by Laurel Dewey
Whatever was conspiring against her would not win, she decided. She had to revert to the safety of what she knew, no matter how much that journey would validate her suffering and belief that she only attracted shitty situations and shittier men. But she was left with the option of wearing her nightshirt again and that didn’t seem reasonable. She reluctantly looked through the hangers of remaining shirts that Mollie loaned her. All that was left that she hadn’t worn were dressier numbers, brimming with lace collars and embroidered hems. Jane let out a tired sigh and chose the only one of the group that she knew she could strap her Glock across without ruining the fabric.
She turned to the mirror above the desk to comb out her hair when she looked down at her laptop. There, sitting on top of the computer, was the photo of Anne and Harry. She’d put it underneath the computer. At least, she thought she had. With all the confusion in her head, she was probably mistaken. So, this time, she opened her laptop, flung the photo on top of the keyboard and slammed the top shut. Focus, she told herself. Bury your feelings. Bury the hurt. She would systemically erase the events of the last fourteen or so hours. It wasn’t just Hank. She’d expunge the brutal visual of her young mother’s naked and bloody body crying about how she lost “her.”
Even when she told her mother that “It’s your grief” and she felt it like a shock of understanding after awakening from a long coma, she would bury it.
Even when her mother let go of her and told her to “have the courage to see what follows,” she would ignore it.
The walls would once again be built around her.
Jane pulled on her jeans and boots, strapped her holster gingerly across the delicate fabric of the shirt, grabbed her cell phone and turned to the door. “Holy shit!” she exclaimed as she looked down on the carpet. It was that damn photo again. And with it, came the enveloping aroma of gardenias that was determined to get her attention. As stubborn as Jane was to hold an unknown future at arm’s length, another force was surprisingly more intractable to prevent that from happening. There was only one way to put this to rest. And while the thought of it scared the hell out of her, she knew she had no choice.
CHAPTER 31
Jane arrived at the County Recorder’s office on the outskirts of Midas just as they opened the doors for business. She stood and waited while the heavyset woman waddled across the room and slid the glass open at the counter.
“You keep the records here of birth and death records?”
“That’s right.”
“How about a stillborn? Would that be recorded?”
“That depends how the mother wanted to handle it. What year are we talking?”
Jane couldn’t believe she was doing this. “1967. The name is Anne LeRóy.” Jane spelled it out, including the accent over the o.
The woman saw the holstered Glock. “Is this related to a case?”
“No. It’s my mother.” When Jane said those words, the reality hit hard. The woman crossed over to a long line of grey file cabinets and spent a good five minutes searching before she revealed a thin green file. The woman opened it and silently read through the few papers before walking back to the window.
“You can’t take the file,” the woman advised.
Jane’s heart raced. “Yeah. I know,” she said, pulling the file toward her and opening it. She suddenly felt light headed as she stared at the page.
“Are you all right, honey?” the woman asked, clearly concerned by Jane’s reaction.
Jane read the few telling lines on the page again before closing it and handing it back to the woman. Without saying a word, Jane turned and left the building.
The stream of smoke curled precipitously out of the stretch of sheltered green space that sat at the rear of the B&B property. She didn’t hear the footsteps approaching until it was too late.
“What are you doing?” Mollie asked in a slightly stunned tone.
Jane took a hard puff on that last cigarette she’d been holding back. “Sedating myself. What does it look like?”
Mollie kneeled down to where Jane was seated. Jane hadn’t noticed the thin book in her hand up until then. “Did something happen?” she asked, her chin trembling. “Did you find Jake?”
Jane pulled out of her self-imposed destruction and put a reassuring hand on Mollie’s thigh. “No. It’s got nothing to do with Jake.”
“So, why are you screwing up your life again after five days of staying off those things?”
“Habit.” Jane took another meaningful drag, holding the nicotine in her lungs.
Mollie sat across from Jane cross-legged, laying the book on the ground. “I looked on that website you told me about.” Her face was subdued. “You know, mysecretrevelations? I read the posts by the fifteen-year-old boy like you asked me to.”
Jane took a hit. “And?”
“You’re right. That was Jake’s writing. It sounded just like him.” Mollie drew circles in the dirt with her finger. “What do you think he meant on that last one? The one where he wrote, I saw you but you didn’t see me, you fucking pervert! Which one of us will hang in hell?”
Jane’s restrained manner mirrored Mollie’s. The events of her life and this case were starting to take their toll. “I don’t know.”
“I was thinking about that sketchpad of Jake’s you showed me…the one of the old man hanging himself in that prison cell? I couldn’t get it out of my head. I’ve been reading this book that Jake gave me. He told me it had a lot of answers to a lot of questions.” Mollie drew the book toward her and opened it to a page of highlighted text. “I don’t understand a lot of it, but on some level, it kinda speaks to me, you know? Like here, when he says, Suffering with a problem is easier to bear than a resolution. That has to do with the fact that suffering and continuing to carry a problem are deeply bound to a feeling of innocence and loyalty at a magical level.” Jane sat up, letting her cigarette ember die. Mollie turned the page. “This one I liked. People don’t become ill as a result of repressing anger, but as a result of repressing action that would lead to resolution. He talks a lot about entanglements with family members who are dead. I don’t know why, but that just put a shiver down my spine!” Mollie searched through the thin book. “I can’t find the page, but he was talking about how we unconsciously get entangled with the dead family member and take over their fate and live it out without even realizing that what we’re doing isn’t coming from us but through them. A lot of it has to do with family secrets. Like, if a child is given away, even way back in your family tree, and no one talks about it, then a future member of that family starts acting as though they’ve been abandoned.” Mollie leaned forward. “It’s wild, you know? But without knowing about that entanglement, the future person in the family tree can’t find a resolution in their life. It’s like, whoever’s been left out or ignored or hidden away, has to be brought back into the picture. And that person then becomes a kind of…protector…yeah, that’s the word he used, for the person who lives today and has been entangled in the other one’s fate. It’s all about restoring order out of chaos. One or more family members will repeat the fate and patterns of another who’s dead and gone without knowing why these things are happening to them.” Mollie found the page she was looking for. “Here. Listen to this: When an injustice has occurred in an earlier generation, a future group member will suffer in an attempt to restore order in that group. There is a sort of systemic drive to repeat the occurrence. But what he says later is that it never brings order. The only thing that stops the unconscious patterns and makes one stop struggling is to tell the dead, I honor you, you have a place in my heart. I’ll speak out and name the injustice done to you so it can heal.”
Jane grabbed the book from Mollie’s hands. She glanced through it. “Why was Jake reading this kind of book?”
“I don’t know. He read lots of books that were outside the norm.”
“With this kind of intellectual subject matter? He just happened on it?”
Jane’s behavi
or worried Mollie. “What’s wrong? You’re saying it’s all bullshit?”
“I didn’t say that. I said I wanted to know where he got this book!” Jane turned the pages one after the other until she reached the inside back cover. It was the second time that morning that her jaw dropped from something she read.
On the lower edge of the cover, written in pen, in small print and in virtually indecipherable letters were the words, Property of Jordan Copeland.
Jane took the book and bolted from the tree-cloaked strip of greenery. As she rounded the front of the B&B, she met Edward Butterworth as he was getting out of his car and heading back inside. “Mr. Butterworth!” Jane called out to him but the old man kept walking.
“I can’t talk to you, Miss. I’ve got to retrieve my bag, get to the post office and drive to the airport.”
Jane stood in front of him, barring his progress. “I can run up and get your bag faster than you can. And in the time you save, you can spend one minute talking to me.” Butterworth eyed her Glock and reluctantly nodded. Jane raced up the stairs and entered Butterworth’s room—the only other room up there besides Weyler and Jane’s. She grabbed his small suitcase and dashed back down the stairs, meeting him on the sidewalk in front of his rental car. “You said you came here to make an assessment on Jordan,” Jane stated, slightly out of breath.
“That’s correct.”
“As an officer of the law, you are compelled to tell me what that assessment is.” Jane was bluffing and hoped the Copeland clean up man would fall for it.
Butterworth opened the back door of his sedan and slid his suitcase onto the seat. “I’ve known that boy since before he was born. He was trouble from the second the doctor smacked him on the ass.” He slammed the back door of his sedan and opened the driver’s door. “Nothing has changed.”
Jane held the driver’s door open. “So, what you’re saying is that in your opinion, Jordan Copeland killed Daniel Marshall and is responsible in some way for the disappearance of Jake Van Gorden?”
He sat in the driver’s seat. “That’s exactly what I’m saying! I’m finished with this son-of-a-bitch! This is the last time my shadow will dim his doorstep. I’m turning my duties over to my son who works in our firm.” Butterworth retrieved a small stack of mail from the visor and used it as a prop to make his point. “And when I return to New York, mark my words, I am going to make sure that he finds any and all loopholes in this trust so that it immediately becomes revocable. That worthless felon is not going to have the Copelands’ money as a goddamned cushion any longer! He needs to suffer,” Butterworth exclaimed, waving the stack of mail toward Jane, “and I’m just the bastard who can make that happen!” He jabbed the stack of mail one more time in Jane’s direction to make his point crystal clear before he slammed the door. Yet, before the door closed, one of the letters in the stack fell out and landed on the asphalt. Butterworth backed out of the parking space as Jane picked up the letter. She called after Butterworth, waving the envelope at him to get his attention but he was quite done talking to her.
Jane folded the letter in half and stuffed it in the book she took from Mollie. She noticed that Hank’s truck was no longer parked in front of the B&B. Good, she thought. The man listened when he was told to back off. Looking down at the book, she resolved to find Weyler and fill him in on what transpired with Mollie. She spun around and started inside when the sound of squealing tires rang out behind her. Jane turned to find Hank sitting in his truck in the middle of Main Street. He leaned across the front seat and swung open the passenger door. “Get in, Jane!”
I guess the man didn’t listen after all, she thought. “I’ve got nothing to say to you!” Jane turned back to the B&B.
“Jane! If you want to make a scene, that’s fine by me. But one way or the other, you and I are going to talk!”
Jane turned and strode to the truck. “I’ll give you five minutes,” she said, getting into the car and slamming the door.
“I’ll take them,” Hank replied, gunning the truck down Main Street. “You’re one stubborn woman, Jane!”
“Is that what you wanted to tell me? Because if it is, you’re not the first person to figure that out!”
“Yeah and you wear it like a goddamn badge of honor!”
“You’re eating up your five minutes. Get to the point!”
“I’ve never told you the name of my band, have I?”
Jane rolled her eyes. “Jesus, are you kidding me?”
“’No Regrets.’” He turned to her. “That’s the name of the band. You know why?”
“Because you have no regrets starting a cover band?”
“Funny. But no. I have no regrets…period. Even though I’ve done a lot of stupid shit in my life, I don’t regret one damn thing because they all got me to where I am today. Not the drinking, not the recreational drugs, not the fooling around…”
“Ah, so you admit you’re a player. Thank you.”
“I was never a player, Jane. But I did make my share of relationship mistakes.”
“Well, add me to the long list.”
“Dammit, Jane!” Hank quickly turned into an abandoned gravel lot and brought the truck to an abrupt stop. He turned to her. “You’re not one of my mistakes! And neither was Annie, no matter how much her mother tried to convince me!”
There was silence. “Annie Mack is your daughter?”
“Yes. Mack is her mother’s maiden name.”
There was that look that Jane had seen between them. It was meaningful but her skilled detection of body language failed to be specific as to what type of meaning she was witnessing. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Well, for one, you never gave me a chance and for another…” Hank hesitated and turned away. “Annie doesn’t know she’s my daughter.” Jane’s mouth fell open. “Now, before you go postal on me, there’s a reason why she doesn’t know. Her mother and I never married. This was back when I lived in Michigan. The relationship was complicated, but Annie was the only decent thing that came out of it. However, her mom decided to leave me when she found out she was pregnant. I fought her tooth and nail because I wanted to be part of the kid’s life. But I was drinking pretty hard at the time and I understand now why she made that decision. I told her I’d pay child support, but she wouldn’t accept it. She made me promise that I would stay out of Annie’s life. So, I did. But I also started a fund. I called it, Annie’s Fund. All the money that I would have given her for child support, I stuck in that fund and I invested it. They kept moving, but I kept track of them. I got pretty good at figuring out how to find people who wanted to stay lost working in fraud and just applied it to my kid and her mom. In the meantime, I got sober. They moved again and then to Midas. Ten years ago, I finally got the nerve to show up here. I was going to walk up on their doorstep and introduce myself. But when I showed up, I found out Annie’s mom had just died of cancer and the kid was heartbroken. Didn’t seem like the right time to throw my story on her. Besides, I made her mother a promise. But I never said I wasn’t going to look out for her. I bought The Rabbit Hole and she moved in with a family in town who took good care of her. When they’d come by the place for dinner, I always made a point of finding out what was going on in her life. When she was twenty, she told me her dream was to open a diner and she had her eye on the café in town, but she couldn’t afford the down payment. That was $35,000. Well, it just so happened that all that child support I invested for her had appreciated quite well.”
“You’re the anonymous benefactor who left her the check,” Jane said, recalling Bo’s enthusiastic re-telling of the story.
“You got it.”
Jane looked out the window. “So, how does she see your relationship?”
“We’re friends. I gave her a lot of business advice when she opened up the diner and it paid off for her. She still asks me for advice. That’s exactly what she was doing this morning when you saw us out in front of the house. I didn’t have her come in because I’m a priv
ate person and I know you sure as hell are. I wasn’t about to advertise us to anyone.”
Jane turned back to Hank. “Us?”
“Sorry. I forgot. It was a one-night stand. We made no connection. We don’t think alike. We don’t feel comfortable with each other. I don’t think you’re smart and I’m an idiot. And the lovemaking? Well, that meant nothing to either of us. You also hate my cooking. So, yeah, there’s no us.” Hank backed his truck out of the lot. “You know what you’re problem is? You don’t think it’s a real relationship unless you feel like shit because, in your book, happiness is a four-letter word.”
Okay, that one stung. Jane tried to figure out a decent retort, but she had nothing. She was right back on that Life’s a struggle and then you die highway and the road was getting rocky. The hard and brutal trail was wearing thin. There was always that fear that if she attained happiness—whatever in the hell that was—there was nowhere to go from that point. Nowhere but death. Thus, happiness equaled death. She realized it was one of those suppositions that a brain trust could deconstruct and show the falsehoods within it. But it was a dogma she’d carried her entire life and one doesn’t just throw off dogma without a fight. Dogma must be wrestled and then cut from one’s grip. One just doesn’t wake up one morning and decide that their tenets are useless. Or do they? Isn’t that possibly what Jake Van Gorden did?
