Lethal Little Lies (Jubilant Falls Series Book 3) (12 page)

Chapter 20 Marcus

            
 
Over Thursday’s breakfast, I told the kids the truth. I had Detective Birger there in case there were any specific questions I couldn’t answer.

              I told them as much as I thought they should know about Charlie—glossing over the drunken Seattle details and finding her thong in my jacket at the airport. I told them about meeting Charlie on the plane during the book tour, the incessant phone calls at work and at home that caused us to change our number, the call from the woman identifying herself as their Aunt Cal and how my wholesale avoidance of the situation had probably been the cause of their mother’s abduction and shooting.

I thought I’d feel horrible guilt. Instead, I felt as if I’d been set free, that the secret I’d kept was now out in the open and we could all deal with it.

              “The truth is, my keeping the fact that this woman has been hounding me is part of what came between your mother and me and, I think, the reason for the note she left,” I said. “I thought I could sweep it under the rug and it would go away. Your mother probably thought I’d been unfaithful and instead of the two of us confronting the problem, we grew apart and she got shot.”

              The kids were silent. Both PJ’s and Lillian’s eyes were huge. Bronson’s arm was around Lillian’s shoulder, but his face was bewildered. No doubt this type of behavior didn’t occur in his gilded social circles.

             
Welcome to the family,
I thought to myself.

              Andrew’s eyes were hard and angry. I could see his warrior father in his eyes and didn’t know if the hate was directed at the threat against his mother—or me for allowing it to continue.

              My feelings of being set free turned once again to dread.

              “I’m sorry,” I said.

              Nobody responded.

              “The truth is, your father did nothing wrong—he has a stalker,” Birger said. “While it’s more common for women to be stalked, men have been stalked, too. Female stalkers are either former partners who can’t let go or fixate on the male victims for some reason. We think that your father’s novel,
Death on Deadline
, may be the reason and this woman has somehow confused the character in his novel with him.”

              “Rhys Chapman is nothing like Dad!” Lillian blurted out. “Rhys Chapman is, is —cool!”

              We all laughed nervously.

              “That’s more true than you know,” I said.

              Birger continued: “I need you all to be very careful. Mr. Henning, you need to file a motion for a restraining order first thing this morning. I’ve brought the paperwork for you to fill out. This gives us the power to arrest Charlene Deifenbaugh if she attempts to make contact with you here, or at the newspaper or anywhere. I need you all to document any suspicious phone calls or activity here at home and contact us any time day or night if anything happens.”

              “Should we also have restraining orders?” Lillian asked.

              “I think at this point you kids are safe. It’s your dad that this woman is fixated on. There are three stages to stalking generally,” he continued. “The first one is what he has been experiencing: lots of phone calls and unwanted contact. That, unfortunately leads to the second phase, which, unfortunately, is violence and we’ve seen the results of that.”

              “But why focus on Mom? Why not target Dad?” Andrew asked. His voice was cold, flat and businesslike. I could see him honing in on Charlie as he would a Taliban fighter in the Afghan mountains.

              “To get her out of the way, we think. To have him all to herself,” Birger answered. “That’s why we have put guards at the hospital and asked the staff to monitor all phone calls. But this isn’t going to end here. There’s another phase.

              “The third phase is what I call the ‘hearts and flowers’ phase. The stalker is sorry for any physical violence and generally starts to beg for forgiveness. Her phone call to the hospital today could have been that—or it could have been an attempt to see if she was successful at getting your mother out of the picture. Sometimes the stalking even stops for a little while and the victim lets their guard down. But that can be very dangerous because the stalker almost always comes back. The victim is usually not prepared for it. This is when we start to see the escalation in violent behavior. ”

              Lillian winced and leaned into Bronson’s shoulder.

              “As upsetting as that is, we’ve got to make the assumption that this is the road we are traveling down,” Birger continued. “If for any reason you come in contact with her, do
not
speak to her, do
not
confront her, and do not do
anything
that can endanger yourself or anyone else. Call me on my cell or call 9-1-1 immediately.” He reached inside his jacket and handed each kid a business card. “We are working this case very actively and we intend to get your mother justice. Charlene Deifenbaugh will see jail for what she’s done.”

              “In my line of work, Detective, we seek out the enemy,” Andrew spoke slowly and deliberately. “We seek them out and destroy them. We don’t wait for them to come to us and then call someone else for help.”

              “Your line of work and my line of work are different, Lieutenant,” Birger said. “You let me keep things safe in Jubilant Falls and I’ll let you protect the country. If you in any way engage this woman to come to this house, you could be putting everyone in your family at risk. She could bring charges against you if she is injured in any way.”

              “Think about what that could do to your Air Force career,” I said. “You don’t want that.”

              Andrew’s jaw shifted back and forth as his blue eyes focused intently on the detective. “No, sir. No, I don’t.”

              Birger stood. “Well, I want to thank you for the coffee,” he said. “I’m going to say goodbye—if you hear anything or see anything, you call me. Don’t do anything to put yourself or your mother in danger.”

              I escorted Birger to his car, an unmarked black Crown Victoria. I looked left and right, trying to see if there were any suspicious vehicles.

              “Don’t worry. Your house is under surveillance, but not in such a way as to scare your neighbors,” he said, loosening his tie.

              “That’s good. As long as I’ve lived here, I don’t think I would be the sort of folks my neighbors would necessarily associate with; an obvious police presence won’t go far in encouraging folks to come to our parties. Thanks for explaining things here this morning,” I said, shaking his hand.

              “You did a good job. They may not like what you told them, but I think they’ll understand. I am concerned, however, about the lieutenant.”

              “I’ll talk to him. He’ll back down.”

              “If he does anything to engage your stalker in any sort of violent manner, he could end up in court and it could really screw up our investigation—not to mention his life.”

              “I understand. I’ll make that clear to him.”

              “Good.” Birger nodded and slid into the front seat of the Crown Vic. “We’ll be in touch.”

              Back in the house, the kids had wandered off in different directions. Lillian and Bronson sat in the living room, watching daytime television. Even as they stared at the screen, I could see tears rolling silently down Lillian’s face. Bronson’s eyes were still wide with fear.

              Maybe he was considering not proposing to Lillian after all. Maybe I’d ruined that, too. Nothing could mess up a Big Apple wedding like a crazed woman coming after the father of the bride.

              Andy stood at the kitchen island, a half full cup of coffee in front of him. His feet were apart, his arms folded with hands clenched, his head down, deep in angry thought.

              “Where’d PJ go?” I asked.

              Andrew looked up. “Oh, he went to his room.”

              “You OK?” I asked.

              He sighed. “I don’t like not being able to do anything. That bitch tried to kill my mother—”

              “And we don’t have the authority to take revenge. We might be all wrong on this. It might not have been Charlie, but I doubt it. If you have any kind of confrontation with her, and she was hurt—”

              “Or killed.” His blue eyes were cold and hard. I had no doubt he could kill with his bare hands.

              “The point is, we couldn’t get justice for your mother.”

              “We’d already have justice.”

              “And you’d be in prison for the rest of your life. What would Mom say?”

              His shoulders sagged. “I’m just angry. I’m angry that this happened. I’m angry I can’t do anything. I’m angry I was so far away when it happened.”

              “I’m sorry. In a way, I caused this.”

              Andy waived his hand dismissively. “With your book, you’re in the public. Weirdoes fixate on people in the public.”

              “What I told you kids was the truth. You don’t believe I was unfaithful to your mother, do you?”

              “That’s the furthest thing from my mind—any of our minds,” Andy’s face took on a pained look. “We saw how you and Mom were together. You two were magic. Any man who would take on some other man’s three kids like you did and raise us as your own? C’mon, Dad—get serious.”

              “Thanks,” I said, relieved.

              “One more thing, Dad —”

              “Yes?”

              “I’m only on emergency leave. I’ve got to get back to the base as soon as I can.”
              “I understand. How soon do you need to leave?”

              “I’m catching a hop out of Symington Friday morning.”

              “Then we’ve only got a couple hours of visiting time left at the hospital. Let’s round everybody up and go visit Mom. I’ll go get PJ. You get Lil and Bronson and I’ll meet you at the car. And Andy?”

              “Yes?”

              “I appreciate your support.”

              Down the hall, I stopped at PJ’s closed bedroom door. I heard muffled conversation and turned the doorknob slowly, so as to open the door as quietly as possible.

              “Thanks for taking my call—is she available?” I heard him ask. PJ sat cross-legged on his childhood twin bed, his back to me. “She’s not? Could you tell her that PJ Armstrong called, please?”

              “PJ!” My words were sharp and loud. Startled PJ jumped, and snapped his cell phone case closed. “What the
hell
are you doing?”

              “God, can we do something other than be afraid?” His words were as angry and sharp as mine.

              I stepped back. This was the second time in as many minutes my own family said they were not going to be passive victims in this situation. The situation I created when I created Rhys Chapman. The situation I created when I sat down next to Charlie on that flight to Seattle.

              “You weren’t calling her, were you?” I asked, as if not speaking Charlie’s name made the situation less real.

              PJ rolled his eyes. “No. I was calling my advisor at school. If I’m going to quit MIT, I need to turn in some withdrawal stuff.”

              “OK. I’m sorry. I overreacted.”

              We were silent for a moment. PJ spoke again.

              “You know, Detective Birger said we can’t lure her into a situation to harm her. He didn’t say we couldn’t talk
about
the situation to anybody.”

              “To whom?”
              “The
Journal-Gazette.
”

              “And what would that accomplish?”

              “We would know where she was. A story to the paper might bring her into the open, and then the police could grab her. Think about it—would you want somebody saying in print that so-and-so is my stalker?”

              “We can’t do name her—she’s not been proven guilty.”

              “But couldn’t we say that police have identified a suspect? Without using any names? She’d be pissed enough she’d come out into the open and then the police could grab her.”

              Our eyes locked.

              What could happen? I thought. Kay’s hospital room is under police guard. The house is under surveillance and I’ll have a restraining order by this afternoon.

              “Dad, if we don’t do something it’s just going to get worse. We have to take the reins.”

              I nodded. “OK.”

Chapter 21 Addison

            
 
“I hate Thursdays,” I muttered to myself as I slid my key into the back door at the
Journal-Gazette
. The winter sun hadn’t begun to come over the horizon and last night’s dip in temperatures left deadly patches of black ice on the parking lot where shallow puddles had been. I’d nearly fallen twice before getting to the door.

              I arrived early, hoping I could get out of the office and drive to Columbus. I needed to talk to Rick Starrett’s statehouse staff and continue to dig into Rowan Starrett’s mysterious life, now that I’d gotten confirmation he really wasn’t dead.

              But first I had to get through today.

              Thursdays were hell, plain and simple. In addition to finishing today’s live pages—pages one, two and three—it also meant the inside pages for both Friday and Saturday’s papers were due. Saturday’s paper deadlined at midnight Friday, rather than Saturday at ten thirty in the morning, in order to give the pressroom staff the weekend off.

              Dennis had the morning off so he could work an ungodly long day Friday to put together Saturday’s live pages. In better times, we could count on an extra copy editor to take on the responsibility of the live pages while I worked with staff on their stories. Thanks to furloughs and cutbacks, those responsibilities came to me like a giant line of falling dominoes.

              I passed through the empty pressroom, stopping long enough to take in the pungent odors of old ink and fresh newsprint. From there, I walked into the adjacent employee break room, pausing to pour coffee into a chipped white mug, its interior ringed brown and black from lack of regular cleaning.

              Peggy, the sour-faced bookkeeper, was beside the coffee machine, stirring powdered creamer into her cup. If she was here early, it could only mean one thing.

              “It’s the end of the quarter, Addison,” she said in greeting. “I’ll need your expense reports by three.”

             
Fuck,
I thought. Instead of answering, I kept on walking, gulping down coffee and nodding without looking at her.
I’ll never get out of here this afternoon to get to Columbus.

             
Upstairs in the newsroom, the lights were already on. Elizabeth Day was finishing a bagel at her desk. She licked cream cheese off her finger and pointed at my office.

              “You got company,” she said.

              “Shit. This day is getting off to a great start,” I answered, throwing open my office door.

              “Well, thanks! Good morning to you too!” Marcus was leaning against my desk. His son, PJ, was sitting in one of my office’s faded wingback chairs.

              “You know I’m kidding,” I said hugging him. “What are you doing here? Is Kay OK?”

              “They say she’s going to make it. She’s still pretty doped up, but they say she’s improving every day. We’ve also got some movement in the investigation.”

              “Good. We haven’t had an update on the case for a couple days. Are you willing to sit down and give Graham some time this morning?”

              “Sure, on one condition. Can you give PJ an internship?”

              I looked over at the kid, who’d come dressed in a white Oxford shirt, dress pants and a blue tie. He looked at me hopefully.

              “I thought you were going to MIT,” I said.

              “I quit. I didn’t like it,” he answered.

              “He wants to be a journalist.” Marcus’s tone was a cross between pride and sarcasm. “I thought it might be a good way to let him see how this business works.”

              “Or at least beat it out of him,” I teased. “OK. I’m desperate for help, so here’s what we’ll do—first, there will be no pay. This is strictly a learning experience. Second, you need to know right off the bat that in this newsroom, we are loud, we are profane and we are politically incorrect on a massive scale. If that in any way offends you, this isn’t the place for you.”

              “Yes, ma’am.”

              “I am desperate for help, but I do not tolerate incompetence. You fuck up and I throw you out, I don’t care who your dad is. Is that clear?”

              “Yes, ma’am.”

              “I need somebody who can type more than four words a minute and who can take direction. I also need someone who can slap a noun up against a verb accurately. There’s a lot to do every morning and, while the staff here can give you some directions, I can’t take the time to hold your goddamned hand while it gets done. You need to be a self-starter who can find out answers for yourself.”

              “Yes, ma’am.” The kid swallowed hard.

              “You show me you can do those things and there’s a good chance I might give you the chance for your very own byline.”

              “Thank you.”

              “How long can I count on you?”

              PJ shrugged. “Until I can get into another college. I can work whatever hours you need me.”

              “Sounds good. Marcus, if you’ll take him out there and set him up, I’m sure Elizabeth can find some typing for him to do. When Graham gets here, we’ll sit down and talk about where the case is.”

              Marcus nodded. “There have been a lot of things happening. I need to talk to you about it.”

              “I’ve got to get this paper going first,” I said. “Let me get past deadline and then we’ll talk.”

              A little more than an hour later, I had page three, the state and local news page, nearly complete and two of four stories edited and lay out on the front page. I’d left a six-column space across the top of page one for the story Graham would give me from his interview with Marcus. My main art was a photo of a Salvation Army bell-ringer in front of the entrance to Hawks, Jubilant Falls’ remaining downtown department store, followed by Elizabeth’s story on how donations for the holidays were down and need was skyrocketing. Graham had a short story and photo on a jack-knifed semi on the highway that tied up traffic for a couple hours last night. The final space would be filled with a wire story, probably on the continuing economic slide.

              Dennis’s comment from yesterday echoed in my mind: “Jane down in advertising was telling me there’s rumors of more furloughs next quarter...”
I hope that ends up being untrue,
I thought.
I can spare more staff absences off like I can lose an arm.

             
As I got into the rhythm of putting pages together, though, my mind kept returning to the Starrett brothers. Why would Rowan want to fake his death? If he still owed some creep money, why not go to the feds and ask for protection? Who did he owe money to, the Mob? And why would Rick go along with the whole scheme of faking Rowan’s death? What’s the deal with keeping up the fallacy that they were two years apart in age, when they were really twins? Why keep that thing going through high school and college? Could it have been for the scholarship money? Rowan was a talented enough hockey player that even if he was found to be ineligible and forced out of college, he could have been drafted into the NHL.

              The cost of the whole deal to Rick’s marriage was obvious—it’s a wonder his philandering didn’t come out during his political campaign. There was something else behind all this. Something the Starrett boys wanted to keep hidden. I just had to figure out what it was, if I ever got half a chance.

              A soft
ding
on the computer indicated a story was ready for editing. I looked up from my computer screen to see Graham and Marcus standing beside me.

              “Your story?” I asked, pointing at the screen.

              Graham nodded. A quick click on my mouse and the story popped up on the screen.

By Graham Kinnon

J-G Staff writer

              Jubilant police confirmed they have identified a suspect in the shooting of local businesswoman Kay James Henning, although they are not releasing the name.

              According to Jubilant Falls Assistant Police Chief Gary McGinnis, police believe the shooting is connected to a fan of Journal-Gazette reporter Marcus Henning, who is the author of the mystery novel, Death on Deadline.

              Kay Henning is Marcus Henning’s wife; they have been married for 18 years and have three children.

              While McGinnis would not release the suspect’s identity, Marcus Henning told the Journal-Gazette the suspect is female and he encountered her during his book tour last year.

              Kay Henning continues to recover at the Jubilant Falls Community Hospital after suffering a gunshot wound that caused severe internal injuries. She was listed in serious but stable condition Thursday morning.

              The next couple paragraphs built on previous stories—her kidnapping, and how police had found her in a cheesy motel and how she’d been traced through the location of her Blackberry.

              I made occasional changes to Graham’s spelling and grammar as I went. The next paragraph—Department of Justice statistics on stalking and the number of men who were victims of stalking—stopped me dead in my tracks.

              “So they say you’re being stalked? So when were you going to tell me this?” I asked.

              Marcus nodded sheepishly. “Yeah, that was what I wanted to talk to you about. All those phone calls I’d get—the police believe they were from the stalker. I’m filing to get a motion for a temporary restraining order this morning after we’re done here.”

              “I don’t like to comment on my staff’s appearances, but I would have never suspected some crazed female wanted you bad enough to try to kill your wife,” I answered.

              Marcus, with his bowed legs, his thin, graying hair and rumpled clothing, smiled a crooked smile. “I’m no Richard Gere, that’s for sure,” he said.

              “Marcus is being stalked?” Elizabeth Day looked up from her desk. “I can’t get a date if I paid somebody and the only married man in the newsroom has a stalker?”

              Graham hid a smile behind his hand. PJ, insulated with headphones, thank God, didn’t hear the comment and sat huddled over a corner computer, typing.

              “At least somebody thinks he’s hot.” I looked up at the clock, which was fast approaching ten o’clock—half an hour before press time. “I’m getting close on deadline—good work you guys.”

              “I’ll head down to the courthouse to meet my lawyer who is filing this restraining order. I want to drop by to see Kay, then I’ll be back,” Marcus said.

              “Good. On top of all the things I’ve got to worry about, apparently I now need to worry about staff safety. We’ll sit down with Watt and see how he wants to handle this,” I said, dismissing them with a wave of my hand.

              Quickly, I brought up page one, typed a headline,
Novel Suspect:
Fan Sought In Henning Shooting
across the top. With a few more clicks, I placed Graham’s story on the front page. For good measure, I added headshots of both Marcus and Kay. Another click and I printed out two proofs of the page and handed them to Graham and Elizabeth to read.

              Page two would be quick and easy. I placed the remainders of the stories that didn’t fit on page one, called jumps, along with any short news items that fit. Bigger spaces got filled with more wire copy. While that page was also proofed, I had time for one cigarette.

              I stepped into my office, shut the door and, as I lit my cigarette, threw open the window. Staring out over the employee parking lot, I ticked off what was ahead of me: in between reports, finishing the advance pages and letting my boss know some nut case woman wanted to come into my newsroom with a gun, there was no way I was going to get to Columbus to dig into anything on Rick Starrett’s life.

              My desk phone began to ring as I took the last puff of my cigarette and tossed it out the window.

              “McIntyre,” I answered.

              “It’s Dad. I thought you were coming by after work yesterday,” he barked.

              “Sorry. I forgot.” I slapped my forehead.

              “Just as well. I got some information on those phone numbers for you.”

              “I don’t know if I can make it by today, Dad. I’ve got a bunch on my plate right now—what’s Saturday morning look like?”

              “Whenever you get here. Those numbers—they are connected to several pre-paid phones—burners—like I thought, but whoever used them was stupid enough to use them in the same area of Columbus. They all pinged off the same set of cell phone towers.”

              “Really.”

              “Yes—your old Dad still has some friends in high places. These calls came from a three-block radius near North High Street in Columbus.”

              “Near the statehouse?”

              “No, further north, an area north of the Ohio State campus and south of the suburb of Clintonville, called Old North Columbus,” Dad said. “More importantly, a lot of these calls were made about the same time each morning, between eight and eight-thirty.”

              “Like over his morning coffee?” I asked.

“Exactly,” he said. “And if he’s like most single men, he’s not cooking his own breakfast.”

              Until his knees went bad, Dad spent each morning with a table of retired cops and court employees at a downtown Jubilant Falls’ restaurant called Aunt Bea’s, sucking down copious amounts of weapons grade coffee and talking over old times. The conversation often drifted to local politics and became loud and boisterous—the waitresses jokingly called the group, which filled two tables, the Council for Weird Affairs but kept the coffee and the donuts coming.

              “I’m betting these calls were made from behind his daily copy of the Columbus
Dispatch
and from wherever he got his eggs over easy,” Dad continued.

              Graham poked his head in my office door, holding the proofs of pages one and two in his hand.

              “I’ve got the corrections made,” he said. “The press room is ready for them, if you want to take one final look and send the pages.”

              I nodded at Graham as I turned back to the phone.

“So, Dad,” I said. “Wanna go out for breakfast Saturday morning?”

              “I thought you’d never ask.”