“Ron, are you all right?”
It was Robert.
Ron lashed out. His first strike landed on Robert’s face, but the man caught the next one in a strong grip.
“What the…?”
Ron began to fight with his whole body, squirming and kicking, wanting to hurt Robert in the same way he was hurting. But his strikes were ineffective, and he decided that he would settle for just getting away. He didn’t want to be helped. He didn’t want to explain, or apologize, or listen to reason. He wanted the whole world to know that he was furious.
The most frustrating thing was, he couldn’t break free of Robert’s grip.
His desperation grew, but no matter how hard he fought, Robert was bigger and stronger and pinned him down. Ron was beginning to get dizzy from the effort.
“Ron, calm down,” Robert yelled.
“No!” Ron shouted. “I won’t! Let me go!”
“Ron, you almost killed yourself! Didn’t you see that truck?”
“Leave me alone!”
“Let me help you.”
“I hate you!” Ron tried to hold back the sobs. “Go away!”
“Ron…”
“Shut up!” he yelled, and Robert snapped his mouth closed, staring at Ron with alarm.
“You’re all stupid,” Ron shouted. “All of you! My Dad told me to be the head of the house, not you! I hate you! I hate you!”
Then he was sobbing, crying too hard to talk. He forgot who he was mad at and why. He forgot that he was supposed to be the quiet one. All he could think was that Mom and Dad were dead, that they were never coming back.
Dad would never tell him that he was doing a good job again. Mom would never tell him how handsome he looked. They’d never be there for anything. He would be alone forever.
He stopped fighting. Jagged sobs threatened to rip through his chest. He felt himself falling apart, and he gripped at the closest thing he could find.
Robert.
After a moment, Robert hugged him back.
When Julia finally made it to the end of the road, she found Robert cradling Ron, who couldn’t see for the crying.
42
The next few days passed quietly. Between Julia’s physical injuries and Ron’s emotional collapse, everyone needed time to recover.
Amelia insisted on coming over during the day to help and, to Julia’s surprise, she and Dana took over the running of the household. They made the meals, walked the dogs, watered the garden, and kept Jack happy so that Julia and Ron could rest.
Julia was glad for the respite, even though it was punctuated by calls and visits from various well-wishers. Julia’s parents called, frantic; then they told the Budds, even though Julia begged them not to. She managed to get Miriam off the phone in a record-breaking six minutes and thirty-five seconds.
Mrs. Jurta was over almost every day, bringing pots of soup and neighborhood stories. Mrs. Ojacor brought baskets of supplies. Mrs. Mone came by, as did others, and Derval showed up on Wednesday and weeded the garden with Dana. And everyone commented on the enormous bouquets from John Irwin, one of flowers and the other of fruit, both with kindly notes.
“I just can’t believe how nice everyone is being,” Julia told Mrs. Ojacor when they were alone. “I feel overwhelmed and a little embarrassed.”
“No reason to feel that. You give when you can, and when you can’t, the best you can do is accept graciously.”
It was good advice, but Julia had to swallow a bit of pride with it.
Robert phoned twice a day, as much to check on Julia as to check on Amelia, and joined them each night for supper. The police department was investigating the break-ins. Robert was convinced, as Julia was, that there was a connection between the break-in and the Lang Murder, and Robert had taken it upon himself to pull out the old files and start reinvestigating the evidence. Although it wasn’t normal procedure to talk shop around the dinner table, Julia and the others were too curious about his progress to allow him to keep mum.
At first Ron was shy and quiet around Robert; then, as he grew more comfortable, he began asking about the investigation. There wasn’t much to tell.
Robert told them that the sketches had been positively identified as Stephanie’s, and now her family was demanding that they be turned over to the Lang trust. They had even flown in their big-shot lawyer from New York to talk to the police chief, but the works were evidence in a robbery, and they could not be turned over until the D. A. said so.
“The lawyer must have been mad,” Amelia commented.
“He was a cool customer,” Robert said. “Great poker face, but we all got the impression that he wasn’t used to taking no for an answer. By the way, we made copies of the pictures, and I thought maybe you guys would like to see them.”
He handed the pictures around, and everyone thought that they were very nice, if a little boring.
“They’re just staring,” Dana said.
“They’re called character studies,” Julia said. “Artists do them to decide how to draw someone’s portrait.”
“Lot of detail in these for just character studies,” Wilde commented.
“Hey! It’s J. C.!” Ron exclaimed, holding up a picture. Then he frowned. “But, wait a minute – he wasn’t born then, right?”
“No, he wasn’t,” Julia said. “Let me see.”
He passed it to Amelia, who commented before handing it off to Julia, “Besides, J. C. doesn’t have a mustache.”
“Maybe Stephanie painted one on as a joke,” Dana suggested.
“This isn’t J. C.” Julia studied it carefully. “It does look a lot like him, though. It must be his father, John.”
“Let me see,” Wilde said, and she handed it across the little table with the comment, “I imagine the family must have been thrilled that these were found at all.”
“You more got the impression that they should have been found long ago,” he said dryly. He examined the picture closely, frowning. “This does look like John. Funny – I don’t remember him ever mentioning that he sat for Stephanie.”
“Well, he wasn’t the only one,” Julia said. “I gather half the town sat for her.”
“Yeah, or…” He looked up, remembered that there were children in the room, and actually blushed when Julia laughed.
The next night, with the kids playing in the living room, Robert and Julia sat on the front porch steps and talked. At first, they simply sat side-by-side, talking about commonplace things, then Julia shivered in the rapidly cooling air.
Robert slipped an arm around her shoulders and drew her close. He smelled of soap and aftershave, and she liked it.
She was starting to daydream when Robert said, “I was waiting to get you alone. I’ve got something to tell you, and I didn’t want the kids to know yet.”
Her heart quickened, but she wasn’t expecting what he said next. “There’s been a development in the Lang case.”
She lifted her head and frowned up at him in the dark. “In the Lang case?”
He nodded. “We took samples of the blood you discovered on your wall and sent it in for testing.”
“Why?”
“The chief and I were looking over the old photos with a blood-spatter expert today, and he confirmed what we already thought. There doesn’t seem to be enough blood for the wound discovered on her head. We can’t prove it yet, but there’s room for doubt that the studio was the scene of the crime.”
She felt a cold chill wash over her. “You think that she was killed in my house?” she whispered. “But why would she have been here?”
“I don’t know, Jules.” He reached up and brushed a lock of hair out of her face. “The stain is the right age, and there’s the evidence under the floorboards. I have no explanation for why she would have been there. The town information says that the house was owned at the
time by a Henrietta Purcell, but there aren’t any Purcells mentioned in the original investigation. I suppose Stephanie could have known Henrietta, but there is nothing to connect the two, not even a painting or sketch in the known Lang collection of any Henrietta or Purcell.”
“And there weren’t any women in the sketches we found under the floorboards,” Julia mused. “Just one of the little Jurta girl.” She stopped and looked at him sharply. “Then do you think that the person who broke into my house was…”
He interrupted before she could finish. “He’s already desperate enough to hurt you, Julia. He’s dangerous, whether or not he was actually Stephanie’s murderer, too.” He looked away suddenly and swallowed hard.
They sat in silence for a moment or two, looking out into the street, his hand gently rubbing her back. Julia wished he would hold her again. When he didn’t take the initiative, she did, leaning in close until her head was on his shoulder. His arm came around her waist, and Julia was struck by how natural it felt.
“What happens now?” she asked quietly.
She could feel his heart pounding in his chest. “Unless we can bring something more concrete to light, the D. A. isn’t going to re-open the case. Officially, we’re just working on the break-in as an unrelated matter.”
“And unofficially?”
“The chief told me that I can study the Lang case files as much as I’d like. He’s not convinced that we know everything.”
“Oh, Lord,” she whispered. “That’s so frightening. I would have preferred a real ghost to this.”
His armed tightened around her. “Me, too.”
Later that night, when they were at the door saying good bye, Robert suddenly asked her, “Are you all right staying here alone?”
Julia nodded. “Oh, yes. We’ve got the window alarms and the dog. We’ll be fine.”
His grip tightened on her hands as he explained, “These past two nights, the chief has ordered an extra patrol around this area, but he’s shorthanded tonight and had to cancel it. If you’re nervous, though, I can stay…”
“No.” Julia pulled back, her cheeks flushed. “No, that’s all right. We’ll be fine, Robert, really. I’m not worried.”
“Well, I am. This is serious, Julia. This man is still at large and dangerous. He may come back to finish what he started.”
She kept her voice steady. “We’ll be fine. I’m not taking your warning lightly. Besides, you’re right next door. I’m not worried.”
He nodded, but he didn’t leave.
“Julia…” he sighed, “there’s something I didn’t tell you.”
“Oh?”
“Brad Lang’s out of prison and hasn’t reported to his parole officer in over a week. We think he might be in the area.”
Julia froze. Brad Lang was out of prison. She thought it odd, that even under these circumstances, she couldn’t think of him as the murderer.
“Do you think he was the one in my house?” she asked.
“We don’t know,” he said. “He may have been the one in the Lang house with Ron or he may be in South America somewhere. All that we know is he’s loose, and he’s dangerous. Either he killed his wife or he has a grudge against this town. In any case, he might just decide to take it out on you and the kids…”
“But…”
“Julia.” He took her hands again and his eyes held hers. “I’m right next door, but that can be awfully far away.”
His eyes were so dark, so penetrating, and she so wanted to be able to tell him, “Yes, please stay.” She thought about how she felt when he was holding her on the porch, and about the children, about how Ron’s eyes shone whenever they were talking, and she thought about the long, lonely days ahead of her. Even without the threat of a break-in, the invitation was very tempting.
But it was too soon, too complicated by circumstances, for her to agree. And she was too bound by her beliefs to allow herself to give way now.
Julia shook her head regretfully. “We’ll be fine, Robert. I know where you are. He probably does, too.”
They were quiet for a while. He was holding her hands, gently massaging them with his thumbs. The darkness outside the door framing Robert’s figure was as soft as velvet, and just as warm. If she looked over his shoulder, she could see a circle of light: porch light at Amelia’s house, a reminder that he had other responsibilities, a person with a prior call on his time and attention. Just as she had.
She looked down at their entwined hands and tightened her grip just a little.
When he spoke, his voice was gentle. “You’ll call if you need me? No more heroics?”
She smiled in spite of herself. “I don’t think I can afford any more. I’ll call.”
“Be safe.” He smiled, pained. “Don’t open the door for anyone you don’t know.”
She laughed. “Now you’re sounding like my dad. I’ve lived alone before, Robert. I know the rules.”
“All right. Just… be careful.”
For a long moment, they stood looking into each other’s eyes. Then he leaned in and brushed her cheek with his.
“Be careful,” he breathed in her ear.
When the screen door shut behind him, she stood for a second or two longer, then eased the door closed and stood quietly beside it, her heart pounding.
When she raised her head, she spotted Ron and Dana peering through the upstairs banister. They raced back to bed when they realized that she saw them. Julia shook her head, drew the bolt on the door, set the alarm, and went into the kitchen to make some tea. She curled up on the couch with it, and just when she started to feel lonely, Horatio wandered over and snuggled next to her with his head on her lap.
She smiled and stroked his head.
“Okay, but you aren’t Robert.”
He just whimpered and looked up at her with a hurt expression.
44
Hi Julia,
Just a note to let you know that the position has been filled. I put in your name, but, unfortunately, the boss already had someone in mind.
Good luck on the job hunt. My best to you.
Markie
Julia fell back against her chair, stunned. Until that moment, she hadn’t realized how much hope she had put on Markie’s recommendation. She had let the other job searches go, she’d charted out her new work route, and budgeted around the pay cut. In her mind, she’d approached the move with the children, bought a new house, hired moving vans, and argued Miriam down to the ground about putting Ron into a lesser, more affordable junior high. She’d built an entire life for them, based on the slender promise of a nearly forgotten school friend.
She pressed her hand to her mouth and fought the welling tears. Around her, the bookstore café hummed with muted activity, the rustle of pages, and the clink of dishes. The kids were in the children’s section, listening to Story Time. They were there to just keep Jack company, or so Amelia said. For all their protests that they were too old for a story, they had been awfully worried about missing the opening.
It was Friday. After several quiet days at home, everyone needed a break from the little house, Ron especially. He’d done a lot of crying and a lot of talking with Julia, and he was doing lot a better, but he was still fragile.
Now, Julia stared at the computer screen and fought her rising panic. She’d been so certain of Markie’s job, so wrapped up in the house and the murder mystery and then the robbery, and Robert, that she hadn’t been paying proper attention.
She scrolled through her emails and logged on to her job search engines, finding no responses. Her resume had netted her nothing but the standard invitation to attend a conference on insurance salesmanship – which would cost her only an “affordable” amount.
She shut down the websites and opened up an email from Sherry, who wrote that she hadn’t any interest in the Franklin house yet, but was expect
ing an offer on the Springfield house. Wouldn’t Julia reconsider and sell?
Julia thought she’d soon be in a position where she couldn’t afford to refuse a decent offer. Taxes were due soon, and she’d have to find health insurance by the end of the month.
She shut off the computer and leaned back into her chair again with her cup of coffee, thinking about her conversation with Robert the night before. If his suspicions were correct, Stephanie was killed in her back bedroom and then brought back to the house, where the murderer set the scene to look like a robbery gone bad. That was a new spin on the original story, but did it automatically clear Brad Lang?
From what she’d been able to gather about Brad, he was crazy enough about his wife to commit murder during a jealous mood swing, but then why move the body out of the Purcell place and into his own house? Aside from trying to preserve the fiction of his happy marriage, having Stephanie found in his house would only make things more difficult for him.
Julia pulled open her purse and pulled out the copies of the sketches found under her floor boards. There had to be a clue among them.
She shuffled through them. Even the most unfinished ones were impressive. The art world had, indeed, lost a great talent when Stephanie Lang died. She paused when she came to the one that resembled J. C. Irwin. Looking at the sketched design, she studied the lines on the face, the scruffy goatee, and the jeans with the torn pocket. He had a devil-may-care pose, his back to the artist while looking over his shoulder. There was a mark on his upper arm that was either a mistake of the artist’s or a tattoo partially covered by his short sleeves. Julia tried to picture the courteous, almost servile John Irwin living a James Dean youth on the back of a motorcycle.
“Aunt Julia!”
Dana and Amelia raced to the table and dropped a heavy book onto it. A black and white photo of Stephanie Lang, paint brush in hand, smiled up at her, her large eyes looking dreamily off into the distance.
“Look what we found!” Dana announced a little too loudly for the quiet confines of the café. Julia got a few startled and annoyed grimaces. “See! It’s all about the dead lady!”
Summer Shadows Page 35
