Lethal Little Lies (Jubilant Falls Series Book 3) (11 page)

Chapter 18 Marcus

            
 
“Oh for goodness sake Marcus, climb down off the edge of that cliff. I know I said sister-in-law.” A woman’s voice, twanging with our Appalachian past, was on the other end of the phone line. It had to be my sister.

              “Calpurnia, where are you calling from?” I plugged my other ear with my finger to hear her better. “You’re popping in and out and there’s a weird electronic hum in the background every time you say something. Sounds like you’re in the bottom of a well.”

              “Well, you sound just fine. Maybe it’s the connection that got everything confused. I hope she doesn’t misunderstand medication instructions.”

              I exhaled. “Sorry.”

              “So how is Kay?”

              “She’s pretty doped up but the nurses think she’s going to make it. The doctor will be here pretty soon to check on her.”

              Calpurnia and I had received our names thanks to our mother’s love of Roman history. I was named for the philosopher king, Marcus Aurelius; she inherited the name of Caesar’s perfect wife. A fourth-grade teacher, Cal and her husband Dave had two children, the twins Dodd and Deena and lived the perfect family life in a perfect suburban home just outside of our hometown of Chillicothe. No one ever threatened Calpurnia, unless it was a ten-year-old angry about a bad grade on a spelling test.

              She’d been one of the first people I’d called after Kay got out of surgery. This wasn’t a call to check in before she went to work. Cal was in class by this time of the morning.

              “Have the police been back to talk to you?”

              “Yes—they’re still looking into who did it. “

              “Mamma is just so tore up over the whole situation. She and Daddy want to come up to the hospital to visit when you say it’s OK.”

              “Now is not a good time. I’ll let you know when things get better,” I said.

              “OK. Well, stay in touch, you hear? I don’t like it when things are tough for my favorite little brother.”

              “Excuse me?”

              The call disconnected and I knew I’d been had. Shaking, I handed the phone back to the nurse.

              “Can you tell me the number that call came from?”

              She shook her head. “The caller ID said it was a blocked number. The woman really did identify herself to me as your wife’s sister.”

              “Just so you know, my wife doesn’t
have a sister—she’s an only child.”
              “Oh my God! I’m
so
sorry—”

              “Not your fault. You couldn’t have known that. I need to call someone—excuse me.”

              Out in the hall, I dialed Calpurnia’s number at school. The secretary picked it up on the third ring.

              “May I speak to Calpurnia Harbine?” I asked.

              “I’m sorry, she’s in the classroom right now.” The voice on the other end of the phone was singsong, perky and professional, perfect for dealing with small children and parents. “Her planning period isn’t until this afternoon. I can leave a message for her to call you then.”

              “I’m returning her call—it’s urgent. I just spoke to her a few minutes ago.”

              “I’m sorry, she hasn’t been here in the office to make any phone calls,” the voice said. “Unless she called you from her cell phone in class.”

              “Let me try that number then. Thank you.”

              Calpurnia picked up on the first ring. “Marcus, is Kay alright? I’m in the middle of a reading group.” The tone of her voice was familiar and strong— even the sound of her Southern Ohio twang seemed right, and the cell phone connection was clear.

              “You didn’t just try to call me at the hospital, did you?”

              “No. Why?”

*****

              There were police guards at Kay’s hospital room door within minutes and the staff were instructed to log all phone calls and numbers. I gave them a list of names and approved phone numbers—anyone who wasn’t on that list couldn’t speak to Kay or me.

              I was shaken to my core.

Charlie had found me and called the ICU, masquerading as my sister. She’d slipped up when she called me her favorite little brother. I was older than Calpurnia by two years—and there weren’t any other brothers.

              Kay’s surgeon arrived and stepped into her room briefly to examine her.

              “I see you took my advice,” he said, looking up from her chart and nodding at the police guards.

              “Yeah, well, I didn’t have a choice,” I said.

              The doctor looked over his reading glasses at me. “Not if you love your wife you don’t,” he said. He closed her chart and handed it to the nurse behind the counter. “She’s going to be OK, but it’s going to take a while. We’re going to keep her sedated for a little while longer. You need to go home and get some sleep.”

*****

              The same house, the same garage—somehow it seemed very, very different. I pushed the remote control garage door opener on the sun visor. I pulled Kay’s Lexus into the garage—my battered van was still impounded at the police department and hadn’t been released to me yet. The stuff stacked in the garage—the boxed-up artificial Christmas tree, the ornaments, kids’ bikes, my tools—seemed like part of a life I could never return to. Everything would change now to protect us from what I had inadvertently brought into our lives—and by ignoring it, allowed to fester.

              Hunched over a bowl of cereal at the kitchen island, PJ was the only one home.

              “Hey Dad,” he said in greeting, as I tossed my keys onto the counter top. “How’s Mom?”

              I nodded. “She’s going to make it, looks like. Where’s everybody else?”

              “Lillian and Andy took what’s-his-name on a tour of Jubilant Falls.”

              “Oh come on—give the guy a chance! He can put up with your sister, can’t he?” He’d be surprised, I thought, when he learned Bronson wants to marry his sister.

              “Yeah, I suppose. Can we talk about something?”

              “Your intention to quit MIT?”
              “Yeah—it’s just—I mean, I want to do what you do.”

              “Doing what I do carries some risks.”

              “I know that. I’ve grown up seeing the stories you wrote and the people you’ve pissed off,” he said. “Wait a minute—” PJ’s almond-shaped eyes opened wide. “One of your stories didn’t get mom shot, did it?”

              “No, son, not one of my stories from work.” No sense spilling my guts now. The story would come out, but all the kids needed to be here when I told them.

              “It just seems like you get things done. You get things to change.”

              I wanted to tell him that all the pundits said newspapers were dying, that the business was more and more driven by a 24-hour news cycle that didn’t have an off button or a rewind key, that the pay was bad and the hours worse and if it wasn’t for his very patient mother who made enough money to keep us all afloat, I would have long ago sold my soul to some corporate giant and become something other than what I really was.

              I wanted to tell him that politicians hacking away at the state’s public records law made it damn near impossible to get at the truth, and telling both sides of an unembellished story wasn’t what a lot of folks wanted these days.

              And while some stories I could write with my eyes closed, there never was a day I didn’t encounter something that reminded me of my own —and the world’s— capacity for good or evil.

              I also had to tell him about all the trouble one story could cost him.

              I’d come to Jubilant Falls after I’d bought a couple of beers for a sequestered juror on a Missouri murder case. After three or four Bud Lights, and knowing full well I was a reporter, he’d told me they were hopelessly deadlocked. I reported that before the judge knew it and the next day I became unemployed.

              My next job brought me here, to the Jubilant Falls
Journal-Gazette
and I’d built a very happy life here in this odd little Ohio town.

              “I’m not going to lie to you,” I said, leaning on my elbows on the kitchen island. “It can be a god-awful job. In between the long hours and the low pay, you’ll see your fair share of things that will break your heart, turn your stomach or both.”

              “I don’t want to go back to MIT, Dad,” PJ said. “I don’t. I want to do what you do.”

              “You’re still going to need some kind of college.”

              “I know. I can’t get into another school though, until at least spring term. Can you talk to your boss and see if I can do an internship or something?”

              “I guarantee it would be unpaid, if I can even get Addison to say yes.”

              “Look, it would give me the chance to see if being a journalist is what I really want to do,” he pleaded.

              “You’re giving up a full scholarship to MIT. You’d better know what the hell you want!” I exclaimed.

              “Dad, I hate Cambridge. Hate it in the worst way possible. I hate MIT, hate my professors, and hate my roommates who live like pigs and have no social skills at all.”

              “Why did you want to go then?”

              “It was a full ride! How could I turn that down?”

              “You didn’t have to go if you didn’t like it, son.”

              “I guess.”

              “I have to admit, your mom and I figured you’d major in a science of some kind, so we thought MIT would be a good fit for you.”

              “Well, Andy majored in aeronautical engineering at the Air Force Academy, so I kind of figured maybe science was for me too. I guess it’s not.”

              “If you think this is what you want to do, you know we’ll support you.” I cringed inside as I thought of the sudden financial burden changing schools would bring, on top of whatever hospital bills Kay was incurring.

              His shoulders sagged in relief. “I've been scared to death that you would be pissed off I wanted to quit MIT and start again someplace else,” he said.

              “It happens,” I said. I stepped around the counter to hug him. “Sometimes some schools aren’t the fit we thought they’d be. I’ll go in and talk to Addison about getting you an internship, OK?”

              He nodded. “Mom’s going to be OK, isn’t she?”

              “I think so, son. I think so.” I rubbed my eyes with my fists. “Right now, I just need some sleep.”

Chapter 19 Addison

            
 
Arianna Jones looked like she should have played for the WNBA. Over six feet tall with long, disproportionate limbs, her corn rowed hair was pulled back into a ponytail of long black braids down her back. Her large, masculine hand reached out to shake mine.

              We were standing in the foyer of the Hepplewhite-Cedars Funeral Home. It hadn’t changed a whole lot since Rowan’s funeral. The new owners put on a coat of fresh paint and installed more up-to-date décor, but cracked walls still showed beneath the new warmer colors.

              “Yes, we have records from Hepplewhite burials,” she said in a voice designed to comfort a family—or soothe late night radio listeners.

              “From like ten years ago?” I asked.

              “Yes. What was the decedent’s name?”

              “Rowan Starrett.”

              Jones nodded and motioned me to follow her back into the office.

              Like the rest of the business, the office was dark and worn. I took a seat on a battered office chair as she scanned a wall of cabinets, stopping to pull a file.

              “Found it. What did you need to know?” she asked.

              “I need to know if there was a body in the casket.”

              She looked at me oddly as she flipped through the file.

              “Hmm,” she said after a moment of silence.

              “What?”

              “The casket arrived sealed. The staff at the time never opened it.”

              “Was there any notation as to the weight of it? Was it heavy or light?”

              “No. Nothing.” Jones looked at me, her eyebrows knitted together.

              “Do you have a copy of the death certificate?” Hopefully, she did. It would save me a trip to Columbus or hours on the computer or phone ordering one.

              “It’s not common practice for funeral homes to keep death certificates,” Jones said, without looking up. “You’d have to get that from the county where Mr. Starrett died. As for what we have on hand here, there have been problems with Mr. Hepplewhite’s record-keeping before. Hmmm…wait a minute. The casket arrived from a funeral home in Columbus. That’s odd.”

              “Why is that?”

              “Columbus isn’t that far away. Why didn’t that funeral home just handle the graveside services themselves?”

              “It wouldn’t have been a professional courtesy to hand the services over to a local funeral home?”

              Jones shrugged. “Not in my experience. That’s two times the money for the family. Why would they do that?”

              “What do you mean?”

              Adrianna dropped her soothing funeral director voice. “Honey, I’m not firing up
my
hearse for free, I don’t care where your family member died. I’m not hauling no casket for nothing!”

              “That makes sense,” I conceded. “What was the funeral home’s name?” A few phone calls, maybe an hour drive up and back and I could find out if there really was a body in that casket.

              “Sanderson-Phillips and Son. They closed seven years ago.”

              I sighed. So much for that thought. “OK. Thanks for everything, Arianna.”

*****

              Back in my car, I lit a cigarette as I contemplated where I could go next.

              Rick Starrett supposedly had a good relationship with his ex-wife. Would he have let her in on the true story of Rowan’s death?

              I looked at my watch. I needed to check in at the J-G and then on my way home, I’d pay a visit to June Wynford-Starrett as she was now known.

              Back in the newsroom, I checked with Dennis on what was shaping up for tomorrow’s front page. Over Dennis’s desk we had another white board, marked off with each day of the week that listed the front-page stories we had coming with a one or two word identifier called a “slug.” The board was crosshatched with each staff member’s name, and included a slot for any wire stories we might use.

              “Elizabeth has a story on a grant the city schools received to get new computers and another story on one of the county schools—she hasn’t got it written down here, but she told me the school board there is talking about another levy in the spring since the last one failed.”

              “Any of them have photos?” I asked.

              “We’re pursuing that,” he answered. “It won’t be anything earth-shattering.”

              “And Graham?”

              “I haven’t seen him since lunch. I know he was meeting with Detective Birger on Kay Henning’s shooting this afternoon.”

              “OK. If you see Marcus before I do, tell him he’s got three weeks vacation, if he wants to use any of them now.” God, I haven’t even checked in with Marcus today to see how Kay’s recovering. As usual, I’m too wrapped up in my own stories to realize what the rest of the world is doing.

“I don’t think I’ll have anything on the Ferguson shooting,” I continued cautiously. “I’ve got some things to look at before I can do anything more.”

              “I had Graham check to see if there were any pretrial conferences scheduled and there’s nothing.”

              I nodded again. “I’ve got one stop to make, and then I’m heading home. Save a space for me on page one for tomorrow. You never know.”

*****

              June Wynford-Starrett dumped three plastic grocery bags on the granite counter of the kitchen in the suburban Jubilant Falls home she once shared with Rick. The appliances were all stainless steel and the white cabinets had glass windows, showing off stacked plates and glasses, lined up meticulously.

              Thin and lithe with a runner’s body and just a few years younger than her ex-husband, she colored her short graying brown hair with bright highlights. She worked for the city utilities department as an administrator and still dressed the part of a politico’s wife. Her suit was royal blue; the skirt hit her knees at a respectable length and the jacket closed at her throat with matching buttons. She wore a large brooch below her left collar and a lanyard with her city ID hung from around her neck.

              Rick met her in college, during one of his evening grad school classes. They married quickly, soon after he became the Jubilant Falls city manager. They had two girls with snooty yuppie names: Hunter was a junior and Sutton a senior at Jubilant Falls High School. Like their father and famous uncle, they excelled at sports.

              “I’m in shock over the whole thing,” she said, speaking to me over her shoulder as she put groceries away. “I couldn’t believe those horrid commercials when I saw them and I hated that Rick got defeated. But in some ways, I’m not surprised.”

              “You’re not? Why?” I looked up from my notebook briefly and kept writing as she talked.

              “Rick had demons, just like Rowan. Not gambling, mind you—ego. He began to believe his own press releases. Connecting him to his crooked brother was low and tarnished the golden image of the great Rick Starrett. I could see him snapping over it.”

              “You think your ex-husband killed Virginia Ferguson?”

              She stopped putting away groceries and looked me in the eye. “Honestly, I know we all are capable of violence, down deep at some level. But Rick?” She shrugged. “Who knows?”

              “Was there any problem with drinking or drugs?”

              “No. He’d learned a hard lesson from Rowan. It’s just easier to screw around on your wife.”

“Were there several women or just one?” I’d heard infidelity was a factor in their divorce and tried not to sound shocked.

              “Oh, a constant stream of women, I learned later.” June opened the refrigerator door to put a gallon of milk inside. She turned back to face me, her hands on the cold granite counter. Her shoulders sagged. “We had everything going for us—a great family, a wonderful home and a great job. He was respected in Columbus and here in the community—and he threw it all away.”

              “When did you first suspect something?”

              “After he took his first job in Columbus, he drove back and forth. There were one or two nights a month where he would call and tell me he needed to stay over, like when the General Assembly was debating some big issue like the budget. I didn’t think too much of that.”

“You bought that? I know I wouldn’t have.”
              “I didn’t want to think there could be anyone else, even though there was this niggling little voice in the back of my head telling me differently. I knew who Rick really was, down deep and then after a while, I couldn’t find that man any more. The girls were just starting elementary school; his brother had just committed suicide. Being a good wife, I believed him when he told me he thought he needed to stay in Columbus occasionally to do a better job for the people of Jubilant Falls.”

              June sighed and hung her head for a moment before she continued. “Then he
really
stopped coming home week nights. It got to be one or two nights a month, then five days here and three days. Finally, he got an apartment. He came home on weekends. We talked most every night on the phone for a while and then we… didn’t.”

              “Was there a particular tipping point?”

              “It was five years ago. It was the middle of the week—I’d just learned that I’d gotten a job with the city and I wanted to share that with Rick. I had my mother come stay with the girls; I packed a negligee and a bottle of champagne and thought I’d surprise my husband. Only I was the one who was surprised when some bimbo wearing his bathrobe answered the door.”

June sighed and continued. “In between all this, he becomes the darling of the governor’s inner circle—there was talk he’d get appointed to a cabinet post—and I saw him change. He got arrogant, egotistical.”

              “You divorced then?”

              “Yes. When my lawyer began to look into his finances during our divorce, I learned how many women there had been—and how many of them he’d supported financially. You should have seen how arrogant he acted in court. It was like he was proud of it.”             

              He did that on a civil servant’s salary of some $80,000 a year? I raised my eyebrows and remembered the money orders on my Dad’s kitchen table. I switched gears on the interview.

              “Can I ask you about Rowan? What kind of relationship did you have with him?”

              June shrugged. “Not much. He lived so far away in Detroit and Chicago and then he was in prison. Then he was … dead.”

              “Did he come home to visit much?”

              “Not really. The girls loved him when they were little. He was that crazy uncle that kids always love—but Rick wouldn’t let him come to the house once we knew about the gambling and the drugs. That all happened before we split up. I don’t even think they remember Rowan now.”

              “Did Rowan ever call here? To talk to Rick?”

              “Yes, when he was sober the conversations were great. We’d let him talk to the girls—they were little then—and he would visit every now and then. We knew he was in trouble when the phone calls stopped—or started in the middle of the night. There were more than a few of those.”

              Silence filled the kitchen as I scribbled frantically.

              “So how did you learn of his suicide?”

              June’s words were well rehearsed. She’d told this story more than once, I could tell.

              “We were all supposed to meet at his mother’s for her birthday and Rowan never showed up. Rick and his mom kept calling and never got an answer. So after dinner, I took the girls home and Rick drove up to Columbus to see if Rowan was OK. He wasn’t. You know the rest of what happened.”

              Could Rick have kept the truth from his wife as well as his mother? I took a deep breath.

              “I met with Rick and his attorney earlier today. He says he helped Rowan fake his death, that Rowan’s alive and he’s responsible for shooting Virginia Ferguson.”

              June Wynford-Starrett clapped her hands to her mouth and gasped. I saw tears crest in her eyes as she choked out the words I wanted to hear: “Thank God, I don’t have to keep that secret any more—yes, Rowan’s alive.”