Back Against the Wall

by Janice Kay Johnson

  Detective Navarro appeared, even more intimidating than he’d been when she first saw him. Beth wished he had a more expressive face.

  Emily straightened and stared at him.

  Matt stood. “So?”

  “I’m confident enough those are human remains that I have a CSI team on the way. I don’t want to touch anything until they photograph and fingerprint the section of wall that will have to be torn out.”

  On a shudder, Beth hugged her knees. She’d known but still hoped he would say, “I don’t know what we’re looking at, but it’s not human.”

  “I’d like to talk to you individually, but first, let me ask a few general questions.”

  Nobody said anything.

  “How long has your family been in this house?”

  It was Beth who said, “Something like thirty years.”

  “Do any of you still live here?”

  Matt shook his head. “Of course not. We’re adults. I work in the Admissions Department at Wakefield. I’m married and own my own home.”

  “I work for the county agency dealing with long-term care and aging,” Beth said. “I rent a townhouse a few blocks from downtown.”

  His gaze shifted to Emily.

  “What difference does it make what we do for a living?” she burst out.

  “It probably doesn’t. I’m trying to get a picture of your family, that’s all.”

  She sniffed and, looking remarkably childlike, swiped the back of her hand beneath her nose. “I work at a chiropractor’s office. Dr. Findley. I’m a massage therapist. And I have an apartment near the community college with some friends.”

  His eyes met Beth’s. “I gathered from you that your father lives in the house. What about your mother?”

  * * *

  THE SEEMINGLY INNOCUOUS question froze all three people, who suddenly had a deer-in-the-headlights look that sharpened Tony’s interest.

  Beth and the brother glanced at each other. She was apparently elected to answer.

  “Our mother left Dad when I was fifteen, so...thirteen years ago. Obviously, we stayed with him.”

  A man she’d described as a typical absent-minded professor. Apparently, a man incapable of keeping his own home organized in any minimal way, who was, in fact, indoors at the moment, not even lending a hand. Because—how had she put it?—he’s not much good at this kind of thing. Yeah, that was it.

  “Did you maintain visitation with her?” he asked.

  “No,” Beth said, so softly he just heard her. Horror showed in her eyes before she looked down at her hands. She knew what he was thinking. “Mom just...went. When she didn’t call or anything, Dad reported her missing. The police thought it was clear she’d chosen to leave.”

  “On what basis?”

  Matt answered, his tone curt and edged with old anger. “She left a note on the computer. Took her purse, some of her jewelry and I guess some clothes.”

  “Birth control pills and toiletries,” Beth added.

  “Car?”

  They all shook their heads at once.

  “Was a suitcase gone?”

  Matt and Beth looked at each other again, leaving Emily out. With reason, Tony realized. She’d have been eleven or twelve, maybe, when their mother had run away.

  “I don’t know,” Matt said. “I don’t remember anyone saying. I mean, why wouldn’t she have used one when she packed?”

  Did he really not get it? “I presume your father can tell us,” he said.

  He was beginning to find those silent exchanges irritating. He should have separated the siblings from the beginning.

  “I sort of doubt he’ll remember,” Beth said. “He’s...kind of vague about details. You’ll see.”

  Mentally ill? If he was still teaching at the college level, could he be? Tony’s curiosity about the man grew.

  “I should speak to him next,” he said.

  Beth jumped up. “Let me get him for you.”

  He moved fast, staying right behind her when she dashed for the French doors. She cast him a startled glance when she realized how close he was, but damned if he’d let her warn her father in any way.

  She pushed open the door, letting cool air spill out, and called, “Dad?”

  “Beth?” A pleasant tenor voice preceded the man. “That you?”

  “Yes, there’s someone here to see you.”

  As soon as he saw her father, Tony had to discard preconceptions he hadn’t realized he’d formed. The guy didn’t have a receding hairline, reading glasses perched on the end of his nose or narrow, stooped shoulders. No sweater vest or corduroy jacket with leather patches on the elbows, either. If he smoked a pipe, Tony couldn’t smell it.

  Instead, the man was tall, thin, handsome, his brown hair graying at the temples. He hadn’t shaved today, and his stubble was clearly gray. Tony saw a resemblance to Matt, in particular, and perhaps to Beth in the bone structure and shape of the eyes. Only Matt’s coloring—blond and blue-eyed, like his younger sister—kept him from being the spitting image of his father.

  Tony couldn’t help recalling the straw-yellow hair he’d glimpsed inside the garage wall.

  “Bethie?” Perplexity had her father looking from his daughter to Tony. “Who’s this?”

  Tony stepped into a comfortable family room with aging carpet and furnishings. Floor-to-ceiling, built-in bookcases covered one wall.

  “Mr. Marshall? I’m Detective Navarro with the Frenchman Lake Police Department.”

  “Police department? Are you a friend of Beth’s?”

  “I’m afraid not, sir. I need to talk to you about something your son and daughters found in the garage. Perhaps we could sit down.”

  Appearing bewildered, he sank onto a well-worn recliner that faced a television. “Certainly, but... I don’t understand.”

  “Dad, we found something upsetting—”

  Tony laid a hand on her arm, silencing her with a shake of his head. “Ms. Marshall, if you wouldn’t mind, I’d like to speak to your father alone.”

  Alarm flashed in her hazel eyes, but she subdued it enough to nod and say, “I understand.”

  Her father watched her go outside with a concerned expression he transferred to Tony. “Is something wrong?”

  How was it possible that not one of his three adult children had gone into the house to say, Hey, Dad, we found something strange? Especially given that this was his house. His garage.

  Tony went for blunt. “We’ve found what appears to be a human body behind wallboard in your garage.”

  John Marshall only stared at him. “Did you say a body?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “But...who found it? How?”

  “There was an old hole in one sheet of wallboard. Beth took a look in it and called us. I agree that it does appear to be human remains. Crime scene investigators will be here shortly.” Undoubtedly as thrilled as he was to lose their Sunday off. “In the meantime, I need to ask you some questions.”

  “I don’t understand. Nobody has gone into the garage in years. How could someone have gotten in, or—” Even he boggled at the unlikelihood of a killer getting around decades’ worth of accumulated belongings to stash a body.

  “I suspect the remains have been there for many years, Mr. Marshall. The body appears to be at least partially mummified, which can happen under some circumstances in a dry climate like ours.” Insect-free circumstances, as this would have been until the damage opened the hole, likely much later. He paused. “Because you reported your wife missing, I need to ask about her.”

  Obviously perturbed, Marshall said, “The police were convinced she’d left on her own.”

  “I understand you found a note.”

  “Yes, when I sat down at the computer that evening and moved the mouse, I found that Word was open to a document she mu
st have created. It was brief.”

  “Do you still have it?”

  He shook his head. “We’ve replaced that computer several times since. I’m sure I printed it for that police officer, but I didn’t need to for myself.” Old pain parted the curtain of vagueness. “I could tell you what it said word for word.”

  Tony preferred to locate the printout in a file at the station. On an investigation, he rarely trusted anyone.

  “Did the police fingerprint the computer mouse?” he asked.

  “It was only one officer, and he didn’t suggest anything like that. He really wasn’t here very long.”

  Tony understood. People went missing all the time. Law enforcement response was quite different when a child disappeared, but adults most often did turn up later.

  “We thought she’d call.”

  “Had you quarreled right before she disappeared?”

  “Right before?” he said in apparent surprise. “Well, I don’t know. That was a long time ago. She’d been annoyed with me, but I hoped whatever was bothering her would pass.”

  Tony barely refrained from shaking his head. How could this guy fail to grasp the implications here? Well, sure, she and I weren’t getting along. Save the note on the computer? Why would I do that?

  “Did you hear from her?” It was conceivable he wouldn’t have told his kids, depending on what was said. Or that he’d choose to lie now.

  “Never a word.” He sounded puzzled. “Didn’t seem like Christine, but... Bethie was old enough to take over helping her sister and making meals, so nothing changed all that much.”

  Unbelievable. His wife vanished into thin air, but in his view, nothing much changed because, hey, his fifteen-year-old daughter stepped up and kept the family running. Either John Marshall was the most self-centered human being Tony had ever encountered, or he was guilty as hell. Maybe both.

  The conglomeration of stuff in the garage made sense now. Tony was willing to bet a pile of boxes had started growing at that exact spot in the garage shortly after Christine Marshall had run away from home. There was a good chance, in fact, that her husband had immediately made sure the one stretch of wall wasn’t visible, in case the police actually troubled to do a walk-through of the house.

  Tony rose to his feet. “Thank you for your time, Mr. Marshall. I need to ask you to stay out of the garage. We’ll block both doors with yellow tape.”

  A look of glazed bewilderment was all the response he received.

  As he went out the French door, he heard a spate of voices. The department’s two crime scene investigators must have just come around the side of the house, both suited up in white Tyvek and carrying a toolbox, camera and more. Matt and Beth had obviously hopped right up, while the baby sister didn’t bother. Arms wrapped around herself, she had summoned an expression that was a cross between pouty and distressed. Was self-centeredness hereditary?

  “Jess,” Tony said, nodding. “Larry.”

  They both appeared grateful to see him. Their job didn’t usually include a lot of interaction with victims’ families.

  He looked at the Marshall siblings. “You might want to wait inside with your father.”

  “Can’t we go home?” Emily blurted. “Do we have to sit here?”

  “Do you all have your own cars?”

  Nodded heads.

  “That’s fine, then. Let me get phone numbers and addresses first.”

  Beth’s chin jutted out. “I’m not going anywhere.”

  “Neither am I,” her brother said, suddenly belligerent.

  Tony raised his eyebrows but only said mildly, “That’s up to you.”

  He jotted down Emily’s contact info. She fervently hugged Matt and Beth, then fled.

  No loss.

  Tony stepped into the garage to join his team. Individual interviews with the siblings could wait until he knew what he was dealing with.

  * * *

  BETH WENT TO check on her father, to find him sitting in his recliner, staring into space. He must not have moved.

  “Dad? Are you all right?”

  He turned his head. “How could this happen?”

  “You mean, us noticing something was off and checking it out?”

  “No, that the detective asked questions about your mother.” His fingers bit into the arms of the recliner. “I don’t understand.”

  “I don’t, either,” she admitted, going to perch on the upholstered arm of his chair, where she could give him a quick hug.

  More agitated than she’d ever seen him, he didn’t even seem to notice her embrace. “Are they sure?”

  “I don’t think so, yet.” Although, Detective Navarro wouldn’t have called a CSI team if he wasn’t reasonably sure.

  CSI. In our house. The idea was unreal. In those white getups, they actually looked like the swarm of investigators in the background on TV shows like NCIS.

  “I guess we’ll find out,” she added. “Can I get you anything?”

  He shook his head and, after waiting for a minute, Beth went outside to join Matt, once more planted in a lawn chair. She picked up her drink, which already felt warm, and sat in the other chair.

  “I freaking can’t believe this,” he muttered.

  “Me either.”

  He turned a look of pure hostility on her. “You and your bright ideas.”

  Beth’s mouth dropped open. “This is my fault?” Except, she thought guiltily, it kind of was. Her idea to clean out the garage, her curiosity that led her to look inside the hole.

  “What if they open the garage door?”

  Surprised, she said, “They haven’t?”

  “One of them went out and got a couple of portable lamps.” He snorted. “Like everyone on the block and everyone driving by hasn’t noticed two police vehicles out in front of Dad’s house.”

  She frowned. “I don’t actually think the detective came in a police car. He was driving a pickup truck.”

  “Oh, that means no one will ever hear about this,” Matt said sarcastically.

  “That’s what you’re most worried about?” Although why she was surprised she couldn’t have said. Appearances had always mattered more to Matt than to her. Still. “What if that’s Mom? What if she’s been dead all these years, and we thought she’d left us?”

  “What if our father gets tried for murder?”

  The air left her lungs in a rush. “That’s ridiculous! How can you think for a minute—”

  “Who else, Beth? Use your head, for once.”

  “For once? What are you talking about?”

  “You live in your own damn dream world, just like he does. Everybody is nice. Well-meaning.”

  Her mouth fell open. Did she know this brother, mocking her so cruelly?

  “Nobody ever abuses a frail old man, do they?” His voice rose. “Nobody steals, beats her kid, cooks meth and sells it. And nobody ever murders his wife!”

  Matt was yelling by the end. Beth wasn’t at all surprised to see Detective Navarro stepping into sight. Eavesdropping, of course, but he couldn’t help but have heard.

  “You shut up,” she said fiercely to her brother. “You’ve never been fair to Dad. Do you think he can help being...being...”

  Her brother’s lip curled. “Out to lunch?”

  “Don’t say that!” Even though, God, it was true.

  He made a scoffing sound and looked away, which meant he, too, noticed the detective. “What?”

  Navarro’s dark eyebrows twitched. “You’ve lost your shade.”

  No wonder she was roasting. She should retreat to the house—but she couldn’t stand her father’s company right now.

  “Ms. Marshall.” His voice was unexpectedly gentle. “You’re getting sunburned.”

  Of all moments to realize how attracted she was to this man. Noticing hi
s looks wasn’t anything like this intense awareness of his body, and hers, too. Her cheeks burned even hotter at the even remote possibility he might see what she was thinking. And...how could she feel anything like that now?

  “I...my tote bag is in the garage. I have sunscreen in it.”

  “I’ll get it for you.” He disappeared for barely a minute, returning with the waterproof bag she usually used for her swimsuit and towel.

  She started to push herself to her feet, but the detective came right to her, handing over the bag. Almost touching her. He studied her with those deep brown eyes. “You really should get out of the sun.”

  “I know. It’s just...” Beth trailed off.

  “You want to stay in case your father needs you.”

  “Yes,” she admitted. “But—” She couldn’t continue. That doesn’t mean I can sit in the silence of the house and pretend nothing is wrong. She sighed.

  He nodded, the understanding on his face enough to make her want to crumple. Which she didn’t do. She was the strong one in this family. She’d never minded being a prop for the rest of them.

  “There’s some shade under the tree,” he pointed out.

  “We’ll move.” She summoned a smile for his kindness, lifting the tote bag a little. “Thank you for this.”

  His hardening gaze moved to Matt. Which Matt totally deserved.

  She watched Detective Navarro go into the garage, then stood. Without a word, she slung the tote bag over her shoulder, grabbed the chair and the cooler, and marched across the crunchy lawn to the huge old crab apple tree. Beneath its branches she sat down. She looked up from digging in the bag for the lotion and saw Matt carrying his own chair over to join her.

  “I’m sorry,” he said, voice low. “I shouldn’t have said any of that. This is just...” His gesture was meant to encompass this completely terrible day.

  “I understand.” She squirted a white glob on her hand and offered the tube of lotion to him.

  Quiet now, they both rubbed lotion into their faces, necks, arms and hands. Beth dabbed some on the tips of her ears. They hadn’t been outside that much, but the day was really hot, and she burned easily. Matt had more of a tan. He and Ashley were both runners and liked to hike and backpack, too. He also had yard work to do.