A Reunion to Die For (A Joshua Thornton Mystery) Page 12

  Joshua gestured towards the home back in the hollow they had just left. “Unless we can find a viable motive, Phyllis didn’t kill Rex. If she wanted to kill him, she could have done it and gotten away with it weeks ago when he broke into her house and violated the restraining order.”

  “She tried to shoot his balls off, but missed her target by two inches.”

  “That was a simple domestic dispute,” Joshua said. “Whoever killed Rex went to the boardinghouse to get his book to make sure no one read it. What murder could Phyllis have committed that he would have known about?”

  “Come on, Josh! The Barlows lived right next door to Tricia Wheeler.”

  “Why would Phyllis kill Tricia?” Joshua offered another theory. “Margo Sweeney Connor bailed Rex out of jail. She isn’t known for her charitable nature. Now I want to know why Margo would send her lawyer to defend and bail out an employee she had fired.”

  He continued, “We can’t make assumptions about which murder Rex was writing about. He spent most of his life on the wrong side of the tracks. There are a lot of murders, solved and unsolved, that he could have happened onto.”

  “Then we need to find that book,” Tad said, “which our chief of detectives swears doesn’t even exist.”

  “That’s because he’s an idiot,” Joshua muttered. “Cavanaugh has already chalked up Rollins’ murder to a drunken brawl over an unpaid loan. Do you think Rex was smart enough to back up his book onto a disk? Maybe we can find that.”

  With a shake of his head, Tad declared that Rex wasn’t that smart.

  Jan was waiting at Joshua’s office to invite him out for a cocktail at Dora’s.

  His solemn expression when he plopped down in the chair behind his desk contrasted with hers.

  “What’s wrong?” She slipped onto the corner of his desk.

  “Tad and I went over to the Rollins place to talk to Phyllis. Doug was there—”

  “Of course,” she said, noting that the siblings were constant companions.

  Joshua shook his head. “I think of what he used to be and I see what he is now, and it just breaks my heart. The guy was a certified genius. He never had to study. He knew everything.” He looked up at her. “What happened?”

  Jan shrugged. “Tad says that it is clinical depression. Doug has been on antidepressants ever since his only semester of college. He went nuts one night and broke all the windows in his dorm. They had to take him away in a straightjacket. His family didn’t have the money to send him to school, so after he lost the scholarship, he had to make do the best he could.”

  “I remember him crying all the time, out of the blue, for nothing, during our senior year.”

  “That’s the first time I ever noticed anything not quite right with him,” Jan recalled. “He’s tried to kill himself, I don’t know how many times. I think it was over a woman.”

  Joshua chuckled, “Why is it that every time someone gets messed up you blame it on a failed romance?”

  “Doug was pretty fragile to begin with. He meets a woman who shows him the ways of the world. She ups and leaves him high and dry, and he can’t handle the pain of a broken love affair. It won’t be the first time someone’s life was ruined because of unrequited love.”

  “Are you blaming me for Gaston firing you and ruining your life?”

  Jan glared. “Tad told you.”

  “No, there was another journalist from The Vindicator at the courthouse to cover Manners’s arraignment—”

  “And the detective who screwed up a stakeout that almost got a hostage killed until the first-born son of our county prosecutor single-handedly captured the county’s baddest bad guy.”

  “It’s in the genes,” Joshua said proudly.

  “It’s an irresistible story. Can I have an exclusive interview with J.J. that will let me write a story that will get me my job back?”

  “Ask him.” He patted her knee. “Don’t let it get you down, Jan. I’ve gotten fired myself. When God closes one door, He always opens another. You just have to find that open door.”

  “Did you get fired for throwing a milkshake in someone’s face?”

  “No.” Joshua tried not to look surprised. When Tad had told him that Jan got fired he mentioned nothing about an assault with a milkshake.

  “I guess I need to apologize to Gail.”

  “I should say so,” he told her in a paternal tone.

  Jan slipped down off his desk. “I guess I better do it now.” She went to the door.

  He muttered for her to hear, “Don’t take any loaded milkshakes with you.”

  Of course, Gail’s house would be more beautiful than Jan’s own two-bedroom cottage in which she had lived since birth. Even though her rival was renting, Jan felt a pang of jealousy when she pulled up the drive to the redbrick ranch house that was sprawled out across the lot tucked back into woods next to the Pennsylvania state line.

  It was secluded. The way a writer’s retreat should be.

  Jan gulped down her envy. She remained in her car to work up the nerve for another encounter with Gail. Now she had to humble herself and apologize. She walked up the brick sidewalk to the front stoop and rang the doorbell. The glass-paned storm door was shut. The inside door was ajar, which allowed her to see through the great room to the patio doors on the other side of the house.

  Anticipating her hostess’s arrival to let her in, Jan waited. “Gail!” She rang the doorbell a second time.

  All was silent.

  She stepped inside.

  “Gail,” she announced herself when she went into the great room. “It’s Jan. Are you here? I came to apologize.”

  She listened to the silence.

  A lunch counter separated the great room from the U-shaped kitchen with a pantry behind it. The bedrooms and bath were in a wing to the left. The contemporary furniture was cheap. Jan wondered if it came with the lease on the house. It wasn’t the type of furniture that a successful journalist would have.

  A sickening sweet scent met her nostrils. She sneezed and rubbed her nose. “She needs to take out her garbage more often.”

  A folder lay open on the coffee table. An empty bottle of wine and wineglass were sprawled on the floor next to the sofa. A blue ink pen rested between them.

  Recognizing the writing instrument, she picked it up. Joshua Thornton’s name was engraved along the side. Her eyes narrowed with jealousy.

  When she threw the pen down onto the coffee table, she noticed the label on the file’s tab. It was the research folder on Tricia Wheeler. Jan glanced around. Seeing no one, she opened the folder to study the pages inside.

  An Associated Press news article downloaded from the Internet lay on top. Not touching it so that she could make a quick get away if Gail walked in and caught her snooping, she read the first paragraph from where she stood above it: “Bingingham.com vice president, Randall Fine, was charged with two counts of sexual assault. The charges came as a result of a complaint filed by his administrative assistant . . .”

  Randall Fine? Jan repeated the name while trying to recall who Randall Fine was and what connection he would have to Tricia Wheeler. She put it together. Randy! Randy was Tricia’s boyfriend and now he was up on two rape charges.

  Intrigued, Jan picked up the folder.

  Then, she saw the photo album underneath the folder. Curious still, she flipped open the cover of the book. Pasted inside was another article. This was a yellowed newspaper clipping. The headline read, “Bears Undefeated—14 to 0.” The sub-headline read, “Thornton leads the Bears to State Semi-finals.” A picture of Joshua in his football uniform was under the headlines.

  She turned the page. At first, she squinted to make out what was glued to the cardboard. When she did, she flushed. It was a used condom.

  She turned the page to
the next article. They were all clipped from newspapers. Then, there was the front-page article about Joshua being accepted to the Naval Academy.

  The album had many pages filled with articles. She flipped to the next page to find even more articles from The Vindicator reporting his achievements after Joshua left Chester. There were snapshot pictures of him. None were of him with his family. Jan concluded when she saw by his expression and the candid nature of the poses that he didn’t seem to be aware that his picture was being taken. Mingled with the pictures were other articles about court cases that made the news as his career flourished.

  Swoosh!

  She found that she was so immersed in the album that she forgot she was holding the folder and had dropped all the contents. She dropped to the floor to pick up the papers and stuff them back into the file.

  While she was on the floor, she saw the framed picture on a table up against the wall. That one was also of Joshua. He was with a woman in this picture.

  Jan put the album and folder back where she had found them and scurried over to study the picture. Joshua was several years younger. He held the woman from behind as they stood sideways for the camera. In profile, she showed off her pregnant stomach. They were both smiling at the camera.

  Jan had never met Valerie, Joshua’s late wife, but she had seen many pictures of the woman whose image was displayed in the Thornton home.

  This woman was not Valerie Thornton. It was Gail Reynolds.

  Suddenly afraid of what Gail would do if she caught her snooping through her things, Jan dropped the picture back on the table. Her hands shook as she tried to make sure it was in the same position she had found it.

  Then, her heart pounding, she ran out the door, got in her car, and raced back into town.

  I’m getting old, Tad concluded, as he plopped down into the chair behind his desk, closed his eyes, and laid his head back against the headrest to enjoy the sound of silence.

  His last patient of the day was an obese woman who wanted him to prescribe diet pills for her to lose weight. She was unhappy when he suggested that she try exercising and dieting first. When she left his office, he suspected that she was on her way to see a doctor he had heard a rumor was selling amphetamines.

  “Tad, I need you! Quick!” Jan threw open his door and ran in. She was so excited that she was out of breath.

  He started out of his nap. “What?”

  She tried to pull him up out of his chair. “Gail’s stalking Josh.”

  “You’ve got to be kidding.”

  “No, it’s true.” She tugged on his arm. “She’s been stalking him for years.”

  He pulled away from her. “Come on, Jan! Gail is a respected journalist!”

  “Then what’s she doing here?”

  “Investigating the death of an old friend.”

  She stomped a foot. “I wish people would stop believing that crap Gail dished out on television.”

  “So she came back to write a book for fame and fortune.”

  “No, she came here to stalk Josh! She has a photo album filled with clippings and pictures of him.”

  “So? She’s a fan of his investigative talents.”

  “She also has a picture, in a frame, of Josh and her and she’s pregnant!” Jan interjected.

  Tad hesitated to comprehend what she was saying. “What? Gail was pregnant? I didn’t know that she had a kid.”

  “Neither did I,” she told him. “But there they were. Josh was hugging her and they looked like they loved each other.”

  He smiled. “Did it ever occur to you that maybe she did have a baby? Josh is her friend. They ran into each other while she was pregnant and had their picture taken together.”

  “And she put it in a frame and has it displayed in her living room?” she finished in a suspicious tone.

  “You yourself said that Gail has no friends. Maybe Josh is the closest thing to a friend that she has.”

  She was shaking her head. “You have to see this for yourself.”

  “Are you asking me to break into her house and go through her things?”

  Jan almost said yes, but then realized the foolishness of breaking into Gail’s house to pry into her private business. “Can’t you go talk to her and see for yourself? You know about this stuff.”

  Tad paused. He didn’t want to admit that she had his interest. After all, Joshua had confessed that Gail did seduce him. “I can’t just drop in on her. I only knew her casually when Josh was in school and I haven’t seen her since then. She probably doesn’t even remember me.”

  She agreed. “I did go over to apologize, but I didn’t see her. How about if I go back and you go with me? Then you can see what you think . . . and then you’ll agree that she is stalking Josh and he’s the reason she came back here.”

  Nighttime was one of the worst times for widower Joshua Thornton.

  The house in which he grew up with his grandmother, even with five children, was too quiet when he went to bed. Fourteen months after her death, he still longed for Valerie and would spend his evenings reading books that forced him to concentrate on something other than the emptiness on the other side of his bed.

  Tonight, he was reading The Case for the Creator by Lee Strobel. Tad had lent Joshua the book written by a former atheist, who was saved when he went on a fact-finding mission to prove that God did not exist, only to find conclusive evidence that He did.

  When the phone rang at ten o’clock, Joshua assumed it was someone calling for one of his kids. Since he was the only family member with a phone in his room, he answered it in a sharp tone to deter the caller from dialing their number so late in the future.

  “I love a man with a forceful voice,” Tori Brody purred from across the phone lines.

  “I’m sorry,” he explained. “When you have teenagers in your house you have to do what you can to maintain control. Otherwise, the phone will be ringing at all hours.”

  “I feel sorry for you.” It was not pity he heard in her tone.

  “I’m not asking for sympathy.” Joshua asked, “Why are you calling me?”

  “You owe me. I got you Walt Manners. I should get something for that.”

  “I’m letting your client walk away from a burglary and murder charge. What more do you want?”

  “Okay, I owe you. I have an unopened bottle of cognac here. Why don’t you come over and get it?”

  “I don’t think so. Thanks anyway.”

  “You certainly know how to hold a grudge, don’t you, Josh?”

  “It’s not a grudge. I’m just wise enough to avoid trouble when at all possible.”

  “I’m not involved with anyone, and I had nothing to do with Max trying to slice up your face with that blade.”

  “You told me that twenty years ago.”

  “Don’t you believe me?”

  “Frankly, my dear, I don’t.” Joshua hung up the phone and returned to his book.

  Jan’s eyes followed Tad’s while he took in the woods surrounding Gail’s home.

  “I always wanted to live in a secluded place like this,” she said wistfully.

  “You’ll get yours, Jan.”

  “How can you be so sure?”

  “Good things come to those who wait.” He knocked on the door since they received no response to the doorbell.

  “Her car isn’t here,” Jan observed. “It wasn’t here earlier, either.”

  Tad turned to leave. “Looks like she’s not here.”

  She grabbed him by the arm. “Don’t you want to see? Gail is stalking Josh.”

  He shook his head with a smile. “Jan, I’ve been stalked. I know what stalking is. She may be infatuated with him. She may even love him, but she’s not stalking him.”

  “Maybe she’s not stalking him,” s
he relented, “but her elevator clearly isn’t going all the way to the top.” After making certain that no one was around to see them, Jan yanked open the door and pulled Tad into the house behind her.

  It was dark. She turned on the light in the front foyer with the wall switch.

  “We are now breaking and entering,” he told her.

  “We didn’t break anything. The door was open already.”

  “But we weren’t invited to enter.”

  She dared him, “Call Josh and turn yourself in.” She led the way to the photograph on the end table. “See.”

  He took the picture and studied the image. “I’ve seen this before.”

  “When?”

  He turned on the table light and held the photograph under the bulb. “At Josh’s house in Washington. It was a long time ago.” He squinted at it. “Only Gail was not the woman he was holding. It was Valerie. This picture was taken the first Christmas they were married when she was pregnant with the twins.”

  Jan felt vindicated. “I told you she was sick.”

  “We need to get out of here.” As Tad replaced the picture on the end table, he smelled a familiar odor. He sniffed in order to confirm the scent and shuddered. When he saw the door open as they had found it, he asked, “Was the front door open when you came here earlier?”

  “That’s how I got in.” She was flipping through the pages of the scrapbook. “Look at this album. She has to have cut out everything she has ever seen in print that has Josh’s name in it.”

  “It’s kind of late in the year to leave the front door open at night.” He covered his nose with his hand and he headed toward the bedrooms.

  “Where are you going?” Jan grabbed his hand.

  “I want to see what is down this hallway.”

  “It’s the bedroom.” She clutched his forearm.

  He reached for the knob to the door between them and the bedroom. The scent was stronger. He hesitated.

  “Jan,” he extracted his arm from her grasp, “wait for me in the car.”