by Marnie Perry
At times her thoughts confused her, sometimes she wished she knew what had happened to Olivia and sometimes she was glad she didn’t.
When she wasn’t thinking about Olivia she was thinking about Jonas Lando. In truth,
since her visit to his cabin she had thought less about Olivia and more about him. Just as she was thinking about him now as she packed her hairbrush and recalled how he had stopped her from cutting her hair and how angry he’d been.
She told herself she thought about him to stop herself thinking about Olivia and Hennessey but the truth was he came into her thoughts unbidden. Just as they had after they’d said goodbye at the hospital, just as they had since she had first left Alabama, just as they had from the very beginning.
She jumped startled as a knock came on the door. She threw the underwear she was holding on top of the pile of other clothes in the case and went to the door expecting it to be Sheriff Lomax again. Even so she looked through the spy hole first but jumped back in surprise when she saw who it was, because there at the other side of the door stood Jonas Lando.
She did not immediately open the door but stood there taking deep breaths trying to quieten her thudding heart. It didn’t work. She let out a long breath and hoping her expression was nonchalant opened the door. She said, ‘Mr. Lando, this is a surprise.’
He noticed she didn’t say “nice surprise,” but as if reading his thoughts she added, ‘a nice one.’
He stood looking uncertain and uncomfortable. She said quickly, ‘please, come in.’
She opened the door wider allowing him to enter, but still he stood there as if about to turn and run. Eventually he stepped over the threshold but no further. The first thing he saw was her suitcase open on the bed and filled with clothes. She followed his gaze and only then remembered her underwear was right on top. She closed the door forcing Lando to take a step inside, then walked quickly over to the bed and closed the case then turned back to look at him.
He noticed how tired she looked, about as tired as he felt. But she looked nice, very nice; her hair was pinned up in a bun with little ringlets hanging down around her ears. She was wearing a white summer dress with tiny multicoloured flowers on it. It was very pretty, she was very pretty. He mentally shook himself but his thoughts made his voice sound rough as he said, ‘Sheriff Lomax told me you were leaving today.’
‘Yes, my plane leaves at 3pm.’
‘You’re going to continue your vacation?’
‘No, I’m going back to England but not to go home. I thought I would go to London for a while, see the sights. I’ve never been there so it’ll be an adventure.’
Part of him was relieved that she was not staying to be with Leyton but an even bigger part was devastated that she was leaving. He wanted her to go so that he could get on with his life, go back to what it had been before she came. When no one troubled him. When he could function without her constantly in his head. When he could go about his business his mind uncluttered with thoughts of her. When he could sleep at night without wanting her lying beside him.
He gave no reaction to this but looked around, he noticed that the place was not as clean and tidy as he would have expected. There were dishes in the sink and piled up on the draining board.
Her jacket was tossed over the table and her shoes were laid haphazardly on the floor next to the bed as though she had just kicked them off. He would bet that if he went into the bathroom he would find the towels thrown over the bath or chair too. He knew what she was doing, she was trying to change her habits, thinking, change my habits, change my life, change me. If only it were that easy.
He turned to see her watching him and her expression told him she knew what he was thinking.
He didn’t look away but kept her gaze and eventually she asked, ‘how’ve you been?’
‘Fine.’
‘Good. And Dante?’
‘Fine.’
‘Good.’
‘And Josie and Maynard?’
Fine too.’
‘Good. That’s good.’
He asked, ‘how you been?’
‘Oh really well, thank you.’
It was clear he didn’t believe her, her eyes were red and her face taut, she looked exhausted but he nodded and said, ‘good.’ She smiled that smile that didn’t quite reach her eyes. There followed a silence until she asked, ‘so what can I do for you, Mr. Lando?’
His expression told her he had been dreading this question. He was still unsure why he was here, but here he was and so best get it over with. He shifted from one foot to the other then cleared his throat before saying, ‘I have something I want to tell you, but first.’ He walked over to the table and put the package he’d been holding down onto it. The package was very neatly wrapped in blue paper and tied with string.
She didn’t attempt to pick it up nor touch it but said, ‘what is it?’
‘It’s just, ‘he paused and sounding impatient now finished, ‘why don’t you open it and see?’
She walked to the table and slowly opened the package while he stood looking anywhere but at her or the package. When she saw what was inside she gasped in astonishment and disbelief, for there was the picture of the little house that had hung in his cabin and which she had admired. She stared at it for a long time then looked up at him, her mouth opened but no words were forthcoming. Then she looked back down at the picture and ran her hands gently over it stopping at the figure of the person in the window. He wished she would say something, anything. Eventually she did, ‘but…I thought it was destroyed in the fire.’
He shrugged and she asked simply. ‘Why?’
He shrugged again looking very uncomfortable now, ‘you said you liked it.’
‘Oh I do, I do, but that doesn’t answer my question.’
He looked away before saying, ‘it’s…it’s a kinda going away present. I wanted you to have it. Something nice to remember,’ he paused, ‘this place by. When you look at it you might remember that there were some things you liked about this country.’
She frowned and he added, ‘although what you find in the painting to like I don’t know.’
She gave a small smile, ‘that’s because you’re not a romantic.’
His eyes widened, ‘and you are?’
It was her turn to look away, ‘I used to be, I like to think I will be again.’
He wasn’t sure what to say to that so he said nothing. She ran her fingers over the picture again before looking up and into his eyes, ‘thank you, Mr. Lando, thank you very much. I’ll always treasure it. And…and just so you know, it wasn’t the only thing I liked about this country.’
He looked nonplussed for a moment. He wondered if she was referring to Leyton but said, ‘I hope that’s true.’
‘It is.’ She looked back down at the picture then up at him and asked, 'what was the thing you wanted to tell me?’
He looked even more uncomfortable if that was possible and turned to look out of the window. He stood there for so long she began to wonder if he had forgotten about her.
Finally he turned back to her and to her utter amazement he said, ‘I want to tell you about my wife.’
To say she was stunned would be an understatement. This man had never willingly given out a single scrap of information about himself, and what he had divulged had not come easily and more often than not, mistakenly. And now here he was wanting to tell her of all people something very personal and intimate.
She sat down abruptly and said, ‘why?’
He walked over to the table and stood looking down at her before saying, ‘so that you might understand.’
She wasn’t sure whether she was more perplexed or astonished. He sat down and once again said nothing for a long time. She did not break the silence not wanting to push him but to let him speak in his own good time.
Eventually he said, ‘my wife, ‘he cleared his throat, ‘my wife came from a very wealthy family, land, lumber, that kinda thing. Me, well, I came from the other s
ide of the tracks. My family were poor dirt farmers, and I’m talking hand to mouth poor. My parents worked hard all their lives for everything they had, which wasn’t much. But we were happy enough, my parents, my sister and I.’ He paused as if waiting for her to comment on this last part.
She was surprised that he had a sister, but then why should she be, she knew next to nothing about him. But when he realised she was not about to speak he continued, ‘then times got really hard and we lost the farm. My father he couldn’t take it and he…he killed himself.’
Adela gasped and put her hand to her mouth but before she could speak he rushed on, ‘my mother was devastated and became ill, mentally as well as physically. She was sent to a mental hospital where she eventually died. My sister was sent to an aunt, my mother’s sister, and me to my paternal grandparents. They raised me here in Alban at the cabin. I was eleven years old, my sister nine.
Anyway, I was happy here, my grandparents were good people but they didn’t mingle much with the townsfolk, they preferred to keep their distance.’
So, thought Adela, that’s where he had found his propensity for solitude. He seemed to know what she was thinking because he said a little defensively, ‘but they made sure I went to school, even took me to footballs games, tried to get me interested in local activities and so on, but I found I liked the solitude too. Anyway, when I was eighteen I joined the police force. And then I met Adrianne, my wife.’
Adrianne thought Adela, what a nice name. ‘As I said she was the antithesis of everything I’d ever known. I had grown up watching my parents and grandparents penny- pinch just to survive from day to day. I was raised to respect money and its value. I never knew that people could spend money the way she did, that they could buy stuff without even checking the price first. She was like an alien species to me, and I must have seemed so to her. It must be true what they say that opposites attract. What they don’t say is that sometimes the opposites are so diverse that there’s no coming together of any part of them.’
Lando went on to tell her of their marriage and her affairs. He did not lay blame at her door nor did he avoid his own culpability in what had happened to their marriage. He told her he had been obsessed with work and sometimes forgot that he had a wife at home. And later when their marriage had begun to crumble he deliberately used work as an excuse not to go home at all. He wasn't interested in the parties and soirées she threw , he hated them and hated even more having to witness her flirting with every man in the room. At first he had been hurt and angry by her affairs but later realised that the more he showed his feelings the more she enjoyed it. In the end he realised he did not want to save his marriage but was too cowardly or too lethargic to end it. So he began to turn a blind eye to Adrianne’s infidelities.
'She dropped hints like five ton weights but I never reacted, that's when she began an affair with my best friend. She probably thought it would goad me into some kind of reaction. There was no fun in cheating on someone who didn’t care. The strange thing is, if I had reacted that would only have increased the excitement for her, it would never have stopped her.
That’s what she craved, fun, excitement and danger. That’s why she married me, to defy her family, to put the cat amongst the pigeons. I was just her bit of fun, her bit of rough. She would have walked down that aisle thinking, look at me; I’ve defied convention and joined myself to a penniless son of a dirt farmer, a simple country boy, but watch this space and see what I’ll do with him. She conveniently forgot that I had a mind of my own, which is odd because it was one of the things that attracted her to me in the first place. When she discovered that I wasn’t going to change that’s when the arguments started. I should have been more understanding perhaps, more attuned to her needs. Maybe if I’d spent more time talking and listening to her it wouldn’t have gotten so out of control.
He took a deep breath, ‘My friend was a lawyer, a criminal defence attorney. Most of my colleagues could never understand how I could be such close friends with someone they considered the enemy. But we’d met at school and got along fine. He was a good friend what did I care what he did for a living.’
But one day we discovered that my friend had dealings with some very, very bad people, particularly with a man involved in drugs and the sex slave trade.' Adela’s eyebrows shot up at this but he rushed on, 'I was shocked and devastated that the friend I had known for fifteen years could be involved with that. I recalled all the times we’d talked about criminals like the guy he worked for, how evil they were. I just couldn’t believe he could have deceived me as he had.
Again he waited for her to speak. Part of her wanted to tell him that it was okay, that he didn’t have to tell her any more, but she realised that this was something he had to do, something he should have done a long time ago. So she waited. He stood up and eventually and with his back to her said, ‘we received intel that something huge was about to go down at a house belonging to a well known mob boss, the one my friend was suspected of working for. We also believed that girls were being held there against their will.
The raid was going to be a combined operation, the APD, ICE and FBI. When we were almost ready to go we were informed that my friend was in the house, something we didn’t expect. My superiors told me that because of my close friendship with John it would be better if I left. A horrible cold feeling came over me. That morning I had seen Adrianne dressed up in her most sexy clothes, she had given me a smug grin as she left the house, and I just knew she was in there with John. I was furious.
So instead of going home as ordered when the raid began I got into the house ahead of them and tried to find John.’ I found him in a bedroom with a woman.’ Lando paused here; his fist clenched tightly his face hard and set. ‘Of course it was Adrianne.’
Although Adela had expected this she was still shocked.
Before she could say anything Lando continued, ‘They were hurriedly dressing after, well, I don’t have to spell it out do I? John’s face was a picture of shock and regret. It was obvious he was devastated that they’d been discovered, I prefer to believe that he actually did feel bad about what they’d been doing behind my back. Of course, his mortification could have had less to do with the fact that he’d been found with his best friend’s wife and more to do with who’s house he’d been caught in.’
Lando sat down at the table again before going on, ‘as for Adrianne, after the initial shock of seeing me there was calm itself. She told John not to worry that I wouldn’t do anything about it, that I never did. Just as we all confronted each other there were sounds from below and I knew the teams had moved in. There was a lot of shouting and screaming. John looked terrified and asked what was going on. I told him to get Adrianne out of there but he just stood there frozen.
Then he did something I never expected, something that I never thought him capable of, he pulled a gun on me.’ Adela’s eyes opened wide in shock, ‘he took me by complete surprise so I was slow in reacting. He pointed the gun at me and fired but thank God he was not a good shot and missed by a yard. I drew my weapon and fired but Adrianne, Adrianne she,’ he paused here his face ravaged by guilt and regret. Adela wanted nothing more at that moment than to reach out her hand and take his. She didn’t because she didn’t know how he would react to the gesture, but knowing him he probably wouldn’t have appreciated her sympathy.
He swallowed deeply and went on, ‘she cried out, “no,” and flung herself in front of John and my bullet hit her directly in the heart. She looked at me and the look of shock and accusation on her face haunts me still.’
Adela gasped and spoke for the first time since he had began his narrative, ‘I’m so sorry, Mr. Lando, so very sorry.’ Inadequate words but it was all she had right then.
He stared at her his expression unreadable but said nothing as though waiting for her to ask the inevitable question, which she did. ‘So if it was an accident why were you accused of her murder?’
He hesitated a moment before answering, �
�John covered his own ass by telling them that I had burst in on them, found them in bed together and was so enraged that I killed her and tried to kill him. That he had only reached for a weapon to defend himself and Adrianne.’
She was aghast, ‘but if he was known to be associating with criminals why would they believe him?’
‘He told them he was just a lawyer there to speak with his client about an upcoming land development they’d been working on. He had no idea that his client was suspected of being involved in drug or people trafficking. He told them that Adrianne was also a guest but not his. They had slept together but it had been a one off and had never happened before, despite what her husband or others thought. He said he was sorry that it had happened, he was ashamed of himself but she had been a beautiful, desirable woman and his only crime was that he had been weak.’
‘And they believed him?’
Lando gave a scornful smirk, ‘he was a lawyer don’t forget, used to telling tales to jurors. He made Adrianne out to be the seductive siren, himself out to be the sorrowful, penitent dupe and me the vengeful, murderous, cuckolded husband.’
Just for an instant the memory of Hennessey laughing at her own use of the word “cuckold” came to her but unlike Hennessey she did not laugh at Lando’s use of it.
He said, ‘if it’d been just his word against mine maybe things might have gone differently, but there were some of those present who witnessed my reaction when I’d been informed that John was inside the house. They even tried to make out I’d known about their affair. They told the court that I knew she was in there with my best friend. They said that I'd been, and I quote, “Angry enough to kill.” That combined with the fact that I’d disobeyed orders was my undoing.’
‘But according to Hennessey you only got three years. I’m sorry, I don’t mean to belittle those three years, but it isn’t the usual sentence for murder is it?’
‘I was lucky in that I had witnesses too, friends and colleagues who told the court that Adrianne had been having affairs for years, that I had known about her affairs for ages and done nothing about it. And if I had previously known about her and John’s affair why should I suddenly decide to get all outraged there and then in the middle of an important police operation?