Robbie cleared her throat and looked out the side window.
“And I think you should, Jordy.”
“Yeah, well, I’ve got a case to solve. Nice knowing you, Tina.” I hit end before she could respond. I was pissed and hanging up on her made me feel better. Besides, there was nothing else to say. She did what she needed to make the transition easier on herself. Damn selfish.
“Are you all right, Jordy?” Robbie asked.
“Just dandy,” I growled.
“Then could you slow down, you’re scaring me,” Robbie said, pointing at the gas pedal.
I looked at the speedometer and saw that I was doing ninety-five in a seventy-five mile per hour zone. “Yeah, sorry about that.” I checked the rearview mirror for cops as I let up on the pedal.
“Thank you. I love to go fast in a car, but not when the driver is as upset as you are.”
“I’m not upset,” I protested. I was upset but not for being dumped… again. It was more because I had no say in the decision. Looking over our relationship, I realized that I had never gotten in the last word with Tina. She called all the shots and I let her. We weren’t partners; we were conveniences.
“Well, you have every right to be upset,” Robbie offered. “So, I thought we were going to your office first?”
“What?” I looked down the stretch of I-40. “Well, shit. Okay, maybe I was a little upset,” I confessed. “So, I guess we’re going to see your mother now.”
“Lillian’s not going to be happy that you didn’t bring her with us,” Robbie reminded me.
“Probably just as well, until we get things figured out. Your mother already has a preconceived notion about my dad, so she’s not going to be happy to meet me. My mother being the-re would only make things worse because of issues they need to work through.”
“Don’t worry, Jordy. Mom will be very civil. She just wants answers, like me,” Robbie said, pulling her cell phone out.
“That makes three of us,” I bantered.
Robbie tapped on her phone and I heard the swoosh of the text being sent. “Mom’s at home today and will be expecting us,” she said, putting her phone away.
“So, tell me about your mom.”
“You’re not scared are you?” Robbie teased.
Grinning, I nodded. “Maybe just a little.”
Robbie explained that until her mother met Jerry, she was working two jobs to keep a roof over their heads. Her first husband, Robbie’s sperm donor as she called her biological father, moved them to Las Vegas when her mother was pregnant with her. He couldn’t find a job, gambled everything away, and ended up a cokehead, leaving them to fend for themselves. When Robbie was six years old, her mother packed up their clothes and a few toys, piled her into the broken-down sedan, and drove them to her parents’ house in Little Rock. Her eyes glistened as she described her first introduction to her grandparents.
“I’ll never forget when she introduced me to my grandparents. Grandma gave me a long-eared pound puppy plush toy, which I carried everywhere for a year, and Grandpa picked me up and wrapped me in his big old bear arms. I was in love, and I wasn’t afraid anymore.”
“I’ll bet,” I said, remembering my own grandpa’s bear hugs. Damn, I miss them.
“With my grandparents’ help, my mom went to nursing school at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences. That’s where she met Jerry. He was in Little Rock doing some medical training. When she and Jerry got married, they bought a house in Germantown. Jerry commuted to work and slept at the firehouse in Memphis when he was on call. Mom got a job at a family clinic, so she wouldn’t have to work twelve hours shifts anymore. And I got to have my own room with a beautiful pink canopy bed.”
“Aw, I bet you looked sweet in your little pink canopy bed,” I teased.
“How did you know it was pink?’ she asked.
“It would have to match your shoes, of course.”
She swatted my arm. “Ha, ha. You’re so funny.”
“Mom, I’m home!” Robbie called as she showed me into her mother’s townhouse.
“In here, Roberta,” came the call from the kitchen.
“Any beer in the fridge?” Robbie asked.
Her mother came out of the kitchen, drying her hands on a towel. “What did you say, honey?”
“I said, do you have any beer?” Robbie asked again as she walked over to her mother and hugged her. She wrapped her arm around her mother’s waist and waved her hand at me. “Mom, this is Jordyn Stringfellow, Henry Stringfellow’s daughter. Jordy, this is my mother, Gloria Witherspoon-Phillips.”
It was as if I were looking at Robbie in twenty years. They were the same petite height, athletic build, beautiful oval face with identical soft indigo eyes.
“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Ms. Witherspoon-Phillips,” I said, holding my hand out to her.
“Call me Gloria, and I hope you can still say that after you leave here,” she said, without shaking my hand.
“Mom, please,” Robbie said.
I was expecting her resistance but it still put me on edge. I tucked my hands in my pockets and said, “And I think that after you hear what we have to say, you won’t still feel the same way.”
She glared at me as if she were deciding the best way to kick me out of her house.
“Mom, just hear us out,” Robbie encouraged. “I was skeptical at first, too. But we learned that someone deliberately set Jerry and Henry up.”
Gloria glanced at Robbie, confusion written across her face. She finally nodded. “Grab your beer and come sit down,” she said, and walked out of the room.
Robbie pulled a beer from the refrigerator and handed it to me, but when she didn’t get one for herself, I handed it back. I wasn’t going to draw any more attention to myself than necessary. She shrugged and placed it back in the fridge and then showed me into the living room. Photos of Robbie lined the walls, intermingled with family photos and a single photo of a scraggly looking cat. The same cat that Gloria was picking up from the recliner. “Come on, Sebastian, make room for me.” We sat on the couch across from the recliner.
As Robbie began to explain, I watched her mother’s eyes go from scorn to confusion, to realization, much like mine had when Robbie told me. But I was in a hurry to get back to Memphis, so as soon as Robbie was finished, I jumped in with my questions.
“Did you get a copy of the incident report from the insurance company?”
“No, not the incident report,” she replied. “But I read about it in the newspaper.”
“I was misled by that, too, Mom,” Robbie inserted. “But like I told you, the incident report that Lillian had explained everything.”
Gloria’s eyes softened as she glanced at me. “How is Lillian?”
“She’s doing great,” I replied. “She wanted to come with us, to be part of this so that you two could make up. Maybe, uh… you could call her later?” I hesitated at first, out of fear of being caught in the middle of a twelve-year-old feud, but then, I plunged in, hoping that their friendship could be rekindled.
“I might do that… later,” she replied uncertainly.
I pulled out my wallet and took out my business card. “Do you have a pen?”
Robbie retrieved one from her bag and handed it to me.
“I’ll give you her number,” I said, scribbling my mother’s phone number on the back of my card, “And my cell phone number is on the card. You can call either of us anytime, okay?” I handed her my card, and she looked at it closely.
“Thank you.”
Anxious to get back to my questions, I asked, “Did Jerry say anything to you about finding a smiley face?”
“No, nothing about a smiley face.”
“Did he talk to you before he died, Mom?” Robbie asked.
“I talked with him that morning, but it was his usual check-in call.” Tears welled up in her eyes. “The last thing he said to me was that he loved me.”
Robbie’s eyes glisten with tears also.
/> “I know this must be painful, but I have one more question, if that’s all right?” I asked.
Gloria caught a tear as it was about to fall and wiped it away. Then she nodded.
“Did Jerry have any enemies? Anyone who might have had a grudge against him back then?”
“Not that I can recall,” she replied.
“Think, Mom. Wasn’t Jerry promoted over someone else?”
“Yes, a couple of people. Scott Rogers for one.”
“He was in the running for the chief’s position?” I asked incredulously. Was he a drunk back then, too? Maybe that’s why.
“He thought so, but Jerry said he wasn’t even being considered,” Gloria clarified. “They thought he was too young.”
“That’s good to know. I’ll check into it, but I don’t think it was Scott. He’s dead.”
“Yes, I heard about it on the news. I’m sorry for your loss,” she said sympathetically.
I nodded. “Thanks.”
“The news said you were trapped with him, is that right?” Gloria asked.
“Yes, ma’am,” I answered, choosing not to elaborate.
“She almost died, too, Mom. It was horrible,” Robbie asserted.
“If not for your daughter, I very well might have died,” I said.
Robbie’s mouth gaped open. “Me? What did I do?”
“You didn’t do what you were told,” I teased, smiling when she did. “I had just given up, ready to die, and you called me and told me to stop being a jerk.”
“Roberta, you didn’t?” Gloria admonished.
“But she was being a jerk, Mom.”
I chuckled. “She’s called me a jerk five times, and I’ve only known her for two days.”
“No, that’s wrong,” Robbie shot back. “I called you a jerk four times, and we’ve known each other for three days. The fifth time it was your mother who called you a jerk, remember?”
Gloria had a curious smile on her face as she gazed from me to Robbie. Maybe she’s warming up to me?
“You said there were a couple of people, did someone else hold a grudge?” I asked, trying to steer the topic away from me.
“Just my ex-husband, Robbie’s father.”
Chapter Twelve
Roberta Witherspoon
The last time I saw my biological father, he had passed out in the recliner while watching football. I was six years old, and I thought that all Daddies smelled like tequila and vomit. I don’t remember much about his looks, other than he never smiled. I only remembered that because I once asked my mom why Daddy was so sad. She looked as sad as he did when she told me to go play with my dolls in my room.
“I thought Jerry paid him off?”
“Jerry did pay him to sign the adoption papers,” Mom responded, stroking Sebastian’s fur. “But Patrick changed his mind a few weeks later, probably after he spent it all on drugs, and tried to extort more money. They got into a terrible fist fight. Patrick would have ended up in the hospital, if Henry hadn’t intervened.”
Jordy shook her head. “Wait, my Dad was there?”
“Yes, they were at the bar having a drink,” Mom said, glancing at Jordy. “You know how the firefighters get together after their shift to have a beer and talk about the job.”
“Sure. It’s an age-old tradition,” Jordy inserted. “I do that myself, sometimes. Especially if it was a particularly bad day.”
“This was one time that I had joined the boys – Henry and Lillian, Joe and his date, and Jerry and I met for drinks after their shift. Jerry and I had tickets for the theater afterward. Anyway, Patrick swore he would get even with Jerry.”
“Where was I while all that was going on?” I asked, sorry that I had missed the fun.
“You were probably at a sleep-over with your best friend down the street.”
“Oh, yeah, Tonya.” I had a major crush on Tonya’s older sister, and not too long after I told Tonya about it. She and I stopped being friends.
“When was the last time you saw your ex-husband, Mrs… I mean, Gloria?” Jordy asked.
“Oh, not since that night twelve years ago. I think he’s probably dead by now, and good riddance.”
Mother used to hide her feelings about Patrick, but I guess, now that I’m an adult, she was voicing her true opinion. One that I have held for most of my life.
“I’m still going to run a background check, to rule him out as a suspect,” Jordy stated.
“I understand, but I have no desire to know what you find out, Jordy,” Mom said.
“Well, I want to know,” I said, ignoring Mom’s frown. “If he’s still alive, I’d like to give him a piece of my mind for the way he treated you.”
“No, absolutely not,” Mom said sternly. “He’s a mean drunk and a dangerous man when he’s on drugs. Stay away from him. Do you understand me?”
“Mom, did he… did he hit you?” I asked. She had told me how they had to live in a rundown, flea infested apartment, but she never said anything about physical abuse. Although I had my suspicions.
“Honey, let it be. He means nothing to me, other than he gave me you. That by itself was worth the hell he put me through.”
As we got back in Jordy’s car and put on our seatbelts, I turned to her and said, “My mother was lying. That bastard physically abused her.”
“I wasn’t going to say anything, but I thought so, too,” Jordy said, turning the key on the engine.
“She has a scar on her back that she would never talk about, but I’m sure he put it there.”
“I think you should listen to her though, and stay away from the guy,” she cautioned as she pulled away from the curb.
“Do you think he killed our dads?”
“I think he has the best motive, but it’s really too soon to tell.”
I nodded, willing to let it go for now. Speculation usually sent me in the wrong direction and this was too important for guesswork. “So, what’s our next step?”
“There’s one more person I want to talk with, and that’s Uncle Joe.”
“I’m curious why my stepdad wasn’t your godfather, too.”
“You know, after what we’ve learn today, so am I,” Jordy said, merging onto the highway. “I wish I had thought to ask Mom more about it. I always knew Joe was my uncle and never paid attention to why he wasn’t related to me.”
Shaking my head, I asked, “Surely, you don’t think he’s the killer?”
“God, no. I’m just curious now about the choices made back then. And besides, Uncle Joe might know something more about the threat your father—”
“He is not my father, damn it!”
“Well, biologically he is, but I get what you’re saying, sorry. Anyway, I also want to check and see if they were able to pull any data from the video shot by the arsonist.”
“But we saw the video already.”
“Yes, we saw what was edited on the camera, but as Rosie has explained it to me before, digital cameras shoot uncompressed raw data and then edit it into standard frame for viewing.”
“Um, okay, sure.”
“I’m surprised you didn’t learn about this in New York,” she teased. “What that means is that there could be video in the raw data that we haven’t seen yet.”
“Okay, I understand now.” My stomach gurgled and I sighed. “But, can we get something to eat, first? I’m starving.” We had been on the go since this morning, and even though Lillian fed us brunch, it was the middle of the afternoon now. Mom had offered to fix us lunch, but we weren’t hungry at that time. Then we got to talking and I forgot all about food. Now my sugar was dropping, making my stomach obnoxiously loud.
Jordy looked at her watch and frowned. “I didn’t realize it had gotten that late. Sure, we’ll grab something at the deli and take it to the station, how’s that?”
“Sounds good, thanks.”
“So, are you okay with everything so far?”
“Am I okay with it? What kind of stupid question is that,” I snapped
at her. “Of course, I’m not okay with any of it. How could anyone be all right with learning their biological father was even more of a bastard than they originally thought? What if I’m just like him?” What if I turn into my father’s daughter?
“That’s not going to happen,” she stated.
“It already did. I partied pretty hard in New York, hoping that I would fit in. If it hadn’t been for my best friend dying from an overdose, I might still be smoking crack and snorting heroin.”
Her mouth gaped open, but her forehead furrowed as if she didn’t believe me. I admit, I was pissed and the shock on her face vindicated me somewhat, even though I wasn’t mad at her. I was mad at myself because I didn’t have control of the situation. After Emily died, I had fought hard to get back my control and self-esteem. Now, it felt like it was being ripped away again.
“I’ll bet you looked pretty ugly snorting coke,” she said, her face indifferent, her eyes looking straight ahead.
How should I interpret that? Shallow? Serious? Disparaging? I saw a twitch of her lip, and I had my answer. She was teasing me.
“I’m sorry, I’m being a jerk,” I apologized. “I guess you’re rubbing off on me.”
“Okay, now you’re just flirting with me,” she retorted.
“What? Oh, no, I didn’t mean…” My face flushed with heat, and I shifted in my seat. I heard her snickering and realized that she had called me on my teasing. “Oh, you,” I chuckled, unintentionally batting my eyelashes as I swatted her arm. Damn, I am flirting. It had been quite a while since someone teased me, and I was surprised at how much I missed it. Something so simple could also be so sensual when done by the right person. No, she’s not flirting with me. She just broke up with Tina, for heaven’s sake. But she wasn’t really truly in love with her... right? “Jeez, I can talk myself into anything.”
“Talk yourself into what?” she asked, glancing my way.
“Oh.” I blushed again. Damn it. “I was thinking about getting the meatball sandwich.”
“Sounds good to me,” she said, merging the car into the city. “What’s the problem?”
The problem is that you’re too damn gorgeous and I just noticed how nice you smell. Smoky and earthy. “Um, the problem is it doesn’t like me.”
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