by Lauren Carr
Once everyone was in the foyer, Cameron closed the door. When she turned around, she saw that J.J. had come down the stairs in time to see Joshua escorting Noah into the study.
Everyone could see the depth of his grief in his unshaven face and the dark circles under his eyes. Even his clothes were rumpled. He had been too distressed to bother to change his clothes from the day before. “What’s going on?” he asked.
“Dad’s arresting Noah,” Izzy said.
J.J. ran down the hallway and into the study. “Noah, don’t say anything!”
Hanging his head, Noah was standing in the middle of the study. With his arms folded across his chest, Joshua was standing before him.
“You have no authority in this case, Dad,” J.J. said. “So you have no right to question him.”
“He doesn’t have to say a word,” Joshua said. “Noah, show me your hands.”
“Huh?” the young man said.
“Your hands,” Joshua said. “Hold them out so that we can see them.”
Obediently, Noah held out his hands. After over a year of manual labor on the farm, his hands were scarred, calloused, and stained.
After taking one of his hands, Joshua looked up and down the young man’s arm and then did the same thing on the other side. “Take off your shirt.”
Unsure of what Joshua would ask him to do next, Noah looked at him with wide eyes.
“Take off your shirt, and turn around.”
Realizing what his father was doing, J.J. nodded his head. “Do as he says, Noah.”
Noah pulled the shirt, one of the new ones that Joshua had purchased for him only two days before, over his head. He then turned around while Joshua, J.J., Cameron, Poppy, and Izzy looked him up and down.
Joshua’s eyes met Cameron’s. “What do you think?”
“He didn’t do it.”
“I don’t get it,” Poppy said. “Why are you having him undress?”
“There was broken glass all over that room where Suellen was killed, and she did put up a fight,” Joshua said. “There’s no way the killer escaped without getting any cuts on him. Noah doesn’t have a fresh scratch on him.”
“That’s means you’re innocent!” Izzy said with a squeal.
“Then you’ll tell the police that?” Noah asked before putting his shirt back on.
“Sure,” Joshua said. “I’ll write out a statement for you saying that you had nothing to do with Suellen Russell’s murder, and all you’ll have to do is sign it, and then you’ll be on your way to wherever it is you were going.” He sat down behind his desk and took out a yellow notepad.
Doubtful about the validity of Joshua’s claim that Noah would get off the hook so easily, J.J. went around to read the statement over his shoulder.
“Where are you going, Noah?” Izzy asked.
“I found a half-brother who lives in Nebraska, and he invited me to live with him and his family,” Noah said.
“Does that mean we’ll never see you again?” Izzy looked like she was about to cry. “Dad and J.J. worked hard to arrange for you to stay here with us so that you wouldn’t have to go back to Atlanta and stay in a foster home.”
“My half-brother is over eighteen,” Noah said. “He can become my legal guardian.”
“Then why didn’t you just tell Tom that?” Cameron asked. “Why did you sneak away?”
“Let’s not all be nosy.” Joshua handed the notepad to Noah. “Here you go. I wrote out a statement for the police about your whereabouts and what you were doing at the time of Suellen’s murder. It says exactly what you told me just now. I suggest that you read it for accuracy and that you sign your name at the bottom.”
Noah took the yellow notepad from Joshua.
“I highly recommend that you read that,” J.J. said. “It’s never a good idea to sign anything without reading it first.”
“Take your time,” Joshua said.
Noah looked at Joshua, who was sitting behind the desk, and then at J.J., who was standing behind him. He then looked around at Poppy, Cameron, and Izzy. With a sigh, he looked down at the notepad and ran his fingers across the lines of text. Noah nodded his head as he made his way through the statement and then said, “Looks good to me.” He took the pen that Joshua was holding out to him and scribbled his name on the statement.
Handing the notepad back to Joshua, he asked, “Are we good?”
Joshua looked down at the signature. With a nod of his head, he handed it to J.J., who arched one of his eyebrows.
Taking that as a yes, Noah turned to Poppy. “Can you give me that ride to the bus station?”
Poppy looked over at J.J., who was studying the statement. “J.J., is Noah free to leave?”
J.J. was looking down at his father, who was looking up at him. “What do you suggest, Dad?”
“He works for you now, Son.”
“Is there a problem with the statement I signed?”
“A little one.” J.J. held up the statement for him. “You signed the Gettysburg Address.”
“Is that legal?” Izzy asked.
“I don’t get it,” Poppy said.
Noah’s face turned bright red. It contorted as he fought the tears working their way to his eyes.
“That’s why you ran away,” Joshua said. “It wasn’t because Clyde Brady fingered you for killing his wife. There was no proof that it was you, so that would’ve been easy enough to fight. You agreed to everything that we set up for you—until I started talking about you going back to school. That was when you got squirrely. You didn’t want to go back to school because then you would have had to admit that you can’t read.”
“At all,” J.J. said.
Noah turned to run only to find that Poppy was blocking his escape. “Why didn’t you just tell us?” When he tried to sidestep her, she sidestepped along with him, refusing to let him by. “There’s nothing to be ashamed of, Noah. Learning to read?” She scoffed. “That’s just a skill, sweetie. Like learning to ride a horse.” She gestured at Izzy. “All you need is someone to show you how.”
“I’ll help you,” Izzy said.
“You don’t understand,” Noah said. “People have tried to teach me to read. I went through eight years of school, and each one was worse than the one before. I can’t learn.”
“Why can’t you learn?” Cameron asked.
“In all of the foster homes I was in and in every new school I went to, people would try to teach me. They’d—they’d take me all the way back to the very beginning, and none of it ever made sense. I can’t learn because I’m too stupid to learn!”
“No!” J.J. grabbed Noah by the shoulders and spun him around. “You’re not stupid. Don’t ever say that! If you haven’t been able to learn to read, it’s because you haven’t been taught in the right way.”
“You most likely have a learning disability,” Joshua said. “Once we figure out what it is, we’ll be able to find someone who can teach you in a way that will make sense to you.”
“But none of that will happen if you run away again,” J.J. said.
“But will a judge grant my request to be an emancipated minor if I can’t read?” Noah asked.
“He will if you’re going to school to learn how,” J.J. said.
“Sounds to me like you have quite a few people who are offering to go to bat for you, Noah,” Cameron said.
“I never had that before.” Noah sniffed. “I do like working on a farm—being out in the sun working with the horses and dogs and cats...even Charley.”
Chapter Nineteen
While Cameron went to Youngstown to question Clyde Brady’s nephew, Joshua and J.J. escorted Noah to the sheriff’s office in New Cumberland so that he could give his real statement. J.J. was also hoping for a personal interview with Detective Cross about Suellen’s will.
With knowledge comes power.
<
br /> Since Donny was out with his friends, Poppy offered to take Izzy back to the farm with her. As everyone was leaving the Thorntons’ home to go their separate ways, Poppy took the time to step up to J.J., who was standing near the open passenger’s side door of his father’s SUV, and to lay her hand on his forearm.
He stopped to look down into her freckled face, which was framed with red waves. She was wearing her Western-style hat back on her head. Her emerald-green eyes were filled with a mixture of sadness and guilt. As she was much shorter than he was, her forehead came up to his chin.
“I’m sorry, J.J.”
“I know.”
She blinked tears out of her eyes. “You told me to just do the morning chores and then to stay with her, and that’s what I was going to do, but Suellen told me not to. She said she didn’t need a babysitter. I shouldn’t have—”
J.J. put his hand on her shoulder. “It’s not your fault, Poppy.”
“If I had—”
“You might’ve been killed, too.”
She took in a deep, shuddering breath.
Joshua, who was waiting for J.J. in the driver’s seat, was surprised to see J.J. take her into a tight hug. She hugged him back and rested her head against his chest.
“I’m so, so sorry, J.J.”
“I know,” he said into her hair.
Joshua’s eyes met Noah’s. A wicked grin crossed the teenager’s face when he saw that the hug was lasting a moment more than necessary.
As if J.J. and Poppy had read their minds or had realized that feelings that they considered to be inappropriate were taking root inside them, they pulled apart. Poppy’s cheeks turned bright pink as she fumbled with her hat and readjusted it on top of her head. “I gotta get back to the farm to let Charley out.” Almost tripping over her feet, she stumbled over to her truck.
“Out of where?” J.J. asked.
“The barn. The sheriff said that if I didn’t lock him up, he was gonna shoot him and take him to the taxidermist. So I locked him up in the barn. He’s not one bit happy about it. But I figure that he’d be more unhappy if he got stuffed and put up on the sheriff’s wall.” With a wave of her hat, she climbed into the truck and then drove off as fast as she could.
With a puzzled expression on his face, J.J. watched her speed away. Slowly, he climbed into the front passenger’s seat of Joshua’s SUV. In the rear seat, Noah was grinning a him.
“What?” J.J. asked him.
“Nothing.” Noah grinned at the back of Joshua’s head.
“Did I miss something?” J.J. asked his father.
Shaking his head, Joshua turned on the engine and then took them to the sheriff’s office in New Cumberland.
While J.J. was waiting alone in the interrogation room, Sheriff Sawyer and Joshua watched him from the other side of the two-way mirror. Sitting back in his seat, J.J. passed the time by playing a game on his phone. Lillian Cross’ intention was to make J.J. feel edgy by forcing him to cool his heels alone in the interrogation room. Apparently, she was unaware that J.J. was fully aware of the ploy.
“Are you sure you shouldn’t be in there to help him out?” Sheriff Sawyer asked Joshua. “Cross is not exactly junior varsity when it comes to interrogations.”
“I know,” Joshua said in a steady voice. “But J.J. hates it when I jump in to help out.”
“So you had no idea that Suellen Russell was going to leave her four-thousand-acre farm to you?” the detective asked as she stepped into the room and closed the door behind her. She hoped that by launching into the interview in an abrupt manner, she would immediately put him on the defensive.
“Not until my father told me less than an hour ago,” he said without looking up at her. Instead, he kept his attention focused on his cell phone. “Which is why I came here to see you instead of waiting for you to search me out. It goes without saying that my inheriting the farm puts me at the top of your suspect list.” He shot a glance in her direction. “You’d have to be an idiot not to want to take a closer look at me…And I don’t think you’re an idiot, Detective Cross.”
Turning his attention back to the phone, he cursed. “Damn. I hate when that happens.” After closing the game, he set the phone down and folded his hands on top of the table. “Let’s start.”
The corners of her mouth turned up. Looking him up and down, she sat across the table from him. “Did you discuss with Suellen what would become of the farm? After all, she was dying and didn’t have any heirs—”
“She had a stepson, and they had a good, friendly relationship,” he said. “It never occurred to me that she wouldn’t leave the farm to him. Now, she did tell me that she was worried about what he would do with it. He’s a businessman and lives in the city. He has no interest in farming. She knew that he’d sell the land to a developer, that the employees would lose their jobs, and that there would be no telling what would happen to the livestock.”
“So you recommended that she leave the farm to you,” Lillian said “Four thousand acres of prime real estate—making you one of the wealthiest men in the valley.”
“No, that is not what I recommended,” J.J. said in a matter-of-fact tone. “I recommended that she leave the farm to Clyde Brady. He’s been working for her family for his whole adult life.”
“The man is in his late sixties,” Lillian said with disbelief. “And he has no kids.”
“Since when is there an age limit on inheritances?” J.J. asked. “As for the fact that he doesn’t have any kids—I didn’t learn that until after I suggested that she leave the farm to him. If having heirs is a prerequisite for inheriting property, I guess that leaves me out, too, because I have no kids…that I know of.”
On the other side of the two-way mirror, Joshua smiled.
“That he knows of,” the sheriff said, chuckling. “Good one.”
In the interrogation room, J.J.’s casual manner was getting on the detective’s nerves. “Are you aware that Clyde Brady was with Suellen when she was killed and that he has been missing since her murder?”
“Yes, I am very aware of that.”
Her mind working, the detective leaned across the table in J.J.’s direction. “If Suellen had followed your recommendation and left the farm to Clyde Brady and he had died before he could take possession of the farm, who would have inherited it then?”
With a chuckle, J.J. leaned toward her. “Well, considering that she didn’t leave the farm to Brady, that question is irrelevant, isn’t it?”
On the other side of the two-way mirror, Sheriff Sawyer uttered a low laugh. “He’s good. Reminds me of you.”
Joshua fought a grin of pride. “He’s been debating since he learned how to talk. His first words were ‘If you want my honest opinion.’”
Sheriff Sawyer laughed.
“No, seriously, those were his first words,” Joshua said.
Sitting back in his seat, J.J. folded his arms. “Since Noah has no cuts or bruises that indicate that he killed Suellen, I would have had to conspire with someone else to arrange the murder. Have you been able to uncover any evidence of my doing that? Transferred funds? Cell phone records or texts or e-mails that prove that I met with unsavory-assassin types?”
“Your twin brother is a fifth-degree black belt in mixed martial arts, isn’t he?”
“I’m afraid you’re incorrect about that,” J.J. said. “Murphy is a sixth-degree black belt.” He flashed her a grin. “I’ve made it up to only the fifth degree. I hope to make it to the next level after I take the bar exam. Of course, I’ve been so busy studying that I haven’t—”
“My point is,” Lillian said in a sharp tone, “that you talk and text with Murphy on a fairly regular basis, don’t you?”
“She just lost control of the interrogation to J.J.,” Joshua said with a shake of his head.
“I don’t think she ever had control
of it.”
Inside the interrogation room, J.J.’s calm tone was in stark contrast to hers. “You wouldn’t ask me about how often Murphy and I communicate if you didn’t know the answer already. Have you gotten a warrant for my cell phone records yet?” He slid his phone in her direction. “If not, I’ll save you the trouble. Knock yourself out.”
“According to his wife, Murphy’s been away on a top-secret naval operation. For the last week, he’s been gone, and no one knows where he’s been.”
“That doesn’t mean that he doesn’t have an alibi.” J.J. chuckled. “You’re thinking that my brother, wherever in the world he may be, slipped away from his commanding officers, snuck into West Virginia, killed Suellen in a very violent, clumsy manner—”
“To make it look like a psychopath did it.”
“And then slipped back to wherever he’s stationed?” J.J. asked. “And what about Clyde Brady’s statement to my father? He said that the same perp killed his wife, Monica.”
“I find it interesting that the only person who heard Clyde Brady say that is your father.”
“You know my father does not lie,” J.J. said. “Ask anyone in the valley. They’ll tell you.”
“Yes, Joshua Thornton does have a reputation for being a straight-up guy,” Lillian said. “But even the most honest men have been known to lie to protect their sons.”
On the other side of the two-way mirror, Joshua’s eyes narrowed into blue slits. “I never did like that bitch.”
“Tell us how you really feel,” Sheriff Sawyer said.
Youngstown was like a ghost of the thriving steel town that it once had been. Over the last forty years, its office buildings had been abandoned, and its populace consisted mostly of drug dealers and various types of street people.
Strapped for funding, the county jail was as dark and as dank as a jail in a bad movie. Even the interrogation room smelled of foul body odor and other bodily fluids.
While Cameron waited for the sheriff’s deputies to escort Vinnie Brady in so that she could interview him about Monica Brady’s murder, she quickly contacted Sheriff Sawyer to check on the status of the search for Clyde Brady.
