Family Secrets

by Ronnie Ashmore

  She looked like hell. That was Mike first thought. Her short hair was standing up in all directions, and both her wrists were taped and bandaged. She had wires coming from her arms, her chest, and her legs. Beside the bed monitors were in full function checking whatever they checked, and IV bags hung from poles alongside the bed.

  “Christine? You know Captain Morgan do you remember Chief Tolliver?” Mike asked, hoping she wasn’t still angry at them.

  She nodded and tried to smile.

  “I’m sorry. I’m so weak. Not physically, but in my mind. Y’all shook me up tonight…last night. I got scared.” She said, looking at Mike and Morgan. Her voice was hoarse and scratchy from the stomach pumping procedure and for a moment Mike was not looking at a thirty something year old woman, but instead he was seeing a scared little girl looking for protection from a boogeyman who didn’t live in any nightmare but inhabited flesh and blood. A scared girl who was asking for help the only way some victims of abuse know how, by being destructive to herself. Not just with this attempted suicide but with the lifestyle she had been living all her life. The drugs, the booze, all of it. The suicide attempt was just the loudest cry in what has been a lifetime of crying for her.

  “They told me what happened at your house earlier when they visited. Now we need the truth, all of it, or we can’t help anybody. And we want to help, you just got to let us.” Tolliver said, his voice was gentle yet forceful.

  “Okay!” She sighed, “Whatever Elizabeth told you. It’s true. But it got worse after she left. He took his anger at her out on me all the time. He said Toby and Elizabeth weren’t true to their family.” She rubbed her wrists where the bandages were covering the evidence of her self- destructive act. “Can you believe that?”

  “We are going to let you rest now, but you come talk to us the minute you get out of here, huh?” Chief said as he patted her on the shoulder.

  “I thought to tell before, you know. When I was younger, probably sixteen or so. After Elizabeth ran away. I told him that I would tell you what he was doing. He said you wouldn’t believe me because he was a businessman and someone important in the town. He convinced me, so I didn’t ever tell anyone.” She started crying in full force. “I was so scared. Why?” She leaned into Tolliver’s chest and cried.

  Tolliver let her cry. He hugged her smoothing her hair down and just let her cry. After a few minutes she was able to regain a little control and Tolliver patted her shoulder. They left there with a promise from her to see them later. On the way out to the parking lot Mike noted that Tolliver was a little shaken by Christine’s breakdown. He looked angry and upset.

  “Chief? You alright?” Mike asked.

  “Just thinking.”

  “I guess we have enough to arrest and detain Parks now, right?”

  “Enough to question. We still have no official statement of anything. But I will tell ya, if he refuses to come in to talk. I might beat the hell out of him.” Tolliver walked away.

  18

  The rising sun found Morgan and Mike sitting in front of George Parks’ house. They had come here after reaching the conclusion that it was time to interview Parks. Two outcries, two victims who wouldn’t go on the record yet. The chief had called Morgan while he and Mike were still standing in the parking lot. Tolliver had gone back to the office and found a CPS intake from Mikes’ phone call earlier to the hotline on the fax machine. There was no record of CPS ever investigating the Parks family, no surprise there they all agreed. The chief told them it was time to change that so now they sat in the driveway waiting for a light to come on inside the house before knocking on the door.

  Finally, a light came on in the house. Mike checked his watch it was seven o’clock. Both men walked up the steps to the front door. Morgan knocked putting his full police officer knock into the effort. Knocking so hard the glass panes in the door rattled. A few seconds later he knocked again louder.

  The door came open in a rush, “What the hell….” George seen it was the police and softened his tone a little. “Oh! Boys? How can I help you?” he asked, stepping outside and closing the door.

  Mike noticed that anyone who answered the door came outside on all his visits to this house. He never thought much of it but now he wondered what was on the other side of that door.

  “We got a problem. Chief needs to see you at the office.” Morgan said.

  “Now? What problem? Tell B.J. I’ll be down later after breakfast.”

  Before he could open the door and step inside Mike grabbed his arm hard stopping him. Parks tried to pull away, but Mike held fast. “Our instructions were to bring you in now. So, you want us to follow you as you drive yourself, or do you want us to drive?”

  Parks looked down at his arm that Mike had a vice like grip on. Mike reluctantly released his arm.

  “I reckon I can find my way. Let me get my keys.” His anger was evident in his voice.

  He stepped inside and Morgan and Mike walked off the porch to wait by their pickup. Parks came out and without saying anything got in his pickup and backed up. Morgan fell in behind him following all the way to the station.

  Once inside Morgan led Parks to the conference room and told him to have a seat as he closed the door. Tolliver came out of his office carrying a file stuffed with papers and met Morgan and Mike in the hallway.

  “I got the room.” Tolliver said, which meant he would lead the interview and the other two would sit there and only ask clarifying questions. It had been a long time since Mike had seen the chief interview a suspect. They nodded and all entered the room.

  Parks was sitting on the side of the table closest to the door with his back to them he looked around as they entered.

  “You’re in my seat. Sit over in that chair.” Tolliver said, motioning to a chair on the opposite side of the table. Parks looked around at the chair being offered said nothing, he got up and moved.

  “What is this about? Why did these men beat on my door at daylight and demand I come down here?” His voice was loud in the enclosed room.

  “We got a visitor last night we thought you’d like to know about. Did you know Christine is in the hospital?” Tolliver asked, he was holding back his disgust from his voice, but his face was showing his true emotions.

  “What? No! What’s wrong with her?” He asked, lowering his volume a notch.

  “The weight of the world finally fell on her and it nearly crushed her. But you know all about that, don’t ya?” Tolliver asked. as he finished speaking, he was standing over George Parks looking down on him.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about. You always talk in circles.” Parks said, looking up at Tolliver attempting to intimidate the chief with his stare. It was not working as neither man was going to break eye contact.

  “Elizabeth came to see us last night. She had some interesting and disgusting things to say about you. Christine tries to commit suicide and then she tells us Elizabeth is telling the truth.” Parks broke eye contact to look around the room. He looked at Mike then Morgan and back to Tolliver finding no sympathy from anyone. Tolliver continued, “You are a sick son of a bitch. In fact, you give sonofabitches a bad name.”

  “You’re crazy!” Parks said again raising his voice but this time standing up to look Tolliver in the eye. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. Christine tried to kill herself. I need to go to her, I guess, instead of sitting here with y’all.”

  “Why? So, you can show her how much you love her? Like you did when they were kids? You think she wants to see you?” Tolliver asked, blocking his exit from the room and standing eye to eye with Parks.

  “Chief, I don’t know what you’re talking about. I really don’t care either. You sound like you want to arrest me. Do you?”

  “I do. I really do. But that decision is not mine to make right now. The district attorney will make that call when we talk to him next week. In the meantime, CPS will be interviewing those kids you got living with you out there. You interfere with that
and I will arrest you.”

  “So, I’m free to go then? If you ain’t gonna tell me why you’re doing this, then I guess we’re done.”

  Tolliver stepped aside to allow him to walk out the door. “You know what you did. Now so do we.”

  Parks looked around at Morgan and Mike then back to the chief, “Next time y’all come on my property, better have a warrant. I ain’t playing nice anymore.” He walked out of the room and found his way out.

  Tolliver threw the file he was still holding across the room scattering paper everywhere. Mike saw that the papers were blank. Tolliver was trying to conduce cooperation by bluffing Parks, only Tolliver lost control of the interview. Mike was not going to tell him that, though.

  “Well, that went to crap in a hurry.” Morgan said, feeling none of Mikes’ hesitation on voicing his opinion.

  “I want him in jail!” Tolliver took a deep breath. “I want to talk to Christine, then the kids, then the DA.” Tolliver walked out of the conference room and went to his office. They could hear him mumbling something under his breath as he went.

  19

  In Morgan’s office it was decided that Mike and Amy Roberts, whom Morgan called on the phone to stand by and wait on Christine to be released from the hospital, would go with Christine to George Parks house to get Lydia and her brother when Christine was released. It was a waiting game now. Mike hated waiting.

  Tolliver walked in and leaned against the door frame as the two were grumbling. Mike noted he looked as if he had composed himself since his interview with George.

  “Chief, I don’t know that we shouldn’t have held Parks here.” Morgan said.

  “On what grounds? We got no charges, not even a victim on record. Just a bunch of stories from his children who have every right to be mad at him for a variety of reasons. No, we need to be smart about this.” He heard the door open and watched as Lieutenant Jimmy Williams came into the hallway.

  “I called Jimmy in to be here to talk to Christine. Maybe he can use their past to connect somehow.” Tolliver said, as Williams joined them. The chief moved into the office and Williams took his place leaning against the door frame.

  “Shoot! I don’t know if that’s gonna work. We were never friends in school.” Jimmy said.

  They said nothing. Someone had to go on record and give a statement. They needed Christine’s’ cooperation in this case. Hopefully she would cooperate after she was released from the hospital. Thinking of Parks getting away with what he had done was more than Mike could stand. The desk phone rang, Morgan answered.

  “Okay!” He hung up and looked at Mike, “Christine is being released now. You can wait on Roberts at Parks’ house and y’all bring the kids and Christine here.”

  As Mike was leaving the room the chief gave him a set of car keys. It was the keys to his patrol unit. Mike went out to the parking lot, unlocked the car door, got inside his car for the first time in nearly a week. It felt good to be back in it, Mike started the car and reversed out of the parking space.

  A few minutes later he was parked waiting just down the block from Parks’ house. Roberts would have to pass him to get to the turn in to the driveway and Mike planned on following her up to the house.

  It was a long wait it seemed, but an hour later Mike watched as Roberts passed him and turned into the drive. Mike followed.

  They parked in the drive and all three walked to the door. Christine looked a little better than the last time Mike had seen her, but her wrists still had the gauze bandages around them. She smiled at Mike as he caught up to them on the porch. George opened the door before they could knock. He stepped out on the porch and closed the door behind him.

  “George! Christine is here to get the two kids. We need them to go with us.” Mike said.

  “So, she can feed them more lies? They ain’t going’ with ya.” He said, staring at Christine as he was standing in the path of the door.

  “Oh, we ain’t asking, I’m telling you. Lydia is eighteen, she can come on her own. The boy, he’s going with us.”

  “Step aside, sir” Roberts said, as she tried to get by Parks.

  He didn’t move as Roberts tried to side-step him, he pushed her with one hand. She took the shove in the chest where her ballistic vest was, and the force of the shove caused her to stumble back. Roberts’ foot slipped into a hole from a missing board in the rickety porch dropping her to her knee as she became entwined in the rot of the porch.

  Mikes’ reaction was quick. Before Roberts’ knee hit the ground, he grabbed Parks’ arm and pulled, spinning him around to where his back was to the open yard and he was facing the front door. Mike shoved him hard into the front door rattling the glass pane in the door. Mike grabbed the pair of handcuffs from behind his back and handcuffed Parks before Roberts could stand up.

  Mike was glad that he was the one who was putting handcuffs on the old man. It gave him a satisfaction he would have had trouble explaining to anyone. He turned Parks around to face him again.

  “You are under arrest, for assaulting a police officer.”

  “I don’t guess we can work something out. I didn’t mean it.” He said, Mike thought he saw fear in his eyes for a moment.

  “Careful! We can add attempted bribery to the charge.” Mike looked at Roberts and continued, “You okay? I’ll put him in my car.”

  Mike led Parks off the porch to his squad car and placed him in the backseat. Since the back doors wouldn’t open from the inside and there was a divider between the front and back seats, Parks was not going to be able to get out. Roberts in the meantime, opened the front door of the house and led Christine inside to locate Lydia and the boy.

  Stepping into the house behind Roberts and Christine, Mike was shocked at what he seen. The place was immaculately clean. There was nothing laying around or appearing misplaced. It smelled of laundry detergent and the scented wax that people burned in those holders now days. As they walked further into the house, they could detect nothing out of place.

  From the front entry you came into a living room, which was furnished with old furniture that was worn out. There was a couch that looked broken as it was leaning to one side. Straight ahead was the dining room with a table in it, no chairs Mike noticed. The kitchen was to the left of the dining room, behind the living room wall. Further ahead was a hallway where Mike assumed the bedrooms were located. That was all that was visible from where they stood in the dining room.

  “Wow! I ain’t been in here in years.” Christine said, looking around. “It looks the same as when we were kids, nothing’s different.”

  “Where’s your mom?” Roberts asked.

  “I don’t know. I haven’t seen her since the last time I was here.”

  Ten years! Mike thought that had to be wrong. He was about to ask when he heard a door open down the hall. Lydia and her brother came out to see what was going on. Seeing Mike Lydia smiled and ran to hug him.

  “Hi!” she said, wrapping her arms around him.

  “Hi, Lydia. Your mom needs you guys to come with us. Is that okay?” Mike asked when she broke the hug.

  “Yeah! Do I need a bag?”

  “No darling, we are gonna visit the police station.” Christine said.

  “Okay!” She walked out the door first leading the others out. She seen her grandfather in the back of the patrol car and looked around at Mike, “Why is Grampa in the cop car?”

  “Oh, you guys are riding with Officer Roberts, and your grandpa is gonna ride with me.” Mike said, patting her on the shoulder.

  Looking at her she looked like a young full-grown woman but talking to her was like talking to a pre teenage kid. It was a sharp contrast to each other. They all went down the porch and got in their cars. As Mike started backing up a fleeting thought occurred to him. He had not seen any sign of Pam Parks. He made a note to ask Lydia about her at the station. As he glanced in the rearview mirror, he caught a glimpse of Parks glaring at him, Mike smiled back.

  20

  O
nce at the station he led George Parks into the back to the jail section of the building. The city jail was a temporary holding facility that lacked any amenities that the bigger jails afforded. The purpose was to hold a city prisoner until paperwork was completed and he could then be released to the sheriff’s office for booking into the county jail. Prisoners were allowed one phone call, but Mike doubted Parks would use his. He told the jailer what the charge was and that he would have paperwork in a few hours.

  He came into Morgan’s office in time to hear the game plan for Christine and her kids. Morgan, Lieutenant Williams, Mike, and Tolliver would interview Christine and Roberts would sit with the other two in the patrol room. It was agreed if at any time the interview became difficult or it appeared that Christine would not openly talk then everyone would leave, and Morgan would conduct the interview alone. With ground rules established Morgan left to set up the recording system to get Christine’s statement on record. After a few minutes everything was ready.

  Mike went to get Christine from the patrol room. She was sitting in silence staring at the floor. He led her down the hall to the conference room as the others came out of Morgan’s office and followed her inside. Morgan used the remote control he had in his hand to activate the camera that was set up at the far end of the large table. The camera started recording as everyone took their seats.

  “Wow! I got to tell this to all of you?” Christine asked, settling in her chair. She was nervous and a little scared. She rubbed her wrists where the bandages were.

  “I can have some step out if you want. But we were all at the hospital with you when you started to tell the story. I asked Jimmy here because of you being in school together. You tell me what you need.” Tolliver asked. Mike noticed every time he talked to a victim, he was smooth and gentle, when his style was gruff in normal times.