Lemon Tart (25 page)

“Okay,” Cunningham said, nodding toward the door. “You can go
in.”

Chapter 26

Sadie
straightened her shirt and turned back to the badly painted door. She wondered
why people didn’t pay more attention to details and just repaint the thing all
one color—surely she wasn’t the only person who’d noticed.

Once inside the room, however, all thoughts of paint and other
people’s attention to detail were forgotten. Jack sat at the table in the
center of the cinder-block room, dressed in what looked like bright green
hospital scrubs. His hands were cuffed in front of him and he stared at the top
of the Formica-covered table. The office she’d been questioned in was
imposing, but this room was downright dreary. Sadie let the door shut behind
her and tried to repress a shiver. It was cold in here and she wished Detective
Cunningham hadn’t taken her coat away.

Drawing a deep breath she walked to the table and pulled out
the only other chair in the room. Jack didn’t look up at her. She sat down and
folded her hands in her lap. She was aware of the mirror behind her but tried
not to think about Cunningham standing there listening. Watching. The next few
minutes were about Jack, and what he said he’d done.

“Jack,” she said. The whisper sounded loud in the barren
room.

He took a breath and finally lifted his head. The tears she’d
been holding back filled her eyes at the look of hopeless sorrow on his face.
On impulse she reached across the table and took his hands—needing
to reach out to him any way she could. He wrapped his large fingers around her
smaller ones and held on tight. It made her cry even harder. Maybe this was a bad idea, she
thought as a sob shook her chest. And yet she tried to push through the emotion
and get down to the task at hand—proving her brother’s
innocence.

“I’m so sorry, Sadie,” he said, tears dripping down his cheeks.
“I’m so sorry.”

Sadie didn’t know what to say to that so she remained
silent.

Jack continued, “I don’t know how it happened . . .
everything just got so crazy.”

“Jack,” Sadie said again after several seconds of silence. Jack
let go of her hands and wiped awkwardly at his eyes with his cuffed hands, but
the tears continued to fall. It just didn’t make sense and the more she looked
at him the less sense it made. She knew this man, he was her brother—her
protector. With their parents gone, and their sister living several states away
for the last twenty-five years, he was the person on this earth she
knew longer and better than anyone else. She couldn’t have misjudged him so
much. Looking at him, broken and crying, she couldn’t accept that he’d killed a
woman. It just couldn’t be true.

“Why are you taking the fall for this?” There—she’d
said it! She’d vocalized what had brought her in this room.

Jack’s head popped up and his eyes went wide. “What are you
talking about?” he asked, an edge of panic in his voice.

“I know about the bank account and what Ron did—and
I know he’s your friend. But, Jack, you can’t throw your life away for him.
That isn’t justice for anyone. You have no reason to do this.”

Jack let out a breath and looked back at the table. “All Ron
did was try to help me—that’s all he’s ever done for me. I did
this. I did all of it.”

“I called Larue,” Sadie said. “She saw you Monday night in the
bar—though you know better than to hang out in places like
that.” She paused and told herself not to get distracted with lectures that
didn’t matter right now. “She said it was after midnight when she left you and
the other people there, but you were at breakfast the next morning. Anne was
killed in the early morning—you couldn’t have made the
two-hour drive to Garrison, killed Anne, and gotten back to Denver in
time.”

Jack was silent, but he didn’t give in. “She’s wrong,” Jack
said, squaring his shoulders—an action Sadie found odd. Why
take a defensive stance with her? “There were a lot of people there. She was
mistaken—probably drunk. I got back just in time for the
breakfast.”

“And laughed and joked about life insurance fraud in your
opening class? You wouldn’t do that after just killing someone. Besides,” she
paused and took a breath, “Ron is Trevor’s father, not you—you
have no motive.” It was her last holdout, but it sounded jagged and vaporous
once she said it out loud.

Jack shook his head. “No. I’m Trevor’s . . . father,”
he said strongly, though his shoulders slumped again. “Ron set up the account
for me—I couldn’t have it showing up on a credit report. What
if Carrie saw it?” He looked Sadie in the eyes, hard and deep and she couldn’t
breathe for fear of what she’d hear next. The silence stretched like a rubber
band.

“Anne was hired as a receptionist at the Boston office three
years ago,” Jack said, looking into the mirror behind Sadie’s shoulder, as if
he were talking to the detectives back there rather than talking to her. “I met
her when I went to the spring conference that year.” He let out a breath and
Sadie almost felt as if she were intruding on his memory, one that obviously
brought him both guilt and reluctant pleasure to relive. “She was only twenty-two
years old, and yet she seemed so mature, so grown up. Carrie and I . . .
well, you know better than anyone how our relationship was, how it’s always
been. The older girls had moved out—something I had always
thought would precede a repair in our relationship. It didn’t. Things were as
bad as ever and Carrie was holding on to Trina as if she was the only joy
Carrie had left in her life. I was just so unhappy.” He stopped.

“You had an
affair with Anne?” Sadie asked, desperately needing to hear him say it. Her
brain was still processing slowly, throwing out excuses and justifications like
birdseed. She wanted so badly to have another explanation to all this.

“Oh, please, Sadie,” he said, frustration lacing his tone.
“Don’t judge me. We can’t all be saints.”

Sadie pulled back, but bit her tongue. This discussion wasn’t
about her and she wasn’t going to let him change the subject.

Jack lifted his hands to his face. “I’m sorry,” he said. “This
isn’t your fault.”

They both went silent again; Sadie couldn’t think of a single
word to say. Jack was
Trevor’s father? The idea nauseated her.

Jack finally let out a breath and continued. “It was months
after I met her before I . . . we . . . then the guilt
nearly ate me alive.” He took his hands down and Sadie studied his face,
disheartened to see the honesty in the lines around his eyes. He was telling
her the truth. “I didn’t know what to do with a young, beautiful woman pursuing
me, listening to me, admiring me. It was more than I could handle.”

She swallowed and nodded for him to continue while praying for
help in knowing what to say, what questions to ask. She wished she’d just given
her statement and gone home.

“I love Carrie,” he said with resolution. “For better and for
worse—I love her. She’s my wife.” His voice cracked. “She bore
me three wonderful daughters and she was always true to me, always took care of
our home, always took care of the girls. Many men would love to have a wife
such as her.”

Sadie kept her thoughts to herself. Yes, Carrie had her
strengths, but she had her faults as well—faults that came out
most often with her husband. Though it disgusted and disappointed Sadie to
no end that Jack—gallant and devoted Jack—had
strayed. Carrie was not generous in her affection or affirmations toward her
husband. That part wasn’t
Jack’s fault.

He continued. “And I broke our vows, I put asunder the
covenants I’d made to her and to God. After just a few weeks of clandestine
weekend trips with Anne, I put an end to it.”

Sadie licked her lips and found her voice. “Did Carrie find
out? Is that why you broke it off?”

“No,” Jack said with a shake of his head. “I was very . . .
discreet. And the affair was short-lived. But I felt awful. I thought
I would get over her fast, and Carrie and I would carry on as if nothing had
happened.”

“But Anne was pregnant,” Sadie inserted.

Jack nodded and his face, already slack, fell even more. “I
managed to avoid Boston for six months. I wouldn’t take her calls; I blocked
her e-mail. When I finally went to Boston, her condition was obvious.
She pulled me aside and told me to leave Carrie, to be a dad to this baby. I
couldn’t believe she expected me to disregard my entire life so easily, but she
did. She’d been waiting for me to come to her—she’d been
waiting all those months to say those things to me in person. And then, when I
explained I couldn’t do what she wanted—wouldn’t do it—she
threatened to call Carrie herself.” He took a breath. “I couldn’t let her do
that, so I offered her money. I cashed in a portion of my retirement. Twelve
thousand went directly to Anne and the other eight was specifically for the
baby’s college later on. Then I agreed to pay her $500 a month in child
support—Ron set up the accounts.”

“Ron,” Sadie breathed, not realizing she’d spoken out loud
until the word escaped her lips. Her mind accepted the fact that Trevor wasn’t
his son but she wasn’t sure how to go back to unsuspecting him of the
murder—and yet Jack still had more talking to do.

“He was divorced,” Jack continued, seeming as if he was now in
a hurry to divulge the secrets he’d worked so hard to protect. “Ron didn’t have
a wife who would be suspicious about an extra bank account or two. It made
sense to have him as the middleman, keeping Anne and me from having to deal
with each other, and he was willing to do it—he’s the executor
for the college fund and a cosigner on Anne’s account. I didn’t want her to
have access to all the money.” He looked up and met Sadie’s eyes. “Don’t hold
this against him, Sadie, he was only trying to help a friend. It was all set up
before he even met you. I guess, once it got started, it just seemed like it
wasn’t such a big deal. I felt like we’d fixed everything. Anne would stay in
Boston, I would help financially, but I wouldn’t have to watch my family torn
apart because of what I’d done.”

Sadie tried, really tried, to give Ron the credit Jack wanted
her to give him, but it wasn’t working. “Ron went to see her that night, Jack.
He was in her house. Setting up those accounts wasn’t all he did. He’s part of
this deception—that speaks of his character in big loud
words—and now Anne’s dead.” She didn’t have to say that it
spoke to Jack’s character even louder.

“Sadie,” Jack sighed. “You’re a good person. It’s no wonder
that this doesn’t make sense to you. I even told Ron that—”

“Why do you keep saying that? That I’m a saint, that I’m a good
person. Do you think because I choose
to see the good in the world, the good in people, that I can’t understand this?”

Jack’s eyes softened, showing his love for her and how much he
hated telling her this. His sympathy only made her more upset. He should have
told her everything a long time ago. She’d have helped him fix it. She’d have
talked to Carrie, talked to the pastor of their church, even talked to Anne.
Why hadn’t he asked for her help instead of treating her as if she were too
delicate for reality?

He continued, “I think . . . you have a good heart.
It’s not in your nature to be deceiving and selfish. I think it’s very hard for
you to understand what motivated me, or Ron for that matter.”

“That’s lovely, Jack,” Sadie said, sitting back in her chair
and crossing her arms over her chest. “Does it make you feel like some kind of
intellectual to talk down to me? I understand loneliness,” she said. “Better
than you do. And I understand hopelessness, and wanting more than you have. I
can see what drove you to be with Anne—not that I in any way
approve or justify it—but I also know the difference between
right and wrong. And so do you.”

Sadie paused, took a breath and reminded herself, again, that
this wasn’t about her. She could not afford to get sidetracked. “So, you said
you had it all figured out. What went wrong?”

“It got complicated, but that wasn’t Ron’s fault.” He paused
and then spoke again. “After Trevor was born, Anne sent me pictures of him. A
son.” Tears filled his eyes again. Jack had always wanted a son.

Sure, he’d never said so out loud, but with each of Carrie’s
pregnancies he seemed to be holding his breath. He loved his girls, and would
have doted on them if Carrie hadn’t gone overboard and left so little parenting
for him to participate in. Instead, he’d become very close to Sadie’s son,
Shawn. Jack was the one who did scouting with Shawn, talked to him about the birds
and the bees, showed him how to sack a quarterback, and took Shawn to his cabin
for hunting weekends. The
love for that cabin was something only those two could appreciate—another
thing that bonded them together—and Sadie had often pondered on
what a blessing Shawn was in Jack’s life. In many ways Jack was closer to Shawn
than he was to his own daughters. And Anne gave Jack a son of his own. How
terribly, horribly ironic.