by Delia Parr
When Judy went to bed at eleven, she would set the bolt and chain back into place. If Candy was home by then, fine. If not, then Candy would get a very strong message when she tried to let herself in with her key. If Candy had not come home by morning…
She pushed that thought away because, frankly, she did not know what she would do or how she would explain Candy’s absence to Brian and concentrated on making Brian’s lunch. She lined three small plastic sandwich bags on the counter. After smearing chunky peanut butter and grape jelly on bread, she cut the sandwich into quarters and stored them inside the first bag. She peeled an orange, separated the sections and slipped them into the second bag before she emptied some yogurt-covered raisins into the last one then she put all three bags into the refrigerator.
After wiping down the counter, she took out the trash, remembered it was trash night and dragged the metal can to the curb behind the garage rather than trying to lug it all the way out front. By the time she got back to the kitchen door, her teeth were chattering and she was stiff with cold. She hurried inside, only to find her daughter standing at the sink filling the teakettle. She was still wearing the winter coat she had borrowed from Judy that morning.
Candy looked up and frowned. “It’s cold out there. You should be wearing a coat. Where were you?”
Judy’s temper was temporarily frozen, along with her hands. “Taking out the trash. Funny. I was just about to ask you the same thing. You told me you’d be home at six,” she snapped and glanced at the clock while she rubbed her hands together to warm them. “It’s quarter to nine.”
“Is Brian asleep?”
Judy frowned. “His bedtime is eight. Of course, he’s asleep,” she managed.
“I’m sorry, Mom. I would have called—”
“You should have called. Period.”
Without answering, Candy turned, set the teakettle on the stove and adjusted the flame on the burner. When she turned back, Judy saw that her daughter’s cheeks were chafed and her nose was almost scarlet, as if she had been out in the elements for way too long. “Look, Mom. I don’t want to fight. Can we please sit down and talk this out? Calmly?”
Feeling inappropriately chastised, Judy held her temper, which had thawed sufficiently, and her tongue, resisting reminding Candy who was at fault here. “Calmly?” she repeated. “Sure. But no lies. The truth is all I want to hear.”
Without removing her coat, Candy sat down first and shoved her hands into the coat pockets.
Judy took a seat across from her. “Go ahead. I’m listening.”
“It’s not my fault that I’m late,” Candy began.
The weight of déjà vu got a little heavier, but Judy kept her shoulders back and tried to keep an open mind.
“I got out of the interview and back to the train station by five-thirty. I got through the turnstiles, but I couldn’t get near the loading platform. There were police and paramedics everywhere. Apparently someone had fallen off the platform onto the tracks. At least, that’s what I heard. So I figured I’d go back up to the street and walk to the next stop, but the stupid machine took my ticket, and I didn’t have enough money left to buy another one.”
Candy’s tale sounded plausible enough, if indeed someone had fallen off the platform, but Candy always had such a flair for concocting dramatic excuses that Judy was not sure if her tale was true or not. She held silent and nodded for Candy to continue. When she did not, Judy finally asked, “Why didn’t you call me?”
Candy rolled her eyes. “Have you tried to find a pay phone lately? Half of them are disconnected and the other half are vandalized. At least, the few I found had been destroyed. The first thing I’m going to buy with my first paycheck is cell phones for both of us.”
“If you didn’t have enough money for another ticket and you couldn’t find a pay phone to call me or anyone else, how did you get home?”
“I had just enough to take a bus across the river. Then I walked.”
Judy gasped. “It’s not even twenty degrees outside. You walked? At this hour? It isn’t safe.”
“Next time I’ll take a cab and ask the driver to wait while I run inside to get money from you to pay for the ride. You’ve got an extra twenty or thirty dollars lying around, right?”
Judy was shaken by the idea her daughter had traipsed home in the dark through rough neighborhoods along dangerous highways and all the while, she’d been picturing Candy taking up her drug habit again. “Don’t be flip. I’d rather pay for a cab than a funeral,” Judy snapped.
Candy flinched, then studied her mother closely. “You…you thought I was out doing drugs again, didn’t you? Is that why you look so terrified and so guilty, all at the same time?”
Judy’s cheeks flamed. “I wish I could say the idea hadn’t occurred to me, but yes. I was worried you somehow had been disappointed by the interview—”
“And decided to feel better by getting high?”
Judy nodded, remembering her vow to be honest, whatever the cost.
With a sigh, Candy sat back in her chair. “I guess I can’t blame you for that. If our situations were reversed, I’d probably have thought the same thing. It’s not like it hasn’t happened before, right?”
“This isn’t going to be easy, is it?” Judy asked.
“What? Living together?”
“Yes, living together. Learning to trust you. Helping you, but not…enabling you,” she said, recalling the phrase she had learned previously, dealing with Candy’s addiction.
“You’re helping me a lot, Mom. I know that, but we can’t worry about every little thing we say or do. We just have to be honest with each other and take one day at a time. If something I do bothers you, you have to tell me so we can talk about it, and I’ll do the same.”
“I didn’t want to think the worst tonight, but I did,” Judy admitted. “I was scared, and when you told me you’d walked all the way home, I didn’t know what scared me more. Losing you to drugs again or losing you forever to some mugger or to a freak accident because your wallet was almost empty.”
Candy patted Judy’s hand. “You’re not going to lose me because I’m not going to lose me, all right? And if I feel like I’m starting to slide, I’ll tell you and I’ll do something about it.”
The teakettle whistled, and Candy got up from the table. Without asking, she poured boiling water into two mugs, added tea bags and put the mugs on the table. Judy watched as Candy set out the milk and sugar before she sat down again. “Aren’t you going to take off your coat?”
Candy wrapped her hands around her steaming mug. “Not until I drink this. I think my bones are frozen.”
“You’re lucky if your toes aren’t frostbitten.”
Candy chuckled and wrinkled her nose. “I could probably manage without a toe or two, but I think I’d look pretty funny without my nose. I kept switching hands, trying to keep my nose from freezing and falling off my face.”
“Very funny,” Judy murmured. “I’m not sure how we’ll swing it, but tomorrow I want you to look into getting some cell phones for us. As long as there’s no deposit—”
“I told you, Mom. I’m getting the cell phones for us with my first paycheck.”
“Right. Except your first paycheck, which Ann will be giving you Friday, won’t be enough. Besides, you need to start getting some warmer clothes, remember? Welleswood isn’t San Diego.”
Candy shivered and took a sip of tea. “You don’t have to remind me, but I wasn’t talking about my paycheck from the salon. I meant the paycheck I’ll be getting two weeks from Friday for my new job, assuming you can do without me at the salon.”
“Do without you? Why…?”
“I had an interview today, Mom. Remember?”
“Y-you got the job?”
“I got the job!” Grinning, she tapped her own shoulder.
“You are now looking at the newly employed Candy Martin, who will be reporting to work next Monday as the assistant to the assistant producer for the soon-to-b
e launched cable news show, All Around Town.”
Chapter Thirty
Early Tuesday morning, Barbara and John arrived at Whitman Commons, where John kept his office. Located within easy walking distance from the elevated train, the former school building had been renovated and turned into an office building a few years back. The sound of the trains rumbling by every seven or eight minutes during rush hour added a sense of urgency to a day already filled with anxiety.
They entered the building through the rear door and used a back staircase to avoid running into other people who were arriving for work in the other offices. When they reached the third floor, she followed him to his office. He had called his secretary last night and asked her to come in an hour later than usual so his office was dark and quiet when they arrived just before nine o’clock.
While he turned on the lights and the office equipment, Barbara hung their coats on a hall tree just inside the door. She paused, held on to the sleeve of her coat and closed her eyes. She had been waiting for months to hear what the police had determined to be the true circumstances of the day Steve had been killed and to learn who was responsible for his death. Now that the moment was nearly at hand, she was tempted to bolt. Run away. Disappear. Do something, anything that would make the dread pooling in the pit of her stomach and the awful visions her imagination had created go away.
She opened her eyes and let go of her coat sleeve. If she ran away now, the wrenching pain in her heart would never be eased and her desperate need to see justice done for Steve and the daughters he had left behind would never be satisfied. She had no choice. She had to stay and bear the pain today’s meeting would bring and pray that God’s love and mercy would sustain her now and in the challenging days ahead.
“We can wait in my office.”
She turned toward the sound of her husband’s voice. He was standing in the open doorway that connected his office with the waiting room where his secretary worked and greeted clients.
Detective Sanger entered the office before Barbara had a chance to join her husband. “I’m a little early. I’m glad you’re both here.” She slipped out of her ankle-length, quilted coat, stuffed her gloves into the pockets and hung it on the coat tree next to Barbara’s. In a dark pantsuit, she moved with an ease and confidence that Barbara envied in this moment, as knots were tightening in her stomach.
After they all stepped into John’s office, the petite detective closed the door and took control of the meeting. She signaled John and Barbara to sit in the club chairs that faced his desk. For herself, she pulled the executive chair out from behind John’s desk and joined them.
“We really appreciate your coming here,” John offered.
“It’s the worst part of my job and the best part,” she replied. “It’s been a long and tedious investigation, and I know it’s been hard for you to wait, but I’m hoping our meeting today will finally give you some peace of mind. You may not find it easy to hear the details we’ve learned about your son’s death, but I have to caution you that the process is far from over.”
Barbara reached over and took her husband’s hand. “We know.”
The detective continued. “The district attorney’s office may or may not be in touch with you later, but for now, let me assure you both that we wouldn’t have made the arrests yesterday unless we were absolutely certain and the district attorney’s office was satisfied that we had sufficient evidence to proceed.”
John squeezed Barbara’s hand. “We understand.”
Sitting upright, the detective watched both of them closely. “Despite anything you might read in the newspapers or see on the news, here’s what we believe happened. You’ve lived in South Jersey most of your lives, if not all, so I’m assuming you’re familiar with Senior Week at the shore?”
“That’s when the kids who are graduating from high school more or less invade the resort communities and generally run wild. We have some friends who have summer homes at the shore. We’ve heard the horror stories,” John replied.
The detective nodded. “It’s a rite of passage, of sorts, I suppose. There are hundreds of kids there from high schools in South Jersey as well as Philadelphia and beyond. It’s usually pretty harmless. Loud music. Big parties. Some underage drinking. The local police have clamped down in recent years, so it’s not as bad as it used to be.”
“I guess that depends on whether or not you happen to be on vacation that week or have a year-round home there and have to deal with all those kids,” John countered.
“What does Senior Week at the shore have to do with Steve’s death? He was killed in Philadelphia.”
“As a result of our investigation, we know that one of those kids at the shore was Jason Whittle. He hadn’t actually graduated. He’d dropped out of school in Philadelphia the previous February when he turned eighteen, but he decided to crash the scene and join up with some of his old friends who had graduated. That’s where he met Julia Radcliffe, the younger of the two sisters. I believe she was fifteen at the time.”
“Jason Whittle?” John repeated the boy’s name out loud.
“Is he the one who killed Steve?”
“No, but it was his gun,” the detective replied.
“But he didn’t kill Steve. You’re sure?”
She nodded. “He has a rock-solid alibi. He was at work when Steve was killed. But he’s involved,” she added.
“From everything we were able to learn, Julia and Jason met at a party and had a fling that didn’t end when Senior Week did. In fact, we can prove that Whittle spent the weekend before Steve’s death with Julia at the Radcliffe home outside of Cape May while her parents and sister were away.”
Barbara gasped. “They left a fifteen-year-old girl at home alone?”
“She was supposed to be staying with a girlfriend and her family.”
“So she lied to her parents,” Barbara charged.
“Yes. We believe she did. In fact, neither her parents nor her sister had any idea Julia had been sneaking off to any of the Senior Week parties or that she had met Jason, either.”
“Then she’s an accomplished liar,” John snapped.
The detective cocked her head and waited a moment before she continued. By then, John’s breathing was no longer rushed and his cheeks were not quite so flushed.
“After Jason left that Sunday afternoon, Julia cleaned up the house to make sure there was no sign they’d been there all weekend. That’s when she found the gun.”
“Jason’s gun?” John asked.
“Yes. The girl’s only fifteen. She panicked. Apparently, she was too upset to go to school the next day. That night, she broke down and confessed what she’d done to her sister, Augusta, and showed her the gun.”
Barbara closed her eyes for a moment and tried to keep her mind from racing ahead toward the possibility that Steve’s death might have indeed been an accident. When she opened her eyes, the detective met her gaze and held it for a few moments.
“Augusta was seventeen. She was older, and she should have known better. That’s not to excuse Julia. Either one of the girls could have prevented the tragedy that ended with the death of your son if they had gone to their parents, right then and there. Or they could have disposed of the gun. Or they could have gone to the police right away instead of waiting until later.”
She paused and shook her head. “These are kids from a good neighborhood, with good parents, good upbringings and good future prospects. But they’re still just kids. Like Julia, Augusta panicked. The next day, that would have been Tuesday, both girls played sick and stayed home from school. After their parents left for work, the sisters drove to Philadelphia to return the gun to Jason. They’d only been to the city once or twice before with their parents so neither one of them had any idea how to find Jason’s address. To make matters worse, the air-conditioning in the car was broken so they had all the windows down as they drove around and they got turned around in some really rough neighborhoods. They were hot. They were s
cared. And they were totally lost. Julia was so frightened she took out the gun and held it on her lap for protection, despite Augusta’s protests.”
The detective paused. Her expression softened, and she lowered her voice. “At three-thirty, the girls found their way back to Center City where Steve was at the ATM. When they stopped at a red light, Augusta and Julia’s argument exploded. When Augusta tried to grab the gun and take it away from her sister, it discharged. The bullet passed through the open window and struck your son.”
Barbara struggled to breathe, but suddenly, it seemed as if all the air had been sucked out of the room. She looked at her husband. He was so pale she wondered if he were breathing at all.
He let go of her hand and waved away the detective’s account. “Are you serious? The chance that the bullet hit my son and didn’t strike either one of the girls or something inside the car or—or a building or a passerby is almost beyond comprehension. What are the odds? One in a million? A billion? A trillion? Are you sitting there and telling us that after months and months of investigation that’s what happened? You expect us to believe it?” He snorted and glanced up at the ceiling, refusing to look at either the detective or his wife.
Barbara realized at once that she had mistaken his expression. He had not paled from shock. He was angry, furiously angry, as he voiced her own disbelief. But beneath his outrage and disbelief, she knew, he was also as distraught as she to learn that Steve had lost his life in an idiotic, completely preventable accident.
Despite John’s bitter fury, the detective never flinched. When she spoke again, her voice remained low. “I wouldn’t be sitting here if we didn’t believe this is what happened. We’ve uncovered absolutely nothing to indicate otherwise, and with their lawyer’s permission, the girls have been very cooperative helping us reconstruct every circumstance of Steve’s death. The girls did not drive to Philadelphia with the intent to kill anyone. They were only trying to return the gun to Whittle.”
