Blood Reckoning, page 21
A few of Rudy’s diner’s regulars are present. As is John Paul’s teacher.
Mason Hayes is in attendance with his parents.
Not surprisingly, Easton, Meg, and Hank are not present.
“I wanted so much more for her,” I am saying.
My mouth is dry and my throat hoarse.
“Much more of this life and the possibilities each new day brings. I wanted her to get to watch her sweet boy grow into a good man. I wanted her to find what she was meant to do—in addition to being John Paul’s mom—and be able to experience the joy of doing it. I wanted to get to watch her find her way and grow into a wise, mature woman. I wanted so much more for her. And I certainly didn’t want her life to end the way it did. But I don’t get what I want. So I grieve today. I stand before you and share my sadness. I share my joy too—the joy of knowing Carla and having so many great memories, so many meaningful times. I just wanted more—and not just for me and for you, but mostly for her.”
Following the funeral, several of those in attendance tell me what a good job I did honoring her and expressing our collective grief, but I’m numb and don’t feel I did justice to Carla, her short life, her tragic death.
CHAPTER
EIGHTY
I’m so overwhelmed with sadness as I drive home from Carla’s funeral, so frustrated at not being able to help her that I have the strong urge to do something for someone, to reach out and help someone in some small way if possible.
I decide to stop by Olivia Nelson’s and check on her.
She looks surprised to see me when she opens the door. “Never expected to see you again,” she says.
“Why’s that?”
She looks like she hasn’t slept or eaten in days, as if the stress and anxiety inside her are actually eating her alive.
“It’s obvious, isn’t it?” she says. “You think I’m nuts. You’ve given up on me.”
I shake my head. “Neither of those things are true. I don’t think you’re crazy and haven’t given up on you. I’m here because I want to help you. Please—”
“But you still think I’m making it all up.”
“Prove me wrong,” I say.
“How?”
“I heard you were refusing to submit to a psychological evaluation,” I say.
“I know I’m not making it up.”
“Then you have nothing to fear from the exam.”
“Why are you really here again?” she asks.
“I told you. To check on you. See how you’re doing.”
“To see if I’m strangling or stabbing myself?”
Whether she’s doing it to herself or someone else is doing it to her, she’s still in danger and in need of serious help.
“No,” I say. “Of course not. I’m just worried about you. I’d like to help you.”
“I know you think you are, but you’re not. You’re not helping me. You’re helping my stalker. You’ve got everyone convinced that he’s not real, so now he’ll be able to kill me.”
“Let’s say I’m wrong,” I say. “What is the harm of being evaluated? Think about this . . . If I’m wrong . . . but you check into an inpatient facility for the evaluation anyway . . . you’ll be safe from your stalker.”
“I have nothing else to say to the man who signed my death warrant,” she says, before stepping back and closing the door.
CHAPTER
EIGHTY-ONE
Late that night as my family and much of the rest of the Northern Hemisphere are sleeping, I finish Carla’s diary while attempting to keep my tears from landing on the pages.
I’m in my library-like study, a room that is among the most sacred places in the world to me, surrounded by books and art and mementos and photographs of my loved ones that include Carla and John Paul.
My deep grief turns to a fiery red rage when among the final pages I read the following:
* * *
I was drugged and raped last night.
I still can’t believe it. I’m in shock.
I know who did it, but I can’t tell anyone. Not only because most people wouldn’t believe me and he and his family would make my life a living hell and try to take John Paul away from me, but I’m afraid of what John would do if he found out.
I feel so dirty and ashamed and used.
The thought of him touching me, being inside me, having complete and utter control over me to do whatever he wanted with me makes me so sick. I can’t stop throwing up. I can’t stop showering. I’ve scrubbed myself raw trying to wash him off me.
I always thought I was one of the lucky ones. So many of my friends were molested as children or raped in high school and college, but I never was.
I used to think the universe knew that not having a mother and having a drunk for a father was enough. But I was wrong.
How did this happen?
How did I let this happen?
How could I have been so stupid?
He’s so gross. So disgusting. The thought of him. I can’t. I’ve got to stop thinking about what he did to me.
I’m not hurt. He wasn’t violent, but I was violated. He didn’t brutalize me, at least physically, but mentally and emotionally he did.
I don’t know what I’d do if it wasn’t for John Paul. I can’t do all the things I want to because I’ve got to be here for him.
I want to kill the bastard. I want to chop his dick off and shove it down his throat. I want to kill myself. But I can’t do anything, and my precious boy is the reason why.
What else bad can happen to me? Surely this is it. I’ve reached my limit, right? No more bad shit for Carla, okay? I’m ready for more good things in my life like John Paul and John and Anna. No more bad. No more.
CHAPTER
EIGHTY-TWO
It’s the next morning.
I haven’t slept.
I’m not sleepy. I’m fueled up on fury, amped up on anger, filled with the desire to break something, to hurt someone. Not just anyone. A very particular someone.
It’s Sunday morning. I’m still in my study.
Anna and the kids are visiting her parents in Dothan. Given the condition I’m in, I’m grateful for the time alone.
I keep going over and over it in my mind. Who could it be? Based on what she wrote, I don’t think it was Mason or Easton. I don’t think it was anyone she had ever dated or been involved with. So who?
I’m not sure how I’ll be able to find out who it was. I just know I’m going to.
For now, I’m going to keep the information to myself, not make it part of the official investigation, not let anyone but Anna and Merrill know.
I have no way of knowing if whoever raped her also killed her, but chances are good that it’s the same vile person.
I decide to return to the evidence, to re-examine everything as if for the first time.
As I read witness statements and listen to recordings of the interviews I think about the latest VSA results that indicated Easton and Meg were lying and Mason and Lily were telling the truth.
My phone vibrates in my pocket.
I pull it out and look at it. It’s Michelle.
“Sorry to bother you on a Sunday,” she says.
“Don’t be,” I say. “It’s no bother.”
“I heard back on the paternity tests,” she says.
“Yeah?”
“Mason Hayes is not the father.”
I start to say something but she continues.
“And neither is Easton.”
I think about that.
“You there?” she says.
“Yeah. Just thinking.”
“Any ideas who it might be?” she asks. “I thought for sure it’d be one of them.”
I wonder if her rapist was the father and if he killed her or if the two crimes are unrelated.
“You thinking again?” she asks.
“Yeah, sorry.”
“Well, if you want more to think about, the lab tech said to give her a call.”
“Really?”
“Said she worked on a case with you in Atlanta more years ago than she cares to remember and would like to talk to you about something.”
“Cool. Thanks.”
“Let me know anything else I can do,” she says. “I want this fucker caught.”
CHAPTER
EIGHTY-THREE
“John,” Jodi Rambo says. “How the hell are you?”
“Been better,” I say. “How are you, Jodi?”
“What’s going on?” she asks.
I tell her.
“Oh, John, I’m so sorry. Doesn’t surprise me at all that you’re taking in strays or that you’re working Carla’s murder. Some things never change.”
“How are things with you?” I ask.
“I’m good,” she says. “Lots of blood under the bridge since I last saw you. Had a couple of kids. Had a couple of divorces. And helped put a lot of bad guys away. Couple of years back a new sheriff had me do some additional testing on the Atlanta Child Murders case, but . . . nothin’ came of it. I just hate it that there’s no justice for some of those poor kids. Hate that murderers have been walkin’ around free all this time. People keep tellin’ me we can’t catch them all, and I say why. Why can’t we?”
“I’m with you,” I say. “I appreciate you.”
“Well, you’re about to appreciate me even more,” she says.
“Oh yeah?”
“This is just between us,” she says. “Off the record.”
“Okay.”
“The general paternity tests y’all had us run both came back negative,” she says. “Neither suspect was the father. Those are essentially yes and no tests. Is the subject the father? Yes or no? But I noticed something on one of them that begged for a genetics test I wasn’t asked or authorized to do.”
“But you did it anyway?” I say.
“You know me,” she says.
“Know and love,” I say.
“For the paternity test we extract the mother’s DNA and run the child’s against the father’s. When I did this for the Easton Stevens suspect, I noticed far more familial similarities that there should of been for him not to be the father. So I did a genetic test. A child gets half of his or her DNA from the father and half from the mother. Siblings typically share about twenty-five percent with each other. The fetus we tested here was male and he and Easton share all the same Y chromosomes and twenty-five percent of their DNA.”
“Easton isn’t the father,” I say. “He’s the brother.”
“You didn’t hear it from me,” she says. “Just wanted you to know who to have tested next.”
CHAPTER
EIGHTY-FOUR
Hank Stevens raped Carla.
No wonder he’s been fighting so hard against our investigation. No wonder he told Easton to refuse to take the paternity test.
I realize with a sense of utter futility that even with Carla’s journal entry and a paternity test we can never get a conviction for rape. All he has to say is that it was consensual. She doesn’t name him in her diary but even if she had we still couldn’t prosecute him—not for rape.
I think about what to do.
There’s what I want to do and what I should do.
I want to kill him.
What I should do is keep working the case to see if he killed her and if I can build a case strong enough for a conviction.
What I decide to do is confront him and his family with this new revelation and see how they respond.
I will continue to work the case, continue to attempt to figure out who killed Carla, but for now I have to stand up for Carla, be her voice, her witness, against her rapist.
If tradition holds, Hank will be having Sunday lunch with Easton and Meg—something he brags about never missing as part of his family values platform every time he runs for re-election.
CHAPTER
EIGHTY-FIVE
“We’re having lunch right now,” Meg says. “Can you come back later. Or better yet . . . contact our attorney if you wish to speak to us.”
I push past her and enter the house.
“Hey,” she says. “Come back here. You can’t—”
“What is it, Megan?” Hank says from the dining room.
I rush down the wide hallway beside the ornate staircase to find Hank and Easton sitting at the dining table, a large spread before them.
Meg walks in the room behind me. “I told him to go away. He just came in anyway.”
“No need to be rude, Megan,” Hank says. “John, would you join us for lunch? We’d be happy to have you.”
As usual, Hank is wearing pressed khakis, a sky-blue Columbia fishing shirt, and brown work boots, though he doesn’t do work that requires boots, and they always look like they were just taken out of the box.
Meg comes around in front of me and moves over behind her chair but doesn’t sit.
“We got the paternity test results back,” I say.
Easton looks confused, jerking his head from his wife to his father. “I didn’t take a paternity test,” he says.
I nod. “Yes, you did.”
“No, I refused.”
“We extracted your DNA from the envelope you licked.”
“What? Why? You can’t do that.”
“Sure, we can. And we did. It’s legal.”
“We’ll fight it,” Hank says. “Nothing to worry about, son.”
“Don’t you want to know the results?” I ask Easton.
He shakes his head. “No.”
“Why not? Is it because you and Meg have been lying to us?”
“We most certainly have not,” Meg says.
“VSA says differently.”
“I don’t care if—”
“Easton,” I say. “You’re not the father.”
They all looked relieved and let out a collective, audible sigh.
“Well, that’s good news,” Hank says. “See? I told y’all everything would be all right, didn’t I?”
“You’re not the father,” I say, “because your father is. Your dad drugged and raped Carla. She was carrying your half-brother.”
“What? No.” He shakes his head violently as if the force will shake out the sounds and images inside.
“I will sue you for slander and defamation,” Hank says. “You better not utter a word of this ever again.”
I have been trying to avoid picturing Hank raping Carla, but with him in front of me now I am no longer able to keep the images at bay. The thought of his disgusting, fleshy, liquored-up old body on top of Carla makes me want to take a machete to him.
“Her diary says you raped her,” I say. “And the genetic test says the boy she was carrying was yours.”
“Daddy wouldn’t do that,” Easton says, sounding like a small child. “There’s no way he would ever do anything like that to me.”
I look at Meg, who has remained silent thus far.
Something is happening inside her. She appears to be weighing her options, deciding what to do.
“He tried it with me,” she says.
“What?” Easton says. “No.”
“Yes. He has hit on me so many times—sometimes right in front of you. Wake the fuck up. Be a man for once in your little life. He’s tried to drug me too. He has a reputation, and you know it. All the young girls in town are told never to take a drink from him. They call him Hank Cosby.”
“Stop it, Meg. No.”
“Your own wife,” she says. “And you’re going to side with your rapist piece of shit dad? You’re about to be a father yourself—unless he drugged and raped me without me knowing. I better get a paternity test too. But if our child is yours, what kind of father are you going to be? A weakling daddy’s sugar boy who lies and cheats and defends a rapist?”
Easton shakes his head.
“Don’t listen to her, son,” Hank says.
“Now it’s not just rumors and accusations,” she says. “There’s physical evidence. You can’t keep on denying it. There’s proof. He raped your girlfriend. He’s tried to rape your wife. He’s a sick fuck who—”
“If he fucked Carla,” Easton says, “it’s because she seduced him. She was a dirty slut and—”
I step over and slap him so hard on the face it knocks him out of the chair.
He stands up, holding his cheek, but doesn’t make a move toward me.
“Do something,” Meg says. “He just bitch slapped you, and you’re just gonna take it.”
“No, we’re not,” Hank says.
He’s standing now, a small revolver in his hand pointed at me.
“Step away from my boy,” Hank says. “He’s right. It was consensual. She begged me for it. She wanted to be with a rich and powerful man.”
“You’ve got the drop on me,” I say. “Think very carefully about your next move. You are pointing a weapon at a law enforcement officer. I’m about to withdraw my weapon and arrest you, so if you’re going to shoot me now is the time. I’m not going to stop coming after you. I’m going to tell everyone what you did. I’m going to make the rest of your life absolute misery.”
As he thumbs back the hammer of the revolver, Meg steps over in front of me.
“I’m a county commissioner,” he says. “I own this town. You’re a . . . You’re not gonna come into my house and talk to me like this.”
I withdraw my weapon.
“It’s not your house,” Meg says. “We’re not your property.” She turns toward Easton. “See? He thinks everything is his, your house, your wife, your—”
“He did help us with the down payment,” Easton says.
I slide out from behind Meg, my weapon pointed at Hank. “Drop your weapon,” I say.
Meg is shaking her head at her husband. “You’re even more pathetic than I realized. I thought you just did what I told you, but . . . How can you be such a—”
“He’s a good boy,” Hank says. “He listens to me, which is more than I can say for you. Hopefully your boy will take after his daddy and not you.”
