#7-9--The O’Connells

by Lorhainne Eckhart

  Jack lifted his hand again. “You’re getting down in the weeds here, Tibo. Thought I was clear with you that we’re not answering. Where’s this so-called bloody knife and cloth? It should yield some fiber testing and evidence for you to lean on. It seems the only thing Rita Mae and her lawyer are trying to do is spin attention in another direction to score a deal, and what better way than to accuse the sheriff of misconduct without proof? Or do you have some? Because right now, all you seem to be doing is grandstanding.”

  Tibo was pacing back and forth, calmly, predatorily. He was holding a piece of paper, but whatever was on it, Marcus had no idea. He would’ve given anything to see it.

  “Hey, Jack, you let me worry about the evidence,” Tibo replied. He lifted the paper again, and Jack tapped his pen on his open notepad. Tibo was doing the kind of thing he did when talking with a suspect. There could be nothing, or there could be something, and it was that unknown that always unnerved a suspect, as if the law had the truth the suspect was trying to hide. Marcus had just never expected to be sitting on this side of an interrogation.

  “So you’re denying there’s any truth to what Rita Mae is saying?” Tibo said. “Might I remind you that it’s a felony to lie to me, same as to a police officer?”

  “As Jack has already told you, these questions are ridiculous and have nothing to do with a case in my county that, as sheriff, I’m handling. You overstepped in pulling me from this case, Tibo,” Marcus said.

  Tibo remained standing before him. “No, Marcus, I’m right in taking you off the case. Appearances matter. I have legitimate concerns about objectivity.”

  “Oh, fuck off, Tibo! That’s absolute bullshit. I know how to do my job, and right now, you’ve overreached. I’m not concerned about appearances. If I were, I might feel differently. By the sounds of it, for you, this is a case you can build an election platform on. What could be better for a DA than the appearance of a dirty cop with deep roots in the community who hid a murder that happened years ago in his family? Can you imagine the scandal and the publicity for you? But we don’t even know who the body belongs to.”

  Jack reached over and squeezed his arm, a warning to shut the fuck up. Marcus just grunted, considering all he wanted to do was shove his fist in Tibo’s pale and polished face. He’d never been able to read the man too well.

  “This isn’t about me, Mr. O’Connell,” Tibo said.

  So he had been reduced to mister, not sheriff. He wondered whether now was the time to remind the DA who he was.

  “Really? Yanking me off an ongoing investigation is overstepping. You have no evidence.”

  Tibo slid his gaze over to Jack. “Not yet, but we do have a sworn statement. Maybe I should be talking to your brother, Owen.”

  “Shut up, Tibo,” Jack said. “You’ve got a sworn statement about fuck all, and in jumping the gun like this, you’ve lost your one opportunity.” He slammed his notepad closed. “We’re out of here. This visit was a courtesy on our part, but consider that courtesy gone. You keep going on about this bullshit, but let me be very clear: You have nothing, so we’re done here.” He scraped back his chair and stood. “Let’s go.”

  Marcus followed, his own chair scraping across the worn floor. He knew this room was used often for indictments. He didn’t know what to make of Tibo’s expression, but something about it said he was far from done.

  “Well, that’s the thing,” Tibo said. “When there’s a question of impropriety, a hint of misconduct in the sheriff’s department, we have a responsibility to investigate. The community will have my head on a pike if I’m not talking to you, Sheriff, and asking the questions we’re all thinking. The night your dad left, something happened. Your dad was never seen or heard from again. And you know what I also discovered?”

  Marcus turned back from where he and Jack stood at the door. He knew Jack wanted him out of there now, but he gave everything to the DA, with whom he’d worked closely. Now, being questioned, he felt the weight of the accusation. He was afraid to ask, so he said nothing.

  “You have something, Tibo, or is this more games?” Jack said, his hand on Marcus’s arm, maybe to stop him from going back into the room and doing something really stupid, like hitting Tibo or saying something that could be used against him and his family.

  “Oh, I have something—a lot of somethings and a lot of questions. Raymond O’Connell worked for the railroad, suddenly quit, and your mom never reported him missing. Now, why is that, Marcus? Why would your mom not report her husband missing when she had six kids at home? Yeah, something doesn’t add up there. If you add in what Rita Mae saw, with Owen burying a bloody knife that she dug up and kept for all these years, only to give it back to him in a moment of weakness… And you were aware of that. You knew. Now there’s a body in the woods, and when the details come back, the evidence, just remember I gave you a chance to come clean. This was your opportunity to save yourself, Marcus.”

  What was it about the way Tibo was talking that made this feel so much like an interrogation?

  “You watch yourself, Tibo,” Marcus said. “My father left because he was too fucking cowardly to stick around. He left my mom to figure it out alone. Don’t you start making a crime of that. It’s not a crime to walk out on your family. If it were, half the men in this country would be behind bars.”

  Tibo nodded, and an odd smile touched his lips. “Yeah, but for a sheriff to look the other way when an allegation of a crime is made all because it concerns your family, that’s a problem.”

  What was he supposed to say to that?

  “If Rita Mae had come to you, Marcus, about anyone else in the community, you’d have been all over it,” Tibo said. “You’d have checked it out. You’d have questioned the person and shone the spotlight deep. You wouldn’t have let it go. But you did, because it’s your family, your brother, your mother. How many others in your family are involved? Maybe I should be talking to everyone, Karen, Owen, Ryan, Suzanne, and Luke. I’ll bring them in and find out what they know about this. Because you know as well as I that when it comes to family, everyone has secrets.”

  “Let me be very clear, Tibo, in case there’s any doubt here,” Jack said. “I’m the lawyer of record for everyone in the O’Connell family. This meeting is over. This stunt is done, and the camera and mic you have on will give you nothing when you go back and listen to the recording. You have someone saying shit to save her own skin. That’s all you’ve got. So if you want to have a conversation with any of the O’Connells, your first call will be to me, understand? Because to me, it sounds as if you’re trying to ruin the lives of everyone in this family.” Jack was curt, direct, and to the point.

  “No, what I’m trying to do is follow the evidence,” Tibo said. “In case you’ve both forgotten, that’s my job. And I’m doing my job, not cutting corners because word is already out. You both know how word travels in the community. Everyone is going to wonder why the DA has let this go on, so I have no choice. You’re officially on paid leave from the sheriff’s office, Marcus. Before you leave here this morning, I’m going to need your badge and your gun.”

  Marcus knew Tibo was just doing his job, but there was something about the way he’d said it that stung. “Do you have a warrant?” he said.

  “Not yet, but we’re getting one, and then we’ll take your mom’s house apart and do the job you should have done.”

  Marcus stepped back into the room and pulled his gun from his holster. He set it on the table, then pulled his badge off his shirt and tossed it down beside it before striding back to the door, into the hall, Jack moving beside him.

  “They’re on their way to your mom’s right now,” Jack said. “You know what the fuck this was? Because I do. He was making sure you and I were busy. If I didn’t know any better, Marcus, I’d think they’ve found something, some evidence. Because in order to get a warrant, they have to have something.”

  Chapter Nine

  Iris pressed her hand over her face and waited for
the coffeemaker to beep. It was already late in the morning, but then, she’d fallen asleep after four or five, unable to shake her worries over her family and what they must think of her. She wondered if she’d even be thinking this way if she were acting reasonably, but she couldn’t help it.

  She thought of that night that she hadn’t shared, and now, suddenly, eighteen years of silence was breaking open in a way she never would’ve imagined. The phone rang, and she considered not answering it, then waited another second for it to go to voicemail.

  She reached into the cupboard, pulled out a mug, and poured herself a cup of coffee. Then the phone rang again.

  “Oh my God, stop calling!” she said. “I don’t want to talk to anyone.”

  She looked at the ceiling. She needed a minute to get her head together, and talking was the one thing she didn’t want to do right now, so she lifted her mug and started into the living room of her quiet house.

  She remembered the day Raymond had bought this home. Owen, Karen and Marcus were young, and Ryan had just been born. Three kids and a baby had been crammed into a two-bedroom apartment, and suddenly they had a house.

  She flicked open the curtains and took in a sheriff’s car parked out front. Marcus was there. So much for her peace and quiet. She’d kind of expected that.

  The phone rang again.

  “Persistent,” she said with a sigh, then reached for it. “Good morning…” was all she got out.

  “Iris, it’s Jack. I’m on my way there, and Marcus is with me. They’re getting a warrant to search your house. Based on what, I have no idea. Listen carefully. They will take apart the house, and if there’s something there, they will find it. Understand?”

  She looked out the window again, parting the sheers. Looking closer, she saw that it was Lonnie sitting inside the cruiser. She felt time slow as she pulled in one breath and then another.

  “I thought Marcus was here, because there’s a police car parked out front. I see it’s Lonnie. So they’re coming…?” She had to rack her brain, thinking of what they might be searching for and what she’d kept. She was still in her nightshirt, wearing only a thin blue housecoat. She set her coffee down.

  “You won’t have long if they’re sitting out there already,” Jack said. “We’re on our way there. Remember what you told me last night?”

  She put her coffee down, feeling the panic, and it took her another second to remember what he was talking about. “So they’re going to search my house, everywhere…”

  Another cop car pulled up out front, but she knew the neighbors wouldn’t wonder, because Marcus was the sheriff. That was, they wouldn’t wonder until they saw her standing outside in her robe and the house was filled with cops. Phones would be ringing, gossip would start, and her life would be dissected again by people who were supposedly her neighbors.

  “I’ll see you soon,” she said calmly, then hung up the phone, thinking of the tote she hadn’t touched in years, knowing she’d kept everything she should have gotten rid of. That damn letter was tucked in there when she should have burned it.

  She tossed the cordless phone on the chair and started to the stairs when there was a knock on the door, then another.

  “Sheriff’s office! Open up. We have a warrant, Mrs. O’Connell.” The voice was deep, and she knew they wouldn’t wait, so she strode to the door and pulled it open, seeing a man she didn’t recognize. Lonnie and Colby were there, too.

  She was handed a piece of paper, a warrant to search the premises, and she took in the expression on young Deputy Colby’s face. He was the one her son babied, and out of the three there, he was the only one who appeared ashamed. Outside, a Mercedes had pulled up, and Marcus and Jack got out of it. All of this suddenly became too real.

  “I’m so sorry about this, Mrs. O’Connell, but we’re going to have to ask you to step outside,” said the officer she didn’t know. “We have a warrant to search the house. I’m Sheriff Hodges, from the county over. Again, I’m going to ask you to step out of the house, ma’am.”

  He was a big man, older, and reminded her of Bert, the sheriff who’d just retired and had been a mentor to Marcus.

  “As you can see, I’m still in my pajamas. It’s cool out this morning, and I’m barefoot. Would you mind if I put some clothes on?”

  “You can put some shoes on, but that’s all,” said Lonnie quite rudely, almost cutting her off.

  Iris gave everything to the deputy, a stubborn man Marcus had struggled to keep on, not finding the reason he needed to get rid of him. She lifted her chin, openly challenging him to put a hand on her.

  “For the love of God, that’s my mother,” Marcus snapped, cutting across the front lawn. “What’s wrong with you? Mom, go and get dressed.”

  She wondered if the neighbors were watching. Maybe they were. If they weren’t, they would have heard Marcus, but it didn’t matter, because soon enough, everyone would be talking.

  She turned around before anyone could tell her yes or no and started walking to her bedroom, where she closed the door and quickly dressed in the first thing she pulled from the drawer, a pair of track pants and a matching hoodie over her bra and a dark blue T-shirt. She heard the knock the second she pulled on the hoodie, and the door opened. She took in Sheriff Hodges, who didn’t look impressed, and it wasn’t lost on her how he’d almost walked right in on her getting dressed.

  “I’m sorry, ma’am. I’m going to have to ask you to step outside now,” he said.

  She thought she heard Marcus yelling, arguing, so she nodded. She pulled socks from the drawer and held them up for him to see, then walked past him, out of the bedroom and down the hall, taking in Colby and Lonnie, one already inside the kitchen, going through drawers, and the other in the living room, pulling cushions off the sofa.

  She pulled open the front closet door and reached for her sneakers. Marcus and Jack stood just outside the front door, and she realized that the sheriff was standing right there behind her, watching her, as if making sure she wouldn’t take anything. She stepped outside barefoot, and both Jack and Marcus reached for her arms. She didn’t think she’d ever forget the anger Marcus shot toward the sheriff.

  “I’m only going to say this once, Marcus,” Sheriff Hodges said, lifting his hand. “You let us do our job. You know the drill, and you know how this works.”

  Iris sat down on the front step and took in another police car as it parked out front, adding to the chaos. It was Harold, in uniform. He walked across the yard.

  For just a moment, no one said anything as she pulled on her socks and shoved her feet into her sneakers. She felt sucker punched because her kids had been dragged into this mess, and now Harold, Suzanne’s partner, was here to do his job, but he was also hurting her.

  “Make sure they stay outside, Deputy Waters,” was all the sheriff said.

  Harold took her in, and this was the first time, as she glanced up to him, that she had a hard time meeting his gaze.

  “Mom, let’s go around back so we’re not the focus of the neighborhood,” Marcus said.

  She still needed to brush her hair, wash her face, have a shower, and brush her teeth. Then there was her coffee, which she’d left sitting inside. She only nodded, and Marcus helped her up. She strode beside Jack, following Marcus, feeling Harold on her heels as if she were a criminal, about to be arrested.

  “They were already here by the time you called,” she said. “I didn’t have time…”

  Jack touched her arm. “Not here,” he said, his voice low. “Did you have breakfast?”

  She took in her patio. Through the window, she could see her kitchen, where every cupboard and drawer was being emptied. Something about it hit her in her stomach, seeing everything that was hers, everything personal, being touched by someone who hadn’t been invited in. She felt absolutely, one hundred percent violated. She had to turn and look away.

  “You know, Mom, maybe we should leave,” Marcus said. “I’ll take you to my house…”

 
“She can’t leave, Marcus,” Harold said, cutting in. “You know that. You know how this works.”

  Marcus had never appeared so angry. “So whose side are you on here, Harold?”

  She knew she should step in and say something, but she couldn’t, considering, for the first time in she didn’t know how many years, she found herself struggling not to cry.

  “This isn’t about sides, Marcus,” Harold said.

  “Hey, both of you—not here,” Jack said, stepping in. He turned Iris away from the house. “You know this isn’t helping. Marcus, bring some chairs down over here. Best not to look at what they’re doing inside.”

  Somehow, Jack had her sitting behind the house, looking out at the neighbors’ yard. She didn’t know whether this was any better, considering they were outside, pointing and looking their way. Of course, they were wondering what she’d done. She knew the news traveled and would be everywhere.

  She’d had to hold her head up for years because of the trash talk, and now it seemed it was happening again.

  Lord, give me strength.

  “Mom, I just called Suzanne,” Marcus said. “She’s bringing some coffee over.”

  Jack sat down beside her, but Harold was standing off to the side. She didn’t know what to make of him, and she nodded, then faced him.

  “I have only one thing to say to you, Harold,” she said. “My daughter is everything. If you hurt her, it won’t be my sons you have to worry about. It will be me.”

  Jack pressed his hand to her shoulder again, likely to stop her, but she was too damn tired and pissed off to listen.

  Harold said nothing, so she continued: “You see, in the wild, it’s always the mother bear protecting her young, because the male basically fucks off. The mother bear lets you know without a doubt what will happen if you mess with her cubs. She will rip you apart and show no mercy.” She let her meaning sink in and took in the way his face flushed.