1 A Small Case of Murder (13 page)

Joshua didn’t realize how much he missed silence.

At some point while having a family and traveling to the far corners of the world, he had forgotten about the solitude back home. The memory came back to him quickly.

On summer evenings, Joshua would sit on the porch steps and play the guitar for his grandmother, who would listen from her rocking chair until after the last porch light on their street went out. That was the routine all the way up and down the cobblestone streets in Chester.

Since then, the neighbors had changed, as had the custom.

Most of Joshua’s childhood friends from the neighborhood had moved on to one of the surrounding cities. Some of the older neighbors died off and left their homes to their children, who sold them to young families.

While the new generation residing on Rock Springs Boulevard may have sought the solitude of small town life, it was apparent by how few of them sat on their porches that they were too busy or sophisticated for guitar music and neigh-borly conversation.

After spending the day untangling homicidal chaos, Joshua fell right back into enjoying the peace and quiet on his front porch after dinner.

The children had gone their separate ways. Sarah had made friends on the middle-high basketball team. They went to the school playground for her to show off her athletic talent. Tracy was stenciling a border in her room. Murphy and J.J. were surfing the Internet in search of new iTunes music to download. Donny was reading a science fiction paperback in his room.

The twins had found their father’s old guitar in the attic. Joshua was pleased to discover his musical talent was coming back to him when he tuned it. He had broken into a chorus of Puff the Magic Dragon when a shadow fell across the porch steps.

“Don’t stop on my account.” Tess Bauer was standing before him. For her, she was dressed casually in jeans with a sports jacket over a blue blouse. Her honey-colored hair fell to her shoulders. Joshua continued to strum while she sat on the step next to him. “I came to call a truce.”

“I didn’t know we were at war.” After hitting a sour note, he set the guitar aside. “Did you bring me a peace offering?”

“What do you want?” She smiled at him.

Realizing she didn’t smile during her news reports, he thought how out of place the expression looked on her face. “Amber,” he answered.

“She’s afraid.”

“She’ll get protection.”

“That’s what they always say,” Tess replied. “Every time anyone gets someone to testify against Rawlings, they disappear off the face of the earth.”

“So Amber thinks it would be better to disappear before that happens and leave it to someone else to get rid of Rawlings. Not only is she running from him, now she’s running from the police. There’s a warrant out for her.”

“Amber didn’t do anything.”

“She’s a material witness,” he told her. “You should know that.”

“I do. I thought you’d understand.”

“I need to question her,” Joshua said. “Where did you find her?”

“She found me,” Tess said. “After Diana died, I vowed that I was going to get whoever was behind the drugs that killed her. It wasn’t hard to find a lot of people who could tell me that Reverend Orville Rawlings was the valley’s drug lord but no one who would talk on camera.”

“Until you met Amber.”

“She showed up at my apartment one night.” She nodded her head toward the rise in the hill over Chester. “I rent a little two-bedroom on Nevada. She wouldn’t even go into the studio. I had to record the interviews at home because she was so afraid.”

“If she was so afraid, why’d she consent to the interviews?”

“She and Vicki were close. She wanted to help her.”

“Best friends?”

“Closer than that.”

Joshua cocked his head and raised an eyebrow. “Really?”

“Shocked?”

“Lady, I’ve been all over the world and back.”

“So I heard.” Tess hugged her knees to her chest.

Joshua noticed that she had trimmed her fingernails to a normal length and had replaced the dark color with a delicate French manicure more in keeping with her conservative manner.

Tess gazed up at the stars peeking at them from above. “Chester must seem awfully boring after living in the likes of Hawaii and San Francisco.”

“And Naples and London.” He laughed. “Nah, I haven’t had time to be bored.”

“Dad, who are you talking to?” Tracy stepped out onto the porch. She had Admiral on his leash.

“Hey, kiddo,” he called out to her. “It’s Tess Bauer.”

Tess twisted where she sat on the step to look up at the girl above her on the porch.

After complimenting her on her work, Tracy announced that she was taking the dog for a walk.

“If you can wait a minute, I’ll come with you.” Joshua started to stand up.

“That’s okay. I’m meeting Ken.”

“Aw, so this isn’t a humanitarian trip to give Admiral some exercise,” he said. “It’s a date.”

“And Admiral is our unwilling chaperone.”

Joshua returned to his seat on the step next to Tess. When Tracy stepped around him with the huge dog, he leaned to the side to make room for them to descend to the driveway. In doing so, his thigh brushed up against the journalist’s leg.

“Who do you think you are?” In an instant, Tess was on her feet and glaring down at him.

Her fury was so abrupt that the dog hid behind his mistress’s legs as if they were big enough to conceal him.

“You think that you can have any woman you want. You think that women will fall all over themselves and degrade themselves by putting up with your sick fantasies in hopes that you will honor them by choosing them to be with you!”

Confused by the outburst, Joshua mentally replayed the moments before her explosion in search of the action that motivated it.

She continued ranting, “Well, I’m not like those other women. I don’t need you. I don’t have to put up with any of your shit!”

Both Joshua and Tracy sensed that the man on the porch step was no longer the source of her fury.

“You can’t make a fool out of me,” she yelled. “I’m in control here.”

“What are you talking about?” Joshua asked.

“You’re free to walk away at any time or, better yet, to stand up for yourself. If you don’t stand up for yourself, then they’ll think that they can get away with humiliating you because you’re unable to walk away.” She laughed loudly. “Not only can I walk away, but I can also fight back!”

Joshua rose from where he had been sitting peacefully on the porch moments before. “I’m sorry if I offended you.”

Tess slapped him across the face.

Without another word, she turned, shoved Tracy aside, and stormed out the driveway and up the road.

The father and daughter gazed at each other.

“I see you still have a way with the ladies.” Jan was coming up the driveway with a wide grin on her face. Joshua and Tracy had been so enthralled by Tess’s wrath that they hadn’t noticed their audience.

When she saw Ken waiting for her across the street, Tracy greeted and bid farewell to Jan in one breath before rushing off with Admiral.

“What was that all about?” Her amusement at his expense was evident.

“I have no idea,” he answered.

After they sat back down on the same step where he had been enjoying the summer evening, she handed him a green tin. “I brought you some more of that tea you like.”

“You don’t have to keep bringing me tea,” he told her. “Let me pay for it.”

“You don’t have to pay me.” Jan cocked her head to one side. “However, if you do want to repay me, there is something you can do for me. I want in.”

“In? On what?”

“On your murder investigation. This is my chance. I never got to pursue my dream to be a writer. Now, if you bring down the Reverend Rawlings for a double murder, then there’ll be a big story. If you let me have an exclusive, then I’ll finally be able to do what I want to do with my life instead of running that little drug store on the corner.”

“What if it isn’t Rawlings? Then, you have no story and wasted your time.”

“Who else could it be?”

“I thought you said it was a murder for hire and Tad was behind it,” he reminded her.

She snorted. “Have you even tried to pursue that? Have you talked to him about it?”

“I know Tad too well.” He recalled Tad’s nausea upon finding the bodies. “He took Beth’s death very hard. I was there when we found her.”

Jan agreed. “Tad is no killer. But I still want to know what Beth meant when she told him she was going to make Maggie hate him.”

“You still haven’t figured that out?”

“I wouldn’t have to figure it out if you’d tell me.”

“I haven’t confirmed it, but I think I know and you would, too, if you think about it. What could Beth know that would make Maggie hate him?”

She shook her head. “I give up. Tell me.”

Pleased with himself for his deduction, Joshua said, “Beth was Maggie’s mother.”

“No.” It was a statement.

“Yes,” Joshua asserted. “Tad never told anyone who Maggie’s mother was for a reason. Beth and I used to date. After I left her for Valerie, she started partying with Tad and got pregnant. He never said she was Maggie’s mother because he was afraid I’d be offended that he had slept with my old flame.”

“No,” she replied firmly. “Beth never slept with Tad. If she had she would have told me, if only for bragging rights. Yes, she got wild after you dumped her, but she didn’t have any baby. I certainly would have known about that.”

“Didn’t Beth leave town to go to school at West Liberty?” he asked. “Wasn’t she gone for several months? Like long enough to have a baby?”

Admitting that Beth had, Jan still shook her head. “They never slept together. There’s no way Maggie could be their daughter.”

“What else could Beth threaten to tell Maggie that would make her hate Tad?”

“I guess we need to ask Tad that.” Her enthusiasm matched his dread. “Who are your other suspects?”

“You.”

Jan hesitated before laughing at what had to be a joke. “Why would I kill Beth? We’d been friends since school.”

His tone told her that he was serious. “You were always jealous of Beth. She stole drugs from your store. You’re lucky I convinced the Frosts to accept the insurance company’s settlement instead of dragging your butt into court. As it is, your insurance premiums will be raised and the store’s reputation is ruined. You can thank Beth for that.”

“Thanks a lot.” She stepped down off the porch.

Joshua stopped her. “That’s how a murder investigation really works. You ask questions, accuse people, sometimes your friends, and they get offended. It’s one confrontation after another. It’s not fun and games.”

She came back to where he remained seated on the steps. “You don’t really think I’d kill Beth, do you?”

“You two weren’t the best of friends. I saw that the first morning I stopped in at the store.”

She stood over him with one foot propped up on the step next to his thigh. “I knew Beth was having problems. I was afraid she was going to make a mistake just like the one she made, but I didn’t want to hurt her by firing her. That was my mistake. I let our friendship get in the way of business.”

He could see even in the dark that she was sad.

“You’re right,” she confessed, “I was jealous of Beth. Men always came so easy for her. She’d go through one guy after another, especially after Wally.”

His head snapped up to look at her profile in silhouette in the evening dusk. His gasp was audible. “Wally Rawlings?”

Vigorously, she nodded her head. “Right after you dumped her. She claimed she was in love. I told her that she was subconsciously trying to get even with you.”

“Beth hated Wally.”

“But she hated you more for dumping her,” Jan told him. “She had this insane idea that Wally was going to dump Cindy Welch and marry her. Then, she was going to go off and live at the Rawlings estate, and you were going to kick yourself for dumping her. Of course, that didn’t happen.”

Joshua murmured, “Are you saying Wally was fooling around with Beth right up to when he married Cindy?”

“And afterwards. It was months before Beth got it through her head that she was the other woman and not some soap opera vixen. Then, she went off to school and it was over.” She didn’t understand his surprise. “Tad knew all about it. Didn’t he tell you?” 

Before Tad MacMillan’s office had become a place of business, the lab in the back of the building had been an elderly spinster’s kitchen. The cabinets, counters, and appliances survived the renovations. After dealing with a mouthy eight-year-old boy who had stepped on a rusty nail, Tad went to the lab and removed a bottle of water from the refrigerator. He took a couple gulps before he noticed Joshua sitting at the break table.

“Why didn’t you tell me Beth had slept with Wally?”

Tad gulped another mouthful of water, and then leaned against the counter. “I only have fifteen minutes before my next appointment. I do have to make a living. I have a mother and a daughter to support.”

“Answer my question,” Joshua ordered. “My back is killing me and I’m short on patience.”

Tad put the water back into the refrigerator and stepped behind him. Even though they were arguing, the doctor examined his cousin’s aching back. “Beth slept with Wally a long time ago. This has nothing to do with her murder.”

“You don’t know that. I need to know everything in order to invest—” Joshua screamed when the doctor snapped one of his vertebrae back into place. The pain subsided as abruptly as it erupted, and Joshua was overcome with relief from the ache to which he had awakened that morning.

Tad continued to massage his back while prescribing treatment for his ailment. “You’re too tense, Josh. You need to learn how to walk away from this case at the end of the day.”

“I can’t walk away from it. I may not have married Beth, but I did care about her. I need to find out who killed her and, in order to do that, I have to learn her secrets, which you seem to know.”

“Are you sure you really want to know all of Beth’s secrets?” Tad took the chair across from him.

“I’m a man. I can take it.”

“Can you? Am I a suspect?”

“I didn’t say you were a suspect.”

“If I’m not, I should be. Vicki was making my life hell. Beth endangered one of my patient’s lives, and I know Jan heard her threaten Maggie. She had to have told you. Plus,” he added, “I have no clear alibi.”

“I checked with the bars around the hospital. They confirm that you were making the rounds looking for Beth at the time of her murder, and the hospital confirms you were treating her when Vicki was killed.”

“So I have an alibi. It could have been a murder for hire.”

“Are you confessing to killing Beth?”

“I’m only confessing that our relationship can bring your integrity into question.” Tad chuckled. “How can you be so sure that I have an alibi for the times of the murders?”

“Because you have dozens of witnesses that can account for where you were,” Joshua said.

“According to times of death supplied to you by me,” Tad told him with a wicked grin.

Joshua looked his cousin in the eye. He couldn’t tell if Tad was joking or serious about giving him false information. It was hard for him not to trust his closest friend and confidante, which made it impossible for him to be objective about his possible guilt.

He had no choice but to go with his gut. “How could Beth make Maggie hate you?”

“A smart man like you—” Tad stopped chuckling to ask, “What do you think Beth was talking about?”

“About that check mark you put on her autopsy report that says she gave birth.” Joshua paused. “Did you flip a coin to decide if you were going to neglect to mention the distended uterus?”

“I never lie. You know that. As medical examiner, I’m obligated to put those things in the report.”

“But you neglected to go out of your way to call it to my attention.”

“Because it’s not relevant to your case.”

“Until this case is solved, everything is relevant until I say it’s not.” Joshua held his gaze. “Tell me your little secret about Beth.”

Tad broke the gaze. “If you’re so smart, you tell me. To show you that I’m a good guy, I’ll even fill in the blanks when you’re through.”

Joshua accepted the challenge. “I thought that Beth was Maggie’s mother, but Jan swears that if Beth slept with you that she would have told her. If Jan is right, then you didn’t sleep with Beth. Therefore, she couldn’t be Maggie’s mother. However, according to your autopsy report, Beth did have a baby. Yet, for some reason, you don’t want anyone to know anything about it. Why?”

“She wasn’t married. I wanted to protect her reputation.”

“That’s not it.”

“Why do you assume that I even knew about her pregnancy before the autopsy?” Tad asked. “I was gone for years while I was in medical school and doing my residency. Beth had gone away to school herself.”

“If you’d been surprised by those findings during Beth’s autopsy, you would have told me that she had given birth. Plus,” Joshua grinned at his deduction, “if you don’t know the circumstances behind that birth, then how can you be so certain that her pregnancy is irrelevant to her murder?”

“You’re good.” Tad drawled, “Now, don’t tell me that the thought hasn’t crossed your mind that maybe you might be the father of that baby. My exam didn’t reveal when she gave birth. For all you know, she was pregnant with your baby when you ended your relationship with her.”

Joshua ordered him, “Fill in the blanks.”

Tad’s only response was a wide grin.

“What did Beth mean when she said she was going to tell Maggie the truth?” he asked in a low voice. “What did she threaten to reveal that made you so angry?”

“Beth was out of her mind.”

“I want to eliminate you as a suspect,” Joshua said.

“I didn’t have the means to get to the murder scene. Beth’s car was in New Cumberland. My bike was here. You drove me to the courthouse for the hearing, and I rode to the hospital in the ambulance with Beth. The only way I got home was by hitching a ride with a nurse.” Tad gestured with both hands, not unlike the gesture of a magician who had performed a magnificent illusion. “That eliminates me as a suspect.”

“Unless you lied about the times of death.” Joshua begged, “Help me, Tad. Please.”

He eyed him before giving in to his plea. “Both you and Jan are right.”

This only confused Joshua more. “How?”

“Beth was Maggie’s mother, but I never slept with Beth. I couldn’t.” Tad cringed. “That would be like sleeping with my sister. I couldn’t think of her like that, no matter how drunk I got.”

Joshua sorted the information in his mind. “Beth was Maggie’s mother. That’s why you took off like that to see her. She knew?”

“I told her years ago. Beth never acknowledged her, though. She was furious with me for telling her. She thought Maggie had been adopted and sent far away from here.”

“But you aren’t Maggie’s biological father?” Joshua gasped. “I never would have imagined. I must be losing my touch.”

“I am her father. She was the first baby I’d delivered. I took care of her. I supported her in every way possible. The only thing I didn’t do was sleep with her mother.”

“Then who—? Don’t tell me Wally—”

“He never knew, as far as I know.”

“How?” Joshua was taking it all in. “How did you end up with Maggie when Beth thought she had been adopted? Why did you tell everyone, including your own mother, that she was your daughter?”

Tad started his confession by taking a deep breath. “After Wally married Cindy, I went back to Morgantown to finish my residency. Suddenly, one day, Beth shows up on my doorstep. She and Wally had ended it, but then she found out she was pregnant. She was afraid to tell her mother. Do you remember how her mother was?”

After confirming that he recalled that Beth’s mother was intolerant of any behavior that was less than perfect from her children, Joshua gestured for him to continue.

“Beth thought that because of our past, my being your cousin and all, which I would get rid of it,” Tad held up his fingers in quotation marks, “and no one would ever know.”

“She wanted an abortion,” Joshua clarified.

“I couldn’t do it. Beth went nuts. She was so afraid that someone would find out, Wally, in particular. She was terrified of him until the day she died.”

Tad paused before going on with his story. “No one in Morgantown knew Beth. So, I made her an offer. She could stay with me, take a year off school, have the baby, and I’d arrange for it to be adopted. I’d even put my name on the birth certificate, so there would be no record of Wally being the father.”

“You said Maggie was supposed to be adopted.”

Tad said she was. “I got a lawyer friend of mine to arrange for a private adoption. He found a couple who were very anxious to take her.”

“How did you end up with her?”

“Beth was already on her way to being an alcoholic,” Tad said. “She agreed to the arrangement until she started showing, and then she couldn’t stand it. By then, it was too late. I couldn’t keep her sober. Hell, I couldn’t stay sober myself.”

His laughter subsided. “Beth ended up having Maggie on my living room floor two months early. I delivered her. On top of weighing only a couple of pounds, Maggie had a hole in her heart. Her adopted parents got their lawyer to point out a clause in our agreement that the baby was to be healthy. So they got out of it. Beth never even looked at her. She was gone as soon as they released her from the hospital.” He said in a soft voice, “I was all Maggie had.”

Joshua added, “And your name was on the birth certificate, so you were legally responsible for her.”

“First responsible thing I ever did in my life.”

“For a baby that wasn’t even yours.”

Tad said, “I never once, for an instant, felt like she wasn’t mine. I fed her. I changed her. I got a doctor friend of mine in cardiology to fix her heart. By the time the lawyer found a couple willing to adopt a baby who was in need of a lot of medical care, I couldn’t give her up. I knew I was too sick to care for her, so I called Mom, told her she was a grandmother, and she took her. She was thrilled. She always wanted a daughter.”

“Does Maggie know all this?”

“I told her everything after I sobered up. I neglected her while I was drinking, and I’ve been trying to make it up to her ever since. She wanted to know about her mother, so I told her. She had the right to know.”

“Did you tell her about Rawlings?”

Tad nodded his head. “Hardest thing I ever did in my life, telling her that part of it.”

“How did she take it?”

“Wally Rawlings is just a man to her. Maggie tried to make a relationship with Beth, but she was too weak to be a parent. Maggie understood her problem because of being in Al-Anon because of me. But understanding didn’t take away her hope that one day they could have a relationship.”

“If Maggie knew everything, then what did Beth mean when she said she was going to tell Maggie the whole truth and make her hate you?”

“Beth was higher than a kite. She knew Maggie knew everything.”

“If she didn’t know anything that could hurt Maggie, why were you angry?”

“Because she was Maggie’s mother, and I wanted her to sober up and get well. Every time Maggie came to town she’d go on a binge. It hurt Maggie. That—” Tad held up a finger to make his point, “That frustrated me, because I was helpless in helping Beth.” He checked his watch. “I have a patient waiting. I’ve got to go.”

Joshua blocked the doctor’s escape from the room when he headed for the door. “Did Wally and Cindy know the truth about Maggie?”

“I told you already. Not that I know of.”

“Did Cindy know about Wally and Beth’s affair?”

Tad crossed his arms. “I told her, not because I was noble. I thought it would convince her not to marry Wally, but she did anyway.”

Joshua’s jealousy about Beth and Wallace was replaced with sympathy for his cousin and friend. “So Cindy went ahead and married Wally. Wally continued seeing Beth on the side and got her pregnant. Then, you ended up raising his baby.”

Sympathy turned to horror.

Joshua pieced together what he originally observed as an irony with fresh information received from a report he had read that morning during his breakfast. The DNA report from the state lab was hand delivered to his home by courier. When his mind put the facts of the report together with Tad’s revelation the color drained from his face.

“What?” Tad asked about the reason for Joshua’s glazed eyes. “What’s wrong?”

The touch of Tad’s hands on his shoulders started him out of his sickening realization. “Maggie is Vicki’s half sister.”

Unsure of where Joshua was going, Tad wanted to deny it, but, in light of what he had confessed, he had to admit to the relationship between Maggie and the girl who had been terrorizing him.

Joshua’s tongue felt heavy when he told Tad, “I got the results for the DNA tests this morning.”

“What about them?”

“The red hair that was found in the collar of the trench coat and the gun chamber of the murder weapon,” Joshua swallowed. “When the lab compared the DNA tests, they found a relationship between whoever the hair came from and Vicki. There were enough common markers between them for them to share a parent. They’re half siblings.”

Sickened by the news, Tad dropped down into the chair at the table.

“Wally is Maggie’s birth father,” Joshua said. “If you aren’t Vicki’s father, and Cindy never had an affair with anyone else, then Wally has to be Vicki’s father. That makes them half sisters.”

“Don’t even go there, Josh.”

“She’s Vicki’s half-sister and she has red hair.”

“She has blond hair,” Tad argued.

“Strawberry blond. It’s got red in it.”

“That hair was color treated. Maggie’s hair is natural.” Tad blurted out. “Plus, Penn State is four hours away. Maggie doesn’t even know where Vicki lives.”

“Beth rejected her. Vicki was terrorizing you.”

“Maggie was looking for a job when they were killed.”

Joshua wished he wasn’t having this conversation. “I’m going to have to have Sawyer get her statement.”

“You can’t put my daughter through that.”

Joshua cursed himself for his curiosity. He wished he had never asked Tad to tell him about Beth and Wally Rawlings. “You yourself said that because of our relationship that the integrity of this investigation will be called into question. If I found out about Maggie’s relationship to the victims, a defense attorney can find that out and when we find the real killers they’ll go free because that attorney will make Maggie look like the killer. Hell! It turns out she is connected to both victims in this case.”

Tad gasped.

Joshua was almost frightened by the smile on his cousin’s face and the finger he pointed at him. “What?”

“You said that Maggie is connected to both victims.”

“That’s what you just told me,” he reminded Tad. “Wally has to be Vicki’s father and you also told me that Beth and Wally are Maggie’s birth—”.

The finger Tad was pointing at Joshua started wagging. “That’s right. Beth is Maggie’s birth mother.” He rose from his chair with the wagging finger aimed at Joshua’s face. “The lab compared the DNA from that hair to both Vicki’s and Beth’s DNA.”

Joshua exhaled. “There was no indication in the DNA test to show any familial relationship between Beth and that hair.”

“Which means that whoever that red hair came from is in no way related to Beth.” Overcome with relief, Tad’s shoulders sagged. He slumped against the lab’s counter.

“I’m sorry I put you through that.” Joshua laid a hand on his cousin’s shoulder and squeezed it.

Tad signaled his acceptance of the apology by patting the hand on his shoulder. “You’re just doing your job.”

“I still have to have Sawyer get a statement from Maggie,” Joshua told him, “if only to maintain the integrity of this investigation.” He was relieved to hear Tad agree.

“Do you mind if I call her first so she doesn’t get upset when he calls?”

Before Joshua could consent, Stella, Tad’s nurse, came into the lab. She carried a package the size of a shoebox. Her no-nonsense attitude made her resemble the stereotype of a prison guard in a women’s prison.

The nurse thrust the package with postal markings that read “priority” into Tad’s hands and announced in a terse tone, “This came for you, and Mrs. Anderson has been waiting in examination room two for ten minutes.” Before he could comment or thank her for the package, Stella left the lab to return to her duties.