Along Came a Spider

rivaled the color of the sky.
    “I told you that I found out a lot about myself down here, Alex,” Jezzie said as we hiked deeper and deeper into the forest. She was talking softly. She seemed almost childlike. I listened carefully to every word. I wanted to know all about Jezzie.
    “I want to tell you about me. I’m ready to talk now,” she said. “I need to tell you why, and how, and everything else.”
    I nodded, and let her go on.
    “My father… my father was a failure. In his eyes. He was street-smart. He could get along so beautifully socially — when he wanted to. But he came from the shanty side, and he let it put a huge chip on his shoulder. My father’s negative attitude got him in trouble all the time. He didn’t care how it affected my mother or me. He got to be a heavy drinker in his forties and fifties. At the end of his life, he didn’t have one friend. Or really any family. I imagine that’s why he killed himself…
My father killed himself
, Alex. He did it in his unmarked car. There wasn’t any heart attack in Union Station. That’s a lie I’ve been telling ever since my college days.”
    We were both silent as we walked on. Jezzie had only talked about her mother and father once or twice. I’d known about their drinking problem, but I wouldn’t push her — especially because I couldn’t be Jezzie’s doctor. When she was ready, I’d thought that she would talk about it.
    “I didn’t want to be a failure like my father or my mother. That’s the way they saw themselves, Alex. That’s how they talked all the time. Not low esteem — no esteem. I couldn’t let myself be like that.”
    “How do you see them?”
    “As failures, I guess.” A tiny smile came with the admission. A painfully honest smile.
    “They were both so unbelievably smart, Alex. They knew everything about everything. They read every book in the universe. They could talk to you about any subject. Have you ever been to Ireland?”
    “I’ve been to England once, on police business. That’s the one and only time I’ve been to Europe. Never had the money to spare.”
    “Some villages you go to in Ireland — the people are so articulate, but they live in such poverty. You see these ’white ghettos.’ Every third storefront seems to be a pub. There are so many educated failures in that country. I didn’t want to be another smart failure. I’ve told you about that fear of mine. That would be hell on earth to me… I pushed myself so hard in school. I needed to be number one, no matter what the cost. Then in the Treasury Department. I got ahead, comfortably ahead. Alex, for whatever reasons, I was becoming happy with my career, with my life in general.”
    “But it disintegrated after the Goldberg-Dunne kidnapping. You were the scapegoat. You weren’t the golden girl anymore.”
    “Just like that, I was finished. Agents were talking behind my back. Eventually, I quit, left the Service. I didn’t have a choice. It was total bullshit and unfair. I came down here. To figure out who the hell I was. I needed to do it all by myself.”
    Jezzie reached out, and she put her arms around me in the heart of the woods. She began to sob very quietly. I had never seen her cry before. I held Jezzie tightly in my arms. I’d never felt so close to her before. I knew she was telling me some hard truths. I owed her some hard truth in return.
    We were down in a secluded knoll, talking quietly, when I became aware of someone watching us in the woods. I kept my head rock-steady, but my eyes darted to the right. Somebody else was in the woods.
    Someone was
watching
us.
    Another
watcher
.
    “Somebody’s up there, Jezzie. Just beyond that hill to our right,” I whispered to her. She didn’t look in that direction. She was still a cop.
    “Are you sure, Alex?” she asked.
    “I’m sure. Trust me on this one. Let’s split up,” I said. “If whoever it is starts to take off, we run them down.”
    We separated, and walked so that we’d flank the hill where I’d seen the watcher. That probably confused whoever it was.
    He took off!
    The
watcher
was a man. He had on sneakers and a dark, hooded jumpsuit that blended in with the woods. I couldn’t tell about his height or build. Not yet, anyway.
    Jezzie and I raced behind him for a good quarter of a mile. Both of us were barefoot, so we didn’t gain any distance on the watcher. We probably lost a few yards during our all-out sprint. Branches and thorns tore at our faces