The dates ran to the year 2018. Odessa walked backward to the top shelf of the first bookcase, locating the first chronological recording.

#1001 / Mississippi 1962 / Vernon Jamus

She didn’t know what it meant, but of course she thought of the reel-to-reel player from Solomon’s office desk, seemingly forgotten. Suddenly she felt like she was trespassing here—not legally, but spiritually. This was a private chamber, and it held secrets—bookcases full of them—that added up to a mystery she felt instinctually that she did not want to solve.

After one last look around at the hundreds of painstakingly cataloged recording tapes, she turned off the light and retreated back through the narrow utility closet.

Shaken, she leaned against the kitchen island, as though having returned from another world. A long-retired agent who wasn’t retired. A secret room inside his house. She remembered his questions to her, and how he seemed to know about the thing she saw—saw, felt, whatever—leaving Walt Leppo’s body after she had shot him dead.

A cauldron? Drop a letter in a mailbox on Wall Street?

It was all too bewildering. Instead of changing Dennis’s bowl water, Odessa tucked the bowl under her arm to take with her, locked up, and left.

Chapter

Odessa met with her new lawyer—same firm—behind closed doors at a Midtown office. She had been reassigned to a female lawyer, who asked Odessa to take her through her account again. The lawyer’s name was Courtney and she was only a few years older than Odessa, dressed in a simple black-and-white suit, taking notes on her laptop as Odessa spoke, softly tapping on her keyboard while her eyes remained sympathetically on Odessa’s face. Odessa imagined Courtney’s fingertips were as gently callused as the pads of a cat’s paw.

“Thank you,” said Courtney as Odessa exhaled, drained, at the end of her recounting. “I think the only thing—or the best thing—you have going for you is the surviving daughter. Her statements indicate that she was certain Agent Leppo was going to kill her and that your shooting saved her life. That is a compelling statement, although we won’t know for some time how she presents in person. Also, she remains seriously traumatized by the event—she is the only surviving member of her family—and so any testimony she gives will be difficult. And as a survivor of trauma, her memory may be challenged at the inquest.”

Odessa almost teared up, thinking about the girl. She was torn by a great desire to meet her, imagining that such an encounter could be healing for both of them…and terrified of such a meeting, knowing it might offer no relief, and could even be further traumatizing.

Courtney appeared to be scrolling through her notes, using her track pad. “Is there anything you’ve left out of your account?”