“It’s not really kind. I just think that it could be a very volatile situation and I could be there in case it got out of hand. I don’t want anything happening to you. Have you told my folks about this?”
“No, you’re the only one. But, Kelly’s not stupid. I bet she’s figured it out. She was there when the police returned the books.”
“I don’t want to throw gasoline on this fire, but do you think she’s done anything else?”
“What do you mean?”
“I don’t know really, it just seems that if you’re willing to steal from a charity and your father—is there anything of value that could have been taken from the house, jewelry, anything like that?”
“I can’t bear the thought of that. Let’s not think about that right now.” A deep sigh came through the phone. Becca looked down at her yellow pad and underlined Cassie’s name several times. On Matt’s end he wore a sad and concerned expression.
“I’m so sorry, Matt. I didn’t mean to dump all this on you. It’s just that I’ve been laying here on the bed thinking and crying and worrying, and trying to figure out what to do.”
“You can dump your problems on me anytime you want, or need, to. I want you to know I’m here for you and want to help you any way I can. You really matter a lot to me.”
Rebecca was surprised by Matt’s declaration. She couldn’t find words to respond the way she wanted. She changed the subject. “I think I should talk to her sooner rather than later. So, I guess I’ll do it in the morning.”
“You’ll be in my thoughts and prayers. Let me know how it goes.”
“Thank you, Matt. I care about you, too. I better get some sleep now. Good night.”
“Good night, Becca.”
“Good morning, sleepyhead.” Sharon greeted Becca as she entered the kitchen.
“It smells wonderful in here.” Becca walked toward the stove.
“I’m making your favorite cranberry popovers, and that bacon, potato, and egg dish you like so much.”
“You are the best, Sharon.” She kissed Sharon on the cheek and gave her a squeeze of her shoulders. “Is Cassie up yet?”
“Oh yeah, she’s been up for about an hour. She just left a couple minutes ago to take the dog for a walk. It’s so nice having you guys here. If for no other reason, I don’t have to walk the dog.” Sharon laughed and stirred the potatoes.
“How long till the popovers are done?”
“Oh gee, at least 20 minutes. I thought I’d wait till you got up so they would be hot and right out of the oven.”
“I think I’ll go join Cassie, she probably went to the park. There’s something I need to talk to her about. It shouldn’t take long.”
“Okay, I’ll wait to put them in the oven until you get back.”
“Where’s Russ, by the way?”
“Oh, he left too. He’s meeting his buddies down at the donut shop. He says it’s the only thing I can’t cook.”
Becca grabbed her lightweight jacket from the rack in the hall and headed down the street. As she approached the park with its slightly rolling hills, she saw Cassie and the dog standing by the little lake. She dreaded another confrontation with her sister. But, maybe the serenity of the surroundings would make things easier.
Cassie looked up and as she spotted Becca approaching. She let go of the dog’s leash. The dog immediately ran to meet her.
“Hey, boy! You out for a walk?” The dog kept hopping up and hitting Becca with his front paws. “Okay, Okay, down, get down.” Becca patted the top of the dog’s head and then scratched it behind the ears. “Let’s go back and talk to Cassie.” As if knowing exactly what she meant, the dog turned and, leaping and jumping, it ran back to where Cassie stood watching her sister.
“What are you doing down here?” Cassie was not pleased to see her sister.
“I’ve come to talk to you.”
“You couldn’t wait till I got back to the house?”
“Cassie, I understand why you’re so angry.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Kelly and I went over the accounts in preparation for the reopening of the Center. Why didn’t you tell me you’d taken money from the accounts?”
“I did no such thing.” Cassie snapped.
“There’s no sense in denying it. We’ve checked the bank. We’ve checked the accounts and we’ve discovered your feeble attempt at copying daddy’s signature. All you had to do was tell me that you borrowed the money.”
“You think you’re so smart. Miss perfect, always has the answers, always knows the way, and loves getting the goods on me.”
Becca took a deep breath and bent down and patted the dog’s back. “I wasn’t the only one who knew.” There was a long silence. Then Becca asked, “What did you do with all that money?”
“I don’t have any money,” Cassie snarled.
“Stop it!” Becca stood and faced her sister. “I’m sick of your lies, I’m sick of your attitude, and I’m sick of this whole stupid charade. You don’t like the Center, you don’t like its mission, and you want to leave Orvin. I get it. So you took the money and squirreled it away for your eventual departure. I get it. What you don’t get is that you could have had the money. I’m sure mom and dad would have been happy to get you started wherever you wanted to go.”
“There you go again! You always think you know everything. Well, they wouldn’t give me the money. I asked for help, dad said no. I pleaded with mom, and in her usual, mealy mouth way she said, ‘It’s up to your father’. Do you know how much it costs to go to college these days? Do you have any idea what an apartment costs? You might be happy to live in a hut in the jungle, but I’m not. I didn’t take a vow of poverty. They wouldn’t give me any money so I figured out a way to take it. What are you gonna do about it?”
“Unfortunately, embezzlement is a crime.”
“So, are you gonna have me arrested? Then arrest Maryann too! She signed the checks for me. She could copy dad’s signature perfect.” Cassie put her wrists together and shoved them out toward Becca.
“That’s not true. Maryann is—”
“What, your surrogate mommy? She needed money to pay Molly’s medical bills so she was eager to help. We all have a price, Becca. You have to make a decision. You want in?”
“I don’t have to do anything. The police examined the books and they’re the ones that found the discrepancies. Kelly and I couldn’t believe there would be money missing, so we went through the books ourselves, trying to prove them wrong. Kelly also found a letter in daddy’s drawer.”
“There’s no letter. I went through everything, all the files. Everything.”
“Well you missed it, because it had fallen from the top drawer and was caught up on the drawer below.”
“Liar! You’re just trying to trap me.”
“I don’t have to trap you, it’s all laid out in a letter that daddy wrote and hadn’t given you. It said he forgave you, and asked you to return the money, and that he would help you with your plans. So you see? You stole the money for nothing.”
“You’re just like him, condescending know-it-all, self-righteous, overbearing, obnoxious cow, I hate you! I hated him, and I hated your mealy mouthed mother. I’m glad they’re dead.”
“What are you saying? How could you talk like that about our parents? Did they know you felt like that?”
“They do now. I went to the house to tell them.”
“What do you mean?”
“I went to the house and I told them how much I hated them. And do you know what your father’s response was? Do you know what he said to me? He said that ‘mother and I will pray for you and we’ll get you some help if you need it’. And then, mother said. ‘Yes dear, listen to your father. He knows best.’ I couldn’t stand it anymore so I shot that mealy mouth bitch in the chest. And then I shot him. And I would do it again, over and over and over.”
“Oh Cassie, Oh Cassie! Please, please. We need to go see someone. We need to
get help.”
“Stop it! Stop, shut up, you’re just like them.”
Cassie reached in her jacket pocket and pulled out a small pistol. “You’re so excited to go to heaven. Let’s send you there! She pointed the gun at her sister.”
Rebecca stepped forward and said, “Go ahead if you think that will solve your problems.” She took another step, and stepped on the dog’s foot. The dog howled in pain and jumped back, bumping into Cassie and giving Becca a window of opportunity to lunge forward and grab the gun.
Cassie swung her other hand and hit her sister with the side of her fist in her face. Temporarily blinded, Becca continued to struggle to get the gun away from Cassie. Cassie lunged out again, striking Becca just below her ear. Becca pushed hard against her sister and they both tumbled to the ground. Cassie reached out and grabbed a handful of Becca’s hair, pulling her head back hard. She tried to maneuver the gun now pressed between them.
“I hate you, I hate you!” she screamed.
Becca struggled trying to free her head and twist enough to be able to open her airways. Cassie continued to twist and pull the gun until she felt it was pointing in Becca’s direction. She squeezed the trigger and sent the bullet into her own chest and through her heart.
The two lay still on the grass as Cassie’s hand dropped from Becca’s hair. As she tried to rise from the top of her sister she looked through her tears into her sister’s dead eyes and frozen angry face. Becca rolled onto her back, the dog licking her face.
A man in his forties in a pair of gym shorts and a blue t-shirt ran up to where the two girls lay. “What’s going on? Oh my God!” He pointed at the circle of blood on the front of Cassie’s powder blue shirt. “What have you done?”
“Call the police.” Was all Becca could mutter.
As Becca lay on the grass panting, in the distance she could hear the wail of approaching police cars. The first vehicle to arrive on the scene was an ambulance. It looked so strange coming across the grass, adding to the surreal swirl of confusion. Moments later, two police cars sped across the park and stopped on either side of the girls.
The man who called in the report called out in a frantic rapid-fire report. “The dead one has the gun! The dead one has the gun!”
With guns drawn, two officers approached Becca. “Are you hurt, miss?”
“No, but my sister’s hurt.”
One officer reached down and offered Becca his hand. “Let’s get you up.”
The other officer knelt and put two fingers to Cassie’s neck. Looking up, he shook his head. Two paramedics were standing at the ambulance waiting for instructions from the police officer. “This is going to be awhile,” the officer said to the paramedics. “You can stand down.”
The younger officer who helped Becca up guided her fifteen to twenty feet from the scene. He keyed the radio attached to the epaulet on his shoulder. “We need homicide and forensics at the park ASAP.”
Turning to Becca he said, “What’s your name?”
“Rebecca Poore.”
“Are you any relation to the couple that was murdered recently?”
“I’m their daughter.”
“And who is the woman over there?”
“That’s my sister. She killed them.”
“How do you know that, miss?”
“She told me before she tried to shoot me.”
“What’s her name?”
“Cassandra Poore.”
“Are you okay?”
“No, I’ll never be okay again.”
The officer pointed at the bench facing the small lake. “This will take some time; maybe you should have a seat over there.”
Without saying a word, Becca walked to the small bench facing the lake and took a seat. Russ and Sharon’s dog slowly walked up to her as if he knew there was something terribly wrong. Becca patted the bench. Ratchet jumped up and lay down with his head in her lap. She gently stroked his neck as she watched three ducks bobbing in the lake for food.
It took nearly fifteen minutes for Detective Bishop to arrive in his dark blue, unmarked car. He parked on the street and walked to where the two black and whites, and the ambulance were parked. The forensics team got busy taking pictures and swabs from Cassie’s hand. One technician was standing with Becca taking a sample from her hand as well.
Upon seeing the detective approaching, the head Medical Examiner turned and met him twenty to thirty yards from the others.
“What have we got?” Bishop nodded toward where Cassie lay.
“Apparently the deceased pulled a gun on her sister, a struggle of sorts ensued and the gun went off. The one with the gun took the bullet. The girl on the bench is going to need some medical attention. I’ve been holding off sending the paramedics till you got here and released them.”
“What’s the matter with her?”
“She took two or three pretty good blows to the face, her eye is swollen shut and she’s badly bruised on the neck.”
“Has anybody spoken to her?”
“Reynolds took her over and sat her down, got her name, but nothing since then.”
“Alright, I’ll go have a talk with her.” Bishop moved towards where Becca sat.
“Hello Rebecca.” Bishop approached the bench and took a seat next to the sleeping dog. “You want to tell me what happened?”
“It wasn’t her.” Becca was still looking at the ducks. “I don’t know who that person is. It’s not the person I knew and loved as my sister. She’s a stranger to me.”
Bishop shifted his weight and turned slightly towards Becca. Waking the dog, Ol’ Ratchet growled and got down from the bench. “You know, sometimes people do things so far removed from our experience and understanding, they truly do feel like strangers. What started this?”
“I confronted her about stealing money from the Center.” Becca turned for the first time and looked Bishop squarely in the face. “When you returned the books, Kelly Sage and I tried to prove you wrong and went through them, but you were right. There were serious discrepancies in the bookkeeping. But, it wasn’t until Kelly found a letter from my father that our suspicions became a reality.”
“Where is that letter?”
“Kelly still has it.”
“And what did it say?”
“It implied that my sister was embezzling money.”
Becca looked back toward the ducks on the lake. “I used to come here when I was in high school to read. I never noticed the ducks before.”
“Where did the gun come from, Rebecca?”
“Cassie had it in her jacket pocket.”
“I meant, where did she get a gun?”
“It was my fathers. She did it, Detective.”
“She did what?”
“She killed my parents.”
“How do you know that, Rebecca?”
“She told me just before she pulled the gun on me. I don’t think she really would have shot me, I really don’t. But, I don’t know what happened. All I remember is the dog yelping and jumping and the next thing I knew, Cassie and I were tumbling to the ground. I tried to grab the gun, and then it went off.”
“I’m going to need for you to come downtown and make a statement.”
“Whatever you need. Somebody needs to let Sharon know not to make the popovers.”
“I’m sorry?” Bishop glanced around the park.
“Sharon and Russ Walker. We’ve been staying with them. We didn’t want to go back to our house. Sharon was making me popovers for breakfast. I told her I’d only be a few minutes.”
Marty Bishop stood, and for a long moment looked across the little lake at the ducks swimming toward the shore. He thought of bringing his children to this park. He remembered when they were little bringing little bags of dried bread to feed the ducks. It seemed so unfair, he thought, that there was a dead body lying where children play.
Becca’s words rang in his head, ‘She did it.’ What a horrible thing to say about your own flesh and blood. As many time
s as Bishop had been in similar situations, the idea of killing a member of your own family still made his temples pound.
He looked over at the body lying on the grass, “I’ll get someone to take you the station. We’ll let Mrs. Walker know.”
“There is one more thing.”
“What’s that?”
“She didn’t do it alone. Cassie told me Maryann Kopek forged the checks. She needed money. She helped.” For the first time Becca began to cry. Would there be anyone left in her life?
An older officer with a big belly drove Becca to the station.
“I knew your dad. A fine, fine man.”
“Thank you.” Becca rode along looking out the window.
“When I was new on the force, my partner and I were on a call. A young couple was fighting in the street, screaming and yelling to beat the devil. We rolled up and tried to get them to calm down. My partner, Marlin, said to me, “You take the guy and I’ll see to the girl.” For some reason only God above knows, he headed for the guy. He was directing this young fella to the back of the patrol car. Out of nowhere this kid pulls out a knife, whirls around and stabs Marlin. He stuck him four or five times in the side, then threw the knife onto the lawn of his house. Without a word he fell face down in the street, arms spread eagle.”
Becca turned and looked at the policeman. He stared straight ahead as he spoke.
“Marlin bled to death. Right there. The ambulance guys said the knife hit his kidneys and liver. I went to a very dark place. Your dad saved my life. Somebody in his church, to this day I don’t know who, said he should go talk to me.
“He prayed with me. That was the last thing I thought I wanted. He took a bottle of cheap bourbon from my hand and poured it down the drain in the kitchen. They went through the cupboards and poured all my liquor down the drain. That’s been almost nineteen years ago now. I’d be dead, or worse, if he hadn’t challenged me to man up. Yes, sir, he was the finest man I ever met. You know, he did my old man’s funeral too. God’s giving him a big hug about now, I have no doubt.” Emotion began to overtake the officer and he drove the rest of the way to the station is silence.
As Becca stepped from the patrol car, the policeman smiled at her. “Your daddy’s watching you darlin’. It’s all gonna work out in the end. If it doesn’t, it ain’t the end. Your dad told me that years ago.”
Soul of Cole Page 20