The Milburn Big Box Set

by Nancy McGovern

  “Good,” Nora said. “I’ll be glad when I find out definitively that he isn’t.”

  *****

  Chapter 14

  A Breath Of Fresh Air

  Wanting a bit of fresh air, Nora decided to take a walk. There was a lot for her to think about. This murder — if it was a murder, for the police hadn’t officially declared anything yet — was unique. It scared her in a way that none of the other cases she had been involved in had ever done. She supposed it could be because Grace was involved but, really, there was more to it than that. She took a deep breath and tried to lose herself in nature instead of thinking obsessively about Bobby Black.

  Around her, the trees stood in solemn council, the sunlight trickling through their green leaves and creating a golden glow around them. The path was well-maintained, with dried orange leaves hugging the sides. In only a month or two, this same path would be unrecognizable, a blanket of white snow covering it completely.

  Vaguely, Nora could hear cars whizzing past her on the highway. But, here in the woods, she felt as though she were the first human exploring a new planet. She smiled at the thought.

  There was a crunch of leaves and Nora nearly gave a scream as a body collided with her, knocking her to the ground. She looked up in surprise and saw Lucas towering over her, a pair of earphones tangled around him. He gave her a hand up and apologized profusely.

  “I was jogging. I guess I was just so lost in my own thoughts I didn’t even see you,” he said. “You’re not hurt, are you?”

  “Just my ego,” Nora said, dusting herself off. She winced. The truth was, he’d barreled into her pretty hard, and her hips felt a little sore already. But she wasn’t about to make him feel worse than he clearly felt already.

  Awkwardly, they both began walking back towards the house. Lucas stuffed the earphones into his pocket and wiped a bead of sweat off his forehead. He looked at her sideways, hesitating, then asked, “Is it true what Aunt Eugenie says about you? That you’re a famous detective of some kind?”

  “Did she say that?” Nora asked.

  “She showed me newspaper articles,” Lucas said. “So it is true, then?”

  “I’m an ordinary woman, Lucas. I have enough work to do keeping my house and business running smoothly. The detective business was… a long time ago.”

  “But still, you did do all those things the articles claimed you did?” Lucas asked.

  Nora shrugged. “There’s something else you want to ask me,” she said. “What is it?”

  “Just that…with all your experience, if a person around you were plotting murder or had committed one, do you believe you would recognize it? In their eyes, I mean?”

  Nora shook her head. “Unlikely,” she said.

  “Why not?”

  “Humans aren’t just one thing, that’s why not,” Nora explained. “You could know someone all your life and, in one terrible moment, they could betray you completely. You just can never tell. Sometimes, good people do bad things. Sometimes, bad people do good things. As for murders, sometimes a demon comes into a man and makes him commit the most atrocious of crimes. Sometimes, there’s just a vein of cruelty hidden deep within. The only thing we can do, really, is solve a crime after it’s happened. But before? No, I don’t think we could ever look into someone’s eyes and know that they were planning to kill. Not with any accuracy, at least.”

  Lucas sighed. “I figured.”

  “Why?” Nora asked. “Who do you suspect?”

  “Well, until yesterday, nobody,” Lucas said. “But now? Everybody. What’s worse is that I’m worried about my mother, Nora. Really worried.”

  “You seem genuinely close to her. Yet you didn’t come home for five years. Not even for your sister’s funeral.” Nora probed. “Why was that?”

  Lucas’ face tightened up just for a second and his gaze became distant. “I don’t know.”

  “Sure you do,” Nora said. “You just don’t have the words for it, maybe. But you know why you did what you did.”

  “When my dad died…” Lucas shook his head. “I never believed the rumors, you know. In fact, I got into a lot of fights with people who said that my mother had murdered my father on that hike.” He rubbed his face. “But then, when I started working for the family company, I realized exactly how rich we were. My mother and father, they look well-off, but they never gave us the impression we were anything more than just average upper-middle class folks,” Lucas said. “When I joined the company and really started seeing how much money we made…”

  “That’s when you first started doubting your mother?” Nora asked.

  Lucas looked miserable. “I love her. She’s my mother.”

  “That’s right,” Nora said.

  “But…after Dad died, Mom started spending her money more freely. Like she just didn’t care anymore. I kept telling myself I was being ridiculous. But then I saw how she was with Uncle Finley.”

  “You don’t like your Uncle very much, do you?”

  “I hate his guts,” Lucas said vehemently. “Dad hated him, too. Uncle Finley is broke. He inherited half of the company and sold the stock to Dad in exchange for cash. Then he spent his life blowing all that cash on fast cars and women and gambling. And, when he’d finally spent the last dollar, he came back and started begging for more money from my father. Only my father told him he had to work for it. Uncle Finley hated him for that, even though he was very careful never to show it. He took out his anger and frustration on me, bullying me when I was a kid. Just making snide remarks all the time. Then, a year later, my father died. I think he was actually happy about his own brother dying.”

  “Your Uncle Finley sounds repellent,” Nora said.

  “He is! Thank you.” Lucas laughed. “Of course, Mom is totally blind to his flaws. He’s only ever charming around her. You don’t know the kind of pressure my mom came under when Dad died. She knew nothing about running a company and, suddenly, she was the sole owner, since Dad left all the stock to her. Plus, the entire town was talking nonsense about her…I don’t blame her for leaning on Uncle Finley and Aunt Eugenie and Aunt Sophia. She just didn’t trust anyone else.”

  “But you actually suspected her? Your own mother?”

  “I don’t know!” Lucas exclaimed. “I talked to Chief Andrews once. I asked him honestly if he thought that my father had been pushed off a cliff.”

  “And?”

  “And Chief Andrews, who is the most honest man I know, lied to me. He lied to spare my feelings,” Lucas said. “He told me to bury the past and look to the future instead. He said my father’s death was an accident for sure.”

  “How do you know he lied?”

  “I bribed one of his deputies and got access to the case file,” Lucas said. “Chief Andrews basically closed the case because he couldn’t get definite proof that it was murder. But…based on what was in that chart…I don’t think the Chief believed that it was an accident. I think he believed my father had been pushed off that cliff.”

  “So you think your mother lied about the bear attack? About everything?”

  “I don’t know!” Lucas sighed. “I just don’t know what to believe. I was so young then. And I was working in the company, seeing how Uncle Finley behaved with Mom…I think I went a little mad, to be honest.”

  “So that’s when you ran away to Seattle?”

  Lucas nodded. “I did. I just wanted to be as far away from my mother as possible. Now I wonder if that was the worst decision I could have made. Uncle Finley got a chance to charm my mother even more with me gone. Then my sister died, and none of it mattered anymore. I never wanted to see Greenfield again. I wanted to…I can’t explain how painful it was. I wanted to cut off my past and create a new person. Of course, it doesn’t work that way. All I did was make myself more miserable. I don’t think Jacob ever forgave me for skipping Annie’s funeral. But I just couldn’t face it. I just…I couldn’t. I still can’t bear to even think about her.”

  “Why did y
ou decide to move back here, then?” Nora asked.

  “My life fell apart in Seattle,” Lucas said. “That’s the short version of why. But the longer version…it’s because of something my mom said about that hike she and Dad went on.”

  “She talked to you about it?” Nora asked.

  Lucas nodded. “Once. She had come to visit me in Seattle. I’d taken her out to a nice restaurant and she was very emotional, and a little drunk. I don’t think she even remembers talking about it. She said she had a bad feeling in her gut the entire time she was on the hike. She said she kept feeling like she was being followed. Maybe it was the bear.”

  “Wait…” Nora paused and put a hand on his arm. “Your mother said she got a feeling she was being followed on that hike?”

  Lucas shook his head. “I know what you’re thinking. I was thinking it, too. But…it’s too far fetched. Ridiculous. Nobody could have followed them. Surely they would have been caught.”

  “Would they?” Nora asked.

  Lucas looked uncertain. “I mean…” He trailed off, and bit his lip. “Uncle Finley?” he asked.

  “Does your Uncle Finley have any experience hiking?” Nora asked.

  “He was an Eagle Scout,” Lucas said. “So, yes. He definitely has experience. But… it’s ridiculous, right? The whole thing?”

  “You don’t think so,” Nora said. “I can see it in your eyes. So why don’t you tell me what you think?”

  Lucas took a deep breath. “I don’t want to say it out loud. I don’t even want to think it.”

  “Tell me.”

  “Alright,” Lucas said. “I think my Uncle Finley hated my father. I think he was broke. He killed my father, expecting to get money after Dad died. He followed my parents on that hike and, when he got a chance, he pushed my dad off a cliff. And I think Bobby Black either knew or somehow found out later and was blackmailing him.”

  “So he committed the same crime a second time?” Nora asked. “But why would he do that at Thanksgiving? Why do it when the entire family’s gathered?”

  “That’s what I’m worried about,” Lucas said. “I suspect he’s trying to frame my mother. That’s the only explanation. Maybe he thinks the family money will come to him when she’s out of the way. I don’t know.”

  “You were asleep in the attic when Bobby Black was killed, right?” Nora asked.

  Lucas nodded. “I had so much to drink at the party that I was totally blacked out. Jacob had to come shake me to wake me up.”

  “Speaking of which, why did you throw that party anyway?”

  Lucas shrugged. “I don’t know. Just felt like it. I couldn’t bear a stuffy evening with family sitting around the table and eating turkey.”

  “And you didn’t see Bobby Black anywhere?” Nora asked.

  Lucas bit his lip. “Look,” he said, “it was a really loud party. With tons of people all around.”

  “Yes.” Nora nodded.

  Lucas sighed. “I haven’t told this to the police but, after what Aunt Eugenie said, I think I should tell you.”

  “Tell me what?”

  “I did see Bobby Black earlier that day,” Lucas said. “Only I didn’t know who he was at the time.”

  “What!”

  “The weird thing was that I saw him out here in the woods when I was out jogging early in the morning,” Lucas said.

  “What?”

  “I only saw the briefest flash of him,” Lucas said. “I was jogging and this was before anything happened so, honestly, I didn’t even think twice about it, you know? I just saw him talking to someone else. I didn’t hear what they were saying or anything.”

  “Why didn’t you tell the police that? You should tell them now!”

  “I didn’t. I can’t. Because it was Jacob he was talking to!”

  *****

  Chapter 15

  A Holistic View

  Lucas didn’t say any more, but he didn’t have to. Nora knew exactly what he was thinking. Jacob had claimed that he’d never seen the man before he found the body. Yet, just earlier that day he’d been seen talking to him? Combined with the fact that Jacob had supposedly been alone in the kitchen when the death happened, it didn’t look good. If the police knew about this, they would definitely suspect him and, for all their disagreements, Lucas would not do that to his brother.

  “There has to be an explanation,” he told Nora when she tried to persuade him to talk to the police. “I’m not saying a word to Chief Andrews until I’ve talked to Jacob myself. Maybe he just forgot, you know?”

  Nora pressed her lips together, but she wasn’t convinced. Bobby Black had distinctive tattoos all over him. He was a hard man to forget. No. That couldn’t be the answer. But then, what was?

  When they went back to the house, Nora noted a police cruiser parked in the driveway. Lucas looked scared as he caught sight of it.

  “Not a word about what I just said, okay?” Lucas repeated. “I’ll tell the police, but on my own terms. I have to talk to Jacob first. I owe him that.”

  They approached the door just as Chief Andrews emerged, placing his cap back on his head. He smiled and nodded at them both as he headed to the car.

  “Any news, Chief?” Lucas asked.

  “Not much, I’m afraid,” Chief Andrews said. “I’ve received results back from forensics —it’s actually surprising.”

  “What is?” Lucas asked, eyes widening.

  “Bobby Black had no alcohol or drugs in his system,” Chief Andrews said. “Not a single drop of booze. He was totally clean. Which means he was in possession of his senses at the time he died.”

  “Why is that a surprise?” Nora asked.

  “Because the narrative in my head until now was that Bobby Black had stumbled into the Giordano home while high on drugs and then fallen down the stairs somehow,” Chief Andrews explained. “I knew Bobby, as I told you. I don’t think there’s any way he would have just tumbled down the stairs on his own. He was quick on his feet, not the clumsy type. It’s not proof, but it’s enough to justify continued investigation.”

  “Well, accidents can happen to anybody,” Lucas said. “That’s why we call them ‘accidents’ right?”

  Chief Andrews frowned. “Sure.”

  “You should close the case, Chief,” Lucas said. “The longer you drag it on, the more folks will look at my family with suspicion. You know that better than anybody else. So Bobby’s dead. There’s nothing more to be done for him. He just tumbled down the stairs and that’s it. And it’s hard to say he didn’t have it coming. But my family is alive! And, if this continues, they’ll suffer through no fault of their own.”

  “Lucas, this is my job,” Chief Andrews said. “Maybe Bobby wasn’t a good man, but if he was murdered, then he deserves to get justice.”

  “Murdered?” Lucas’ face was white. “You really think…Chief…it isn’t possible!”

  “Your mother thinks the same as you,” Chief Andrews said. “Look, don’t worry. I’m sure we’ll get to the bottom of this very soon.”

  “There is a possibility you haven’t considered, Chief,” Nora said. “Maybe Bobby had a partner with him when he broke into the house that night? Maybe it was the partner who murdered him.”

  Lucas sagged in relief. “Yes! Yes, that’s probably it! No, that’s definitely it! These criminal types—”

  Chief Andrews shook his head. “No,” he said.

  “Why not?” Lucas asked.

  “For one, I know Bobby, and he preferred to work alone. He was a lone wolf. Secondly,” Chief Andrews hesitated for a moment, “from what we can tell, there was no forced entry. Someone let Bobby into the house.”

  “My party,” Lucas said. “They could have crept in and hidden while my party was going on.”

  “Actually, Bobby Black was spotted at a diner as late as 1am that night, long after we’d chased away any partiers,” Chief Andrews said. “So no, you don’t need to feel any guilt, Lucas. Your party was unrelated.”

  Lucas’ f
rown just deepened. “What diner was he seen at?”

  “Tom’s Diner down by the highway,” Chief Andrews said. “We even have video footage of it. He was sitting alone and nursing a coffee. His head was mostly bent down to his phone, like he was texting someone.”

  “Did you recover his phone yet?” Nora asked.

  Chief Andrews gave her a sharp look. “No, as a matter of fact. We haven’t. Which is one more reason why I suspect it was actually murder.”

  “But…” Lucas hesitated. “Then...”

  “What model phone was it?” Nora asked.

  “A bright red iPhone with a skull decal on the back. Our Bobby was a death metal fan,” Chief Andrews said. “Keep an eye out for that phone, will you? It could be anywhere.”

  Lucas sighed. “So…you’re going to declare it, then? There’s a press conference later today, isn’t there? Are you going to tell the world that you’re investigating a murder?”

  “I talked to my superiors about this,” Chief Andrews said. “I’ve decided that the best course of action for now is just to say that investigations are ongoing, and not give the press too much to latch onto. Greenfield is a small town, though. Something like this… it can take a while for the rumors to die down.”

  “Don’t I know it,” Lucas said. “I haven’t been home five years but the rumors about my dad’s death are still circulating.”

  Chief Andrews put a hand on Lucas’ shoulder. “Take care of your mother, Lucas. She’s going to need some support in the coming months. Oh, there was a question I wanted to ask you. Ramona Fisher-Ainsworth and her mother Sophia. Do you have any idea what time they left?”

  “Well, they live right down the block, so they took their time to leave.” Lucas pointed to a small ranch style house with maroon trim a few doors away. “I walked them home, actually. Around… let’s see… midnight.”

  “Hm.” Chief Andrews frowned. “Did either of them say anything to you?”

  Lucas looked baffled. “I mean, we talked about the turkey? Oh, and then Ramona said she was planning to murder a man later that night.”