“Lay off of Gerald. This is your last warning.”
I raised an eyebrow. “Or what?”
“Or you’re a dead woman.”
In spite of myself, I laughed out loud. “Oh, really. Really. Listen, if you don’t like the way I’m preparing for this case, then I suggest you find a different attorney to threaten. And that’s not even a suggestion at this point. That’s an ultimatum. Either you stop telling me how to do my job or you fire me.” I crossed my arms and sat back in chair and stared at him.
We engaged in a staring contest for a few minutes before he looked away. I could see his wheels turning and I knew that I had him. I knew it. He wasn’t going to fire me. He couldn’t fire me. I had all the cards and he knew it.
But was there something else? Some other reason why he refused to fire me? Granted, Christina told him that he had to hire me or get a Public Defender, but, at this point, I would have thought that he would rather go with the Public Defender. After all, the Public Defender might not put together who really did this crime. They might, but they might not have looked at the Stone Enterprises angle. If I were him, I would go with that gamble.
Ah, but, then again, Christina would also call in the bond if he did that. He would end up in jail, awaiting trial. That would be motivation enough for him to stick with me. For that reason alone, I felt reasonably confident that I was going remain on his case.
“I told you who did this,” he said. “It was my wife.”
“You never told me that. You told me that you suspected her. You never told me, definitively, that she did it.” I glared at him, appalled that he was going to try to throw his own wife under the bus. Christina was the mother of his five children, too. He really was willing to let her take the blame for this? That made me sick.
His eye twitched. His left eye. He looked like a monster to me, so I turned my head.
“She did it. You get her in here and you ask her one question, and that will tell you everything that you need to know.”
“What’s that one question?”
“You ask her who fathered our oldest child, Lindsay.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Oh, God. I’m going to be sick. Really, really sick.
Michael had left the office in a huff, and he left more bread crumbs for me to follow. The trouble was, these were bread crumbs that I didn’t want to have left for me. His implication was clear – Judge Sanders fathered Christina’s oldest child, who was 13 years old. That very thought made me sick. I knew that he had raped his daughter, and that was awful enough. But to father a child with her? That was seriously outer limits.
Was Christina angry enough to kill her father?
Or was her father crazy enough to threaten to tell the child the truth?
That was the only thing that made sense to me as to why Christina would do something like that to her father. I mean, why now? The child was 13 years old.
Why indeed? I could think of at least two reasons why Christina might have gone outer limits and killed her father now, as opposed to 14 years ago, when the child was conceived. Number one, Christina just found out that her father had another family, so she killed him as a favor to her mother. Number two, the judge might have threatened Christina with telling the child the truth. Or, door number three was that Christina might not have known for sure, until recently, who the father was of the child.
As I sat back in my chair and looked out the window, I started to think that it was probably the third option. It didn’t make sense that the judge would threaten to tell Lindsay about her parentage. That made zero sense. After all, if that ever got out, his career would be finished anyhow, and, well, he would probably spend some time in prison. Probably he wouldn’t spend a lot of time in prison, just because of who he was, but he would go to prison for sure.
No, he wouldn’t threaten Christina with doing that. It wouldn’t be a credible threat, to say the very least.
I decided just to get to the bottom of it. I called Christina on her cell phone.
“Yeah,” she said. “This is Christina. Who is this?”
“Christina, this is Harper Ross.”
“Oh, hey Harper. How are things cooking over there? You figure out the motive, yet?”
“I’m working on it. Listen, I need for you to come into the office again. At your earliest possible convenience.”
“I’ll be there at 5. I hope that’s not too late. I have to pick up my kids from school and take them home and get a sitter. Don’t ask, but suffice to say, the school where my kids are going have asked that only I pick them up.”
“I’ll see you at 5.”
I hung up the phone, my wheels turning in my head. This was most likely a smoke screen that Michael had thrown up in front of me so that I would stop looking at Gerald. It was like yelling “squirrel!” when all that really was happening was that the person yelling “squirrel!” was dying to distract everybody from what was really happening.
Or it could be that Michael was really telling the truth. But why now? Why would he bring this up now, and not during his initial meeting with me?
CHRISTINA CAME in right at five, looking harried. “Oh, crap,” she said. “I’m so sorry, I have to call my baby-sitter. I forgot to tell her something.” She got out her phone, her hand shaking. “Yeah, Teresa, this Christina. Don’t forget to give Lindsay her medication…okay, goodbye.” She hung up. “It’s not been a good day.”
“Tell me about it,” I said, beckoning her into my office. “Have a seat. I’ll get you a water.”
“No water,” she said, taking a metal flask out of her purse. “I’m really sorry to have to do this, but I can’t take a second longer of this bullshit.” She took the cap off of the flask and put it to her lips. Her hand was still shaking.
I took a deep breath as I watched her drink whatever was in the flask. I could smell it. It was some kind of bourbon. My drink of choice. I wanted her to hand me the flask so that I, too, could take a drink.
I wanted that more than life itself.
But I knew that I couldn’t do that. If I did that, I would be in the bar, right after work, and I just wouldn’t stop. I knew that, so I knew that I couldn’t ask her to share her alcohol with me.
She shook her head wildly and made a face. “Eeeyah,” she said. “That hit the spot. You want some?”
“No. I mean, yes. I’m dying for some. But I can’t.”
“I see. You’re a recovering alkie, huh? I guess I should be, too, but I’m not. I’m a raging alcoholic and I don’t give a shit who knows it. I don’t give a crap who cares about it. As far as I’m concerned, Harper, they can all kiss my ass. My mother, my kids, my husband, everyone. They all are on me to stop drinking, but I never will. Never.”
Her words were slurred, so I could only assume that this wasn’t her first drink of the day. “I hear you,” I said. “I was there once, too. For many years, I was there. I’m not there anymore, of course. But I struggle, every minute of every day, not to take a drink.”
“Oh, I suppose that seeing me drink in front of you isn’t doing you any favors, huh? I’m sorry about that. But I’ve had a rough day. A very rough day.”
I sighed. “Your rough day is about to get worse.” I picked up my paperweight and looked at it closely.
“How can it possibly get worse? The reporters are up in my grill, night and day, trying to get information from me. Somehow, what my father did to me is splashed in the papers. I don’t know who it was who leaked that wonderful piece of information to the media, but I have a pretty good idea. A pretty good idea. And now my daughter’s school has informed me that only I can go and pick her up, because somebody tried to pick her up from school, and that person wasn’t authorized. Yet he insisted. The school had to call the police to get him to leave.”
I furrowed my brow. “Who tried to pick up your daughter from school?”
Christina burped lightly and pounded her chest with her fist. I noticed that her blonde hair, which was ordinaril
y perfectly coiffed, was slightly messed up in the front. She was looking worse for the wear, but I didn’t blame her one bit. It seemed that she was going through Hell.
“I don’t know. But I have a pretty good idea. It’s the same person who’s been trying to get me to fall on the sword for my father’s murder the entire time. I’m not going to let him get away with it, though. Nope, never. He’ll never get away with it.”
“Who? Who has been trying to get you to fall on the sword?”
She pointed at me and closed on her eyes. “I’ll tell you, but you have to tell me first why you wanted me to come here? You wanted to ask me some more questions, so go ahead. Go right ahead and ask the questions. I won’t bite.”
“Well, okay. Michael told me something very interesting. Very interesting. I wanted to ask you about it.”
“Okay, go ahead. Ask your question. I won’t bite.” She growled a little and batted her hand at me like she was a lion and she smiled and laughed. “Of course I sometimes would like to bite you, because you’re a really gorgeous woman.” Then she laughed again. “Yeah, I swing that way. Not always, but sometimes.”
She made me feel slightly uncomfortable, but not really. I had been hit on by women before. I never did swing that way, though, so nothing ever happened, but it was slightly flattering. “Christina, your husband told me something about your father. He gave me another motive that you might have for killing Judge Sanders.”
“For the last time, I didn’t kill my father. Get that through your goddamn head. I didn't kill him. I didn’t kill him. I didn’t kill him, I didn’t kill him, I didn’t kill him. Ahhhhhhhhhh!!!!!” She was screaming wildly. “Why does everybody want me to take the fall for this? Goddammit. Now they’re threatening my children. Why? Just because I’m a boozer? That hardly seems fair.”
I didn’t know what she was talking about. “Wait, wait, wait. Back up. You’re not making sense. What do you mean, everybody wants you to take the fall for this? What does that mean?”
“I mean everybody. My husband wants me to take the fall. His girlfriend wants me to take the fall. But they’re not the ones that I’m really worried about. And I am worried. Very worried. I can’t tell you who else is behind wanting me to go down, because they’re powerful people. Powerful people who can do a lot to harm me and my family. So, I’m keeping my mouth shut.”
That pointed to Gerald. He was powerful.
But she said “people.” She didn’t say “person.” She distinctly said the word “people.”
“Go ahead,” she said. “Ask me the questions that you were going to ask me. I have to get home to my freaked-out daughter Elise, who is only 6 years old, and who is terrified that she’s going to be kidnapped. If I were you, I would be watching my back, too. You have daughters, right? Well, not daughters, but they’re your charges. Don’t let anybody get to them. Because they can. They can, and they will. Mark my words about that.”
I swallowed hard, feeling a cold tendril of fear. I was going to have to call Axel and see what he could do about finding somebody to protect Rina and Abby. If I got too close to finding out what was going on, those two girls’ lives could be in danger.
I suddenly had the urgency to go and see the two of them. Hold them, make sure that they were safe. But I had to ask Christina the questions that I was going to ask her.
“Excuse me,” I said. “I have to make a phone call.”
At that, I called Axel. “Yeah, Harper, what’s up?” he asked me.
“Are you in the middle of something?”
“Not really. I mean, I’m kinda always in the middle of something, but I’m not more than usual right now. What do you need?”
“Please go to my house and check on Rina and Abby. Sophia is there, with them, but I’m kinda freaked out right now. I’ll be home, too, as soon as I can, but…”
“I’ll be at your house in fifteen minutes.”
“Thank you.”
I hung up and looked at Christina, who was now hanging her head like really drunk people do. “You have a good guy there,” she said. “If he’s going to go and look after your kids right now, he’s a good guy. Good guys are hard to find. You need to make sure that you don’t do something to drive him away.”
“I won’t. Now, Christina, about the questions that I need to ask you. Michael told me something that I wanted to clear with you.”
“Oh? What was that question?”
I cleared my throat and fidgeted. I didn’t want to ask her this question. It was a sickening question, but I needed to get to the bottom of it. “He told me that your father is the father of your oldest child, Lindsay.”
She rolled her eyes, which was the last reaction I was anticipating. “Oh, brother, this again. He’s never going to get off of that, is he? Well, okay, here’s the deal. As I told you, my father did rape me when I was 15 years old, but it was only the one time, and it was only because he was drunk. Okay? Okay? That wasn’t an on-going thing. Anita told you it was, though, didn’t she? And my husband? He told you that too?”
I nodded. “Yes. They both told me that.”
“Well, don’t believe either of them. They both want me to fry for the murder of my father, so they’re all about making me look guilty. And that’s the best way to make me look guilty, isn’t it? By telling you that my daddy was raping me all the time? That’s the best way to throw my skinny ass under the bus and drag it fifty miles over dirt roads.”
She shook her head rapidly. “That damned Anita. I never did trust her. I always knew that she had it bad for Michael. Why anybody finds that man attractive, I’ll never know, but women do. They do. You’ve seen Kayla Stone. She’s a knock-out. So is Willow Cass. So is Ariel Winthrop. So is…” She hung her head. “Oh, I could sit here all day long and recount his mistresses to you, but we don’t have all night. We both need to get home to our kids. But suffice to say that women find Michael catnip. I can’t understand that, and I’m married to the guy.”
I had to get her back on track. “So it’s not true? Your father is not the father of Lindsay?”
She gave me a look. “Oh, Hell no. Hell no. But I’ll be goddamned if that Judge Perez didn’t go and make a finding that way. That made me sick, too.”
What? Judge Perez made a finding that way? What in the Hell did that mean? “Wait, wait, wait, whoa. Back up. Judge Perez made a finding of what? That your father was the father of Lindsay?”
“Yes, that’s what I’m saying. But I’m here to tell you that my father did not father Lindsay. Period, end of story.”
At that, she picked up my trash-can and threw up in it. “Oh, God, I need to go home,” she said. “I mean, really. I have to go home.”
“No, wait. Wait. You can’t just leave and not tell me the entire story.”
“I’m sick. I mean, I’m really sick. I need to go home.”
“You can’t drive.”
“Oh, yes I can. I mean, no I can’t. I mean, I have a cab waiting outside for me with his meter running. I’m quite sure I owe him a shit-ton, but that’s okay. It’s better than me getting a DWI. Of course.”
“No, wait. You have to answer me. What did you mean, Judge Perez made a finding that way? What did you mean?”
She just shook her head. “I’ll have to answer your questions later. Right now, I can’t do anything. I think that I’ve said too much as it is. Today, it’s Elise who is being threatened. Tomorrow it might be Tommy. The next day it’s going to be Maddy. It’s never going to stop. That’s the whole problem with having five kids. You have five targets. Five targets of some very powerful people. You do the math.”
I wanted to put my head down on the desk and just cry. It seemed that, every time I turned around, there was something else that was thrown in front of me. Something else that was making me get twisted around like a pretzel. Some other squirrel to distract me.
As Christina stumbled out the door, I had the sudden feeling that I knew less today than I did yesterday. I was so sure yesterday that I w
as on the right track.
But somehow, someway, Christina put more doubt in my head.
Judge Perez made a finding that way.
What did that mean?
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
I got home and, to my relief, Rina and Abby were there, playing cards with Axel on the floor. “Beautiful lass,” he said, coming up to me. “I’m showing your girls how to play three card Monte. It’s a well-known con game from the dawn of time. They’re really taking to it.”
I nodded my head and said nothing. I felt like the energy was finally draining away from me. Finally. I had had a super amount of energy for going on a week, and I was still not sleeping. I slept maybe two hours a night, every night, and it had been like that for going on a week. Now, after seeing Christina, right after seeing Michael, and having both of them confuse me, I felt like I just needed to go upstairs, hit the sack, and not wake up for a week.
“I’m kidding,” he said. “I’m actually teaching them hearts. They’re really liking it.”
“Oh, that’s nice.” I had no energy, zero energy, to try to pretend that I was interested in Axel teaching Rina and Abby cards. None at all.
He looked at me, and he immediately looked concerned. “Harper, what’s going on?”
“Nothing. I just haven’t gotten much sleep lately. And I think that it’s finally catching up with me.”
He grimaced and looked over at Rina and Abby, who were laying on the floor. They both looked up at me, concern in their eyes.
“Tell you what. Why don’t I call Grubhub, and they can bring us all some food. That way you don’t have to cook. I mean, I would cook a meal here, but I don’t think that you would like what I would serve. My skills in the kitchen pretty much are very limited to boiling hot dogs and maybe putting some sauerkraut over the hot dogs and warming up the buns.”
I smiled weakly. Axel was trying to cheer me up, but I was suddenly so damned tired and depressed, I couldn’t even engage him in his banter.
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