Harper Ross Legal Thrillers vol. 1-3

by Rachel Sinclair

  “No, June Bug. No. I never knew him. I don’t go to church. I haven’t been religious ever since Mary died. I prayed while she was in the hospital after that accident. She was in a coma, you know. And she was on a ventilator to help her breathe. I prayed to God every night for Him to save her. And then I prayed some more. I even told God that I would gladly take her place, if only He would spare her. And He didn’t listen to me. He wasn’t there. So, I just gave up on every believing in Him again.”

  Uncle Jack looked into the distance. “And, you know, June Bug, it seems that there was something else in my life that happened to me. There was another time when I prayed a lot to save me and to save others, and nothing at all happened. I just don’t know, though. I just can’t seem to get those memories back. I’ve tried. There’s something there, June Bug. Something there.” He shook his head. “But, every time I try to bring back those memories, something happens. I…”

  “You, what?”

  “I black out again. Every time I get close to finding out what those memories are, I totally black out and lose time. But there’s something. Sometimes I can smell something, and it trips something in me. A certain smell. A certain song. A certain house. I keep going to this house on the East Side of town. It’s a large house. A shirt-waist, one of those homes that were built around 1910. A big old house with a fenced-in yard, that looks like it’s been abandoned. Tall weeds growing up in the yard. It looks almost haunted. And there’s something about that house that trips me up, June Bug. Something about it. But it gets so frustrating, because I get so close to finding out what that house means to me – so close that I could touch it. And…nothing. I black out. Like I blacked out in that rectory.”

  “Do you remember blacking out in the rectory?”

  “Oh, heavens sakes no. I don’t even remember going into the rectory, June Bug. I would have no cause to go there.”

  I bit my tongue. I wanted, so much, to make him remember going in there. Maybe he saw somebody in there. Perhaps he walked in on the real killer, and he fainted from seeing the sight of the blood. Or maybe the real killer forced him to drink some kind of powerful sedative that caused him to black out. There could be any number of scenarios that could help me out, but, thus far, I wasn’t getting anywhere. Unless I could speak with the alter who actually walked into that rectory, or, alternatively, Jack himself could remember, I wasn’t going to get anywhere.

  I could put him under hypnosis, but, quite frankly, I was afraid of that. I was afraid that Jack might not be able to handle the memories that would come flooding into him if he was put under hypnosis. I was afraid for his mental health. He was on the precipice as it was. As it was, Jack was so vulnerable that there was a chance that Mick might take over for good, because Jack simply couldn’t handle what was in his psyche. That was clear – the moment he started to remember, even just a little, what happened in Steven Heaney’s home, Mick took over. Or Eli.

  Just then, I looked at my phone. It was Anna calling.

  “Excuse me, Uncle Jack,” I said. I had forgotten that I had asked Anna, several days ago, to find out more information about Steven Heaney. I hadn’t followed up with her. I wondered if she was calling about what she found out.

  My heart started pounding, for some odd reason. “Hey, Anna,” I said. “I’m so sorry, I forgot to call you back. What did you find out?”

  “No,” she said. “I’m sorry. I should have called you earlier. But I’ve been finding out some amazing things about Steven Heaney. I think that you and I need to meet. And talk about this. You’re just not going to believe what’s going on.”

  My heart was pounding even more. “Okay, where do you want to meet?”

  “I’ll come to your office,” she said. “When can you be there?”

  “Half hour.”

  “See you then.”

  I got off the phone. “Uncle Jack,” I said. “I need to go. I’m so sorry.”

  “It’s okay, June Bug,” he said. “I’ll be here. I’m not going anywhere. Mainly because I can’t go anywhere, but I don’t have anywhere to go, even if I weren’t on restriction.”

  I kissed him on the cheek and he smiled.

  “Bye Uncle Jack.”

  As I left him, I wondered. I wondered if he was going to be Jack when I got back to him. Or Mick. Or Eli.

  Or maybe even somebody else.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Anna met me at my office. She was already there when I got there, talking to Pearl. She stood up and smiled when I walked through the door. “Seriously, hemp oil,” she said to Pearl. “It does the most amazing things for your skin.”

  “I’ll try that, girl,” Pearl said with a smile.

  I nodded. “Hemp oil, huh? That’s what makes your face so amazingly smooth?” I always admired Anna. She was so gorgeous without even trying. Effortlessly gorgeous. I had to wear makeup all the time, to cover up my freckles and make my eyelashes visible. If I didn’t wear mascara and foundation, I looked like a freckled ghost. But Anna, with her long dark eyelashes and olive skin, was beautiful without an ounce of makeup.

  “You got it,” she said. “Let’s go into your office. I need to show you the things that I found out about this guy.”

  We walked into the office and I sat down. “Okay, girl, what you got?”

  She nodded. “Well, your sister was right. Steven Heaney is still alive.”

  I knew that. On some level, I knew that to be true. I didn’t want to admit that that psychic hack was onto something, though.

  I had to grudgingly admit that maybe, just maybe, Lady Starlight was on the level. At least, with this. I certainly wasn’t going to go to her and ask her for insight on Jack’s case, though. I wasn’t going to have her look into a crystal ball and tell me who did it. But, on this one thing, Lady Starlight seemed to have it all figured out.

  “How is that possible?”

  “Well, that’s what I was trying to find out. I finally tracked down the birth records for Steven Heaney, and he has an identical twin. Had an identical twin, I mean. That identical twin was the one who was in that house. That serial killer that everybody knew as Steven Heaney, wasn’t Steven Heaney. It was his twin, whose name was Jackson. Jackson Heaney.”

  “The serial killer wasn’t ever Steven Heaney?”

  “Now, I’m not saying that at all. I’m simply saying that there was a Jackson Heaney who was killed in that house. The house of Steven Heaney. But I’m not going to tell you that the serial killer wasn’t Steven. It still might have been.”

  “But how did you figure all of this out? How did you figure out that it was Jackson who was killed and not Steven?”

  She smiled. “Well, I have to admit, that I’m not all that sure about it. All that I know is that I spoke with a guy. He was going by the name of Jackson Heaney. I found him, and I went to his house. I just went to his house. I’m telling you, this assignment has been the highlight of my life.” She shook her head. “You just can’t imagine the rush I got from being in this dude’s presence.” She shuddered. “It was the most rad thing in the entire fucking world, man. The most rad thing.”

  “Wait, wait, wait. Back up. You talked to this Jackson Heaney. Now how did you know that this was actually Steven Heaney, and not Jackson Heaney?”

  “Because, dude, it’s like this. I’m like this geek when it comes to serial killers. I already told you all about that, but it bears repeating. And I got this shit memorized. The pictures that they have in those books about this Steven Heaney guy, I have them memorized. And those pictures of Steven growing up showed that he had this birthmark on his right arm.” She pointed to her right forearm. “Here. It’s a pretty distinct birthmark. It looks like a teeny, tiny Florida. Complete with the panhandle.”

  I furrowed my brow. “Okay. So this Jackson Heaney guy had that birthmark?”

  “Yeah, dude. He did. He had it on his forearm. So, I knew it was him. But I think that this dude was on the level. I don’t know, but I’m fascinated with evil. Some
times I wish that I could do what you do, or be a prosecutor, or something. I would be working with this shit all the time. That would be my dream job.”

  I wrote down words as I was listening to Anna, but I was trying to make sense of it. First of all, why didn’t the cops figure out that the dead guy in that house was Jackson Heaney, and not Steven Heaney? And who was to say that the guy who killed the kids wasn’t Jackson all along, taking the identity of Steven? Maybe Steven himself was innocent of any wrong-doing, and his identical twin brother was the one who was doing all that killing?

  Or there might have been a much more sinister solution to all of this. Maybe Steven was the actual killer, and he somehow, someway, got his identical twin brother to go into that house and Uncle Jack killed him. Uncle Jack killed Jackson, not Steven, and Steven, no fool, decided to high-tail it out of there.

  No doubt about it, I was going to have to speak with Eli. Only Eli had the details of the “death” of Steven Heaney. There might have been something that led into “Steven’s” death. There had to be some kind of triggering incident that would have made Eli want to kill “Steven.” Might have Steven put Jackson in his place, knowing that Eli was on the verge of murdering Steven? That would have been the perfect way of getting out of what he did. Lure his brother into that house, make sure that his brother was killed, and then skate out of there without anybody being the wiser.

  Back in the 1970s, they didn’t have DNA testing, or, at least, it wasn’t as widely used as it was today. The cops wouldn’t necessarily do a DNA analysis on Jackson’s corpse, even if they were aware that there was an identical twin, which wasn’t a sure thing, either. It probably wasn’t even known that they were twins. As for the birthmark…I doubted if the cops figured out that the corpse in that house didn’t have that distinguishing birthmark. According to the stories that I had read about Steven Heaney’s death, the cops interviewed Eli, who was the only survivor who was coherent, as Mary was in a catatonic state at that point.

  I tapped my pen against my desk, over and over again. There was something about this. There was something about the fact that Steven Heaney was alive that was significant. I wondered if Steven Heaney was somehow, someway, behind the murder of Father Kennedy.

  “Harper,” Anna was saying. “What are you thinking about?”

  “I just need to speak with somebody. And goddamnit, I can’t figure out how to reach him.” I shook my head. “I just don’t know how to reach this person. I don’t know.”

  “Who is it?”

  “Nobody important.” I didn’t want to tell Anna about Jack’s issues. I was still so protective of him. “I mean, it is. But-“

  “But what?” Anna was looking at me suspiciously. “You want to talk to somebody important, but you won’t tell me who it is?”

  I sighed. “You probably wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”

  “Try me.”

  “Well, it’s like this.” I took a deep breath as I got up to shut the door to my office. “My Uncle Jack has Dissociative Identity Disorder, or DID for short. He was Steven Heaney’s last victim. He basically developed alternative personalities to protect him when he was living at Steven’s house. He has Mick, who is gay, and apparently in love with Steven; and Eli, who was a tough druggie dude who was the one who took the torture and severe abuse. Those are the only ones I know about, but I think that there might be more. Mick, who is the dominant personality, won’t let me speak with Eli. I think that Eli not only knows the truth about Steven Heaney and his death, but he also might know the truth about the death of Father Kennedy.”

  Anna was nodding along, her beautiful face lighting up when I was speaking about Uncle Jack’s problems. “Oh my God, you’ve been hiding this from me all along? You bitch.” She was smiling when she said that, so I knew that she was joking. “Fascinating. I’ve never known anybody who has that disorder, and, trust me, I’ve known some freaky people in my life.”

  Then she looked embarrassed after she said that. “I mean. I don’t mean that your Uncle Jack is freaky. I just meant…” She shook her head. “Open mouth, insert foot. I have to stop my diarrhea of the mouth. Sorry.”

  “Oh, it’s okay. But, you know, I have mental illness, too. A lot of people would label me crazy, because, before I got my bi-polar diagnosis, I was occasionally hearing voices and I was going into an alternative reality. You had to call 911 because I was having a mental breakdown.”

  I raised an eyebrow. “So, yeah, my Uncle has mental illness, but, who wouldn’t under those circumstances? His DID allowed him to live a normal life for much of his life. His alters went dormant, and, because his alters were the ones who remembered what happened in that house, Jack himself doesn’t have those memories. Those memories are in there, however. Buried. Before his wife died, though, he lived normally. He was a partner in a large law firm. He didn’t have any children, but he spent time with his nieces and nephews, doing normal things like camping and fishing. He was a wonderful uncle, and, if his wife never died, his alters would probably still be dormant and he still would have no clue about what had happened to him.”

  “Yeah, I know. I’m sorry, Harper. I shouldn’t be so condescending. I didn’t mean disrespect.”

  “I know you didn’t.” I sighed. “So, here’s the practical question for you. How do I get in touch with Eli? Mick, the dominant personality, has told me that I can’t talk to Eli. How do I break through? I need to speak with him. He has the answers. He has the keys. Without speaking with Eli, I’m going to be crawling around in the dark.”

  Anna screwed up her face. “Hypnosis?”

  “I thought of that. I’m afraid that hypnosis will do permanent damage to Uncle Jack. He might start remembering what happened to him in that house, and then he might be permanently scarred by that. I mean, I think that I might have to have that done, after I speak with his therapist that he had back in the day – the therapist who treated him after he got out of that house. But, I just don’t know. I think that should be a last resort.”

  Anna drummed her fingers on my desk and she stared at me. She had a question in her eyes. She stared at me, and then shook her head, and then stared at me again. I knew that she was thinking something, something that she was maybe afraid to say out loud. Something that she thought was inappropriate or silly or something that I would just say “hell no” to.

  Finally, in a small voice, she said “doesn’t your sister know a psychic?” She winced, like she thought that I was going to slap her across the face for even saying such a thing.

  “Yes. She does. Her name is Lady Starlight. She has an office on Blue Parkway. Why do you ask?”

  “Well, maybe this Lady Starlight has the ability to communicate with Jack’s alters. It’s worth a shot.”

  I raised an eyebrow, thinking that this wasn’t a bad idea. But, then again, maybe it was. I doubted that I could drag Mick over there to that office. Mick was the one who was controlling everything. I doubted that he would allow me to drive him to a psychic’s, knowing that the psychic was going to try to speak with Eli.

  “I just don’t think that would work. Unless…”

  Would Lady Starlight make a house call? I couldn’t take Jack to her premises on Blue Parkway, because Jack was restricted and couldn’t really leave my mother’s house, unless it was something that was court-ordered, and seeing a psychic wouldn’t qualify as something that I could get a court order for. To say the least. But if she could come to the house…

  Oh, what are you thinking? Seriously, you’re thinking about calling a psychic to come to your mother’s house and speak with Eli? “No, that’s not going to work. I’m going to have to figure something else out.”

  “Okay, then,” Anna said. “Well, I hope that you do figure it out. I need to get to the bottom of this, too. I have to admit, I’m intrigued.”

  Intrigued. That was a good word. Intrigued.

  I, too, was intrigued. I now had another path to go down.

  I had no idea if the fact t
hat Steven Heaney was alive was significant.

  I had a feeling that it was, though.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  When I got home, I found a pleasant surprise. Abby seemed to be better. Much better. She was smiling. I hadn’t seen her smile for such a long time, I almost forgot what it looked like.

  “Mom,” she said. “I made dinner for you. Rina helped.”

  I had a light chuckle as I saw that her dinner consisted of scrambled eggs and fried tortillas. She also apparently opened up a can of pinto beans and boiled them up. “That looks amazing, Buttercup,” I said. “What’s the occasion?”

  She shrugged. “I feel badly for what I said to you before. When I said that I wanted my birth mother. That wasn’t a very nice thing for me to say. And I didn’t really mean it. Anyways, I’m feeling better.”

  I went into the dining room, where Rina was busy setting the table. “Mom,” she said. “What Abby is trying to say is that she got all cray-cray over that loser James, when the real problem was that she got her period for the first time.” Rina rolled her eyes. “She didn’t even tell me about it, mom. Like it’s some big secret.”

  “Abby, honey,” I said, going into the kitchen to find her. “Why didn’t you tell me that you got your period?”

  She shrugged. “I was embarrassed, I guess.”

  “Embarrassed? Why would you be embarrassed?”

  “I don’t know, it’s just embarrassing.”

  I had bought Abby and Rina some tampons and pads earlier in the year, in anticipation of this happening, but I figured that they would come to me and tell me. I was slightly hurt that Abby wanted to keep it all a secret. “There’s nothing to be embarrassed about. You’re becoming a woman.” I said that, and immediately regretted saying it. Becoming a woman. That was such a cliché and not at all helpful. Besides, I didn’t want her to grow up too soon. I wanted her to be my little girl. I felt selfish as I realized how much I needed her to stay just the way that she was for a little while. Soon enough, she was going to be dating, and driving, and cussing me out. Right now, though, she was sweet as pie Abby. I didn’t want her to change.