by Nancy Hogue
Jess thought, sure my eyes light up, she’s a gorgeous woman. She’s soft, maybe too tense, kind, considerate. She’s the opposite of you!
“Gathering up men? What? Sometimes you don’t make sense. You never make sense when you get like this. Mrs. Brockton is a client, that’s all. Do you have affairs with the men who come in for a manicure?” I can’t give myself away, yeah, maybe I have a crush on her, but that’s a long way from an affair!
“Why do you ask that?” Jenny began to back pedal. She didn’t know what Jess knew, and he certainly had never asked her questions like this before. No one knew her history with Blake or anyone else, she hoped. Just because we had an affair for a while a very long time ago and maybe a few other times we’ve been together doesn’t mean I’m sleeping with him now. And I won’t ever again.
“Well, it’s the same thing. She’s a client. We have a relationship sure but not a sexual one. For crying aloud, Jenny, not even an emotional one. I don’t half listen to what she says when she’s talking.” Jess grabbed a bottled water from the refrigerator and asked Jenny if she wanted one.
“Don’t change the subject! What do you mean talking? What do you two talk about?”
“You know talk, conversation, what y’all call down at the shop chit chat. I guess that’s what y’all call it. But if it’ll make you feel better, I’ll drop her, and somebody else can take over.” Jenny was beginning to calm down. Her voice was softer and her words were slower.
“No, Jess, I’m sorry. This has just been a stressful day. I just want to know why Blake Brockton was murdered. I just saw, uh, did his nails yesterday. Why not just divorce him? Why did she have to go kill him?”
“I don’t believe she did, babe. She doesn’t have it in her. The last few months it’s almost as if she’s sick or something. There’s no excitement, no passion in her voice, no plans, she’s just very passive about everything. Like today, she said ‘it’s just another day, just another sad day without a dollar, but I’ll have to get through it.’”
Jess’ eyes widened at his remark. He remembered what she had said. It’s just another sad day. Why would she say that? What did she mean by just getting through it? Like she was aware of something about to happen, but she needed to convince me she didn’t know it. Without a dollar, huh, they have plenty of money.
“Jess, come over here. Let’s sit down on the sofa for a little bit.”
“Jenny, let’s just go to bed, I’m worn out, you’re worn out. It’s almost midnight and I’ve got Mrs. Norman coming in at seven. Oh, how I hate that woman!”
“Well, just be that way. I’m not sleepy, and I don’t have an early appointment.” She stood and walked toward the bedroom as Jess followed.
“Jenny, you’re not having an affair with any of your clients, are you?” he asked in a docile voice.
“Wouldn’t you like to know?” She walked into the bedroom and left Jess staring at the door just slammed in his face!
Chapter 9
Friday, March 16, 4:45 a.m.
Sammi did not close her eyes all night long fearful of the dreams or worse, the nightmares. Her life was a roller coaster with twists and turns or a run-away train with no tracks. With no defined direction—just freight cars, and oil tankers, wood chips, all crashing together, flying through the air—just endless chaos. A massive collision. There is no stopping a runaway mind.
Her mind had envisioned the previous day’s events all night sorting out what happened, when it happened, who it happened to and why. That was the question. Why?
She had asked why all her life. She remembered going to her grandmother’s funeral who died two days after her fourth birthday. She cried seeing her grandmother lying in the casket dressed in a blue housecoat. “Daddy, why does God let people die? It makes me so sad.”
Her daddy pulled her up into his lap, put his arms around her and said, “Don’t be sad, Angel. Nanny’s with angels up in Heaven. She’s with Jesus and Noah. She’s probably talked about all the animals and how he got them on the ark. Don’t you think Nanny is happy to do that?”
“Daddy, please don’t ever die. I’m your angel, please don’t die.” Her Daddy assured her he was not going to die. As a child, she believed him.
Sammi, or rather Katie as she was called back then, asked her brother why. “Why did you kill our parents?”
He looked at her with the most evil eyes and called her a name. She was his twelve-year-old sister, five years younger, and he called her a bad, ugly name and said, “You just don’t get it. They never loved me. They were too busy getting you to dance lessons, piano lessons, birthday parties or who knows where all you went. They never saw me in one thing. Not one thing. Why? You tell me why!”
That was the last time she talked to her brother. He and his two friends received the maximum sentence. He sat in a maximum-security prison just up the road. How ironic she thought, brother and sister both sitting in jail. Both charged with murder. There’s that word again. I hate that word.
Katie skipped school the morning her parents were murdered. She left for the bus stop at 7:15 a.m. Her mom was taking an elderly woman in her church to the hospital for tests at eight thirty. Her dad was to leave at nine for the Atlanta airport going to Chicago. At mid-morning, another woman in the Sunday school class came by to see why her mom didn’t get the older lady and saw the front walk and porch splattered with bloody footprints. The door was open, and she saw Katie’s mom, Kathy, on the stairs with blood on her gown and a trail of blood up and down the staircase and ran across the street to call police.
Katie knew nothing about her parents until late that afternoon. An investigator went to school to get her, and the principal said she had not come to school that morning.
The house was torn apart looking for the two kids. There was an all-out search around the school, neighborhood and adjacent woods to search for her and her brother. Police presumed the killers kidnapped the son and little girl. Police questioned Katie and Kyle’s teachers about who their friends were. Katie and Kyle were missing but what about their friends.
Kyle was not in school, and three of Katie’s friends were absent. Investigators called parents. Parents called each other. Phones were ringing in every house on every block for a mile radius.
The four girls were located at one forty-five. They had taken some cigarettes, some wine and their diaries to an abandoned house in a nearby deteriorating neighborhood. One of them got the idea from a movie and thought it would be fun to have that kind of sisterhood with these three other girls. It was chilly but not cold but then we had candles burning all around us. They were good students, as a rule, so nobody would suspect anything other than they were sick at home.
At one thirty, they put out the candles and hid everything except their diaries since they planned to do this at least once each semester. Police picked them up near the bus stop just as if they were ending their school day.
It was a bad day. Katie watched as each of her friends was dropped off, and parents yanked each one into the house. She was terrified of what her own parents would say. They didn’t go to her house though. She remembered asking, “Why aren’t you taking me home?”
The investigator simply said she wouldn’t be going home till later.
“Later. I wish later had never come. But then, I don’t think it ever did,” she said to herself. “I never really went home.”
A court appointed public defender specializing in juvenile delinquency did nothing for her benefit while detectives fired questions at her. “Why did you kill your parents? Who helped you kill your parents? When did you kill your parents?”
“Kill my parents?” She asked the public defender what they were talking about, and he said just answer their questions. “But I didn’t kill my parents. Somebody’s killed my parents?” And she started to cry.
Word came through to the detective that her aunt had arrived from Macon and wanted to see her niece. By this time, another detective had talked to each of the three girls in
dividually, and they all had the same story. Embarrassing as it was, the detectives knew Katie was not involved with her parents’ murders.
She swore to never skip school again. All the details were filled in by a file of newspaper articles Aunt Pat had stashed away. What an awful time in my life, but thanks to Aunt Pat for rescuing me.
Aunt Pat and Katie drove to the house guarded by police officers parking under a huge maple near the basketball goal. This pristine family setting from a happy Norman Rockwell portrait was now a scene from a Halloween thriller with all the blood and gore. “Wait in the car, okay, sweetie. I’ll just be a minute.” She returned later with boxes of clothes, books and other items Katie might need or want. Poor Aunt Pat, she was so spooked. We both were.
Sammi thought about her four cats she had left behind due to Uncle Jim’s allergies. Aunt Pat had said, “Honey we can’t take them with us.” Then the dreaded why?
“Honey, Uncle Jim, is allergic. He has a very hard time breathing.
“But who will feed them and take care of them?”
“They’ll catch their food.” Katie started crying.
“Please,” she begged.
“They’ll be okay,” Aunt Pat said, “Maybe we can get a dog.” Katie got in the car, crying, and when the car pulled away, she wouldn’t even look back.
She doesn’t know how the police found out it was her brother and his friends. She was in Macon at the time starting a new life with her new puppy.
“Mrs. Brockton, your breakfast is here.”
“Thank you. Thank you for the coffee, especially. And fruit, how nice.”
“Yes ma’am, Deputy James got you some fruit.” As she drank her coffee and ate the strawberries and banana, her mind turned back to the previous night. Mitch, her yardman, had provided her with a lawyer. She was so grateful. Blake had provided him a good living all these years, and he didn’t believe she was guilty. He wanted the real killer found. JJ and her dad vowing to find her innocence. Bill Fritz offering help with a defense attorney. I wish I had as much faith in me as other people seem to have.
* * *
JJ left for school early to speak to Dr. Jacob, her favorite school counselor. She parked her VW in the student parking lot next to Mr. Grumman who waiting for her in his little red sports car pretending to read the morning paper. “Morning, Mr. Grumman. What are you doing out here in the student parking lot?”
“Hi JJ, Couldn’t find a spot in the faculty lot. I’m just reading your Dad’s article about the excitement in town yesterday. Looks like he’s right in the middle of the story.”
“Well, he’s not really in the middle. He just writes the facts. Gets it out there to the reader, you know what I mean.” JJ made a motion with her hands pushing them outward eyeing this man as if she had never seen him before. She’d sat in his class every school day for seven months now listening to him speak passionately about such dull topics as how the world was civilized. She heard sadness when he related historical events of famines and wars. She heard laughter as he recounted tales of the knighthood. She had never heard him speak in this tone before. Sarcasm? Was it flippant? Was it to provoke a response from her?
“He quoted lots of neighbors and police, the detectives. Looks like he’s in the middle of it to me. Right smack in the middle.”
JJ stared at Mr. Grumman walking toward the building. That was odd, she thought. He’s not even from Georgia. Why would he be interested in an article written by my dad? That’s so odd, she repeated to herself. JJ followed him into the building and turned down the hallway to the Counselors’ offices.
Dr. Myra Elaine Jacob was usually the first counselor to arrive in the morning and the last one to leave in the afternoon. She was JJ’s favorite of the three.
She had been married and divorced twice. During her senior year in high school, she developed a crush on an intern, a college student who attended her Sociology class as a research project. He interviewed each of the twenty-five students in her class with various questions about consequences of behavior, emotional expression, social inequities and then asked the individual student opinion about these matters. During her interview with him was when the personal aspect of these discussions led to some very private revelations. The talk turned to action, and she found herself pregnant. He married her, but then she lost the baby at eleven weeks. It was devastating to her. He completed college but she dropped out of high school to get a GED. The marriage ended in divorce fourteen months after they wed.
“Dr. Jacob, do you have a minute for me to talk to you about something?”
“What time is your first class, Miss Matthews?”
“Math at eight fifteen.”
“Will you give me about five minutes to send an email? You may sit and wait in the outer office if you’d like.
“Yes ma’am, thank you.”
JJ heard the familiar sound of Windows starting up. “JJ, do you want a glass of orange juice?”
“No ma’am, thank you, I’m fine.” JJ was fascinated with Dr. Jacob. She just had a knack of understanding students’ concerns. She could discern what a student wanted to know when they didn’t even know. She never talked down or belittled a student. Even when one of the students had found her story on an Internet site, she didn’t hold a grudge. In fact, she told JJ and some of the female students about it as a caution of life’s disappointments.
“Okay, just give me a minute to get signed on to my email.”
“Yes ma’am”
While JJ waited in the outer office, she read postings on the bulletin board. After school help wanted in another counselor’s office, before school help wanted in the library, tutoring available in almost every subject at the college, a computer laptop for sale, a printer for sale, a photo of a litter of kittens to give away. “Oh how cute.” A part-time job available at Brockton Real Estate. Wonder if that’s still available? Although JJ wasn’t looking for a job.
“Come on in, Miss Matthews.”
“It’s bad about Mr. Brockton, don’t you think?”
“He was a fine man. He really cared for the students and the school. He volunteered his time and his money, but that fact is not well known. Is that what you wanted to talk to me about?”
“Oh, no ma’am, he was just very nice to me. He told me about my job, you know my after-school job at the beauty shop. He even helped me with transportation before I got my car. But, no, Dr. Jacob, I wanted to ask your advice about something.”
“Yes, JJ, I’m listening.”
“I’ll be a senior next year, and I think I know where I want to go to college, but I want to ask you about it.”
“JJ, I’m thrilled. What do you have in mind?”
“Do you know about the aviation college in Eastman? You know, it’s part of the University system.”
“Yes, I know about it. Do you have an interest in being a pilot or more of a position on the management side of aviation?”
“Dr. Jacob, I think I’d love to learn to fly and be a commercial pilot. But is it something, I could make a career of? Do you think, well, are my grades good enough in the right subjects? I mean, Am I smart enough to pass the test and learn it and everything?”
“I tell you what, why don’t I get the curriculum, make a call or two for you and see what we can find out. Is that what you want?”
“Yes ma’am, thank you so much. I need to know what to take for my senior year. I’m thinking I’ll need more math and science. I might be able to get some summer help to get me into an advanced class, if that’s what it takes.”
“JJ, I’m very happy you’re taking charge of your education. Have you talked to your Dad about this?”
“Well, not exactly. I think he’ll be very happy if I go to a local school. I think I’ll qualify for the Hope Grant, if I can maintain my average, even with the advanced classes. I will, won’t I?”
“I’ll have to pull your file and review your record, but we’ll have time to work with that. There’s probably other scholarship
money out there for you as well.”
“Dr. Jacob, thank you for listening to me and not just brushing me off. I know I’ve not always been the best student, but some subjects are just really boring to me, and I have a hard time paying attention to them.”
“Don’t we all, my dear? You’ve taken a big step, a giant step today. Give me a few days to make the calls and gather up the information. Now don’t be late for your class. Math is very important to that field, you know!”
“Yes ma’am, thank you.”
JJ hurried on down the hall and turned into Room 105 just in time to take her seat before the bell rang. She looked over toward her best friend, Sara, with a big smile and a nod that meant, I did it, Sara, I really did it!
Mr. Grumman and Dr. Early walked into Dr. Jacob’s office and asked if JJ was in trouble again. Dr. Jacob simply said, “She wanted some college and career advice.”
Mr. Grumman stared at her with a surprised look. “JJ?”
Chapter 10
The crime scene investigation was still ongoing at eight that morning and was not near finished. After Jasper found a gun hidden behind a Bible with a bloody fingerprint, investigators removed everything from Blake’s office. Item by item his personal property was placed in bags or plastic containers.
One bookshelf held a row of books mounted together as camouflage to reveal a hidden room. Eight books cut in two and mounted together onto a metal frame. At a glance, the bookshelf held Presidential biographies. But as one officer tried to remove President Theodore Roosevelt’s biography off the shelf, fifth from the right, the entire four by eight shelving section swung forward.
The investigators had never seen something this high tech before except in the movies and on the TV crime shows. Behind the shelving unit was more shelves and file cabinets and a pull down staircase to the attic. In the attic, investigators discovered another hidden room. Banker’s boxes labeled with names, the month dating back fifteen years were stacked from floor to ceiling—hundreds of Banker’s boxes—thousands of files.