Even In Darkness--An American Murder Mystery Thriller (29 page)

‘“How did you find out?” he asked me. His voice was flat and weird.

‘The question took my breath away. There was no pretense, no explanation – he was just curious about how I'd found out. That's when he took a step toward me. That's when I started to feel afraid.

‘“I have my spies,” I said.

‘That stopped him. “Really?” he said.

‘“I've been having you followed, Carl. I hired a private detective. He's got pictures of you with some tall dark man in a painter's cap. Pictures of you and your girlfriend. You'd better hope I make it safe and sound down this mountain tonight, if you don't want to spend the rest of your life in jail.”

‘I'd made all that up, of course, but the way he stopped and regrouped, physically, brought it home. I wondered what he'd been going to do – push me off the bridge?

‘“Why, Carl?” I asked him. “Do you hate me that much?”

‘And he shrugged. Like it was no big deal. And he's happy to explain.

‘“All those donations,” he says, “coming in by the carload, and you take a pissant little salary and give it all away. So I started helping myself, just a little. And then a little more. It got
tedious
, having to be so careful, and I knew that sooner or later you were going to find out. And we know what a straight arrow you are, don't we, Joy? You'd want to ferret out every last cent and put it all back. Make restitution to the all-important Joy Miller Ministries. Who knows, you might even have turned me in.”

‘“
What money?
” I asked him. It stunned me, that there was more to this, that it wasn't just the eleven thousand that was missing, that there were still things I didn't know.

‘He stared at me, and then he smirked. “Don't play dumb, Joy. All your little hints and jokes about my secret accounts, all your fussing and fuming and wondering where all our money was going.”

‘“I take it then that you didn't lose the retirement money selling short on the stock market.”

‘“No,
dear
. And I haven't paid the mortgage or the car payments or the IRS for the last three months. All those times they called? And I told you there was an account screw up? And you believed me?”

‘And suddenly I became a tornado. I attacked him, punching his stomach, his shoulders, kicking him as hard as I could. He swore and pushed me away. I slapped him and his glasses came off his face.'

I stop for a moment, catch my breath. ‘It's so stupid, you know, the way these things happen.'

‘Go on.' Harvey is patient. ‘What happened next?'

‘Carl grabbed for the glasses and lost his balance. He fell. Backwards over the edge of the bridge. And no, before you ask, I didn't push him.'

‘And then?'

‘I screamed. He screamed too. And then I was the only one screaming. I could hear it echoing down the mountain. And then I stopped screaming and it got very quiet.'

‘Then why all the guilt, Joy? He lost his balance and fell off the bridge and died. He
was
dead then, right?'

‘I don't know. I don't know when he died.' I put a hand on Leo's head and he licks the inside of my wrist. ‘I felt dizzy and I was afraid I was going to fall too, so I sat down. I didn't scream anymore. I didn't cry. I just listened.' I take a breath. I need a moment. Harvey is quiet, patient, which is just what I need.

‘I'd left my flashlight behind the rocks where I was hiding. So I hung on to the side and peered over the edge. It was dark by then, and even shining my flashlight later I couldn't find him, couldn't see where he fell. I didn't think there was any way he could have survived a fall like that, but there was no way I could be sure.'

‘You left him,' Harvey says flatly.

‘My first instinct was to go down to the lodge and get help. I grabbed the backpack, and it was so heavy. I opened it, I couldn't stand not to see. And sure enough, it was full of money. And that started me thinking. Because how was I going to explain all this, me being up on that bridge with Carl? Even if I ditched the backpack or hid it in my room, how would I explain being registered under the name Cindy Farmer? And I started to add everything up.

‘I'd told my friend, the one I left Joey with, that I thought Carl was having an affair. Which, as it turns out, he was. My cousin Marsha would tell them about the missing money. What kind of proof did I have that Carl was taking it? What if they thought it was me? If Carl hadn't paid the bills in three months, that was going to set off all kinds of alarms. Especially since we'd just taken out a big insurance policy, which in hindsight, he was obviously planning to cash in.

‘What was I going to say? That I was warned by a hit man that Carl had hired him to kill me? That the hit man had a change of heart? I wouldn't have believed it, and I didn't think Cletus would come forward and say “yes, I'm a hit man, but I'm currently trying to reform.”

‘I'd counseled enough families through domestic crisis to have a certain experience with the police and how their minds work. Stay within the bounds of the norm, do what's expected, and usually there won't be any problems. Drive a nice car, live in a nice house, dress well – you get judged by those things. But behavior out of the box like this? Not a chance. And once that legal ball was rolling there would be no stopping it. I wasn't going to take the fall when
I'd
been the victim. It was as simple a decision as that. I decided to do the smart thing, instead of the right thing.

‘I left him there. I strapped the pack of money to my back and hiked back down that mountain. Crawled, actually, is more like it. It took hours, in the dark, with just a flashlight. Then I went to my room, packed up my stuff, threw some towels on the floor and rumpled the bed so it would look like I'd spent the night. I'd paid cash in advance so I left the keycard on the dresser.

‘I was home, waiting, when the police came. And they told me that Carl had taken his own life, by jumping off Natural Bridge.'

I
can hear Harvey breathing steadily, though he hasn't said a word. I reach behind me and stroke Leo's head.

‘Look, I have something for you, too. Something for you to read.'

I sense his motion rather than see it. He turns on a flashlight and shows me a worn book, four inches by six, stained, baby blue.

‘It's a diary,' he says. ‘Did you bring the picture I sent you?'

I nod, take it out of Leo's saddle pack. Hold it up to the light. ‘Our mothers knew each other,' I say.

‘Not exactly.' He points. ‘Me. Mom.' His fingertip touches the swollen belly of his mother. ‘And you. Yes. She was pregnant with you in this picture.'

I catch my breath. ‘
Me?
'

‘Her name was Cecily Jenkins and she was my mom. We have different fathers, Joy, but Cecily Jenkins was our mom. Look, she wrote you a letter. I've got it right here.' He opens the diary to a dogeared page and holds it up to the light.

If I have any doubts, it is this last line that convinces me. Harvey reaches to touch my shoulder, then changes his mind.

‘And that's why they named me Joy?' I say.

‘Be grateful they didn't call you Absolute.'

I am laughing. With hysterical overtones.

Harvey takes the diary and tucks it back in his shirt. ‘I wanted you to know. So you wouldn't be afraid of me all the time. So you could believe me when I say I would never hurt you.'

‘But why didn't my father go and get you when your mother was killed? Why didn't he raise you with me?'

‘You mean Henry? My uncle? Because after your biological father murdered my mother, his parents came and got me. They found him the next day, by the way, with her blood all over his shirt. Drunk. Idiot. But I was legally, if not biologically, his son. At the time, I wasn't aware of any of this. I don't remember it, to be honest. I just remember growing up in their house.

‘But they had the diary. Our mother's diary that she wrote. I found it in a box of her stuff up in the attic. They used to lock me up there all the time, and sometimes I'd get bored and go through all the stuff. I was eleven years old when I found our mother's diary.

‘It was a dream come true, at first. My father wasn't my father, and my evil grandparents weren't my blood. I confronted them. As it turns out, your dad – Henry, I mean – did try to come and get me, but the grandparents wouldn't allow it. They blackmailed him. They said that his daughter, you, had been born while Mom was married to their son, and that he and his sister and his wife had committed fraud. They said if he didn't leave me there they'd take
you
away from him as well. He wasn't allowed to have any contact with me, or they'd take him to court. And they said they could prove you weren't really his daughter because they knew he was sterile and could never have fathered a child.'

‘That's horrible. They were horrible.'

‘Oh, I made them sorry. For the sake of my mother, and for me, and for you. Sorry enough that they dumped me in foster care. They made sure that I could never be adopted and that I got labeled really well. So I went straight to a couple by the name of Herman, who specialized in boys like me.'

‘And that's how you met Cletus Purcell. You were foster brothers.'

‘That's right. I knew, of course, that I had a sister somewhere. I read about the car accident that killed your parents. Marion and Henry. You were what, about twenty when they died?'

‘Nineteen. But why didn't you come to us then? After you got sent to the Hermans'?'

Harvey rubs his forehead. ‘I got told to leave it alone. Same deal as your dad. Then later, when I read about your parents' accident in the paper, I knew it had to be the Marion and Henry who were my aunt and uncle. That's when I tracked you down. I used to watch your show, did you know that? I didn't tell anybody you were my sister, not even Cletus, but I was pretty proud. And then one day Clete comes to me and says there's rumors of a hit out on evangelist Joy Miller. He'd been with me long enough to know I'd been following your career. My weird obsession, is what he called it. Cletus worked a lot of jobs that were murder for hire. He was a hit man for years. You'd be surprised to know how good certain kinds of bars are for drumming up the hit man kind of business.

‘Anyway, Clete lets me know all about it. He owed me. I used to look out for him when we were foster brothers, and we worked jobs together from time to time. So I asked him to make sure he and I got the job to take you out.

‘Clete was all for just killing your husband – and turns out he was right, don't you think? But at the time I didn't know what
you'd
want, and I didn't want to hurt you by doing things my way. That's when I first decided I'd take the straight road for a while, and see how things would shake out. For all the good it did you or me.

‘But I'm your big brother, you know? I didn't want to get you tangled up in my mess, I just wanted to keep an eye out. Make sure you were all right.'

‘Are they still alive? The grandparents?' I don't say our grandparents. I'm not there yet. Not quite.