“No, Chandler. You are our son and nothing will ever, ever change that. Obviously your biological parents had problems, or they wouldn’t have given you up. And it’s time, it’s past time, that you knew about it. It’s you we’ve worried about hurting.”
Chan smiled in relief. “I’m ready if you are.”
Liam stood and grabbed him in a tight hug. “Deal.”
Outside Liam’s office a figure finished sweeping. He straightened his ball cap over his dreadlocks and glided away, unseen, unheard, unnoticed.
CHAPTER FIFTY
Tan offered to bring in sandwiches if the reporters didn’t want to stop working.
“That would be great,” Branigan told him. She needed to start writing so she could see where the holes were.
Marjorie was working on a story on homelessness in Grambling, and especially how street dwellers interacted with Jericho Road.
Jody was following the police investigation into the Jericho Road van that killed two of them.
Branigan was working on the anniversary story of Alberta Resnick’s murder and how it intersected at several points with Grambling’s homeless — with Vesuvius and Rita, certainly, but also with Max. All three of the reporters’ stories needed to stand alone, but there would be cross-referencing. It was going to take an experienced editor to keep it all straight. Tan seemed disinclined to hand it over to an underling, so Branigan assumed he’d edit it with some serious fact-checking from Julie and the copy desk.
Branigan was creating a timeline of July 5, the last day of Mrs Resnick’s life, when her cell phone buzzed. It was Liam.
“Branigan, when’s the last time you talked to Davison?”
“Tuesday night. There was so much going on last night that I missed the window to call him.”
“Chan is asking questions, so Liz and I want to move our conversation with Davison to this weekend. Can he do that?”
“I guess so. He has a twelve-hour pass on Saturday. You want me to call him?”
“No, that’s okay. I’ll do it.”
“Do you want Mom and Dad there?”
“No, let’s start with Liz and me and Davison. And maybe you and Charlie.”
“I’ll try, but I may be working on this story.”
“Okay. I’m thinking I want you there to remind Chan that you and I have the same genes as Davison and Shauna. I want him to know that addiction’s not a given.”
“I understand. I’ll do everything I can to be there. Call me back when you know what time you want me.”
“Will do. And Brani G? Thanks for everything. I’m looking forward to getting this over with.”
She set an alert on her laptop to signal her at 8 p.m. so she wouldn’t forget to call Davison. Then she arranged the cardboard boxes of police files on the floor around her desk for easy access, and stacked her notebooks neatly beside her computer, with colored tabs marking the names of interviewees: Ramsey, Amanda, Heath, Caroline, Ashley, Ben Jr, Liam, Dontegan, Jess, Malachi, Detective Scovoy. At times like this her rigid organization paid off.
Julie brought her a cup of coffee from the canteen, with a whispered, “Looks like you can use this.”
Branigan smiled her thanks. Then she dug in. The writing flowed more easily than she’d anticipated, probably because she’d lived inside the story for the past two weeks. By 5 p.m. she had a roughly sketched piece and a fresh list of questions on a pad.
The first one concerned that pesky NYU hat. She called Amanda’s cell, figuring she’d be back at the lake house.
“No,” Amanda said, “I took the opportunity to do some shopping. I’ve been at the mall all day.”
“Can I meet you there?” Branigan asked. “I have a few more questions.”
“I’ve already pulled out. What more can you possibly have to ask me?”
Branigan deliberately dodged the question. “A lot of times you have to start writing before you figure out what’s missing. That’s where I am now.”
“Very well. I’m near downtown.”
“Perfect. Let’s meet at Bea’s on Main in ten minutes.”
* * *
Branigan took the opportunity to walk in the late afternoon heat. It felt good to get out of the chilly office, and even better to stretch her muscles after a day crouched over a laptop. As she walked, she called her mother, who said that Uncle Bobby had overseen the installation of an alarm system at the farmhouse and had already activated it. She gave Branigan the code she’d need to deactivate it when she got inside. Branigan thanked her and told her she would spend the night at the farm.
Amanda was already seated in a booth when Branigan arrived. She looked tired. Branigan ordered yet another coffee, and slid in across from her.
“This is going to sound strange,” she began. “But I want to ask you about something Ben Jr said.”
Amanda didn’t move, but a muscle beneath her left eye twitched.
“In following the family’s movements on July 5, the police knew that Ben drove to the University Shoppe on the Eastside around noon or so. A clerk identified his picture and Ben confirmed he was there.”
Amanda merely nodded.
“He told me he went to replace an NYU Law School baseball cap.” She watched Amanda closely. “He was headed to law school there.”
“Anybody can buy one,” Amanda said.
“Right. But as it turns out, Ben didn’t need another one. He found his hat in your attic.”
Amanda had a terrible poker face. She turned a water bottle round and round in her hands. “No,” she said. “He bought another hat in Atlanta.”
“Yes. Another hat. Because he lost one at your mother’s house. And you took it and hid it in your attic. I want to know why.”
“How could you possibly know that? Have you been in my attic?”
“I didn’t have to. Ben said he found it there when he went looking for a baseball mitt, years later.”
Amanda looked bewildered. “No, that’s impossible. Why didn’t Ben say anything?”
“I think he did. To your husband.”
“Bennett never mentioned it to me.”
“He probably didn’t think it was important,” Branigan pressed. “Only you did. Why did you think the hat was important enough to hide?”
Amanda’s eyes skittered away. “You don’t have children, do you, Branigan?”
“No.”
“Things change when you’re a mother. I don’t believe I should answer any more questions.”
“Where did you find the hat? Were you at the murder scene?”
“I don’t believe I should answer any more questions,” Amanda repeated.
“You do understand I have to give this information to the police, don’t you?”
She looked at Branigan beseechingly. Then her eyes fell. “I suppose.”
“Okay. But I think there’s one more thing you should know.”
“What is that?” she asked wearily.
“Ben Jr said that your brother Heath was kidding around and took his NYU hat the night of the party. That’s how he lost it.”
Amanda’s head popped up. The weariness vanished from her face and shoulders as she looked at Branigan with widening eyes. And then she did something unexpected. She started to laugh, loud enough to draw glances from the diners behind them, long enough to unsettle Branigan. Her laughter had a shrill edge, veering toward hysteria.
“Mrs Brissey?”
“Heath was wearing Ben’s hat? Oh, that is rich. All these years. All these years.” Amanda was shaking her head and wiping her eyes.
Gradually, her laughter died away, though the tears still ran down her face. Her head shook from side to side, as if she couldn’t quite take in this turn of events. “All these years,” she whispered again.
She placed a hand over one of Branigan’s.
“My dear girl,” she said. “I think you’ve found your murderer.”
CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE
Branigan followed Amanda Brissey to the police station a few blocks away, a
nd waited with her while Detective Scovoy was summoned from his makeshift office at Jericho Road. When he arrived, he placed Amanda in a room for questioning, then guided Branigan to his office. She filled him in on Amanda’s evidence tampering, pointing out that she was willing to confess, now that she understood the evidence to point to her brother, not her son.
Branigan also told the detective about Ben Brissey Jr and Rita Mae Jones smoking crack at the Fourth of July party. She added, “When I told Heath Resnick that the homeless Rita killed by the Jericho Road van was the same Rita Mae who’d been a party guest, he seemed genuinely surprised. But you probably know when people are lying better than I do.”
“I’m beginning to wonder about that,” Scovoy said. “Nice work on the baseball cap. We knew Amanda Brissey was holding out on us, but we had no idea about what.”
“The question now,” she said, “is whether Heath Resnick had access to the church van. Was he trying to keep Rita and Vesuvius quiet? And Max, for that matter?”
“That’s the angle we’ll be working tonight,” the detective said. “We questioned Ramsey Resnick today as a Jericho Road volunteer. We’ll backtrack to see if Heath could have obtained the van key through him.”
Branigan left, telling Detective Scovoy she’d swing by the next morning to get the latest information on his inquiry into Heath Resnick. If nothing else, it would provide the lead she needed for the anniversary story.
She stopped by the newsroom to update Jody and Marjorie. Resurrecting Heath as a suspect and introducing Amanda’s presence at the murder scene wouldn’t affect their stories, but she wanted to keep them in the loop. Luckily, Tan-4 had gone home, so she didn’t have to tell him about his cousin’s return to the suspect pool. Or maybe cousins, plural, if the police didn’t entirely buy Amanda’s story.
While Branigan was in the newsroom, she scrolled through her emails, discarding some, answering the rest. Julie asked her about a Style front for the Sunday after next. “Once I get past this anniversary story,” she promised, “I’ll do anything you need.”
At 8 p.m. her laptop signaled it was time to call Davison. If she could get to the farm before dark, she planned to spend the night, so she hurried out into the last hour of daylight.
Halfway home, she called Davison and warbled the opening lines to “Rehab”.
“You used that already,” he replied.
“You sound tired.”
“Tired of your singing.”
“Ouch. What’s up?”
He sighed. “Not a thing. Just learning why I got to say ‘no, no, no’ no matter what.
“‘Nothing going to get better by putting dope on it.’ ‘Nothing so bad dope can’t make it worse.’ ‘Sick and tired of being sick and tired.’ More like sick and tired of all this recovery crap.”
“You’re in a mood.”
“Aw, I’m fine. It’s just that I’ve been through this so many times before. I know what I have to do to stay sober.”
She held her tongue.
He said it for her. Sheepishly. “But obviously knowing and doing are two different things. I’ve got to lick this.”
“That reminds me,” she said. “Has Liam called you?”
“Why would he?”
“He wants you to meet with Chan and him and Liz this Saturday.”
“What’s the rush?”
“Chan is asking questions.”
There was silence for a long moment. “I guess that’ll work. Make sure Liam has my cell number, okay? Brani G, I better run. Another meeting.”
He hung up before she had a chance to ask about the water bottle in the barn. The more she thought about it, the surer she was that he’d left it the week he’d stayed at the farm. She punched in his number again to ask. But this time it went to voice mail.
When she pulled into the driveway, it took Cleo a full minute to run out of the cotton field. Obviously she’d been beyond the patch — in the pasture, maybe. Or sniffing around the barn.
Branigan estimated there was another half-hour of light remaining, so she didn’t even go inside to change clothes.
“Come on, Cleo,” she said. “Let’s see what you’ve been up to.”
She kicked off her heels and left them in the driveway. The dirt path was hard-packed and relatively free of stones, warm on her bare feet. The barn door stood ajar, but that was not unusual, especially if Uncle Bobby had moved his cows earlier in the day. She pulled the door wide, to allow as much light in as possible. Keeping close to Cleo, she tiptoed to the stall closest to the door — the one with the Jericho Road bottle inside.
It was still there.
Only now there was a second one next to it.
Cleo barked, and Branigan jumped, letting out a shriek. The dog sniffed at the stall door, then ran up and down the line of empty stalls, whining and snuffling.
“Somebody slept here last night,” she said to Cleo. “Even without us at home.”
Branigan’s skin was prickling, so she turned abruptly and headed for the house, checking to make sure Cleo was behind her.
Don’t be a scaredy cat, she told herself. Cleo would tear anybody apart for you.
They hurried back to the house, slamming and locking the side door. Branigan heard the alarm beeping, but couldn’t remember the code her mother had given her. As she clawed through her purse for the scrap of paper she’d written it on, the house phone rang.
“This is the alarm company. May I have your password, please?”
“I’m sorry! This is Branigan Powers. It was just installed today and I don’t have the password yet.”
“We’ll send a deputy to this address immediately. Meantime, please see your paperwork for your code and password.”
“Yes, yes. That’s fine.”
Branigan didn’t try to talk the voice out of sending a deputy, because she wanted to report the barn intruder. She went to sit with Cleo on the steps leading to the side stoop, checking her watch. A Cannon County Sheriff’s car pulled into the driveway in exactly eight minutes, a man and a woman inside. The woman took the lead, introducing herself as Deputy Mary Ann Hammond.
Branigan explained about the new alarm system. “But I was going to call you anyway. Someone has been spending the last few nights in my barn.”
“How do you know?” Deputy Hammond asked.
“He — or she — left water bottles from Jericho Road. That’s the homeless church downtown.”
“The church under investigation for those hit-and-runs?” asked her partner.
“That’s the one.”
“Do you want to show us?” asked Deputy Hammond.
“If you’ve got flashlights.”
The sky had turned from orange-red to dusky purple as she sat on the stoop, but Branigan could walk the cotton patch in her sleep. She led the deputies to the barn, explaining how Cleo had gone ballistic on Tuesday night and how she’d found a single water bottle the next morning. They’d spent last night in town and returned to find a second bottle.
The deputies poked around, but it was almost impossible for them to see anything in the murkiness of the barn’s interior. With the darkness impairing Branigan’s sight, she found her sense of smell sharpened. She smelled Uncle Bobby’s hay on the wide shelf above the stalls, a faint lingering scent of manure from the stalls, but something else too — something pleasant. Flowers, she thought. No, honeysuckle. Oh, of course...
Deputy Hammond interrupted her thoughts. “You say you have a new security alarm?”
They left the barn and headed single-file toward the house. “Yes, installed today.”
“And you haven’t seen signs of anyone trying to break into the house?”
She shook her head.
The deputy handed Branigan a business card. “Lock yourself in,” she advised, “with that dog. If you hear anything, you can call me directly in addition to having the alarm company alert the sheriff’s office.”
Branigan thanked them for coming and took the deputy’s advice, checking
all the exterior doors to make sure she and Cleo were securely bolted in.
Over a late supper of scrambled eggs, a toasted bagel and Aunt Jeanie’s strawberry jam, Branigan pored over a folder on Heath Resnick she’d brought from the office.
Smug and arrogant, spoiled youngest child, perpetually dressed for a round of golf, he fit easily into her unschooled view of a murderer. She could picture him stabbing his mother in a rage after finding out she was cutting him from her will. She could picture him leaving his nephew’s NYU Law cap, either by sheer accident or to implicate Ben Jr in the murder. (If the latter, he must have been surprised when the police never mentioned it!) She could picture him behind the wheel of the Jericho Road van, pressing his foot to the gas pedal to run down an unsuspecting Vesuvius Hightower, a drunkenly weaving Rita Jones. She could picture him lashing out at Max Brody with a broken whiskey bottle, angry that the drunk couldn’t keep his mouth shut. She could even picture him calmly cutting her phone lines and creeping into the farmhouse, stabbing her as she slept.
What she couldn’t picture was Heath Resnick sleeping in a cattle stall in her barn.
The first murder seemed spontaneous, a crime of fury and opportunity.
Vesuvius, on the other hand, took some planning. Did Heath buy a painting from him in order to strike up a conversation and find out what he knew? And then follow him to run him down?
And Rita. Did Heath know good and well that Rita Mae Jones was a family friend who had seen something on the weekend of the murder? Had she been blackmailing him? There was no obvious sign of money coming her way, but she could have smoked it.
And Max. Did Heath first try to buy his silence? And when that didn’t work, did he bring a bottle to Max’s tent? Things could have turned ugly, leading Heath to kill Max in the same rage in which he killed his mother.
Still, still, she couldn’t picture Heath lying in wait in the barn for a chance to get at her. And she sure couldn’t see him leaving two water bottles for her to find — unless, of course, he thought she never entered the barn.
She yawned. Despite her anxiety, she was getting sleepy.
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