Jon's Spooky Corpse Conundrum

by A J Sherwood

  I snorted. “Don’t give me that. You blame her plenty.”

  His eyes, so like mine, stared back at me, weighing me. “You can see that, eh? Well, I do blame her for cheating and not making a clean break of things. As poor of a husband as I was, at least I didn’t cheat on her.”

  “We’re not going to talk about my own opinion on that subject. Alright, so you were gay, you figured out things weren’t going to work, so you left.”

  “I had to leave. It was a disaster. The marriage wasn’t working, and Lauren had clearly had enough. But I didn’t just abandon all of you. I tried to stay in contact with my kids. Natalie was so angry about it all, though, and she rightly blamed me for it. She wouldn’t have anything to do with me. I didn’t fight as hard as I should have…mostly because I didn’t know how to face you. Your sight was already coming in, and I was terrified you’d see right through me—all the excuses and the lies, and I couldn’t even be honest with myself at that point. I tried at least sending emails, letters, presents. They were all returned. No one would even come to the phone when I called. After two years, I stopped trying. None of my family wanted anything to do with me. I couldn’t do anything to change your minds.”

  I sank down on my heels, slumping in on myself, head in my hands. This revelation was too much. It wasn’t at all like my sister and mother had told me. I didn’t understand the gap of what I’d been told as a child and what he was telling me now, but he spoke pure truth. I could see that. It meant I’d need to investigate this more thoroughly, figure out what had gone wrong.

  But later. Right now, I needed to face him, and I wasn’t sure how to respond. The child in me still cried from being abandoned. I could rationally wrap my head around what had happened, but I wished, oh how I wished, he hadn’t given up on us. The emotions ran hot under my skin, prickling at the back of my eyes. I sucked in deep breaths to push back the urge to cry. I didn’t want to cry, I wanted to understand this. I wanted to find my footing with it. “And you just walked away.”

  “I didn’t know what else to do.”

  “You didn’t think to try picking us up at school? Going through our teachers, our neighbors, to check in with us?” I rose back up to my feet, voice rising. My nerves jittered under my skin, body tight with roiling anger. “Because you thought we were angry with you, you just let it go?”

  “Jonathan, what else was I supposed to do? I was blocked at every attempt I made. I blamed myself solely for it. I still do.”

  I shook my head, denying this. It wasn’t the answer I wanted. It was, unfortunately, the answer I’d expected. It was too difficult to face him in this moment, see all the pain, grief, regret, guilt flashing like neon signs, knowing they were because of me. I turned my head and looked away, eyes scrunched shut. I’d seen too much. It was overwhelming me and my good judgement.

  Two warm hands I knew well landed on my shoulders and I turned into Donovan’s touch blindly, latching onto his upper arms. How had he known I needed him? I hadn’t even called for him.

  “Okay, we need to take a break,” he announced firmly. “Sorry, Caleb, I know you’ve been dying to talk to him. But Jon doesn’t yell, and if he’s doing that, he’s not in any condition to get the answers he needs. So let’s pause this, let everyone cool down, and pick it up later.”

  “Alright.” My father didn’t sound happy about this but he did sound…resigned? was probably the most accurate word. “Then let me say this one thing. Jonathan, look at me.”

  I reluctantly did so, and for once, I saw something different in him. Something that shone bright, like antique gold.

  “You can see that I love my son.” There was no doubt in him, no hesitation as he met my eyes. “I love my daughter just as much. I want you both in my life. See me, make your own judgement calls. We’ll take this at your pace.”

  I responded hoarsely, “Okay.”

  Donovan led me away without a word, and I was grateful. He opened the passenger door, and I climbed in, then turned so I could rest my forehead against his shoulder. I just needed a second. My emotions were so tumultuous I couldn’t sort them out. Even with a mirror handy to see myself, I wasn’t confident I could do so.

  “Was I right, to interrupt you?”

  It was hard to admit, but I nodded shallowly. “I’d stopped listening.”

  “It’s hard to communicate at the top of your voice.”

  A smile twitched over my face, there and gone in a second. “That sounds like a Kayne-ism.”

  “You’re not wrong. Dad said it a lot growing up. I blame Brandon, he’s the loud one.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  He let me stay there, arms around my waist, and only when an errant shiver raced across me did he stir. “Babe, how about take-out and we go back to the hotel? You need to sleep on this.”

  It was, sadly, the best offer I’d had all day. “Okay.”

  I did sleep on it, although poorly. I found myself analyzing the conversation in the dead of night, running parts of it through my mind over and over again. What had he meant, that he’d sent packages and letters to the house? That he’d called and couldn’t get us to come to the phone? I didn’t remember any of that. And yes, I was young, but I’d been desperate in those early days to hear from my father. If someone had been speaking to him on the phone, I’d have wanted to talk to him too. If there was a letter or present, why hadn’t I seen it?

  Something smelled, and it wasn’t fried chicken. I believed wholeheartedly Caleb was telling me the truth. When he’d demanded I look at him, that I make my own judgements, I’d studied him thoroughly. I’d seen the love he had for his children, but also that flare of truth. He honestly believed he’d been rebuffed, that his family wanted nothing to do with him after the divorce.

  Natalie believed the converse—that he’d not even tried to be a father to us after he left. So did my mother.

  Something was very, very strange here. And it behooved me to get to the bottom of it. I had a sneaking suspicion that bore not only investigation, but verification. For all our sakes, really.

  I was in a bit of a daze in the morning, sleep-deprived as I was. Not until I had a cup of hot coffee in my hand, halfway to the plantation house, did Donovan even try to talk to me.

  “Babe?”

  I blinked into the present and read the question on his mind easily enough. “Yeah. I want to talk to him again today. He said a few things yesterday that didn’t fit with what I know. And I feel bad about going off on him, when he was honestly trying to face me. I’ll try not to let my temper get the better of me this time.”

  “Okay.”

  Unfortunately the conversation would have to wait. We had work to do. We were still trying to figure out how the murderer had secreted Richard Witherspoon’s body out of the house. For Donovan’s sake, I hoped we figured it out today. I wasn’t sure if his nerves could take much more of Wheatlands Plantation.

  We split up with Sho, Garrett, and Carol at the base of the house, and Donovan, Neil, and I at the top. Jim and Sharon searched the back staircase carefully. We figured if someone started at the bottom, someone at the top, surely we’d find a sign of some sort.

  No one really wanted to put holes in a wall, so we tried tapping first. A few of us had hammers, if it came to that, but we held them loosely. The idea of breaking into a hundred and fifty-something year old house wasn’t palatable.

  I tapped and tapped with my knuckles, not quite sure what the sound should be if I did hit something aside from wall space. Donovan was on the other side of me, jittery about being in the master bedroom again. The bedding had been stripped—evidence—but the mattress was still in place, stained with blood. He kept eyeing it uneasily.

  I’d always wondered if anything really scared him. He was such an unmovable rock most of the time that it didn’t seem possible. I knew he could get scared—I saw that in his lines—but I figured it tied more in to physical memory. Like with the acid attack. I found it incredibly cute that horror was what did him in. I
f I tried to get him to watch a horror movie with me, he’d likely murder me on the spot.

  Neil threw out a hand suddenly. “Stop.”

  We both did, looking at him askance. Then, a second later, we heard it. The soft, tap-tap-tap from the other side of the wall.

  Um. What? No one was on the upper floor but us. The hairs along my arms raised and I rubbed both forearms absently, trying to dispel the reaction.

  Donovan went pale again, edging toward me.

  I wanted to tell him there wasn’t a ghost up here, but…well. I didn’t see one. That didn’t mean it wasn’t here. Neil darted out of the room and around to the other side, where the hallway bathroom was. He came back three seconds later, perplexed. “There’s no one there.”

  “That’s not creepy.” Donovan turned to me plaintively. “Please, no ghosts?”

  I tried for a smile, but it came out more like a grimace. “I don’t see one.”

  “You don’t see one but there’s a wall in the way, is what you’re saying.” Donovan, I think, wanted to run at that moment. And probably would have, if he thought he stood a chance in hell of getting me to run too.

  I heard footsteps, two sets, clattering up the front stairs. Garrett appeared in the room a second later, equally perplexed. “Did you see anyone run past here?”

  Donovan whimpered. “Guys, it’s not funny.”

  “No, seriously,” Garrett insisted, looking about him as if honestly trying to spot someone else. “I heard footsteps running around the side of the house. I followed them straight up here.”

  “Curiouser and curiouser.” Neil tapped a thoughtful finger to his chin, staring straight at the wall that separated the master bedroom from the bathroom. I could see the wheels turning before he asked us, “Correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t that odd blank space right about here?”

  I could tell Donovan didn’t like this question at all, but I had to admit, “It is.”

  “You think the ghosts are trying to give us a hint something is up here?” Garrett sounded like he was only half-joking.

  “Thing is, we heard tapping on the other side of the wall right before you came up.” Of course, this delighted Garrett to no end and made my boyfriend nearly grey. I really needed to get him out of here before he passed out. I did not want to lug Donovan downstairs, and him waking up here again wouldn’t do his heart any good.

  Garrett let out a soft huh sound. “Reaaally.”

  “Maybe it’s ghosts, maybe not, but I really want to take a look at that cavity. On paper, it looked large enough to stash a body in.” Neil went back out of the room in a determined stride.

  It didn’t take a genius to see his thought process. The area was close to the stairs, on the far end of the bedrooms, and thereby away from where Victoria and Maggie Witherspoon had been sitting. If done quietly enough, could a body have been moved over there without anyone the wiser? It certainly would have been enough time, if the culprits had moved quickly.

  Garrett followed Neil to the bathroom side of the wall, while Donovan and I headed for the other side, in the master bedroom. I felt a little ridiculous knocking on the wall, trying to hear if there was a difference, because I was so not an expert on architecture. Running fingertips and eyes over the smooth surface of the plaster didn’t help any. If there was a secret passage into that space, I certainly didn’t see it.

  I was also a touch nervous about knocking on this wall because something had definitely knocked back. And it hadn’t been one of us. Donovan kept a hand on my waist as he grimly searched with me. He practically vibrated with the urge to throw me over his shoulder, fireman style, and bolt out of the house. I think he deserved a massage and handcuff sex in his near future.

  “Ha!” Neil crowed in victory.

  In three seconds flat, we were in the bathroom, crowded in behind him. Donovan had a hand on his gun, and Neil moved cautiously, the heavy-duty flashlight in his off-hand as he carefully pried the panel open. He stood tucked in beside the old tub, halfway inside what looked to be a linen closet along the far wall. The beadboard gave way easily under his hand, not swinging in like a door, but shuffling aside. It made a scraping noise along the wood subfloor as it moved, revealing a dimly lit space and cobwebs.

  We all held our collective breath as he poked his head inside. He immediately jerked back, a strangled half-yell bursting free of his mouth.

  Donovan’s gun was up in a flash, ready to fire. Garrett did the same, despite all his ribbing earlier about ghosts. I put a staying hand on them both, trying to calm the nerves I saw jumping under their skin.

  “No danger. No danger, he’s just grossed out.”

  Donovan didn’t seem to fully comprehend what I was telling him. Not until Neil scraped a hand over his face with a disgusted sound.

  “Spiderweb. Gah. Okay, let’s try this again. It’s fine, Donovan, there’s nothing in there.” He used the back end of the flashlight to clear the space before taking a half-step inside for a full look. “Yup, no one here.”

  Garrett and Donovan sighed and put the guns back in their holsters.

  “I’ll bet you anything this was more firmly attached at some point,” Neil said thoughtfully, fingering the beadboard. “It was knocked loose when the shelves were removed. Witherspoon likely had some sort of plan for the renovation, although who knows what.”

  “Any sign of a body being stashed in there?” Garrett asked hopefully. “Or is that wishful thinking with a spiderweb over the entrance?”

  “Not so much. Spiders can rebuild their webs within a day. It’s definitely been longer than that.” Neil flicked on the flashlight before shining it inside. I couldn’t look over his shoulder—I didn’t have the height or position for it, not without risking the flashlight. I stayed back, letting Garrett and Donovan look for me.

  After a second of running a light around, Donovan pointed out, “That cobweb’s been disturbed. So’s that one. Something’s been in here.”

  “And there’s the blood I was looking for,” Neil added grimly. “Not a lot, but our victim didn’t bleed out all that much. The smears are enough to prove he was in here. I’ll need to call Caleb, get him in here.”

  “He’ll be happy to have some blood to work with that wasn’t put through a fire,” I observed, stepping fully back to allow people room to maneuver. I blew out a breath, both relieved and smug we’d figured out part of the puzzle. “So he was stashed in here, moved later.”

  “Probably down the back stairs,” Neil agreed, stepping fully out. “We were all out of the house, sitting on the front porch. Dammit.”

  “This is all well and fine, but gentlemen?” Garrett gave an expressive wave of the hand toward the closet. “How did this murderer—or murderers—even know it was there?”

  “Now that” –Neil’s eyes darted back to the closet, lines blazing with curiosity— “is a very good question.”

  Donovan threw in his two cents. “What it looks like to me is that Witherspoon was in the exploring stage of the remodel. I went through this recently with my grandmother’s house. When the house is that old, you really have no idea what’s hiding behind the walls. So you push at things here, take down things there, and explore the area until you can figure out what you’re tackling. I think, looking at that beadboard in the closet, he intended to take it out entirely. The beadboard has some scrapes around the edges, like it had been knocked free of the framing. You see it? I’ll bet you anything our murderer stumbled across it, had a eureka moment, and took advantage of it.”

  “So hiding the body wasn’t necessarily planned?” Neil hummed and finally extricated himself from the closet entirely. “This case makes less sense the more we uncover. Why hide the body? Why move it? Why burn it? Why use three different methods of murder to begin with? And how the hell did he—or they—manage to lug someone that heavy quietly enough that multiple people in the house didn’t hear him?”

  I once again met my father under the tree at the back of the police station. This time, Donovan
got his number from Neil and called him to arrange it so we could miss the song-and-dance at the front desk. Donovan stayed with the Humvee but parked out back, too, to keep me within line of sight. I left him leaning against the front of it, feeling secure he had my back once again.

  This time, Caleb Bane was braced, more so than he had been with our first conversation. I felt I was, too. Braced, and not as temperamental. I stopped in front of him and started without any segue, “I never got a letter or present from you. I don’t remember you calling the house.”

  He blinked—whatever he’d expected me to say, that clearly hadn’t been it—and protested, “But I did. Every week, at least, for two years.”

  “I believe you.” I tapped a palm to my own chest in illustration. “I see the truth of that in your lines. But Natalie doesn’t remember getting anything from you, either. No attempts at contact. Tell me, whenever you called, who picked up the phone?”

  “Rodger,” he answered slowly. Understanding exploded through him, and his head tipped back in a growl of frustration. “Dammit. I should have realized. Of course he’d block me, that shitty douchebag.”

  I approved of the description. It fit Rodger to a tee. “I think I know how it all went wrong. I don’t understand why you didn’t keep trying. Why you didn’t try other avenues.”

  “I did, but I may have tried them too late.” He ran a hand over his face, weary and sensitive. Old wounds bled as brightly as new. “I tried the house for a good two months, you see. When I didn’t get through, I tried your mother’s office. She was in a fine temper by then, wouldn’t even come to the—oh damn. Rodger blocked me there too. Shit, I believed it when he said she wouldn’t come to the phone.”

  How many times could a person face rejection before they just couldn’t anymore? I’d lived such a life, knew it painfully well. Especially from a relative, someone you loved, it was so much worse. If he faced multiple rejections, even perceived rejection, it was a miracle he’d tried as long as he had. Even if he didn’t go about it as I would have.