Ms. Demeanor

by Danica Winters

  “Are you okay?” Laura asked from behind him. “Are you sure you want me to go inside with you? I could just go back home. Come back later or something.”

  He shook his head. By now everyone had to know that he’d gone home with Laura and she hadn’t brought him back. Well, until now.

  He couldn’t help but think that everything about their relationship was a flip on traditional gender roles, but he didn’t mind. Actually, it was a turn-on to have an empowered woman taking an interest in him. Especially since she could be doing so much better for herself. She could be with anyone she chose and yet she wanted to be with him—an ex-con.

  There was no denying that he wanted to be with her in every way, but now that it had happened, everything had changed between them. Sure, he could pretend that nothing had occurred and they could try to slip back into their assigned roles, but pretending was all it would be. Beneath it all, everything was muddied and conflicted, now that feelings were involved. They had made a mistake in getting involved with each other, but now that it had happened, he didn’t want it to end just because it was inconvenient.

  As they walked into the house, they found Rainier’s father in the living room in front of the fireplace, setting about lighting it for the day. The room was filled with the familiar scents of struck matches and blazing kindling.

  As they approached, Merle turned around and gave them an acknowledging smile. “Good morning, you two. Have a good night?” To Rainier’s surprise, the awkwardness of the day before had disappeared from his father’s demeanor.

  “Uh, yeah. How’s it going? I see the sheriff’s department team is gone. Did they button up their investigation?”

  Merle nodded. “Yep, and Wyatt and I finally got the chance to fix the pipe. With any luck the pump will be okay, but with as much as it was running it may have burned out.”

  Was his dad really talking about piping and how long the pump would last? Maybe his awkwardness had just taken on a new form and had become avoidance.

  “Did Wyatt’s team find anything else?” Rainier asked.

  His father shook his head. “Thankfully, no.”

  “What do you mean, thankfully?” Rainier pressed.

  Merle twitched. “Nothing. You know, just that I’m glad they’re not still out there tearing through the pasture. At least now we can get back to worrying about more important things, and this can just disappear.”

  “You don’t think finding a body on the property is at all concerning?” Laura asked.

  “No, no. You’re getting me all wrong. I just mean that there are so many other things we need to worry about. The dead are dead.”

  Something was definitely up with his father, but Rainier wasn’t sure talking about it in front of Laura was a great idea. She seemed to be firmly on their team, but at some point would have to start putting her work first. Last night she hadn’t seem to care about her role as his parole officer, but that was in the privacy of her own home and the comfort of his arms. Yet if his father had anything to do with the murder, or whatever had happened to this person whose body they’d found, then it was going to become more than just a simple distinction between ethical and unethical—it would be a question of legal versus illegal.

  Merle Fitzgerald wasn’t a murderer, and he wasn’t the kind of guy who would ever do anything that would put his family in jeopardy—even if it meant putting himself at risk. In fact, selflessness seemed to be the personality trait his parents had most in common. To them it was always family first.

  And maybe his father was right, and the last thing they needed to do was dredge up some cold case. On the other hand, whoever this person might be, he was someone’s brother, father or son. The victim’s family deserved to know what had happened to their loved one—even if it meant they had to go through an even harder time in order to get closure.

  “Dad, I hear what you’re saying. To some degree, I think you’re right, but we have to see this through. It’s not going to just disappear. And I’m not assuming anything, but if you know something you aren’t telling the police or Wyatt or whomever...you may want to come clean. It’s better to do it now than to wait and have it come out later.”

  “What are you talking about?” Merle’s angst sparked in the air.

  He had clearly struck a nerve, which meant he must have struck a nerve or touched on a secret his father was trying to hide.

  “Why don’t we go get some breakfast?” Laura suggested as though she was as uncomfortable with the situation as he was.

  “Great idea. I’ll cook us some eggs.” He looked back at his father, who had turned away and was stoking the fire. “Dad, are you hungry?”

  “No,” he said in a clipped tone.

  Merle Fitzgerald, in addition to his selflessness, was also known for his stoicism and his ability to control his temper. They had been through a lot over the years, and the only time he could remember seeing his father this upset was when Rainier had been kidnapped by his birth mother when he was a child. The day he had been returned, Merle had been yelling at the police, telling them they had to go after the real person responsible—Rainier’s father, the one who had put his wife up to it.

  Rainier had been young when everything had happened. He could barely remember most of those fateful days, but the one thing he recalled vividly was the way his adoptive father’s face had looked...the way the wrinkles had suddenly appeared around his eyes, making him appear much older than he had just days before. Those lines had never disappeared, but simply deepened with age.

  And Rainier remembered the phone call they’d received to let them know that his biological mother had been killed. Everyone knew that his birth father had killed her. Yet when it came time to prosecute, the case had fallen apart and the man had never gone to prison. Some people had gone so far as to say his biological father’s evasion of justice was due to political corruption, while others cited ineptitude on the part of the police department—but Rainier had called it just plain wrong. His father had deserved to pay for his crimes, and then and there in front of his father, Rainier had vowed to seek revenge.

  It was in that moment that he had last seen Merle Fitzgerald look as he did now, with that same expression of deep-seated anger with an edge of fear. And that look, in addition to the way his father was acting, made Rainier’s blood run cold. Nothing good could come of it.

  Rainier and Laura went into the kitchen and he set about making breakfast, pulling eggs out of the refrigerator and getting the pans ready. He moved automatically, and as he waited for the electric stove to heat up the pan, he realized that in the years he had been gone, nothing in the house had really changed. All the things he had left behind could still be found as they had been when he’d left—every pan was still in the same cupboard, they used the same cups and plates, and even the ingredients in the fridge were nearly the same. It was as if life had been on hold.

  None of that mattered. What mattered was his father and what Rainier was going to do about him.

  If he turned to his mother, it would only upset her.

  Laura stood beside him, cracking the eggs and dropping them into the pan. “What’s going on, Rainier?”

  “Huh?” he asked as she pulled him from his thoughts.

  “With your father. I don’t know him that well, but I can tell that something is wrong. Is he going to be okay? Does this have anything to do with us?”

  This was such a departure for her, when she had found him with the bone she had followed the requirements of her job and called the police, yet now it seemed that she was putting their relationship first and he loved it. “Do you mind if I just go talk to him for a minute?” he asked. “Could you maybe take over cooking for a bit?”

  “Take all the time you need.” She nibbled at her bottom lip.

  He turned to walk out of the kitchen.

  “You kn
ow,” she said, stopping him, “I could just head back home. I don’t want to make things harder for you and your family. I know you have a lot going on.”

  He should have agreed and let her go, but every time he was around her, she reminded him that he wasn’t alone, and of what life could be. The thought of them being apart made a deep, nonsensical loneliness creep through him. If she left, he was sure she would come back, and they could pick up from where they’d been.

  It may have been selfish, but he couldn’t let her go.

  “No, it’ll all be okay. I’m sure he’s just stressed. I just need to talk to him,” he said, forcing himself to smile in a way that he hoped would lighten the mood and wordlessly assure her that everything wasn’t as bad as he was thinking.

  He walked over to her and gave her a long, hungry kiss. Her lips carried the saltiness of sweat and the flavor made him long to be back there, making love with abandon. He could have lived and died in the moments they had shared, and he would have died a happy man.

  She ran her hand down his face as she leaned back from their kiss, and when she looked into his eyes, he was almost certain he could see love in them.

  No. She couldn’t love him. It had to be just some momentary reaction like his, some desire to bring back the night in each other’s arms, and how carefree they had felt in the moment.

  She let go of him. “Go. Go talk to your father. He needs you.”

  She was right, but Rainier couldn’t help the thought that his dad wasn’t the only one who needed someone.

  It had been a long time since Rainier had been in a relationship, and even longer since he’d thought he’d been in love. Maybe this was just their honeymoon phase, when the other could do no wrong, and as soon as their infatuation was over, they would really see each other for who they were. Not that Laura was anything other than what he assumed, but he...he was far from an angel. Over time, if she came to see him for the imperfect person he was, he doubted she would continue to be with him.

  Everything would change. Undoubtedly, she would walk away. And he couldn’t blame her.

  He had made his choices. He had always told himself that he was ready for the consequences and reprisals for the decisions he had made. He had just never considered the possibility of losing her, especially because he hadn’t thought he would get her in the first place.

  “Go,” she said, motioning him out of the kitchen. “I’ll make you some eggs when you are done.”

  He nodded, but as he looked at her, sadness filled him. Perhaps he was just being pessimistic, and his fears of her dismissing him wouldn’t be realized. He couldn’t make her choices for her, or change the way she was feeling.

  As he turned away, she gave his buns a squeeze. “I’ll be waiting.”

  “Hey now,” he said with a laugh. “It’s only fair if I get to do that to you.”

  She waved him toward the door. “Turnabout is fair play...in fact, I’d be disappointed if you didn’t come back in here and feel me up when you’re done.”

  Her simple action made some of the roiling ball of emotions within him calm. They’d get through this. If they were meant to be together, they would be...

  His father was staring into the flames that licked up the logs in the grate. “How did you know?” he asked, turning around as Rainier closed the door to the kitchen with a quiet click.

  “Know what?” Rainier inquired, walking over and standing beside him.

  “That I’m not telling you something?” Merle looked at him, his eyes reflecting the fire. The effect was unsettling.

  “I’ve known you my whole life, so I’m surprised you’d even have to ask. Wouldn’t you be more worried if I didn’t know something was wrong with you?” The only thing that truly surprised Rainier was that no one else in the family had seemed to notice the change in Merle, or at least they had failed to mention it. “What’s going on, Dad?”

  His father ran his hands over his face, and left behind a smudge of ash on his cheek in the process. That, along with the light in his eyes, made him look as though he was in the middle of hell.

  “I thought I’d never be back here again. I feel so stupid. So ashamed. So relieved. So everything.”

  Rainier was shocked by the man’s admission. It had been hard to get his father to confess when he had a headache, even. He’d always been a pillar of strength in the family, so to hear him talk about his feelings was even more unsettling than the way he looked.

  “Back where, Dad? What do you mean?”

  “I... I just never thought I’d have to deal with this mess again. The body... The man’s disappearance...”

  “You knew about the body?” Rainier couldn’t move. He could barely breathe under the weight of his father’s words.

  Merle fell to his knees in front of the fire and dropped his head in his hands. “I’m so sorry, Rainier.”

  “Did you...did you kill the man?” The words seemed like grains of sand scraping against his tongue.

  No. His father could have never done something so destructive...not when so many people depended on him. He’d never pull the trigger. Rainier had met many convicted murderers in his time behind bars. Even though many of them proclaimed their innocence, there was always something about those who had ended another person’s life—a deadness that filled the convict’s eyes, as if a piece of them had died along with their victims.

  His father had never had that look. He didn’t have the eyes of a killer.

  “I may as well have,” Merle said, his words muffled by his hands.

  Rainier didn’t understand what he could possibly mean.

  “If you didn’t pull the trigger, then you are not responsible.” He paused. “You didn’t pull the trigger, did you?”

  His father looked up at him with a jerk. “No. I’d never.”

  “But?”

  “But I knew he...his body...was out there somewhere,” he said, waving in the direction of the pastures. “I should have called the police.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  The front door slammed. Laura wasn’t sure what she should do—stay in the kitchen and ignore whatever was going on between Rainier and his father, or go and make sure that the two men were all right. She waited for a moment, hoping to hear something, but the only sound was the sizzling of the oil in the pan as she waited to put in another egg.

  Certainly things between the two of them couldn’t have gone so badly that one had stormed out. Besides, Rainier wouldn’t have left her standing alone in his parents’ kitchen without so much as letting her know where he was going, or coming to get her before he left. Though he had his issues, he wasn’t thoughtless.

  Yet if it was his father who had gone, it didn’t explain why Rainier wasn’t coming to tell her what had happened—not that she needed to know. No, whatever had been said between father and son could stay between them. She was an interloper, an outsider in the tightly woven Fitzgerald clan.

  She turned off the stove and removed the pan from the heat.

  It was eerily quiet.

  Unable to stand it any longer, she opened the kitchen door and looked into the living room. Standing beside the Christmas tree were Merle, Rainier and Wyatt. Wyatt was in his uniform and had his thumbs hooked into the armpits of his bulletproof vest as he stood talking.

  He looked over at her and frowned. “Laura, what are you doing here?”

  She should have stayed in the kitchen.

  “Good morning, Wyatt.”

  He dropped his hands as he glanced at his brother. “Why is she here?” he asked, his voice cracked with accusation.

  “I...I was dropping him off. I was just about to leave,” she said, heading toward the front door in hopes that she could get out of there before Wyatt had another chance to interrogate her.

  He didn’t have to know
anything—in fact, he was the last person who needed to know what had gone on between her and Rainier. Though he and his brother had called a tentative truce, if he learned that they were sleeping together she was sure it would all come to a head once again.

  “You don’t need to go,” Rainier said. “Wyatt, you don’t have any right to ask about my guest.”

  “Your guest?” Wyatt gave a contemptuous chuckle. “Oh, I see.”

  “You don’t see anything,” Rainier said, jumping to intercede. “Why don’t you just stop busting my chops and tell us all why you are here, Wyatt?”

  “Whatever. To make things clear, Laura, I like you, but whatever you two want to get mixed up in...that’s your mistake to make. I just don’t want to get wrapped up in your mess.”

  “Why are you here, Wyatt?” Rainier asked again.

  He gave her one last look. “I came here to let you all know that we got our report back from the medical examiner. As we assumed, it was a male. Turns out he was fifty-two years of age, five foot nine, Caucasian, brunette. Cause of death was a gunshot to the head.”

  “Murder or suicide?” Rainier asked.

  Wyatt answered with a cynical smile. “Hard to tell.”

  “How do you know so much about what the man looked like, based on just a skull and a femur, but can’t tell me who pulled the trigger?” Rainier asked.

  “Good question,” Wyatt said, slapping his brother on the shoulder. “The ME also managed to pull some dental records. They got a match.”

  Merle walked to the couch and sat down. He glanced over at her, and there was a look of terror in his eyes. It was so frightening that Laura was tempted to turn away, but she forced herself to stand her ground. She had to be reading him wrong. Merle had nothing to be frightened of...unless...

  “The body belonged to Paul Poe.” Wyatt gave a long exhalation, like he was working up the courage to finish talking. “Paul was William Poe’s father.”

  Rainier stared at his dad. “You have to be kidding me.”