Harper Ross Legal Thrillers vol. 1-3

by Rachel Sinclair

  “That’s because I don’t know what you’re talking about, June bug. I really don’t.”

  I sighed. “Uncle Jack, you’re going to have to cooperate with me. You just have to. You’re going to have to stop making me feel like I’m going insane. If you don’t, then we’re going to lose. We’re going to lose, Uncle Jack.”

  He hung his head. “Please tell me what you’re talking about.”

  I counted to 10. All at once, I wanted to leave. I needed to get out of there. I was going to see Uncle Jack for his arraignment the next day. I was hopefully going to be able to get him a bond reduction of some sort. I had no idea how much of a bond he had on him, but I had to imagine that it was high. This was apparently a first-degree murder of a priest. I doubted that his bond was going to be below a million dollars.

  I sighed. I couldn’t allow him to stay in jail for any period of time. After seeing him this way, I knew that he couldn’t survive much jail time. He was obviously having some kind of…break. A break, that was the only thing that I could think of when I looked at him. A psychotic break.

  “Uncle Jack, what is your current bond amount?”

  He shrugged. “I think that it’s a million five. I’m not sure. You’re going to have to check and see about that.”

  “Okay.” I took a deep breath. “I own my house outright. I’ll take out a mortgage. I can probably get about $300,000 for that. Tomorrow, I’ll try to convince the judge to reduce your bond to 10%, as opposed to you coming up with all that cash, which would mean that you would only need $150,000 cash to get out of jail. I can put that up for you. But if that judge won’t reduce it, do you have assets that you could liquidate? Anything at all?”

  He had tears in his eyes. “You would take out a mortgage on your home just to help me? Really June bug?”

  “Yes, really. You’re family. That isn’t even a question. It shouldn’t be a question, anyhow. Of course I’m going to help you. I can’t just let you rot here in jail.”

  “I’m going to rot in jail,” he said. “Because I deserve it. I killed that man. I don’t know why I killed him, but I did. I must have. I had to have killed him, Harper.”

  “Why do you believe that you killed him? You just said that you didn’t remember killing him. That you blacked out and had no idea how you got to the rectory. You said that. Now you’re saying that you killed him. Why, Uncle Jack? Why are you changing your story?”

  I had to admit, I was getting whiplash just talking to him. He was so incoherent and contradictory. I wondered if he was doped up. He certainly could have been. “Uncle Jack, are you on any kind of prescription drugs right now? Or any street drugs?”

  He shook his head. “I’ve never taken street drugs, June Bug. And I’m not on any prescription drugs right now, either. I told you, I quit taking my schizophrenia drugs because I didn’t like the way that they made me feel. Why won’t you believe me?”

  “Well, you’re not making a ton of sense. Maybe I should go home and come back when you’re more coherent.” I hated to leave him, but I felt like I was spinning my wheels, so I started to get really frustrated. I didn’t want to take out my frustrations on my beloved Uncle, though, so I really wanted to leave.

  He sighed. “I know that I’m not making sense. I know that. I don’t even make much sense to myself anymore.” His voice went down to a whisper. “All I know is that I still hear a voice. I don’t know what he wants or why he wants it. I just don’t know. But I do know that it certainly looks like I killed Father Kennedy. It certainly looks that way.”

  I put my pen down and looked at my Uncle. He looked like the Uncle I had always known and loved, even though he was wearing an orange jumpsuit and his hands were shackled. He had grey hair, where before, when I was growing up, his hair was jet black. But his eyes were still as blue, his smile was just the same. I was looking at him and trying to figure out who he was, though. He looked the same, but he wasn’t the man that I grew up with at all.

  I finally sighed. “Uncle Jack, I hate to do this, but I really have to leave. My head is throbbing, and, well, I just kind of need to get home. I feel like I’m not getting anywhere. I’m feeling really confused. I’m so sorry.”

  He said nothing, but just nodded his head. “I know. I know, Harper. I know. I haven’t been right for a long time. Ever since Mary died, I haven’t been right. I’ve tried, though. You know how I’ve tried. I want my life back. I’ve been wanting my life back ever since that accident. But I just can’t seem to get it back. I can’t. It seems like every time I try to get it back, something happens. Like at work, when I got fired from the board for our law firm. That was humiliating, but I knew why they did it. I knew why. And now this.”

  He shook his head. “I just don’t know what to think. Where to turn. All I know is that things were normal for a long time. I had it all. But things haven’t been normal for at least the past five years. I wonder if they will ever be normal again.”

  I looked at him, feeling my heart being ripped out as I thought about my beloved uncle having to go back to his tiny cell.

  I stood up, and so did he, and he put his hand-cuffed arms around me and hugged me the best that he could. I put my head on his chest and I felt the tears start to come. This wasn’t the man I knew. It wasn’t him. He was somebody else. A stranger.

  I looked over at the guard’s station, and they were watching us closely. I nodded to them to silently communicate that I was okay. I knew what they were thinking – this kind of close contact between an attorney and an inmate usually only meant one thing – the attorney was in trouble.

  “Okay, Uncle Jack,” I said. “I’ll see you soon. Your arraignment is Monday morning. I’m sorry that we can’t get you out before then, but I need to see about getting your bond reduced. Do you have a place to stay? I can see if you can come and live with me. I can make that the conditions of your bond.”

  He shook his head. “I can’t put you out like that. But thank you, though.”

  “Well, I guess that’s probably for the best. I mean, you’re not putting me out, but I do have my girls at home. I don’t know if the judge would take too kindly if I requested that you stay with us.”

  Jack’s face lit up when I mentioned my girls. “Oh, Harper, that’s great. That’s great. You have children now? I didn’t know that you adopted. I hope I have a chance to meet them soon.”

  I cocked my head and sat back down. “Uncle Jack, you met them. Thanksgiving. They were the twins. Rina pretty much talked the whole way through dinner, and Abby was the quiet one. Don’t you remember?”

  He shook his head. “I wasn’t there with you on Thanksgiving, June Bug.”

  I felt tears come to my eyes and I realize that my Uncle was suffering from some kind of major memory loss. Perhaps he was suffering from early-onset Alzheimer’s? I knew something about that, and knew that early onset versions of diseases, such as Alzheimer’s, tended to be much more aggressive than the latent versions.

  I looked at him and saw him bow his head. And then he looked up and smiled at me.

  “He’s gone,” he said. “Just for now. But I wanted to tell you that he didn’t kill that priest. I didn’t, either. We’re being framed, honey. I’m telling you, we’re being framed. I don’t know who killed him, but it wasn’t us. Unless there’s somebody else involved. That could be.” He shook his head. “Anyhow, I wouldn’t have killed Father Kennedy. I loved him. I was in love with him. He was going to leave the priesthood to be with me. He was.”

  I wrote down what he was telling me. “Uncle Jack, again, you’re not making any sense.”

  He put his hand to his cheek and waved it. “Honey, I’ve been hiding this from you and from everybody. If people knew about me, then Jack would have to go away somewhere and live behind closed doors. He wouldn’t be able to get out of the nut house, and neither would I. You don’t know how scared that makes me. So, I haven’t told anybody about my existence. But you have to know about me now.”

  I shook my he
ad, once again feeling completely confused.

  “Uncle Jack, I don’t understand.”

  Uncle Jack took a deep breath. “My name isn’t Jack, doll. It’s Mick.”

  CHAPTER TWO

  “Jack,” I said. “I really am not understanding what you’re saying. What do you mean that your name is not Jack, it’s Mick? I’m looking at you, and you look exactly like my Uncle Jack. In fact, just a few minutes ago, you were Jack. I don’t understand.”

  Jack rolled his eyes. “Doll, let me tell you something. Jack hasn’t been Jack, exactly, since your Aunt Mary died. You remember when she died, don’t you?”

  I nodded my head.

  “Well, Mary represented something to him. She wasn’t just his wife, you know. She was something else to him. She saved him when he was a young boy.”

  She saved him. I didn’t quite know what Jack was talking about. I couldn’t quite figure out why it was that Jack kept referring to himself in the third person.

  It was then that I noticed a few things. His posture was different than it was a second ago. He was leaning down on the table, and he had his right leg crossed over his left. I also noticed that his voice was slightly different. It was higher pitched than it was previously.

  He was also squinting.

  He shook his head. “Oh, crap. My glasses. I forgot my glasses in my cell. I can barely see you, doll. But I remembered what you looked like at Thanksgiving. You really have blossomed into a beautiful young woman.”

  I started to feel even more gaslit. “Uncle Jack, you just said that you don’t remember coming to see us on Thanksgiving. Or don’t you remember telling me that?”

  He started to laugh. “You don’t get it. Let me spell it out for you. My name is Mick. Jack doesn’t know about me, so don’t tell him that I exist. Jack doesn’t remember the murder, and I don’t either, but I can tell you that I think that we didn’t kill him.”

  I stood up. “Uncle Jack, you’re scaring me. I really need to leave.”

  Jack rolled his eyes. “Fine, girly. Fine. You just go ahead and leave. But you won’t be guaranteed to talk to me if you leave and come back. You might just be talking to him, and he’s clueless, doll. Clueless. He doesn’t know anything that I know about this. But go ahead. Go right ahead and leave. I wouldn’t leave, though, if you want to know some hard truths about what happened to Father Kennedy.” He waved his hand in the air. “I mean, he’s called Father Kennedy, but I just called him Kelly. Or sweet buns, when I was in a really good mood.”

  I shook my head. “Guard, could you please let me out?” I turned and looked at my uncle, who was looking away and shaking his head. “Uncle Jack, I’ll see you at your arraignment on Monday. Actually, it’s an initial appearance. Nothing happens there, exactly, except that you’re read your charges and given a new court date. I can reduce your bond there, though.”

  “Please do,” Jack said. “The food that they serve in this place is awful. I need a sushi fix like you wouldn’t believe.”

  “Since when do you like sushi? We went to a sushi restaurant a few years ago, and you ordered Tempura. You said that you couldn’t stand uncooked fish. Or fish in general.”

  “I love sushi. It’s my favorite thing in the world. And, trust me, they don’t serve sushi in here. Oh, they serve things that are slimy and undercooked, and it might bear a passing resemblance to actual food, but sushi?” He shook his head. “Not a chance. So please try to get me out of here. If I don’t get my hands on some unagi, I’m going to die.”

  “Um, okay, Uncle Jack. I’ll…do what I can. I’ll do what I can to make sure that your bond is reduced.”

  “Ta ta,” he said, saving his shackled hand in the air towards me. “I’ll be seeing you Monday, I guess. Unless I don’t. I can’t always get out every time I want to. I hope that you know that, doll. Of course, ever since Father Kennedy, I mean Kelly, was found dead, I’ve been allowed to come out much more, so chances are good that I will be seeing you on Monday after all.”

  I nodded my head and faced the double doors. One door opened, and then the next, and I was out in the hallway.

  What the Hell just happened in there? Jack had been strange these past few years, ever since he lost his wife. There was no denying that.

  But he had never quite been this strange.

  I GOT HOME, and the girls were already in bed. It was past midnight, and, after I changed into my pajamas, I crawled into my own bed and closed my eyes.

  I thought about the night I had with Uncle Jack and my mother. My mother was still crying her eyes out in the waiting room. Brad had already gone home. I didn’t know what to tell her, so I just said next to nothing.

  “He has a court date on Monday,” I said to her. “And we’ll know more then.”

  “Monday. You mean he has to be in that place until Monday?”

  “That’s what I’m saying, mom. He needs a bond reduction before he can get out of there, and only the judge can do that for him. I don’t think that he has a million five in cash. He might have that much in assets, but he would have to give us power of attorney to sell everything for him. That’s going to be a lot of rigamarole.”

  She started to wring her hands as she rapidly shook her head. “You have to do something, Harper. He can’t be in there for too long. He’s very sensitive. He’s always been so sensitive.”

  “Uncle Jack, sensitive? I don’t understand. I’ve never considered him to be sensitive.”

  “Oh, he has always been sensitive. You just never knew him when he was a young boy. He always cried whenever our daddy had to kill a bug in the house. He would bawl his eyes out when he would see dead animals on the road. He always talked about how the animal had a mommy and a daddy who were going to be very sad because their baby was killed. He just can’t stand killing things or seeing things dead.”

  I sighed. “Well, I guess I can use that information when I try his case. ‘Your honor, my Uncle could not have killed Father Kennedy. He literally would never hurt a fly.’ Wasn’t that what the crazy guy in that movie Psycho said? He wouldn’t hurt a fly?”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” mom asked. “Are you implying that Jack is crazy like the man in Psycho?”

  “No, mom, that’s not what I’m saying. I’m just trying to make conversation, that’s all.” I was in the waiting room with her, getting ready to leave, and all I could think of was how I couldn’t wait to get home. I loved my mother dearly, but she drove me up a tree most of the time. She and I just didn’t relate that well. She didn’t approve of my job, she was always bugging me to get married and give her grandchildren, yet she didn’t consider Rina and Abby to be her grandchildren.

  I guessed that she only wanted biologically related grandchildren.

  We both got to our cars and I gave her a quick hug goodbye. “I’ll see you Sunday,” I said. I had dinner with her every Sunday, as did Emma and Brad and Albany. My other brother, Jason, lived in New York City, so I saw him only rarely.

  “Sunday. And then on Monday, you get Jack’s bond reduced and you get him out of that cell. He can’t survive in there, Harper. I don’t think that you know how sensitive he is.”

  “I know, mom. You just told me about his sensitivity.” I gave her another hug. “I love you, mom. I’ll see you Sunday.”

  CHAPTER THREE

  I tossed and turned in bed, hoping that I wasn’t in the middle of yet another manic phase. The medicine that they used on me, Geodon, was working, so far, to even out my mood swings. I was grateful for that, but I also knew that taking meds for mental illness was hit and miss.

  What was up with all that nonsense he was spouting? Pretending like he was somebody else, and referring to himself in the third person? And he suddenly acted so weird. I mean, he needed glasses? Since when did he wear glasses? And his voice changed suddenly. He told me that he didn’t remember coming for Thanksgiving, and then he turned around and told me that he saw me on Thanksgiving. I mean, what the Hell is going on?

  I de
cided that, since I couldn’t sleep, I should go into the kitchen and make some hot milk and watch a movie.

  I made some hot cocoa and sat down in my big leather recliner and turned on the television. One of my favorite channels was TCM – Turner Classic Movies. That was the channel that showed old movies. Some of the movies were from the 1930s and 1940s, others were more recent, but none of the movies seemed to be made any more recently than the 1970s. I was partial to any movies starring Katherine Hepburn or Cary Grant, and if a movie starred both of them, I was going to watch it for sure.

  I chuckled as I saw that the movie playing, right at that moment, was Psycho. Speak of the Devil, because I was just talking about that show earlier to my mother. I clicked it on, and saw that the movie was part of some kind of theme that night. The Three Faces of Eve was the movie that came after Psycho, and I knew that both of those movies involved some kind of mental illness.

  I popped some popcorn and sat down to watch the movie. I knew the ending, and, in the back of my mind, I knew that I was watching this movie for a purpose of some sort.

  As I watched the movie, I thought about Uncle Jack. About how he was acting. Not that Norman Bates was acting like Uncle Jack, or, rather, that Uncle Jack was acting like Norman Bates. But…

  The ending came, and the twist, which was that Norman Bates was his mother as well. That his mother was dead, and had been dead for many years. The “arguments” that Norman was having with his mother weren’t arguments between two people at all. They were simply arguments between Norman and Norman playing his mother.

  It wasn’t until 3 AM, when the next movie, The Three Faces of Eve, came on that I started to get the picture. This movie dealt with a young Southern housewife who had multiple personalities. There was Eve White, who was the main person; Eve Black, who was Eve White’s alternative personality; and Jane, who was another of Eve White’s alternative personalities. They were all distinct. Eve White was meek, mousy and insecure. Eve Black was fun-loving, sexy and free-spirited. Jane was calm, confident and assured. As it turned out, Eve White had a disturbing break when she was a small child and was forced to kiss her dead grandmother in her coffin.