The Sam Prichard Series - Books 9-12 (Sam Prichard Boxed Set 3)

by David Archer

  “That’s absolutely true,” Sam said. “Any idea where I can find Alan now?”

  Beth huffed. “I do,” she said. “He was always kind of like an uncle to my kids, and he still drops by every now and then. He lives down in Bradenton.” She gave Sam an address and phone number, and he wrote them down. “I can tell you he didn’t do this, though, he’s just not that kind of guy. I don’t think he has a mean streak in him anywhere.”

  “And you’re probably right,” Sam said. “It still can’t hurt for me to check him out, though. What about your ex-husband? Where do I find him?”

  Beth rolled her eyes, but she rattled off another address and number. Sam wrote that information down as well, then looked at Harold once more. “Anyone else you can think of?”

  “Not off the top of my…” He trailed off, and then looked at Sam with a curious expression. “You know, this might sound crazy, but I remember something Michael said a couple of months ago. He’d been out riding the motorcycle I gave him, and I guess he had a run-in with some motorcycle gang over around Melbourne. One of them wanted to buy his bike, but he said it wasn’t for sale and I guess it started a fuss. I kind of laughed it off, because I remember him saying he left six outlaw bikers laying in the parking lot of a bar.” He shrugged again. “If the stories you’re telling me are true, then maybe that wasn’t just an old man bragging.”

  “Any idea what club they were with? Or what bar it happened at?”

  “No, I’m afraid not. Like I said, I thought he was full of crap so I just ignored it. Let’s see, it would have been back in late June or early July. That’s all I can remember, right now.”

  “Hey, I’ll take whatever I can get,” Sam said. “Maybe there was a police report about an altercation, something like that. Any other ideas?”

  Both of them shook their heads, and Harold looked at his mother. “Mom,” he said softly, “the one thing I want to say to you right now is that I’m sorry you went through this. I’m not sure what to think about old Harry right now, but if he really is our father, we probably need to at least give him the benefit of the doubt. I gather he’s around here somewhere?”

  Kathleen nodded. “Our room is next door,” she said. “He’s waiting for me there.”

  Harold looked at his sister and gave her a wry grin. “What do you say we take them both down to the restaurant and get to know our real dad a little bit?”

  Beth glared at him for a moment, but then she seemed to deflate. “If everyone is so sure he didn’t do this, I guess I can give it a try.” She looked at her mother. “Don’t expect me to call him Daddy or anything like that, though. Michael may have been everything you claim he was, but all I remember is how good he was to us. Whether he was really my father or not, he was still my dad, and I’m not going to stop calling him that.”

  Kathleen nodded with a smile. “That’s completely understandable, Beth,” she said. “I’m quite certain Harry will understand, as well.”

  Harold got to his feet. “Shall we?” His mother and sister rose and the three of them walked out the door together. Sam sat back in his chair, picked up the cup of coffee that had already gotten cold and swallowed it down, then took out his phone and called Indie.

  “Hey, Babe,” she answered. “How’s it going down there?”

  “It’s going,” Sam replied. “We got through the police interview without Harry getting arrested yet, but I suspect it’s going to happen. Kathleen got the kids to come over and talk to me, so I got a couple possible leads to check out.”

  “Really? You think one of them might be the actual killer?”

  “I doubt it. We’ve got Beth’s ex-husband, who seems to be a typical bully except that he’s afraid of guns. Then there’s Michael’s ex-partner, but the issue between them happened years ago so it’s doubtful it would suddenly come up today. The only other thing I’ve got to go on is a possible altercation Michael had with a motorcycle gang some time back, but I can’t see that leading to this type of a murder. Still, I got nothing else so I’m going to check them out.”

  “Yeah, at least it’s something. If there’s anything I can do…”

  “Well, maybe you and Herman can figure out who I need to talk to about the motorcycle gang thing. From what Harold said, it must’ve happened in late June or early July over near Melbourne. Michael told him that he left several of the bikers laying in the parking lot, so there ought to be news stories or police reports on something like that.” He let out a sigh as he flopped back onto the bed. “Indie, I almost feel like I’m out of my depth on this one. Michael was a spy; he undoubtedly had enemies we’ll never be able to identify. The trouble is, if I don’t figure out who really killed him, Harry is likely to spend the rest of his life in prison for a murder he didn’t commit.”

  “Sam, come on,” Indie said. “It sounds like all they’ve got to go on is the possibility that Harry had motive. Unless there’s some kind of physical evidence you haven’t told me about?”

  “No, right now that’s all they’ve got, but look at the news the last couple of years. Look at how many people have spent decades in prison after being convicted on evidence just as flimsy as this. It’s great that a lot of them are being exonerated by new evidence now, but Harry doesn’t have that many years left in him. I can’t see him surviving years in prison while I spend all my time trying to prove he didn’t do it.”

  “I know you, Sam,” Indie said. “You’ll figure it out, you always do.”

  Sam sighed. “I hope so. I almost hate to ask this question, but I don’t suppose Beauregard has had anything to add?”

  “Not that I know of. I haven’t heard anything out of Mom today, and I’m sure I would have. Want me to call and ask her outright?”

  “No need for that,” Sam said. “Just let me know if the old spook decides to give us anything.”

  They spent a couple of moments exchanging sweet nothings, then Indie put Kenzie on the phone. Sam talked to his daughter for the three minutes her attention span permitted, then promised his wife he’d call her again before he went to bed, and hung up the phone.

  19

  This is the first time my family has truly been together in over thirty years, Harry thought. My wife is beside me, my children sitting across the booth, but I feel like a stranger to all of them.

  “I know this has to be hard on both of you,” he said aloud. “Despite everything, I can tell you that Michael was basically a good man. I know that you both loved him and have many fond memories of him, so you won’t hear me speaking evil of him.”

  Harold shrugged his shoulders. “From what Mom says, you have every right. What he did to you was wrong. If something like it happened to me and Janine, I’m sure I’d be pretty bitter.”

  “Oh, I’m not saying I don’t feel anger,” Harry said. “I most certainly do, because I missed out on watching the two of you grow up, I missed out on so many things in your mother’s life—I’m simply saying that I won’t subject the two of you to that anger. No matter how I feel about Michael, he was obviously good to you. Those memories belong to you, and I have no right to tarnish them. If you will both allow, we will simply put the fact of what happened on the table, and leave my feelings out of that. It’s not the past I want to talk about with you, it’s the present and the future.”

  “God,” Beth said suddenly, “this is going to be such a nightmare. How am I going to tell my kids about this? They loved their grandpa, they’re completely devastated by his death. Now I have to tell them they have another grandfather that they’ve never even heard of before? How am I supposed to do that?”

  “Well, I would certainly not expect you to do so today,” Harry said. “Those children need the chance to grieve for their loss. Let’s not confuse them right now; let them get through the funeral and start to adjust, and then we can tell them the truth together. Would that help?”

  Beth looked at him, but her eyes revealed nothing of her feelings. “I suppose it might,” she said. “It’s still going to
come as a major shock to them, though. I don’t know if they’ll ever really accept it.”

  “Of course they will,” Harold said. “I’m not saying it won’t take some time, but if there’s one thing I’ve learned about people, it’s that we adapt. We’re just all going to have to work together on this. It’s not something we can just throw out there and expect everyone to be on board with it instantly.”

  “I agree,” Harry said. “There’s nothing that needs to be rushed. It’s certainly going to take some time for all of us to adjust to this.”

  Harold turned and looked at his mother. “You know,” he said, “it just dawned on me that no one is asking you how you’re handling it all. You doing okay, Mom?”

  Kathleen smiled. “It’s all been a little overwhelming, I’ll admit that. There’s something I need to say, though, and I hope it won’t upset you kids too much.” She glanced at Beth, then turned to look at Harry. “I fell in love with this man many, many years ago. Even hearing that he was dead didn’t change that, and even though I did come to love Michael, I never stopped loving Harry.” She turned back to her children. “But you both need to understand that when I found out Harry was alive and that Michael had deceived me for all those years, any love I felt for him simply faded away. Michael told me he did this because he was so in love with me that he couldn’t bear the thought of us not being together, but the pain-and-suffering he put me through—no, that he put us through, because you kids were devastated when your daddy was suddenly gone—that isn’t what you do to someone you love. When I learned the truth, I wanted to leave Michael right then and let Harry know that we were still alive, but he told me that he would kill me and Harry if I tried. He even told me that, if I managed to contact Harry and let him know, then he would kill the two of you to punish me. Now, whether he would have carried out that threat, I really don’t know, but simply hearing him say it was enough to make me hate him. Naturally, I promised never to contact Harry, and I didn’t. I tried to be sneaky, though, and I got some fake IDs to use in traveling, so I could go and just watch him from a distance. I never would have contacted him, but Michael didn’t believe that. He found out what I was doing, and he set this whole thing up to draw Harry here with the intention of killing him. If it hadn’t been for Mr. Prichard, Harry at least would be dead, and probably me and Mr. Prichard as well.” She looked down at the table between them. “Like Harry, I’m not going to try to ruin your memories of Michael. I simply need you to understand that I do not share your feelings of loss, now that he’s gone. To me, frankly, it’s an incredible relief. If that makes you hate me, I can’t help it, but you deserve to know the truth.”

  Harold cast a glance at his sister, raising his eyebrows. “Sis,” he said, “I don’t know about you, but I think I can understand where Mom is coming from. I don’t believe she’d lie to us, but I’ll admit I’m having a little trouble reconciling my memories of Michael with the man who would do these sort of things.” He looked back at his mother. “Still, just the fact that we are all sitting here right now tells me that there are probably a lot of other things we don’t know.”

  Kathleen looked from Harold to Beth. “Beth? Can you understand?”

  Beth had the paper wrapper from a soda straw in her fingers, slowly ripping it into tiny pieces. “I guess I can,” she said. “It’s just so hard for me to imagine Dad doing these things. I mean, all my life, as far back as I can remember, he’s been the kindest, gentlest man I’ve ever known. It’s hard for me to believe the things you’re telling me, but I’m like Harold; I don’t believe you would lie to us about it. That makes it all even more confusing.”

  Harold nodded his head and then leaned forward to put his elbows on the table. “Okay,” he said, “so all of that is out of the way, for now. Harry, why don’t you tell us a bit about yourself?” He grinned. “Whatever you can, anyway, I’m sure there are plenty of things you’re not allowed to talk about.”

  Harry chuckled. “I see you inherited my sense of humor,” he said. “Yes, there are some things I can’t tell you, but what I can tell you is this: you and your sister were the two best things that ever happened in my life, after meeting and falling in love with your mother. Harold, you were my little cowboy. I used to get down on my hands and knees in the floor, and you would jump onto my back and ride me like a pony. Whenever I was home, you were always right there with me, and some of the best parts of me came from trying to be the best example I could possibly set for you.” He looked over at Beth. “You were my princess. Your mother used to get so frustrated at me, because every time I went somewhere I’d come back with another stuffed animal for you. There were times we couldn’t find you in the crib, because I piled them up in it and you would pull the whole pile down on top of yourself. I remember a particular stuffed bunny rabbit that you just adored, and you would keep it cuddled close to you just about all the time. When you started walking, you would come to me in my chair in the living room and throw the bunny up into my lap, and that was your way of telling me it was time to pick you up. I’d pull you up into my lap and hold you close, and you used to grab hold of my mustache and pull it, and the only way to make you let go was to give you a kiss. The whiskers would tickle you, and you would start giggling so hard, and it was just delightful.”

  He paused and looked at his hands, folded on the tabletop. “Those memories, they’re what got me through that first few months. Whenever I wasn’t working, I’d just sit and remember those times with the two of you. I think about when the four of us would sit down to eat dinner, with Beth in her high chair and Harold sitting in a chair beside me, sitting on a couple of big books so that he could reach the table, and you, Kathy, straight across from me with that beautiful, loving smile you always wore.”

  “I’m sorry you went through that,” Beth said softly. “I can’t imagine how I would survive if something happened to my kids. I can’t imagine that I’d want to survive.”

  “Oh, there were times when I didn’t want to. I thought about ending it all, more than once, but it always seemed to me that would be dishonoring your memories. The three of you had brought such joy into my life, I didn’t feel that I had the right to end it just because you were gone. I owed it to you to keep you alive in my memories. That was all I could give you, at that point, so I suffered through the pain and forced myself to smile whenever I thought of you.”

  Harold shook his head. “This is so weird,” he said. “I’m sitting here listening to you, and it sounds like the sort of things a man would say as he sat in a cemetery, looking at the graves of the people he loved.”

  “Yes, it does, doesn’t it?” Harry asked. “Can you imagine how strange it feels to me? I’m saying those things that would normally be said at a grave, and yet my lost loved ones are actually getting to hear them.”

  Beth looked at him, her eyes softening slightly. “Yeah, it must. Like I said before, I don’t know how I can handle it if I were you.” She turned her eyes to her mother. “Mom, why didn’t you tell us? Why didn’t you ever tell us that he wasn’t our real dad, that Harry was really our father?”

  “When Michael came to me and said Harry was dead,” Kathleen began slowly, “he had all this paperwork about how the KGB—they used to be notorious for hunting down and killing people, back then—he said the CIA had evidence they were going to come after us. In order to avoid that, we had to go into something like witness protection. We would each be given new identities, but it meant we had to completely abandon the past. Everyone we knew had to think we were dead, and that had been arranged. He explained that our house would burn down and that bodies would be found in the ashes, bodies that had died in accidents and such. They would be positively identified as the three of us, so that meant we could never go back and take up our old lives again. I wasn’t allowed to even speak of my family, or of Harry, not to anyone.” She shrugged her shoulders. “Unfortunately, that included both of you. That first few months, whenever you would cry and ask for your daddy, I just told
you he went on a trip. When Michael was around, he would spend a lot of time with you kids and you gradually started to think of him as your dad. When I realized that, I suggested to Michael that we should get married; he’d been asking me for a while, and I finally gave in. After that, you both called him Daddy and there was just no way to explain it to you without causing confusion or, as I believed at the time, putting us at risk.”

  “But you said, those letters, you were planning to give them to us someday and tell us about Harry, right?”

  Kathleen smiled sadly. “Yes, that’s what I thought at the time,” she said. “The thing is, as you both grew into young adults, I started to think that telling you might be cruel. I mean, as far as I knew, Harry was dead. You wouldn’t be able to go look him up, you’d never get to meet him; there was just no way to ever give you any kind of closure on it, so I finally just put them away. I guess I should have gotten rid of them completely, but they were the only connection I had to Harry. I just couldn’t quite give them up.”

  “Yeah, okay,” Harold said, “I can see all that. What I want to know is why you didn’t come to us after you found out Harry was alive and Michael threatened you. I would’ve protected you, Mom. I would’ve done whatever it took to keep you safe.”

  “Harold, I…” Kathleen trailed off, and Harry reached over and took her hand in his own.

  “Harold, it wasn’t herself she was worried about,” he said. “She said Michael had threatened the two of you. She was worried that if she said anything to you, and he found out about it, he might actually harm you in order to keep his secret. She’s your mother, she couldn’t take that chance.”