by Lauren Carr
“You got it.” Grunting, Officer Brewster tugged on the cabinet.
“Nate? Who’s Nate?” Sirrus asked with a firm tone.
“Officer Brewster is helping Edna retrieve her office supply catalogue,” David explained.
“Maybe that’s why you haven’t found Eugene’s killer yet,” Sirrus said. “You and your officers are too busy hanging around here eating our food and sniffing around the women. Do you have any idea how heartbroken every member of our church has been since Eugene got murdered? That man was the backbone of this church and someone walked in and blew him away. Where were your officers then, Chief? Sniffing around some woman somewhere or eating donuts someplace?”
Ignoring the insult, David asked, “Have you heard from your wife, Mr. Thorpe?”
“Nope. Doubt if I will.” Sirrus jerked his head in Brewster’s direction. “So why don’t you take Nate here and go look for her?”
With a squeal of success, Edna stood up and waved the catalogue in the air. She and Officer Brewster bumped fists before clasping their hands together to thrust them into the air in a sign of victory.
“You would call me if you did?” David interrupted Sirrus’ glare to ask.
“Why wouldn’t I?” Sirrus asked. “I despised that woman. Only reason I married her was because she lied and told me that she was pregnant. … I should have learned then to never believe a word that came out of her lying mouth.” Grumbling, he turned around and went out the door.
“You coming, O’Callaghan?” Ed Willingham came down the hallway to fetch him.
“Sure, Ed.”
When they passed the office where the chief trustee had been murdered, Ed asked over his shoulder about their progress on that case.
“We have a BOLO issued on a suspect,” David said. “So far all that we’ve dug up is an idiot.”
“At least you have a suspect,” Ed said.
“Mac doesn’t?” David asked.
“Nothing that’s panned out.” Ed paused at the office door. They could hear the women talking inside. “But they suspect the killer hid out in the neighbor’s garden while waiting for Fairbanks to be left alone—after Ruth left—before making his move.”
“Why does he think that?” Bogie asked from where he had folded his massive frame to sit in a comfy padded chair on the opposite side of the comfortable office decorated in soft lilac.
On the long sofa, Ruth and Natalie huddled on either side of Jenny, who continually dabbed at her eyes with a damp tissue while clinging to her granddaughter’s hand. Ruth clutched the elderly woman’s arm.
“Forensics had found traces of plant fertilizer at the murder scene.” Willingham pressed the button on his cell phone to call Mac.
When Mac answered on the other end, the lawyer advised him that he was putting him on speaker phone. “Jennifer Fairbanks is here, Mac. She has agreed to answer any questions you have about her son’s murder.”
“Not that I know very much,” Jenny said. “Reese and the police immediately focused on Ruth and refused to consider anyone else, even when I insisted that she would never kill Jason.”
Mac’s voice came from the speaker of Ed’s cell phone. “But you found the body and called the police. You got there shortly after four o’clock. You called nine-one-one at four-oh-four.”
“That was less than a half hour after we left,” Natalie said.
“Did you see anyone leaving the house as you arrived?” Mac asked. “Maybe you saw someone heading over toward the neighbor’s house, through her gardens.”
Jenny was shaking her head when Ruth asked, “Do you mean Mrs. Weber?”
“Yes,” Mac said. “There were traces of her special fertilizer found in footprints on the floor and on the gun.”
“Well,” Ruth said slowly, “if the killer was hiding in the garden, wouldn’t Mrs. Weber have seen him or her?”
“She told the police that she didn’t see or hear anything,” Mac said. “I’m thinking that means she was inside the house at the time of the murder.”
“That’s not true,” Natalie blurted out.
“Natalie …” Ruth warned.
“But, Mom, she heard the shots,” her daughter argued. “Don’t you remember? She came running up the driveway when you came running out of the house.” She directed her voice in the direction of Ed’s cell phone for Mac to hear. “She was not inside her house. She was outside gardening. She was wearing her gardening gloves. I saw her putting them back on when we were driving away.”
“Gardening gloves?” Mac repeated. “Are you sure?”
Natalie nodded her head. “She asked if everything was all right and if we wanted her to call the police again. Mom said it was fine and not to call the police. She told you to go, Mom. Don’t you remember? She came running up because she heard the shots. She had, too. I heard them.”
“You heard the shots?” Ed asked. “How many shots did you hear?”
“Two,” Natalie said firmly. “Not real close together like you hear in the movies. One. And then there was this awful silence and I was afraid Mom was dead. I didn’t even know she had a gun. And then the second. Then Mom came running out. I was afraid Dad would be behind her.”
“Let me get this straight,” Mac said. “You, Natalie, heard two shots. The neighbor, Mrs. Weber, came running up the driveway and asked if she should call the police, which, according to the record, she had done many times before when Fairbanks would hit you or your mother. Ruth told her that everything was fine and that she had to go. Mrs. Weber then said for you to go … Yet, after the murder, she told the police that she saw and heard nothing.”
“That’s what it sounds like,” Ed said.
“Why don’t you talk to Mrs. Weber?” Ruth asked. “If the killer was hiding in her garden—”
“Unfortunately, Mrs. Weber is dead,” Mac said.
“How awful.” Ruth hung her head. “I know that if there was any way for her to help, she would have. She was a very kind lady. She knew everything that was happening. She offered more than once to testify for me in court to get Jason put away.”
“Then why did she lie, Mom?” Natalie asked. “She told the police that she saw and heard nothing and that’s a lie! Why did she lie?”
“Maybe Reese got to her,” Jenny said. “I wouldn’t be surprised.”
“She must have lied to protect me,” Ruth said. “She heard the shots. She must have assumed I killed Jason and said she knew nothing so that she couldn’t be made to testify against me.”
“Maybe,” Mac said in a low voice.
“Can I ask a question?” David blurted out.
“If it will help to clear things up,” Ed responded.
David crossed the office to stand over the three women huddled on the sofa. “Jenny, why did you go to see your son that afternoon?”
Jenny gazed up at the police chief. “I don’t quite remember.”
David folded his arms across his chest. “You don’t remember? You found your only son dead. Yet, you have no memory of why you went over to see him?”
Ruth and Natalie turned to look at the older woman.
“Ruth,” David asked, “did your mother-in-law have a tendency to stop in to visit very often?”
“Not really. She and Jason didn’t have a good relationship.” Ruth gazed over at Jenny. “Why did you come over? You called the police shortly after four? Jason usually worked until five o’clock. Why would you come to the house at four to see him?”
“Tell them, Jenny,” David said. “You’re safe here. Your husband is in jail and we’re all here to protect you. Tell them.”
“Tell us what?” Natalie asked.
Jenny hung her head while tears streamed down her face.
Sensing the woman needed comforting, Gnarly climbed out from under the coffee table to place his head in Jenny’s lap. She stro
ked the top of his head while he gazed up at her.
David told Ruth and Natalie, “She went to your house to do whatever she had to do to ensure that you two were able to get away. It was Jenny who arranged for the fake identification and gave you the money and set up this job to help you to escape from her son. She sent the gun to Ruth to protect herself against her own son.”
In shock, Ruth and Natalie stared at the woman sitting between them.
“Is that true, Jenny?” Mac’s voice came out of the phone.
“How did you figure that out, Chief?” Bogie asked.
“In the cruiser on the way over here,” David said. “In New York, they were Scarlett and Holly. That was what Jenny knew them as. But on the way here, you called them Ruth and Natalie. A natural reaction would have been for Jenny to ask, ‘Who’s Ruth and Natalie?’ But she didn’t, because she knew their new names already. She arranged for their new identities.”
“I had been saving money for years to run away,” Jenny said. “I had it all socked away. Stealing a little here and a little there. I planned so carefully how I was going to do it, too. No way was anyone ever going to find me and I was going to start a whole new life. But then, when Jason broke Holly’s arm—my only grandchild—and Reese helped him get away with it—then I knew I had to do something. The only thing I could do. But then, Scarlett ran away and took Holly with her.”
Sighing, she patted Ruth’s and Natalie’s hands. “I prayed every day that we would never find you. But then, Reese’s PI did and dragged you both back. After Jason raped his mistress and Reese helped him get away with that, too, things got worse. Jason became completely convinced that he was invincible. There was nothing that he couldn’t get away with and Reese did everything to confirm it.” She sniffed. “My son was gone—transformed into a monster. But I had a granddaughter. She still stood a chance.”
“It was you who saved us,” Ruth said with tears in her eyes.
“Yes, it was me,” Jenny said in a hushed tone. “Once I made my decision about what had to be done, I moved forward with my plan, only instead of me changing my identity and running away, it was my granddaughter and her mother. I remember I was so surprised with how easily it all came together. My church pastor arranged for the job here. He was the only one I trusted to know what I was planning to do. He had seen an advertisement in a church paper and believed that it was the answer to our prayers.”
“It was,” Ruth said. “Natalie and I have been so happy here.” She kissed her on the cheek. “Thank you, Jenny.”
“Don’t thank me,” Jenny said. “The gun was mine. I had gotten it years ago to protect myself from Reese—but I never had the nerve to use it.” She sobbed. “I never expected Scarlett to use it. I thought that Jason would back down once he saw it. How I wish I had never sent it to you.”
“I didn’t kill him, Jenny,” Ruth insisted.
“I know.” Jenny took her hand. “You didn’t kill him. Reese did, by raising him to be a monster, just like him. He put that bullet between our son’s eyes the minute he taught him that women were put on earth to be abused.”
The three of them collapsed into a sobbing mob.
Taking the cell phone with him, Ed gestured for David and Bogie to meet him outside to leave the women alone. In the hallway, Ed asked Mac, “Did you get all that? Still think that it’s possible that Madame X set Ruth up?”
There was a long silence on the other end of the line. “What do you think, David? You’re there. What did Jenny look like to you?”
“She’s genuinely remorseful for her son’s death and the way he had turned out,” David said. “She’s passionate about saving her granddaughter and Ruth.”
“I believe she’s carrying a heavy burden for not stopping her husband from turning him into the monster that he grew up to be,” Bogie said.
“Do you think she killed her son to save her granddaughter?” Ed asked.
“I think she would have confessed to that a long time ago if she did,” David said. “She feels responsible enough as it is for supplying them with the murder weapon.”
“Maybe she didn’t confess because she was afraid of what her husband would have done to her,” Ed said.
“Jenny didn’t do it,” Mac’s voice shot from the cell phone. “She didn’t kill her son.”
They could hear in the tone of his voice that realization had struck him.
“I know who did it,” Mac said. “I know who killed Jason Fairbanks. I just need Archie to dig up some information to prove motive.”
Chapter Twenty
The lawyers from the New York Attorney General’s office and New York State Police were still arm wrestling to determine who was in charge when Mac and Archie, equipped with reports and case files, barged in to speak to whoever it was that had the power to void the arrest warrant for Scarlett Fairbanks, aka Ruth Buchanan.
In the hallway leading to what had once been the county prosecutor’s office, FBI Special Agent Sid Delaney pointed them in the direction of Howard Stafford, who was standing behind the prosecutor’s desk in his spacious corner office like a conqueror staking his claim.
Mac was not happy to see that he looked to be about twelve years old. But he had to deal with him. With Archie directly behind him, Mac rushed in, “Mr. Stafford …” He offered him his hand. “Mac Faraday.”
Ignoring his hand, the young man with the baby face announced, “So you’re the one who started all this.”
“Kind of.” Offering a sheepish grin, Mac thumbed the two case files he hugged to his chest. “It had to be done. With all the years that Reese Fairbanks was running this county, there’s no telling how many people fell victim to the lack of justice here. I’m willing to bet Scarlett Fairbanks is just the tip of the iceberg. You have a lot of work to do.”
“That’s what I’m afraid of,” Stafford said. “Every conviction that Hawkins won can now be overturned, which means the state will need to retry them—if we have the manpower and time to do it.”
“Well, I think I have an easy one for you … if you’ll take the time to look at it with me.” Mac opened one of the case files and laid it down on his desk. “Scarlett Fairbanks. Hawkins issued an arrest warrant for the murder of her husband, Jason Fairbanks.”
“Reese Fairbanks’ son.” Stafford sat down behind the desk and turned the folder around to study the report.
“Right now, there are two detectives from here in Maryland waiting to take her into custody,” Mac said. “But I think once you see what I’ve uncovered, you’ll realize that she didn’t kill her husband. Someone else did and you can save your people a lot of time and money if you will file a motion to drop the charges and let those detectives come back to New York without her. And they can save you a lot more money by bringing back Reese Fairbanks, who the Spencer police are currently holding in their jail.”
“You’ll need to have some pretty convincing evidence to prove she didn’t do it, Faraday.”
“Scarlett Fairbanks took her daughter and left on the day of the murder,” Mac said. “She admits she shot her husband twice.” He held up two fingers. “Once in the shoulder and the second time in the leg. The autopsy report states that he would have survived those two shots. As a matter of fact, they were minor enough for him to get a dishtowel and apply pressure to his leg wound.”
Archie yanked a picture of the crime scene from her folder and handed it to the prosecutor. “The bloody dishtowel is right there, which proves that time passed between those two shots and the fatal one to the head.”
“So the killer is the one who fired the third shot,” Mac said.
“Do you know who that person is?” Stafford asked. “And do you have any proof that they did it?”
“Yes.”
“Who and what proof do you have?”
“Tuyon Weber,” Mac said, “the Fairbanks’ next door neighbor.”
“The neighbor? Why? Were they having some sort of—” Stafford looked up at Archie. “Do you have any proof that this Tu-guy did it?”
“Tuyon,” Mac said. “She was an elderly woman, a Vietnamese war bride, who came over to the United States in the seventies with her American husband.”
“According to the Fairbanks file,” Archie said, “she called the police dozens of times to report Jason Fairbanks for assaulting his wife and daughter. She argued with the police for not doing anything to stop it.”
“What made it especially frustrating for her was that she herself had been an abused wife, so she knew intimately what Scarlett was going through.” Mac opened up the second folder for Stafford to read.
Stafford pulled the file over to scan the information.
“These are hospital reports for Tuyon Weber,” Mac said. “She had been in and out of the hospital for broken bones for several years from the time she came to the states until her husband died after a long illness.”
“Her husband’s illness was never diagnosed,” Archie said, “but the symptoms are consistent with arsenic poisoning.”
“You may or may not want to exhume his body for an autopsy,” Mac said.
Stafford sat back in his seat. “So you’re thinking—”
“Tuyon Weber was working in the garden when she heard the shots,” Mac said. “She came running into the driveway to make sure Scarlett and her daughter were fine. They left. Then, determined to end their suffering, the same type of suffering that she had to endure for years, she went into the Fairbanks home where she found Jason tending to his gunshot wounds. Being the type of man he was, he probably said something abusive to set her off. Whatever happened, she knew that if he lived Scarlett and Holly would never truly be free.”
“Her niece told us that Tuyon had said that it was a tragedy that Jason Fairbanks had to die in order to set Scarlett and Holly free,” Archie said.
“So,” Mac said, “after Scarlett and Holly ran away, Tuyon Weber set them free by picking up the gun and killing Jason Fairbanks.”
