently. “I was thinking about them and a classic movie I saw with the idea of people swapping murders. Each would kill the other’s victim, so the one with a motive has a rock-solid alibi for that murder, then vice versa.”
I knew that movie.
“Except they don’t have alibis and the idea was two strangers doing that. If Pammy and Zoley killed each other’s husbands, their friendship would draw attention to them. After all, the movie title isn’t Best Friends on a Train.”
“That wasn’t the title of the movie I saw.”
“That’s what I’m saying. Alfred Hitchcock’s movie was Strangers on a Train, based on Patricia Highsmith’s novel.”
“No, that wasn’t it, either. Though I think train was in the title. It had that short guy and Billy Crystal.”
I didn’t think of Billy Crystal as a candidate for the NBA, so, who—? “Danny Devito? Throw Momma from the Train?”
“That’s it. That’s the movie. But you’re right. It doesn’t fit, because neither Zoley nor Pammy is completely crazy.”
I was stuck on her describing the movie as a classic.
We wrapped up the call, leaving me to drive past gentle hills and stretches of farm fields in southeastern Indiana, while stuck on the one line from Clara’s movie I remembered.
Just meet her. Maybe she’d be somebody you’d like to kill.
Seemed like a fair number of people reacted that way to meeting Damon Swindell.