I look out into my backyard, which is bathed in darkness. I can’t see a thing. I take a step out, which is supposed to trigger the automatic lights, but it doesn’t. Did they blow out? I can’t remember the last time I went out in the backyard during the night.
I pause in my dark backyard, listening. I don’t hear any meowing.
I don’t hear anything.
“Hello?” I say. “Cat?”
There isn’t a sound.
I go back into the house and slam the back door behind me. And then I lock it. I have a deadbolt on the front door, but nothing on the back door. Sort of seems silly to have the extra lock on the front when the back door could practically be kicked open. But I live in a very safe neighborhood. It’s nothing like where Brady lives.
I drop the can of cat food on the kitchen counter and hug myself. It was chilly out there. Soon it will be winter, and the temperature can drop down to the forties at night.
It was colder up in Oregon. The basement of our house was always freezing. If it hadn’t been, the smell would’ve been even worse and we would’ve noticed it sooner. It would’ve overpowered even the lavender.
I look down at the kitchen floor and that’s when I see a letter a few feet away from the back door. It’s lying on the ground like somebody slipped it under the door. Why would anyone slip a letter under my back door?
I reach down and pick up the letter. Right away, I seethat familiar name on the return address:
Aaron Nierling.
No.
How could this be? Yes, he’s been sending me letters every week. But those arrive in the mail. He must put them in the mailbox at the penitentiary, and then it gets delivered to me. They don’t end up being slid under my back door. That’s something that should never happen. And even though there’s a return address and a stamp on it, there’s no postmark on the envelope.
I sink into one of the chairs at the kitchen table. My hand holding the letter is trembling. This doesn’t make any sense.
Of course, I could be making too much of this. Maybe the letter came with my regular mail. And when I dropped the pile on the kitchen table, that one fell onto the floor. And I didn’t see it until just now. And maybe they somehow missed putting a postmark on it.
It’s possible. Extremely unlikely, but possible.
I have to believe it because the alternative is too scary to contemplate.
I reach for my laptop again. I type in the URL for the Bureau of Prisons website from memory—I’ve typed it many times before. I go to the menu and select the option to locate a federal inmate by name. My hands are shaking so badly, it takes me three tries to type in the name Aaron Nierling.
It’s an uncommon enough name that only one entry pops up:
Name: Aaron Nierling
Age: 67
Race: White
Sex: Male
Release Date: None
Location: Oregon State Penitentiary
According to the Bureau of Prisons, my father is still imprisoned. With no release date. If he had escaped or something like that, I would know, wouldn’t I? Something like that would be all over the news.
Detective Barber gave me his card. I could call him. Tell him about the letter.
But something stops me from doing that. When Barber came to visit me earlier, he was doing his due diligence. He was investigating a long-shot lead. He didn’t really think I had anything to do with Amber’s death.
But if I call him... If I show him this letter… That will change his way of thinking.
I don’t know who killed Amber Swanson, but it wasn’t my father. My father is in prison for life. I’m sure this letter just fell onto the floor, and that’s why it was there. Nothing more sinister than that. And as for the thump at the door, I’m sure that the cat heard a raccoon or something and got frightened off before I got there. I’m making too much of all of this.
