I pulled into the parking space in front of the Courthouse, Louis Armstrong’s West End Blues playing on my Spotify. Seemed somehow appropriate for the setting. The pavement – two parking spaces long – was dry, though it had been raining all day.
I got out of the car, and retrieved two litigator’s briefcases from the trunk, the second heavier than the first.
A young man, perhaps in his 20s, pulled up alongside me, poking his head out from behind the wheel of a Bentley and tipped his hat. “Bentley Rhodes, sir. I’m a driver … of this Bentley, actually. Bentley with a Bentley … that’s my company.”
He extended his hand and held out a business card.
I laughed and glanced toward the car. “Well, that tracks. I’m Silas Morgan. I hear there are some mysteries here.” I pointed to the briefcases.
Bentley smiled. “Ever hear of a PDF?”
I shook my head. I wasn’t going to get into it with the kid, but no amount of back pain would make me resort to using electronic documentation – none. Too easy to find, too easy to manipulate. It’s just not how I work.
“Call me old school … hey, good marketing, by the way! Is this what you do all day to get more customers, drive around handing out business cards?”
Bentley shook his head. “Oh no … Theodora and her wild band of head-shrinkers’ve been parked here for a few weeks. I didn’t expect to see them gone.”
Wild band of head-shrinkers?
I shook my head. “Well, great to meet you … Bentley, was it?”
He nodded and gave a salute. “Yessir, great to meet you, as well.”
I watched him pull away as I picked up the briefcases, Louis Armstrong still playing in my head. I certainly wasn’t going to tell him that the contents of those briefcases came straight from the head-shrinkers themselves.
Meeting Theodora
Theodora had taken up smoking.
“Not entirely because of these people,” she said, lighting up. (I was thankful our interchange was via Zoom.)
She inhaled deeply. “But I won’t say they didn’t play a part.”
Our conversation had been terse. She’d shared all the documents with me electronically, which I had printed at the local Staples in Albany before I left. I hadn’t anticipated so much content.
Every interview with every person in town that crossed her threshold. All of it transcribed, in real-time.
“Love that AI,” she said. “Now don’t get me wrong – we’ve combed through everything and I assure you you’re getting accurate records. They spilled the T, no question about it.”
We hung up. Her next stop, she said, was Oklahoma City, where a small neighborhood was gentrifying and some of the older minds needed reassurance that they still had a place.
So I had my assignment: Read each and every one of her entries – confessions, secrets, insights, pain. They’d shared everything with her, and by extension, me.
Home Sweet Home
The “office” I’d been assigned was a 10×8 feet with a 30-foot ceiling. On this day, natural light fought its way in through a window situated about five feet above my head. The set-up was sparse – two grey, standard-issue desks; two rotary-dial phones; a utility table with a fax and coffee machine. A random, empty bookcase stood near the door. No art on the walls, tall and bland as they were.
It’s in rooms like this, I knew, where magic happened.
Theodora had been desperate to move herself and her team on from this town. She’d practically thrown the documentation at me.
The case of the random body parts found around River Road had been declared “cold” by the Sheriffs’ Department months ago – the whole fiasco was the talk of the state. Theodora’s mission, as outlined by Wanda, her benefactor was to guide locals and near-locals back to a sense of safety and community. It had become (in her word) “unattainable” and though the money was three times what she’d made during the previous year, without a solution to the case, she felt, it simply wasn’t worth it.
“Naval-gazers,” she’d told me in our Zoom call last week. “You’d think none of them had ever set foot outside Middle Valley.”
Over wine at the Riverside, Theodora learned from her brother, the state attorney general, of New York’s “Tarasoff” rule (Public Health Law § 33.13(c)), which allows mental health professionals to disclose information if there’s a serious threat to safety.
Theodora sought out Wanda, begging her to hire a lawyer and bring it before the court. And, a few months later, the court ruled that, in fact, there was a public safety threat.
Then and there, she had her out.
The Beginning
I had known her brother for some time – shaken his hand at a few gatherings but nothing deep. So when I saw his email in my inbox, I was taken aback. I figured it was a fund-raising thing, but no – this was directed to me personally.
“Silas,
Got a cold case in Middle Valley that would be right up your alley. Have the time to poke around? We’ll need to have you there permanently – not to worry, we’ll get relo costs and we can get you twice your fee. You in?
Randall”
The timing was tragic.
I am more than halfway through my Ph.D. at SUNY Albany – 45 credits down, 15 to go. At 43, going back to school had been a daunting thought – daunting, but necessary. My body is in shape now, sure, but investigating, stake-outs, living a case 24-7 takes its toll. By 50, I didn’t know what I’d be looking at.
And I did want to have a life … someday. The only feasible back-up plan in my mind was teaching.
I figured, with work, I could knock the Ph.D. out in a year – I was on a high. I had learned how to balance work with academics. Who needs a social life, I reasoned.
Having been in the field for two decades, I brought significant real-world knowledge to the class. Unlike my classmates, I was acing everything they put in front of me – papers, tests, whatever. It had become a bit of a joke. I had experience in just about every scenario you could imagine.
The jewel heist on Manhattan’s Upper West Side … that was my favorite. Heidi “Pinky” Trussulo’s wrists and neck were naked for a month before we found out her lover, Heinrich, had all but moved in and had a penchant for the tables in Jersey. The bodega in Flatbush running a numbers game from his basement was a trip … an actual insider-trading information exchange that had nothing to do with ponies or bets. He made a fortune off Google thanks to a tip from one of its programmers, a renter in Weehawken … that case was fun as hell!
Getting these fraudsters was a sport to me, but it was still small-time. Missing from my resume was, well, murder.
I called my academic advisor and filled him in on the note from the AG. There was no other option, he agreed – I got his blessing to take a year off and head to Middle Valley.
So here I am.
Looking Ahead
Next up was building the team. The person I really needed on the case, it seemed, was this woman, Mercury. Theodora had spoken highly of her, that she was a level-headed sort married to (again, Theodora’s words) a “flakey man of royal descent with more money than common sense.” I also knew she lived on a boat with said flakey man and had a mother that Theodora described as “pretentious and challenging.”
Mercury has the credentials I need and knows everyone in town, so I was thrilled when she accepted the offer to join me. We’re meeting later today for a late breakfast. Looking around the office made me wonder how someone married to royalty would react to working in what amounts to a glorified closet, but that was a worry for another day.
My worries at this moment were far more practical – a good cup of coffee, and apartment hunting this morning with legendary local realtor Shirley Scott.
“Repressed and bitter,” Theodora had told me of Shirley. “But she’ll get you a deal.”