First to Fall

by Carys Jones

  ‘Why don’t we go upstairs?’ Aiden asked suggestively, deciding to change tack and not wanting to discuss things about Brandy further.

  ‘I thought you were tired?’ Isla’s eyelashes fluttered flirtatiously, her whole demeanour changing from ice-maiden to temptress in a second.

  ‘Yes, but seeing you there, well, you are a beautiful woman, Mrs. Connelly, and I’m a lucky, lucky man.’

  ‘Oh, yes you are!’ She took his hand and Aiden was once more led up the stairs by a female, only this time he hoped he would be able to make it to the end of the story with her.

  Chapter Five: It Will Be All White

  Despite the raging heat outside, within the walls of Eastham prison it was eerily cool. Brandy was sat across from him, and he wondered if on her side of the Perspex glass the temperature was even colder as she shivered intermittently as they talked.

  ‘I went to church on Sunday and spoke with Father West,’ he informed her.

  ‘He is such a truly kind man,’ she cooed. Aiden was impressed at the priest’s apparent ability to woo women.

  ‘He has said that he will try and come and see you.’ At this news Brandy broke into a beaming smile, showing Aiden exactly how she could have been originally crowned Miss Southern Star.

  ‘That is wonderful, thank you so, so much, Mr. Connelly.’ Aiden felt himself blushing at her gratitude.

  ‘It is no problem, Brandy, just doing my job.’ He hesitated before continuing. He needed to gain more insight into her relationship with Brandon but knew he had to go about it carefully. She had led a tumultuous life and he reasoned that her marriage had probably been no different.

  ‘So, last time we spoke we got up to the point where you met Brandon.’

  ‘Uh huh.’

  ‘Can I ask how you met?’

  ‘Sure. That day is burnt in my memory. I can still see him now, clear as day. At school I had grown up knowing all about his football glory, heck, I’d even been there to cheer him on some games when I was younger! He always looked so handsome and dashing, all the girls went crazy for him. I think he used to date a couple of cheerleaders back in high school, only the prettiest, of course. After school he would knock around town with his friends, cruise down the high street on Friday nights, hang out and drink beer, typical guy stuff. I’d seen him around before, Avalon is a small town, sooner or later you get to see just about everybody. I’ve never been all that confident with men, I mostly just walked around looking at the floor, didn’t want no attention. But after winning Little Miss Southern Star, even though they had taken my crown away and Ma was gone, some days I felt like I was still wearing it. In my mind, I pretended that I was still a winner and would walk around and hold my head high! It was on one of these days that Brandon started talking to me.’ She giggled girlishly and blushed. ‘I feel like such a fool, telling you this story, Mr. Connelly. You must surely think I’m just a stupid girl.’

  ‘No, of course not, Brandy. What did Brandon say to you?’

  ‘He said –’ Brandy deepened her voice in an attempt to sound masculine, which Aiden found humorous, ‘hey, ain’t you that Beauty girl, Brandy Cotton? I’ve seen you around.’ Then her voice returned to normal. ‘Cotton was my maiden name.’

  Aiden nodded although he was already aware of that. He had searched briefly for her mother, Janice Cotton. He’d considered that perhaps the woman was owed the truth about her daughter’s predicament but he’d had no success in locating her.

  ‘He asked me if I wanted to hang out with him and the guys, of course I said yes. He was the most handsome guy I’d ever seen. At first there was always a group of us, then we started to be alone more, sometimes even driving to the next town over to catch a movie, and things just sort of, you know, developed.’

  ‘You fell in love?’

  ‘Yes, I did. And it was wonderful. Love is such an amazing thing, it is easy to see why so many people sing and write about it. I cared about Brandon more than anything.’ Aiden was touched by her romantic outlook.

  ‘So you two became serious quite quickly?’

  ‘Well…’ She bit her lip as she debated how to carry on. ‘We went steady for like two years before he proposed. I think that we were both too young to rush things, but by then we knew, it was the real thing. He treated me like an absolute princess, taking me out to fancy restaurants, buying me gifts. It was like being crowned Miss Southern Star on a daily basis! One time, he turned up at the trailer at 3am, with a dozen red roses, saying he couldn’t sleep because he missed me so much, and that he had driven eighty miles to find a 24-hour store, just to get me flowers to show me how much he cared. Isn’t that just a wonderful thing to do?’

  ‘Yes, it is.’

  ‘Mr. Connelly, what is the most romantic thing you have done?’ Aiden was about to answer and then stopped himself. He didn’t want to get too close to Brandy; sharing information about himself could mislead her into thinking that they were friends. But then, he needed her to confide in him, so perhaps he needed to open up a bit about himself in order for her to reveal more.

  ‘Well,’ he began thinking out loud. ‘I guess…’ He was shocked to find that he was struggling to think of an answer. In the early haze of dating, he had been hot and heavy with Isla, often opting to stay in and go at it like animals rather than go out. When he met her she wasn’t the kind of girl who needed wining and dining. His proposal had been more out of necessity than love; she thought that she was pregnant and his parents pressured him to do the right thing. It turned out to be a false alarm, but he knew the right thing to do was to carry on with the engagement and get married. The pregnancy scare had been the push he needed, at least that’s what he told himself. He asked her one morning over breakfast, the way someone might enquire about the weather. Despite the poor delivery Isla had been delighted. Six months later they wed on a yacht at dusk. It was a beautiful ceremony. At twenty-four he wondered if he had been too young to wed. He would have been a year older than Brandon was. Two years later, Meegan joined them.

  ‘I once wrote a girl a poem and then sung it to her, to the tune of her favourite song.’ As he told her his heart panged when he realised that this was something he did in high school and not for Isla.

  ‘That is really sweet,’ Brandy smiled. ‘What was the song?’

  Aiden laughed as he thought back.

  ‘It was “Wake Me Up Before You Go Go”, by Wham!’ They both laughed at this. Her entire face lit up when she laughed, it was almost magical to watch.

  ‘Well, like I said, Brandon could be quite the romantic when he wanted to be. One night there was a raging thunderstorm, I hate storms. I hate them so bad. I saw lightning strike a trailer when I was younger and it caught on fire and killed the people in it who were sleeping. It was the worst thing I’d ever seen. Now every time I hear thunder my blood runs cold. Like today, I know a storm is coming, I can feel it in the air, and even locked away in here I know I’ll be scared. So this storm was raging, and I was sat in the trailer on my own, terrified, when Brandon came knocking at the door, soaked to the skin. He said he had been out drinking with the guys but when he heard thunder he knew he had to get to me, to protect me. The rain had come whilst he was running over. He had risked his life to be by my side, and I told him that my life was his, that I wanted to give myself to him forever. He got down on one knee and took off his class ring and handed it to me, saying that he wanted to hold me to that promise and make me his wife. It was such a beautiful moment.’

  ‘Sounds like he was a good husband.’

  ‘No, he was a good boyfriend, a great boyfriend. But people change.’

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘Well, first of all, we got married.

  ‘Brandon’s family were well off. His Dad owns a big pine company where Brandon also worked, and they had a gorgeous big house. When I first went round, I couldn’t believe how beautiful it was. I felt so ashamed of my trailer and my Ma, but his family welcomed me in as one of their own. Mrs. White hel
ped me arrange all the wedding, she was brilliant. She booked the venue, invited all the guests, helped me choose my wedding dress, and they paid for everything.

  ‘Once we had set a date, I tried desperately to find my Ma. I wanted her there more than anything, I wanted her to be proud of me again, but she was long gone. As it drew closer I was so wrapped up in flowers, cake, favours and gift listings that I grew less and less bothered by the fact that my Ma wouldn’t be there.

  ‘Father West performed the service for us, it was so gorgeous. The church was decked out in white ribbons and red roses, it looked like something straight out of a fairy tale. I arrived in a limousine, I felt like a celebrity! Brandon’s father, Clyde, gave me away. It felt right after how good he had been to me.’

  Aiden recalled how Clyde White had stated that he and his wife weren’t happy when Brandon started dating Brandy. Perhaps they had finally warmed to her by the time the young couple were due to wed, although when he had spoken to him, Clyde had only hate for his daughter-in-law, which, under the circumstances, was understandable.

  ‘So, you had a good relationship with Brandon’s parents?’

  ‘Oh, the best. We used to be there all the time. But after we got married, we got our own place and we stopped visiting so much.

  ‘Everyone from town was there.’ She was still recollecting her wedding day, a blissful smile on her face. ‘Brandon was so popular, and people seemed to have forgotten, or at least forgiven me about Miss Southern Star. I had my hair done up and a wonderful dress. Pure white, and mark my words, Mr. Connelly, I had every right to wear white. Not like some girls, no sir, I had saved myself. At least, you know, with Brandon. Back in the trailer park, when Ma had gotten real bad, things had happened… But I’d moved on from that. I wanted our wedding night to be special, I wanted to do everything right!

  ‘After the service we went back to Brandon’s house. There was a massive marquee in the garden where we were having the reception. We had a band and everything! It was the talk of the town for weeks after. Sheriff Fern even said it was the most wonderful wedding he had ever attended. I felt like a princess, it was almost as good as when I won my title, if my Ma had been there it would easily have been better. But I missed her. Brandon had so many people there for him, his family, friends, work mates. I had no one. It hurt like hell when the photographer took pictures with his family and then quietly asked where mine were. But I told him, “this is my family now”. And that was how I felt, that I finally had a proper family now. Marrying Brandon felt right, and I loved him so much I used to worry that I might burst!’

  She was still smiling but there was a sadness in her eyes, still she continued: ‘Our first dance was to the Buddy Holly song, “True Love Ways”. Brandon didn’t want that, he had fought me tooth and nail right up until the very last moment. He wanted “Always” by Bon Jovi, but I’m not much a fan of rock music. I was so surprised when Buddy Holly came on, to me, it just proved how much Brandon cared about me, that he was willing to let me have my song over his. Becoming Mrs. White was truly wonderful, in every sense. He gave me the wedding of my dreams, and in exchange, I gave him myself, unconditionally. Which I guess is what marriage is.’

  ‘I suppose,’ Aiden agreed. ‘Although, you shouldn’t lose sight of the person you are, else it affects the marriage.’

  ‘Maybe that is where we went wrong, we lost sight of ourselves. We changed.’

  ‘How did you change?’

  ‘Well.’ Brandy’s smile was now entirely gone, replaced with a face shrouded in sadness. Grief was clearly weighing heavily on her mind as she contemplated how to continue.

  ‘As I said, we got our own house. Lovely little place, two bedrooms, one bathroom, a porch and huge lawn out at the back. On a clear day you could sit out and see for miles. Our house was just outside town, all alone except for the Allens’ place two miles down the road to the east. I wasn’t all too happy about living a bit out like that. I was used to living alone but not being completely alone, there was always people about in the trailer park. There was never complete silence. But out in my house, you could honestly have heard a pin drop some days when there was no breeze. It could be quite creepy, especially at night. Brandon didn’t mind where it was, he could drive and had to work most days. But me, I couldn’t drive and I didn’t know anyone who I could ask to pick me up and take me places. I had to rely on Brandon whenever I wanted to go anywhere.’

  ‘So, the dynamic of the relationship changed?’

  ‘Not right away, but slowly, as more and more time passed he got more and more annoyed about things. Some nights he went out with the lads and wouldn’t return home until the following day. I did wonder if perhaps he was cheating on me, but I was giving him what he wanted in the bedroom so he had no reason to stray.

  ‘I cooked his meals for him; on the table at 6pm sharp for when he got in from work. I washed his clothes, cleaned the house. I did everything but it was so lonely. I asked him time and again for a dog to keep me company but he was having none of it. He stopped treating me like a princess; I guess he started taking me for granted. But he began to change. After our first anniversary Brandon was gone, and what I was left with for a husband, I grew to hate.’

  ‘Is that what drove you to kill him, your hatred for the man he had become?’

  ‘In part.’

  Aiden knew all too well the changes that people undergo once they enter into marriage. He and Isla had practically become strangers in Chicago, occasionally passing like ships in the night as they went about their lives. He had even started to feel estranged from Meegan as he worked longer and longer hours, and to be distant from his own child he could not bear. One day he came home from work and when he took her in his arms she bawled her eyes out, as if she did not recognise him. That was the last straw; Aiden knew that if he didn’t move his family away from the city they would ultimately be destroyed. He sympathised with Brandy, although he knew not to tell her so.

  ‘Brandon took to drinking a lot. Or so I thought. The more time I lived as his wife, the more I realised how I had never known him at all. He had shown me just one face whilst we were dating, now I was being introduced to a host of others, and some of them terrified me. He had a drinking problem and it was nothing new. Even at the wedding, he drank so much that when he took me to our marital bed to, you know, do it, he just passed out. He awoke two hours later being sick everywhere. He threw up on my dress, it was terrible. The Brandon I knew would have been ashamed by his behaviour, but the next day he wasn’t sorry. He even shouted at me for insisting that he pay for my dress to be dry cleaned! The day I became Mrs. White, everything changed, and not for the good.’

  Brandy hugged herself with her arms and rested her head on her chest. Aiden noted that they didn’t have long left before he would have to leave. They were making good progress but he needed to know more. All marriages have their problems, yet he found it hard to believe that she murdered her husband because he had a drinking problem. There was something else.

  ‘He had a temper.’ She said it so quietly, that through the Perspex glass Aiden could hardly hear her.

  ‘Was he violent?’ Tears were now running down her cheeks.

  ‘Can I trust you, Mr. Connelly?’

  ‘Yes, of course.’

  ‘Because…everyone loves Brandon…’ She was sobbing. ‘They don’t listen to me…they just looked away and let him…’

  Brandy broke down and cried so hard her tiny body shook. Distressed, Aiden pressed his palm to the glass. Through her cries she recognised the gesture, what he was trying to convey to her, and shakily she pressed her hand against his and the sobs slowly began to subside.

  ‘He did terrible things,’ she whispered.

  ‘Brandy, you need to tell me what he did.’

  She looked at Aiden through her watery eyes and slowly lifted up the orange sleeves of her jump suit to reveal her arms. They were slender and white, but they made Aiden grimace in horror. The perfect white of her sk
in was littered with scars, a majority appeared to be cigarette burns, but there were also cuts. She quickly pulled her sleeves back down in shame.

  ‘They don’t look so bad these days.’

  ‘He did that to you?’

  ‘He did much more than that.’

  Aiden wanted to ask more but the guards were moving forward to usher her away. He watched her leave, dumbfounded. The local hero, Avalon’s Saint, had cruelly beaten his wife, to what extent it was currently unclear, and in order to save herself, she had killed him, yet she was the villain. A shiver ran down his spine as he realised that he may no longer be dealing with a murder case; he would just need more proof to back up Brandy’s allegations. He would also need to get her to confess to exactly what he did to her, no matter how awful.

  His skin was soaked in sweat before he had even got to his car. The heat was ridiculous. Grey clouds hung ominously on the horizon. Aiden began his drive home, his mind awash with broken heroes and tortured beauty queens.

  Isla came up with the idea that since it was so hot, they should have a barbeque for dinner. Meegan was in the kitchen, helping prepare the salad, whilst Aiden did the man thing and cooked the meat. He was flipping over the steaks, mulling over Brandy’s case in his mind. If she really had been abused, there were hopefully some records to back up her claims hospital files, police reports, probably disguised as ‘accidents’ rather than violently inflicted injuries.

  The grey clouds had now swallowed the entire sky but the heat remained, and if anything had intensified. On his way home Aiden had dropped into work, only to find that neither Edmond nor Betty were there; a brief note explained that the heat was too much and that they would see him tomorrow. However, Edmond had stated in the note that installing air conditioning was now on the top of his to-do list! Aiden was grateful to be able to head home and get out of his suit. Standing outside in just a T-shirt and shorts he felt incredibly relaxed and settled in his new house. Avalon was a huge adjustment for the family but they seemed to be doing well.