Bitter Truth

by C. J. Carmichael

  “Because there’s more to the story.” Justin’s voice was harsh. He turned to his father. “Tell them the rest.”

  Doc Pittman bowed his head. He seemed unable to look anyone in the eyes. “Rosemary, your sister brought your baby into my wife’s room. She put him into Franny’s arms and told her she had a healthy seven-pound baby boy.”

  “What?” Tiff bounced off the sofa. Her mother’s face went white.

  “Once Franny got her hands on that baby, she wouldn’t let him go. I asked Marsha to come to the back office with me where I had the sick baby on oxygen in a makeshift incubator. I asked her what the hell she was playing at. It wasn’t fair to build up Franny’s hopes that way.”

  “And what did Marsha say?” Rosemary’s voice was flat, as if she’d lost the ability to feel anymore.

  “I hate to tell you this.” The doctor had his hands clasped together so tightly they were both turning white and his gaze was fixed on the carpet. “Marsha said Franny and I should keep the healthy baby. She said Franny was so frail she’d probably never carry another baby to term, but you were healthy. You’d have more children.”

  “But...that’s insane reasoning. Why would she give up her own nephew?” It didn’t make sense to Tiff. None of it.

  “To hurt me.” Rosemary’s tone was grim.

  The doctor nodded. “Marsha felt Rosemary had already been given so much. The family farm, the family house, and even the man that Marsha loved.”

  Tiff sucked in a breath. Her aunt Marsha had loved her dad? She looked to her mother for confirmation. Rosemary was nodding.

  “I often wondered about that. Marsha introduced me to Irving. She never told me she had feelings for him. But there were times over the years when I’d catch an expression on her face when she was looking at him that made me uneasy.”

  “She was definitely crazy.” Tiff turned to the doctor, someone she’d always thought of as wise and good. “But how could you go along with it?”

  “By that point, I felt I didn’t have a choice. How could I wrench that baby from Franny’s arms? She was so happy. I think secretly she’d been worried there might be something wrong with our child and her delight was just...it was impossible for me to deny her that.”

  “But what you did was more than wrong. It was illegal.”

  “I’ve closed the clinic for good. I’m giving up my license. I’ve already written a statement for the sheriff, explaining my guilt, and I’m prepared for the consequences of that.”

  “You going to jail—what will that help?” demanded Justin. “My entire life has been a lie. I was never your son. You kept me from my real parents.” He met Tiff’s gaze. “And my sister.”

  The world was spinning, spinning, and everything was changing. Tiff was struggling to keep up, to make sense of it all. But one piece suddenly made sense. “My stem-cell sample. I must have been a match.”

  “Yes,” Justin said. “I went to see my oncologist yesterday and he told me. You’re a perfect match for me and that’s only possible if we share the same parents. Both mother and father have to be the same.”

  “That’s why Aunt Marsha didn’t want me to get tested.”

  Dr. Pittman nodded. “She knew our ugly secret would be outed. But I no longer cared. All I wanted was for Justin to be cured. So I organized the donor clinic and hoped you would participate.”

  “What if I hadn’t?”

  “I would have found another way.”

  “Why didn’t you simply tell the truth?” Rosemary asked.

  “If I had the courage for that, I would have done it decades ago.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  Rosemary and Tiff couldn’t stop staring at him. Justin understood. It was like all three of them had turned into different people by virtue of their genetic connection.

  “You are such a beautiful man,” Rosemary said. “I can see so much of Irving in you. It’s a wonder I never noticed before.”

  Justin smiled sadly. “I want to say I wish I’d had a chance to know my real father. But once you start unraveling that mess, it never ends. All of our lives would have been entirely different.”

  “So much is lost forever,” Rosemary said sadly. “I remember how sorry I felt for you when Franny died. Poor boy without a mother now. But you did have a mom. It was me.”

  She looked at him like she wanted to gather him into her arms. But he was a man, no longer the little boy she was remembering. Maybe one day she would be able to hug him the way a mother hugs a son. But that was going to take a while.

  “If I’m your mother, that means I’m also a grandmother.”

  Geneva. “Yes.”

  Tiff smiled as well. “And I’m an aunt.”

  “I hope you’ll let us be part of her life,” Rosemary said.

  “Gladly.” Justin’s gaze shifted to Clark Pittman. He was refusing to call him father anymore, but in his heart he still felt the connection. It made him angry. This man had cheated him of so much.

  “So what happens now?” Tiff asked. “Are we going to make this information public?”

  “Yes,” Rosemary and Justin spoke simultaneously.

  “Won’t Clark go to jail, though?” Tiff knew that he ought to. But the man looked so wretched. Living with what he’d done had to be the worst, and most appropriate punishment of all.

  “Geneva adores her grandfather and she’s already suffered so many losses.” Justin didn’t add the rest of it, the chance that he might succumb to the cancer and she would lose him too. “I believe Clark should pay for his crimes. But I’m not willing to hurt my daughter to satisfy my need for vengeance. Of course it isn’t just my call.” He touched Rosemary’s shoulder. “I’ll go along with whatever you say.”

  Rosemary stood and left the room. Through the arched opening they could see her studying the family portrait on the wall.

  Justin looked uncomfortably from the doctor, to Tiff.

  His sister.

  Would he ever be able to think of her that way? They still had to discuss the stem-cell transplant. She’d provided the sample so he hoped she would go through with the transplant. But he couldn’t take her acquiescence for granted.

  A few minutes later Rosemary returned. She went to stand beside her daughter and linked arms with her.

  “This is what we’ll say.”

  Justin straightened. He couldn’t remember ever hearing Rosemary sound so authoritative.

  “Before she died Marsha confessed to me that she switched the babies without Clark’s knowledge. We’ll let my sister take the entirety of the blame. After all, it was her idea, and she was the one who physically committed the crime. Besides, Marsha did what she did out of jealousy and hate. Clark’s actions were motivated by love for his wife.”

  Before leaving the Mastersons’, Dr. Pittman advised Tiff to take Rosemary to a doctor in Hamilton as soon as possible. “If Marsha’s been over-medicating her, your mother might experience painful withdrawal symptoms if she stops everything cold turkey. Take those medications with you and see what the doctor suggests. A gradual weaning should make it easier for her system to adjust.”

  “Thank you.” In that moment Tiff knew that despite what he’d done, she’d never be able to see this man as a villain.

  She and her mother stayed up late that night, talking. Wanting desperately to understand why her aunt could have been so vindictive, Tiff questioned her mother about their childhood.

  Rosemary told stories of childhood jealousies and temper tantrums. “Marsha was one of those children who hated sharing the spotlight. I would purposefully lose to her in board games so she wouldn’t get upset. When we dressed up for parties, I made sure my outfit was never nicer than hers.”

  “What made her that way?” Casey had never acted that way with her, and she couldn’t recall ever feeling jealous of the extra attention he received due to his illness. She’d known her parents loved her as much as Casey. Maybe her grandparents hadn’t done the same for Marsha?

  “Someti
mes people are born a certain way. My relationship with my sister was always rocky but it got worse once we started school. Miss Christensen made a pet out of me, but was always so hard on Marsha. Of course that only made Marsha resent me all the more.”

  “I never noticed any discord between the two of you.”

  “After I had Casey, Marsha completely changed toward me. At the time I thought having a nephew to love had softened her and made her more generous toward me and Irving. Now, I know the truth. She was probably rubbing her hands with glee every time poor Casey went through another operation or had another setback. My suffering gave her pleasure.”

  Tiff shuddered with disgust. “She had me so fooled. I thought she really loved us. But isn’t it weird to think that if you’d come home from the hospital with Justin, Casey would never have been part of our family.”

  “I can’t go there. Casey was my son. I could never think of him as anything else.”

  Wednesday, December 13

  The next morning Tiff drove her mother into Hamilton. The doctor was a gentle woman with a lilting Indian accent. She suggested an immediate toxicology screen, with a full physical to follow the next week. After the appointment Tiff was surprised when her mother agreed to go out for lunch. Only a few days had gone by since her aunt had stopped drugging her, but Rosemary already seemed so much better.

  Tiff was getting her mother back.

  Around four o’clock she got a text from Zak. Dew Drop at 5?

  The world immediately felt brighter. Good friends and beer and a great burger. Yes!

  She invited Kenny to come along but he declined.

  “All the craziness of the past few days has got me really behind with the paperwork.”

  “I should stay and help.” He’d lost a full day of work after the night he’d saved her and her mother from carbon monoxide poisoning.

  “You should not. You need some serious R&R, girl. Go have fun. Next time we go out together it’s going to be a proper date.”

  She smiled. “Is that so?”

  “Damn right. You save a girl’s life, she has to have dinner with you. It’s a rule.”

  Tiff was nervous about leaving her mother alone, but she didn’t need to be. It turned out Rosemary had invited Sybil to come for a glass of wine after dinner.

  “Don’t worry. I won’t be having any wine myself, at least not until I know all those vile drugs have cleared my system. Sybil and I have a lot to talk about.”

  “Are you going to tell her everything?”

  “I’m telling her the version we all agreed to.”

  “Right.” Tiff nodded. They were going through with Rosemary’s suggestion to protect Doc Pittman, even though the doctor himself didn’t believe he deserved it.

  Zak was waiting at the Dew Drop when she arrived ten minutes early. She pulled a paper bag from her purse and set it on the table in front of him.

  “I have a confession to make. I took these from my aunt’s bedroom before you and Nadine did your search.”

  “What?” He peeked inside the bag. “Why’d you do that?”

  “I needed to figure out some answers for myself before Sherlock got on the case.” She waved a hand at Mari and gestured that she wanted a beer. Mari nodded and moved briskly to the bar.

  Tiff sank into her chair and felt some of the tension leave her neck and shoulders. “Thank God nothing ever changes with you, Zak. I’ve had way too many surprises lately.”

  “Things change with me.” He gave a second thought. “Well. Things might change with me. One day.”

  “I’m just glad today isn’t that day.” She smiled and thanked Mari as she set the glass of draft on the table. Tiff took a long, refreshing drink, while Zak studied the labels on the plastic vials in the bag.

  “These all have Marsha’s name on them. And they come from different pharmacies. Was she drugging your mother?”

  “We think so.”

  “May I ask why?”

  “Actually, I’m not totally sure. But I think it has something to do with some babies my aunt swapped more than thirty years ago.”

  “What the hell?”

  “I have a lot to tell you.”

  Tiff filled him in on the family-approved version of events that had led Justin and Casey to be raised by the “wrong” families. She confessed her mixed feelings about it all. In her heart Casey was her “real” brother. She didn’t know if she could ever feel as close to Justin.

  “And speaking of Justin, it turns out I’m a perfect match for a stem-cell transplant.”

  “That’s how you figured out about the baby swap?”

  She nodded.

  “It’s an incredible story. Your aunt sure was a dark horse.” He went quiet. Frowned. “I wonder if this has anything to do with the conversation Gwen overheard between her and Lacy.”

  “How could that be?”

  “Hang on,” Zak said. “I’m going to call Gwen.”

  Zak was down to the last fry on his plate when Gwen Lange came into the Dew Drop, arm-in-arm with Rusty. Gwen was wearing heavy black boots, floral stockings and a bright red dress. She certainly made a statement.

  Tiff smiled and waved hello. Zak stood and pulled out chairs for them.

  “What the hell is this about?” Rusty asked.

  “Beer’s on me.” Zak had ordered another pitcher and extra glasses. “I need to talk to Gwen about that conversation she overheard between Marsha and Lacy.”

  “I wondered if that was what you wanted,” Gwen said. “I’ve been thinking about that today, too.” She turned to Tiff. “Sorry about your aunt.”

  “Yeah, it must be rough for you and your mom,” Rusty added.

  Tiff acknowledged their words with a nod. Then she turned to Zak with a silent plea and he knew she wanted him to redirect the discussion.

  “You guys have heard about what Marsha did?” Zak asked.

  Gwen nodded. “Dr. Pittman called Farrah and me into his office today. Told us the clinic is closing permanently. Then he told us how Marsha confessed to switching babies all those years ago. He feels responsible—that’s why he’s giving up his practice.”

  “Which kind of sucks because now my girl is out of a job.” Rusty put his arm around Gwen and gave her a squeeze.

  “The thing is,” Gwen continued, “when he said that I remembered what I’d heard Lacy say to Marsha. At the time it seemed trivial.” She turned to Tiff. “But now that I know Justin was really your brother...”

  “What did Lacy say?” Tiff prompted, leaned forward in her chair.

  “Lacy said the older he got, the more Justin looked like Irving Masterson than his own father.”

  In that instant Zak knew he’d been right. Lacy hadn’t died of natural causes. Maybe Lacy’s observation had been innocently meant, but Marsha wasn’t willing to take the chance that the older woman had guessed her secret. She told Lacy she was getting a special vitamin K shot to promote her good health. Then injected the slow-acting insulin, instead.

  “Gwen, when did you last inventory the drugs on hand at the clinic?”

  “Since we’re closing permanently, I did that this afternoon.”

  “Is any slow-acting insulin missing or unaccounted for?”

  She drew back from the table and looked at him as if he’d conjured a rabbit from a hat. “How did you know? I thought I was going crazy. I’ve never had an error in my inventory numbers before.”

  Thursday, December 14

  The next morning Zak sat anxiously at his desk waiting for the sheriff to show up. First Nadine arrived, then Butterfield. They filled their coffee mugs and went to their desks. There were a lot of reports to write up, evidence to file, in the wake of Marsha Holmes’s suicide.

  His mind was on other matters, though. He’d cut his night at the Dew Drop short after his conversation with Gwen. At home he’d spent hours writing in his notebook and thinking. Once he was clear on what he needed to do he’d tried to figure out a way to make the sheriff feel as if he was the on
e who had done all the work.

  But in the end Zak decided he’d had enough of that. These were his theories and he was going to follow up on them.

  Finally, at eight-thirty, Ford arrived. Zak got up from his desk. “I’m going out at nine for a few hours.”

  Ford looked confused. He took off his coat, hung it on the rack, then poured a coffee. “Is that so? And who’ll be watching the phones and doing your job while you’re out?”

  Zak noticed Butterfield and Nadine had stopped what they were doing to listen. He ignored the question. “I’ve got an appointment at the Lazy S. I’m going to sit down with the family and explain how Lacy died. I’ve also got a good theory for where Nikki’s gone and what she’s doing. I can share that with you now if you’d like.”

  The sheriff scratched the top of his head. “No one needs to explain how Lacy died. She had a heart attack in her own goddamn bed.”

  “I don’t think so, sir. I know it appeared that way. But I’ve heard things and seen things that lead me to a different conclusion.”

  “What, are you a deputy now?”

  “These were off-duty observations as a private citizen.”

  The sheriff shook his head. “It’s too early in the morning for these games, Waller. What’s your theory about Nikki Stillman?”

  It was time to set aside his promise to Luke and tell the entire story.

  “I believe the night Nikki went missing, she came home from the bar and found a letter from a bank to her father, warning that a loan of over a million dollars was about to be called. Rather than have her family sell off land to a developer to cover the loan, she took her grandmother’s Charlie Russell painting to Great Falls to see what price she could get for it. There’s an art gallery there that specializes in the western masters.”

  “So she’s an art thief?”

  “Not a thief. I’m betting Lacy left the painting to her in her will. Nikki won’t be able to sell the painting until the estate clears probate. But if she can convince her family they have more than a million dollars coming to them, her family won’t need to sell those fifty acres to that developer.”