Family Ties (Flesh & Blood Trilogy Book 2)

by Morgan, Christina

  Something in his demeanor told me he was lying. He had paused for a second too long before answering me and he couldn’t look me in the eye when he did. But I could understand why he wouldn’t want to confess to murder, especially when there was a police detective waiting in the driveway.

  “All right, Brian,” I said as I stood up. “I’m going to leave you my phone number. Do you have a cell phone?”

  He nodded, reached into his pocket, and produced an older model Nokia cell phone.

  “Great. Program this number into your phone and keep this business card with you at all times.” I handed him one of my PI business cards. “I want you to call me if you think of anything else—especially if you hear from your mother. Will you do that for me?”

  He nodded.

  “Brian, can I have your cell phone number?”

  Reluctantly, he read off the numbers as I punched them into my phone’s contacts.

  “I’ll call you if I think of any other questions. Is that okay?”

  “Yes.”

  I stood there for a few seconds, not sure whether I should hug him or shake his hand. In the end, I decided neither felt very natural or comfortable, so I just saw myself out of the house and walked down the walkway to Web’s waiting cruiser.

  When I climbed inside, Web asked, “Well, did you learn anything that might help us?”

  “Nothing about Joanna. He said he’s never killed anybody, but I’m not so sure I believe him. He also told me that his mother is unreachable, even by him, and that she only appears when she has a message for him, whatever that means.”

  “That’s so strange and not very helpful,” Web said as he put the car in reverse.

  “Sorry,” I said, feeling a bit defensive. “I did the best I could.”

  “I’m sorry,” Web said. “I didn’t mean it that way. I just meant I think Brian knows a lot more than he’s telling even you. It’s frustrating. That’s all. I’ve got the Mayor’s office on my back, pushing me to make an arrest for Ms. Baker’s murder, and soon. And I really thought we might learn something from your brother. I was hoping so, anyway.”

  “Give me some time with him,” I said. “He might warm up to me. Maybe he’ll confide something in me that will be helpful. Both with Jo’s case and with Randy’s.”

  “You might be right,” Web said, his hands gripping the steering wheel as he drove along the Bypass. “So what do we do now?”

  “I don’t know about you,” I replied. “But my next stop is Big Sandy. It’s time I confronted Randy about this whole Annie/Brian situation. I need to hear his side of it. I have to know what he knew or didn’t know.”

  “Sounds like a plan,” he said. “Let me know what you find out. I’m not sure how, but I think all of these cases are connected somehow.”

  “I think you might be right,” I said.

  ***

  When I arrived home later that evening, I debriefed Harper on what little bit of information I had gleaned from Brian and asked her to set me up another appointment to meet with Randy at the prison the next day.

  As I lay down to bed that night, I stared at the ceiling, trying to piece together what little bits of information I had learned over the past couple weeks. Most of it added up to the possibility that Randy may be innocent and that my newly-discovered brother Brian might be the real killer. But I had no concrete proof one way or the other. And it would take proof beyond all doubt to free Randy, if he really was innocent.

  The standard for overturning a conviction, short of appeals—which Randy had never filed—was to either find the real killer or, at the very least, find “newly discovered evidence” that wasn’t available the first time around. Also, that evidence had to be so compelling that a jury would reasonably have acquitted him. So far, I had found neither. Only suspicions and innuendos. It was time to go straight to the source. Randy had made several comments in recent conversations which led me to believe he knew more than he was willing to tell.

  But if he really wanted his name cleared and to be free from prison, he was going to have to start talking, and soon.

  I popped a little blue pill to dissolve all these mixed up thoughts so I could sleep. The last thing I remember was turning on the TV and watching the opening scene of a Law & Order: SVU rerun.

  Chapter 17

  After making my way through the security checkpoint at the prison and waiting for half an hour in the waiting room, I was ushered into the visitors’ room. Randy had already been brought in and was sitting at one of the metal tables near the back, facing the doorway, so he saw me as soon as I walked through the door. He waved like a parent welcoming home a college student.

  I was a bit embarrassed, but I waved back with a little wiggle of my fingers, walked over to his table, and sat down across from him.

  “Hey there, Libs,” he said with a smile that spread from ear to ear.

  Instantly, I felt a twinge of guilt regarding the purpose for my visit when I saw how excited he was just to see me.

  “Hey…Randy,” I said, for the first time nearly calling him “Dad.” It still just didn’t feel right after twenty years of calling him by his first name, thus distancing myself from the man I knew to be a serial killer.

  “What’s the weather like out there? How are the Cats doing? How’s your mother? What—”

  “Randy, one question at a time, please. The weather is getting colder, as it usually does in late October. The Cats suck this year as much as they have every other year. Mom’s latest book comes out this week and the presale reviews are wonderful, as usual.”

  “Sorry,” Randy said. “I’m just starved for information in here and I rarely get visitors, so I’m just a little excited.”

  “Randy,” I said with a serious look. “I’m not here for small talk.”

  Randy sighed deeply. “I figured. What do you want to talk about?”

  “I met Brian,” I threw out there like a grenade. I sat there in silence, waiting for it to explode. It never did.

  Randy only sighed again and said, “I guess I knew this day was coming.” His shoulders slumped, his head hung low, and he laid his palms down on the table between us. “What do you want to know?”

  “Everything,” I said without hesitation. “Start at the beginning. When you first met Annie Larson.”

  “I never met Annie Larson. Not in a normal way, anyway. The first time I saw her, I was beyond drunk. I barely remember anything from that night. But my buddies told me the next day that I had slept with some freshman girl who had been pining over me since the first football game. Apparently I had talked to her, but I talked to a lot of girls back then. They had a good laugh, let me tell you. Some friends they were. I felt bad. I’d never taken advantage of any girl that way before and I haven’t since. It’s the one great mistake I made in my youth I wish I could take back. Anyway, I never saw or heard from her for a few weeks and I thought it was behind me. Until one day Annie approached me in the cafeteria saying she had to tell me something.”

  “That she was pregnant,” I prompted.

  “Yes, but I didn’t know that at the time. And my buddies were giving me a hard time, embarrassing me. So I gave in to peer pressure and shooed her away without ever hearing what she had to tell me. It wasn’t until a few days later when her father showed up at my parents’ house and told them Annie was pregnant and that the child was mine. My father wouldn’t hear of it and sent Mr. Larson on his way. He told me what her father had said, but told me not to worry about it. Girls get pregnant all the time, he said. Nothing I could or should do about it.”

  “So you never even tried to do the right thing?” I asked without trying to hide the disgust in my voice.

  “I wanted to, but another week after that, Mr. Larson showed up again. This time he told us that Annie had lost the baby, so there was nothing to worry about. I’ll admit, I felt relieved, but a small part of me felt sad too.”

  “But she didn’t lose the baby, obviously. Her parents sent her away to a gir
ls’ home in Virginia. She had the baby and ran away with him before he could be adopted.”

  “I didn’t know any of that until many years later,” he said, looking down at his hands, which were clasped together, resting on the table.

  “How did you find out about Brian? When?”

  Randy raised his head and looked directly at me. Without blinking, he told me that one day, around 1990, he pulled into a truck stop in Richmond, toward the end of a long haul.

  After he’d filled up on gas and bought a soda from the convenience store, he was walking to his truck when he spotted a woman leaning against it. She was wearing a tiny red tank top, a black mini skirt, and matching stiletto heels. Her auburn hair was messy and she wore lots of makeup and bright red lipstick. When he approached, she said, “Hey big fella. You got a comfy bed in the back of this rig?”

  Randy had made it a habit over the years of trying to “save” prostitutes and witness to them about the Lord, in hopes of talking them into leaving behind their sinful lifestyle and saving their souls. To him, this woman was no different than any other. Just another prostitute for him to try to convert. He walked toward her, pulling his pocket Bible out of his back pocket, ready to minister to her about the perils of sin. But as he drew closer, a spark of recognition flickered in her eyes.

  “No,” she said, shaking her head. “It can’t be.”

  Randy stopped dead in his tracks and looked at the woman, testing his memory to see if he recognized her, but nothing came to mind. She looked like every other aged, hard-ridden, lady of the night. He thought perhaps he’d seen her before at another truck stop, but still, nothing came to him.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “I don’t know who you are. Do you know me?”

  She looked hurt at first, but soon a knowing smile spread across her face, revealing yellowed, misaligned teeth. “Of course you wouldn’t remember. Why would Randy McLanahan, star quarterback and homecoming king, recognize little ol’ me?”

  He realized in that instant that he was looking at someone he went to high school with, but he still didn’t know who she was. His ignorance must have been plainly displayed on his face, because the lady took one long draw from her cigarette, tossed it to the ground, squished it with the toe of her stiletto, and began to cry. Randy reached out, as if to comfort her, but she jerked back and said, “Don’t you touch me! You’ve done enough already!”

  “You have to tell me who you are and what I’ve done to upset you,” Randy said. “I was a stupid teenager, a jerk, so there’s no telling what I might have said to hurt your feelings back then. Whatever it was, know that I’m genuinely sorry. I’m a preacher now. Well, sort of. I used to be, but I still try to help people. Maybe I can help you.”

  She glared at him, wiped her face with the palms of her hands and said, “You really don’t remember me, do you?”

  Randy shook his head and apologized again.

  “Remember a shy little freshman girl named Annie Larson?”

  In that instant, a flood of images came gushing through his mind. He recalled young Annie Larson as a meek, mild-mannered, unattractive young girl who had been obsessed with him since the first football game of the season. He also remembered the most shameful moment of his youth—the night he had gotten drunk and unknowingly taken advantage of his young admirer. He had regretted it from the minute his buddies had told him what he’d done. Worse than that, he had mocked and humiliated her in front of the entire cafeteria a few weeks later. After that day, he’d never seen or heard from Annie Larson again. Rumors had swirled around the high school that she’d either run away or been harmed in some way. Randy had always suspected that the humiliation he had caused her had something to do with her disappearance and it haunted him.

  When he could finally speak, he looked at her with regret and said, “Annie, I am so very sorry. It’s no excuse, but I was young and stupid. I’ve always regretted sending you away. Will you please forgive me?”

  Annie looked at him curiously, as if pondering whether or not he was telling the truth. Then she said the words that would forever change Randy’s life. “You have a son.”

  He looked back at her incredulously, unable to form words. His first instinct was to call her crazy, but deep down, he knew she was telling the truth. He found out about the baby when Annie’s father had turned up on his doorstep and told his father everything. Randy’s father had balked and refused to believe Mr. Larson and said that even if she was pregnant, it wasn’t Randy’s. Then a week later, Mr. Larson had told them she’d lost the baby. But she hadn’t, after all. It explained why she disappeared and why she seemed so hurt, all those years later.

  “Did you hear me?” she asked when Randy stood there in stupefied silence.

  “Yes,” he said. “I heard you. Where is he? What’s his name?”

  Her rough features seemed to soften as soon as she began to speak of her son. “His name is Brain Randall Larson. He’s eighteen and he’s the best son a mother could ever ask for. You would love him. I know you would. He looks so much like you.”

  Randy told her again how sorry he was. He promised that if he had known the truth, he would have done the right thing. He expected her to scoff at this. Instead, she took a step closer to him and placed her hand on his shoulder.

  “We could be a family, you know? It’s not too late.”

  Panic set in when Randy realized Annie had carried a torch for him for almost twenty years. He took her hand and gently removed it from his arm, but did not let it drop.

  “Annie,” he said. “It’s too late for that. I’m married now. I have a little girl at home. I can’t leave my family for you. It wouldn’t be right. I hope you can understand.”

  Her eyes narrowed and she stepped back, pulling her hand free from his grip. “I figured you’d say that. This is all your fault. You ruined my life. I thought maybe you cared for me, but were too afraid or embarrassed to admit it. Then I figured you just didn’t know how to find me. Brian and I stayed gone for a long time, you know. But now I see you haven’t changed one bit. You’re still the same selfish asshole you were in high school. You’ll regret this.”

  Randy reached out to her once more, but she pulled back and began to walk away. He tried to tell her he could help her start a new life and that he would do whatever he could to make it right, but she just spun around and stared at him fiercely.

  “I don’t want your help. And you can keep your pity. It’s too late for sorry now. I’ll make sure you pay. You just watch and see.” Then she stormed off and disappeared into the darkness.

  Randy sat there with tears in his eyes as he recalled that night in vivid detail. He looked up at me when he was done and said, “I’ve carried around this guilt for all these years. I tried to apologize, but she wasn’t hearing it. She wanted to be with me…after all that had transpired. But when I couldn’t give her what she wanted, she threw my apology back in my face and threatened to ruin me.”

  I found myself feeling sorry for Randy in those moments. But I still didn’t understand what any of that had to do with why he was sitting in prison for crimes he allegedly didn’t commit.

  “I don’t get it, Randy,” I said after a moment. “What does that night have to do with anything that is happening now?”

  “I’m not finished,” he said. “There’s more.”

  Randy went on to explain that it was only shortly after that chance meeting at the truck stop that prostitutes began disappearing from truck stops around Kentucky. For years, he thought it had nothing to do with him or Annie, until the day that Alma Jean Glover came forward with a description of the suspect and the police released a sketch of the man she’d seen arguing with Shiloh Blackwater. The picture looked so much like himself, he knew instantly that Brian must have been the one behind all those killings. And it made sense in a way. Randy heard one talking head on Nancy Grace discussing how a lot of killers murder women who remind them of their mothers. That the victims represent everything they hate about the wome
n who had brought them into the world. Brian’s mother Annie was a prostitute. Surely that embarrassed him. Not to mention the fact that Annie had obviously coddled and spoiled Brian from the time he was born and it had just been the two of them for over twenty years. He probably was humiliated and smothered by Annie. Plus, he knew he hadn’t killed nine prostitutes, but the description of the killer so closely resembled him, it couldn’t have been anyone else.

  Finally, everything fell into place. Randy had figured out that Brian was the I-75 Strangler and out of some twisted sense of guilt and penance for what he’d put Annie and Brian through, he confessed to all nine murders.

  “You were trying to protect your son,” I said when it all sank in. “That’s why you confessed. You felt guilty for abandoning Brian and his mother, so you felt the only way to make it right was to protect him and take the fall yourself.”

  “Now you understand why I could never explain things to you or your mother,” he said, looking as if a heavy burden had been lifted from his shoulders.

  “Wait,” I said. “Does Mom know all this?”

  “No,” he admitted. “She had no idea. I couldn’t tell her.”

  “She would have understood, Randy. You were in high school, for God’s sake.”

  “Sure, she would have understood about Brian’s paternity, but she would never have allowed me to take the blame and protect him.”

  He was right, I had to admit. Mom was the definition of a Steel Magnolia. She would have fought tooth and nail to make sure Randy never spent a day in prison and then his whole plan would have backfired on him. His son would have wound up in prison, or worse.

  “So you think Brian is the real I-75 Strangler?” I asked.

  “I know he is. It explains why Alma Jean Glover described me to the sketch artist and then identified me in the lineup after I was arrested. Brian probably looks just like me, or at least enough so that someone with very poor vision, like her, could easily mistake us. Plus, he was apparently picking up prostitutes at truck stops I frequented. Surely he found out from Annie that I’m a truck driver and that I minister to prostitutes I encounter along the way.”