It was in July of 1994 that she went to work one morning and was handed a new case file by her boss. The suspect in the case was one Dennis Castleton. He was a first sergeant in the United States Army home on leave for two weeks. The cops had filed a charge of second-degree murder against him but it was expected that the charge would be reduced to manslaughter. Sergeant Castleton was not an ordinary soldier but a member of the elite Army Rangers that had seen combat in the Persian Gulf War. The victim of the crime was a two-time loser that had been recently paroled from state prison after serving six years for armed robbery. The victim's name was Richard Fairview.
Apparently Sergeant Castleton had been leaving a bar with his wife when Fairview, a methamphetamine addict that was out of product and desperate for more, spotted what he thought was an easy mark. He approached Castleton, pushed him roughly up against a car, and demanded all of his money. Fairview had no weapon (if he'd had a gun he could have sold it for crank) and was relying solely on his intimidating size to get what he wanted. Why not? Castleton was only five foot eight and a hundred and forty pounds or so. I guess Richie hadn't learned much from his encounters with me back in high school.
When the cops arrived they found Richie Fairview dead on the pavement. An autopsy would reveal multiple skull fractures from having his head bashed repeatedly into the side of the car and a crushed trachea from having a hand chop brutally into it. Sergeant Castleton was without so much as a scratch on him.
Tracy reluctantly had herself removed from the case on the grounds that the victim had once stabbed her brother. The case eventually went to trial but the jury deadlocked 9-3 in favor of acquittal. The DA elected not to re-try it and Sergeant Castleton was released. He was given a court martial by the military and ultimately reduced one grade in rank. He would go on to fight another day. I only wished I'd had the opportunity to buy him a drink at some point.
Tracy, like many of my friends and all of my family, is considerably wealthier than her colleagues thanks to her wise choices in investments. She owns a large house not terribly far from Mike and Maggie's. She vacations in some new, exotic place each year. She's actually been to Russia, to Africa, to the Middle East, and even did a brief stint on a very expensive Antarctica tour in 1993. She always returns from her vacations refreshed and ready to get back into the fray of the Spokane County justice system.
In addition to her DA duties she is also active in many victims rights organizations. MADD is chief among them, although she is not a mother. She is very radical on the subject of DUI laws. Sometimes I think the Iranians would think her a tad radical on that subject.
Her personal life could use a little improvement. She is driven by her job and her relationships with men reflect that. She's been married twice now, both marriages conceived in passion and haste, both dissolved after less than two years. No children were produced either time. Most men have a hard time with her aggressive, pushy nature, not to mention the long hours that she works at her job and her volunteer work. Husband number one was a fellow prosecutor and you would have thought he'd have understood. He didn't. Number two was a detective sergeant with the Spokane Sheriff's department. He hadn't understood either. Both I think were drawn to Tracy by her good looks and strong personality and then driven away when they found that personality was stronger than they'd thought.
But there's hope for my sister yet I'm starting to think. She attended my birthday party five months ago and there met Brent Hartley, a colleague of Nina's and one of our family friends that we've developed. Brent had recently been utterly fucked in a divorce settlement and at times seemed on the verge of suicide. Tracy and he began chatting together and before the night was over both were smiling and being very chummy with each other. They've been dating ever since and they seem to be happy together. Who knows? Maybe something will come of it.
Mom and Dad have done well for themselves. Dad has been listening to my investment advice ever since I lived at home and as a result he was able to retire comfortably in 1990, fully five years before he retired in my previous life. Mom retired shortly after this. Their house is now paid off but they refuse to move out of it even though they could easily afford something quite nice if they wished. They love their house, have many memories attached with it and plan to die there. The longer I live in my own house, the more I understand their feelings.
What they've done instead is buy a large (and I mean LARGE) motor home which they use to tour North America with. They are often gone for months at a time, several times a year to parts as distant as you can get without leaving the continental landmass. They have taken their motor home to Alaska, to Florida, to Maine, to Arizona, and to many places in between. They are planning a trip to Cabo San Lucas later this year.
I arrange to have their place looked after while they are gone and to pay their bills in their absence. I make sure their lawn gets mowed, their Northwest Electric gets paid, and their water pipes don't freeze. I'm glad to do these tasks for them. They seem very happy in their retirement.
Jack and Mary Blackmore are still hanging in there and show no signs of stepping out anytime soon. They too have made use of my stock knowledge and are quite wealthy. Unlike my parents, their desire to move someplace very nice was stronger than their desire to stay in their house for nostalgia's sake. They live in a nice lakefront three bedroom on the shore of Lake Coeur d' Alene. When Nina and I need a babysitter it is usually they who are the first to volunteer.
Jack, Mike, and I have become frequent companions. Jack fits in with us very well and sometimes we completely forget that he is more than forty years older than we are. We all go hunting together each fall, finding the most remote airstrip we can to stage from, always spending at least a week out in the boonies somewhere, tromping around in camoflaugh gear, packing hunting rifles, drinking beer, sleeping in tents. We go fishing together several times a month on either Jack's lake or mine (usually Jack's, he's got a bitchin bass boat). We fly to Seattle for Mariners games at least four times every season. We have an annual deep-sea fishing trip that we take on a chartered boat.
Jack drinks as much beer as he always has and he's had no further heart problems. He was seventy-three years old on his last birthday but looks fifty due to frequent exercise and outdoor activities. When Viagra first came out I asked him jokingly (after several beers on the fishing boat) if he wanted me to ask Nina to write him a prescription for some.
He looked at me lecherously and said, "I certainly don't need any of THAT shit youngster. I ain't that old."
So that's how our lives have gone, how things turned out differently with pre-knowledge. I didn't change the world, just a few lives in it. Fate has seemingly accepted us, made allowances for us. We have left a wake of passage in the smooth fabric of what was supposed to be but, as I've seen, the wake has mostly closed up behind us leaving only a few ripples to mark our passage.
Only a few ripples.
On a beautiful April afternoon in 1998 I had to drive to Spokane to pick up the new fish-finder I was planning to get Jack for his birthday. Laura, who was almost three, and Jason, who was seven months, were with me since it was a day that Nina worked.
As always when I found myself in Spokane on such days, I stopped at the trauma center for a brief visit. Nina, as well as her co-workers, enjoyed seeing the kids for a few minutes and I enjoyed seeing my wife doing her job. I got the most enjoyment when we snuck in while she was in the middle of a procedure and I got to observe her at work. It was then that I could contrast the Nina that was with the Nina that should have been. It was then that I could feel how I'd thwarted fate, how I'd defied it in the control of a life.