“She’s doing okay and Corey just thinks you’re away on business.”
“Yeah, she told me that’s what she told him. She tried to be strong when she came to visit me, but I worry about her.”
“I talked to her earlier today, and I’ll go see her tomorrow. She’ll be okay.”
“And my trial yesterday?”
“We settled it and I picked up your calendar from your office. I’ll see that everything is covered. There are plenty of people willing to help me if I need it. You just concentrate on keeping your spirits up. And not smoking is a good thing,” Sabre said.
They visited a while longer. Bob continued to joke about what he had to look forward to and Sabre repeatedly told Bob they would find the killer. Conversation seemed strained by the surroundings. From the first moment when Sabre and Bob met, conversation was easy. Never in the six years she had known him had they struggled to communicate, but this was awkward. It made it more awkward to leave, but Sabre hoped the next time would be easier.
***
JP and Sabre left the San Diego County Jail a little after six and walked to where JP had parked his truck. JP opened the passenger door for Sabre. When they started to drive off JP said, “Would you like to get some dinner?”
Sabre’s first reaction was to decline, but she decided a quiet dinner with a good friend might be just what she needed, although she was pretty certain it would be spent discussing the case. She and JP seldom talked about anything else. She realized just how little she knew about him, starting with what happened with Klakken so many years ago. Perhaps she could change that tonight.
“I’d like that,” she said. “How about The Fish Market? It’s close and it shouldn’t be too busy yet.” Sabre cocked her head and looked at JP. “Do you like fish?”
“The Fish Market is perfect.”
The long lines at the restaurant hadn’t formed yet, and JP and Sabre were seated next to the window looking out at the water with a great view of the setting sun. The pink sky melted into the deep blue sea, erasing the line where the water stopped and the sky took over.
“What was life like for you growing up?” Sabre asked.
“About the same as everybody else, I suspect. Some good times, some bad. Why do you ask?”
“I recently realized how little I know about you. I mean, I know you’re a good, honest person and you’re exceptionally good at your job, but I know little about your personal life.”
“There’s not much to know. I spent my childhood in Texas. I was a cop for twenty years in California. I was married once. It didn’t work. But you already knew all that.”
Sabre shook her head. She wanted to know what his life was like in Texas, his experiences as a cop, and why his marriage didn’t last, but she knew he wasn’t going to go into detail even with a great deal of prodding. And right now she was concerned about Bob. “Do you know what Bob’s going through? I guess what I’m asking is, have you ever spent a night behind bars?”
“I spent more than one night behind a bar and many a night in a bar,” he said lightheartedly. Sabre looked worried and JP must have noticed because he added, “Yes, I did spend a night in jail once. I was in a fight in a small town in Texas when I was nineteen years old. Frankly, I was scared to death, as I suspect Bob is even though he tries to make light of the whole situation. I probably shouldn’t say that because I’m sure most of his act is to make you feel better, but I also know it doesn’t help. You’ve always been straight with me and I promised you the same. You know as well as I do that we need to find who killed Foreman because no one else is as vested in this as we are.”
“You mean Klakken isn’t going to do it?”
“Klakken is a good cop and if he thinks he has the wrong guy in custody he’ll work hard to find the truth.”
“But?” Sabre asked.
“But he may be convinced Bob is guilty. In which case, he isn’t going to do me any favors.”
“Why is that? What happened between you two?”
JP peered into Sabre’s eyes. His gaze pulled at her like a magnet, leaving a fluttering feeling in her stomach. She thought about his strong yet gentle demeanor and it made her want to reach out to him, but instead, she looked away. Then she heard him say. “It’s not important. Klakken will follow up if anything leads him in another direction. And that Olen Williams you talked about, didn’t you say he seemed determine to help Marcus find his father’s killer?”
“Yes, he told me he would do what he could.”
“So there. We have America’s finest working on it and I’m not done looking. If I have to go half way through hell in gasoline pants, I will until I find who killed Foreman.”
The corner of Sabre’s mouth went up. She reached over and squeezed his hand. “Thanks,” she said. Sabre let go to answer her ringing phone. “Sabre Brown.” She listened. “Okay, thank you. I appreciate the information. She touched the face of the phone terminating the call.
“What is it?” JP asked.
“That was the detective who questioned Marcus earlier, Marcia Jones. They have Smithe in custody. They’ve charged him with P.C. 288.”
“So, just the child molestation? Not murder?”
“Not murder. Smithe is no longer a suspect. Apparently, he was at some training program in New Jersey when Foreman was killed.”
Chapter 43
The three-year-old girl in a white sundress with little red ladybugs flung her arms in the air, waving her hands as she dodged through the hanging bodies. She tried to scream, but nothing came out. She couldn’t find the door and everywhere she turned there were feet kicking her in the head from another dead, dangling body. Her eyes searched for her father. He would save her. He always saved her. She screamed again until sound finally emanated from her mouth. “Ahhh!” Sabre screamed, waking herself up from another terrifying, realistic nightmare. The dreams seemed to be getting worse and the faces clearer.
Her body shook as she stepped from the bed while glancing at the clock that read 4:53 a.m. She drew herself a bath and poured melon bubble bath in the water. She slipped into the bubbles and took deep breaths, summoning herself to relax. She felt better, but the dream still haunted her. She sometimes would shift from being an older girl to a young girl, but she always wore the same sundress and was always in the same little, yellow house with dead people hanging from the rafters. And her father always rescued her unless she woke up too soon. That’s the only part of the dream she wanted to relive—the part where she saw her father again as a strong, loving man protecting her from the evil world. Why was it so real?
Then she remembered her mother running out of a white house that was in front of the yellow one in her nightmare. Sabre suddenly knew it was a memory, not a part of the dream. Her mother reached for Sabre to take her from her father, but Sabre wouldn’t let go. Her mother was crying and caressing her. But that wasn’t part of her dream; Sabre always woke up when her father saved her. There was no dream after that. So why was she remembering her mother taking her from her father after she left the yellow house? Where did that memory come from?
Sabre stayed in the soothing bubbles until they were all gone and the water was tepid. Then she dressed, ate a small bowl of steel cut oatmeal with cranberries and walnuts, and took a hot cup of tea out onto the front deck to watch the birds. At 8:30 she decided to check on Marilee. She stopped at Sprouts on her way and bought a carton of fresh strawberries and a bottle of Merlot, two of Marilee’s favorites.
She visited for nearly an hour with Marilee, most of which was spent reassuring her that they would find who did this and it would all work out. Sabre thought if she said it often enough she would soon believe it herself. Most of the time she remained optimistic, but her optimism had faded when Smithe’s alibi held up and he was ruled out as a murder suspect. That was a blow. She thought him to be the most likely suspect, but there were still three other very likely candidates and even if Klakken wasn’t investigating, Olen Williams was.
Con
fident that Marilee was okay, Sabre got in her car and called her mother to let her know she was on her way to visit her. She listened to the entire new Scotty McCreery CD and half of her old Carrie Underwood CD before she reached her mother’s house. The sun was shining and the traffic was light, which would normally put a smile on her face. But not today. Today she felt anxious and a little guilty. Her mother was always telling her to come home to visit but Sabre’s schedule was so full. Something always came up that kept her from going on a regular basis. She knew if her father were there she would’ve made it a greater priority.
It’s not that she didn’t love her mother. She did. They just were never as close as she and her father had been. She could never quite figure out why but she always felt like she blamed her mother for something--or for everything. When things didn’t go right as a teenager, it was always her mother who received the brunt of her anger. It was different when her brother, Ron, was around. He was a mama’s boy and Sabre’s best friend. Ron always kept the peace between Sabre and her mother. Now that Ron was gone, her mother probably needed her more than ever.
Sabre justified her lack of visits because her mother kept a very busy schedule with bridge games and volunteer work. She had a hectic schedule like Sabre’s. The older Sabre became, the more she wondered if there was truth in what her father and Ron both claimed for so many years—that Sabre and her mother didn’t get along because they were too much alike.
Sabre walked in the house to the sound of a whistling teapot and the smell of homemade zucchini bread.
“Ahh, the smells of home,” Sabre said, hugging her mother.
“It’s so nice to have you here. Would you like some tea?” Her red lips formed the words that came straight from her heart.
“Tea would be good.”
The attractive, sixty-one-year-old woman moved gracefully across the kitchen in her light yellow, cotton dress. Her yellow tourmaline earrings hung like teardrops just below her earlobes. Sabre liked that her mother always looked so perfect. Her mother always said a woman wasn’t finished until she had on her lipstick and earrings. She was such a lady.
They sat down at the small kitchen table by the sliding glass door that looked out to a well-manicured back yard. The roses and the bougainvillea surrounding the patch of green grass brought the yard to life. “So, how have you been, darling?”
“Busy. I have a case that is pretty tough right now. I represent an eleven-year-old boy who tried to commit suicide.”
Her mother shook her head. “I don’t know how you do it, honey. You see so much suffering among those little children.”
“Mom.” Sabre hesitated. “Can I ask you something?”
“Of course.”
“Did we ever live in a white house with a little, yellow house behind it?”
Her mother looked surprised. “Yes, we did, but I can’t imagine you would remember that. You were not even four years old. Why do you ask?”
“Because I’ve been seeing it in my dreams.”
“What are you dreaming about?”
“They’re not really dreams. They’re nightmares, actually. I’m wearing a white dress with red ladybugs.”
Her mother stood up and went to the oven and removed the zucchini bread. She removed the bread from the pan and sliced it, laying the perfect slices on a serving plate. Sabre sat in silence, even though her mother was only a few feet away. When she set the bread and two small dessert plates on the table Sabre continued, “The dream is always the same. I open the door and walk into the little, yellow house and….”
“Help yourself, dear,” her mother interrupted her.
Sabre put a slice of bread on her plate and picked up a fork, but she didn’t start to eat. Her mother’s face grew pale and she looked as if she might cry. “Mom, I see dead bodies hanging from the rafters,” she blurted.
Clang! Her mother’s fork hit the floor as her hand covered her mouth. “Oh, honey, I’m sorry. You were so young. We thought what happened would fade from your memory, and you never asked about it so we never said anything.”
“It was real?” Sabre asked incredulously. It had seemed so real but she didn’t really want to believe it. Now her mom had confirmed it.
“You saw a body, not bodies. It was your Uncle Bill. He hanged himself.”
“Why? How?”
“Oh, Sabre. I’m so sorry.”
Sabre reached for her mother’s hand. “Mom, you don’t need to be sorry. “
The tears were rolling down her mother’s face. “But I do, honey. I do need to be sorry. I didn’t protect you from him.”
“In my dream, Daddy comes and gets me. He swoops me up and takes me outside. But then I remember your coming out of the big, white house and you look so scared and that wasn’t in my dream.”
“Do you remember anything else about your Uncle Bill?”
Sabre shook her head. “I didn’t even know I had an Uncle Bill. Do you have any photos of him?”
“Not anymore. We destroyed them all.”
“So that I wouldn’t remember what I saw.”
“Yes, we didn’t want you to suffer from those horrible memories.”
Sabre looked at the distant, scared look on her mother’s face. “There’s more, isn’t there?”
Her mother took a deep breath. “Bill was not a very nice man. He was my brother and I loved him growing up. He was such a sweet little boy. He left home before he graduated from high school. One day he just took off. He wrote to me a couple of times from Japan after he joined the navy. After he was discharged he moved around for a while and ended up in Florida, where he lived for about ten years. He married a woman with two little girls and a year later they were divorced. He had nowhere to go and so he came to stay with us. We had a guest house on our property—a small, yellow house where he stayed for a couple of weeks. I had no idea what he was like when he came here because it had been nearly twenty years since I had seen him. When he left home he was still a boy and he came back to me a very troubled man.”
Sabre grew more and more uncomfortable as her mother spoke. She began to see where the conversation was going, but she had to know. “Why did he hang himself?”
“It was nearly dinner time and I sent you out to tell your uncle he had about fifteen minutes. When you didn’t come back right away, your father went to see if you got lost along the way. He found you in the bedroom with Bill and he had his pants open. I don’t think anything happened to you, but we never knew for sure. Your dad grabbed you up and ran out threatening to kill Bill.”
“Oh, no. Did Daddy kill him?”
“No, but he came inside and got his gun. I was hysterical. I screamed at him to put the gun away. You were screaming. I wanted to take care of you, but I had to stop your father from killing Bill. Trust me, I didn’t care about Bill. I just didn’t want your father to go to prison over him. I yelled at you to go to your room and you took off.” Tears ran down her mother’s face as she spoke and her face burned red with anger.
“What did Daddy do?”
“I couldn’t stop him. He even pushed me out of the way. Your father had never laid a hand on me in anger or on anyone else I know of, but he was filled with rage. He kept yelling about how he was going to kill him. He ran out the back door and I went to your room looking for you, but you weren’t there. I looked out the window and saw you running after your father toward the guest house. I ran downstairs but by the time I got there you were already in the house. The next thing I saw was your father carrying you out. Bill had hanged himself before your father had the chance to shoot him, but unfortunately you saw him hanging.”
Sabre stood up and walked to her mother. She knelt down and hugged her. Her mother just kept crying and saying, “I’m sorry, Sabee. I’m so sorry.” Her mom hadn’t used that pet name for her since she was about nine when Sabre asserted she was too old for such a baby name.
“Don’t cry, Mom. It’s okay. It’s not your fault,” Sabre said, as she fought the tears herself. S
abre wasn’t concerned for herself, but rather for the years her mother had suffered with this agonizing secret.
Her mom sniffled, pulled back from their embrace, and looked down at her. She stroked her hair like she did when Sabre was little. “My strong, brave, little girl. You’ve grown into a magnificent woman.”
“Thanks to you, Mom. Everyone always said I’m a lot like you.”
“No, my Sabee, you are your father. You have his strength, his intelligence, and his ambition. And just like him, you spend your life helping people less fortunate than you.”
“So do you, Mom. Look at all the volunteer work you do. You help people every day.”
“Honey, I volunteer because I’m bored. Sure, it does some good, but for your father it was a lifestyle, just as it is for you.”
Sabre tried to smile. “Thank you, Mom, for telling me. I know it wasn’t easy. And I think it’ll be good for me. Now that I know, maybe the nightmares will stop.”
“That client of yours, the little boy who tried to commit suicide, did he try to hang himself?”
Sabre nodded. “Yes. I’m the one who found him.”
“And that’s probably what triggered your memory and it came out in your dreams.”
“I expect so, but now I can deal with it. I’ll be able to sleep again.” She decided not to tell her mother that she now had a recollection of what happened in that bedroom.
Chapter 44
Sabre’s drive home seemed longer than usual. The events her mother had shared with her bounced around in her head. She wondered how much influence they had in shaping her life. She often questioned why she chose to work with abused children. Perhaps this explained it. She only knew she was more determined than ever to help them now and to stop creeps like Smithe and Tuffy.
She drove toward her home, but she didn’t really want to be alone tonight. She needed someone who made her feel safe, someone like Bob or JP. She knew Bob would make light of it and find some way to make her laugh, but even if she could see him he didn’t need her problems right now. He had enough of his own. JP would be perfect. She wouldn’t even have to share what happened. His presence would be enough. She felt a certain comfort just thinking about him. She picked up her phone and said, “JP.” The phone dialed his number. It rang four times but he didn’t pick up. “Just checking in,” Sabre said. “Please call when you get a chance.”
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