by Gary Parker
Sandra held up her hand, interrupted her. “He would, and he did. Justin is alive and waiting for me about three hours from here. Waiting for me to bring you to him.”
“But why?” moaned Connie. “Why would Jack lie . . . why?”
Sandra touched Connie’s hand. “I think you know why,” she said.
Connie tilted her head, and it dawned on her, as clear as a rock-bottomed riverbed. Jack would never lie unless . . . unless he did so to protect someone he loved. She ran the dilemma through her mind. As a believer, she tried to tell the truth in every situation. So did Jack. But what if the truth hurt someone?
Maybe even brought physical danger? If a German soldier asked a farm woman if she had any Jews hiding in her barn, should she tell the truth and thereby condemn the Jews to death? Or should she lie, thereby giving them the chance to live?
Which of the two represented the greatest good or the worst evil?
Shaking her head, Connie decided she couldn’t settle that moral issue right now. Obviously, Jack had faced a similar question and had answered it on the side of protection. Working to control her emotions, Connie took a sip of tea, then spoke. “He did it because he had to do it.”
Sandra nodded. “His grandfather has been on the run for years. Powerful people want him dead. For years at a time, he did just fine. Every time his enemies came too close, he simply moved away, established a fresh identity, settled down somewhere else. Jack lived with him in Miller for about ten of those years. I came the last three, our high school years. My mom died of cancer. My dad was already dead, a car accident two years earlier.
“At the time, Jack and I didn’t know about Justin’s enemies. Heck, we didn’t even call him Justin then. He was Hal Wilson. But then, the summer after we graduated high school, Justin got wind his pursuers were closing in. This time he told me and Jack the story, wanted us to understand why he had to leave us. We needed to get on with our lives, he said. We couldn’t go into hiding with him, it wasn’t fair to us or to any family we might have someday.
“So, Justin made Jack and me promise to leave it alone, not try to find him.”
“And you agreed?”
“What choice did we have? Though we didn’t know everything, Justin told us people wanted to kill him, told us if his enemies connected us to him, they would come after us, too, make us reveal his whereabouts.”
“So he disappeared to protect you.”
“Sure. Left us enough money to begin college, faked his own death—drove an old truck into the Missouri River—and cut out from Miller.”
“They never found a body?”
Sandra smiled. “None to find. Justin wasn’t in that truck.”
“But it fooled his enemies?”
“For a while.”
Connie took a sip of tea, pondering Sandra’s story.
Something in it didn’t add up. “But you and Jack,” she said.
“Why didn’t you two stay in touch? Isn’t he your only relative?”
Sandra dropped her eyes, and Connie noticed her grinding her teeth.
“We did keep in touch for a couple of years,” she said. “But I drifted off. It was my fault, not Jack’s. He tried to communicate with me, but he went to college and I moved to California. He wrote, but I never answered his letters and . . . well . . . we just lost track, that’s all.”
Something in her voice made Connie suspicious, and she pressed further. “But that makes no sense to me, you lived together with your granddad for three years, then you disappear and won’t keep in touch with your only relative? How— ?”
“That’s not for discussion right now!” Sandra said, her jaw clenching and unclenching. “That’s a whole different matter.
Right now, I’m trying to tell you what happened to Jack, not what happened to me!”
Connie decided to let the subject drop. Maybe later, when she knew Sandra better and circumstances had improved, she could find out what had happened between her and Jack. But for now, other matters demanded her attention. Like the most obvious question of all.
“Why is your grandfather on the run?” she asked.
“That’s not for me to tell. It’s his story.”
“You say he wants me to come to him to hear it?”
“Exactly. He believes his story ties in with what happened to Jack.”
Connie looked toward the bedrooms where Daniel and Katie lay sleeping. Since Jack’s death, she had neglected them in some ways, not so much in time as in focus. Even when she gave them her time, she knew her attention had drifted far too often. She had done the best she knew how, but she worried her best hadn’t been good enough. Now, a woman she had never seen before tonight sat in her kitchen asking her to leave them one more time.
She faced Sandra. “Do you know who killed Jack?” she asked.
Sandra placed her tea on the table. “No, I don’t. I have some suspicions, but I’m not sure.”
“Who do you suspect?”
Sandra shook her head. “I’m not the one to tell you.”
Connie’s eyes narrowed. “Jack’s grandfather is?”
Sandra took a deep breath. “It’s not that he knows for sure either. But . . . he knows some people who had good motive.
That’s what he wants to tell you, what he knows. If it takes you to Jack’s murderer, then so be it. If not, well, he’s done all he can.
That’s really what he wants to do, get it clean before he . . . before he dies.”
Connie thought of the old man’s picture she found under Reed Morrison’s bed. Obviously, it was Justin Longley. The man had a strong face, a face lined with years of struggle. Now that she knew his identity, she could see some resemblance between him and Jack. The square jawline, the eyes tucked under a thick forehead.
All these years, Jack’s grandfather lived, but grandson and grandfather could not see each other. Daniel and Katie couldn’t know their great-grandfather. Her heart ached for what her family had missed. Her family didn’t see each other either, but that estrangement came from choices made, the choice of a father to desert a wife and daughter, and the choice of a mother to lose herself and her daughter in a bottle. At least Jack’s family had a reason for their separation.
Connie sipped her tea. “Jack paid a man named Reed Morrison $10,000,” she said, moving back to matters at hand.
Sandra nodded. “Yes, he did. I came and told Jack that Justin was dying. I wanted to give him one last chance to see his granddad. Jack, though, wouldn’t hear of letting it go at that. He wanted to do more. He wanted Justin to get more extensive medical treatment, go to a hospital. Justin refused, not just because he didn’t have the money, but because he wanted to sit on his porch as long as he could and watch the sun go down over the desert.
But Jack insisted. When I wouldn’t deliver the money, he hired Morrison to find Justin, funnel the money to him.”
“But didn’t Jack know where Justin was?”
Sandra laughed slightly. “Nope, Justin wouldn’t let me tell him. When Jack came to see Justin, we met him in Las Vegas.”
“Jack came to Nevada?”
“Sure, for three days the second week of January.”
Connie exhaled. “I remember the trip. Jack seemed pretty vague about it. I didn’t pay much attention. Trusted him, you know what I mean?”
“No reason not to trust him. He was the best man I ever knew, next to Justin, of course.”
“How did Morrison find Justin?”
“He didn’t. We found him. Figured we better confront him quietly rather than have him running all over the place stirring up dust. Dust shows people where you are, sometimes people you prefer to avoid. We took the money from him, then left.”
“How did you know he was looking?”
“Oh, Justin knew. He will tell you how. A private investigator snooping around for a guy in Vegas creates some notice.”
“Morrison had pictures.”
Sandra shrugged. “Jack gave them to him. Took them when he came
out in January.”
“He took a picture of you.”
“I know. He said he wanted to show his kids someday.”
Connie slowly shook her head. Jack didn’t lie about his trip. Just didn’t say much. Didn’t say much, then went to Nevada to take money he didn’t have to help a grandfather he hadn’t seen in years.
“Morrison is dead,” said Connie, her eyes on her tea but not really seeing it.
Sandra groaned. “Sorry to hear that,” she said. “Seemed like a nice enough man. Guess he didn’t tell them what they wanted to hear.”
“Or he did tell them, and they killed him anyway.”
“He didn’t have anything to tell,” Sandra said. “He didn’t know where we were.”
“So Morrison died for nothing.”
“That’s about the size of it.”
Connie sipped her tea. Two good men dead. For the first time in several days, her grief welled up inside her chest again and a rush of tears ran to her eyes. Men like her husband came along far too rarely. For a moment she held back the tears, but then she gave up and let them pour out. She felt so tired. The tears ran over her chin and dripped toward her teacup.
Sandra took Connie’s hands in hers. Connie continued to weep. She had worked so hard trying to hold it all together, to do her best to clear Jack’s name. He deserved that. With so few like him, it seemed wrong to leave people with the impression he took his own life. But in her effort to clear Jack’s name, she had placed herself in danger, maybe her kids too. And it had led to this. Justin Longley might know enough to steer her in the right direction. But to find out, she had put herself in harm’s way once again. For Jack, she had no other choice.
Her tears still running down her chin, she smiled at Sandra.
For Jack, she concluded. For Jack she would take the step.
“I’ll come with you,” she said, her voice choked but determined. “For Jack’s . . . sake, I’ll give it . . . give it one more shot.”
Sandra smiled at her. “Good,” she said. “We’ll go in the morning. He’s not far from here. If all goes well, you can get home for supper.”
Connie sniffled and held tighter to Sandra. Into the hours of the night, the two women sat together at the kitchen table and talked, their fingers intertwined and their hearts softened by their common love for a good man.
*****
Almost two hundred yards up the street, Brit pressed his earphones tighter to his head and leaned forward in the driver’s seat of his new van. The conversation between Sandra Richards and Connie Brandon at the dining table greatly disturbed him.
Red and Desert Two had just joined forces. He didn’t like that at all. Even worse, he didn’t know if Lennie had the stomach to do anything about it.
Brit drummed his fingers on the dashboard, trying to decide what to do. If he acted and succeeded without advising Lennie, he would get a healthy bonus and a pat on the back. If he acted and failed without advising Lennie, he might end up in concrete boots swimming with the fishes. That idea didn’t please him too much. He stopped his drumming and flipped open his phone.
“Yo, Lennie. Brit. Trouble in River City.”
“Fill me in.”
“Red and Desert Two just had a cup of tea.”
“Desert Two is in River City?”
“Arrived just a bit ago. Looks like a family reunion.”
Lennie paused. Brit waited, his fingers thumping the steering wheel.
Lennie said, “They got further plans after tonight?”
“Looks like it. Going to see Granddad.”
“Sorry we missed Justin last night.”
”Looks like we’ll get another chance.”
“Follow them.”
“That’s my plan.”
“Keep me informed. Don’t act without clearance.”
Brit stopped drumming but said nothing.
“Brit, you hear me? Don’t act without clearance.”
“I heard.” He shut his phone and started thumping again.
If he waited for Lennie, he might miss his opportunity. He wouldn’t let that happen. No way. If the opportunity came, he planned to grab it.
CHAPTER
25
At just past eight-thirty the next morning, Connie and Sandra climbed into Sandra’s pickup truck and backed out of the driveway. Connie had made all the necessary arrangements— Mrs. Everhart would arrive about two to meet Katie. The mother of one of Daniel’s teammates would pick him up and bring him home after baseball practice. If all went well, she should get home before dark.
Before she left, Connie contemplated calling Tess, then remembered she and Tick had taken their new boat to the lake for a couple of days. She had promised to call if danger arose.
Well, the worst of the danger had surely passed. With Sandra beside her, she felt more secure than at any time since the funeral.
Satisfied with matters at home, she settled into the pickup and tried to relax. She and Sandra had stayed up late, and she needed to rest if she could. Headed west out of Jefferson City, however, she found rest almost impossible. Far too many ideas bounced around in her head and far too many feelings churned through her stomach. Sandra had told her so much about Jack’s high school days.
Other students liked Jack immensely, in spite of his gentle demeanor. They listened when he spoke and followed when he led. A .280 hitter on the baseball team—not great but always quick to get a walk, steal a base, lay down a sacrifice bunt. He didn’t date a lot, but the girls he did date inevitably thought him wonderful and kind and smart. As comfortable with Sandra as a friend at a slumber party, Connie enjoyed the evening more than anything since the funeral. Stoked by the memories of Jack, she had trouble sleeping when they finally rolled into bed, Sandra on the sofa in the den.
Now, talked out from the previous night, Connie and Sandra rolled down Highway 50 in virtual silence. Enjoying the quiet, Connie thanked God for the blessing of meeting someone from Jack’s past. Without realizing it, she had wanted to hear all of this history so badly. In the weeks since his death, she had discovered just how little she knew of his past, and that lack of knowledge had haunted her, made her feel incomplete.
Sandra’s stories filled in some of that blank space. Hearing them, she felt like she had a bonus added to her years with Jack, extra cash to spend for her own pleasure. In days to come, she planned to have Sandra sit down with the children and tell them all about their daddy’s teenage days. Daniel and Katie would love the stories. Yes, it would bring their grief to the surface again. But, in the long run it would make so much difference.
Sandra’s tales added so much color and detail to Jack’s life, and the kids would value them forever.
As the first hour became the second and the second moved toward the third, Sandra pulled the truck off the highway and onto more narrow Missouri roads. Conversation remained at a minimum. Concentrating on her own thoughts, Connie paid little attention to their location. To her, only one thing mattered.
In a short while she would meet Jack’s grandfather.
What a life the man had lived! A fugitive for years. But bright enough to avoid those who wanted him dead.
Compassionate too—loving enough to separate himself from his family in order to protect them. Without ever meeting him, Connie liked him. How could she not? He raised Jack. Jack loved Justin. How could she not love him too?
She wondered about Justin’s health. Sandra said he had cancer. The last doctor he saw refused to name a time frame, but Sandra and Justin knew he couldn’t last much longer. Connie hoped he lived long enough for her to hear his story. After that, if God allowed it, she wanted him to meet Daniel and Katie.
What a joy for that to happen!
Sandra pulled off the pavement and onto a gravel pathway.
The truck bounced through a series of small gullies in the washed-out road. Tree limbs covered with fresh green clicked the sides of the truck as they passed.
“Not far now,” said Sandra.
“Where are we?”
Sandra smiled. “It’s a little piece of land Justin bought years ago. Not far from Miller. We used to come here to fish.”
The road snaked up a long incline, then twisted to the right into a thick blanket of trees and shrubs. At the top of the incline, the path broke into a clearing. Connie saw a silver camper trailer nestled under the trees in the center of the small glade. To the right of the trailer stood an unpainted shed.
“He’s here?”
“Yes, in the trailer home.”
Connie told herself to stay calm. Sandra backed the truck up to the trailer. Then she faced Connie. Connie smoothed down the front of her jeans. She felt so strange, like she was on a date and about to meet Jack’s parents for the first time.
“It’s okay,” said Sandra. “This is the last step.”
Connie nodded. “I know,” she said. “It’s just, well . . . you know . . . I didn’t know Jack had any living relatives. It’s such a shock. I feel like I need to make a good impression or something.” Sandra patted her hand. “Believe me, Justin is more nervous than you are. He’s wanted to meet you for years, wanted to see you and the kids, to hold his great-grandbabies in his arms.”
“He knows about the kids?”
“Sure, he’s even seen them once or twice.”
“But how—?”
“He’s a pro, remember. Moves like a shadow. In, then gone.
You see him, then you don’t. That’s what kept him alive all these years.”
Connie started to ask more about the mysterious man. But she knew Sandra wouldn’t answer. Justin would. He waited less than twenty yards away, a sick man wanting to tell his story before he died.
She nodded to Sandra. “I’m ready,” she said. “Let’s go.”
“I need to do one thing,” said Sandra. “Hook the trailer to the truck. Justin taught me to stay prepared.”
Without another word, Sandra climbed out and Connie followed. Waiting for her to do the job, Connie tried to relax. She inhaled slowly, listening to the chirping of a score of birds, their twills and peeps and twerps filling the shade-covered glen.
