“It has been a very long day,” Streeter agreed.
The night air was clear and crisp, reminding Streeter of the fresh air in Conifer compared to downtown Denver. He had forgotten how nature, unexplored, felt in South Dakota, a place few had discovered, unlike Colorado, where so many flocked for the experience of it.
Lights were still on behind the curtains in the living room at the Freeburgs, and Bly was rewarded quickly with his knock. Frank answered, and the agents could see that both he and Arlene were dressed in bathrobes and wearing slippers, neither looking comfortable nor rested. An old man Streeter didn’t recognize was sitting on the couch.
“Now what,” Frank grumbled. “It’s almost one o’clock in the morning.”
Streeter said, “We won’t stay long. We want to talk to Charlene.”
“She’s in the shower,” Frank said holding the door in such a way that his arm made a barricade to keep the agents out.
“We need to talk with her,” Streeter said, filling the door with his impressive presence. “Now.”
“I said she’s in the shower, you pervert,” Frank argued, sticking his chest out in a way only a protective father could.
The old man pushed himself from the couch and hobbled over toward them using a cane. He extended his hand to Streeter.
“I’m Dr. Lowell Morgan.”
“Special Agent Streeter Pierce.”
Bly came around from behind Streeter and shook the man’s hand. “Special Agent Stewart Blysdorf. Why are you here at this hour? Is Char ill?”
Dr. Morgan chuckled. “No, nothing like that. The Freeburgs asked me to come over to be on hand when they break the news about Michelle.”
Arlene said, “She’s been at her friend’s house the entire time. No adults around, so all they’ve been doing is listening to music, watching movies.”
Bly said, “What about their social networking?”
“Apparently Hope’s parents have the computer locked down when they’re gone.”
Dr. Morgan defended the Freeburgs. “They’ve handled everything well so far as I can tell. They’ve made Char tell them where she’s been all this time and why she left, made her eat a bit, and sent her to take a shower so I’d have time to come over.”
“Are you a psychiatrist?” Streeter asked, wondering what would possess the Freeburgs to ask a doctor to show up at one o’clock in the morning.
“An old family friend. Used to have a family practice. Have known Char all her life.”
Streeter exchanged a glance with Bly and asked, “You wouldn’t happen to be with the Black Hills Medical Clinic, would you?”
“Founder. But I don’t do much of the family practice any longer. Mostly care for the elderly. Hospice patients, really. I’ve found it gives me pleasure to help good people find peace in that final mile they walk alone.”
Behind Frank and down the hall, Streeter saw a teenage girl emerge from a room. She was wearing a bathrobe and had a towel wrapped around her head.
“Then you’re the perfect person to be here tonight,” Streeter said to Dr. Morgan. Calling to the teenager, Streeter asked, “Charlene, can we talk to you for a minute, please?”
Char looked puzzled. She came down the hall quickly and ducked under Frank’s arm. “What’s this about?”
Streeter met Frank’s eyes as Arlene looked away. Char turned to them and scanned the faces of the three men.
“Who are all these guys?”
“You remember Dr. Morgan, honey. He’s the one I took you to for shots when you were little,” Arlene said.
“Kinda.” She seemed to grow even younger, smaller somehow.
Dr. Morgan shook her hand, a gentle smile spread across his face. He pointed toward the couch and suggested she sit beside him there.
“And these two?”
Streeter sat down across from Char, forgoing the handshake. “We’re with the Federal Bureau of Investigation. I’m Agent Pierce. This is Agent Blysdorf.”
“Mom? Daddy? What’s going on?” Neither answered their daughter, who sat in the dim light from a single lamp that was near Frank’s chair. She looked more like a child than a teenager. “I thought you said Michelle moved out?”
“Moved out?” Bly said with disgust. “That’s what you told her?”
Frank’s lips puckered. Standing next to his favorite easy chair, Arlene clung to her husband’s shoulder as though she were an oversized budgie and said, “We were waiting until morning. No point in ruining another night of sleep.”
“You people are unbelievable,” Bly said, taking off his baseball cap, which freed his curly hair to spill down his back. He beat the hat against his leg as if to knock off dust after being thrown from a bull ride, but Streeter knew he was about to lose his temper and he was doing everything he could to calm himself.
“Told me what?” Char asked, turning to her father.
The dim light from the television screen, which was muted on an old Jeffersons rerun, offered a ghostly glow in which Dr. Morgan was silhouetted.
Frank melted further into his recliner as if he were hoping to disappear from the inevitable confrontation altogether. Arlene stood firm at her perch.
“Tell me what’s happened. Where’s Michelle?” Char said in an eerily calm and direct voice.
“She’s dead,” Frank said simply.
Char folded like a rag doll. Dr. Morgan patted her back. The racked sobs and guttural moans that rose from her were raw. This was real. If Streeter ever had had a suspicion that Char had anything to do with or knew about Michelle’s murder, he was convinced now that it was unfounded. He also dispelled any notion of the little sister secretly loathing the big sister. There was nothing but sheer remorse, grief, and love in the sorrow Charlene Freeburg was displaying.
As she clutched her knees, the towel on her head fell to the floor at her feet, revealing long wavy locks of jet-black hair that tumbled midway down her shins. Streeter studied her and the Freeburgs, wondering what would possess a couple not to share this news with their youngest child, thinking a good night’s sleep was more important. Denial was all he could conclude. But the fact that the Freeburgs had called Dr. Morgan over at this hour suggested they cared deeply for Char, which was encouraging to Streeter.
Streeter saw Char reach for the towel at her feet and press it to her face. Still bent, she sat there rocking gently to and fro.
Streeter tried to reconcile the images of the Char that her parents and others had described and the devastated child who sat before him. “I know how hard this must be for you, but we need to ask you some questions about your sister. We’re the ones in charge of investigating Michelle’s death. She’s been murdered.”
“Murdered? Oh God, please, no,” Char mumbled into the towel, her thin body again racked with sobs.
Streeter noticed how haggard Arlene appeared as she stood stoically by her husband’s side. And Frank looked resigned, hollow, the huff and puff of indignation completely spent. His eyes sagged.
Dr. Morgan rubbed the palm of his hand in circles between Char’s shoulder blades.
She recounted her story. “We got in a fight Sunday night. Over my boyfriend. I was mad. I ran away and called my friend. I’ve been staying at Hope’s house just to hang out for a few days, get away from everything. And I wanted to think about everything Michelle had told me. I’ve never seen her that mad. And I wanted her to miss me.”
“What happened Sunday night?”
Char shook her head, the black curls brushing her shinbones. She wiped her face in the towel again and drew a deep breath between sniffles.
“I went to her work. She lectured me about dating older guys. I begged her not to tell Mom and Daddy. She was worried about me. Followed us after he picked me up at home.”
“Here?” Arlene said incredulously, totally clueless. “I never saw anyone Sunday night.”
“Down the block,” Char said, her words muffled.
“What?” her mother asked.
Char wiped away t
he snot and tears and said more clearly, “Michelle followed us. We were hanging out. Michelle pulled me out of the car. She was so upset she dropped the flashlight, snatched me by my arm, and ran. I’ve never seen her so upset. Never. She told me the guy was poison. To stay away from him. That I had no idea what I was doing. That he was evil. I told her I liked him. She was so angry. Now my sister is dead. Murdered. What have I done?” Char wailed.
Streeter noted the genuine remorse and agony Char displayed. He also noted that Arlene and Frank had also begun to sob.
“She was found near Nemo,” Bly offered. “At Broken Peaks.”
Char stopped sobbing long enough to ask, “When?”
“Monday morning,” he answered.
She clutched her knees again, rocking. “Oh no. This is my fault. It’s all my fault.”
“Why is this your fault?” Streeter asked.
“Near the Lazy S, right?” she asked in a muffled voice.
“How did you know that?” Bly asked.
“Who is this man, Char?” Streeter asked, although he already knew the answer. The pieces were all sliding neatly into place for him. He knew this must have been the issue Michelle was referring to Sunday night when she told Jens. What she needed to end, once and for all.
“It wasn’t my fault. She never told me until Sunday night.”
“Told you what?” Streeter coaxed.
“That the guy I was dating was someone she knew. He raped my sister. She was even younger than me when it happened.”
Arlene Freeburg gasped. Frank swore. Dr. Morgan clutched his chest.
Michelle’s deep, dark secret. Out.
“I didn’t know I was betraying her,” Char moaned, noting the reaction of her elders.
“You didn’t know,” Streeter reassured her, “and these three didn’t know that’s how she got pregnant. Am I right?”
“Pregnant?” Char said, sitting up briefly.
The Freeburgs and Dr. Morgan shook their heads. Dr. Morgan answered, “Michelle never told us how she found herself in the family way. We just assumed it was a boy at school.”
“It wasn’t,” Streeter said, “and you delivered the baby, Dr. Morgan? Kept the adoption quiet? Faked the mono?”
Dr. Morgan nodded. The Freeburgs nodded too.
“What baby?” Char bellowed. “Oh Michelle. What did I do? What have I done?”
Streeter turned to Frank and Arlene. “And you two took the baby in. As your own.”
They nodded again, and both silently began to weep fresh tears, Arlene uncontrollably, Frank stoically.
Streeter nodded his appreciation to them. Although he didn’t condone their resentful parenting of the girls, he knew on some level they had loved Michelle and Charlene the best they knew how, willing to take Char in as their own, never knowing who had fathered the child or the circumstances, only that it was Michelle’s baby. There were sacrifices they must have made, Streeter thought. And at the risk of being judgmental, he wondered why they hadn’t been straightforward with her all this time.
Bewildered, Char asked her parents, “What baby? Oh my word, no. I’m the baby? Michelle was my mother?”
Their guilty expressions were affirmation enough to set off another flood of tears and wailing.
Streeter was growing impatient, his instinct keenly tuned to a clock with little time left. “What’s his name?”
“He’ll kill me,” she howled and crumpled again, sobbing into the towel at her knees. “Like he killed Michelle. I just know it. He’s evil.”
“Do you know that for a fact? That he killed Michelle?” Streeter insisted.
“I didn’t even know Michelle was dead until just now,” she shouted, eyes wide with concern. “I didn’t know anything about all this. Oh, what am I going to do without her? He will kill me, for sure.”
“Not if you tell us who he is. Then we can protect you,” Streeter said. When nothing but muffled sobs came from the towel in her lap, he added, “Char, this is important. What is the name of the man you were with Sunday night?”
She lifted her head and sighed, weighing the idea. “If he’s going to be mad at me or do something to me for telling, I guess I’m already in trouble since I told Jens’s sister. So why not tell you?”
“What did you say?” Streeter asked with urgency, his throat tight and dry.
“I said why shouldn’t I tell you?” Char repeated.
“No, before that. You already told who?” Streeter’s stomach cramped.
“Jens’s sister. Jens Bergen was dating Michelle. He has a bunch of sisters. This was one I hadn’t met before.”
The towel she had been pressing against her tear stained, snot-streaked face dropped to Char’s lap, her eyes were wide and childlike. He had seen those features before, recognized the eyes, the mischievous smile, the black tousled curls that she kept brushing off her forehead. The similarities did not belong to Michelle, but to someone else he recognized, someone he’d recently encountered. Streeter stood and snapped on a panel of lights to get a better view, to confirm his suspicions. Bly straightened when he recognized what Streeter saw in Char’s face.
“Liv? Was the sister’s name Liv?” Streeter asked, worried now that Liv had also seen what he had in Char’s familiar face.
“Yeah. When she found me and dropped me off here at home,” she said, her red-rimmed eyes spilling again. “She asked me the same questions. Who was I with Sunday night?”
“And what did you tell her?”
“She convinced me it was a matter of life and death.” Char whined, searching their eyes for confirmation.
“It is,” Streeter said, only this time it was Liv who was in danger.
Char looked from Bly to Streeter, confused by the sudden urgency in Streeter’s voice. “I was with Coach Schilling.”
“THAT EXPLAINS A LOT,” Bly said, whipping around the corners of the highway leading to Nemo. “She looks just like him.”
“Still no word from Jens or Liv?”
“Nope,” Bly said, holding up his cell phone and checking for missed calls and the inbox for text messages.
“Damn it!” Streeter swore, something he rarely did.
He struggled to prepare his mind for what might lie ahead for Liv and immediately chased the thoughts from his tortured mind. He willed himself to be battle ready by focusing on Coach Schilling. Imagining Shank’s face when he learned about his poker buddy’s sexual conquests with underage girls and possible involvement in Michelle’s death, Streeter’s mind drifted to the idiotic neighbor stating things like “but he was always so quiet, so normal” to the reporter about the deranged murderer living next door. Maybe Shank already knew. Maybe that’s why he was orchestrating the rush to judgment against Mully, someone no one would care about putting away. Maybe that’s why Shank looked so ill.
Bly quipped, “A regular all-American couple. She a former cheerleader and kindergarten teacher, he the college all-star jock and pedophile.”
“Do you suppose he knew that Char was his own daughter? A child conceived with a girl he took by force fourteen years earlier?” Streeter asked rhetorically, a shiver running down his spine.
“Or had Michelle kept the secret so well that he never knew? Eddie Schilling attracted to Char because she looked so much like the narcissistic bastard he is?”
Streeter laid his head back and imagined what poor Michelle must have seen that night. Char with her long black curls falling across her childlike face, her lips glossed and face painted in an attempt to mask her age, smiling mischievously with her inviting lips and dancing eyes. Eddie with his tanned, toned body writhing beside her, his hair mussed, a mischievous smile hiding the fact of his aged face. A black curl or two spilling onto his forehead. Michelle must have felt like she was having an out-of-body experience, watching the nightmare she’d lived through repeating itself.
Fourteen years later.
The adrenaline that must have coursed through Michelle’s veins as she shone the light on Char’s and Sc
hilling’s faces that night, horrified that history was repeating itself. With the one person in the world she loved and protected the most. Her baby. That Schilling was the man who raped her, a truth she had never shared before until she confided in Jens, and then only because Roy Barker called her out on the long-kept secret.
That dark secret had turned into the worst of all nightmares, unfolding right before Michelle’s eyes. Certainly she had to fix things, once and for all. Her life of secrecy and unintended worries about her baby’s safety had caught up with her as the monstrosity it was.
As the engine revved, Bly driving and braking expertly around the corners, they found themselves just beyond a new subdivision, at least ten miles from the Lazy S. He lifted his cell phone again as they slowed around a sharp corner. “Probably won’t get reception from here, Streeter. Maybe at King Road. It’s a high spot.”
“Jens said Liv told him she had one more lead to follow up. Let’s hope that meant she was heading to the library or somewhere other than heading toward the Lazy S, based on the same conclusion we just made,” Streeter growled.
“Assuming Eddie had killed Michelle, whether intentionally, accidentally, or in self-defense, it would make sense that he would try to frame the Lucifer’s Lot, and it would explain why he was so eager to point a finger their way. Kill two birds with one stone.”
“But if he missed with the stone, he must have known his life would be in danger. So he rallied support and offered evidence to his friends, his poker buddies.”
“Sheriff Leonard, Bob Shankley, Ken Vincent. Convenient.”
“And he imposed himself in this investigation early on and was persistent on staying abreast of the latest developments.” Streeter wrestled with a new thought. “Unless some or all of his poker buddies already knew about Schilling’s secret.”
“Not Mayor Vincent,” Bly said.
“I’d agree.”
“But it would explain why Shank imposed himself in the investigation, pinning you with blame for arresting Mully, but forcing you to focus only on him.”
“And why he blew up when we went on interviews without him,” Streeter added. “If he wasn’t there, he couldn’t help cover for Schilling.”
Lot’s return to Sodom Page 30