Unspoken Fear

by Hunter Morgan

  Ed ran his hand over his face. "We were sittin' here watchin' TV together, and we got into a little argument. Nothing big, just the usual. She's naggin', I'm not listenin'."

  "And what time was that?"

  "I don't know. Ten, I guess. Amber kept hollerin' for Pam, wanting to get in our bed."

  Snowden nodded. He was no longer taking notes, but listening attentively.

  The biker boyfriend shrugged. "I got a little pissed and I left."

  "And where did you go?"

  "The Pit, you know, out on North Road."

  Delilah knew the place, all right. A bit of a dive. They got called there at least once a month to break up a brawl. A lot of old bikers hung out there, people who'd had brushes with the law but weren't really criminals, the kind of misfits that lived on the fringes of Stephen Kill's little world.

  "Had you been drinking before you went to The Pit, Mr. Parson?"

  "No. I mean yes." He shook his head as if he was confused. "A beer or two."

  Delilah eyed the beer cans under the couch, wondering how many more she would find, once Snowden escorted the man out of his home.

  "So you went to The Pit..."

  "I went to The Pit. I can name ten people who saw me there," Ed Parson said quickly. "Including the bartender, Shorty. I had a beer or two—"

  "How many?" Snowden questioned.

  "Two. One," Ed Parson corrected, obviously beginning to become irritated. "I ordered a second, but I didn't finish it."

  "And from The Pit, you drove directly back here?"

  He nodded.

  "And what time would that have been?"

  "Hell, I don't know!" He rubbed his face again. "Before midnight, because I looked at the clock over the bar before I left and it said it was eleven, only the damned thing runs slow. Fifteen minutes back here, maybe."

  "And when you arrived?"

  "That's when I saw the friggin' fire!" He threw a meaty hand in the air. "At first, from the road, I thought it might be the trailer on fire, then when I got closer, I thought it was trash burnin'. You know, some jackass pullin' some kind of prank."

  "When did you realize it wasn't trash burning in your yard, Mr. Parson?"

  "When I saw her fu—" He cut himself off in mid-curse, looking down at the floor.

  Delilah saw tears in his eyes. Tears of sorrow or tears of guilt, she couldn't tell.

  Ed Parson took a couple of deep breaths and went on, "When I got off my bike, I saw the front door was standin' open. That's when I got scared. I thought something might be wrong. I ran over to the steps and that's when I saw her."

  "And how did you know it was Miss Rehak, Mr. Parson?"

  He wiped his eyes with his forearm, sniffing. "When I saw a piece of her T-shirt. Blue. She was wearin' it when I left the house."

  Snowden flipped the pages of his notebook. In the kitchen, Delilah heard a chair scrape on the linoleum floor, followed by a patter of small footsteps. Delilah glanced at Snowden. There was no need for that little girl in the other room to know any more than she had to about what had happened outside her front door the previous night.

  "I understand you were the one who called 911," Snowden continued.

  Ed Parson nodded.

  "At six-thirty in the morning."

  Ed Parson lowered his face into his hands again. "I know, I know, it don't look good, but I'm tellin' you." He sniffed his face still hidden. "I didn't do this to Pam. I... I loved her."

  "Can you tell me why, if you came home close to midnight to find your girlfriend on fire, you didn't call 911 until more than six hours later?"

  The room was quiet for a moment except for the sound of water being turned on at the kitchen sink.

  "She was already dead, okay?" he said from behind his hands. "I was just scared that's all. I couldn't believe what I'd seen, it was so awful." He let one hand fall. "I just sat there in Amber's room, ‘til morning. I swear to God."

  The water cut off in the kitchen, and after a moment the chair was dragged again. A moment later, the child entered the living room.

  "Go get dressed Amber Bamber, okay?" Ed Parson said. "I called Aunt Ruthie, and you're gonna go over to her house today."

  "Is Mommy comin' home then?"

  "Go do what I said."

  The little girl looked at him and then obediently crossed the living room floor and disappeared down the hall, still not knowing her mother was lying on the ground outside, her body burned beyond recognition.

  The innocence of childhood.

  At that moment, Delilah wished she had a little of her own left.

  * * *

  "Did you hear, Father Gibson?" Cora Watkins asked from behind him in line.

  Noah wondered if he didn't answer, if he pretended he hadn't heard her, might she just buy cold capsules or whatever it was she was buying in the drugstore and go on her way?

  "I said, did you hear there's been another murder?"

  Noah jerked around, his toothpaste, shaving cream, razor blades, and two coloring books—one for Mattie, one for Mallory—cradled in his arms. "What?"

  She drew back, nodding authoritatively. "That's right, Father."

  "He's not really a father anymore," said Alice Crupp from behind Cora in line, looking down at the row of candy bars in front of the cash register. "You shouldn't call him father anymore."

  "Pam Rehak. You remember her, Father," Cora continued, ignoring Alice. "Young girl worked out at the plant, had that baby a couple of years ago, not married. Lived in a trailer, east of town."

  Noah felt light-headed. "Last night?"

  "I heard hours ago in Dr. Carson's office. Saturday morning hours, you know. I was sitting next to Mabel Ridgely when..." Cora Watkins continued to speak, but Noah barely heard a word she said. First Johnny Leager, then Pam Rehak?

  It couldn't be a coincidence.

  Chapter 9

  It was all Noah could do that evening to choke down a couple of bites of Mrs. Santori's fried chicken and her renowned potato frittata. He didn't even try to participate in the conversation between Rachel and her daughter concerning the worms in the bucket on the back step and whether or not they would make good house pets. He sat there as silent as Mattie, pushing his food around his plate with his fork, trying to make it look like he was eating.

  As soon as supper was over, he excused himself to the side porch. He sat in his father's rocker in the fading June light and let his gaze drift over the backyard, the apple and pear trees Rachel had so lovingly planted when they had first moved back to Delaware. He studied her vegetable beds and the freshly turned dark soil of the one she had planted zucchini plants in today. He watched a blue jay feather drift in the wind a foot off the grass.

  He couldn't believe Pam Rehak was dead. Murdered, Cora Watkins had said. Burned to death, probably by her tattooed boyfriend. Noah didn't recognize the name of the boyfriend;

  he'd only been in town a couple of years, according to the church secretary's boundless fountain of information.

  Maybe the boyfriend did kill her.... Maybe it was just a coincidence, but he had a heavy feeling in the pit of his stomach that it wasn't. Question was, what did he do about it?

  Boy, oh boy, did he want a drink right now. He wanted it so badly that his hands were trembling. He could taste the burn in his mouth.

  The screen door squeaked open and slapped shut, and Noah sat back in the chair just as Rachel walked around the corner. She was carrying two glasses of sweet tea.

  "I can't convince Mrs. Santori to use the decaf bags, so I'm warning you ahead of time," she said, putting a glass down for him on the table between the two rockers.

  "Doesn't matter. I don't sleep that well, anyway." Or so well that I don't know when I'm getting up and driving a lawn mower around in the yard, he thought.

  She was barefoot, and when she sat in his mother's chair, she tucked one foot under her. He had always liked her feet. Small, dainty. She used to wear pink nail polish on them, and she'd always been very ticklish. He reme
mbered capturing her feet in their bed and tickling them until she begged for mercy. The memory made him want to smile and cry at the same time.

  She sipped her tea.

  He could tell she wanted to talk about something. She was a lot like his father that way. Though they were both very direct people, it always took them a while to come around to what was on their mind.

  "That's really awful about Pam Rehak," she said, after a moment. She set her chair in motion. "Her little girl was in Mallory's preschool class at the church." She shook her head, taking another sip of her tea. "Guess it goes to show you, you better be careful who you sleep with."

  It was the perfect opportunity for Noah to speak up about the coincidence. While he had told Rachel things he'd had no right to tell her, he'd never told her who Johnny Leager had the affair with. But he just couldn't bring himself to broach the subject. "Pretty awful" was all he could manage.

  "Listen," Rachel said after another minute or two of silence. "I know you really don't want to talk about this, but I've got my résumé in order and..." She halted, then started again. "We need to start thinking about what we're going to do with Mattie."

  "Do with him?"

  Noah's thoughts were still on Johnny and Pam. Their affair had been typical, from his experience. A man with a certain amount of authority in a workplace who was lonely and not quite happy in his marriage, at the time. A younger, pretty woman who admired her superior and was willing to listen to him. They had pretty much fallen into bed together. Fortunately, Johnny had come to his senses before his wife found out. Before the damage was irrevocable.

  "Yes, about Mattie," Rachel said on the edge of her patience with him. "I can't remain his legal guardian if I move to California or Pennsylvania. If you're determined to keep the vineyard, to stay here, you need to file for guardianship."

  Noah reached for his glass of iced tea, not so much because he wanted it, but because he needed a moment. "I... I guess I can do that."

  "You need to go to Georgetown and file with the Court of Chancery."

  He took another sip of tea. His hands were steady again.

  "Okay, Noah?" she pressed. "I need you to do this for Mattie... for me. I've got enough to worry about right now. I don't need to worry about whether or not Mattie will be cared for."

  He looked at her, lowering his glass. "Of course I'll take care of him."

  "I know you will. But you need to do this legally. Remember, he gets a social security check every month. You have to legally be allowed to deposit and withdraw from his account."

  He set his glass back on the table. "You’re really going to take a job in another state?"

  He couldn't imagine life without Rachel. Even after she had divorced him, even when he was in prison, she had still been in his life in some way, still as much a part of him as his arm or his leg.

  "There's only two other vineyards in Delaware, Noah, and they have a vintner. I have to go where there's work."

  He felt numb, like in the days when he'd been drinking. No, this was worse than numb because he was feeling a hundred emotions all at once. "Okay, sure. I'll take care of it."

  "I can take you over."

  "I said I'll take care of it, Rachel," he said, sharper than he intended.

  "I just don't want you riding to Georgetown on that stupid—"

  "I'll get someone to take me," he interrupted, rising from the chair. It was just too much to be here with her right now. He had too much on his mind. "I'll get Joshua. He said he'd take me anywhere I needed to go. I'll go next week when I check in with my parole officer." He walked past her. "Thanks for the tea."

  * * *

  Delilah poured herself a glass of her sweet tea; standing in her kitchen barefoot, in boxers and a T-shirt, she took a sip and frowned. It was good, but not as good as her grandmother's. She just didn't understand it. She followed the recipe exactly, measuring the sugar and the water. She even used her grandmother's brand of tea bags.

  Shaking her head in disappointment, she walked back into the living room of her small, but nice, townhouse in the only townhouse community in town. Right now, she was just renting, until she was sure she wanted to stay in Delaware, but she had the option to buy, and part of the rent she was paying would go toward the mortgage.

  In the living room, she curled up in her favorite reading chair and picked up the cozy mystery she'd been trying to read. Usually, one of these books was just what she needed to decompress after a bad day at work. There was nothing like a case of a missing pearl necklace to work out the kinks in her neck, and the author was a good one. She came highly recommended from the librarian in town, where she'd gotten it. Snowden's mother seemed to have a knack for matching just the right book with the right reader.

  But tonight, Delilah couldn't concentrate on the cast of characters or clues in the book. She couldn't get the image of Pam Rehak's burned body out of her mind. The official identification wouldn't come until dental records were studied up at the morgue in Wilmington, but everyone pretty much agreed, unofficially, that it was Pam Rehak. She was wearing what was left of the shirt the boyfriend identified as the one she had on when he left the house, and the silver earrings found on the ground where they fell from her charred earlobes were also hers, according to him.

  After studying the scene and the fact that, upon closer examination, the skull was beaten in, she and Snowden had come to the quick conclusion that Pam Rehak had been murdered. That brought them to the next logical question, by whom?

  The easy answer was that Ed Parson had done it. He'd gotten angry, he'd gone to the bar, that much they'd confirmed; then he went home, still angry, and shut up the nagging girlfriend. Shut her up permanently by bashing her head in with something heavy, then pouring gasoline on her and setting her body on fire.

  But there were a few snags preventing them from arresting Ed Parson. There was no visible blood spatter on Ed or on any clothes in the house. The clothes he'd been wearing and the ones in the laundry basket had been sent to the lab in Wilmington to look for trace evidence of blood, but she was afraid they weren't going to find any. And there was no evidence of any accelerant, gas or anything else, on the property. They'd found a gas can under the trailer skirt around back, next to an old lawn mower, but the can was empty and appeared to have been for some time. The lawn didn't look like it had been mowed in weeks. And there was no murder weapon on the property, at least that had been found, yet.

  If Ed had killed her, he'd cleaned himself up pretty darned well and he'd disposed of the evidence. Of course, he'd had plenty of time, hadn't he?

  But something about his behavior made her think he didn't do it. Back at the scene, and then at the station house, he had seemed genuinely upset by Pam's death.

  She glanced at the phone on the table beside her. She'd talked to one of her brothers earlier tonight. A cop, too. They hadn't talked about the case really, just about dealing with a crappy day. He'd made her feel better about herself.

  But she couldn't stop thinking about Pam and her responsibility to the dead woman, to that little girl she'd seen eating Cheerios this morning.

  She felt like she needed to talk to Snowden.

  She picked up the phone, but she didn't punch in his number immediately. They didn't usually make personal phone calls back and forth. He probably would say it was unprofessional, but tonight she just needed to talk to him. She keyed in his number without having to look it up.

  * * *

  Snowden stood barefoot in running shorts and a T-shirt, watching the hot dogs boil in the pan of water. He'd gone for a long run, six miles, hoping to ease the tension in his neck, hoping to let the image of Pam Rehak's body recede in his mind, but it hadn't worked. Now he was tired and still haunted by the image of her burned body.

  There was no sign of the murder weapon, a club of some sort he guessed. No sign of blood spatter on Ed Parson and no sign of an accelerant on the property. Snowden knew that Ed had plenty of time to hide the stuff, but they'd searched th
e woods within a half-mile radius and come up with nothing. The boyfriend just didn't act like he'd killed her. Sure, one could say he looked the part of a man who might lose his temper with his girlfriend and get drunk and kill her. He was a tattooed biker, an auto mechanic by trade, and had been arrested a few times in his twenties for petty stuff, the kind of man it was easy to conclude could have done such a thing. But Snowden's gut instinct told him he wasn't the murderer.

  His gut instinct told him there was some awful truth hidden at that crime scene. In this town. And things were going to get worse before they got better.

  Fighting a weird shiver, he turned to the counter across from the stove and grabbed a pack of hot dog rolls from the bread drawer. Untwisting the tie, he thought back on the scene, as it had appeared when they arrived. Was there something there that should have pointed him in a direction other than the boyfriend?

  He and Delilah and two additional officers had been all over that yard, but maybe they'd missed something.

  His phone rang, startling him. It hardly ever rang. Had to be the station. Johnson, the officer on duty tonight, must not have been able to find the coffee cups or something.

  He removed the handset from its place on the wall near the door to the living room. "Chief Calloway," he said into the receiver.

  There was silence on the other end.

  "Chief Calloway," he repeated.

  "Chief, it's Delilah."

  He was stunned that she would call him at home and even more stunned by how glad he was to hear her voice. "What can I do for you, Delilah?" he asked, deciding it was probably okay to call her by her first name when they were both off duty. Besides, it was a private phone call. Who would know?

  "I can't stop thinking about her," she said softly.

  He liked her southern accent. He wouldn't admit it to his mother, of course, no more than he would admit he found her attractive, but there was something very feminine about her voice. He liked the idea that she could be as tough as he knew she could be, and yet still retain her femininity.