I pushed through the circle of students.
“Mrs. Clinton. You’re scaring my daughter. What’s wrong?”
“I need you to tell me when your husband got this suit. Where was he working?”
“Years ago. Seven, maybe more. The motel downtown. He came home one evening wearing it.”
The color drained from her face.
“Oh, God,” she breathed.
Then she pulled out her phone.
“Yes, this is Mrs. Clinton, the principal from the high school downtown. I need officers here right away. It’s about my brother.”
“Your brother?” I gasped. “I don’t understand.”
She finally looked at me.
Her eyes were red and wild.
“I embroidered those leaves myself. Seven years ago. On my brother’s jacket. The night before he disappeared.”
My knees nearly buckled.
“My husband wore that suit for years.”
“Then your husband knew what happened to my brother.”
“My husband is dead. And he never would have kept it if he’d known. He wasn’t that kind of man.”
Two officers arrived less than ten minutes later.
The taller one took a single look at the lapel and immediately went pale.
“We’re going to need you and your daughter to come down to the station.”
The Investigation
At the station, they gave us water in paper cups and seated us beneath a humming fluorescent light.
I told them everything I remembered.
“Joe worked nights at the motel,” I explained. “Cleaning, front desk, whatever they needed. He came home one autumn evening wearing that suit and said it had been given to him.”
“And you never questioned that?”
“I trusted my husband, Officer.”
“And he wore it often?”
“No. Just holidays and picnics. He was buried in his blue one because the black felt like his special suit.”
