Free Notes from Ghost Town by Kate Ellison

he said:
she didn’t do it; she’s innocent
.
    I stand and begin tearing off my sweaty work outfit, then turn to my color-categorized closet—throw on a clean “blue” tank top that buttons up the front, a pair of suede “beige” shorts, a holster-like belt with a ram’s head engraved on the buckle, black doc martens with “pink” laces—all of it, just a dull wash of gray.
    The end result is that I probably look like a cowboy-clown-mechanic-stripper mash-up. Which I’m fine with. I’ve got bigger fish to fry—like figuring out if my dead bestfriend’s theories about Mom hold any truth. I need to find someone I can talk to—someone
alive
. Time is running out.
    I haven’t even
seen
her in six months—when I was last home for winter break—and it was through a thick pane of plastic. Dad forced me to go. I was angry with her, beyond angry, even though I never thought she’d
meant
to do what she did. She was on one of those off-meds kicks while working on a new series of compositions. In the past, she’d go off every once in a while to do this—it had always been fine before, for the most part—just little blips of paranoia, the occasional manic jag. But this time, her brain spun her a new reality and she got tangled in it; by the time she became untangled, Stern’s blood was already all over her hands.
    I heard the talk, the gossip buzz, traveling like a thick swarm of Florida-grade mosquitoes around me wherever I went: the divorce pushed her over the edge.
    But she shouldn’t have gone off her meds in the first place. She should have known. She should have been better. That part
was
her fault. And I couldn’t forgive her for it. Can’t forgive her. Can’t even face her.
    Unless …
    Unless she didn’t do it
.
    My stomach groans but I ignore it, heading out to the porch with my laptop. I type the name of Mom’s lawyer into the browser:
Cole, lawyer, Miami
. I don’t remember her first name. Maybe I never knew it. In any case, _______ Cole spent hours and hours with her, digging, delving. IfMom didn’t actually do anything, the woman would have doubts, would have noticed inconsistencies in the case.
    But when I type in her name, about a hundred different Coles come up, and when I go through the task of clicking on each and every one, none seem to be lawyers. I must have my information wrong, or misplaced, or misspelled.
    I take a deep breath. I can’t tell Dad what I’m doing. I won’t. He’s made it perfectly clear that he’s ready to move on, and forget all about mom. Who else would know where I can find her?
    The drive to the Oakley estate isn’t long, but the division between neighborhoods is massive. The lush, winding, palm-lined path leading to their Coral Gables mansion makes Dad and Heather’s condo—by far the most expensive place I’ve ever called home—look like a halfway house for dwarves.
    My stomach goes queasy as I pull my dinky old junker up to the Oakley’s four-car garage, right beside Ted’s BMW. It’s just starting to get dark, shadows stretching long as the sun dips toward the ocean. I walk up the shaded walkway to the door of their palace—a mammoth beast of a house that never fails to make my head spin by its sheer hugeness, completely white. It has zillions of wide-paneled windows, a Spanish-tiled roof, French doors, verandahs, intricately carved porticos, and marble decks.
    I wipe my sweaty palms against my skirt and ring the buzzer twice before Clare Oakley swings it open, smiling broadly with her botox-plumped lips. “Olivia, sweetie. It’s so good to see you! I’m so glad you called.” She pulls me in for a muscular hug. “You came at the perfect time. My trainer just left, and Ted’s all finished with his swim.” She leads me down the gleaming marble hallway, her golden bob swishing at her chin, asking about
the new condo
and
isn’t Heather just a lovely woman
and
oh, will you be starting back up at the
public
school this fall?
and
will you know