by BJ Bourg
CHAPTER 33
When I got home from work, I stopped to play with Achilles before walking inside. I asked him if I should confront my mom, but all he did was cock his head to the side and allow his big ears to droop. “Thanks a lot, buddy.”
I made sure his food bowl was full and that he had water and then entered through the back door. My mom was sitting in the living room watching some game show. I looked around. “Where’s Mrs. Wilson?”
“Oh, she and Susan went downtown. Shopping, I think.” She searched my eyes with her own. “Oh, I know that expression. Something’s on your mind.”
I took a seat on the recliner next to her and nodded. “I want to talk about Garvan Montana.”
Her shoulders drooped. “You’re not going to let this go, are you?”
“No, you know I’m not. In fact, I’ve done some digging and I located Hazel Montana. She had quite a story to tell.”
“I bet she did. That woman never did like me.” Mom huffed. “She never thought I was good enough for Garvan. Claimed I was holding him back.”
“Well, I’m more interested in knowing if Garvan Montana really is my dad. According to Hazel, Garvan didn’t know he had a son. She said if he did, he would’ve never abandoned me. She said the reason he left you was because…” I paused and studied her face. It was a shade lighter than usual and her skin was tight around the eyes. “She said Garvan left you because you hit Crystal.”
My mom just hung her head. Tears welled up in her eyes and dripped straight down into her lap. She looked tired. I asked her if what Hazel said was true, and she just sat there crying. I moved closer and sat on the arm of the recliner she was in and put an arm around her shoulders. “It’s okay, Mom…it was a long time ago. I just want to know what happened and if Garvan’s really my dad. We don’t have to get into the particulars if you don’t want to. I just want to know where I came from.”
“Why does it matter so much now?” she asked, tears spraying from her lips as she spoke. “Why, after all these years, do you care who your father is? Can’t you just accept that Ezekiel is your dad and we can drop this whole thing?”
“That’s kind of obvious, don’t you think? It’s because I just found out about him. Now that I know Ezekiel isn’t my biological father, I want to know who is, and I want to know everything I can about him. And look, I don’t care how bad the truth is—I want it all. The past is the past and you’ve got nothing to be ashamed about and you don’t have to apologize for anything. I’d just like to hear the truth about my past.” After watching her sob for a minute or so, I asked if Garvan was really my dad.
“Yes, he’s your father.”
“Are you sure?”
She sighed. “I’m positive.”
I nodded and moved back to the recliner I’d been sitting in earlier. “Is it true that you used to beat on Garvan?”
“Yeah, it’s true.” She was defeated now. Her shoulders drooped so low that I thought they would touch her knees. “I had some anger issues growing up and it spilled over into our marriage. I know it was wrong of me, but I’d just get so angry that I couldn’t help myself. When I’d calm down I’d feel so horrible about what I’d done. I was sure he would leave me someday, but he never did. He stuck it out for many years until…”
“Until what?”
“I was disciplining Crystal one day and he just freaked out. He started telling me that he might put up with me hitting him but he would never stand idly by while I beat on any child of his.” She wiped her nose on her shoulder. “It was the one time I was afraid of him. He actually threatened to physically throw me out of the house and call the cops to have me arrested. He said he was leaving and I begged him to reconsider. I offered to go to marriage counseling, to get help for my anger, but it was no use.”
“What happened next?”
“A couple of days later he and Crystal were just gone. I came home and found the house empty. Later that same day I was served with a restraining order. The cops told me if I came within so many feet of him or Crystal I’d be arrested.” She shook her head. “Without me knowing, he had been secretly photographing his bruises and cuts from when I’d hit him. He had even hid a recorder in his pocket a few times when I was screaming at him and threatening to kill him and he saved it as evidence. He gave it all to the cops.
“I had to show up in court a few weeks later and he put on quite a show.” She paused and took a quivering breath. “It was so horrible to sit there and listen to someone recounting all the bad things you’d ever done in your life and not being able to defend yourself. My lawyer tried to argue in my favor, but the judge awarded Garvan full custody and told me I’d be arrested if I went anywhere near my baby girl.”
My mom wiped her swollen eyes. “The last time I saw her was when Hazel was walking her out of the courtroom that day.”
“Did you ever get help for your anger?”
She was crying uncontrollably, but she nodded her head and said that she had started seeing a therapist a few months before I was born.
I gave her some time to collect her thoughts and then asked if she and Ezekiel had ever gotten married. I held my breath as she answered, hoping she hadn’t committed bigamy.
“No, we couldn’t get married because I was never formally divorced from Garvan.”
“Why didn’t you just agree to the divorce? Hazel said Garvan’s lawyer tried to find you to serve you with divorce papers, but you hid from them and they were never able to serve you.”
“Is that why they were looking for me?” She seemed surprised.
“That’s what Hazel said.”
“Then why’d he wait so long to file? Those detectives showed up at the house ten years after he left with Crystal. Once he was awarded custody, they moved out of Louisiana and I never heard from him again. He never completed the divorce proceedings and I didn’t have the money to pursue it, so I just let it go.”
I’d heard of people being separated for years and never legally divorcing, but I never dreamed my mother was in that number. I’d always assumed she and Ezekiel were married. She’d always introduced herself as “Nancy Wolf” and people would address her as Ezekiel’s wife and him as Nancy’s husband.
And since she was surprised to learn why the investigators were searching for her, it left me wondering if she was involved in some other dirty business. What else wasn’t she telling me?
“Why’d you hide from those investigators?” I asked. “Serving you with divorce papers would’ve paved the way for you to marry Ezekiel, so I don’t know why you would’ve avoided them.”
“I thought Garvan had found out about you.”
“Found out what about me?”
She hung her head again and I saw her leg start to shake. “You know how I told you Garvan had abandoned us?”
I nodded.
“That’s not entirely true. You see, your father, Garvan…he never even knew about you.”
“What do you mean?”
“I never told him I was pregnant,” she admitted softly. “I was afraid he’d take you away from me like he took Crystal, so I kept you a secret. When those investigators showed up, I thought they’d found out about you and that Garvan was there to take me to court and get custody over you.”
I pondered this information. “Is that why you gave me Ezekiel’s last name—to conceal my true identity?”
“Not exactly. Even before you were born Ezekiel told me he would give you his last name and raise you as his own. It wasn’t until those investigators started snooping around that I realized it had been a great idea.” She smiled warmly through the tears. “And he’s been such a good father and husband.”
CHAPTER 34
My mom and I were still talking when Susan and her mom arrived home. While my mom’s eyes were still bloodshot and swollen, she wasn’t crying anymore and her voice was stronger. She and Lisa began talking about the wedding, so Susan and I walked out to the back yard, where Achilles was marching around with a dead opo
ssum clasped between his teeth.
“Not again,” Susan said. “If he doesn’t start eating what he kills, we’re going to have to charge him with a wildlife violation.”
I laughed and told her about the conversation I’d had with my mom. “I’m glad I know what went on,” I said, “but I do feel bad for her. It was a painful conversation for her to have and she looks mentally drained.”
“I’m sure she didn’t want the mistakes of her past dredged up, but it’s a good thing she cleared it all up for you.” After a brief silence between us, Susan continued. “Did she admit to beating on Crystal?”
“Yeah, she said she had anger issues, but she saw a psychiatrist and they put her on medication.” I explained how I’d never seen her hit Ezekiel and she never appeared angry when she disciplined me. “I guess it helped.”
Susan only nodded, and I knew she was wondering if we could trust my mom to babysit our future baby. She wasn’t alone. After we spent an hour alone in the back yard, we returned inside and I took my case file to the master bedroom upstairs. Susan and her mom had already eaten in town and my mom was having cereal, so I brought a sandwich with me and ate while Susan took a careful bath.
Once I’d finished eating, I pulled out the packet of crime scene photos I’d printed at the office and spread them across the bed. I retrieved my notepad and scribbled the names of each of my potential suspects, beginning with the most likely to the least likely—Connie Taylor, Brandy Lewis, Foster Blake, Joyce Reynolds, Jack Billiot, and Chris Jenkins.
Foster, Joyce and Jack had moved higher on the list with the revelation about Chris. I was still waiting on the gunshot residue results from Jack and Brandy. If they came back negative, it either meant they’d washed their hands, they had been wearing gloves, or it wasn’t them. Basically, a negative result would leave me with more questions than answers, and I was starting to think I needed to take another crack at Brandy. Maybe I’d missed something in the first interview.
I was jotting down details from each of their statements when Susan came out wearing nothing but her robe. Although her belt was tied in place, the top of the robe was open down the center, exposing her ample cleavage. Although a cast took up the bottom portion of her right leg and she was balancing on crutches, she was still as beautiful and sexy as ever.
She noticed me staring and grinned, her face turning a darker shade of red. I liked that she still reacted to my outward display of appreciation for her beauty.
“How am I supposed to work with you walking around dressed like that?” I complained playfully. “You know how much of a distraction you are to me.”
She reached for the top of her robe and smiled slyly. “Maybe I’ll just take the whole thing off—”
“My work here is done!” I slammed my notepad shut and started to gather up the pictures, but she stopped me.
“We can’t make love while our mothers are downstairs,” she whispered. “I would be mortified at the thought of them hearing us.”
I grumbled and reopened my notepad. “This is the very definition of cruel and unusual punishment.”
She laughed and hobbled to the bed, where she sat beside me. “What’re you trying to figure out?”
“I’m going through each suspect and trying to guess who has the strongest motive for killing Mitch. Try as I might, I can’t get Connie to move down the list of suspects. I think she’s our best candidate.”
“Why are Foster and Joyce higher on the list than Jack?” she asked. “Jack was at the scene, so he had opportunity. We already know he stole money, so he’s got motive. If you ask me, he should be number one on that list for now—at least until you get the GSR results back. If he’s clean, then I’d drop him to the bottom.”
“I just don’t think he’s got the stones to commit a murder. Plus”—I pulled out a picture showing the floor of the crime scene—“the floor was bone dry. If Jack would’ve shot him from outside and then entered to steal the money, there would be water marks on the floor.”
Susan cocked her head to the side and nodded. “That’s true.”
She asked if either Foster or Joyce had said anything to make me suspicious of them, but I shook my head. “They each provided an alibi defense for the other, so they’d both have to be lying.”
“By the very nature of their cheating ways, they’re already liars,” Susan said.
“Correct.”
While I went over my notes from Foster’s statement, Susan began studying the crime scene photographs, picking them up one at a time and holding them up to the light. She even got up and retrieved a magnifying glass from her nightstand and went back to studying the pictures.
“All of the pictures are on my laptop,” I offered. “You can enlarge them and zoom in better on the screen. The printed copies are a little grainy.”
Instead of making her struggle across the room, I got my laptop and handed it to her. I rubbed my tired eyes and offered to fix her a cup of hot cocoa. It was feeling seasonal outside—after a long warm spell—and hot chocolate was usually a winter favorite of hers.
“With tiny marshmallows?”
“With tiny marshmallows.” I smiled and leaned over to kiss her forehead. “Is there any other way?”
While she continued to study the photographs, I lumbered down the stairs in my bare feet and found my mom and Lisa Wilson sitting at the kitchen table. I overheard my mom discussing our earlier conversation and her voice was laced with sorrow. She looked up at me and smiled when she saw me. “Son, I’m so sorry again for everything I’ve done.”
I walked over and put an arm around her shoulders. “You don’t have to apologize anymore, Mom. It’s all in the past now.”
“But now I wonder how different your life might’ve been had I been honest with you and Garvan. Maybe you would’ve had better opportunities if your real father had been in your life. Maybe you could’ve become a doctor or a lawyer or—”
“Hold the phone,” I said, interrupting her. “What makes you think I’d ever want to be a doctor or a lawyer?”
“I don’t know. Most kids want to be doctors or lawyers or super heroes. They make lots of money, and I figured everyone wants a job where there’s a potential to be rich. I mean, who doesn’t like money?”
“I have a job where I have the distinct privilege of saving lives and bringing bad people to justice.” I pursed my lips and nodded solemnly. “Sure, I could’ve become a doctor or lawyer or CEO of a large company, but that’s not who I am—it’s not what I want to do. There’s no greater calling and nothing I’d rather be doing with my life than what I’m doing right now.”
“Amen to that,” Lisa said. “I’m scared to death every time I think about Susan being out there facing those bad people, but I am so proud of my baby girl. To me, she is a superhero and I wouldn’t want her—”
“Clint, get up here!” Susan called. “I’ve got something!”
CHAPTER 35
I rushed to the sound of Susan’s voice and could hear Lisa and my mom following up the stairs. Lisa was fretting out loud, asking if Susan was okay or if she’d fallen. I called over my shoulder that Susan was fine and entered the bedroom to see her bent over my laptop screen.
“Mitch wasn’t the target!” She stabbed my laptop screen with her index finger and waved me over. “Look at this photo.”
I moved up behind her. “What are we looking at?”
Before Susan could explain, my mom and Lisa bumped into me and I nearly fell forward.
“What is it?” my mom asked. “Did you solve the case for Clint?”
“That’s my girl,” Lisa said, reaching around me and patting Susan on the back. “I knew you could do it.”
Susan lifted a hand. “If you’re not law enforcement, raise your hand before you speak. Clint, check out the piece of paper taped on the wall at the back of the bar.”
I put a hand on her shoulder and leaned closer to the screen. I nodded. “That’s the work schedule. I took a picture of it while I was out
at the scene.”
“Look who was slated to work Friday night.”
I squinted. There, in the box for the Friday evening shift, was Foster Blake’s name. “What the hell?”
“Yeah, Foster Blake isn’t a suspect—he was the target.”
I mulled this over. Susan was definitely on to something. First, if someone knew Foster was supposed to be working that night, they could’ve easily mistaken Mitch for him in the heavy rain. Second, as I’d been investigating possible motives someone might have had for killing Mitch, I’d uncovered one reason someone might want Foster dead, and I already had two suspects.
“I think you’re right about this,” I told Susan, still trying to put the pieces together in my head. “The killer had to know Foster was supposed to be working that night, but they didn’t know he got Mitch to cover his shift. The killer then heads out to the bar under the cover of darkness and heavy rain and shot who they thought was Foster through the screen door. I wonder what they did when they realized they got the wrong man?”
Susan was chewing on her lower lip. “We have to start from scratch now and figure out who had a motive to kill Foster.”
“Oh, I already have two good suspects…” I let my voice trail off as another theory entered my mind. “Wait a minute, what if this is a switcheroo?”
“How so?”
“What if Foster asked Mitch to cover his shift so he could kill Mitch and then make us think someone wanted him dead?”
“You just made my head hurt.” Susan shook her head to clear it. “You think Foster got Mitch to cover his shift so he could kill Mitch?”
“It’s possible.”
“Why would he want Mitch dead?”
