by Becky Durfee
“What?” Jenny asked.
“It’s just weird, don’t you think? Why would he go to his asshole father for a signature when he could have easily gone to his grandmother? So far as I can tell, he wasn’t on bad terms with Darlene.”
The wheels in Jenny’s head started turning. “He could have asked Darlene,” she whispered.
Silence ensued as Jenny replayed some images in her mind. The pieces began to fit together, although she didn’t like the picture that was unfolding. “Something’s not right,” she declared.
The men in the room didn’t say anything.
Jenny spoke as the vision once again played out in her head. “When Aaron tried to put Patricia’s body in the trunk of the car, there were already concrete blocks with eyehooks in them taking up the trunk space. Aaron knew those were meant to weigh down his body, but he used them to weigh down hers instead.” Her voice became louder as her level of excitement increased. “But they were heavy. He struggled to get each one out of the trunk, and Aaron was a pretty big guy. There would have been no way that Patricia could have loaded them into the trunk by herself.”
She looked back and forth between Rod and Zack, reluctant to disclose the next part of her theory.
Rod said it for her. “You think Brian helped her put them in there?”
Jenny chose to answer cryptically. “I can’t think of anyone else who would have been in on that plan. Remember, the rest of the world thought Aaron was a pretty nice guy.”
Silent contemplation took over the room. Rod’s voice eventually interrupted the quiet. “It kind of makes you wonder if things really unfolded the way Brian described it on the day Aaron was killed.”
Jenny’s foot tapped nervously as she considered that Brian may not have been as innocent as he’d seemed.
Eventually Rod spoke again. “If I can get you into the kitchen at Aaron’s house, do you think you can get an idea of what actually happened that day?”
Suddenly Jenny wasn’t tired anymore. “I can sure try.”
With a smile Rod got up from the couch. “I’ll get my tools.”
Jenny’s car came to rest in front of the house with the “For Sale” sign. With the sun having set several hours earlier, the house appeared dark and admittedly rather eerie. Jenny shook off her fear and turned to her father. “Are you ready, Rod?”
He grasped the handle of the passenger door. “Ready as I’ll ever be.”
His stride was nonchalant as he approached the house. After about a minute of finagling with the lock he was able to open the door and walk inside. That was Zack and Jenny’s cue to follow suit.
As the couple was approaching the house, Rod turned the lights on inside. That had been part of the plan from the beginning; people who truly belonged there wouldn’t have been walking around in the dark, and they wanted to give the appearance of being legitimate visitors.
Jenny felt overcome by an overwhelming sense of déjà vu when she entered the house. Although she hadn’t been in there before, she knew exactly where to go. She rounded the corner into the kitchen, which was currently void of furniture and trinkets. Before too long, however, she was able to close her eyes and envision the room the way it had looked when Aaron lived there. A table and chairs were situated against a wall, magnets held photographs against the refrigerator door, and the fateful knife block sat innocently next to the sink.
“I’m planning to go to school,” Brain announced uncomfortably as he leaned against the counter.
“Oh yeah?” Jenny said with a gruff male voice. “For what?”
Brian folded his arms across his chest. “Culinary.”
“Culinary?” Jenny asked. “What the hell is that? I ain’t never heard of that.”
“It’s cooking, Dad. I want to be a chef.”
Jenny felt both anger and disappointment brewing within her. “A chef?”
“Yes, a chef.”
She made a face of concern. “Isn’t that for women?”
“Some of the best chefs in the world are men,” Brian explained.
“Yeah…faggot men.”
Brian seemed to let the comment slide, although he repositioned himself. “The thing is,” he began. “I got accepted into the school, but I can’t pay for it right now. I’d need to take out a loan, and I don’t make enough to qualify for it on my own. I need someone to co-sign for me.” He looked apprehensive as he added, “And I was wondering if you’d be willing to do it.”
The anger within Jenny intensified. “Oh, I get it. I ain’t seen your face around here for a good five years, but when you need money, suddenly you come around.”
“I don’t need money,” Brian protested. “I am perfectly capable of making the payments. I just can’t get the loan without your signature. That’s all I need…your name on a piece of paper.”
Jenny scoffed. “You want me to sign some paper that says my son is a fucking faggot?”
Brian, too, seemed to be getting heated, although he kept his tone calm. “No, I want you to sign a form that says I’ll be good for the money.”
“So you can go to faggot school.”
Brian closed his eyes. “So you’re telling me you won’t co-sign?”
“Don’t get me wrong,” Jenny said. “I’d love to help you out. If you want to go to school to be a mechanic or an HVAC guy, I’d sign that in a minute. But I just can’t sign anything that will help you act all queer.” She hung her head in shame. “No son of mine is gonna be a queer.”
“What did you say, dad?” Brain asked in a frighteningly calm tone. “I didn’t quite catch that.”
“I said,” Jenny repeated loudly, lifting her gaze to look Brian in the eye. “No son of mine is gonna be a queer.”
Getting a crazed look in his eye, Brian stood up taller and looked directly at his father. “Why don’t you come over here and say that to my face, old man?”
Accepting the challenge, Jenny took three steps forward, eventually landing nose to nose with Brian. She looked him square in the eye and put her hand on his neck, just as she had done a million times before. “Ain’t no son of mine gonna be a queer.”
The pain was searing. Just below her left ribs, she felt an agony so strong it took her breath away. Looking down she saw a knife blade being pulled from her body, only to be shoved in again with excessive force. She looked up into the eyes of her son, devastated and dismayed by what she was seeing. “Brian,” she whispered. “Brian, no.”
She felt the pain for a third time before she collapsed to the ground. Her breathing became labored, and she reached out to Brian, who knelt down and looked at her. With hate in his eyes, he said, “Well guess what, old man? You just got taken out by a queer.”
Jenny’s eyesight started to go blurry as she watched Brain stand up and pull his phone out of his pocket. With a quick dial, Brian’s tone immediately changed. “Hello?” he said frantically. “I need an ambulance. I just had to stab my father.”
Everything went dark and cold.
Jenny opened her eyes to find the kitchen was once again empty, although she wondered if Aaron’s spirit was occupying the space with her. Disturbed and frightened by that notion, she ran quickly out of the vacant house, barreling past Rod and Zack until she reached the front yard.
“Is everything okay?” Rod asked as he turned off the lights and closed the door behind him.
Jenny continued to sprint, wishing she could outrun what she’d just seen and leave it behind. The unpleasantness followed her into the car where she shut the door and immediately shivered behind the wheel.
Rod and Zack soon got into the car with her. “What happened in there?” Zack asked.
Jenny covered her face with her hands and swore under her breath. She looked at Rod in the passenger seat and said, “There was definitely some intent in Brian’s actions.”
Rod took a moment to absorb the information. As Jenny turned the key and began to drive, Rod finally said, “Well that does complicate things a little bit, now doesn’t it?�
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“There’s nothing left for you to lie to me about,” Jenny said through the phone. “I’m pretty sure I know it all at this point.”
Brian looked at her skeptically.
“Your father would have co-signed the loan if you wanted to be an HVAC guy, but since you were looking to go to culinary school, the answer was no.”
Brian’s face displayed an awe that she had never seen before. “How do you know that?”
She chose to speak compassionately rather than confrontationally. “Because your father clued me in on what happened that day.”
He remained silent.
Jenny let out a sigh and said, “I just left your lawyer’s office; he’s considering changing his tactic, given this latest development. After what I’ve told him, he’s pretty sure that Aaron’s murder was not a case of self-defense, and trying to argue that would essentially be asking you to lie. Instead he’s planning to claim it was a crime of passion—which, I might add, is a pretty good call in my opinion.”
“Crime of passion?”
“I’m sure the lawyer will explain it to you,” Jenny said. “But it essentially means that you’d reached your limit…that you were exposed to things that no human being should have to tolerate, and you essentially just snapped. It’s the type of defense that lawyers use on battered women and people who walk in on their spouses in bed with someone else. I think it’s your best shot at freedom.” She lowered her eyes to the ground. “Although, I do have a couple of pieces of information that could complicate that theory.”
For the first time, Brian actually seemed interested in what she had to say. “And what is that?”
Letting out a deep breath, she said, “I know you were in on your mother’s plan to kill Aaron that day…which is probably why you didn’t want me to find that journal.”
Brian opened his mouth as if he was contemplating saying something, but then he thought better of it.
“She couldn’t have lifted those concrete blocks and put them in the trunk by herself, Brian. They would have been much too heavy for her.” Jenny hated the words that were coming out of her mouth, but they needed to be said. “So what was the plan? Were you going to go back out to the pond and help her dispose of the body? She certainly couldn’t have done that by herself, either.”
He once again remained silent, looking down at the table.
“I also know you had the knife behind your back before Aaron grabbed your neck, so claiming you snapped when he touched you is not exactly the truth.” She repositioned herself and continued. “When I saw the vision through Aaron’s eyes, I had the advantage of hindsight—I knew how the scene was going to end, so I had the ability to look for things he didn’t particularly notice the first time.” In an attempt to mask her discomfort, she cleared her throat. “You stood by that knife block on purpose, didn’t you Brian?”
He didn’t reply, but he looked as if he was becoming agitated.
“You didn’t really need your father to co-sign that loan. Your grandmother could have easily done that for you…or your Aunt Kathy, for that matter.” Jenny leaned forward toward the glass. “So why exactly did you go to his house that day, Brian? What was your intention?”
Jenny watched silently as Brian squirmed in his seat. He looked as if he was having a mental debate as to whether to hang up or disclose the truth, and she was afraid if she pressed too hard he would choose to walk away.
Eventually Brian spoke. Looking down at the floor like a broken shell of a man, he simply muttered, “He killed my mother.”
Jenny gently pressed her hand against the glass, wishing she could place her hand on Brian himself. “I know he did, and that had to be a horrendous thing to live with all these years.” She moved her head around in an attempt to make eye contact, but he wouldn’t look her way. “I want you to know I’m not judging you, Brian. I can’t even pretend that I know what it’s like to be you…you have been through horrors I couldn’t even imagine. And who knows? I may have done the exact same thing if I were in your shoes.”
With that he looked up at her.
“I just want to know the truth, Brian. If you reveal the truth, we’ll know what we’re dealing with, and your lawyer can adjust his approach accordingly.” She managed half a smile. “The poor guy is in way over his head as it is. He could use a little help.”
Brian remained uncomfortably silent.
Making her voice as non-threatening as possible, Jenny added, “I noticed that your hand disappeared behind your back as soon as your father said the word faggot. That’s when you got the knife, wasn’t it, Brian?”
Brian didn’t say anything, but the expression on his face had changed, leading Jenny to believe that she had just spoken the truth.
“Here’s what I’m thinking, Brian,” she said with much more authority in her voice. “I’m thinking you went to your father’s house that day with two plans of action in mind. If he acted like he’d changed at all, or if he was willing to co-sign that loan, this would have been a simple visit. But if he turned out to be the same monster he’d always been…” The words seemed surreal coming out of her mouth. “You planned to kill him.”
Brian stayed quiet for what seemed like an eternity. He looked all around as if searching for the right words to say. Eventually he simply muttered, “The world’s a better place without him.”
Jenny spoke sincerely. “I agree with you.”
He lifted his eyes to meet Jenny’s, holding her gaze for quite some time before looking back down. “But my mother…” He shook his head as he appeared to battle tears. “She was a beautiful person. She should still be here right now.”
“I agree with that, too.”
Brian looked uncomfortable in his own skin as he added, “If she and I hadn’t made that plan, she still would be here.”
Yet another notion this poor young man had to harbor for the better part of a decade. Tilting her head to the side, Jenny softly posed, “Whose idea was it?”
He placed his head in his hand as he said, “My mother’s.”
“I believe that,” Jenny said with a slight nod. “I know she felt trapped. She feared that Aaron would hurt somebody she loved if she left him.” She wiped her hand down her face to rid herself of the sadness she was feeling. “She probably felt that this was her only option.”
“Well, I should have talked her out of it instead of encouraging her to go through with it.”
Jenny remained compassionate. “Had you ever told her she should go to the police? Let them know Aaron was abusive?”
“We’d talked about that,” Brain confessed. “The only problem is that hitting your wife and kid doesn’t get you a life-long jail sentence. He would have eventually gotten out, and he would have been angrier than ever.” He shrugged pathetically. “I guess we never said anything because we were afraid of what was in store for us after he got out.”
“Well,” Jenny began, “murder can get you a life sentence.” Without judgment she posed, “Why didn’t you go to the police after Aaron killed your mother?”
“Because my father knew I was in on the plan to kill him. You weren’t the only one who figured out my mother couldn’t have lifted the concrete blocks herself. If I told the police that my mother’s body was at the bottom of a pond, my scumbag father would have added that her body was located right next to the gun that was registered in my mother’s name…the gun she had used to try to kill him. And she was being held down by the concrete blocks that she and I had made to weigh down his body. Don’t you get it?” Brian said with mounting frustration. “If Aaron went down, he would have brought me right down with him.”
This case had so many twists that Jenny was having a difficult time keeping them straight. “I guess you’re right,” she replied calmly, trying to deescalate Brain’s tone. “But why not leave it alone? You hadn’t spoken to him in five years. Why not just write him off and move on with your life?”
“Move on with my life,” he replied with disgust, shaking
his head and suppressing a laugh at the absurdity of the remark. “Sure, yeah, I’ll just move on with my life. I got the snot beat out of me for a fucking decade, and the guy killed my mother…but what the hell? Why not just let bygones be bygones?”
Jenny closed her eyes; she hadn’t meant to be so insensitive.
“Don’t you understand that it doesn’t matter?” Brian continued. “I’ve been telling you this since the beginning, but for some reason you just don’t seem to get it. My life has been hell. Just knowing that guy was still out there, walking around like his shit don’t stink, after her took my mother’s life…” He shook his head and leaned back in his chair. “I just couldn’t do it anymore. And I know I may spend the rest of my life in here. I don’t give a shit, honestly. Living in here is no worse than living out there was. But with that asshole gone and burning in hell like he belongs…” Brian managed to look somewhat happy. “At least I can go to bed each night with a smile on my face.”
Jenny felt an unexpected hand on her shoulder. “Miss Watkins?”
She jumped about a foot before looking up to see a pleasant guard smiling at her.
“Sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean to scare you. It’s just that Brian’s lawyer is here to see him, so he needs to go.”
Placing her hand on her heart to calm it down, Jenny smiled and replied, “Thank you. I’ll be out of your way in just a minute.”
The guard returned her smile and walked away.
“Did you hear that?” Jenny said into the phone. “Your lawyer is here.”
Brian scoffed. “Great.”
“You know,” she began, “Aaron is gone whether you are in here or out there. You can still smile at night, even if you get set free.” She looked at him optimistically. “Isn’t it worth a shot?”
Brian shrugged apathetically.
Realizing she needed to leave soon, Jenny acknowledged this was most likely the last time she would see Brian before the trial. “I wish you luck, Brian. I truly do. Hopefully one day I can see you again, only under much better circumstances.”
“Okay,” he said in a challenging tone. “I’ll tell you what. If I do get out of here, one day I’ll buy you some lunch. But if I don’t…” He leaned forward and smiled evilly. “I want you to go and spit on Aaron’s grave for me.”