by A R Kennedy
Ferris sniffed around the spot and then returned to Cecilia’s side. She patted his head and doubted it helped him either.
As she headed to the trailer, she could hear shouting. Seeing the Mercedes parked next to the trailer, she knew the source.
“Jeremiah,” she greeted him, as she stepped into the trailer. All three men stopped arguing when they saw her. “What can we help you with?”
“I’m here to take over the daily operations of Chandler Construction,” Jeremiah announced.
“The business is not yours to run, Jeremiah,” Cecilia told him.
“Well, now that Joey is dead, the business goes to Brittany.” Cecilia winced when he said “dead,” as if she had been slapped.
Cecilia shook her head. “This was established prior to JJ’s death. The business went to Joey.” Mr. Chandler was a fastidious man. He had ensured all his affairs were in order, even before his illness. When he first wrote his will, and then again when he was sick, he reviewed the will’s stipulations with both of his children. They agreed with the terms. Joey would get the house and the business. Brittany would get the vacation home and a larger portion of his cash. JJ knew Brittany and Jeremiah would destroy the business, even if they had a small stake in it.
“Well, Joey is dead now.” No one missed Cecilia wince this time. She needed no reminders that her husband was dead, especially when she was where he died.
“Jeremiah!” Randy rebuked.
Jeremiah ignored him. “I’ll be by the house later for the truck.”
She kept her voice even despite her inner rage. “The truck is Joey’s.”
“And Joey is—”
She interrupted him before he could say dead again. “The truck is personal property. Not business. He paid for the truck out of our money and the Chandler Construction signs on it, as well.” She looked to Clayton, who confirmed the private purchase.
“Whatever,” Jeremiah answered, not having a comeback. “But the business—”
Cecilia looked to Clayton, who was clearly uncomfortable in the situation. Jeremiah was considerably bigger than him. And, as Clayton had stated earlier, he rarely won an argument.
“Per the stipulations in JJ’s will, the business went to Joey. Brittany received an equal and fair share of the estate. The will was not contested.” To give him a moment to catch up, she asked, “Agreed?”
“Yes, but—” Jeremiah started.
“Upon Joey Chandler’s death, his will stipulates that all of his assets go to his wife, me. This is typical.” She looked to Clayton for confirmation. He nodded. “You will not win if you attempt to contest Joey’s will.”
Feeling defeated, Jeremiah’s face became red. “Why would you want to stay?”
She ignored his question. “I think we are through.” She opened the trailer door and signaled for him to leave. He stood motionless.
“Jeremiah, I think she’s made her point,” Randy said.
Feeling the weight of the three of them glaring at him, four if you counted Ferris, and having no recourse, he made for the trailer’s door. He had never expected an argument. Brittany and he had expected she’d be out of the town once she could pack up her stuff. And leave it all to them.
He stopped inches from Cecilia. Puffing his chest out, he said, “You need to leave.”
Cecilia held her own. “No, Jeremiah, it is you who needs to leave.” Ferris growled.
They glared at each other until Randy interrupted. “Jeremiah, you need to go, now.”
Jeremiah shot each of them a look before exiting the trailer. “You hate everything about here! Why are you staying?” he screamed as Randy slammed the door.
Randy and Clayton watched her, waiting for a response. Cecilia didn’t speak but knew the answer. Joey loved his father. He never planned to move back to Folley to run the business. But his father’s dying wish was that he would. So he did. Joey honored his father through maintaining the business.
Cecilia would do the same, for the both of them.
CHAPTER 28
The Chandler house was the only place the Sewell team had found to work in peace. They had consulted the hotel about renting out their meeting space but the manager did not appear pleased at the prospect. He said any support of the defense was bad for business. The only reason the hotel’s general manager hadn’t evicted them was because he was afraid of Sewell and possible litigation.
They greeted Cecilia when they arrived and then went to their separate spaces. Cecilia to her office and Wyatt, Abigail, and Michael to their new office.
“What did you find out about Robert Gabbert?” Wyatt asked.
“Not much,” Michael answered. “I don’t understand the push for the information. Don’t we have our hands full worried about Mrs. Chandler, without finding out about this Gabbert kid?”
“One, he’s not a kid. He was eighteen,” Wyatt corrected him.
“What could we do with the information anyway? You know bashing the victim never sits well with the jury,” Abigail added.
“I know,” Wyatt conceded “But I want to know more. On the way here, one of the media reports said he didn’t have a criminal record.” Wyatt sipped his coffee. “And the mayor? The mayor’s office only comment is ‘no comment.’ That’s odd, isn’t it? Shouldn’t Mayor Townsend be using this publicity to further his career? Shouldn’t he be the one holding the press conferences praising his nephew’s virtues?”
“That’s cold, Wyatt. Even for you,” Abigail told him as she sat down.
“Briscoe really pushed the no criminal record as an adult. And he’d been an adult for exactly how long?” Wyatt asked.
Abigail scrolled through her paperwork, “Twelve days.”
Wyatt smiled. “You know what that means…”
“Juvenile record,” Michael answered.
“That is sealed,” Abigail reminded them.
“Well, we’ll get it unsealed.”
“Daniel Briscoe, here to see you,” the mayor’s secretary said into her desk phone. Briscoe hovered over her desk while he waited to be led into Townsend’s office.
She nodded and said “Yes, sir” twice, before ending with, “I’ll tell him, sir.”
She hung up the phone and looked at Briscoe. “The mayor is full today, Mr. Briscoe. He cannot see you.” She made no attempt to reschedule the prosecutor, as her boss had instructed her.
Briscoe pointed to the empty calendar on her desk. “Looks like the day is open to me.” He looked around the empty office. “No waiting appointments,” he added, pointing to the empty chairs. “I think he can spare a few minutes for the man prosecuting his nephew’s killer.”
“No,” she yelled as he marched for the mayor’s office door. “I’m calling security,” she called out as he opened the door.
Mayor Townsend was sitting at his desk, staring out the window. He knew he wouldn’t be able to get rid of Briscoe so easily. “Don’t call security, Mabel,” he instructed her. “The media would love that,” he mumbled.
“Has your schedule opened up, Mayor Townsend?”
“I’m a busy man, Briscoe. What—”
“Yes, I know you’re busy.” Briscoe pointed at the mayor’s empty desk. “Too busy to make it to the press conference. Too busy to answer my phone calls. Too busy to take this meeting.”
Mayor Townsend swiveled his chair from the window. “What do—”
“Too busy to answer any of the media’s inquiries for an interview. Only time for your secretary to say ‘No comment.’”
“What do you want—”
Briscoe sat across from him. “The media is going to start asking questions. They can only go with the grieving uncle supporting his distraught sister story for so long, Mayor.”
Briscoe finally let him get out the full question.
“What do you want, Briscoe?”
“Your support,” he answered.
“My support?” the mayor spat back. “You should have asked for ‘my support’ before you arrested Mrs. C
handler.”
Briscoe glared at Mayor Townsend, indignant that the mayor would think he was Briscoe’s superior. “I don’t have to ask for the mayor’s permission to arrest a killer.”
“And you don’t need my support for a trial.”
“It will help.” Briscoe couldn’t understand the mayor’s resistance. This could help them both. A high-profile trial could bolster both of their careers.
“Help who?” Townsend asked.
Briscoe leaned forward and smiled. “Both of us, of course.”
“The best thing would have been to never arrest her. The best thing now, for both of us, is to plead this out. Come on, I read the file, it’s not murder two.”
Briscoe didn’t think now, as he was trying to garner the mayor’s support, would be a good time to point out the mayor was not a lawyer. “I have a good case.”
“And what did Chief Owens say?” the mayor asked. “If he thought it was murder, he would have arrested her at the scene.”
Another non-lawyer, Briscoe thought. “I will win this case.” He returned to his upright posture. “I would like your support. The whole town is behind the prosecution.”
“The whole town wasn’t called every time Bobby was arrested, or after every run-in with the law, when we swept it under the rug. That kid was a thorn in my side since he hit teendom.”
Briscoe ignored him and continued to argue his case. “You and your sister sitting behind me is very powerful to the jury.”
“Forget about it.” Mayor Townsend shook his head. “My sister can do whatever she wants. You can talk to her yourself. She can look at his coffin and see the perfect boy she thought he’d be. I remember the monster he was becoming.”
“Mayor—”
It was Mayor Townsend’s time to interrupt Briscoe. “We’re done here. I’m done with Bobby.” He pointed Briscoe to the door. “I did all I could for that boy when he was alive.”
Briscoe plodded into the office, frustrated for not having gotten what he wanted with the mayor. He didn’t say anything to Marcy as he walked past her desk. She kept her head down. Twenty minutes later, a motion was delivered to the office.
Marcy walked into Briscoe’s office carrying the official paperwork. “Chandler trial,” she announced.
“As if there were any of other cases,” he said.
He knew there were plenty of other cases but he had no interest in any of them. He read the motion while she stood at his desk, awaiting orders.
“At least this one I expected,” Briscoe said as he read the brief. “Juvenile record. Not going to win this one, Sewell.” He smiled at the paperwork. “I know I can win this one. Juvenile record? What juvenile record?”
CHAPTER 29
Cecilia sat at the kitchen island, moving the peas around on her plate. She wasn’t hungry. She looked out onto the patio. If Joey were here, they’d be sitting on those old patio chairs. Those old, uncomfortable, avocado green metal patio chairs. She had wanted to replace them since they’d moved in. But he’d said no. He liked them, nostalgia from his youth. So there they remained.
Her phone tinged with an incoming text. Glad for a distraction, she clicked on the attached link. She quickly regretted it.
A news conference began. She recognized the prosecutor, Briscoe, and his assistant, Marcy, standing on the courthouse’s steps. She didn’t know the woman who stood to Briscoe’s left.
Briscoe started the news conference. “Thank you all for coming. We wanted to give an update on the case.” He quieted the reporters, who were shouting questions, and introduced the woman by his side. “This is Peggy Gabbert, the mother of the innocent boy murdered in cold blood by Ms. Chandler.”
Cecilia gasped but continued watching as he stepped aside and Peggy walked up to the podium. She pulled out a piece of paper from her pocket and started to read from it. “My son, Robert Gabbert, was a kind young boy.” The tears started and overwhelmed her until she could only mutter, “My boy, my boy.” She cried at the podium, photographers snapping her picture, until Marcy helped her away.
Briscoe returned to the podium. “I have promised Mrs. Gabbert I will seek justice for her boy.” The reporters shouted questions at him. Most were about Sewell. He repeated one. “Scared of facing Mr. Sewell in the courtroom?” He looked directly into the camera and answered. “No, I’m not scared.” Cecilia believed him. She was the one who was scared.
With the press conference over, the screen faded to black.
Cecilia sat at the kitchen counter, with her head in her hands, staring at the dark screen. She scolded herself for clicking on the link her sister had sent. She should have known better. Janna would not have sent her something to make her feel better.
A month after Joey’s funeral, Janna had sent a link for an online dating site. “Not getting any younger, sis.”
Thoughtless. Inappropriate. Cruel.
This link had been the same.
Ferris heard Holden before she did. He started running to the door before Holden gently tapped on the glass. She wiped her face before getting up to open the door. Ferris was licking the glass by the time she got there.
“Not as stealth this time,” she told him.
“I was there a minute before Ferris saw me,” he said. “You were crying.” And he didn’t know what to do. Holden stood watching her, wanting to comfort her but not knowing how. He had debated leaving but he didn’t want to.
She shooed him off. “It’s okay.” She turned and he followed her into the house.
“No, it’s not.” He opened his mouth to ask what had caused the tears. The list was lengthy.
She answered before he could. “I…I watched the news conference.”
“Which one?” Holden asked.
Ferris started running around the kitchen island. Cecilia pointed to his treat jar and Holden got one out and he gave it to Ferris, once he sat for it. “The one the prosecutor held. My sister sent it to me.”
He sighed. The news conference had been days ago. What kind of person sends that to their sister? Cecilia had said she hadn’t been watching any of the media accounts. She said she rarely watched news before, why start now. Holden had encouraged her news boycott.
“Try to forget about it,” he told her.
“Forget about it?” She sat on a stool and looked at Holden. “How? If you know a way to forget this whole year, please fill me in.” He squirmed. He had no helpful response. “Mr. Briscoe said I killed an innocent boy. That…that can’t be true. He attacked me. He was going to rape me. I’m not making that up.”
“Robert Gabbert was no innocent boy, Cecilia.” Briscoe had wanted him at the news conference. “United force,” he had said. But, like Mayor Townsend, Holden refused. He wouldn’t have been able to hold his tongue while Briscoe spoke positively about Gabbert.
“Robert Gabbert. I didn’t even know his name before the press conference.” She took a deep breath trying to prevent an onslaught of tears. “Does that make me an awful person? I didn’t even know his name.”
“No, it doesn’t make you an awful person Cecilia.” He reached for her hand and gave it a reassuring squeeze. “You’ve had enough on your mind.”
“His mother. His poor mother. Standing behind him, crying for ‘her boy’.” Cecilia got up and started pacing. Ferris joined her. “I don’t know what to do.”
Holden reached for her but Ferris reached him first. He petted the dog and tried to calm Cecilia. “There’s nothing you can do.”
Her boy, what bull, Holden thought. The last time Gabbert was arrested his mother didn’t even come down to the station to visit. She made no attempts to bail him out. She let him sit in jail. They all knew, the whole town knew, that was where he had belonged.
Ferris, bored with Holden, rejoined Cecilia’s pacing. “Mr. Briscoe said he was a good kid. No criminal record.”
Holden rolled his eyes. No adult criminal record because he had turned eighteen the week before. His juvenile record was the largest he had ever seen.
She stopped and looked at Holden. “You believe me, don’t you?” she asked. “He attacked me. They’ll believe me, won’t they?”
“Do I believe you? Of course I do. I saw you.” Holden tried not to picture her bruised and beaten body. Her face’s bruises were healing and had begun turning green. “I knew him.” Holden couldn’t expand on that. He didn’t think she needed, or wanted, to know Gabbert’s exploits.
Holden reached for her hand again but thought better of it. “I know you…I know you did what you had to.” Ferris nuzzled against his leg and he got up to get him another treat. “Let’s talk about something else.”
“Something else?” she asked. “What else is there to talk about?”
Holden searched his brain for anything to change the subject. “Tell me something about your husband.” He regretted his choice. After his divorce, after a string of bad dates, his sister had given him some dating rules. Dating Advice 101, she called it. Rule number one: never talk about the exes. He looked at Cecilia and tried to remind himself this was not a date.
She sighed. “You start. Tell me something about your…your what?”
“My ex-wife Annabelle?” He searched his brain for something nice to say. He searched for anything that might help Cecilia but came up empty. Instead, he told her, “She was good at putting people at ease. Far better than me.”
“You’re a police officer. Of course no one feels at ease around you.” Cecilia laughed. Holden laughed in agreement. “Now you, something about Joey.”
Her eyes drawn to the chairs again, she told him, “Joey loved those chairs.”
“Those chairs?” Holden asked, pointing to the patio. “They’re hideous.”
Her eyes bulged, surprised he had agreed so heartily. “I know!”
Holden walked over to the sliding glass door for a better look. “They look uncomfortable.”
“They are!” she agreed. “But he loved them. Something about them being from his childhood. He said sitting in them made him feel like a child again.”
