Heritage: Against the Grain

Chapter 6 - Those left behind

They sat across from Margaret Letterman, and Gillian had never seen human grief in its starkest form before. Nothing had prepared her for Margaret’s almost tangible loss or that too-silent home.

The boy’s absence had sucked the life from this woman, and the house had just died with them.

It felt like a mausoleum.

There were so many pictures, little knick-knacks, and childlike drawings all over the place. The physical evidence of a single mother’s love for her only child, and that love had been mutual. It showed in every little thing and tore at Gillian in a way she never expected.

Colt’s expression conveyed her empathy, but she did her job with gentle efficiency.

This was not the first or last time Andrea confronted another person’s suffering.

Margaret glanced up at every tiny sound, and hope flared in her eyes until she remembered the truth, and her gaze became dull and listless. Still having to remind herself that her child would not come home, and she would never see her baby again.

“Where was TJ going on Sunday?” Colt asked.

Margaret brought herself back from wherever her mind had traveled. Her lips pulled down at the corners, and she inhaled deeply.

Her heart beat with heavy, slow beats, and her breathing had a ragged edge. Her pinpoint pupils betrayed that she took something to calm her nerves, and she kept rubbing the tiny golden crucifix on a thin chain around her throat.

“He and Tyler visited Eddie in the hospital," she hesitated, trying to control her grief. "Tyler’s babysitter, Carmen, took them there and called me from the lobby to ask if I could pick up TJ. Emma, Tyler’s mom, had car trouble, and she was stranded beside the highway. Carmen left TJ with Eddie, and I drove over.” She stopped speaking as if the memory was too much for her, and her lips trembled.

“I stopped for gas, and traffic was a bit heavy, but when I arrived, I called TJ’s cell and got no answer, so I called Eddie." She forced every word past her lips, and the effort of speaking and recounting the events was too much for her. "He told me that TJ said he went down the hall to get a soda from the machine. Then he was going to wait at reception for me.”

“I made my way to the reception, but the lady told me she hadn’t seen a boy matching TJ’s description during the half an hour since she began her shift.” She wiped her tears, smearing her ruined makeup even further and making her look like a raccoon.

“I returned to Eddie’s floor, and TJ wasn’t in the patient waiting area or the bathroom, nor was he at the soda machine, and he wasn’t with Eddie. I took the elevator down to reception again, and she shook her head at me. I searched the bathrooms nearby and found no sign of him, but I already knew...” Her lips wobbled.

Margaret swallowed the sobs with great difficulty, tears streaming down her cheeks unhindered as she spoke.

The sight tore at Gillian's heart. I'm glad I'm not the one having to ask the questions.

She felt this woman’s pain to the depths of her soul.

“You called the police?” Colt asked, and Margaret shook her head.

“The lady at reception called the head of security," she clarified. "Together, we searched the tapes to see where he might have gone. He said children often got lost. ‘It is a big hospital, and maybe my son forgot to charge his phone.'”

Margaret lost control and sobbed.

Colt took a tissue from the table and handed it to Margaret. Although she took it, she did not wipe her tears. It took a moment or two before she regained control, balling the tissue in her hand and shredding it with her fingers, staring past them with eyes that saw the past.

“We saw them entering the building, followed their ascent up to the correct floor, and observed them enter and leave Eddy’s room. We watched Carmen receive a call and call me, watched them leave, and return to the room, only to go back out. He visited the bathroom, then the soda machine, waited in the waiting room, and played on his phone. He threw the empty can away and got on the elevator again, going to the ground floor.” She hesitated, almost unable to convince herself to continue.

“There’s this blind spot between the elevator and front reception, no more than five meters across. My son never reached reception, nor did he go back up.”

Every moment of that security tape is burned into her brain.

The sobs won out again, but she struggled to regain control this time.

Colt moved to comfort the woman with the ease of practice. Her expression and the slight jolt in her heart rate betrayed how bad this was for her.

“How did he die?” Margaret asked.

They dreaded the question from the beginning, knowing it would come, and their eyes met.

People always think knowing will bring them peace, yet it rarely does. It will intensify her grief, but it will be better coming from us than allowing Margaret to hear and see how her son died on the news when the police release the details.

Colt told her almost tenderly, but the words broke Margaret, and her sorrow drew the air from the room.

When Colt nodded at Gillian to call the paramedic, who stood just outside the door, relief flooded her.

The medic removed Margaret from their care and injected her with a more potent dose of sedative.

Colt glanced at Gillian once, and they made their way outside.

The evening breeze cooled their faces, and they breathed the clean air deeply into their lungs before heading to Colt’s car.

Margaret was not the type of woman who would get past her son’s death. She would spend the rest of her life on some medication if she didn’t lose it altogether.

TJ was dead and would never be scared, cold, hungry, happy, or angry again—the real victim was Margaret.

She had a lifetime to blame herself for the loss of her son at the hands of a madman. A weight that would crush her, and although Gillian hoped it wouldn’t, she had little doubt.

Margaret’s life had revolved around TJ; without him, she had no anchor or purpose.

“How would someone who didn’t work at security in that hospital know that the five meters of the hallway leading to the front reception had no camera?” Gillian asked, and Colt nodded.

“It is the same question I asked myself. Before we go there, though, we have two more stops,” Colt said as they got in the car.

She pulled out of the driveway as Gillian buckled her seatbelt.

“If this profiler is right, what link would TJ or Margaret have with him? She’s a soccer mom who lived for her son?” Gillian asked.

“I have no idea, and until we figure it out—if she’s right—we won’t get anywhere.”