by Robin James
“Why is that?” Sam asked.
“He’s got dementia,” she answered. “It’s pretty bad. The last time I saw him, he didn’t even recognize me. Those two were the only ones in the family that made me feel welcome, that I was a Sutter too, no matter who my birth father was.”
“I see,” Sam said.
“Detective Cruz,” she said, leaning forward. “I think maybe you need to talk to C.J.’s sons. Maybe even his sister, Claudia. I think they had something to do with what happened out at the farm. They wanted my mom out of the picture. They hated Mark too. He was her lawyer before they started dating.”
It made my stomach turn a little. I wrote a few more notes. There would have been huge ethical issues with Mark O’Brien beginning to date an active client. Especially one who stood to inherit the kind of money Patty Sutter had.
“So your mom got C.J.’s house after he died,” Sam said.
“She did,” Dev said. “That was another thing that made a lot of them mad. That’s Sutter property, they said. Only Sutters should live there. It was Grandma George who shut that crap down. She reminded them that she had married into the Sutter name too, and not a one of them would have even thought about trying to push her off if and when Grandpa Lou dies. I really love her for that. She’s the only level-headed one in the bunch, as far as I’m concerned.”
“Dev,” Sam asked. “Do you have any other reason to think C.J.’s own family might be behind this? Did your mother ever express any specific fears?”
“She was afraid of them all, yes,” she said. “I told her to sell that house. Tell Chris and the others if they wanted it so bad, they could pay her for it. But she was happy there. She had it fixed up the way she liked. She was convinced it was all gonna die down, eventually. She was wrong.”
Dev began to sob. Owen pulled her into his chest.
“I think that’s all I need for today,” Sam said. “You’re staying in town though?”
Dev nodded. “Yeah. We’re having Mom’s funeral next week. I wanted to take her home. Have her buried near me in Nashville, but she left instructions.”
“I understand,” Sam said. He rose and gathered his own notes. Leaning over, he clicked off the voice recorder. “Thank you so much for coming in. I know this has to be unbelievably hard. But you’ve been helpful.”
“Are you going to do something?” she asked. “Are you going to bring C.J.’s kids and his sister in?”
“I’ll talk to them; you can be sure of that. In the meantime, it’s best you don’t talk to them. Or anyone about what we discussed, if you don’t mind.”
“Okay,” she said. “I don’t want to do anything that will make your job harder.”
“I appreciate that.”
Sam showed Owen and Dev out then came to join Clancy and me in the adjoining room. Lines furrowed his brow as he sat down opposite me.
“What’s your read?” he asked.
“I think you’ve got a mess on your hands,” I said. “I don’t like what I’m hearing about Mark O’Brien, the lawyer.”
“Yeah,” Clancy agreed. “That raises my slime-o-meter too.”
“Patty Sutter inherited over a million bucks from C.J.,” I said, showing Sam the probate file. “He renewed his will after the sale to Verde, naming Patty as his primary beneficiary, like Dev said. But here’s the thing. There was a settlement. Look here.”
I handed Sam a document.
“That hundred thousand a piece Dev is talking about, the money she says he left to his sons. It wasn’t really an inheritance in the strict sense. He gifted it to them before he died. And he made them sign a release against any claims they might have filed against his estate. Look at the bottom where it says who prepared it.”
“Mark O’Brien,” Sam read. “Patty’s boyfriend. Victim number seven.”
“It’s ... icky,” I said. “Then Mark moves in with Patty within the last year. But I just don’t buy that C.J.’s kids would have killed Patty over this. They agreed to take the hundred K. If anything, their beef would be with Dev now. She stands to inherit everything that’s left.”
“The other problem,” Sam said. “Gary and Toby Sutter live out west now. Arizona. I did talk to both of them over the phone. They haven’t been back to Waynetown since C.J.’s funeral two years ago. His sister, this Claudia? She’s near Fort Worth. I talked to her son. She’s got advanced Parkinson’s and lives in a nursing home. That pretty much eliminates all three of them as suspects. Though, they did confirm there’s a lot of disharmony among the Sutters. They didn’t speak too highly of C.J. or Chris and Jenny.”
“Better send a deputy over to keep an eye out on Dev anyway,” Clancy said. “You get an address as to where she’s staying?”
“Yeah,” Sam answered. “And I agree. Something just doesn’t track. This is all fine and good about the bad blood between Patty Sutter, Mark O’Brien, and factions of the Sutter family. If they were the only victims, it would make sense. C.J.’s brother Chris was on the same side as his kids in this dispute. He’s dead. His wife’s dead. His daughter. And Kevin Sutter.”
“You’ve got more digging to do,” I said. “In light of your other interviews, Dev didn’t give you anything solid as far as a credible threat against Mark or Patty.”
“Yeah,” he said. “I’ve got enough for some tough interviews with the rest of the family here in Waynetown. Then we’ll see who lies and how badly.”
“I think you do have enough to get a search warrant on some of Mark O’Brien’s files,” I said. “I’d like to know more about what he was doing for Patty Sutter in a legal sense.”
“Good thinking,” Sam said. “I’ll write one up and run it by you.”
“I’ll be waiting for it,” I said. “I’ll get it fast-tracked for you.”
“I like this,” Clancy said as he stood up. “You two keep at it. Joined at the hip if you have to be. I don’t want a single thing missed. Everything’s gotta be airtight.”
“We’re all on the same page,” I said. “The last thing my office needs is anything less than perfect.” We’d just been burned by a scathing report from the Attorney General’s Office that revealed longstanding corruption with my former boss, Kenya’s predecessor, Phil Halsey. Though no one had come out and said it directly, a win on the Sutter case would go a long way to restoring faith in the Maumee County criminal justice system. Both Bill Clancy and the mayor had made it clear they were putting the weight of that on Sam’s and my shoulders. If either one of us botched this case, I had a feeling we’d both be out of jobs.
I felt like my thoughts were written on Sam’s face as well as Clancy slapped him on the back and left us alone.
“He trusts you, Sam,” I said. “So do I. You’re going to get to the bottom of this case. You tag him, I’ll bag him.” I gathered my things and started toward the door.
Sam let out a chuckle behind me. “I’ll bag ’em you’ll tag ’em. You know you can’t pull a phrase like that off.”
Shrugging, I adjusted my briefcase strap. “No? Not even a little? I thought I kinda had there for a second.”
“You thought wrong, Brent.”
He was still shaking his head, laughing, as he turned and headed down the other hallway toward his office.
7
I found a smile and froze it in place as I walked into the kitchen on Friday afternoon, two weeks later. Will’s two packed suitcases sat in the hallway. I heard laughter coming from the living room and it turned my smile into something genuine even as my heart ached at what was to come.
“Hey, guys,” I said. Will was sitting on the couch, his knees drawn up. His eyes stayed glued to an object on the table in front of him. As I drew closer, I saw it was a plastic replica of one of the Space Shuttles. Jason, my newly ex-husband, knelt on the floor and snapped a last piece of the model in place, then handed it to Will.
“Hey, Mara,” Jason said. The smile he had for Will faded a bit as a new discomfort grew between us. We hadn’t been face to face since
the divorce decree became official.
“You all packed?” I asked Will.
“Yep,” he said as he turned the shuttle end over end in his hands.
“Great,” I said. “You mind if I just do a quick once-over in your room in case you missed anything important?”
The shuttle had already mesmerized Will. I’d seen that look a hundred times before. He’d watched a documentary on the Challenger disaster a few months ago. He must have told his dad.
I gave Jason a look. He could still read my expressions. After patting Will on the head, he made an excuse then followed me upstairs. I went into Will’s room and did a quick check of his nightstand drawer, under his bed, and his “lucky drawer” in his tall dresser. My son had told the truth. He had packed all his essentials.
“Everything okay?” Jason asked.
“Mom!” Will shouted from downstairs. “Aunt Kat will be here in seven minutes!”
“Okay,” I shouted down.
“What’s that about?” Jason asked.
“That’s what we’re up here for,” I answered. I brought Jason into my upstairs home office. I kept it locked so Will could never get in. It was my war room. I had timelines written on the white board on one wall. On another, I’d compiled a Sutter family tree.
As soon as Jason stepped in, I shut the door behind him.
“Ever since the Sutter murders,” I said, “Will’s showing signs of obsession. He’s read every article posted online about the crime. He’s worried. He won’t come out and say it, but he’s scared the killer is going to strike again. He asked me if he could install a family GPS app on his phone. I didn’t see the harm in it. He’s going to ask you to join his circle so he can track you too.”
“Good grief, Mara,” Jason said. “This can’t be good for him. It sounds like I got here just in time.”
I bit back the stinging retort I had in mind. Jason’s past infidelities were the major reason we divorced.
“I agree it’s going to be good for him to get away from Waynetown for a few weeks.” Jason had granted me primary physical custody in the divorce decree. Will would spend six weeks in the summer with his dad and alternating Christmas vacations.
“Has he seen any of this?” Jason motioned to my white boards.
“Of course not,” I answered. “You know he doesn’t have access to this room. I just wanted you to be aware. Enforce our screen time rules and the parental locks on your television and internet. Promise me.”
Jason grimaced. I had the sense he was trying to keep from saying the snarky comment he wanted to as well.
“Kat knows the drill,” I said. I was so thankful Jason’s sister had agreed to travel with Will when he went to D.C. to stay with Jason. I didn’t know how many times she could uproot her life, but for the first year of our new arrangement, she was here for him.
“Mara,” Jason said. “I’m sorry, but if this starts to be a pattern with Will, maybe you seriously need to rethink what’s best for him in terms of your career.”
“Really?” I said. “You want to have a go at me about that today of all days?”
I heard the front door open. Kat was here. Her bright greeting to my son warmed my heart. I knew he’d do at least twenty minutes with her explaining his new toy.
“I’m just saying,” Jason said, softening his tone. “You know there are a million offers you could take when you want to leave the prosecutor’s office. The U.S. Attorney’s office is still interested. You’d be closer to D.C. Closer to your mother.”
“Stop,” I said. “I will not keep having this fight with you. It’s a non-starter. This is my life. Waynetown. You’re the one who reneged on that deal, not me.”
He put his hands up in surrender. Though I knew we’d have this fight again, Jason was waving the white flag for now. I’d take what I could get.
“So how’s it going?” he asked. “And what are you doing with all of this stuff now?”
Jason stepped around my desk and inspected my white boards.
“Because if and when this case goes to court, I’ll be the one trying it.”
“Any arrests yet?” he asked.
“No,” I said.
Jason shook his head. His expression grew more somber as he looked at pictures of each of the victims.
We’d numbered them. Not because we knew the order of the killings, but to help keep things straight. In the house at the center. Ben Watson was Victim #1. Jenny Sutter was Victim #2, her husband Chris Sutter was Victim #3, and his daughter Skylar was Victim #4. To the east of them, their cousin, Kevin Sutter, became Victim #5. We’d dubbed Patty Sutter and Mark O'Brien as Victims #6 and #7, respectively. The Sutter Seven.
“Who caught it from the Sheriff’s Department?” he asked.
“Sam Cruz,” I said. Jason nodded his approval.
“Good choice,” he said. “He’s thorough.”
“Jason,” I said. “Since you’re here, and I think Will’s going to keep Kat occupied for a little while, there was something I wanted to ask you about.”
He quickly straightened. “Anything,” he said. “I’ve still got contacts in the A.G.’s office.”
“No,” I said. “Nothing like that. Not yet anyway. I’m just ... I didn’t grow up in Waynetown like you did. I knew of the Sutters, but I didn’t really know them. Did you?”
He considered my question. We heard laughter coming from downstairs. Will’s voice. Jason took a seat on the loveseat against the wall. I leaned against my desk.
“Yeah,” he said. “I knew the Sutters. Two cousins went to high school with me. Does Cruz have any promising leads?”
“Some,” I said. “Turns out there was quite a bit of infighting among the family members when they sold that bait shop to the pot dispensary.”
‘I’ll bet,” he said. “As I recall, there were four Sutter brothers, originally. Ray, Henry, Chet, and Louie.”
“Louie is Grandpa Lou?” I asked. “He’s the only one of the original four still alive.”
“You mind?” Jason asked. He took a black dry erase marker and started drawing a family tree.
“By all means,” I said.
“When I was campaigning, the Sutters were big donors,” he said. “I spent some time over at Lou and George’s. They’re both talkers. I got the entire family history.”
He drew the four names he’d just said. Ray. Henry. Chet. Louie. He drew a big X through Henry’s name.
“He was a navy pilot, I wanna say. Or army air corps. One of the two. Didn’t make it back from World War Two. Ray and Chet did. They’re the ones who started the store after they came back from the war. Louie was their baby brother. He couldn’t have been over ten or eleven, I don’t think.”
“How do you remember all of this?” I asked. Of course, I already knew. Jason had one of the best memories of anyone I’d ever met. It served him extremely well on Capitol Hill. I always used to tell him he’d have made an excellent wartime admiral if he hadn’t gone into politics.
“I also used to date one of the Sutter cousins,” he said, giving me a guilty smile that used to melt me. There was a time I would have forgiven him anything when he flashed that smile. Until he did the one thing I couldn’t.
“Anyway,” he said. “Chet had, I think, three kids. I dated one of his granddaughters. Claudia’s oldest girl, Michelle.”
“Right,” I said. I took the marker from him and drew in C.J. Sutter’s name beneath Chet’s. Chet’s kids all had “C” names. C.J., Claudia, Chris.
“Ray had no kids,” Jason said. “Louie had a couple, I think. I wanna say there was a kid who died as a baby.”
“Kevin Sutter,” I said, pointing to my victim board. “He was a grandson of Louie’s, not Chet’s.”
“Right,” he said. “His dad was Tom, I think. He died a while back. He’s got a sister. Nikki. Man, she was something. A little too young for me, but gorgeous. I don’t think she lives in Waynetown anymore.”
“Kevin has a sister,” I said. “I’m
sure Sam’s talked to her.”
“I can’t even imagine the toll this is taking on Grandpa Lou,” he said. “He’s just the nicest guy you’d ever want to meet. I even called him Grandpa Lou when I was dating Michelle. I kind of lost track of her. Huh. I wonder if she ever got married. After we broke up, she started dating Guy Harvey. That did not go over well with her family.”
“Why not?” I asked.
“I don’t know the whole story, but the Harveys and the Sutters didn’t get along. The Harveys own the farmland to the east of the Sutter farm. I know there was a boundary dispute a long time ago. When I was dating Michelle, we used to go back in that woods and ... well ... let’s just say a lot of Waynetown kids got lucky on Sutter property.”
“Lovely,” I said.
“I just remember Michelle telling me we’d have to be careful to stay to the west of the creek that runs through the two properties. She said the Harveys put bear traps out there. There were all sorts of crazy stories. She said some of her old cousins insisted a Harvey ancestor haunted those woods just to keep the Sutters in their place.”
“I’ve never heard those stories,” I said.
“Well, like you said, you didn’t grow up in Waynetown.”
A car honked out front. My heart did a little flip. It was getting late. Jason had a flight to catch with Will and Kat.
“Thanks,” I said. “That’s helpful. I’m sure Sam’s pursuing all that. I’m just trying to immerse myself in all things Sutter. I want to be prepared.”
“Of course,” he said. “If I think of anything else, I’ll call you.”
We walked into the hallway together. “Just ... Jason ... take care of him. Will’s never been away from this house, or away from me, for this long. Six weeks seems like forever.”
Jason turned to me. He put a light hand on my arm and for once I didn’t recoil. “It’s gonna be okay, Mama. I love that kid just as much as you do. He’s going to FaceTime you every night, just like we said. I’ve got a ton of cool things planned. We haven’t even really seen everything there is to see in D.C.”