by Madyson Grey
After quick showers, the two exhausted travelers collapsed into bed and were soon fast asleep. When they awoke the next morning, they were in no hurry to get up. But after they had satisfied their morning desire, they got up. Victoria dressed in a pair of old jeans and a shirt to get the truck unloaded.
Lena had oats cooking and the coffee ready when they went downstairs. After a good home cooked breakfast, they were ready to tackle the job of unpacking the truck. Lena insisted on coming out to help, even though they told her she wasn’t needed. Rafael had to get the car off the dolly and unhitch it before they could begin unloading. So he did that while the women cleaned up after breakfast.
When they were finished, they went outside to get started. With the three of them working together, and the help of the hand truck, the truck was emptied in less than an hour, and the boxes were stacked temporarily in the master bedroom and the end of the hallway. Victoria knew that something would have to give for her and Rafael to get all their things unpacked and settled into the house, and make it theirs. She just didn’t know if she could ever use the master suite. For two cents, she’d just sell the place and get something that would be hers and Rafael’s alone, with no ghosts from the past lingering in her parents’ rooms and her dad’s office.
But until a decision was made concerning her mother’s fate, her hands were tied. She wondered if they had enough money to go buy a more modest place before this one could be sold. She’d have to ask Rafael about that.
The ringing of her cell phone brought Victoria out of her thinking mode. She answered it, not recognizing the phone number. It was the lieutenant.
“Hello, Miss Thornton,” he greeted her. “This is Lieutenant Mobry.”
“Hello, Lieutenant,” she replied. “How are you this morning?”
“Just fine, ma’am. How are you?” he inquired.
“OK, I think. Rafael and I just got back late last night from Seattle, and we just got the rental truck unloaded a little bit ago. Is there any news?”
“Yes, there is. We did find gunshot residue on a couple of the garments that were in your mother’s laundry hamper. There was a long-sleeved blouse that had the most on it. The blouse also had traces of blood spatter on it. The residue found on the other items was probably transferred due to being in the hamper together.”
“So, Mother did shoot Daddy, is that it?” she asked, a hint of despair in her voice.
“It certainly looks that way. I’m very sorry, Miss Thornton,” he said. “Very sorry. The question we now have is how was she able to overpower him in order to shoot him and make it appear as though he committed suicide?”
“I have thought about that off and on lately,” Victoria said. “I keep coming back to the empty Tylenol 3 bottle that was in the medicine chest in Mother’s bathroom. What if Mother was able to grind up enough of those pills and put it in a hot drink, say tea or coffee, get Daddy to drink it so that he became unconscious? Then she put on gloves, put the gun in Daddy’s hand and pulled the trigger. He slumps to the desk, the gun still in his hand, she throws the gloves away, and puts her blouse in the hamper.”
“When could she have done this?” the lieutenant asked. “She was seen at her club luncheon during the time David allegedly died.”
“How about this?” Victoria proposed. “She drugs him before she goes to her luncheon with enough codeine to kill him. She comes home, Daddy is dead from the drug overdose, and then she shoots him, then calls 911 saying she came home to find him dead. The coroner’s time of death would place her at the luncheon.”
“You watch a lot of murder mysteries on TV, don’t you,” the lieutenant asked with the tiniest bit of a chuckle.
“Well, yes, I do, but it makes sense, doesn’t it?” she asked, returning his chuckle.
“I have to admit, it is a possibility. Proving it is a whole other ball game, however.”
“Yeah, I know. If you need any help, just call Jessica Fletcher. Or maybe Columbo. They’ll help you figure it out,” Victoria said with a laugh.
“Yeah, right. That’ll work,” the lieutenant said dryly.
He laughed, too.
“No, what we’d have to do is exhume your father’s body and do a tox screen on it for drugs. We technically need your mother’s permission, but since she is not mentally stable now, your permission would be acceptable.”
“Well, then, I give my permission for you to do so,” Victoria said. “Do I need to come down and sign something?”
“Do you have a fax machine there at home?”
“Yes.”
“I can fax you the form, you can sign it and fax it back. That will save you a trip to the station,” the lieutenant said.
“Works for me,” Victoria said. “Send it over and I’ll sign it and get it right back to you, then you can get on it.”
“All right, I’ll send it in just a few minutes. I’ll have to go pull the form.”
“I don’t suppose the DNA testing is back yet, is it?” Victoria asked.
“No, not yet. I don’t expect it for several weeks yet,” he answered.
Victoria gave the lieutenant the home fax number so he could send over the form. Then they hung up so he could get the form sent. In about five minutes, the form was on the fax machine. Victoria signed it and sent it back. Then she went to find Rafael and tell him what the lieutenant had just told her.
Rafael put his arms around Victoria and held her close for a moment.
“I’m so sorry about all of this, honey,” he said.
“I have such mixed feelings about all this,” Victoria said. “On one hand, I’m very relieved to know that Daddy didn’t kill himself. Suicide is such an awful thing. On the other hand I am viciously angry with Mother for killing him, but relieved to know he didn’t kill himself. I’m devastated that my own mother could kill him—her own husband. I have lost both parents at the same time. And even though I didn’t have the best relationship with my mother, she’s still my mother, and it still hurts. And I miss Daddy just so, so much.”
Victoria knew she was rambling somewhat, but the words just came tumbling out of her mouth. She put her head on Rafael’s shoulder and let the hot tears flow. He held her lovingly, rubbing her back with one hand, and holding her close with the other. When her sobbing subsided, she pulled back a little from him and wiped her eyes. Then she had to go and find a tissue to blow her nose on.
Lena happened to come upstairs to bring clean laundry up just as Victoria was wiping her face.
“What’s wrong, honey?” she asked.
“I just talked to the lieutenant and he told me that they found gunshot residue on one of Mother’s blouses that I took him that was in the hamper,” she told Lena. “He’s pretty sure that Mother killed Daddy, but he still needs more proof that will hold up in court. I have given him permission to exhume Daddy’s body to test it for drugs.”
“I’m so sorry, honey,” Lena said, putting her arm around Victoria’s shoulder. “I’m just so sorry. I wish I could take all your pain away.”
“I’m OK, Lena. Really I am,” Victoria said, sniffling. “I’m just so thankful for you and Rafael. I don’t know what I’d do without the two of you. I’d be a total basket case here all by myself.”
“I’ll always be here for you, honey,” Lena assured her.
“Well, I’ve got to get it together and figure out what I’m gonna do,” she said. “I guess I’ll have to talk with Mr. Hall and see just what I can do. I think I’d really like to sell this place and get something a little more modest and one with no bad memories in it. You will move with us, won’t you, Lena? Please? We’ll look for something where you can still have your own living quarters.”
“I have been wondering what I would do if you decided to sell this place,” Lena admitted. “I didn’t know if you would want me to go with you, or if I would need to look for another position.”
“I, we, really want you to come with us,” Victoria assured her. “Rafael and I both want you very much.”
“If you’re sure, I would be thrilled to come with you,” Lena said.
This was a big load off of her mind, even though she had never mentioned it to Victoria. She loved this girl whom she had helped to raise from birth.
Rafael came to tell her that he wanted to get down to the office and see how things were going down there, and asked if she would be all right the rest of the day. Victoria assured him that she’d be fine. She’d be going through her boxes, unpacking what had to be put away and repacking what could wait until later.
He told her that he would take the rental truck to the nearest drop-off place and asked her if she’d come pick him up later whenever he wanted to come home. Of course, she was more than willing to do that. Even though it was Saturday, Rafael was anxious to go to the office and just see how things were. No one else would be there, so he could work undisturbed.
After he left, Victoria set about to go through her boxes and get out the important things. Like her clothes. She found the boxes with her clothes in them and set about hanging them in her closet or putting them in her dresser drawers. It would be nice to have more that four or five changes of clothes again.
Then she carried several boxes of food items down to the kitchen and asked Lena to put them away there in the kitchen. The boxes of kitchen utensils, pans, and dishes, she left packed for now. She wasn’t sure what she would do with them. Maybe just take them to the Goodwill or whatever. She’d deal with them another day.
She put her photo albums, books, and DVDs back on shelves in her room from whence they had come when she moved out so long ago. Not all of them fit, because she had collected more in the interim. So she took some of the movies downstairs to the family room and put them in the entertainment center there.
When everything had been either put away, or left packed to deal with later, Victoria was hungry for some lunch, so she went to the kitchen to see what she could scrounge up. But Lena was there ahead of her, stirring a pot of homemade stew that was nearly done.
“Hungry?” Lena asked.
“Sure am,” Victoria answered. “Unpacking is hard work.”
She chuckled and Lena did, too.
“It’s almost ready,” Lena said. “Do you want a sandwich to go with the soup?”
“Yeah, well, just a couple of peanut butter and honey breads,” Victoria said. “Do you want some, too?”
“That sounds good to me,” Lena said.
“I’ll fix the bread while you finish up the soup,” Victoria said.
She got the bread out of the breadbox, the butter out of the fridge, and the peanut butter and honey from the cupboard. She spread everything on four slices of bread, swirling the peanut butter and honey together to mix them up somewhat. She put the bread on a plate and set it on the counter next to where they would sit.
Lena dished up the stew into two soup bowls, got out spoons, and set them on the counter, too.
“Do you want a glass of milk?” she asked Victoria.
“Please,” Victoria replied.
She got out the chocolate milk powder and an iced teaspoon so she could make chocolate milk.
“Do you want chocolate milk, too?” she asked Lena.
“Sure,” Lena said. “Please.”
They sat down to eat their lunch. While they ate, Victoria told her all about their trip, sights they had seen, taking Rafael to the Space Needle, and how it felt to leave her job and apartment in Seattle.
“It almost feels as if those seven years just fell away now that I’m back here,” she said. “It almost seemed weird to go into my place up there. Like I was a completely different person in a different life up there. But I don’t regret one minute of it. Well, with the exception that I wasn’t here with Daddy.
“It’s been six months or more since I’ve seen him. He came up to see me in Seattle last January. He was there on business, but came to see me, too. We had a nice couple of days together. That was the last time I ever saw him in person. The video chats are wonderful, but they’re not like being able to touch the person you’re talking to. But I am so glad I had those, anyway.”
Tears threatened to spill again, so Victoria turned her attention to the food in front of her. Lena understood and focused on eating her lunch, too. After lunch, Victoria went outside and looked around the yard to see what, if anything, needed doing out there. The grass definitely needed to be mowed since it had already been a week since she did it the first time.
She went to the toolshed, much more confident this time in her ability to use the lawn mower. She got it out, fired it up, and began mowing. She finished the back yard quickly, and then went around to do the front yard. She really did enjoy mowing the grass. It was physically invigorating and mentally relaxing. Out here it was just her and the mower and the grass.
After she finished, this time she cleaned the mower and refilled the gas tank before putting it away. Then she went indoors and up to her room to put on her swimsuit. On her way back through the kitchen to go out to the pool, she asked Lena if she’d like to come out and go swimming, too.
Lena had never had so much free time when David and Marian were there. She was afraid she might get spoiled. But, as long as Victoria was good with it, she was going to enjoy herself for once. So she went up to her apartment and changed into her swimsuit, too, and soon joined Victoria in the pool. They splashed around, swam, and sunbathed all afternoon until Rafael called for Victoria to come and get him.
She quickly dried off, went upstairs and slipped on a sundress over her swimsuit. She decided to take her car, rather than her dad’s, to go pick him up. Rafael was waiting in the parking lot when she pulled in.
“How is everything here?” she asked.
“All right,” he said. “I had some emails to answer and phone messages to listen to. I did some other stuff that needed doing, but everything is in order.”
“That’s good,” she said. “Next week, if it’s all right with you, I’d like to come in with you and start learning just what it is that I am owner of.”
“Sure, that’s a good idea,” Rafael said. “I’ll show you around and explain it as best I can.”
On the way home, Rafael told Victoria that they needed to go visit his mother and take her the small gift they had bought her on the Queen Mary. So they went home to get it and the gift for Mateo, and drove over to his mother’s home in Montebello.
She was delighted to see them and pleased that they had thought of her on their honeymoon. They had a pleasant visit with her. Mateo wasn’t there, but they left his small gift with her to give to him. Mateo had recently moved in with their mother after his latest girlfriend had tossed him out because he refused to get a job and not mooch off of her.
“I think you should cut him off,” Manuela told Rafael. “He doesn’t need to have you support him. It’s not good for him. He needs to grow up and be a man and get a job like everyone else.”
“I know, Mama,” Rafael said. “I know I should. I just dread his reaction if and when I do, though. You know how demanding he can be. I don’t know why he turned out the way he has. Papa died years and years ago. He needs to get past it, give up the anger and hatred, and like you say, be a man.”
“After you learned the truth about your papa and Mr. Thornton, and told it to me, I have been able to move on, too,” she told Rafael. “I just wish that Mateo would. We have both told him what really happened, but he just refuses to accept it. He nurses that grudge constantly. Everything bad that happens to him, like his girlfriend breaking up with him, he blames on Mr. Thornton.
“‘If Old Man Thornton hadn’t driven Papa to kill himself, he would still be alive and this wouldn’t have happened to me,’ he says. It makes no sense, and I have told him so over and over again. And when he drinks, he’s even worse. Sometimes I am afraid of him, Rafael. I don’t really want him living here, yet I can’t just throw him out onto the street. He’s my son and I love him. But I don’t like what he’s become.”
“I know,
Mama,” Rafael said sympathetically. “I will see what I can do. Maybe I can find him a job. Or give him one. I’m not sure it would be a good idea to have him working for me, though. He resents me having the position that I have, and now he will resent it even more that the business is mine … and Victoria’s. It was bad enough when I was just an employee there.”
“If you can do something with him, it will be a miracle,” Manuela said. “I will appreciate it if you just try.”
Manuela insisted that they eat supper with her, so after a simple meal of beans, rice, and tortillas, they took their leave and went home.
Chapter 3
Sunday morning Rafael insisted that they take a day off and just get away from the house and relax somewhere. After some considerable discussion, they opted to drive over to Knott’s Berry Farm and just have fun there for the day. There was plenty to see and do there to just have fun and leave all their problems behind for the day. It was so good to do something that had nothing whatsoever to do with any of the issues that they had both been dealing with for the past two weeks.
When they finally left late that afternoon, Victoria felt more refreshed and ready to get back to dealing with reality than she had ever since getting the news that her father was dead. She also was becoming more aware with each passing day that her dad had known both her and Rafael so well that he knew they would be compatible and would make a great couple.
As they spent more and more time together, they discovered that they had most things in common. They liked most of the same foods, enjoyed the same types of entertainment, liked the same movies and TV shows, even had the same sleep and wake cycles. Of course, no two people are one hundred percent the same, so they weren’t either. One obvious area where they differed was the yardwork. Victoria was discovering that she loved it, while Rafael loathed it. He liked a beautiful yard, but he didn’t want to have to keep it looking that way.
That evening, they spent some more time discussing what their future might look like. Victoria reiterated her desire to sell the place and buy someplace that would be uniquely their own. In many ways, she loved this place where she had been born and raised, but in many other ways, it held many unpleasant memories, not the least of which was her dear daddy being murdered right there in his own office.