by Allen Gates
Lon looked at the portrait over the bed. For one moment he thought she was smiling more than a minute ago. On an impulse he lifted the Mothers pillow and after slipping on a latex glove he picked up a prescription bottle with the senator’s name on it. It was a prescription for sleeping pills. That answered his question of why she spilled the wine. She fell asleep with the glass in her hand. Why did she take sleeping pills? He placed the bottle in an evidence bag.
Slowly scanning the room, he saw the door that he recalled Beth Radford described having gone through in her search of the mother’s room.
I’ll wait for the warrant, he decided. Opening a drawer he moved the gloves and saw the key. He picked it up and placed it in his pocket.
Hitting number one on his phone, he was connected to the big guy and briefed him on their actions.
“Now listen Lon, I need you to be both selective and somewhat secretive on what you say or do on this Radford matter. I’m going to have a press conference at one o’clock. I want you and Anne to be there. This incest crap that went on—we keep under our hats. It does no one any good to let that out. You agree?”
“I have no problem with that chief. It really has no bearing on the case other than proving to me that he was the kook I felt he was.”
“Okay we agree then. I’ll see you at one.”
119
STEPHANIE DECIDED THAT on the next occasion she was having lunch with Len she was going to make sure that he understood there was never going to be anything between them, but friendship. It came later in the day in the cafeteria when Len arrived a few minutes after she sat down at a table. He was talkative, as usual, and finally the time was right to tell him her thoughts when he asked her to accompany him to an outdoor concert.
“Len, I want to be completely honest with you, I welcome you as a friend, but if you have anything more than that in mind, it’s out of the question.”
“Hey that’s alright by me Doc. We can just be friends and go to the concert together. What do you say?”
Before she could respond a nurse walked up and suggested that she should see what was being shown on the TV.
Both stood and walked to the far side of the lunch room. Several people were standing staring at the set. The first name she heard was Senator William Radford the third.
“Dead! Did I hear him say the Senator was dead, Doc?”
He looked at Stephanie who was definitely stunned by the news.
They listened as the reporter stated that he was found in his estate home beside the body of his mother. It appears that they committed suicide together.
“Mother, what do they mean with his mother? She died years ago in a car accident.”
The reporter paused. “Ladies and gentlemen this story continues to become more and more unbelievable. It seems the senator’s mother has been hiding in a secrete room for years horribly scarred from an auto accident that had, at the time of the accident, reported her dying at the scene. A press conference is scheduled for one o’clock. Stay tuned for what should be an interesting ending to a tragic story.
Len looked at Stephanie and seeing her teary eyed expression touched her shoulder. She turned and they walked back to their table.
120
LON AND ANNE entered the downtown government building and saw Leo Trent standing at the entrance of the press room. He smiled as he saw them approaching. “Hey you two, how’s this for a shocker. Old mommy’s boy bit the dust with his mommy by his side.”
His comment rubbed Anne the wrong way, and she let him know she thought it inappropriate. He looked at Lon confused and then apologized to Anne as they continued on into the front stage area. The chief’s face lit up with a relieved look in seeing them approaching the stage steps.
“Why, do you two always have to cut it so close?”
Lon loved it when the chief admitted that he needed him, even if it was in a roundabout way.
A bare minimum of the facts were expressed to the members of the press and other pertinent facts were hidden, by necessity, for the ongoing investigation. Questions of where had the mother been, the fathers suicide and other details were ignored on the pretense each were still under investigation.
Lon and Anne then stepped to the microphone and answered questions that directly involved them. As the chief was calling an end to the session they stepped out a side door and went to the car hoping to avoid contact with any reporters.
Once en route, Anne held up the warrant. Lon gave her a fist pump and said in a bold attempt at impersonating John Wayne, “Well good work, pilgrim.”
He waited for Anne to give her approval. She simply waved her hand in a rocking motion, declaring it so-so.
“You're a tough audience partner. I guess I should have done The Godfather.
They drove up to the door of the palatial estate of the Senator.
“This is quite the place partner, I wonder if the senator had a will,” he asked as they walked around to the back of the house.
“If not, Anne said, the state of California is going to be very happy.”
As they walked, Anne looked up and pointed to a strange add on dormer on the second floor. It did not seem to match the lines of the home.
“Why, with a big beautiful home like this would you have an albatross like that sticking off the back?”
“Come on, let’s get inside and start the search. I am anxious to search the mother’s room.”
Before walking up the staircase they stood quietly staring where the two had been found. The scene had apparently been released as the tape barrier was gone and the floor had been cleaned.
“Do you think they jumped or did one pull the other over the railing,” Lon asked?
121
“WOW,” LEN SAID breaking the silence between them at the table. “It just seems too incredible.”
Stephanie could not believe that it could possibly be true either.
“I talked with him last night, Len, just before he would have arrived at his home.” She stood to leave and Len stopped her with a repeat of his question.
“How about the concert Doc, are you in?”
“Get the details to me and we can discuss it further. Right now I have to finish my rounds so I can leave early to meet my realtor and do what I don’t really feel like doing. But, finding a house is top priority, so I’m committed.”
She left contemplating her commitment to his invite.
He watched her then turned back to the TV which was still discussing the death of Senator Radford.
“Serves you right,” he said.
122
TERRY WAS UNSURE of the correct approach to the problem he had created with Cassandra. How would she receive him if he stopped by and apologized? His decision was to stop by and assume they were still an item and their disagreement had nothing to do with their business arrangement. I’ll marry her tonight if necessary to keep my job, he thought.
Knocking on her door he anticipated the worst, but was surprised when she politely asked him in with a smiling face. His sales experience was at the ready and in his state of mind he was sure he could sell the queen her own jewels.
He kept quiet and allowed her to totally abuse him with her ranting’s offering only a few rebuttals and then remained quiet until she was ready to hear what he came to say. He agreed to the terms she required in their relationship, but expressed his disapproval of requirements that he felt unnecessary.
“I can’t be that type of person, Cassandra. I need my space once in a while. You can understand that can’t you?” She nodded, yes.
He walked toward her and took her hands in his.
“Look from now on if you have a problem with me going somewhere, we will discuss it and come to a mutual agreement, fair enough?”
Cassandra softened her expression and moved toward him placing both hands behind his neck and pulled his lips against hers. He responded not out of his, I knew I could win her back approach, but with a renewed desire for her that surprised him. She i
mmediately felt his response and began to undress him.
“I found it, boss, he thought.”
123
“LOOK AT THE size of that bed, Lon. It’s huge!”
“He sure knew how to live right. This bedroom is fantastic. It is every man’s dream workshop.”
He waited for Anne’s response, but she chose to ignore him and walked out of the room. He followed her down the hall to the mother’s room.
Anne went right to the bed and stood staring at the stain now turned brown.
She picked up the opened bottle of wine and the prescription vial on the night stand.
“Wine and sleeping pills, that’s quite a combination.”
Lon acknowledged her comment, but had walked to the door leading to the closet. The doors were pocket type and opened to a huge walk in area loaded with clothes and shoes. It was exactly as Beth Radford had described. Advancing to the back shelf he reached up and grabbed the large hat box Beth had described and handed it to Anne.
“Take it into the bedroom where you have more room to spread out. I’m going to search in here a little more.”
He began to spread hangers and pull out stacks of clothes on shelves. Nothing here he thought. He turned off the lights and joined Anne who was intently reading.
“Listen to this, Lon.”
Anne began reading a newspaper article relating the suicide details of the husband and his lover. She then picked up another paper describing the horrible car accident that had killed the mother.
“However the two of them worked out the mother’s fake car death, it worked superbly. She received the burns to the face we saw on her, but survived. When William was the first to arrive on the scene, he must have decided to protect his mother’s reputation as she had been drinking and would have been responsible for the other woman’s death.”
“She may as well have been dead, hiding all these years in this museum, don’t you think? I can’t even imagine someone thinking of such a thing. Do you think Marie knew about this and agreed to the cover up?”
Lon didn’t respond, but picked up the black case and pulling the key from his pocket opened the lock and removed several items. They found the photo that the senator’s ex-wife had described showing the father and his tattoo. The stack of business papers were set aside and Lon continued to shuffle through other interesting items.
Anne picked up a small red book that Lon dropped on the bed. It turned out to be a small dated calendar used as a journal.
“Bingo, she said.”
She pulled out a folded piece of paper.
“Listen to this Lon.”
If you are reading this, I and my son are most certainly dead. I have always planned our deaths to be together. I write these things only to ease my conscience for the actions the two of us willingly participated in. The details in this journal are meant to explain and hopefully help everyone understand what led us to indulge in this nontraditional life style. We do not seek forgiveness simply understanding.
Adrianna J. Radford
Their long incestuous affair was described and defended in great detail and left no doubt in the minds of both detective’s that the husband of Adrianna and the father of William had been a very evil man.
Reading on, Anne read the confession to the murder of the father and his lover. She explained how they had drugged them and placed them in the running car in the locked garage. They had previously made it known to friends that the two of them were going to be out of town for several days. Making sure people bore witness to their departure, they secretly returned early to fulfill their plan. Once the deed was done they traveled back to their out-of-town location. When they returned to the house a few days later they reported the bodies to the police. It was a perfect plan and [WE WERE NEVER SUSPECTED], was written in large letters. They had been dead for two days while we were out of the area.
“Well that answers part of the questions you wondered about, Lon.”
“Yep, but one still remains, Anne. Who killed Marie?”
Anne continued to read and it told of the mother’s displeasure in her son’s choice of lovers and wives.
“Do we make this part of the report Lon? This is pretty heavy stuff and I don't see how it can do anyone any good to know this trash.”
She waited for his response. He was in a trance like state.
“Something is missing, he said as he came out of his trance. Think back Anne, to Nevada and Beth describing to us about finding this case in the closet. She described most of the contents and I remember something caught my attention. Do you have your notebook?”
Anne picked up her bag and took out her log. Thumbing through, she found her notes from the interview with Beth Radford.
“Here it is. Beth described newspaper clippings, photos, personal papers, legal documents, a blond wig and a pair of …”
“That’s it. Where’s the blond wig she mentioned?”
He stood up and went back to the closet and began searching, this time with a more determined purpose. He pushed on the closet walls and then the shoe rack and the wall moved.
124
ACROSS TOWN STEPHANIE was enjoying a medical high when several of her critical patients’ conditions had leveled off and were living relatively pain-free days again. One patient’s cancer report came back in total remission, so she and the nurses celebrated the good news in her room with glasses of orange juice and a small cake before she left the hospital for the night. Seeing the happiness of the woman’s husband made her forget her problems and elevated her attitude to a feeling of this has been a good day. Len walked by and gave her a high five which added to her feelings of joy.
In the midst of the celebration she had received a phone call from the realtor reminding her of their appointment. She felt it strange as she remembered he asked her to meet him at her house instead of the hospital. She was puzzled as to how he knew where she lived. She never gave it a second thought as she finished her preparations for signing out for the day.
125
“MAN, OH MAN, Cassandra, you are really something. I definitely see a bright future ahead for us.”
She laughed and continued brushing her hair as she caught his eyes in the mirror. Laying the brush down she turned and said, “I believe we can develop both a strong personal tie and at the same time build a profitable relationship, Terry. However to make it work I need your solemn oath that your infatuation with your cop friend is over. Fantasize about her all you want, but no more than that. Can you do that?”
“I see no problem with that,” he lied to protect his job.
126
LON GRABBED THE shoe rack again and pulling harder on it discovered that it was secured to a fake wall.
Anne became curious to see what Lon was doing and walked back to the closet. She couldn’t believe what she was seeing as he swung the shoe rack wall outward exposing a secrete room. Without speaking they looked at each other knowing immediately what they were looking at.
“This is where the mother stayed when it was necessary to hide from family and guests. This kind of thing only happens in the movies, Lon, but we’re about to enter a space that apparently has been his reported dead mother’s hideaway for years.”
Lon stepped into the room intrigued with the ingenuity on the part of the Radfords.
“Can you believe this Anne? She became part of a completely separate life hidden from society within this room.”
The room was decorated with basic furniture consisting of a large comfortable looking chair, a small table with two chairs, and a studio bed. A small refrigerator held bottles of water and assorted food items. On the counter was a hot plate. There was a TV-radio player and a bookshelf that held numerous books and magazines. In the corner a small curtained-off area held the necessity stool. “This is ample for a quick getaway when she needed to disappear for a short time, but to live for a longer period of time, not so perfect.”
Anne looked at Lon and reminded him that she would only be
there when there were people around.
“She was found on the bed in her original room which she probably slept in more often than in this room.”
As she was talking she picked up a photo album lying on the bed filled with pictures of William and his mother. She could not prevent a feeling of compassion for the two of them come over her. She looked up to see Lon reaching for a black case sitting on the top shelf. He looked over at her and smiled as he placed it on the table wanting to say, “Now, will you finally believe that I was right all along.”
Anne watched as he opened the case and began removing it contents displaying them on the counter.
“Well, I’ll be damned.”
Anne jumped reacting to his loud expletive. “What is it?”
“Look here what I hold in my hand.” He held up a blond wig and a pair of black horned rimmed glasses.
“My God, Lon, he did it. He killed his wife. You had this guy pegged right from the start.”
She moved toward him to high-five with him as a show of you were right and congratulations. But, she tripped on the rug causing her to fall against him. She laughed and started to apologize, but when she looked up in his eyes it seemed natural for her to be kissed. She was ready and accepted it willingly. It was as if this was meant to happen sooner or later.
The level of their mutual desire was heating to a boiling point and all caution was about to be thrown aside, when his phone rang. They reluctantly separated and looked at each other and grinned, both realizing they had been saved by Dixie.
“Hey Chief, what’s up?” He looked at Anne who was searching through the case.