P.I. Daddy's Personal Mission

by Beth Cornelison

  Lisa parked in her driveway and sighed. Her small house, with its gray siding and shutterless windows, seemed especially lonely tonight and the cloudy November sky didn’t help her mood.

  She’d met a handsome, interesting man this week, the kind of man who should have her hopeful and energized by the possibilities for the future. Yet she refused to give her heart to another relationship only to suffer the same frustrations and the agony of a childless marriage that she’d been through with Ray. Even the friendship she’d had with Ray had been eroded by the tedious tests, the fruitless attempts at in vitro fertilization, one heartbreaking attempt at adoption and the small fortune they’d spent with nothing to show for their efforts. Lisa had decided years ago that a second marriage would surely end as disastrously as the first. Romance and happy endings were for women lucky enough to be fertile.

  Thus the no-dating rule. If she didn’t date, she couldn’t fall in love, couldn’t lose her heart to a relationship that could have no future.

  Which left her where she was tonight. Eating tomato soup with no other plans but to grade spelling tests. Alone, except for her cranky cat, Samson.

  As she entered her house, juggling her stack of textbooks and notes, said cranky feline was asleep on her couch, a big brown ball of Maine coon fluff and attitude.

  Lisa set her books on the kitchen counter and walked over to Samson. “Working hard again, I see.”

  When she ruffled his fur, Samson raised his head and chomped her hand, letting her know he didn’t appreciate her sarcasm or having his nap disturbed.

  “Ow.” Lisa shook her offended hand and chuckled. “Ingrate.” Despite his less-than-sunny disposition, she loved her irascible cat, her only company on cold nights like tonight.

  Lisa clicked on the televison to fill the house with other voices, then headed back to the kitchen to heat her soup and fix sourpuss his dinner.

  Patrick Walsh’s spelling test was on the top of the stack of papers she had to grade after dinner. She paused and stared at the boy’s neat script.

  What were Peter and Patrick doing tonight? Was Peter helping Patrick with his homework or hiding out in a home office or behind a newspaper, cut off from his son? Peter seemed genuinely interested in seeking her advice on how to help Patrick through the family’s recent rough patch. Maybe—

  She shook her head and pushed the school papers across the counter. She needed to stop dwelling on Peter and Patrick Walsh.

  But as the quiet November evening passed, Samson snoozing beside her as she graded tests, Lisa found keeping her mind off Peter and their upcoming dinner was easier said than done.

  Peter had difficulty concentrating on his P.I. cases that week. Not only was he anticipating his dinner with Lisa Navarre on Saturday, but he also was plagued by thoughts of his father’s unsolved murder and the dead ends he kept running into. On Wednesday afternoon, a comment that Mary had made Sunday at the library filtered through his brain and struck him with an idea. Abandoning the unfaithful-spouse case he’d been working on, he drove over to the new security firm that Mary and Jake Pierson were running to grill his sister.

  When he strode into the office, Mary glanced up from the desk where she was working and sent him a bright smile. “Peter, what a nice surprise! Imagine seeing my reclusive brother twice in one week.”

  “Reclusive?”

  She raised a palm. “I just call them as I see ’em. You just don’t get out much.”

  Peter rocked on his heels. “I have a son to take care of and a business to run. Who has time to socialize?”

  “Although I did overhear something Sunday about you and Lisa Navarre. What’s the story there, big brother?”

  “The story is there is no story. And if there was it would be none of your business.”

  Mary pulled a face and raised her hands in surrender. “Touchy, touchy. Forgive me for being interested in the fact that you’ve got your first date in ten years.”

  “It’s not a date.”

  Mary flashed a smug grin. “Sure, it’s not.”

  He scowled and pulled up a chair opposite her. “Can we move on to why I’m here?”

  “Why are you here?”

  Peter leaned forward, holding his sister’s gaze. “On Sunday you mentioned the trouble you encountered when you and Jake looked into Dad’s disappearance back in ’95. I know about the FBI agent that was killed and that you think Jake was the real target, but did you ever get a sense of who was behind the murder?”

  “We know who pulled the trigger. Jake killed him to save me. But he died before he could tell us who hired him, and we’ve left that case and the arson investigation up to Sheriff Colton.”

  Peter stiffened. “Arson? Are you telling me the fire at Jake’s house wasn’t an accident?”

  She raised a hand to quiet him. “We’re trying to keep that info on the down-low until the person behind all of these attacks on us is caught.”

  “You should have told me! I’m your brother, for crying out loud!”

  She waved a hand of dismissal. “Wes and Perry are looking into the arson angle. There was no point in dragging you into it. And you need to stay out of the investigation now. Give Wes room to work.”

  “Wes and Perry are Coltons, Mary! If a Colton is behind the attacks—”

  “Look, I know you don’t trust Wes, but Jake does and that’s good enough for me.”

  Another attack involving his family that was unsolved. He was sure this was no coincidence. All the more reason to step up his investigation.

  Restless, he scratched his chin and struggled to rein in his thoughts. “Tell me again what Jake found out about Dad and where he went fifteen years ago. Don’t leave anything out.”

  Mary sighed and rubbed her freckled forehead. “There’s nothing else to tell you, Peter. Like I said months ago, we found out Dad had a lover in Costa Rica. We know he was there for a while, then…we hit a brick wall.”

  A shadow crossed Mary’s face, and she cut her glance away. Peter knew his sister well enough to know she was hiding something. No surprise. Mary had always had secrets she wouldn’t share with him. He’d always figured secrets were part and parcel of having a younger sister. But he hated the idea of her holding back information on something as critical as what had happened with their father fifteen years ago.

  He propped an arm on the edge of her desk and canted further forward. “Mary, if our family is in danger, I deserve the whole truth. How can I protect Patrick if I don’t know what I’m up against?”

  “The best way to protect your son is to leave this investigation alone. There is more at work here than you know, more than I can tell you. You have to believe me when I tell you trustworthy people are working to find our father’s killer and straighten out this whole squirrely mess.”

  “This involves me, too.” Peter jabbed the desk with his finger. “I have a right to know what is going on.”

  Mary gave him a pleading look. “And you will, Peter, as soon as everyone else knows. But if you investigate on your own, you could ruffle feathers and step on toes that could bring some dangerous people to your front door. Please, Peter, back off. Give up this vendetta you seem bent on. Let the authorities do their job.”

  “I can’t, Mary. Not when the authorities belong to the very family I suspect is behind all of this.” Peter shoved to his feet, frustrated by his sister’s refusal to help him.

  “Wes Colton isn’t the enemy. He’s doing all he can to solve Dad’s murder. Don’t you think with all the suspicion hanging over his family ever since Damien was accused of killing Dad years ago that Wes wants to find the real culprit and clear his family’s name once and for all?”

  Peter stormed to the office door and paused with his hand on the knob. “Circumstances may have cleared Damien of murder once, but the Coltons are a large family. They haven’t forgiven or forgotten their grudges against our dad any more than you or I have.”

  Mary’s spine straightened, and her face paled. “I may not have forgo
tten everything Dad did to us and to Mom. But I’ve moved on. Jake is my future, and I’ve put the past where it belongs. In the past. For Patrick’s sake, I wish you could do the same.”

  A sharp stabbing sensation arrowed to his chest. Were his complicated feelings toward his father messing up his relationship with Patrick? If anything, Peter had tried hard to be the kind of father Mark Walsh had never been for his children—warm, involved, supportive. He had a good relationship with Patrick, even if his caseload had kept him preoccupied of late. Didn’t he?

  He stewed over Mary’s comment as he drove home. On the heels of Lisa’s comment that Patrick needed his father to be more involved in his life, he tried to see his life from Patrick’s perspective. They ate breakfast together, but conversation, if any, revolved around Peter hurrying his son and double-checking the usual laundry list of morning requirements—brushed teeth, homework in backpack, lunch money.

  In the evening, Patrick spent most of his time in his room playing video games and when he did come out to try to talk to Peter, he got only half of Peter’s attention while he read the newspaper or worked on the computer or watched a football game on television. Maybe their time together didn’t equate to the kind of relationship he thought he had with Patrick.

  Peter squeezed the steering wheel. He had to do better. He couldn’t repeat the mistakes his father had made. He didn’t want Patrick growing up with the kind of distance and disconnect he’d had in his relationship with his father. A distance that grew to resentment.

  Although, as Peter got older and realized why his father wasn’t around, heard rumors of his father’s many affairs and shady business deals, resentment became disgust, anger. Hatred.

  Yet beneath the bitter layers was the little boy who still craved his father’s love and attention. The sharp pang in his chest returned. Patrick would never know that double-edged sword of love and hate if he could help it. Gritting his teeth, Peter resolved to change his habits, rearrange his work schedule, make a conscious effort to give Patrick the attention he needed. Nothing mattered more than his son.

  His mother and Patrick were in the yard when he pulled in the front drive. As Peter climbed out of his truck, Patrick loped over and showed him the carcass of a giant beetle he’d found. “Look how big this thing was, Dad!”

  His mother, Jolene, gave a shudder. “I’m glad you’re home. Big dead bugs are not my cup of tea!”

  Peter examined the black beetle and raised an eyebrow. “Impressive, sport. What are you gonna do with it?”

  “I should take it to school tomorrow and put it in Missy Haynes’s locker!” Patrick laughed. “She’d be so grossed out.”

  Peter gave his son a firm look. “The bug does not go to school. Torturing girls is not gentlemanly behavior.”

  “Can I take it to show Ms. Navarre for science?”

  Just the mention of Lisa’s name caused his pulse to kick. “As long as that’s all that the bug is used for. No tricks or pranks.”

  Patrick gave him the universal parents-are-such-a-drag look but nodded. “Okay.”

  “Better get inside and finish your homework now, Patty-boy,” Jolene said, giving her grandson a side-hug. His mother’s fiery red hair shimmered with the same orange and gold colors of autumn as the trees in the late-afternoon sun, and her amber eyes shone with her love for her only grandchild.

  With a grunt of displeasure, Patrick turned to go inside, dragging his feet through the clutter of dead leaves and slushy snow.

  “So,” Jolene said, stepping forward to greet Peter with a hug and brief kiss on his cheek, “how was your day?”

  “All right, I suppose. Frustrating though. I just can’t seem to get anywhere with my investigation of Dad’s murder.”

  Jolene blinked her surprise. “You’re doing what? Did the sheriff ask for your help?”

  Peter scoffed. “Hell, no. In fact, he warned me away. But Wes Colton sure isn’t making any progress finding Dad’s killer.”

  “And you know this how?” Jolene asked, crossing her arms over her chest.

  Peter started inside, hitching his head to ask his mother to follow. “Has he given you any reason to think he’s learned anything? That he’s any closer to an arrest now than he was months ago?”

  “Well, no. But then I’ve been much more concerned with Craig’s condition and finding out who poisoned him, who tried to kill Mary.”

  As they entered the foyer, Peter pitched his voice low to keep Patrick from overhearing. “Craig and I think Dad’s killer and the person responsible for the other attacks on the family may be one and the same.”

  Jolene didn’t act surprised. “Craig mentioned his conspiracy theory to me. I didn’t realize he’d gotten you involved in investigating it, though.”

  “He didn’t have to ask me. If I’d known the sheriff was going to be so remiss in doing his job, I’d have gotten involved months ago. But maybe Wes’s lack of progress is all the evidence we need that a Colton is involved, and Wes is covering for his family.”

  Jolene pulled off her coat and hung it on the coatrack by the door. “You know I have no love lost for the Coltons myself, but you should be careful throwing around accusations like that. Do you have any proof the Coltons are behind anything that’s happened?”

  “Nothing I can take to court. But my gut tells me—”

  “Peter, your gut is biased. Don’t get so focused on taking down the Coltons that you miss evidence right under your nose.”

  Peter tensed. “What are you saying? Do you know something you haven’t told the police?”

  She waved him off and moved to the stove to start the kettle heating. “No, nothing like that. Just don’t limit your investigation to the Coltons. Plenty of folks had reason to hate your father. He hurt a lot of people.” Grief and heartache filled her tone, and Peter heard her unspoken, including me.

  “Well, if I had other leads I’d follow them, but even Mary is being a brick wall. She won’t talk to me about what she found when she and Jake looked into Dad’s disappearance back in ’95.”

  His mother faced him with a stern look in her eye. “Don’t pester Mary about your father. She’s happy, truly happy for the first time in too long.”

  “I wasn’t pestering her. I just wanted to know more about what she and Jake learned. But all she’ll say is that Dad went to Costa Rica with a woman before his trail went cold.” Peter realized what he’d said and kicked himself mentally. “Sorry. I shouldn’t have brought that up.”

  “What, that your father had other women? Good grief, Peter, I knew about his women well before you kids ever did.” Though she tried to dismiss Mark’s affairs with a casual brush-off, Peter could see the shadows that crept into her eyes. Knowing about her husband’s infidelity didn’t mean Jolene Walsh hadn’t cared, hadn’t been hurt. She turned her back to Peter to pour hot water over the tea bag in her mug.

  Peter crossed the kitchen and squeezed his mother’s shoulder. “You all right?”

  She glanced up, then firmed her mouth and gave a confident nod. “I am. Better than all right, in fact. I’ve moved on, and I have Craig in my life now.”

  Peter tugged up a corner of his mouth, wondering what his mother would say if he told her he’d known about her once-secret relationship with Craig for years. In recent months, they’d been more public about their love for each other, and Peter couldn’t be happier for her.

  Jolene set the kettle back in place and lifted her chin. “Craig’s ten times the man your father was, and he makes me feel cherished.” She beamed at him. “I’m a blessed woman.”

  “I agree.” Peter kissed his mother’s temple then walked to the kitchen table to sort through the day’s mail.

  “Peter.”

  He glanced up at his mother and waited for her to blow on her tea before she continued. “This woman down in Costa Rica…”

  “Mom, you don’t need to—”

  She waved a hand to hush him. “Wait a minute. Hear me out.” She stared into her mug and kn
itted her brow. “She was just one in a long line of women your father had. If you ask me, you should look into his liaisons and see who might have motive to kill your father. Maybe one of his women wasn’t as willing to overlook his numerous affairs as I was.”

  Peter rocked on his heels, pondering his mother’s suggestion. “But…why would one of Dad’s women have any reason to hire Atkins to poison Craig?”

  “No one said they did. The two crimes could be unrelated.”

  “And the attack on Mary and Jake? Did you know the fire at Jake’s was arson?”

  Jolene shrugged. “I don’t know how it all fits. I’m just saying don’t get tunnel vision when it comes to the Coltons. Consider everything and everyone.”

  Peter rubbed a hand over his chin. “Okay, so how do I find the women with whom dad had his ‘liaisons,’ as you call them. I don’t want to cause a ruckus in town by asking women, ‘Did you sleep with my father or know anyone who did?’”

  Jolene chuckled. “Yeah, that’ll go over like a lead balloon.”

  “And would likely tip off the killer that I’m on his, or rather her, tracks.” He paused. “Unless it was a jealous husband.” Pulling a face, Peter shook his head. “Well, you’re right about the fact that Dad made plenty of enemies.”

  From the next room, the sounds of Patrick settling his books on the dining-room table and dragging out a chair to start his homework drifted in.

  Jolene set her tea on the counter and stepped closer to Peter. Lowering her voice to barely more than a whisper, she said, “Tess Cantrell.”

  Peter furrowed his brow, not sure he’d heard correctly. The name didn’t mean anything to him. “Who is that?”

  “She lives in Bozeman. Your father had a long-term relationship with her just before he disappeared. The only reason I know her name is because she confronted me once many years ago. I think she was hoping that by revealing herself to me, I would be shocked by Mark’s affair and divorce him.” Jolene paused and arched an auburn eyebrow. “She was the one surprised when I told her not only did I know about Mark’s affairs, she was kidding herself if she thought she was his only fling.” She gave him a wry grin and an insouciant shrug.