“Dude, have you heard about this Chuck Buhrman murder thing?”
Blood roared in my ears, and my vision went blurry. It had been more than a decade since I had heard my father’s name, and hearing it casually tumble out of the mouth of a skinny teenager with a lip piercing made my stomach turn.
“Is that the podcast everyone is going on about?” the girl’s friend asked. “I don’t do podcasts.”
“This is different,” the first girl insisted. “Trust me. It’s a fucking trip. This guy got convicted for murder, right? But the evidence was all, what do you call it, circumstantial. The biggest thing they had was the guy’s daughter who claimed she saw it. But here’s the thing: first she said she didn’t see anything at all. So we know she’s a liar. But what’s she lying about? You’ve got to listen to it, man, it’s addictive as fuck.”
As the train slid to a stop at Court Street, the girl was still enthusiastically endorsing the podcast. I felt so blindsided that I doubted I could stand, let alone climb the subway stairs and, laden with groceries, walk the final stretch to our apartment. My knees buckled as I rose, but I managed to propel myself through the crowded underground hallways and up aboveground. In my dazed state, I used the wrong exit, emerging on the far side of Borough Hall, and walked two blocks in the opposite direction of home before I came to my senses. Reorienting myself, I managed to place one foot in front of the other enough times to reach home.
I slid my key in the lock and hesitated. I had spent the weeks since Caleb left hating the resulting stillness of our apartment. I missed his mild chaos. I found myself resenting the way everything remained exactly where I left it. Caleb’s running shoes, trailing across the living room floor with shoelaces stretched out like tiny arms, hadn’t tripped me in weeks. I was no longer finding half-drunk mugs of coffee in the bathroom, dog-eared books stuck between the couch cushions, or the clock radio softly playing classic rock to an empty bedroom. I could feel his absence in the lack of these minor domestic annoyances, and they tugged at my heart each time I entered our home.
But, with my hand shaking as it held the key in the lock and my father’s name ricocheting around my brain, I welcomed the solitude of our apartment. I needed to be alone.
Dropping the groceries in the entryway, leaving the veggie burgers to slowly defrost on the ground, I rushed to my laptop. I typed my father’s name into a search engine with trembling fingers. Bile climbed up my throat when I saw the number of hits. There were pages upon pages filled with a startling parade of news articles, opinion pieces, and blog posts—all dated within the last two weeks. I clicked the first link, and there it was: the podcast.
Reconsidered: The Chuck Buhrman Murder was splashed in bold red letters across a fuzzy black-and-white picture of my father. It was the headshot he had used for work, the one where he looked less like an actual college professor and more like a caricature of one, with his tweed jacket, crooked eyeglasses, and thick black beard. The faint twinkle in his eyes threatened to undo me.
Daddy.
I slammed the computer shut and buried it beneath a pile of magazines. When all I could see was Kim Kardashian staring up at me from the cover of a glossy tabloid I had shamefully bought waiting for the train one day—more evidence of how everything fell apart without Caleb around—I was once again able to breathe normally.
My cousin Ellen didn’t answer her phone when I called, and I left her a voicemail demanding that she tell me what she knew about the podcast. After twenty minutes of sitting on the couch willing my phone to ring, I gave up and began searching for tasks to distract myself: I put away the groceries, I wiped up the puddle the veggie burgers had left in the entryway, I ran a bath but then drained it before climbing inside, I started painting my toenails but abandoned the project after only three nails had been polished a gloomy dark purple.
Red wine was the only thing that helped. Only after sucking down a juice glass full of the stuff was I calm enough to revisit the podcast’s website. I refilled my glass and pushed the magazines aside. Gingerly, I opened the computer.
The website was still there, still advertising a podcast that promised to “reconsider” my father’s murder. I frowned, confused. There was nothing to reconsider. Warren Cave murdered my father. He was found guilty and he received his punishment. How could this Poppy Parnell, this woman whose name made her sound more like a yarn-haired children’s toy than an investigative journalist, spin an entire series out of this? Taunting myself, I hovered my cursor over the Download Now button for the first of the two available episodes. Did I dare to click the link? I chewed my lip as I wavered, took another gulp of wine to steel myself, and clicked.
Ellen called just as Episode 1 finished downloading. Gripped by morbid fascination, I nearly declined the call in order to listen to the podcast, but I shook it off and answered the phone.
“Ellen?”
“Do not listen to that podcast.”
I exhaled a breath I didn’t know I was holding. “Is it bad?”
“It’s trash. Sensationalized trash. That pseudo-journalist is turning your family’s tragedy into a commodity, and it’s disgusting. I have Peter looking into whether we can sue her for defamation or slander or whatever it’s called. He’s the lawyer; he’ll figure it out.”
“Do you really think he can do that? Put a stop to it?”
“Peter can do anything he puts his mind to.”
“Like marrying a woman half his age?”
“Not really the time for jokes, Josie,” Ellen said, but I could hear a hint of laughter in her voice.
“I know. It’s just nerves. Please thank your esteemed husband for his help.”
“I’ll let you know more as soon as I do. How are you handling it?”
“Well, for starters, I wish I hadn’t found out by overhearing a teenager on the train. Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because I was hoping I wouldn’t have to. I’d hoped it would all just blow over, but apparently America has an appetite for that brand of opportunistic, sensationalist reimagining of the truth.”
“I can’t believe this is happening. What am I supposed to do?”
“Nothing,” Ellen said firmly. “Peter’s on top of this. And I’m still not convinced this won’t burn out on its own. How much ‘reconsidering’ can she really do of an open-and-shut case?”