No Place to Deceive

by Jaden Skye

  Wayne put a call in to the police in Nashville then. Fortunately, by the time he called, Dowl had already spoken to them. And the chief of police in Nashville, Andy Pern, was ready and waiting to hear from Wayne.

  “Good work, terrific!” Pern started.

  “Thanks,” said Wayne.

  “People here know the Townsend family. If they need somebody to be with them, we’ll be glad to send an officer over,” Pern offered immediately.

  “I believe Heidi has friends on their way over now,” Wayne replied.

  “Good,” said Pern. “Okay, the news will be going out in a little while all over Nashville and the call line is almost ready.”

  Wayne took a deep breath. The family’s life was about to totally change and there was nothing they could do about it. There was no way of knowing who would call in or what would turn up, either. It was one thing to lose someone you loved. It was another to find out that he was a totally different person, lived a double life you knew nothing about.

  “We want to talk to Mort’s family in the morning,” Pern continued. “I hope you can be at the station with them.”

  “Of course,” said Wayne. “I’ll be there with my partner, Olivia.”

  “Perfect. It’s a pleasure having you on board,” Pern answered.

  “It’s a pleasure being here as well,” said Wayne.

  *

  When Olivia arrived in Nashville, the first thing she saw was Wayne waiting at the landing gate. Excited to see her, he started waving.

  “You got here in a minute,” Wayne said, rushing to her.

  “Two minutes, maybe?” Olivia smiled.

  As they got closer, both reached out for the other, but stopped themselves at exactly the same time. They had agreed to keep the relationship entirely professional and were respecting their decision.

  “I couldn’t stop thinking of Mort’s second family all during the flight,” Olivia said as Wayne took her bag and guided her out of the airport.

  “They’re interesting people,” said Wayne.

  “They must be totally devastated,” said Olivia. “To find out that he died and at the same time that he had a second family!”

  “I can’t even imagine,” said Wayne, as he got a cab and they both jumped in. “You’ll meet them tomorrow at the police station.”

  “The cast of characters widens,” said Olivia, as she leaned near the window and the streets began to roll by. It was evening now and lights were on all over the city. “Jazzy town,” she commented as they drove up to the hotel.

  “I felt you’d love it here,” said Wayne.

  “You’re right, I do,” Olivia answered, impressed by what she saw. The town was beautiful, alive, rocking. It was a place she could be happy in, she thought.

  “I’ve been so flummoxed by the second family, I’m afraid I’ve forgotten to ask you about what you’ve found so far,” Wayne said then.

  “There’s nothing specific yet,” Olivia replied. “I’ve just been getting a sense of the people in Mort’s world. Justin’s been talking to the same people as well.”

  Wayne stopped short. “Justin’s been with you all this time?” He was startled.

  “No, he’s sort of shadowing me. He talks to people right after I do,” said Olivia, noting Wayne’s reaction.

  “That’s totally unnecessary.” Wayne was miffed.

  Olivia smiled to herself. Was Wayne threatened or maybe even jealous? Strangely enough, it made her feel good. Probably just a sense of professional pride, she thought. After all, what difference did it ultimately make if Justin was around or not?

  “I guess the police feel the more eyes on a case the better,” Olivia answered, putting Justin’s presence into context.

  Wayne turned to her, sad. “You’re right, of course,” he answered. “I just felt that maybe you suddenly had a new partner.”

  Olivia laughed. “You’re the best work partner anyone could want, Wayne,” she replied. “Nobody can replace you.”

  Wayne’s face lit up.

  “And, of course,” she continued, “sooner or later, I’m definitely hoping a life partner will appear for me, as well.”

  “Of course,” said Wayne, suddenly crestfallen.

  “That person’s definitely not Justin, though.” Olivia wanted to ease Wayne’s feelings.

  “Thanks for saying that.” Wayne reached out to her briefly, lightly putting his hand on hers. “It’s a lot to handle all at once.”

  “Of course it is,” said Olivia, giving his hand a squeeze. It must have been awful discovering a second family and having to bring them the horrible news of Mort’s death.

  In a few more moments Olivia and Wayne arrived at the hotel and checked in to their separate rooms. They agreed to meet early the next morning, first for breakfast and then to get to the police station.

  Olivia went to her room, unpacked, and took a long bath. She could barely fall asleep though, kept tossing and turning. That was unusual for her and she wondered why. Of course, finding out that Mort had a second family was extremely unsettling. How had he kept the charade going? she wondered. And what was the need for such deceit? Was it possible that they were dealing with a man who had a split personality? Someone out there must have known the truth about him though, and hated him enough to put an end to his life.

  It bothered Olivia that no one had caught any glimpse of Mort’s deception before. There had to be someone who had some suspicions. Olivia looked forward to meeting the new family, seeing Mort’s other side and what it said about him. She also suspected that more leads would come out when his family in Florida heard about this.

  *

  Right after breakfast, Olivia and Wayne made their way to the police station promptly. When they got there, Mort’s Nashville family had already arrived. Olivia walked into the large waiting room and saw a beautiful teenage girl sitting on a wooden bench, crying. Beside her sat a stunning, fragile-looking blonde woman in her forties and next to her a tense young man.

  Olivia immediately walked over to the family. “I’m Olivia Wells,” she introduced herself. “Wayne and I work together. I am so very sorry for your loss.”

  The older woman’s eyebrows rose, while the young girl looked at Olivia with gratitude.

  “I’m Calia,” she said softly. “Thanks for coming to help us. This is my mother, Heidi, and my brother, Nate.”

  “Why do you say thank you? How do you know Olivia’s here to help us?” Nate grumbled under his breath.

  “Of course I’m here to help you,” Olivia responded, struck by his bitterness. “Wayne and I have been hired to find out who harmed your dad.”

  “Good luck.” Nate scowled as a tall, lanky officer walked into the room.

  The officer walked straight over to Wayne. “Wayne?” he asked. “Chief of Police Andy Pern.”

  “Yes, yes, hello,” Wayne replied, shaking his hand. “This is my partner, Olivia Wells.”

  Andy Pern turned toward Olivia swiftly. “Glad to have you here to help,” he replied. Then slowly he turned to the family. “We’re so sorry for your loss,” he said. “We really appreciate your coming in to help us so soon.”

  Heidi stood up shakily. “It’s not so soon, though, I gather. From what I’ve discovered, my husband actually died several days ago.”

  Olivia felt startled to hear this woman call Mort her husband. Olivia could not help think of Christine.

  Andy Pern shook his head. “We had no idea about your husband’s death, really. Let’s go inside my office and we’ll talk more about it.”

  Everyone followed him into a more private room with softer chairs and a warmer feeling. Once everyone was seated, Calia began to cry.

  “Tell us what you can about your father.” Pern turned to Calia.

  “He was a wonderful dad in every way,” she replied. “I could count on him for everything.”

  Olivia watched Nate shift nervously as Calia spoke. “You too, Nate?” Olivia asked.

  Nate shrugged sullenly. �
�Maybe,” he remarked.

  “I’m sure he was a great father, Calia,” Pern said. “Do you have anything to add, Mrs. Townsend? Anything that might throw even the slightest light on what could have happened to your husband?”

  Heidi looked like a bird caught in a storm. “No,” she answered, “no idea at all. It’s enough trying to make sense of what they’re telling me, that Mort had another family. Is that true? Is it possible? I don’t really believe it.”

  “It does look that way.” Pern nodded his head somberly. “I can only imagine what a shock this has to be.”

  “Then I have nothing further to say.” Heidi began to edge away. “Obviously, our whole life was a lie and I never even knew the person you’re talking about, that ended up dead on the beach.”

  That was too much for Olivia. “No,” she couldn’t help but interject. “You knew part of your husband. The life Mort had with you and your family was real. There was just more to him that you knew nothing of.”

  To Olivia’s surprise, Nate sneered.

  “Do you agree, Nate?” asked Wayne. “Do you feel that you knew at least part of your father?”

  “Of course I knew him,” said Nate. “I knew everything about him, and so did my mom and sister.”

  “Everything?” asked Wayne, alarmed.

  “When he was here, he was here. I knew who he was when he was here. A lot of time, he wasn’t. We all got used to that.”

  “Was that hard for you?” Olivia couldn’t help ask.

  “It was that way since I was little,” said Nate.

  “You get used to things,” Calia chimed in. “We never knew it to be any different.”

  “But that doesn’t make it easy,” said Olivia.

  “Mort was not an easy man, ever,” Heidi chimed in then. “He became more and more complicated, the longer we were married.”

  “You had a good marriage?” asked Olivia.

  “I thought it was perfect, beautiful,” said Heidi in a raspy tone. “He said over and over how happy I made him. He said nothing in the world ever made him so happy.”

  “That’s beautiful,” Olivia said, fascinated. “How did he get more complicated?”

  “I don’t know how to put it exactly,” said Heidi. “Mort grew quieter, sometimes distant. Once he decided something, whatever you said, you couldn’t budge him. I used to ask him if something was bothering him, but it only upset him. He said you’re bothering me when you ask that question. Take me as I am.”

  “I’m sorry,” said Olivia.

  “Sometimes I felt it was something about me that disturbed him,” Heidi went on. “At times I felt as though I was failing.”

  “There’s nothing about you that could possibly upset him, Mom,” Calia broke in, trembling. “People need quiet times, it’s natural.”

  Nate sneered once again. “Nothing’s natural about it,” he muttered.

  “What do you mean?” asked Wayne.

  “I don’t know what I mean.” Nate shot Wayne a dark glance. “But nothing’s natural here, is it?”

  “Nate’s a nervous young man and always has been,” his mother quickly defended him. “You can imagine how awful it is for him to lose his father.”

  “Of course I can,” replied Wayne.

  Olivia found it fascinating to see these different aspects of Mort and his families. Nate may have been nervous and upset, but he also seemed exceptionally intelligent and perceptive for such a young man.

  “Did Mort have friends in Nashville?” Wayne turned to Heidi then.

  “Some, of course,” said Heidi. “We had a few couples we went out with routinely. Mort wasn’t a man who wanted a lot of company. He always said his family was more than enough for him. He loved us, or so I thought, anyway.”

  “Dad loved us, Mom. Of course he loved us,” said Calia.

  “Do you work as well?” Officer Pern asked Heidi.

  “I worked in the music business in the beginning of the marriage, but pretty soon, I didn’t have to. Mort’s clinics did so well, he wanted me to stop working so he could pamper me. It was also very important to him that I stay at home to be here full time for the children.”

  “How did you spend your time when he was away traveling?” asked Olivia. “He was gone a lot.”

  Heidi shrugged nonchalantly. “I have friends of my own, naturally. And, of course, I cared for our family. Once in a while I arranged for local concerts, despite Mort’s objections.”

  Olivia wasn’t sure what the problem was with that. “What did he object to?”

  Heidi smiled wanly. “Nothing, really, Mort just wanted all my attention focused on him. He didn’t like anything taking me away from him, especially as he was only here part time.”

  Heidi was very well put together, and remarkably composed, thought Olivia. She probably was in shock, hadn’t realized fully yet what happened. Finding out about Mort’s other family could also be absorbing her attention, taking the edge off the reality that Mort was gone.

  “Did you go down to Key Biscayne with Mort?” Pern asked Heidi then.

  “No, I’ve never been down there,” Heidi commented. “I like it here, and Mort never suggested that I accompany him during his work time. When we traveled together we went to Europe and spent all our time in galleries and museums. That was fine with me. It was plenty.”

  “I was never in Florida either,” Nate suddenly chimed in, looking more and more bewildered. “I told my dad I wanted to go but he always said there was no reason for it. I said you don’t need a reason for everything, do you?”

  For a moment they all stared at each other.

  “What did he say?” asked Wayne then.

  “He said he’d take me to Florida when I got older. My father said lots of things that will never come true now, will they?” asked Nate.

  Heidi stood up and brushed Nate’s hair off his forehead. “You can’t think that way,” she said nervously. “Life will go on. We’ll be all right. Dad would have wanted us to be happy. And who knows if he really had a second family, or someone has made all this up? People lie, Nate!”

  “Don’t I know it!” Nate shrugged oddly.

  “You’ll all have to go to Key Biscayne shortly,” Chief Pern interjected, “and speak to the police there yourselves.”

  “Will we also meet the other family?” Nate perked up.

  Pern and Wayne exchanged quick glances. “I believe that’s important,” said Wayne carefully. “Don’t you?”

  “Absolutely.” Nate’s voice got louder and shrill. “I want to see them with my own eyes. Do I have other brothers and sisters?”

  “Seems so,” Olivia said. “Two half brothers and a half sister. How about you?” Olivia turned to Calia.

  “I don’t know what’s going on,” Calia said sadly. “I can’t believe it’s true.”

  “We’ll go down and find out,” Nate insisted. “We’ll all sit together in a room and talk. Don’t you want to meet our other brothers and sister?”

  At that Calia trembled violently. “No, I don’t,” she breathed. “No, no, no.”

  “I’m not sure this is a good idea at all,” Heidi chimed in then. “I’m not sure I want to attend this meeting.”

  “It’ll all be fine,” Olivia assured her. She knew the police in Key Biscayne wanted them all to come down and that they had to. It would also be tremendously valuable for them to meet the other family. Once they did, all together, they would begin to be able to untangle the web of confusion and lies that Mort lived in.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Olivia and Wayne sat together stiffly on their flight back down to Key Biscayne, going over whatever they could find on their computers about Mort’s second family. For now, nothing seemed out of order. Calia’s social media pages were filled with friends and warm support for everything in her life, including her love of gymnastics and the many medals she’d won at it. Heidi seemed to be a bit more private, but as she said, she had a small group of loyal friends whom she clearly could count on. Nate
’s pages were sparser. He seemed to enjoy going on hunting expeditions and collecting guns.

  “We’re not going to find the answer on social media,” Wayne commented halfway through the flight. “It will be the meeting in person between both families, down in Key Biscayne, that will open new doors.”

  “I don’t know which will be harder for the families, to deal with their father’s death, or the fact that he lived a secret life,” Olivia mused.

  “No matter how you cut it, Mort was a scoundrel,” Wayne interjected. “Who does something like this?”

  “He must have been torn apart inside,” Olivia commented. “He obviously loved all of them.”

  “Nothing obvious about that,” Wayne said. “This could have had nothing to do with love at all. Who knows what kind of pleasure he got out of playing these games, deceiving everybody?”

  Olivia couldn’t help but think of Todd once again. Had he also gotten pleasure out of sleeping with his former girlfriend just as he and Olivia were getting engaged? Was that also a game for him?

  Olivia had never thought of it that way before. But it was true, and Mort could also have received a warped form of pleasure from living a double life. Having a secret like this could have made him feel powerful. Or, possibly, he had become mentally ill? Did he need two different lives to make him feel whole? Olivia wanted to speak to a psychologist about this.

  The flight went quickly and as soon as they landed in Key Biscayne, Olivia and Wayne headed straight to the police station. Mort’s family from Nashville had taken an earlier flight and most likely would be there already. Olivia felt uneasy about being at the meeting between them. For a second, she wished she could take hold of Wayne’s hand or at least have his arm around her. Suddenly she felt alone in a world where nothing could be counted on.

  Olivia stopped walking and stood there silently for a moment.

  Wayne turned to her quickly. “Are you all right?”

  “I’m not,” said Olivia. “Actually, I’m feeling totally stranded now.”

  “Stranded? You’re not. I’m right here.” Wayne threw his arm around her shoulder, pulled her to him, and then gave her a quick hug.