Her dilemma was staring her in the face. She wanted to release the video of the murder to the police, but she couldn’t let people know about her hobby, fearing she would end up in prison. It was a crime to spy on people without their consent, and now she’d withheld vital information in a homicide. She could send the video anonymously, however, and they wouldn’t be able to trace it back to her. The police didn’t have any evidence linking her to Laurel’s murder, but she couldn’t take any unnecessary chances. She had to find a way to help Neil. The tape she’d made of them having sex the night of the murder and the tape she was looking at now would more than likely clear him.
Melody opened a drawer in her desk and removed a bottle of scotch. A little alcohol was okay as long as she didn’t abuse it. She only got drunk during the holidays, when the past became too difficult to suppress. How many tokens did she have left? Not many, she figured. She’d better use them wisely.
Chapter 25
Monday, December 27—7:25 P.M.
Neil stood alone on a large sand dune in Oxnard Shores, a beach community fifteen minutes from Ventura. Farther inland, Oxnard was not a desirable place to live. When his mother had brought him and Carolyn here when they were children, the area was just starting to develop. Now houses were crammed together along the sand and cars backed up in the narrow streets. At night, though, it was peaceful, and Neil came here often. The salty ocean breeze swept over him. The temperature had dropped into the mid-fifties, but even without a jacket, his skin felt hot and clammy.
He remembered playing on these same dunes. Some were three feet high and others as big as five. Grassy plants grew on top of them. He and his friends liked war games. Diving into the sand, they’d fire their fake machine guns at each other, making staccato sounds with their mouths. Life was simple then.
Things had changed—the gun in his hands was real.
Staring at the sea, the moon reflecting on the water, he wondered if he would see Laurel on the other side. He took a long drink out of the wine bottle he was holding, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. He didn’t believe in all that Catholic bullshit. If there was a God, how could He punish someone for taking his life when it became unbearable? His poor father didn’t deserve to go to hell.
Maybe Neil could have understood himself if his mother hadn’t kept the truth hidden. Some people were merely too fragile. He was sure he hadn’t killed Laurel, but he now remembered hitting her. The night she’d died, he had taken so much Depakote to come down off the amphetamines, he was surprised he remembered anything. He recalled stumbling into the bathroom in the dark, leaning down to get a drink from the tap, and almost cracking his head open. The police had found the syringe in the sink. He may have touched it without knowing. If they found his fingerprints on it, they would lock him up forever. He’d rather die than go to jail.
When Laurel told him she was still legally married to Jordan and might eventually reconcile with him, he’d gone crazy. After snorting several lines of meth in the garage, he returned to the house and they’d argued some more. He slapped her. Then everything had become murky.
For the past three days, he’d been holed up in a cheap motel, trying to kick his drug habit. He was certain the police were going to arrest him. Once they tested him, the truth would come out. His hip bones were protruding. He must have lost ten pounds. He felt as if he were being squeezed to death by a boa constrictor. He’d sweated buckets and experienced violent muscle spasms. After saturating himself with booze, he decided he was either going to start using drugs again or kill himself.
The wine bottle was almost empty. The effects of the alcohol were kicking in, intensified by the three vodka martinis he’d tossed down a few hours earlier.
Laurel’s image appeared inside the mist, hovering over the ocean in a ghostly form. The memory of her soft voice rang in his ears. He had been desperate to bring back the happy times they’d spent together in high school. Their love had been pure, untainted by sex, drugs, alcohol, the kind of things many of their friends had already dived into. After constant heckling, Neil and Laurel had shared a marijuana cigarette late one night in her backyard. Stretched out on a blanket, they were laughing and munching on M&M’s when Neil looked up and saw Laurel’s father standing over them. Her parents had come home early from a wedding. Furious, Stanley Caplin accused Neil of being a drug dealer and forbade Laurel to ever see him again outside of school. They could have resumed their relationship after graduation. Everything was ruined, though, so they went their separate ways. Laurel remained in California and obtained her teaching certificate, while Neil perfected his art skills in Europe. He cursed the day he’d run into her at Barnes & Noble. Maybe she would be alive today if they hadn’t started seeing each other again.
He knew he had to leave Carolyn’s house before she found out the truth—that her brother was a drug addict. Only when you stopped using did you realize that the drug you were so eager to consume was poison. If you continued to use, it would kill you. Because of his anxiety over his paintings not selling, he’d started using twice as much. He’d been flying so high, he lost track of what he was doing. People would come up to him in a restaurant or club, rambling on about things a stranger couldn’t possibly know. Neil would quickly excuse himself, unable to remember the person’s name or where he had met him.
Proposing to Laurel had been an impulsive act, clearly induced by narcotics. He’d been drifting untethered until he seduced himself into believing that Laurel would become his anchor.
When he shut his eyes, he hallucinated that he was struggling in the dark, cold water. Gasping for air, he hoisted Laurel onto the edge of the pool. After two compressions of her chest, her eyes opened and her beautiful mouth spread in a smile. “I love you, Neil.”
Why did everyone think she was dead? She’d just gone for a swim and slipped under for a few minutes. Not a problem. Her future husband was there to rescue her. Reality struck him in the face and he was staring into Laurel’s dead eyes, her body stiff and frigid.
“It’s you and me forever,” Neil said to Laurel’s fading image. He closed his eyes. He cried for the children they would never have, the anniversaries they would never celebrate, all that they could have been.
“I’m still right here, Laurel,” he yelled into the wind. “Why did you leave me?”
He reached to his side and picked up the loaded pistol. They would be together again as soon as he pulled the trigger. He wondered how much blood would gush out. Would the remains of his brain be found by children out for an afternoon at the beach? That would mess them up good. So what, he thought, he’d spent most of his life screwing things up. Why change things now?
He put the gun away, lured back into his thoughts. If he had a canvas, he would paint it cold and gray like his soul, waiting patiently for the cruel world to disappear. Before he used the gun, he would take out a knife and slash the canvas once, symbolizing his father, then add another for Laurel.
Neil had found the police report describing his father’s suicide when he’d spent Christmas Eve with his mother. Why hadn’t she told him the truth years ago? He’d tried to understand, but it smashed his sanity. He tried to forget the pain, but the pain was the only thing that seemed real. He was broken and nothing could repair him. The truth about his father and the white powder had left a gaping hole that was about to swallow him, scratching and skidding down to the core.
He removed his wallet and stared at a small snapshot of himself and Laurel. He’d kept it since they were in high school. She was perfect and they fit perfectly. He could smell the sun on her skin that day when he’d kissed her neck; then his senses were crushed by the aroma of salty water. No matter how far he ran, Laurel was inside, calling him to join her.
He ripped the picture in half and let the pieces fall to the ground. His life had been a failure. A strong gust of wind brushed past him. When he looked down, the picture was gone. He was insignificant. Just like the picture, he would soon be gone and forgotten.
Was he being fair? Taking his life would destroy Carolyn. “Shit, what am I doing?” he said, pulling out the gun and tossing it into the sand. Carolyn had been more than a sister. She’d been like a mother to him. She risked her life protecting society while he sold paintings to rich people. He thought of the silly woman who’d traded the Ferrari for some of his worst paintings.
Neil’s hands closed into fists. He lashed out into nothingness. “Why did you do this to me?” Suddenly he fell, as if God had opened up the sky and pushed him to the ground. He removed a pen and a small spiral binder from his windbreaker, sobbing as he wrote.
Dear Carolyn,
I didn’t mean to have it end this way. There was no way out. No place I can go. I’m nothing but a nuisance, constantly interrupting your life. I’m sorry, but you won’t have to worry about me anymore. I made the choice to end it. It’s not your fault. Carry on, I’ll be fine in the eternal fire where I belong.
Love,
Neil
He placed the paper and pen down, then stretched out on his back, staring up at the early evening stars. Reaching out, he retrieved the pistol. The sound of the waves would muffle the explosion. Beginning to accept death, he reminded himself that as soon as a person was born, he began to die. Maybe when you died, you finally began to live. Tonight would be his first step toward his new existence. His time was up. He raised the gun up to his temple and closed his eyes.
Bang.
Chapter 26
Tuesday, December 28—9:39 A.M.
Dr. Michael Graham stepped out of the shower in his room at the Holiday Inn Express. He had tried all day to get in front of Hank Sawyer. A female detective kept telling him Sawyer was tied up and couldn’t speak to him. No one would tell him Jessica’s address. Another door had slammed in his face, reminding him that he was a convicted murderer, too dangerous to know where his daughter lived.
His clothes were folded neatly on the bed, a plain white shirt and a pair of jeans. He went over to the window with a partial ocean view. He’d been to California once when he was a child, but he’d forgotten how scenic it was, and what great weather it had. Pressing his hands against the glass, he couldn’t understand why the detective had flown him out. Sawyer said on the phone that Jessica was a possible suspect in these awful crimes.
When his brother had shown him the newspaper articles, he’d refused to believe it. All he could think of was seeing his daughter again and possibly having his license to practice medicine reinstated. On the airplane, his excitement grew. He remembered Jessica’s soft red hair, the fresh smell of her skin, the sound of her playful laughter, and his love for her as a father. Did she still love macaroni and cheese, Lego blocks, chocolate, and watching I Love Lucy? His anticipation was overshadowed by the alarming conversation he’d had with the homicide detective. Now he had a far more serious reason to see her.
He couldn’t understand how Jessica had gotten away with passing herself off as Melody Asher. He knew the Asher family. They’d lived close to them in upstate New York. Phillipa, his deceased wife, had inherited the house in Tuxedo Park, as well as several million in stocks and bonds. Unless she’d squandered it, Jessica should be an extremely wealthy young woman. But she would never have the kind of money the Ashers had.
The Ashers were one of the richest families in the country. Morton Asher had founded Asher Pharmaceutical Corporation in 1903. Unlike most major corporations, it was privately held. When Morton and Elizabeth Asher died, their fortune had fallen into the hands of their two sons, Raymond and Kendall. Kendall Asher was killed in Vietnam. Raymond married and gave birth to Melody. In a highly publicized traffic accident, Raymond, along with four other individuals, had been killed. Five years later, his wife, Blythe, had died of lung cancer. Melody had inherited somewhere close to fifty million dollars, and that was just the amount released to the public. On her eighteenth birthday, the heiress had disappeared.
Graham had to admit that the two girls resembled each other, at least when he’d last seen them. Phillipa thought their height was one of the reasons they had struck up a friendship. Jessica had been the tallest girl in her class, Melody only an inch shorter. Everyone made a fuss over Melody, though, and Jessica became jealous.
People in Tuxedo Park were ranked by their fortunes, not their personalities. The children mimicked their parents. It was uncouth to speak of money, but anyone with half a brain knew what it meant when a person announced that they’d never worked a day in their life—old money. Old money didn’t mix with new money.
The night of the shooting, Dr. Graham had feared Jessica would never speak again. The only thing she claimed to remember was her father telling her that he was at fault. During the trial, she testified that she’d never seen the gun before it went off in her father’s hands. Even the district attorney suspected that the killings may have been an accident. Because Graham had destroyed the murder weapon, and had also failed to notify the police as soon as the deaths had occurred, Jessica’s story appeared credible.
When he was first arrested, he’d thought the only way he could redeem himself was to accept whatever happened. He had to protect his daughter, all that was left of his family. Jessica had either buried the truth deep in her subconscious, or she had lied, terrified of what the police would do to her.
Jessica’s attitude toward her father changed almost before the gun stopped smoking. He saw it in her face as she looked at him in the courtroom. The police and prosecutors had coached her. Already she exhibited the steely resolve of a survivor.
In prison, Dr. Graham realized he’d made another serious mistake. He’d shown his daughter that it was okay to lie as long as she didn’t get caught. Jessica might never take responsibility for her actions. She lived in denial, while all around her things were going wrong. Many of the events that later occurred must have been directly related to that fateful night. The accusations against his brother had shocked him. Jessica had been blinded by her own mind. She not only told lies, she believed them.
Dr. Graham remembered the attention his daughter had received from the police investigators and the prosecution team during his trial. He pictured her in the witness-box, smiling at the female prosecutor.
His days living with men who committed horrendous acts of violence had taught him a great deal. He found that many of their problems had stemmed from their childhoods. What happened to his daughter was like a seed planted in fertilized soil. Add a little water and the plant might grow into a full-blown criminal.
The phone rang. He hoped it was the detective. Instead, it was a local reporter from the Ventura Star. He began firing off questions, “Is it true that you’ve been in jail for the past sixteen years?”
“Do you know where my daughter lives?” Graham said. “No one will tell me.”
This wasn’t the first call he’d received. He didn’t understand how the press knew where to find him.
“Yeah,” the reporter said. “Hello, are you there, Dr. Graham?”
Could he be foolish enough to believe a scrambling reporter’s claim? What other option did he have? His pulse rate escalated. “Yes, I’m here. Where is she?”
“Not so quick, pal. Information doesn’t come for free. Fortunately, you have something that I need.”
Dr. Graham started to hang up, then listened as the man continued speaking.
“Give me an exclusive on the story of you and your daughter’s reunion and I’ll personally drive you to her home. How does that grab you?”
“Deal.”
Less than twenty minutes later, the reporter knocked on the door at Graham’s hotel room. Jack Overton was small in stature, with brown hair and a well-groomed mustache. They got into a tan Buick. Without hesitation, the reporter interrogated him on every aspect of his life—his daughter, his prison sentence, and the events that led up to his conviction. He refused to answer all of Overton’s questions. The man persisted as the miles ticked off on the odometer.
“We’re here,” Overton anno
unced.
Jessica’s home was secured with a fence that had white metal bars placed on top of a U-shaped brick wall. The structure was large and the grounds manicured. They walked through the unlocked gate to the front door. Graham’s hands were cold and clammy. He rang the doorbell. Movement could be heard from inside the house. Would she open the door?
It swung open, exposing a disheveled woman who vaguely resembled what had once been his little girl. She was dressed in an animal print workout suit. The smell of booze permeated the air. When Graham tried to speak, his words were stuck inside.
“I’m Jack Overton,” the reporter said, extending his hand. “Are you Melody Asher?”
“No, I’m the maid,” she said, declining to shake his hand. “What the hell do you want? You’re a damn reporter, aren’t you? Get off the property.”
A tall figure stepped forward. “Jessica, it’s Dad.”
Melody’s father reached out to touch her. She pulled away from him and almost fell backward onto the hard marble floor. “What are you doing here?” she spat. “You’re a murderer. Get out of here before I call the police.”
Dr. Graham extended his arm forward, forcing his way into the house. Melody was caught off guard. He turned, glared at the reporter, then slammed the door in his face. The subsequent pounding was ignored.
They were finally alone.
“I’m sorry for barging in,” he said. “You need to know the truth. We have to talk.”
“I know the truth,” Melody said, remembering him leaning over Jeremy’s body. “We don’t need to talk. Please leave now.”
Sullivan’s Justice Page 25