“Randal Ransom, wake the fuck up!”
“Okay, okay. Hang on, let me get the light.”
Handsome Ransom, his nickname down at the courthouse, ran her civil law division. He was gay and had impeccable taste, so he was a safe bet to bring her clothes that matched. Randy also mentioned he wanted to second chair for her on the criminal side, just to get some more experience. He dabbled on the criminal docket early in his career, before discovering the monetary bonuses of civil law. Molly needed him to change gears now.
She heard rustling and another male voice say, “Does your boss know what time it is?”
Molly smiled when she heard Randy’s response. “Date’s over, honey. Hit the shower and be gone.”
Randy’s breathless voice followed more fumbling with the phone. “Okay, I’m at my desk. What the hell is going on, Molly?”
“Sorry to interrupt your date,” Molly said.
“Oh, he served his purpose.”
“Randy, you’re horrible. When are you going to settle down?”
“Now isn’t that the pot calling the kettle black, sweetheart.” Molly was Randy’s boss, but he pulled no punches with her. She liked that about him. He continued in his rapid banter style, “And don’t worry, always safe — never sorry. Anyway, spill. Where are you? You haven’t been arrested again, have you? You didn’t have court today, how could you piss a judge off and not be in court?”
“Hey, slow down,” Molly pleaded. “Just listen for a second.”
Randy could not resist another question. “You didn’t get locked up for speeding did you? I knew that car was going to get you in trouble.”
“Randy! Stop. Listen.” She waited to make sure she had his full attention. “I am not in jail. I’m in Waitesville. I just accepted a capital murder case, well, four charges of capital murder on one teenage kid, and I need you here with me.”
“Holy shit! How did that happen in the few hours since I’ve seen you?”
“It’s a long story and I’ll fill you in when you get here. In a few minutes, check your email. I’ll send the address where we’ll be staying and working. You will need to go to the office in the morning, tell Davis what has happened, and clear our calendars. You’re not in court for a couple of weeks, right?”
“I have that one case, but it’s ready to go. I can move anything else or pass it on to one of the other associates.” Randy was no longer the flippant friend, returning to the intelligent lawyer she hired shortly after she opened her firm. “How will I get in your house? It’s armed like Fort Knox.”
“I’ll send you the alarm company number. You call them when you’re ready to go over to the house. Someone will meet you.”
Randy chuckled. “Don’t even trust me with the code, do you?”
“I would hate for someone to threaten your pretty face for that information. I know you’d give me up.”
Molly teased Randy, but no, she gave no one the code to her alarm system. The woman that cleaned her house and acted as Molly’s chef, leaving a week’s worth of prepared meals in Molly’s freezer at a time, had her own code, a strict schedule, and the alarm company monitored her comings and goings. Swoop, as the butch, heavily tattooed, twenty-five-year-old liked to be called — her real name was Katarina — was a former pro-bono client and an excellent chef. She was called Swoop because in her gangbanger days she only wore things with the Nike swoop on them. Molly helped her get through chef’s school and in return, Swoop thought it was her mission to make sure Molly ate well. Molly trusted Swoop completely, but she slept better knowing it was unlikely anyone would come bursting in her door, after her early years when that was a distinct possibility.
Randy feigned hurt feelings. “I can’t believe you think I’d give you up to save my face. Now my dick, that’s another story.”
“Well, at least I know where I stand now,” Molly replied and then moved on. “I’ll need some clothes down here. I don’t know when I’ll get back to Durham.”
Randy’s effeminate side flamed up a bit when he said, “Oh, my God! I have always wanted to be in your closet.”
“Settle down and leave the sequins on the hanger. I just need a few suits and blouses. I only brought what I have on, so shoes too. Oh, and my laptop, the big monitor, a scanner — just read the list, and Randy, if any of my underwear are missing, I’ll know where to look.”
He flamed again. “Honey, I’m afraid you are a little too conservative for me,” and then went right back to lawyer Randy. “Okay, Molly. Send the email. I’ll be there as soon as I can.”
“Tell the rest of my division to get ready. I’ll be calling more of them down here when I know what we’re dealing with. And Randy — thank you.”
“My pleasure, Molly. Get some sleep. One of us should anyway.”
“Good night,” Molly said, and hung up.
She started down the stairs, but a vehicle passing the house caught her eye. It looked like the four-wheel-drive truck Jarvis had been driving, but it was hard to tell. On that dark road on the other side of town, Molly was not able to tell the color his truck. The make and model looked right, and when the driver’s face lit up under a streetlight, she saw Jarvis Branch staring up at her. A shiver swept through her body. This man was going to bring Molly’s world crashing down around her.
Her words circled her in the tiny round room. “If I go, you’re going down with me.”
#
After sending the email to Randy, Molly called the alarm company, letting them know Randy would be contacting them to enter her home. She ran over the list she sent Randy, checking for things she might have forgotten. When she was satisfied she could think of nothing else, she sent an amended email. Molly had avoided the files on the desk for as long as she could. She walked over, hung her jacket on the back of the chair, and sat down at the desk. She slid the pile to the side and pulled the file folder with her mother’s name off the top of the stack.
Sarah Jane Harris died because she stopped breathing. She stopped breathing because the alcohol soaked hoodie she was wearing caught on a chain-link fence, as she attempted to climb down into what locals called “The Ditch.” The Ditch ran through Waitesville and had been a boundary line when the town was just beginning. That boundary was crossed many years ago and parts of the Ditch had been cemented and fenced off to accommodate city runoff. Rains ran through this waterway and out of town, passing Molly’s old house on the way. It was this ditch Molly followed to the Neuse River as a child.
It appeared from the investigator’s report, Sarah Harris was found dangling on the fence when an employee showed up to open a nearby bakery, her headlights having illuminated the gruesome sight. Molly swallowed hard and tried to take in the information objectively, but this was her mother. The more she read the angrier she became, long dormant rage simmered below the surface. They found Sarah’s small black purse at the bottom of the ditch, caught on a fallen limb. There was vomit near where she was hanging. A broken bottle of vodka, some of its contents darkening the pavement under shards of glass, was found nearby. The overwhelming smell of alcohol convinced the officer that Sarah was drunk, fell, breaking the bottle and spilling the alcohol on her coat. He surmised that she dropped her purse in the ditch while she was puking by the fence. The bruises on her face were consistent with falling prior to hanging herself, a tragic accident.
According to the Medical Examiners report, Sarah Harris had indeed died from asphyxiation due to strangulation. The ME noted bruising that could have been caused by a fall, but she fell several times if that were the case. She had overlapping abrasions on her palms, knees, and face, indicating repeated impacts with the pavement. The marks around her neck and on her fingers indicated she struggled to free herself, managing to pull herself up a few inches several times, only to fall again. There was skin under her nails, probably her own, from clawing at the jacket that was squeezing the life out of her. Molly began to feel sick. What a horrible death.
Even more horrific to Molly was the fact that no one con
sidered any scenario other than an accident. All Sarah’s injuries could be explained away as a drunken woman, with an extensive history of substance abuse, simply succumbing to a self-inflicted alcohol related death. No one thought the falling might have resulted from being chased or pushed. Going over that fence might have been Sarah Harris’s only option. When the toxicology report came back negative for drugs and alcohol, other than prescribed anti-depressants, the death of Molly’s mother was deemed an unfortunate freak accident. No autopsy necessary. Case closed, a disposable woman disposed of in a pauper’s grave.
Molly sat back in the chair. The rage formed in tears that flowed down her cheeks. It was the only release option she had. She could not charge around the room, screaming at the walls. She could not leave and drive as fast as she could, to force the pain away. Molly was trapped here with the knowledge that her mother was murdered and no one gave a damn, no one but Joe. She looked back at the file. The date at the bottom of the pages indicated he printed off the ME’s report on October 12, 2011. Molly wanted to know what prompted Joe to take another look at her mother’s death. She flipped the ME’s report out of the way, uncovering a full color photo of Sarah Harris, suspended by her neck, a macabre death mask for a face.
Molly’s stomach lurched. She ran to the bathroom and puked until she had nothing left but stomach acid. Molly kicked the bathroom door shut from her seated position by the toilet. She undressed, stepped into the shower, and turned on the water. She sat down on the floor of the tub and let the water pound her skin. Molly Harris was given permission to grieve just one more time. After this, there could be no more breakdowns and expressions of horror. When she left this room in the morning, Molly Harris needed to be gone and Ms. Kincaid better be in charge.
#
Molly emerged from the bathroom, put on the borrowed clothes, and finally walked back over to the desk. She closed her mother’s file, without looking at the picture. Tomorrow she would begin again. Tonight she was too emotionally drained to deal with anything else. Her thirty-ninth birthday had turned into her worst nightmare. The past finally caught up with little Molly Harris.
She set the alarm on her phone and turned out the lights. Molly sank wearily into the down-topped mattress and pulled the blankets up tight under her chin. She was inexplicably cold and shivering. Shock, she thought, and tried to close her eyes. They popped back open quickly. The shadows cast by the streetlights outside danced around the walls and on the curtains. Molly slid out of the bed and walked over to the desk, where her jacket hung on the back of the chair. She reached in the pocket, removing the Walther she brought in from the car. Molly checked one more time that the bedroom door was locked, and then returned to the bed. She placed the pistol on the nightstand and crawled back between the sheets.
She stared at the ceiling and then said something she used to say every night when she first moved in with Carol and Donald Kincaid, “Close your eyes, Molly, she’s safe. He can’t hurt her anymore.” Molly closed her eyes and drifted off to sleep.
#
At four-thirty a.m., Molly sat bolt upright in bed. Joe said she had the answer in those folders. Molly threw the covers back and went to the desk. She turned on the reading lamp and opened her mother’s file. Careful not to expose herself to the picture again, she read the rest of the papers in the folder. Joe must have copied everything with Sarah Harris’s name on it. There was a receipt for the body to the Simpson Funeral Home, used mainly by the African American citizens of Dobbs County. Molly assumed the county buried her mother with the rest of the poor people, who had the misfortune to die without means or family to deal with the expense of a funeral home. Molly knew the man, Zebediah Simpson, who would have embalmed her mother. She had a suspicion that she knew why he had done so.
On Molly’s many jaunts through the woods and fields near the river, she discovered the Simpson home, a little farmhouse, sat back from the road, only a half a mile from Molly’s house. Zebediah’s wife, Nona, stayed home, taking care of two little babies and her ancient grandmother-in-law, Grandma Tee. They seemed old to Molly then, but Zebediah and Nona could not have been more than thirty, at the time. Nona spotted five-year-old Molly crossing a nearby field, and called her to come have lemonade with the children. Molly, who dearly loved lemonade, could not resist such an invitation. Over the years, the Simpsons treated Molly with more compassion than most white folks. Molly took the hand-me-downs from Nona’s sister’s girls and wore the clothes with pride. They were better than anything Molly had up to then.
When her momma asked where the clothes and the fresh vegetables came from, Molly gave in and took her to Nona’s house. Sarah was afraid Evan would find out Molly was wearing clothes handed down by blacks. He would beat her silly for that. Evan made no bones about his racism. Molly and Nona had planned to promise Sarah that Molly’s visits would remain a secret. When the time came, neither Nona, nor Molly, had a chance to say anything, before Grandma Tee got started.
“Now, Sarah Jane Harris, I done knowed you and your people all your life. As sorry as that old man your momma married was, you didn’t never want for food or comfort. This child of God is lacking. If you don’t see fit to feed her and put decent clothes on her back, then you thank the Lord that someone is doing it for you. Black or white, don’t no child deserve to go cold or hungry.”
Sarah never said another word about Molly visiting the Simpsons. Nona was the first person to show up after the fire with food and clothes for both Sarah and Molly. Zebediah provided them with a little house and charged no rent for the few months until Molly was adopted. Molly decided she needed to see the Simpsons and repay the kindness they showed her mother. No white funeral home stepped in to make sure she had a decent burial. Molly never understood judging people by the color of their skin; she never would.
She set aside the receipt and moved to the next page. Someone had requested and received Sarah Harris’s records from Berryhill Hospital, where she had been a frequent patient. This information was probably used as proof they were looking at the death of a washed up drunk and addict. No further investigation needed.
Berryhill Hospital evolved from the asylum system begun in the 1880s. It was on the border of Dobbs County, close to Goldsboro, in Wayne County. Originally, the asylums housed all the state’s citizens deemed mentally ill in segregated units. Federal regulations required the hospital desegregate along with the rest of the country, after the passage of the Civil Rights Act in 1964. The state reworked the system, found the facility unnecessary, and closed its doors.
One year later, a group of doctors bought the facility, and reopened it as Berryhill. Accepting only referrals from private doctors, the hospital could handpick its patients, a substitute for segregation with the right management. Private status also allowed some of the staff at Berryhill to participate in clandestine schemes. If a son could not wait for a father to die, money in the right palms could make Papa disappear in the insanity of the asylum. Prominent citizens could go there to “relax” in comfort, but Molly remembered the horror stories about the treatment of some of the less fortunate patients. Berryhill underwent a huge change in management, after a Federal investigation in the late eighties. Molly wondered who paid for her mother’s treatment. That was worth looking into.
Molly realized these were not complete records after reading the first page. The pages were filled with Sarah’s repeated admittance and release dates. She was first admitted on June 3, 1983, the day after Molly’s adoption. The note beside the date said, “Drug and alcohol abuse, mental exhaustion, battered woman syndrome.” Molly thought they nailed that diagnosis on the first try. Sarah was released on June 5, 1985. It took two years, but the note on her release said, “Clean and sober. Weekly therapy recommended.” The next entry, dated September 23, 1985, noted only, “Relapse.” Sarah stayed another year after that and was released again in the fall of 1986, on the tenth of October. She was back in the hospital by Christmas. The cycle continued for three more years, until
March 13, 1989, Molly’s sixteenth birthday.
The note accompanying this last release was more extensive. “Patient has made great strides during her stays at the hospital, and though there have been many relapses, she appears mentally healthy and physically strong. She has acquired a high school diploma and taken some college courses. She has a job waiting and a home to go to. We do not expect to see this patient back and have high hopes for her future, if she takes her prescribed medications and continues her therapy outside of the hospital.”
Molly sat back against the chair. It took six years, but Sarah Harris made it. She finally kicked her demons and moved on. The toxicology report indicated she was clean at the time of her death, no alcohol or illegal drugs in her system. Molly flipped back to the picture. She tried not to look at her mother’s distorted face, concentrating on her clothing. She started with the shoes. Sarah was wearing what appeared to be new tennis shoes, not expensive, probably purchased at a shoe outlet. Her jeans were not worn and appeared to be clean, except for the freshly torn fabric around her knees. The hoodie was not old or worn either. Sarah Harris was not on the street wearing hand-me-downs.
The report said Sarah had a job. Molly needed to know for whom she was working and where Sarah was living. She pressed on through the stack of papers. She found arrest records for her mother. It appeared, by comparing dates, her returns to the hospital coincided with arrests for public drunkenness. Molly wondered why it took so long for someone to realize throwing an alcoholic addict out on the street, with no job and no home, was a poor way to handle her mother’s care. She was thankful that somehow her mother made it through it all and was headed in the right direction. If things had turned out differently, Sarah Harris would be living a life of luxury she could never have imagined. Molly would have seen to that.
Molly sighed and leaned back into the file. She found a sealed envelope behind the last page. Molly froze when she saw her name on the front. Joe, it seemed, had known that Molly would not let this die along with him. A car drove by outside. Molly glanced at her phone, 5:30 am. Waitesville was waking up and she had barely been to sleep. She looked back down at the envelope, opened it, and began to read.
Molly: House on Fire Page 7
