Page 40 of Trick of Light
“I’d rather talk about our investigation. I have a moral dilemma now. Tamara wanted me to stay at her house so I could take care of things for her. She gave me a whole list, which I hope I can remember. What are the ethics of also looking for this mysterious ‘dearest possession’?”
“Hmm.” Heather carefully pushed tiny dried chamomile flowers—Gabby could at least recognize those—into a bag. “I wish you’d asked her about it.”
“I know. I should have, but she took me by surprise with her invitation. I actually think she wouldn’t mind. She’s very proud of her pirate connection.”
“Then…I guess you’ll just have to see what feels right. I’d offer to stay with you, but…”
“I know, you have a hot new man to get to. Don’t worry, I’ll be fine here on my own. She told me that all I have to do is let the owl know that she sent me, and the owl will stand guard.”
Heather laughed. “Gotta love it. What about the Garner connection? Anything there?”
“A little.” Gabby filled her in on everything Tamara had said about the Garner family. “Did you find anything in your research?”
“As a matter of fact, yes. And it’s not good. The Garner family is…well, dead.”
“All of them?” Gabby froze, her hands full of herbs.
“So it seems. They were all killed in a small plane crash in the Alaska mountains.”
“Alaska?” That was unexpected. Alaska was about as far away from Maine as you could get while still being in the United States. Maybe that was the point.
“The article I found said the family was on their way to a wilderness hunting lodge when the plane went down in the mountains. It said that David Garner worked on the North Slope, and Jill was a nurse and cancer research advocate. Two adult children, Keith and William. It’s definitely the same family.”
“No survivors?”
“Apparently not. They called off the search after two days. I couldn’t find any other mention of the crash. This article was in a tiny regional newspaper in rural Alaska. Pretty sad, huh?”
“Sure is.” Gabby pressed the baggie closed. “It’s also not great for our suspect list. Looks like we have to take Keith Garner off it. Damn it. That was our only lead that didn’t point to Tamara.” She bit her lip as she surveyed the scattered herbs. “I was really hoping we could help clear her.”
“That night in jail really won you over.”
“My first and last night in jail, let’s hope. By the way, don’t you dare ever mention it to my mother. I’m almost surprised she didn’t find out just through the ether.”
“My lips are sealed.” With a flourish, Heather sealed up the baggie she was working on.
“Or my father,” Gabby added. “Or my brother, either of them.” Her youngest brother was still in the process of coming out, and hadn’t dared to tell their parents yet. He could always be counted on to keep a secret since he had such a big one of his own. But it was still better to be safe than sorry.
“Would you stop? I never tell anyone your shit. I’m your ride or die, haven’t we established that by now?”
Gabby smiled at her freckle-faced friend. Her mother had said, on occasion, not to trust too easily when it came to white women. Best to see how they conducted themselves over time to determine if they were truly trustworthy. Gabby tended to be like that with everyone, no matter who, but she’d taken her mother’s warning to heart.
Luckily, she and Heather had navigated a number of conflicts successfully, and each time their friendship had grown from it. Once in journalism school, during a furious fight about the first suffragettes, Gabby had demanded, “Why do you even want to be my friend?”
And Heather had said, without a second’s thought, “Because you show me my blind spots. I want to know if there’s something I’m not seeing. Besides, you like the same dorky shit that I do. Who else would be just as excited as me to see an Oriana Fallaci tribute?”
The iconic Italian reporter was an idol of both of them.
“It wasn’t nearly as good as the Ida B. Wells exhibit,” Gabby had pointed out.
“See? We agree. But even when we don’t, I still respect what you say and I want you to say it, and you do, so that’s cool…” Heather had frowned…”unless there’s stuff you don’t say?”
“Of course there’s stuff I don’t say.” She could have reeled off a whole list of things that she wasn’t sure Heather would want to hear about. Like how it felt to know that no matter how hard she worked, some people would always assume she got preferential treatment, even when the opposite was true. Could Heather ever empathize with the depth of that kind of frustration?
“I guess that’s fair too,” Heather had said. “You should only say what you feel comfortable saying.”
“I mean…I just want to be.” And that was the thing about any relationship she’d ever had with a non-Black person…it was harder to just “be.” Be herself. Be relaxed. Be in the moment. Be unwary and completely spontaneous. Code switch if she wanted. Or not code switch if she didn’t want.
But she’d done it, she thought now as she smiled at Heather. They had done it. They’d kept their friendship going through all kinds of bumps in the road. And she was glad they had, because she loved the Dirty Rotten Bastards podcast and it wouldn’t be what it was without Heather.
