“Anything else catch your eye?”
“I don’t remember anything.”
“What happened after that?”
“I told my mom that Greg was lying on the patio, and she ran out after me. She knelt down next to him; I think she was trying to see if he was breathing or anything. She just kept saying, ‘Greg, oh my God, oh my God.’ Then she got up and ran back into the house and called 911.”
“And then what happened?”
“Paramedics came, and then the police. It was just mass confusion. And they told Mom at some point that he was dead and that he’d been shot in the back of the head.”
“How did your mom react?”
“She was, like, in shock. I remember her just sitting there in a chair in the living room and crying while people kept asking her questions.”
“What about you?”
“I went and sat by her until they took us away.”
“Where did they take you?”
“The police took us to the station. They put us in different cars. I was freaking out because I wanted to be with Mom.”
“What happened after that?”
“They put me in a room, and a lady detective came and asked me a lot of questions. And then she left, and they left me alone for a long time in the room. Then they told me I could go. And I went out, and my mom was there, and her friend Carol. Carol took us to her house for the night, and we stayed with her until we could go back home.”
“You were seeing Todd then; did you talk with him after Greg’s death?”
“I called him from Carol’s and told him what happened.”
“Did you and he see one another after that?”
“He came over the next day.”
“How about from then on?”
She looked uncomfortable. “I don’t know. Not so much. I guess I was in shock. Then right after school let out Mom and I went out to the house on the coast, just to get some peace and quiet. And because we didn’t really want to be in the house in Harrison after what happened.”
“At some point, you actually did move out, right?”
“Yeah. Mom rented a condo, and we moved there. It was a few weeks after.”
“What happened to the house?”
“It was put up for sale.”
“Did you go anywhere else that summer?”
“Mom took Nana and me on a cruise up to Alaska after the life insurance money came in. That was after Todd died. She was trying to help me deal with it, with everything that had happened. She thought going away someplace beautiful might help.”
“Did it?”
“Not really. I don’t even remember that much about the cruise. All I could think about was Todd and how our whole life had become so weird. After we got home Mom got me into counseling; and that helped a little. But then she got arrested.”
“How did that happen?”
“They just came early one evening, knocked on the door, Detective Hansen and a couple of cops in uniform, and a social worker. They came in and took her away in handcuffs. The social worker took me to a home, but I was allowed to go live with Nana after a week or two.”
“How was that for you?”
“I was really grateful. I had to transfer to high school in Sparksville, which was rinky-dink, but at least no one was whispering about me all the time because my mom was in jail. Half the kids there had been in the same boat at one time or another,” she said with a rueful smile. “And I was actually glad to be able to help Nana out. Mom had been helping her, visiting, buying groceries, making sure she got to appointments and stuff, and I kind of took over. Mom told me when I visited her in jail that she’d worried a lot about what was going to happen to Nana and how happy she was that I was living with her. And it took my mind off my own troubles. I don’t know what would have happened to me without Nana.”
“How did you get around?”
“I had my permit and Mom’s car, so I could get groceries and drive Nana to doctor’s appointments during the day. And then I got my license, so I could drive at night.”
“At some point, though, you moved down south with Linda and Pete.”
“Yeah,” Brittany sighed. “Poor Nana had a stroke the summer after I graduated high school, and I couldn’t care for her anymore. Linda and Pete had to move her into a nursing home down near them, and they sold her house. So I moved down there, too, and stayed with them till I turned eighteen. I had some life insurance money from Greg that was in trust for me till my eighteenth birthday, and I used it to pay for community college and rent an apartment with a couple of other students. And I got a job; that helped.”
“What were your plans?”
“I thought about being a nurse. I studied physiology in community college, and then decided I wanted to be an EMT, so I trained and studied for the certification. Did that until I was pregnant with Kyle. I loved it. That’s how I met Rick.”
“Where did you work?”
“LA, Orange County.”
“How did you come to move here?”
“We both wanted to live somewhere outside the city. Neither of us are really city people. Rick grew up on a farm in Monterey County. He’s a firefighter, and after Kyle was born, he applied to Cal Fire, and got hired here. It was a good move for him. They really like him here; he’s been promoted a couple of times.”
“How is it for you?”
“Quiet. Restful, in some ways, even though I seem to be busy all the time. I’m staying home while the kids are little. I volunteer at the preschool one day a week, and I do some work at our church. Once the kids are in school, I’m thinking of going back to school to study nursing. I’d have to go to Bakersfield, which is a long commute, but we can make it work.”
“You’ve done well,” I said. “I know your mom is proud of you.”
She looked shy for a minute. “I really want her to be. It’s all I can give her, really.” She gave a sudden, ragged sigh and blinked back tears, then hunched her shoulders and squeezed her fists against the lower part of her face. After a couple of deep breaths, she sat upright. “I’m sorry; sometimes it just catches me off guard. Are you sure you wouldn’t like some coffee or tea? I’d like to get up and stretch for a minute.”
“Actually, coffee sounds good after all,” Natasha said, and I agreed. Brittany disappeared into the kitchen and returned with three mugs and spoons, then made a second trip for a sugar bowl and a cream pitcher and a couple of paper napkins. She must have guests a lot, I figured; I didn’t even own a cream pitcher.
She sat in the armchair, then put a heaping spoonful of sugar into her coffee, added milk, stirred it, and then put the spoon onto a napkin. “Rick laughs at the way I drink coffee,” she said, confidingly. “Like a kid. He says I really like it to taste like coffee ice cream.”
We all doctored our coffee according to our tastes and had a contemplative sip or two before I asked the next question. “You’re convinced your mom is innocent. Can you tell me why?”
Brittany’s gaze shifted to her right, then down, then back to me. “Because I know what happened,” she said.
“Is it true that Todd shot him?”
She hesitated for a second, then nodded. “Yeah.” She shut her eyes for a moment and bit her lower lip. Giving up her old boyfriend, even dead, was not something she wanted to do.
“How do you know?”
“Well, for one thing I heard them talking about it.”
“Who was ‘them’?”
“Him and Braden.” Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Natasha watching her intently.
“What did you hear them say?”
“Braden talked about it a lot. He’d say, like, how he hated his father and wished he were dead, so he could get his inheritance and start investing it in some of his business schemes. Todd didn’t like Greg already because of the way he treated me and Mom.”
“Did you hear them actually planning the murder?”
“Not directly, just hints. Laughing and joking—Braden,
mostly.”
“Then how did you know they did it together?”
“Todd told me afterward. He said Braden put him up to it.”
“Did you know ahead of time when Todd was going to kill him?”
“No. He told me later he had to wait for a day when all of us but Greg would be out.”
“So you didn’t tell him Greg would be home that Saturday?”
Her eyes were downcast when she answered. “Yeah, I did tell him that.” She looked up again, from me to Natasha, as if begging us to believe her. “But I didn’t know he was going to do what he did. I just happened to tell him what we were doing that day.”
“So Todd told you he’d committed the murder.”
“Yes.” She stared at her hands in her lap, and her voice was almost a whisper.
“When did he tell you?”
A small hesitation while she seemed to try to remember, her head half raised. “Really soon after. I don’t remember exactly when.”
“Did he describe how he did it?”
“Yeah.”
“Can you tell me what he said?”
She shivered and went on, not looking directly at either of us. “He said he parked his truck on the other side of the golf course and snuck around through the woods and climbed the fence into the back of our yard. He thought Greg would be inside the house, and he was kind of surprised that he was out by the pool. But Greg didn’t see him because he was busy with the water blaster and his back was to him. Todd said he kind of snuck up behind some bushes until he was close enough to take aim, and then he fired, just one shot. Greg fell—he just went down—and Todd panicked. He didn’t even go see if Greg was dead; he just ran away, climbed over the fence, and took off. He told me he hardly remembered getting back to his truck, he was so freaked out.”
“Todd had a difficult time with it, didn’t he?”
She nodded, head still down. “Yeah. He felt really bad. I don’t think he really understood what it would be like to kill someone.”
“What did he do?”
“Oh, God—well, he cried, a lot. He got rid of his rifle; he told me he drove somewhere and threw it into a canal. And he started smoking a lot more weed and got into heroin. Braden was getting it for him. And he started kind of avoiding me. We’d talk on the phone, and he’d tell me he loved me, but when I wanted to see him, he’d say he didn’t think it would be a good idea.”
“Had Todd been into drugs before the killing?”
“Not heavy, or at least I don’t think so. We all smoked weed, and Braden sometimes had some meth. He and Todd and Jason, Kim’s boyfriend, all snorted it when Braden brought it around.”
“Did Braden pay Todd for the murder?”
“I don’t think so. I don’t think Todd wanted money.” She stopped, and her gaze drifted, turned inwards, retrieving a memory that had never actually gone away. “He told me he didn’t do it just for Braden.”
“Then why did he?”
“He said he did it for me,” she said, almost in a whisper. “Dear God—everything changed when he pulled that trigger.”
“Why didn’t you tell anyone what happened?”
She took a deep breath and exhaled. “I didn’t want to get Todd in trouble. And I thought I might get arrested for knowing about it and not telling anyone. I was sixteen, I didn’t know anything about the law or who to ask.” She paused a second or two. “I kept thinking that if I just didn’t tell anyone it would blow over, go away. I mean, the police were questioning us, but they didn’t seem to have any evidence.”
“What about after Todd died?”
Her eyes grew wide. “That’s when it got really scary. After Todd overdosed, Braden called me and asked me how I was doing. And I said not good. And he said he was sorry to hear that, but that I’d better be quiet about what happened, or I could end up like Todd.”
“What did you think he meant by that?”
“I thought he meant that he’d killed Todd.”
“Were you using heroin then?”
She shifted uncomfortably. “No. I didn’t like the whole needle thing; it was too icky.”
“But you thought Braden could slip you something and kill you?”
“Well, yeah. I thought he could make it look like I was using and OD’d, just like Todd.” She made an almost apologetic gesture with her hands. “I don’t know if it made sense or not,” she said. “I was sixteen, I was stupid. I was panicking, with everything that happened—Todd killing Greg and then dying, and the police acting as if we were criminals—it was really awful, and I was afraid to turn to anyone.”
“After your mom was arrested—you didn’t tell anyone then?”
She returned her gaze to her hands. “No. I was scared. I kept thinking Mom would be okay, that the jury would see she was innocent.”
“What about after she was convicted?”
“I still thought Braden would have me killed if I told. But I did tell Mom after she went to prison. I could never talk to her about anything on the jail phones because they were monitored. But when I saw her in prison, and we had some privacy, I told her everything.”
“What did she say?”
“She said not to worry, and that I shouldn’t say anything to anyone.”
“Did you ever talk about this to anyone else?”
“No. Not even Rick.”
“Not the police, obviously.”
“No.”
“Not your mom’s lawyer?”
“No.”
“But you’re telling us now. Did something change?”
She nodded.
“What?”
“My mom told me in a phone call that Braden is doing life in prison for trying to murder someone else. I guess one of you guys must have written to her about it. I don’t think he can hurt me anymore.” She smiled wanly. “I hope I’m right.”
“I think you’re safe,” I said, reassuringly.
She gave me a look of gratitude and relief. “I’m so glad I can finally talk about it. I’ve carried it around for so long; it’s been this huge secret.”
“Do you think Sunny would be okay with your telling us?”
She shook her head. “I don’t know. After I told her, she was afraid something might happen to me. But I figure now that Braden is locked up, she doesn’t have to be anymore.”
“Good point,” I said.
“Is it too late to tell the judge?”
“No, actually. We’re going to file a petition for habeas corpus, where we’ll be able to present new evidence. We can include a declaration from you about what you told us. You’ll have to sign it under penalty of perjury. Do you feel you can do that?”
Again, she hesitated for a beat before answering. “Yes. Yes, I can do that.”
“I have one quick question,” Natasha said. “There was that check Sunny wrote to Todd. Do you know why she did that?”
“Oh, yes,” Brittany said, almost brightly. “That was my idea. I thought it might cheer Todd up, give him something to distract him, if he had money to fix up his truck. I told him Mom was loaning it to him because she was scared to think of me riding in that old thing, with the brakes and the clutch all shot. That was all true; that’s how I convinced Mom to loan him the money.”
Natasha nodded. “Thanks. Can we type up a declaration and bring it to you in an hour or two?”
“Yeah. I have to pick up the kids at noon, but I’ll be home in the afternoon. Can you get here before Rick comes home? He’s doing days this week, so he gets home around five thirty.”
“No problem,” I said. I stood up, and Natasha and Brittany followed. “Is there anything like a copy service around here?”
“There’s a shopping center in Allenville, about twenty minutes away. An office supply store there does printing and copying.”
“Great. We’ll write up a declaration and come back this afternoon.”
“Okay.” She nodded, wide-eyed, in a way that made me feel as though she were a child and I were her mothe
r or a teacher.
She went ahead of us to the door and let us out. “See you later,” she said, and we smiled and waved back as we started down the path.
“Do you believe her?” Natasha asked me in a low voice, as soon as we were sure we were out of earshot.
I shook my head.
“Me neither,” she said. “It’s like something you’d see on TV.”
“Yeah,” I said. “A little far-fetched, and so was her reaction. Hard to believe she’d be so afraid that she’d let her mother go to prison without saying anything.”
“I think one part of it’s true,” Natasha said.
“What part was that?”
“Where she said Todd killed Greg for her. Did you see her face? She’s been carrying that guilt around with her all these years.”
Natasha called Carey while I drove us to the shopping center with the office supply store. Her secretary said she was in court. Natasha called her cellphone and left a voicemail telling her we urgently needed to talk.
“We may as well write up the declaration,” I said, “in case Carey says to go ahead and get it signed.” So we found a booth at the back of a diner, ordered drinks, and settled down with Natasha’s notebook computer to type up what Brittany had told us. We had just finished, and were contemplating ordering something for lunch, when Carey called back.
“Let me tell you our dilemma,” I said, and laid it out. “We have to get a declaration from her,” I concluded, “but there are risks, and I wanted your say on it before we go ahead.”
Carey was silent on the line for a moment before answering. “Right,” she said, finally. “I guess the problem is that we’re concerned Brittany may be committing perjury if she signs on to what she told you. On the other hand, her statement exonerates Sunny. I don’t see how we can justify not using it just because we aren’t sure we believe her.”
“That’s it,” I said. “But I worry about getting her into trouble if she signs this, and it’s somehow disproven. It would hurt our credibility, too.”
It was another few seconds before Carey responded. “Here’s how I see it,” she said. “This is a statement Brittany is willing to swear to. We haven’t disproved it; we have no way of telling it isn’t true. I think we have to use it.”
Janet Moodie--Next of Kin Page 17
