What You See (13 page)

“Do your people really smoke the peace pipe?”

He ignored my question. “All right, no more fighting. I’ll
let it go for now, but beware; I’ll be keeping my eyes on that fellow. You can
bet on it.”

“Great! I have two fathers now.”

“Come on, grouchy. We have work to do.”

Billy went to his office, while I went to my desk.

The phone rang.

“Billy Blackhawk Investigations,” I answered. “This is Jesse.
May I help you?”

“Yes, this is Robert Blackhawk. May I speak to Billy?”

“Sure, just a minute, please.” I hit the hold button and
called out, “It’s your brother, Billy. Want me to put him through?”

Billy walked out of his office, picked up my phone, and hit
the hold button. “Hey, brother, what can I do for you? Sure... I’ll be there...
Okay.... I’ll see you Sunday.” He hung up the phone and looked in my direction,
but not directly in my face. “Sunday, we celebrate the coming of the warm months.
I’d like it if you joined us.”

“Sure, I’d love to,” I answered. “Memorial Day is usually a
pretty big day for us, too. Since we live here now, I don’t know what’s going
to happen. Normally, we all get together for a cookout at Mom and Dad’s, but it’s
different now.”

“I could come to your house and we could spend a little time
with your folks before we leave. Hey, they can come with us, if they want to.”

“I don’t know. I love my parents, but I don’t think I want
them to be a part of this crazy lifestyle. Besides, they pretty much stay at
home. They don’t socialize very much.” I skirted the truth.

“Whatever you want,” he said. He didn’t try to pressure me.

The phone rang, again. I picked up the receiver and said,
“Hello, Billy Blackhawk Investigations.”

“Hi, honey,” Mom said. “I just got a call from Claire.
They’ll be here for our Memorial Day celebration.”

“That’s great, Mom,” I muttered, rolling my eyes at Billy.

“Something’s wrong, honey. Claire seemed awfully upset. She
didn’t say why, but she said she needed to talk to us both when she gets here.
I think its Carl. I’m afraid their marriage is on the rocks.”

“Don’t worry, Mom. I’m sure everything’s fine. Remember,
she’s pregnant. She’s not rational.”

“Do you think that’s it?” Mom asked, obviously looking for
comfort.

“Sure,” I lied. “Don’t worry, we’ll work it out.” I didn’t
want to tell Mom about my plans for Sunday. She was too worked up over Claire.
I was sure everything would be fine by then.

Hours passed into days. Billy had solved the case of the
stealing clerk, and the cheating husband—even though the husband paid dearly
for his indiscretions. He dumped Darin Jenkins and had returned his five
thousand dollars, after deducting $200 for his time. He sent a check for $1800
to Barbara Jenkins—telling her it was a waste of time and money to pursue the
matter. What they needed was a lawyer and a therapist. And last, but not least,
Rebecca Miller recanted her statement, thus relieving Billy of any possible
charges of wrongdoing. Is it true that all good things come to those who wait,
or all things work out in the end?

Billy and I spent most of our time working on the Helen
Carrolton case, going over and over every piece of information. Finally, after
days of endless brainstorming, phone calls, and dead ends, I’d had about
enough. We just weren’t getting anywhere. I was ready for a change.

“Billy,” I said, dropping the folder on the desk. “You
haven’t taken on any new clients. You’ve devoted all your time to this case,
and we’re just spinning our wheels. Don’t you think we should... ah... you
should take on another case?”

“This is going to be the only case we work on for a while,”
he told me, frankly. “When I take on a case of this magnitude, I don’t do
anything else. I can’t. Trying to find a missing person is usually a pretty
involved job, and it takes up a lot of time. We’ll give it one more month. If
we don’t come up with something by then, we’ll throw in the towel.”

I guess money wasn’t an issue. As long as I got paid, what
could I say?

After an entire week, we still didn’t know anymore than the
cops did. I don’t know where Billy got his information—and I didn’t want to
know—but he had all the details concerning the case of Helen Sue Carrolton,
right down to the last newspaper clipping. We dissected every piece of
information carefully. We pried into the private life of Helen Carrolton, until
I felt like she was laid out on a table naked for the whole world to see. We
knew everything about her, from what she had to eat before she left Poquoson,
to the prescription in her eyeglasses. We knew she had a fight with her
ex-boyfriend before she left home, but he had an alibi. Her parents were solid
people, and Helen’s welfare was all they ever cared about in life. You could
see it in their eyes. Nobody would have any reason to harm Helen Carrolton,
yet, somebody had. I felt it in my heart. It seems we knew all there was to
know, except... where was Helen Carrolton? Was she missing, or was she dead?
Or, was she missing and dead?

“I work for you, Billy. I’ll do whatever you want, as long as
it’s legal, and I get paid. If you can afford to spend all your time on one
case, I’m with you. I just felt it was my responsibility to make a few
suggestions.”

“That’s one of the things I found so up-front about you when
we first met—your ability to not hold back and to say what’s on your mind. I
welcome your input.”

I was still trying to discover the realm of our working
relationship. I wasn’t quite sure how close I could get to Billy. Was I
supposed to do my job and keep my mouth shut, or was it okay for me to become
his pal and confidant? I took a chance. I stuck my nose into his business.

“Where did you get all this stuff?” I asked, wondering if I
really wanted to know. I was new to this business, and I wasn’t sure what to expect.

“Connections,” was all he would say.

Friday afternoon, I went home for the weekend with a
briefcase—an inner-departmental gift from Billy—full of notes, pictures, and
reports to read over for the hundredth time. Billy and I had brainstormed so
hard all week, I could actually feel the clouds rolling in. A storm was on the
way.

I hadn’t heard from, or seen Cole all week long. Either we
were done for, or he really had been busy. He’s a cop, I tried to tell myself,
suppressing the feeling that I had really messed up my chance with him. Yet,
even cops have lives, don’t they?

My car was dead meat, but thanks to Billy, I still had
something to drive. He told me not to worry. His brother, Daniel, owned a car
lot and would fix me up real soon. Billy didn’t mind driving his ragged old
Mercury for a few days. We could work out the details later... just give him a
week. This was too good to be true, I told myself, pulling into the driveway.

Athena came running down the porch steps to greet me. Her
hair was all fluffed up and her tail was wagging. What a great dog! She was
always there when I needed a warm greeting, or a loving lick. She never asked
for anything, except affection and food. How could you not love her?

Then I noticed Claire’s new, gray-blue Mercedes SUV. What’s
she doing here? Knowing Claire doesn’t like to travel at night, I assumed she
wouldn’t be here until Saturday morning.

Sucking in my breath, I went inside. The house was quiet as a
tomb. Nobody was home. What was happening? I walked to the utility room, then
out the back door, heading for the garage. My car was still sitting there, but
the minivan was gone. Maybe they went out to eat, I told myself. They probably
went to the Burger King in Ruckersville. No way... Claire wouldn’t eat anywhere
unless it was a nice restaurant where she’d be pampered and cleaned up after.

Why had they left Athena outside to run loose? Did they
forget her?

I didn’t know what was going on, so I assumed everything was
okay and went inside. I left Athena on the porch as I took a shower. After the
shower, I checked on her. She was asleep on the porch, so I grabbed a Coke,
went upstairs, and became deeply immersed in Helen Carrolton’s life. Thirty
minutes later, I heard car doors slam, and Athena’s outrageous bark. I got up and
went to the window to have a look. Mom and Claire got out of the van, while
Athena ran around in circles. Dad crawled out of a little black,
Toyota
pickup truck. Where did he get that?

I ran downstairs and out into the front yard to greet them.
After giving Claire a big hug and kiss, I watched Dad as he walked around the
truck.

“Hey, what’s going on here? Whose truck?” I asked.

Mom was the first to answer. “Your dad and I decided we
needed another car. You should never be in the mountains without a backup.
That’s what Cole told us. He said the winters can get real bad. What would we
do if one of us got stuck? Of course, I told him we always go places together.
He said it didn’t matter. You just never know what can happen. We need to be
prepared, so we took his advice.”

“I think he’s right. It sounds like the smart thing to do.” I
was just talking out of my head. My real thoughts were about Claire. Why was
she here without the kids and where was Carl?

We all stood there for a minute, looking at each other.

“All right, what’s the deal?” I finally asked, aiming my
question at Claire. “Where’s Carl and the kids?”

As usual, Mom was the one with all the answers. “Claire’s
here by herself. She needed some time alone to relax.”

“Bull!” I growled. “Claire doesn’t breathe without the kids
or Carl.”

“Come inside,” Claire said as she guided me. “We need to have
a talk. The news might be a little disturbing, so I think we should be sitting
down.”

“You forgot to put Athena inside when you left.” I looked at
Mom.

“I know, honey. We were all the way to
Charlottesville
when I thought about it. Dad said
she’d be fine. It won’t happen again.”

For Mom to forget to take care of Athena, something big must
be happening. I dreaded the thought.

Mom fixed dinner, while Claire and I sat on the couch,
discussing her husband’s infidelities. Dad was outside, tinkering with his
new/used
Toyota
pickup. Athena lay in the yard,
soaking in the last rays of the day’s sun.

“I did what you said, Jesse,” Claire admitted. “I looked for
clues. I tried not to jump to conclusions. Once I calmed down, I started
looking for things. I found receipts for a diamond bracelet and a pair of
pieced earrings. I also found receipts for dinners and hotel rooms at the
Regency. He wasn’t even smart enough to hide them. It’s over between us.”

“What do you propose we do about the situation?” I said in
jest, knowing she wasn’t going to do anything, but cry and whine, and
eventually go back to her husband.

“I’m going to divorce him,” she announced. “As far as I’m
concerned, he’s the one who screwed up. Let him pay the price. He betrayed me.”

Mom and I looked at each other, stunned.

Screwed up—is that what she said? I knew trouble was surely
in the air, if Claire had used the S word. She never cursed, (unlike me) and
this was tantamount to using extreme vulgarity as far as she was concerned—just
as bad as using the F word, which no one in their right mind would ever do in
front of our mother—ever.

“Don’t you think you should reconsider?” Mom said, totally
ignoring Claire’s remark. “It could be a mistake.”

“I don’t think so! Get over it, Mom. He’s a jerk,” she spat.
“It’s time I got myself together and dumped him. Like you always said... enough
is enough. I’ve reached the end of my rope.”

My sister had grown up right before my very eyes. Not only
could she recognize a no-win situation, but she also became stronger in the
process. I was glad to hear it. I loved my sister, and I knew what it meant to
have someone you love let you down.

“What about the kids?” I asked.

“They’re at home with Carl. I packed a few things and told
him to enjoy it while it lasted. Right now, he’s got his head so far up his
butt that he doesn’t know what time of day it is. I told him to pack his stuff
while I was gone, and be ready to move out when I got back.”

“Is everything out in the open?”

“Yes, we had a nice long talk. I yelled and cried, while he
begged and lied. He denied everything. He’s a man. When confronted, most men
will always lie. He must think I’m pretty stupid.”

“Have you seen a lawyer?” I hugged her.

“Yes, I went to one before I confronted him. I wanted to know
what to do.”

I pointed to her stomach and asked, “What about this baby?”

“I guess Carl will have to support it, too. He’s the father,
and I’m not getting rid of it.”

“Did he suggest you get rid of the baby?” I asked, shocked at
the idea of terminating a pregnancy. Under certain circumstances, I might have
felt differently, but I’ve never been put in the position of having to choose.

“He said I might be more appealing, if I wasn’t pregnant all
the time.” She began to sob.