but it’s like she vanished off the face of the earth. She might very well be dead.” Pine looked down. “It would just be nice to know one way or another.”
“Well, it turned out okay. You’re an FBI agent.”
“Jury’s still out on that,” Pine said ominously as she took a sip of her beer. “Despite what Dobbs said, he could pull the plug on me at any time. Why risk his own career for me?”
“Well, I know he can be pretty tough, but he might surprise you, Agent Pine. He gave you this chance to get things right. He didn’t have to do that.”
“You’re right. He didn’t.”
“What did your mother do for work when you both moved to Texas?”
“Why?”
“I’m just trying to put some thoughts together.”
“She didn’t work, not right away.”
“But then how did she support both of you?”
“She said she’d inherited some money from some distant relative.” Pine glanced up to see Blum’s incredulous look. “I know. I was just a dumb teenager. I believed what she said.”
“But she eventually got a job?”
“Yes. But she never really talked about her work other than saying it was just pushing paper around. And I was totally immersed in school and sports. I never focused on what she was doing at her job.”
“Did she ever travel during that time? Go outside the country?”
“No, nothing like that.”
“And your father? Did he stay in South Carolina?”
“Yes. I was really pissed about that. I mean, he was my dad. Mom explained it by saying she had gotten this job offer in Texas and needed to take it. And that my dad understood. But that didn’t make any sense, because, like I said, she didn’t start working right away.”
“Well, she was your mother. You should be able to trust her. Did your father ever talk about her moving you to Texas and leaving him behind?”
“When I spoke with him on the phone I could tell he was having to struggle keeping a job. He was drinking too much and maybe doing drugs, too. But he never said a bad word against my mom.” She looked down. “He always told me he loved me. That…that he was so very sorry about Mercy. But that he was glad that I was still in his life.”
“And then?”
“And then, when I was in college, my mom got a call. He’d been found dead. A suicide. I was told that it was in Louisiana in some motel, only apparently it wasn’t.”
“That’s right,” said Blum. “Jack Lineberry said it was at your dad’s apartment in Virginia, which is where I guess he had moved to. But he never mentioned that to you?”
“Never. Anyway, my mom went to handle the arrangements, or so she told me. I wanted to go, but she wouldn’t let me. He was cremated. She said she spread his ashes somewhere that was dear to him.”
“Do you know where that was?”
“No, she never said. And now I found out that it was Jack Lineberry who found his body. My mom never told me that, either.”
“Maybe she didn’t know.”
“He had to know she’d come down after my dad killed himself. But she never mentioned seeing him. And Lineberry said he didn’t see her then, either.”
“And your mother left you shortly after this happened?”
“Yes. Within a couple of months, in fact.”
“This is all so strange,” observed Blum.
Pine shook her head. “Here I am an investigator, trained to ferret out the truth, to tell when people are lying, to see things when they’re off. And now talking about my own life, there were so many red flags, how the hell did I not see them, Carol? I mean, how in the hell?”
“It’s just that when this was all happening you were not a trained investigator. And people want to believe in and trust their loved ones, particularly kids with their parents.”
“Well, now I have to see the truth when it’s staring me in the face.”
“Let’s go back to the money she left you. Any idea where it came from?”
“No. It was a lot, though, but the bank said it was okay. It was her money.”
“Well, she obviously wanted to take care of you when she left.”
“But why did she leave? I’d much rather have had my mother than a bank account!”
Neither spoke for a bit until Blum said, “Your mother was very beautiful. When Britta showed me that photo of her. I mean, wow.”
“She has a photo of my mother?”
“Yes. I’m sorry, I guess there’s no way you could have known that.”