Last Chance Harbor (48 page)

Julianne was beginning to understand. “But you didn’t present them to the others?”

“No. I wasn’t thinking right that night. It took me several days to realize I had a secret that Drea and Caleb could never know. But by this time, I didn’t have the guts to throw those pieces of his shirt in the trash. I couldn’t do it. I thought maybe I should bury them. But weeks later, I knew I couldn’t do that either. I couldn’t pick up a shovel and dig up the ground, not again, not for any reason. I wouldn’t go near the garden center after that.”

“Okay, so was it simply a fluke that you had all the baseball cards in there and the toys, the rocks, the shells?”

He shook his head. “No fluke. I had to finish what I thought was part of the ceremony for saying goodbye to my dad. He needed a funeral, some ritual to mark his passing. I knew that even as a kid. So I took each box, put something from each one of us in there because it seemed like the right thing to do. I thought it was important my dad have something from his kids. Caleb’s matchbox cars went in there—he was barely four at the time—Drea’s collection of seashells, and my cards and rocks. A couple days went by before I realized I couldn’t go back anywhere near where the bodies lay buried. I obviously had to think up something else.”

“So at some point you decided to get all the keepsake boxes out of the house and find a hiding place?”

“That’s what I did. I loaded the boxes up in a tote, rode my bike to the school.” Cooper started to sob. “I buried my own father, I loved my dad more than anyone in the world, but I buried him under a goddamn compost heap because my mother told me to do it.”

“Your mother was ill.”

“That’s no excuse,” Cooper shouted. “Mental illness only explains certain things about her. She wielded love like a sword, used it like a weapon. I wanted her to love me so I did what I could to please her. But nothing ever worked for the long haul. It was always a short-term result that came undone as soon as she needed more attention, more affirmation. I couldn’t give it to her. No one could.”

“That’s incredibly insightful for a child.”

“You think I came to all this understanding as a kid on my own? Think again. It took years of seeing a therapist as an adult. I had to do something about my guilt. Do you understand what I’m saying? I helped my mother bury my own father when I was nine years old and then lied about it for twenty years. I couldn’t take the guilt. It was a shitty thing she did.”

“No argument there. So how did you come by your father’s college ring?”

“That night before I rolled his body in the hole, I slid the ring from his finger before my mother made me toss the dirt over him. It’s the only jewelry he had on. He’d long ago stopped wearing his wedding ring. The ring was right there... I slipped it in my pocket and then later added it to the other stuff. I found a hiding place in the teacher’s lounge for it behind the old part of the furnace.”

“What was the deed doing in the box?”

“I don’t remember anything about the deed being in there. To be honest, I don’t remember all the actual contents. I’ve blocked out a lot of what I put in there.”

“You took the boxes to school because you wanted them found. Is that right?” Ryder asked.

“Yes, I desperately wanted someone to find them. If I left all of them at the school there was a greater chance someone would stumble on at least one box and know what she’d done, what I’d done for her. The only problem was, by then, they’d closed it down. I thought for sure it might reopen any day. So I took my chances, hid them in places I was sure someone would look. I knew for damned sure no one would ever stumble upon them stuck under a bunch of daisies in the backyard. But if someone could find them in a public place, find them at the school they’d somehow
know
and do something.”

“I’m sorry it took us so long.”

“Yeah? I am too.”

“What about the night she committed suicide?”

An odd look crossed Cooper’s face. “You mean the night she told me the harbor was her only way out, her last chance for happiness? That night?”

“The harbor was her last chance? Really?”

“That’s what she told us. The night she made her three kids sit there in a goddamn boat only to watch while she jumped into the ocean. We must’ve been there in the boat for the longest time hoping she’d come back. She didn’t.”

“That’s when the fisherman found you.”

“Yeah. Old man Sundersen was his name. He towed us into shore. And before you ask, I didn’t go after my own mother when she took that leap into the water. I didn’t want to. I wanted her gone. God help me, but a part of me was glad she was gone. I just wanted it to be over with.”

“How long before you knew it wasn’t over with?” Ryder asked.

“We figure Eleanor is still alive, Cooper. You might as well tell us the rest of it.”

At the words, Julianne saw the grown man flinch. “How do you know that?”

Ryder stuck his hands in his pockets, wandered around the little room. “You mean what gave it away? Julianne and I talked about this quite a bit. There was never a death certificate. We checked. No coroner’s inquest, no attempt by anyone to ever have Eleanor Jennings Richmond declared legally dead. We wondered why? After a period of time it seems people just forgot about the whole thing until one of the workers found the first box.”

Cooper closed his eyes, rested his head in his hands. “I’m so sick and tired of all this. Do you know what it’s like to have a murderer for a mother? She killed the father of her children. Do you have any idea what it’s like to have a mother who made her oldest son an accomplice after the fact? That’s what my counselor called it.”

“No, I’m sorry I don’t. I grew up without a mother. Occasionally misinformed people tried to convince me I was destined for failure because I came from a one-parent home. So no, I’m happy to say, I never had a mother like yours.”

“She was a constant embarrassment.”

“When did you know she was still alive?”

“I was a senior in high school when I got the first letter. At first I thought it was one of my friends pulling a prank, playing a practical joke on me. But then I began to think how could that be? The envelope was postmarked Dallas, Texas. It looked like the real deal. How could kids pull off that kind of detail?”

“Why did she write after nine years of silence?”

“Why else? She needed money?”

“From a senior in high school?”

“Believe me Eleanor wouldn’t care if the dollar came from a kid.”

“How much did you send her?”

“All I had saved up. Five hundred dollars.”

“Why?” Ryder asked. But then he got it. “She was blackmailing you. ‘Pay me, or I’ll let everyone in town know what you did that night.’ Am I right?”

“You’re right.”

“You had to realize at some point she was bluffing. She wouldn’t have let the secret be known to anyone.”

“I know that. But the guilt kept me paying. That, and the humiliation of it all.”

“That’s why you didn’t tell anyone.”

Cooper shook his head. “I couldn’t. I just couldn’t tell my uncle or rather the man that treated me like his son. I just couldn’t bring myself to have that conversation. By the second letter, I’d graduated high school. I packed my bags and headed north to Seattle. I figured if she couldn’t find me…the letters would stop.”

“But they didn’t.”

“She contacted me whenever she needed money. She lives in Savannah, Georgia, or she did the last time I talked to her about a year ago.”

“Your aunt and uncle have no idea whatsoever?”

“Not a clue.”

“What about Caleb and Drea?”

“They don’t know either. As far as I know, they slept right through it all that night. They’ve never questioned me about the night Dad left. Even after Landon and Shelby adopted us, I laid awake at night listening while Drea cried for her daddy. It tormented me. The only traumatic event for them was about four months later when Eleanor rowed us out in the middle of the harbor and jumped into the water. To this day, I can still hear those kids bawling their eyes out. ‘Mama, mama, come back. Don’t go. Mama, mama.’”

“You have to tell your story to Brent Cody, Cooper.” When he stared at her with blank eyes, Julianne insisted, “You have to tell him and get it all behind you, once and for all. He’s the police chief now. You were nine years old. None of this was your fault.”

“But I knew what she’d done and never said a word. I knew where my father was buried all this time and said nothing. Look around you. Does it look like I’d fit in at The Plant Habitat? It was never for me. I left when I was eighteen and I won’t go back. There’s nothing there for me.”

“Not even for your father’s proper burial?” Ryder wanted to know.

“That’s a low blow.”

But Julianne took another route. “You’re wrong, you know. There’s a lot back there for you. Your grandfather’s store is available. I understand from Drea you loved that place as a boy, loved spending time there. I’m looking around the room, Cooper. You have all your dad’s old trains here and I’d be willing to bet you have even more in a storage facility somewhere. You could have a life back in Pelican Pointe if you wanted it. You could breathe life back into that store to honor your father, be part of the community where he played with his kids. You know your brother and sister would love nothing better than to have you back in their lives, close by.”

“I’m well aware now that I’ve opened my mouth, I’ll have to tell someone officially.”

“Then throw some of your stuff in a bag and come back with us.”

It took another hour to convince the photographer to get his things together. While Ryder helped him, Julianne put in a call to Brent. But she had to hold the phone away from her ear.

“If you’ll let me get a word in, I’ll explain,” Julianne yelled back. “There’s no point in shouting at me. It’s done already. In fact, it’s over. We’re bringing Cooper back. He has a story to tell you. And a surprise or two along the way.”

I
t was growing late when Brent sat inside his new office at the Pelican Pointe police station. He looked over the desk at an adult Cooper Jennings who’d gone over the heart-wrenching story of what happened when he was nine.

Four days ago Coop had taken him to the spot where he’d helped bury two people—his own father and Brooke Caldwell—at the direction of his mother. It had taken county forensics several hours of digging to go down far enough to locate the remains.

“I know it’s been a tough couple days for you and it’s still raw. But you did the right thing.”

“After twenty years,” Cooper charged. “She was mentally and physically abusive to my dad. I saw it myself. She treated him like crap. I guess that’s why she thought it’d be funny to bury him under the compost heap.”

“You were a kid,” Brent said as a reminder.

“Doesn’t matter. Tell that to my psyche, the one plagued by nightmares every night I don’t seem to be able to shake. I’ve only come to realize this over the last decade, but my mother had no feelings for anyone but herself. She took off months after she killed two people and left a little boy to deal with what she’d done. Then she takes the easy way out by disappearing. Do I need to list how many ways she screwed me over?”

“Not tonight unless you really want to.” When the man said nothing, Brent sat back in his chair. “If not, then there are a few painful facts we still need to get out of the way. For roughly ten years from the time you were nine to eighteen you believed right along with your brother and sister that your mother had jumped into the bay and committed suicide, correct?”

“That’s right.”

“The first contact she made telling you otherwise, you sent her money because she threatened to tell your secret.” At the nod of Coop’s head, Brent asked the other part. “The second time, how do you suppose she found out where you were living in Seattle?”

“She sent a letter to my old address and my roommate at the time forwarded it to me. I kept on the move hoping she would lose interest but since she refuses to work, she’s always in need of money and where money’s concerned, my mother is relentless. Money means more to her than anything else.”

“Okay. How much do you normally send her?”