“She’s an old lady now,” I continued. “She’s old and frail, and she’s lost LaShawn, the boy she raised from a baby.” I left the sentence hanging in the air and waited.
“And you’re thinking I should tell her?” Jonelle retorted angrily. “You think I should drag my DeShawn over there to Seattle and tell him here’s your other grandmother-your great-grandmother-and sorry I didn’t tell you because your real father was locked up in prison and now he’s been murdered and have a nice day?”
“I’m not telling you what you should or shouldn’t do,” I said. “But it sounds like you’ve raised a good kid, and I think knowing DeShawn exists would give a dying old woman a precious gift beyond her wildest imaginings.”
Jonelle studied me for a very long time. “I’ll think about it,” she said finally. “But I’m not making any promises.”
A week or so after that, I was due to go to court for a hearing in the Thomas Dortman matter. In the corridor outside the courtroom I ran into DeAnn Cosgrove. The ponytail was gone. Her hair was cut short and her makeup was deftly applied. She was wearing heels and a skirt and blazer. There was only the vaguest resemblance to the overwhelmed young woman I had seen juggling her three children in that messy living room or standing angry and silent next to her husband’s hospital bed.
“DeAnn,” I said, taking her hand. “I almost didn’t recognize you.”
She smiled. “I’m working,” she said. “At Microsoft, so it’s practically just up the street.” She paused and then added, “Did you know Donnie’s moved out?”
“No,” I said. “I’m sorry to hear that.”
“I kept trying to pretend he didn’t have a problem,” she said. “But that day in the hospital you knew, didn’t you.”
“Yes,” I said. “I guess I did.”
“Finally I just couldn’t pretend any longer. If he was so drunk that he’d just leave people to die, I had to give him a choice. Us or booze.”
“I see,” I said, knowing without having to be told which choice he had made.
“But don’t worry about the kids and me, Mr. Beaumont,” DeAnn continued brightly. “I have a roommate now, to help with the kids and expenses. And once Jack’s and my mother’s estate is settled, we’ll be fine.”
She started to walk away then, into the courtroom, when I remembered something else.
“There was one other person your mother was in touch with that weekend, someone down in Portland. Do you remember any friends she might have had down there, someone she might have turned to in a crisis?”
DeAnn shook her head. “Not that I remember.”
And so, because I was curious, I called Barbara Galvin and had her dredge Kevin Stock’s name out of the file. But when I called DeAnn that evening and asked her about him, he still didn’t ring any bells.
A few days later, Mel and I drove to Vancouver, Washington, to meet with the family members of one of the last men to die at Anita Bowdin’s behest-a man who had been placed in a vehicle with the engine running and asphyxiated in his own two-car garage. We finished meeting with the family earlier than we had expected. Mel was anxious to head back north. But Vancouver, Washington, is right across the river from Portland.
“If you don’t mind,” I said, “there’s one more stop I’d like to make.”
“Where?” Mel asked.
“In Portland.” And I gave her Kevin Stock’s address, which I had looked up before we ever left Seattle.
“You just happen to have his address with you?” Mel asked.
“It’s a coincidence,” I told her.
Kevin Stock lived in a small condo overlooking the Willamette River near downtown Portland. I saw the family resemblance as soon as he answered the door. Kevin Stock may have aged twenty years, but he was still Tony Cosgrove. His daughter looked just like him.
“Anthony Cosgrove?” I asked.
“No,” he stammered. “You have me mixed up with someone else.”
“I don’t think so,” I said, handing him my card. “We need to talk.”
Just then a second man appeared in the doorway behind him. “What is it, Kev?” he asked. “What’s wrong?”
Tony shook his head and sighed. “All right,” he relented. “I guess we do need to talk.”
It took the better part of an hour. Sometimes it’s hard to realize how much things have changed since the early eighties. Then, on the other hand, many things have remained the same. Tony Cosgrove had fallen in love with another man. He was also a devout Catholic who didn’t believe in divorce or suicide. So he had chosen to disappear.
“I loved Carol,” he said, “And I told her if she ever needed me, to call. I always made sure she had my number, just in case. But she only called me once,” he added accusingly. “To tell me about you. She was afraid you were going to upset things. And you did, and you’re still upsetting things. Why are you here? What do you want?”
“I want you to think about your daughter,” I said. “And your grandchildren.”
“I think about DeAnn every single day,” he returned. “But at this point, she’s far better off without me.”
“I’m not so sure,” I said. “Her mother’s dead. Her husband’s moved out. She’s on her own with three preschoolers. And no matter what happened, Tony, she never once believed you were dead. She’s been waiting all this time for you to come home.”
“I can’t,” Tony said hopelessly. “Think about the insurance. If I turn up alive, she’ll have to pay it back.”
“Between having the money and having her father?” I asked. “For the DeAnn Cosgrove I know, there’s no question how she’d choose.”
EPILOGUE
While we were knee-deep in investigative alligators, though, neither Mel nor I lost sight of her one-word answer: “Okay.”
By now I’d had extensive experience with weddings. As the groom, I had survived the full-court-press June aisle-walker that had been my wedding with Karen and the three-day rush to judgment with Anne Corley. I had been the father of the bride for Kelly and the father of the groom for Scott. When it came to how Mel wanted to do this, I left the arrangements entirely in her capable hands. The resulting ceremony turned out to be a happy medium of all of the above.
We got married in Vegas at Treasure Island. Scott was the best man. Kelly, having recovered her equilibrium, was the matron of honor. Kayla was the flower girl and ring bearer both. Mel doesn’t do sexism even for weddings. In addition to the kids, the only other guests were Lars-and, Lars being Lars, the joke-wielding Iris Rassmussen. Ralph Ames convinced me to charter a jet and fly everybody in, and that’s what I did.
The wedding was in late afternoon. Mel wore an ivory silk suit and was absolutely stunning. I wore my tux. After all, I had already paid for the damned thing and it seemed reasonable to get a few wearings out of it. I had fairly low expectations about the kind of wedding ceremony we’d have at a Vegas hotel, but I shouldn’t have worried. Vegas is full of showmen, and the hired reverend delivered his memorized lines with a kind of heartfelt sincerity that left everyone in attendance in tears-well, almost.
The wedding supper was next door in a small private room at Morton’s. Then, while everyone else went out to party, Mel and I returned to our bridal suite, where someone had strewn our bed with rose petals, for Pete’s sake!
I was lying in bed when Mel emerged from the bathroom, having removed her makeup. She flopped onto her side of the bed.
“Ouch!” she exclaimed, sitting up and rubbing her head. “What the hell’s wrong with the pillow?”
I love being married to a plainspoken woman.
Reaching under the pillow, she removed the small gift-wrapped box I had hidden there. “What’s this?” she asked.
“Open it and find out,” I said.
Inside was a model car, and not just any model car, either-an arctic silver Porsche Cayman.
“What’s this?” she asked.
“It’s a wedding present,” I told her. “Some people register at Macy’s. When I get married, I prefer to give and receive Porsches. So that’s your present. A Cayman. It’s on order. We’re scheduled to take European delivery in Stuttgart in early September. I already cleared it with Harry so we can both have the time off.”