A Mother's Lie

by Jo Crow

  I swear, if Dr. Thatcher didn’t insist I write these things down, I’d explode. There’s only so much one man can handle. Don’t they understand? I’m human. I have human needs. Being worked like this isn’t healthy, and I’m looking for relief. That’s all. Not love, not commitment, not a new life, not anything.

  It’s infuriating beyond words that every good thing in my life ends up turning out so wrong. Why is it everything sours? Why can’t I have one goddamn break?

  March 30, 1997

  Rachel keeps pushing. She won’t leave me alone. What am I supposed to do? How am I supposed to get through this when I’m already pushed to my limits? I’m not a goddamn superhero. I don’t have time to put up with this shit.

  I’m going to have to find a way to end it. There are other women who understand what I need and who won’t give me problems like this. Getting involved with her was a mistake. I should have known it from the look in her eyes.

  I’m so goddamn stupid.

  April 2, 1997

  She’s dead.

  My hand shook as I went to turn the page. Was I jumping to conclusions? I had to be. It wasn’t a confession of guilt. It wasn’t. But no matter what it was, it made me want to slam the book closed and never open it again.

  I turned the page anyway.

  April 5, 1997

  I can’t do this anymore. I can’t do any of it. Why the hell does it always have to be so hard?

  May 20, 1997

  Blake Harwood has gone. Amanda Harwood has left. There’s nothing now but her, and the guilt of knowing what I’ve done. How the hell am I supposed to keep it together when every day I feel like I’m falling apart? Dr. Thatcher suggested I keep these journals as a way to mitigate my stress, but all they’re doing is making things worse. Why is it that putting paper to ink makes me cry like this? This wasn’t my fault, damn it. None of it is. And yet here I am, busy pulling things back together with no one else to help. My world is falling apart, and I’m the only one who can keep it together.

  I’m so damn tired of trying.

  I need a break. I need a miracle. I need anything to keep the spotlight off my family. Right now, we’re grieving the loss of an employee and a friend, and I need to make sure that every nosy journalist and rubbernecker knows it. No one will know. No one will come close to knowing. What happened will remain unspoken forever. I can’t handle anything else.

  What else can I do but throw myself back into work and keep this town united through this loss? Clara doesn’t sleep anymore. Glenda put her on Xanax, just to try to get her to close her eyes. She doesn’t talk.

  I fucking knew this would happen. I knew it.

  I knew it from the first moment she came into my office with fire in her eyes.

  Now here I am. Guilty, stunted, and struggling. Things will never be the same.

  And I have no one to blame but myself.

  The rest of the pages were torn out of the notebook, but I didn’t care. I’d read enough. The book fell onto my lap, and I covered my mouth with my scraped palm to hold back a scream that died in my stomach. Nausea hit, and it hit hard.

  The book tumbled from my lap as I staggered to my feet and lurched for the bathroom. I barely made it to the toilet before the bile rose up my throat, and as I clutched the porcelain so tightly my knuckles turned white, I was violently ill. The bitter, stinging taste gave me no solace.

  Rachel Harwood hadn’t killed herself.

  My father had killed her to save his reputation.

  She was murdered.

  For a while, I sat on the bathroom floor and clutched the toilet seat. I couldn’t bring myself to get up. It felt like if I moved, my stomach would twist into knots and void itself all over again. The last time I’d been so sickened by life, I’d just found out my son had months to live.

  How could my father have done that? What kind of cruel, heartless monster raised me?

  After what felt like an eternity, I found the strength to get up from the bathroom floor. Knees close to buckling, I anchored myself on the sink and ran the water.

  Did my mother know?

  Did Jerry know?

  The question haunted me; after I’d rinsed out my mouth, and cleaned my nose as best I could, I sank onto the toilet and tried to figure it out. Had he been keeping a murderer safe all these years? Or, like me, had he only gone through the journals closest to my father’s disappearance in an attempt to figure out what was going on in 2007?

  I didn’t know.

  I couldn’t know.

  I wasn’t sure I wanted the answer.

  Why was Rachel Harwood’s death ruled a suicide? Had my father paid off the coroner? How had he made it look like it was an intentional act instead of an attack?

  There was so much more to know, and so much I knew I’d never find out. The mystery was opening out, starting to unravel, but I knew I needed to keep tugging at the loose ends until I figured it out.

  My father was a bad, bad man. I didn’t doubt it any longer.

  But just how dark was his soul?

  23

  There was no filming the next morning. I arrived at the set to find Samuel in an uproar—overnight, someone had broken into one of the trailers and smashed the recording equipment. None of the footage had been damaged, which meant we hadn’t lost any of the shots already taken, but there was no way to record anything new until the interns came back from Charlotte with new equipment.

  It meant I had the day off, and after what I’d been through the previous night, I needed it.

  Heidi handed me a cup of coffee and squeezed my shoulder reassuringly as I headed back to my car. She said nothing, but her kindness was unmistakable, and it gave me the courage to keep going.

  I had some phone calls to make.

  Too sick to my stomach to sleep, I’d been up all night thinking about what I’d read, and how best to process what I was feeling. I’d come to the conclusion I could never let it go without making an attempt to make things right. If it meant dragging my name through the mud, that was fine. My reputation couldn’t exactly sink any lower. My father didn’t deserve to be thought of as a hero—an unwitting victim to a crime he didn’t deserve. The victims were my mother, who hadn’t asked for a husband who was unfaithful, and Rachel Harwood, who’d been killed because she was set to reveal what a treacherous man my father was.

  Rachel deserved justice. If I couldn’t bring my mother’s killer to justice, I could at least bring hers.

  I needed to call the coroner.

  It was unlikely anyone who’d worked on Rachel’s case would still be working at the county office—at least, I hoped not. As I sat in my car with the doors locked in a fast food parking lot half an hour away from town, phone to my ear, I said a silent prayer that if I poked at the case enough, one of the new coroners would find details that had been glossed over in the records that would shade the circumstances of her death in doubt.

  The call connected, and a young man spoke. “Buncombe County Coroner’s Office, Jeff speaking. How may I assist you?”

  “Hi, Jeff. I’m hoping you can help me with some records.”

  In North Carolina, the text and findings of death records were part of the public record. Images, video, and other such detail could be revealed at the coroner’s discretion, but I hoped all I needed would be the text transcripts.

  “Sure. Which records are you looking for?”

  “I’m looking for the records of a woman by the name of Rachel Harwood, date of death, April 2nd, 1997.”

  “1997!” Jeff whistled low. “Ma’am, we keep ten years of records on hand. I’m afraid the records from 1997 have already been sent to the archives. If you like, I can fill out a request to have them retrieved, but it’s going to take a while.”

  “Please do. I’d really like to see them.”

  “Certainly.” I heard typing from the other end. “I’ll need to take your information. Someone from the office will get back in touch once the information has been recovered from storage.�
��

  The request was going better than I’d anticipated—a small stroke of good luck in an otherwise trying time. I gave Jeff my information, then asked him: “Will I be receiving the text transcripts only, or will any accompanying resources be included?”

  “Most of the time, the office keeps supporting documents out of the public eye, but a case this old? I don’t see the harm in sharing the whole thing, if you’re interested.”

  Jeff was an angel. He had to be. After my hostile reception in Hickory Hills, it was good to have a conversation with a man who didn’t think I was the devil incarnate or the scum of the earth.

  “Thank you so much.” My smile shone through in my voice.

  “Is there anything else I can do for you, ma’am?”

  “No. That’s it.”

  “Well, I’m going to let you go, then.” I heard the smile in Jeff’s voice, too. “Thank you for your inquiry. You’ll hear back from us in several business days.”

  “You’re a star. Thank you. Have a fantastic day.”

  “You too, ma’am.”

  I beamed, feeling like I was one step closer to shaking loose the nauseating guilt in my soul.

  With that call out of the way, I prepared for my second order of business. After reading my father’s journals, I realized there was still an avenue left unexplored. Lucian Vincelli, the accountant mentioned in my father’s recollections, had dealt with the McNair Furniture accounts payable for years. There was a chance he still had company records and, if he did, I hoped I could delve into them further to figure out what key players my father had worked with, and which ones he’d pissed off the most. If I could trace spending, I could figure out names, and from there I could investigate who was still in the area, and who might still have a grudge on the McNair family after all these years. It would solve one of my two problems, at least. Removing the murderer’s power over me meant I’d have some semblance of safety. Diffusing the threat from the townsfolk would take more time and energy, I reasoned, but proving my innocence may convince them I wasn’t the evil force they made me out to be.

  After finding out about the way my father ran his business, and the criminal ways he was willing to deal with Rachel Harwood, there was no longer any doubt in my mind that he’d been dealing with the wrong kind of people. I just needed to figure out who.

  The drive to Vincelli & Associates was lengthy, but only because I’d gone out of my way to get out of town. I was bold, but I wasn’t bold enough to tempt fate again, even if I was armed. My car doors stayed locked, and if I could leave town limits, I did so. Amanda’s pep talk had infused me with the courage I needed to continue on with filming, but no matter how confident I felt, I knew there was resentment toward me that wouldn’t go away. Keeping a distance was the safest.

  But finding out what Vincelli & Associates had to say was even more important.

  The ramshackle buildings along the street gave way to the carefully maintained facade of Vincelli & Associates. I pulled into the parking lot and parked, then observed the building from the safety of my locked car. I’d never had the chance to visit the actual building—after my father’s death, Vincelli had split from McNair Furniture in order to open his own firm. By the looks of it, he’d branched out and done quite well.

  If he had associates, I imagined there was quite a demand for accounting services. He must have found an underserved niche. Tiny, rural businesses in our backwoods back of North Carolina needed assistance, too, I guessed. Driving to the city to do business wasn’t feasible.

  After a long look, deciding there was no immediate danger, I unbuckled and left the car. The revolver Amanda had given me was strapped to my hip, a silent symbol that I was not going to sit idly by anymore. The weight of it was foreign on my thigh, but it was reassurance—I finally had my life under control.

  I wasn’t going to let anyone intimidate me anymore.

  A bell rang when I opened the door to Vincelli’s lobby. A slender, middle-age woman looked up from the desk and smiled at me. Her face was unfamiliar, and her smile was genuine. She must have been a transplant, come to work for the Vincelli office from elsewhere, because I didn’t feel any hostility from her at all.

  “Welcome to Vincelli & Associates. How might I help you today?”

  “I’m hoping to speak briefly with Lucian Vincelli. Is he in?” I knew it was a long shot, but I had to try.

  The woman worried her bottom lip, then looked down at a spiral notebook on her desk. With a click of her tongue she leafed back a few pages, squinted at the page, then looked back up. “Mr. Vincelli is available this morning. He should be arriving in—”

  The bell over the door rang, and I looked over my shoulder to find a short, rotund man on his way through the door. The tip of his bulbous nose was red, and his face was flushed from the summer heat. He wore a button-down shirt and tie, but no suit jacket. Long, wispy hair was combed over an otherwise bald head.

  “Good morning, Mr. Vincelli,” the woman at the front desk said. “This young lady is here to see you. Do you think you can take a second to speak to her in your office?”

  Lucian Vincelli looked me over. His eyes were round, and I wasn’t sure if it was the heaviness of his brow or the roundness of his cheeks that made them stand out so much. With a sigh, Lucian waved a hand in a manner that suggested I was to follow him, then trudged across the lobby and down a short hallway. I nodded to the woman at the desk in parting as I followed him. She nodded back.

  “So,” Lucian said as he fitted a key in the doorknob of one of the hallway doors. The door opened, and he pushed his way inside. “I don’t think I have your appointment written down in my calendar. What is it you need from me?”

  I followed him through the door and eased it shut behind me, suddenly tongue-tied. I knew there was nothing to be nervous about, but a feeling of dread settled in my bones and left me restless. I shifted my shoulders back and forth to try to work out some of my discomfort, then closed the space between the door and Lucian’s desk and sat at the chair he left out for clients. “I need to ask you some questions about an old account of yours.”

  “An old account?” Lucian raised an eyebrow. The red on his cheeks seemed to glow. “Accounts are strictly confidential, miss.”

  “I know, but… I’m the inheritor. I need to look into the McNair Furniture accounts.”

  Lucian’s round eyes widened. He leaned forward on his elbows and squinted at me as if he was seeing me for the first time. “Clara?”

  “Clara McNair,” I confirmed with a sad smile. “I’d really appreciate it if you could help me look into the account, especially any instances where large balances were left unpaid.”

  Lucian whistled low under his breath and sat back in his chair. He rocked back and forth slowly, folding his hands over his stomach. “I can’t believe it. Clara McNair. The little girl I saw from time to time in the picture on your father’s desk has grown up.”

  “Can you help me with the account or not?” I asked. “I’m sorry to be short, but I’ve got a lot going on, and not a lot of time to do it in.”

  Lucian waved a hand dismissively. He rose from his chair, and it creaked in protest. Then, in no rush, he wandered over to a filing cabinet and fitted a key into its lock. “You know, if it wasn’t for your father, I would never have come to Hickory Hills. Now look. I’ve got my own business here, grown from the roots up. It’s a nice town. Disparaged, sure, but perfectly situated to hit all the small towns in the Buncombe county area, not to mention all the other mountain towns in close proximity. Perfectly located. And beautiful. The fall weather? I can’t get enough.”

  I listened as Lucian rattled on about nothing in particular. His chubby fingers sorted through document after document, until at last he lifted a fat folder from the cabinet and carried it to the desk. It hit the desk with a thunk, and I looked up at Lucian, looking for guidance. There was no way I could go through the whole thing in one day.

  “These are the records I have on hand for McN
air Furniture,” Lucian said. He settled back into his chair, and it groaned and creaked. “Many of the older records were destroyed, but since the ten-year anniversary is this year, I’ve still got some data left.”

  “Right.” I sucked in a breath. “Is there any way you can help me get through it, or maybe point me in the right direction?”

  “It depends on what you’re looking for.” Lucian opened the folder, exposing the first few documents. I had no idea what I was looking at. “Ask, and I’ll see what I can do.”

  It was a risk to ask a man responsible for my father’s accounts to direct me to any inconsistencies—I realized—but, at that point, it was a risk I was willing to take. If Lucian did have ties to any criminal activity, he’d know what I was setting out to do sooner or later—I’d rather he know sooner, so I could nip any nastiness before it could nip me. “In addition to outstanding balances, I’m looking for inconsistencies—weird money going out, or coming in. Is that something you remember?”

  Lucian snorted. “Well, I can tell you right away there was one thing your father did with his money I could never understand.”

  “What was it?”

  Lucian flipped through the stack of papers and eased out an invoice spanning the course of 2004. He laid it flat in front of me. “This, for example. Three thousand dollars a month to the family of an employee who killed herself on his property. I told him there was no way he’d be facing a lawsuit over a suicide; but he insisted, out of the kindness of his own heart, he’d send the guardian of her next-of-kin a stipend each month until the child turned eighteen. It was a kind thing to do, but it was a stupid move. That money would have been much better invested elsewhere.”

  There was no need to check the name of the recipient on the invoice—I already knew who Lucian was talking about. After Rachel Harwood died, and Blake Harwood left town, Amanda had gone to live with her much older aunt, Susan.

  The money only confirmed what I already understood to be the truth—my father was guilty; he killed Rachel, and he was trying to absolve himself by sending Amanda’s family money.