by David Archer
Kenzie said, “This is Samson! He's a kitty cat!” She started petting Samson, who immediately began to purr.
“I see that,” Grace said, “and a very nice kitty cat he is!” She looked at Sam. “Does he always fall like that? Is he okay?”
“That's normal for our Samson, Mom, he's fine. He just has a problem getting his back legs to work with his front legs when he's running.”
Grace looked at Kenzie, at Samson, then up to Indie and Sam. “I've got to say it, Sam,” she said. “You've got yourself a beautiful little family here. Dare I hope that there will be more children in the future?”
Sam and Indie looked at each other, both realizing that they hadn’t discussed how either of them felt about having more kids. Indie smiled at him and turned back to Grace.
“I think so,” she said. “I want more kids, and Sam needs kids of his own, as well as Kenzie, don't you think?”
Grace looked at Sam with a huge smile. “Samuel!” she said. “Why couldn't you have found this one before you ever met that other one?”
Sam looked at Indie and grinned. “Um, well, Mom, that might not have worked out, cause Indie would have been about thirteen, then, and I'm not sure how her mother would have taken to her dating a cop who was twenty-one.”
“Good point, but at least you found her now! And Grandma is just so happy she could cry,” she said, aiming it at Kenzie, “yes, she is!”
Kenzie giggled, and hugged her, and then Grace suddenly did have tears in her eyes. She looked at her son and said, “I am so proud of you, Sam, and your father would be, too.”
12
Sam and Indie put Kenzie to bed after Grace left, and spent some time alone in the living room. Sam sat on the couch with Indie cuddled up to him the way they had gotten used to, and they watched a bit of TV together, but their minds weren't on the show.
“So, you do want more kids?” Sam asked.
“Uh-huh. Do you?”
“I do,” he said. “I can't believe we didn't talk about that at some point.”
“I'm sure we would have gotten to it soon,” Indie said. “Your mom doesn't pull any punches, does she?”
Sam laughed. “Not Mom, no. Whatever she's thinking tends to fall right on out of her mouth! That's one of the things you just have to get used to, with her.”
“Well, at least it's her own thoughts, and not Beauregard's. I can live with it, trust me! And did you see how Kenzie took to her? That child normally needs at least a couple of days to get used to anyone, but she actually reached for your mom! I was shocked!”
“Yeah, I was half afraid Mom would be so over-exuberant that it would scare Kenzie off, but it didn't turn out that way. I'm glad; she and Mom will get long good, I think.”
They sat together in silence for a few minutes, and then Indie asked the question they were both thinking about. “So—what do you want to do about, um—sleeping arrangements? Do you want me to move on in with you, or should I stay upstairs for now? I mean, Kenzie's in her own room, now, so it isn't like she needs me up there...”
Sam grinned. “Well, I'd be a liar if I said I didn't want you with me,” he said, “but the one we have to consider is Kenzie. How do you think she'll handle it if you move downstairs?”
“I sort of asked her how she'd feel if I moved down with you when I put her to bed,” Indie said, “and she said, 'don't mommies and daddies have to sleep together?' Sometimes I think she's a lot older than she pretends to be. Anyway, I said that sometimes they do, and she said it was okay with her. I just didn't know how you'd feel about it, when we're not actually married, yet.”
Sam smiled down at her. “Baby, I would love it if you wanted to be with me, and not just for the obvious reasons. I like waking up with you beside me, and I love the feeling of someone snuggled up beside me. Are you okay with it?”
She nodded against his chest. “Yeah, I am. I liked being with you last night, and I woke up this morning after you left, and I cried, because I thought it was something that might only happen once, or maybe only now and then. I wanted to tell you when you got home that I was in love with you, but I was afraid I'd scare you, or make you pull back from me, so I didn't say anything. But I wanted to move down and be with you, I did. I still do, and now I can.”
“We'll worry about the moving tomorrow. For tonight, we'll just wing it. You might want to go up and get anything you want to sleep in, though, because I suspect the bedroom door won't necessarily keep Miss Kenzie out anymore.”
“Um, yeah, you're probably right. I'll be right back.” She got up and went upstairs, coming back down a few moments later with a nightgown and her bathroom things, and went into Sam's room. He rose and turned off the TV, then followed her. She was in the bathroom, putting her things away, and he walked over to the door there and watched her.
“This is nice,” he said. “This place has needed a woman's touch forever. You can redecorate in here, if you want to. Shower curtain, all that stuff, even in the bedroom. Heck, you can redecorate the whole house, if you want to. None of the stuff that's here was Jeanie's, so it's not that her touch is on any of it, but you can do it however you want.”
She smiled at him. “Well, the shower curtain is kinda mildewy, and I guess I could see a few changes I'd like to make. You sure that's okay?”
He stepped inside and pulled her into his arms. “Indie, this is your home now, too. I want you to make it the way you want it. I'm not one of those guys who can't sleep under a frilly blanket, Babe.”
She leaned against him and put her own arms around him. “I love you, Sam.”
“I love you, too, Indie. Let's go to bed. I'm still sore from last night, and the bike ride didn't make it any better.”
They got into sleeping clothes and climbed into bed. A couple hours later, they went to sleep in each other's arms.
Sam woke up at eight, to the alarm they'd set the night before. Indie was already up and out of bed, and he took a fast shower and dressed, then found her making breakfast in the kitchen. Kenzie was up, too, and sitting on the floor with Samson. She looked up at him and said, “Hi, Daddy!” and Sam broke into a smile.
“Hello, Baby girl!” he said. “How's my princess this morning?”
“I'm fine,” she said. “Mommy sleeps down here with you now.”
“Um, yeah, I know. Is that okay with you?”
“Uh-huh,” she said, nodding. “All my friends who have mommies and daddies told me their mommies and daddies sleep together, so I know that's how it's 'posed to be.” She went back to making the cat dance on his back paws, and he seemed to be enjoying it.
Sam walked over to where Indie was stirring pancake mix and slipped his arms around her from behind. “Hello, my big Baby girl,” he whispered into her ear, and she shivered.
“Do you have any idea what you do to me when you whisper into my ear?” she asked him. “Makes me want to drag you right back into that bedroom!”
“I'm good with that, but we better wait ‘til Kenzie isn't around. Might give the poor kid a complex if she saw her mommy dragging her daddy, y'know?” He kissed her ear, which made her shiver again, and then went to pour himself some coffee, taking it to the table. He sat down and took a long sip of it, and smiled from ear to ear.
When the pancakes were ready, Sam told Kenzie to get up to the table and helped her get her chair situated the way she wanted it, then helped her get the butter and syrup onto her short stack. Indie joined them a second later, and asked Kenzie to say grace.
“Thank you, God, for this breakfast, and for my new daddy and for Samson and for making mommy smile so much. Oh, and thank you for my new Grandma! Amen!”
Sam and Indie said, “Amen!” and then looked at each other and fought back the giggles that wanted to come out of them both. If Kenzie had noticed Indie smiling more, then they might need to be a little less obvious.
They ate their breakfast and talked about the things they were going to do for the day. Sam said he had a couple of people he wanted to see,
and then he wanted to take Indie out car shopping, and Indie said she wanted to go and get some groceries and things for the bathroom. Kenzie wanted to know if she could get a new doll, one that could talk and move and do all this neat stuff that she saw on TV, and Sam said it was okay with him if she could talk her Mommy into it. Indie glared at him with mock ferocity, but then pretended to give in after a half dozen cries of “please” from both Kenzie and Sam.
Sam put his Glock into its holster and strapped it onto his belt, then left shortly after breakfast and went to Bill Miller's apartment. When he rang the bell, Miller answered, looking half awake.
Sam couldn't help staring for a moment. Knowing that the man standing in front of him was really a woman, he could see certain characteristics that should have been obvious the first time they met. Miller had no Adam's Apple, his skull was shorter than it would be if he were genetically male, and the first fingers of each hand were slightly longer than the third fingers. Each of these was a common indicator that police were trained to spot when dealing with gender impersonators, but Sam had missed them.
“Mr. Prichard,” Miller said. “What can I do for you?”
“I'm trying to wrap up some details about Barry's death, and wondered if we could talk for a few more moments?”
Miller shrugged. “Sure, come on in. Give me a minute and I'll put coffee on.”
Sam went in and sat on the couch again, and waited for a few minutes. Miller came back with two cups of coffee on the same tray, and Sam kicked himself again, mentally. Men don't often use serving trays, preferring to carry extra items like sugar and cream in a separate trip. Miller set the tray down, and Sam added sugar to his coffee.
“So how can I help?” Miller asked.
“Well, there have been a few things come up that aren't fitting in so well, and I'm hoping you can help me make sense of them. For instance, you know that Jimmy Smith was arrested for the murder, right?”
“Yeah, and I can't say I was terribly surprised.”
“Well, it turns out that he left a nasty message on Samantha Harris's voicemail the day after Barry disappeared, and when he was asked who else he called that day, he said he called you. Can you tell me what the call was about?”
Miller looked at him warily for a second. “I'm afraid he must be lying, Mr. Prichard. Jimmy Smith and I don't talk, and he'd have no reason to call me.”
Sam sat there for a moment and wondered why he'd just been lied to. “Mr. Miller—or should I actually be saying Miss Miller? I've seen Jimmy Smith's phone logs, and it clearly shows a call to your cell phone that lasted four-and-a-half minutes, not even a minute after he left that message on Samantha’s phone. Now, can we get past the BS and into some truth here?”
There was silence for a moment, and then a tear appeared on Miller's cheek. “No one has mentioned that in so long that I had hoped I'd never have to talk about it again. It's not really a matter of 'miss' or 'mister,' I'm afraid, Mr. Prichard. I am actually a hermaphrodite, both male and female. My mother couldn't deal with that inconvenient truth, and so I was raised as a girl. It wasn't until I was raped and became pregnant that it truly mattered to me, and once the child was born, I chose to comport myself as a man from then on.”
Sam cocked his head to one side. “But according to records, Barry Wallace was the child's father. Are you saying Barry raped you?”
“No. Barry wasn't the kind of man who could do such a thing. Instead, he was the kind who would take the responsibility and help me cover up that horrible night, by saying that he and I had gotten drunk and made a mistake, which left me with child. When the baby was born, his name was listed as the father, but it wasn't really his.”
“Then whose was it?” Sam asked.
Miller only looked at him. “It was a gang rape, Mr. Prichard. I had been invited to a party with a bunch of the more popular kids, and I went. Somewhere during the evening, someone slipped a drug into one of my drinks, and as far as I can remember, there were no fewer that a dozen who had me that night. I have no idea who some of them were, and I simply couldn't bear to tell anyone what had happened, so I called the one real friend I had, and that was Barry. He came and got me and helped me clean myself up, then took care of me through the rest of that night, while I wept and screamed and even beat on him as a representative of the males of the species.” He sniffled and wiped his nose with a napkin from the tray. “Of course, some of those who had done it told, and soon the word was out that I had both sets of sexual organs, a vagina and a small but definite penis. People began to shun me, and that's part of the reason I've been able to live here again; those who knew me have done their best to forget me, and I look very different as a man than I did as a woman.”
“Miller, I'm sorry. But I still need to know about that phone call.”
Miller sat there and looked at the floor for several seconds, and Sam merely waited. After almost a minute, Miller said, “Jimmy called me. Jimmy Smith is one of the very few people who know the truth about me, and about what happened that night, because he was the agent who had bought the first song I ever sold, one that Barry and I had written together. When I called Barry that night, he was with Jimmy Smith, and Jimmy brought him to pick me up.” He sniffled once again, and used the napkin. “My clothes were torn so badly that there wasn't enough left to cover myself with, so Jimmy took off his jacket and wrapped it around me, and he paid for the motel room where Barry cleaned me up and took care of me. He even went and got antiseptic lotions and such, to help, and he never told anyone about it, but I've avoided ever having to face him again, since then. Barry always dealt with him when he wanted one of my songs, so I wouldn't have to. He knew that Barry and I were still close friends, despite the public stuff that said we hated each other, so he figured if anyone knew where Barry was, it'd be me.”
“Then, you had reason to believe Jimmy was innocent. I'm curious why you didn't come forward.”
“And have to explain how I know so much? I'd have to relive that night all over again, and if you think telling you about was hard just now, imagine what I'd be like if I had to tell it in court. Do you think a prosecutor wouldn't use it to tear me up on the stand, make it sound like I was lying because I was loyal to Jimmy for his help that night? No, thank you. Jimmy did me a favor, yes, but I've paid it back many times in other ways. He's on his own with this one.”
Sam looked at him and thought about what he'd just heard. “Tell me something else. Assume someone hated Barry enough to kill him, and hated Jimmy enough to frame him; who would you think it would be?”
Miller thought about it, Sam could tell, but then shook his head. “See, the first half of that is the problem,” he said, “because I can't imagine anyone ever hating Barry. He was just the absolute nicest guy you'd ever want to know, and he'd give you or anyone else the shirt off his back. I can't imagine who could hate him, not at all. Jimmy? Lots of people hate Jimmy, and not all of them are former clients. He's never been close to anyone who didn't end up hating his guts, and I do mean not anyone! If they've known Jimmy Smith for more than a few months, they hate him for one reason or another.” He wiped his nose once more. “How strange is it that the only two people he ever knew who didn't hate him would be me and Barry? And neither one of us can help him.”
“One last question, and it's about your child: did you know that Barry and Janice Peet got married, and that he was trying to take the little girl back from his sister?”
Miller's eyes went wide, and Sam knew the answer instantly. “No! He'd never said a word, not about getting married, and not about trying to get Abbie back! I had no idea, but I can tell you this, his sister will never let that little girl go. She couldn't have kids of her own, and when Barry said he had a child he couldn't raise, she jumped up to adopt her, and she's been very, very good for her. But give her up? If Barry was trying that, you might want to find out where she and her husband were the night he died.”
“Then they know that you were the mother?”
“
Yes, but it was all sealed in the adoption records. I'll say it again, Mr. Prichard; if Barry was trying to take that little girl away from Marjorie and Philip, I wouldn't be a bit surprised if they killed him. Abbie's their one and only reason for living.”
Sam left, completely blown away by everything he'd heard. Could it be possible that the killer was Barry's own sister, or his brother-in-law? He called Indie.
“Babe, it's too long to go into over the phone, but I need an address for Barry Wallace's sister, Marjorie and her husband. At the moment, they may be my top suspects in this mess.”
“Wow,” she said. “Hang on a minute and I'll have it for you.”
A minute later, Sam punched the address into his GPS and headed off into Arvada to find Barry's sister. He had a gut feeling that he was getting close to the real solution to the case, and wanted to bring it to a close as soon as he could.
He parked in front of the house and walked up to knock, but the door opened before he could raise his hand. A woman stood there, and he recognized her from the news story.
“Mrs. Newcomb? My name is Sam Prichard, I'm a private investigator hired to look into your brother's death. I was wondering if I could ask you a few questions.”
She narrowed her eyes at him. “Who hired you?” she asked.
Sam smiled. “Ma'am, that's confidential, and I'm not at liberty to answer that question, but I've come across some information that makes me think we really ought to talk.”
“I don't think I have anything to say to you, Mr...”
“Ma'am, you can talk to me and help me clear this up, or I have to turn it all over to the police, and let them come talk to you. Since some of it involves your daughter, I thought you might prefer to deal with me.”
Marjorie froze for a second, and then opened the screen door wide. “Come on,” she said stiffly, and let Sam enter, then led him into the living room of the house. A little girl of about twelve was sitting at a table in the adjacent dining room. Marjorie said, “Abbie, I've got to talk some business with this gentleman, Honey, so I want you to go up to your room for a while.”
