First Do No Evil: Blood Secrets, Book 1 (30 page)

She let out a soft moan and cradled her cheeks between her hands. “They called it manslaughter. But I don’t know why. It weren’t nothing but a terrible accidental tragedy, and to my way of thinking, the judge made it a worser tragedy when he sent Steve and Jack and Joe off to detention. Because like I said, it was a pure tragic accident, and they was just boys.”

On the sill stood a watering can. He passed it to her, and looked on as she sprinkled her herbs with loving care. Maybe it had been her fault or maybe it hadn’t. But there was something in this woman’s eyes that pulled a string in his heart, and anyway, it wasn’t his job to pass judgment. “If you’d like to go back and have a seat on the couch, I’ll bring you more tea.”

She sniffed. “Water is all I want. More tea will make me pee all night.”

While Danny fetched the water, Yesinia settled herself once more on the living room sofa.

He crossed to her and placed a big cup of water in her hand. Then sat down on the other end of the couch. “Are you comfortable? Are you ready to continue?”

With a sigh and a nod, she reached for an album and slid it down to his end of the coffee table. Then she too, slid down to his end and opened the album. She thumbed through the pages slowly, stopping when she came to the photo of an underdeveloped boy. He was playing the harmonica.

Danny squinted at the picture. It wasn’t Garth. Arching his brows at Mrs. Martin, he asked, “Which boy is that?”

Scratching the photo with a nicotine-stained fingernail, she said, “That’s little Timmy. All the big boys picked on him.” She dabbed the corner of her eye with the tail of her shirt. “Not Garth though. Garth looked out for Timmy and got the other boys to back off him. Garth could get those boys to do anything he asked. Ever single boy in this house looked up to Garth.”

“What about your son? Did he look up to Garth too?”

A coughing spell disabled her, until she gulped enough water to make it stop. “Timmy loved that harmonica. Oh my, did he love it, on account of his mother gave it to him before she passed. Timmy wouldn’t let nobody near that treasure except for Garth.” Her eyes went up and to the left as she talked. She seemed lost in her memories, so Danny just let the conversation loose, let her tell her story her way.

“Timmy said Garth was allowed to play his harmonica, and he spent one whole day teaching him.” She sighed. “But that was how the only lick of trouble I ever had out of either one of them started. Always had trouble with the other boys, but Garth and Timmy was too good for trouble.”

She was looking out the window again.

He cleared his throat. “They were too good for trouble, you said, except for that one time.”

Another sip of water. Another cough, and then, “Yes. It weren’t long, you see, before Garth could play that mouth harp better than Timmy. Guess it came natural to him, and he picked up all of it without no more lessons.”

“You were saying about the trouble.”

“For a detective you don’t listen too good. The mouth harp
was
the trouble.” She belched. “Pardon me.”

“Of course. Now, about the harp.”

“Yes. Well, after a while, Timmy didn’t want to let Garth play it no more. Said he was hogging it, and well, I think he was ashamed that Garth could play so much better than him. There was a big whoop-tee-do for a few days, where they gave each other the silent treatment, but then all of a sudden, Garth said sorry. Garth said the harmonica was Timmy’s, and he respected his private property. That’s the kind of boy Garth was. He was the best, most respectful boy I ever had here. And after that Timmy and Garth was fast friends again. Never had a harsh word between them all the way up until that terrible day.”

Hands folded in her lap, she glanced up at Danny. Her eyes had that red-rimmed watery look about them. Though it was past sunset, and they were indoors, she raised her hand to shade them.

To be sure she’d finished with all she wanted to say first, he waited three beats, and then in a low tone, broached the subject that had been eating at him since he’d seen the picture of Timmy and the harmonica. “I think you might be confused. Wasn’t it Garth whose mother gave him the harmonica?”

Yesinia’s hands began to tremble, and a bit of the water sloshed from her cup. “That were a sad sad day when Timmy died. Nothing’s ever been right since.”

Sky had said Garth’s mother gave him a harmonica. The harmonica was engraved TO G. After all these years, Mrs. Martin’s memory was probably faulty. He tried again. “Mrs. Martin, wasn’t it Garth whose mother gave him the harmonica, just before she died?”

“Oh, no. Garth’s mother weren’t dead. Garth’s mother was just runned off. It was little Timmy’s mom gave him the harmonica before she died. We was neighbors, and I took Timmy in when his mom got sick and had to go to the hospice.” She blew her nose on her sleeve again. “When the doctors said it was time, I brought Timmy to say his goodbye. And right in front of me, his mother scratched his initials on the harmonica. And then she told Timmy not to let no one take it from him. Said he was to keep it close because it was all she had to give him. She said ever time he played it, he was to remember that she loved him, and that she always would.”

There was no holding back the tears now. Mrs. Martin’s emotion was genuine. More than a little affected himself, Danny was at a loss as to what to do apart from patting her knee and passing her a Kleenex.

“It breaks my heart to think I might have been in the wrong to take on so many boys. It breaks my heart to think Timmy might still be alive if I hadn’t. But you got to understand that my husband run off, and I didn’t have work at first, and I had to feed Robert and keep paying the bills.”

Danny cleared his throat. “Mrs. Martin, we all do the best we can in this life. We’re none of us perfect, I don’t think.”

A small sound escaped her throat. She crushed the Kleenex in her hands, and then unfolded it, looking for a dry spot. Danny handed her another, and then she shook her shoulders out and glanced up at him. “What else can I tell you about Garth and Timmy and the boys?”

“You say Timmy’s mom scratched his initials on the harmonica.”

“She did.”

“What was Timmy’s full name?”

Awaiting her answer, he crossed his legs, and uncrossed them again, flipped the page in his spiral notepad, and poised the pen above the paper.

“Timothy Orion Godwin.” She pronounced the words slowly, letting each syllable roll carefully off her tongue while he recorded the initials in his pad.

He looked at the notebook, and then he looked at Mrs. Martin. “TOG?”

“Timothy Orion Godwin. May god rest his soul.”

He flipped the notebook closed and pocketed it. So in truth, it wasn’t Garth’s harmonica at all, and he could guess as to how it had come into Garth’s possession. “How did Timmy die? Was Garth involved in any way?”

“Oh, no. He was the only one of the boys who wasn’t. Except for my boy, Robert, and Steve’s brother Carson—on account of that rich family adopted Carson the week before. Carson cried to leave his brother, Steve, behind, and I didn’t think it was right the family only took the one boy. But I’m glad they at least took Carson. Most likely he would have got detention too.”

A long shaky sigh, punctuated her story. “Jack and Joe and Steve was playing a game of Russian roulette with Timmy. I don’t know how they ever even thought of such a thing. And I don’t know how they got the bullets to put in Mr. Martin’s revolver. But the fact is, somehow, they heard about that game, and somehow, they got the bullets. And one evening when I had to take Robert to parent-teacher night, that gun went off in Timmy’s face.”

The words rolled around like sawdust in his mouth before he managed to spit them out. “Where was Garth?”

“They say he was in his room, reading a science book.”

Danny didn’t challenge her version of the story. But he already knew the truth. Garth had somehow manipulated the other boys into playing Russian roulette, and then he sat back and let them take the blame. All he took was a souvenir.

A harmonica
: A mother’s love in a form he could see and hold.

A mother’s love
: Something he could never own.

“What happened next?”

“The police said it was all suspicious, a bunch of juveniles known to be bullies, and poor little Timmy dead. Judge locked ‘em all away, and then that Miss Novak came out here and said I weren’t fit to raise kids.”

The captain had told him that Garth had been abused by the Martins, and although there was no doubt Mrs. Martin had failed to protect the children in her charge, Danny was having trouble picturing her as a child beater. “She blamed you for not supervising the boys? For allowing them access to the gun? Or was there more?”

Trumpeting her nose on the last shred of tissue, she looked to every corner of the room. But there’s no trap door that will swallow you up and let you escape the truth. Sometimes, you just have to tell it, and Yesinia Martin eventually must’ve arrived at that conclusion. She patted her wiry hair, cleared her throat, cast a wary glance at him, and then looked at the floor. “I didn’t know what Robert was doing to Garth while I was away.” She met his eyes. “I swear to you, I didn’t know. If I had, I would’ve put a stop to it.”

Danny understood from her pleading looks that she wanted him to absolve her of her guilt, but it wasn’t in his power to do that. All he could do was listen.

“I had too many boys to take care of. But I needed to make ends meet. And then I got my housekeeping job. It was hard work, but I was glad of it. I imagined a better life. Not just for me and Robert, but for all the boys.” Her hand covered her quavering lips. “When I started my new job, Robert was mad. He didn’t get no attention already, and I guess he was sick of not having his own room, or even his own mother. He had to share everything. Garth was the leader. So Robert took it all out on Garth. While I was working, he kept him chained to the fence with the dog.” She shuddered. “They say Robert kicked him and made him eat and drink from the dog bowls. And even when he weren’t chained up, Robert made him wear the dog’s collar.”

She let out a wail and dropped her head into her hands. “Robert’s had his own trouble. But he’s sorry for what he done. He’s born again, you know. My son’s in the penitentiary now, and all I got left is my indoor herb garden.”

The charred remnants of a dog collar had been found around Nevaeh’s neck.

He made him wear the dog’s collar
.

The words rang in Danny’s ears, echoed again and again, drowning out all the other sounds in the room. Tears were welling in his throat, and he could hardly breathe. Mrs. Martin lifted her ravaged face and shot him a pleading look. He ought to offer to call her pastor. He ought to offer to drop her at a friend’s.

Sucking down a blast of oxygen, he got to his feet.

He had to get back to Sky.

Chapter Twenty-Three

Winding up the imaginary ball of yarn he’d unrolled for his little game of cat and mouse, Garth snapped his wrist, and poof, Detective Daniel Benson ran out of string.

Game Over
.

Garth shoved one hand inside the pocket of his overcoat and let his fingertips caress the icicle-sharp points of the dog collar he carried with him. As he stole across Benson’s backyard, the sound of pinecones crunching beneath his feet and the pungent odor of juniper irritated him. He had never understood his sister’s love of nature.

Natural law, survival of the fittest—those things he understood. Because those things were rational, and he was a rational man. But a love of nature was beyond him. Love itself—putting the well-being of the loved object ahead of self-interest—was inherently illogical, violated the driving instinct for survival. Even worse, love has a tendency to muddle the mind and dilute the will. And he could not allow his mission to be compromised by a weak will.

Because he loved neither nature nor people, nothing could prevent him from taking the actions necessary to achieve his goals—regardless of how heinous those actions might appear to ordinary men. Ordinary men allowed their emotions to cloud their judgment. But he was not ordinary.

At least not anymore.

As a boy, he had been as drawn to the notion of love as any other, and strange as it now seemed, until she’d dumped him into the social services sewer, he had loved his mother. And even while he was passed from one set of neglectful guardians to the next, he’d maintained the hope that someday, he would be part of a real family, that like all the other little boys, he too would be loved. He had
prayed
for love. And when Isabella rescued him and adopted him into her family, he’d believed his prayers had been answered.

And perhaps they had been. Because Isabella did love him, and he did love her.

Then Isabella died, and along with her, his faith in love.

He pulled on his gloves and dusted his hands together. Logic dictated that he cease engaging in futile emotional attachments, and so he had. Although unfortunately, he had become invested in Sky. Overly invested.

What he felt for Sky wasn’t love. No. He had evolved to a higher plane and now knew better than to engage in such an indulgence. But he did take pleasure in the way Sky looked up to him and believed in him. In the irrational way, since they were not consanguineous relations, she treated him like her blood.