Secrets and Lies

by Rachel Sinclair

  Tammy just nodded her head. I knew that she was thinking the same thing I was – that I was going to have to find out exactly what it was that led Silas into a mental hospital. She knew what kind of issues that Harper had, so I knew that she wanted to be sensitive and not try to imply that Silas was insane or something like that. “I just wanted you to know about that. That’s all. Although, I’m sure that you would have found out about it sooner or later in your research on the guy.”

  “That’s true. It definitely would have come up.” Since Silas signed a release for medical records, I knew that finding out what Silas’ issue was wouldn’t be a problem. “What else have you heard? I admit, I haven’t really gotten too far into this case. I’m going to order the file tomorrow. I know that I should have figured out what kind of person he was before I signed him up, and I just think it’s very strange that he wanted me to represent him so much. He was very adamant that he wanted only me to represent him. Do you think that’s odd?”

  Harper shook her head. “No, I don’t have that thought at all. You’re an attorney with a stellar reputation, and you’ve won most of your cases. I sure as hell would want you on my side if I was charged with a crime.”

  “That’s what he said. I just think that there’s more to it, though. That’s all. I suppose it will come out in time. I just hope that it doesn’t come out too late.”

  Harper decided to go ahead and change the subject. “In the meantime, we discussed making you partner. Tammy and I had some partnership papers drawn up for you to look over and sign. It’s pretty standard. We’ll all be equal partners – one-third, one-third, one-third. I know that you and I have talked about it as well, and I know that you’re interested in doing this. So let’s just go ahead and get this over with, and we can have a glass of champagne. Or, rather, the two of you can have a glass of champagne, and I’ll stick to my sparkling grape juice.”

  I looked over the partnership papers and then signed them. We all raised a glass. It was good to be a partner. After what I went through with being under suspicion for the murder of my father, and everything that that dug up for me, it felt good to have something positive finally happen.

  Life was good at the moment. I just hoped that it didn’t change.

  Chapter 4

  The next day, I answered some reporter’s questions and made a brief statement to the press, at Silas’ blessing, and I made a motion to the court for me to inspect the crime scene. Silas had described to me what he called his dungeon, but I wanted to see it for myself. The judge had signed the order for me, so I was allowed to go over to his home and take a look at the place where Ava had died.

  I also had ordered the file, and it had come in. I needed to find out more information about him, and I also needed to find out more details on what had actually happened when Ava had passed away. I also had Pearl prepare a subpoena for Ava’s medical records. I just had a feeling that there was something that was wrong with her health that Silas didn’t know about. And if that was the case, then I would feel better about taking Silas on as a client. After all, if Ava was seriously ill, that would mean that Silas’ story was possibly true. Maybe she had an undisclosed heart issue, and what she was doing with Silas taxed her so much that her heart gave out. Or maybe there was another reason why. I didn’t know.

  I got to the house. It was one of those 10,000 square-foot homes nestled in the heart of Hallbrook, which is an exclusive enclave in Leawood, Kansas. This was a neighborhood where Joe Montana once lived, when he played quarterback for the Chiefs, along with CEOs and captains of industry.

  Silas met me at the home, along with Ally and a police officer, and he led us around to the back patio. I needed to take a look at the burned-out dungeon, and then I was going to take a look inside the house. I wanted to see if there were any kind of clues inside the house that would’ve told me that perhaps things were not as Silas had described them.

  “There’s not much to see, I’m afraid,” Silas said as I followed him through his backyard. “At least, there’s not much to see of our dungeon.”

  The backyard consisted of an in-ground swimming pool surrounded by statues and a structure that was once probably at least a 1,000 square foot home. It appeared to be either a guest house or servant’s quarters. According to the pictures that Silas showed me, it was a smaller version of the main house. At the moment, however, it was nothing but a pile of rubble. Investigators had left it the way it was, because it was considered to be a crime scene.

  As I looked at the pile of rubble, I shuddered. All that was standing was a brick wall with a pair of handcuffs that were attached. Other than that, however, that structure was nothing but ashes.

  “This is where they found her,” Silas said, pointing to the handcuffs which were attached to the brick wall. “There wasn’t much left of her, I’m afraid.”

  I took out the file and looked at the picture of the body. Silas was correct about that – there wasn’t much left of his wife. Her body was little more than a pile of ashes and bones. In the picture, I could also see that her two hands were still intact and bound in the handcuffs.

  As I walked and poked along the rubble, being careful not to disturb anything, because I knew that this was still a crime scene, I asked questions about what this dungeon contained.

  “It was outfitted with the usual implements. A St. Andrew’s Cross, handcuffs, a box where I enclosed her, latex suits, body bags, and there was also a whipping altar where I bent down while she beat me.”

  This was a different piece of information. “Are you saying that you would occasionally be submissive to her?”

  “Of course. Occasionally she was dominant. Mainly, I was dominant. But, as I said, I didn’t beat her or whip her. She needed that, but she didn’t get it from me.”

  I felt satisfied that there is not much more I could really glean from looking at this charred remains of a dungeon, so I went inside the main house. Fortunately for Silas, the main house was not touched by the flames. That was because the dungeon was on the other side of the pool, and I would imagine that once the flames reached the concrete, they would’ve died out. The upshot of that was that the dungeon was burned to the ground, but the actual house was completely intact.

  I walked in the house and looked around. It was modern, with gleaming marble floors, and a skylight in the ceiling that was a good 20 feet above my head. I looked through the game room, the living room, the dining room, the master bedroom and the seven other bedrooms. I didn’t know what I was looking for, but I wanted to see if I could find any clues about Ava’s health.

  I went through all six of the bathrooms, looking for some prescriptions. I saw none. I walked into the master bedroom where I saw a closet with various outfits that looked like what a woman would wear during sex play - leather bustiers, high heels, leather panties, leather catsuits and bodysuits, leather pants and skirts, and leather hats. The presence of these outfits validated Silas’s story about how he and Ava engaged in sex play, which was significant to me. That told me that there was, indeed, a legitimate reason for Ava being chained to that wall when that fire swept in. It also told me that, on this point at least, Silas wasn’t lying.

  I walked through the rest of the house, and I didn’t see anything that was really amiss. Silas accompanied me, as did a member of the Police Department, who had met me at the house, as this was still a crime scene, so the cop was there to make sure that I didn’t defile the evidence in some way. Also there was a prosecutor, Ally Hughes. She trailed me through the house, along with the police officer.

  “I don’t know what I’m looking for,” I admitted. Then I went into another bathroom, looking for more prescriptions, and I did come up on a few, but they were made out to my client, not to Ava. One of the prescriptions was for Geodon, which I knew was a drug that was prescribed for people who had mood disorders. I knew this because I had some experience in the past with clients who suffered from bi-polar disorder, and this was a common drug prescribed for this. I al
so saw that he was prescribed Prozac.

  I looked at Silas standing in the door. I couldn’t read his expression, but it looked like he was annoyed that I was getting into his personal things. “So you know my secret.”

  “Having bipolar disorder is nothing to be ashamed of and I’m glad to see that you are actually taking medicine for it.” I always saw meds that people take for mood disorders as being no different than meds one takes for diabetes or high blood pressure or any other kind of health issue. You wouldn’t be stigmatized for taking insulin, so why would you be stigmatized for taking Prozac?

  He nodded his head. “I’ll admit that I wasn’t always taking medicine for my issues. There were many years when I was living with undiagnosed bi-polar disorder, and I wasn’t dealing with it very well. I had severe problems with alcohol and you will find out that I also had issues with anger. I didn’t tell you about my bi-polar disorder, because I didn’t want you to judge me.”

  He had problems with anger? This was just now coming out? “Did these problems with anger cause you to be abusive to Ava or any other person along the way?” I wondered if he was lying to me about what he was saying earlier about how he could never lay a hand on his wife. Maybe he caused the bruises on her arms after all.

  I looked around, and saw that Ally was standing to the side. I hoped that she didn’t hear anything that was being said. “You’re going to have to talk to me about this later. At the moment, however, I’m going to take you at your word - what you told me earlier.” I looked at him meaningful with a look that said that we couldn’t talk about this subject at the moment, and he seemed to understand.

  “Of course.”

  I inspected the rest of the house, but there wasn’t anything else that gave me any kind of pause. “Okay. I guess it’s time for me to leave. You want to follow me to my office, so we can talk about things?” Now that I had the file in hand, I had the basis to ask him more meaningful questions.

  “I’ll follow you over.”

  I shook hands with the prosecutor and the officer, and went to my car. Silas got into his own Tesla, and he followed me to my office, where I got right down to asking him questions. “Now, you told me briefly at the house that you had anger problems. Can you just tell me what kind of problems you were having?”

  He steepled his hands, and looked down at my desk. “You have to understand that for many years, I was living with bipolar disorder, and I had no idea. That was probably the reason why I became successful. See, I was able to work, when I was experiencing periods of mania, around-the-clock. And I had such great insight. I felt like I was using all of my brain, and I was able to see my way around problems that I could never figure out before. And I took a lot of chances. I gambled a lot. Not just playing the stock market, and things like that, but I also took a lot of chances with the business, when I started it up. Because of my great insight, most of these gambles paid off. I wasn’t reckless. I was just… courageous, I guess you could say.”

  “Were you diagnosed with bipolar one, or bipolar two?” With bipolar one, the person would sometimes hallucinate, as if they were schizophrenic, which was why the two disorders were often confused with one another.

  “Bipolar one.”

  “And did you hallucinate when you were manic?”

  He shook his head. “I don’t think so. I will say that the mania was usually colorful. I had such clarity. I miss that. I miss the clarity, the energy, and the feeling that I could do anything. The feeling that I was somebody who could conquer the entire world. But, I don’t miss the other parts of mania. The agitation, the anger.”

  Again with the anger. I had to find out what he was talking about. “So, when you were angry, how did you express it?”

  “I would destroy things. Break things. Punch holes in the walls. Start fights. Scream at the top of my lungs at people.” He shook his head. “I wasn’t too kind to the people I saw out in the world. If a waitress made one little mistake, I was screaming at her, and making her cry. If a dry cleaner didn’t have my suit ready at the time when they said that they would, I would go over there and rip them a new one, in front of everybody. And yes, I probably wasn’t so nice to Ava at that time.”

  “When you say the words ‘not so nice to Ava at that time,’ what do you mean?” I had to wonder if there was something that was there.

  Silas stared at me again with the same kind of stare that unnerved me when I first met him. It looked as if he was trying to decide whether to tell me the truth. “There were restraining orders.”

  I rolled back my chair. I was feeling a sense of anger. It seemed as if he was lying to me when he insisted that he would never lay a hand on his wife. “Why were there restraining orders?”

  “You have to understand something. I’ve been taking medicine for bipolar disorder for the past five years. So, anything I’m telling you is old news. Old news, and I’m a changed man. That’s the reason why I didn’t tell you about this. However, I know that you’re going to find out about it sooner or later, so I might as well come out with it.”

  “I understand about bipolar disorder.” I had never suffered from the disorder, thank God, but I knew people who did, including Harper. “I know that it means that you’re jumping out of your skin, 24/7. I know that it causes a heightened state of agitation, and makes one very easily set off. Somebody looks at you wrong, and it’s off to the races. I know about that feeling. I’ve been there. So go ahead and tell me. I won’t judge.” I did know the feeling of being on a razor’s edge, looking over into the abyss. I also knew the feeling of having an enormous amount of pent-up rage that bubbles up and finally explodes. I was there when I was a kid. I didn’t have a chemical imbalance such as what causes bi-polar disorder, but I was dealing with an abusive stepfather and I feared for my life. So, I really did know how Silas was feeling when he had that period of unrestrained rage.

  He finally just sighed. “I knew that you would understand. I looked into your background, and I found out that you’ve suffered hardships. I know about your stepfather and the fact that you killed him when you were 15. That’s one of the reasons why I hired you. I knew that you would know what I was going through. But yes, there were incidents where my wife and I got physical.”

  “How physical?” I asked him.

  “I beat her twice. The cops came to our house both times, but no arrests were made. The second time was when I got help. I loved her, and I was willing to do anything to make sure that she stayed married to me. She told me that she wanted me to see a psychiatrist, because she suspected that there was something mentally wrong with me. She was concerned all along about the days when I would lock myself in my home office, and not come out, because I was in there working day and night. I was working on problems concerning my company, and I didn’t want to be disturbed. During this time, I wouldn’t eat or sleep for days on end. And when I would come out of the room, I would be at a heightened state of agitation, and that’s when things would blow up. That happened several times, and the first time I beat her, she left the house and got a restraining order against me. She was gone for several weeks. In an apartment.”

  “Was she was in an apartment, or was she staying with her parents at the time?” I suddenly had a feeling that the parents had more reason to hate him than what he had originally let on.

  “She was staying at an apartment. She maintained a separate apartment for several years.”

  “And why did she maintain the separate apartment?”

  “Because of the incidents when I would get angry and punch my hand through a wall. The reason why I punched my hand through a wall was to keep from hitting her, but I scared her all the same.”

  “And so when you say that you scared her, what does that mean to you?”

  “Well, sometimes I scared her, but sometimes I just needed to leave. I just couldn’t be around her. Everything she did was annoying to me, and anything that she did wrong was a basis for me to scream at her. When I got like this, she would go to he
r apartment for a few days. She would come back in a couple of days, and everything would be okay.” He shook his head. “But they were never really okay. Not really. I mean, my periods of extreme mania when I was agitated would only last for a matter of days, and after that, things were not normal, but better. I mean, when I say that, it means that I no longer had the urge to hit her, which is what I was always trying to stop myself from doing before. But I was having other issues. Granted, there were times when I was normal. When I was not depressed, and I was not manic. I was just baseline. Those were the best times for us, but I always felt that my creativity was dulled during those times.”

  I made notes as he spoke. “So, there were times when things were normal and times when she had to be in a different apartment, because she couldn’t be around you and you couldn’t be around her. And twice you hit her. And did you have sex with other women during this time?”

  “Yes. But that was never a problem. We had an open relationship right from the start. You have to understand one thing - my wife has always had singular needs. Always. The two times when I actually beat on her, it was not okay with her, although if I would’ve done that to her while we were intimate, it would’ve been. It would’ve been consensual. But it wasn’t. It wasn’t consensual during those two times.”

  “I understand. So you had sex with other women during those times, and she had sex with other men too, right?”

  “Yes. Just like it had always been in our relationship. That’s what it was like before she died. In fact, when I was away in Europe for those six months, I knew that she was seeing other men. In fact, she would call me and describe what those other men did to her, and this would arouse me, which is the reason why she did that.”

  “And did she describe the sex with these other men or would she describe them beating her?”