by Gary Parker
With her children’s faces calling her back, Connie found a surprising strength. The words of Philippians 4:13 rushed through her head, and she seized them as a starving woman grabbing a piece of bread. “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.” Fortified by the words, she pushed away from Tick and squared her shoulders. Tears dripped down her cheeks, but she didn’t feel faint any longer. She eased back down into her seat, and Tick sat across from her.
“Tell me everything you know,” she said, her voice weak but audible. “What happened?”
“A guy out fishing this morning found him on Adrian’s Island.”
“Adrian’s Island? How in the world would he get there?”
She thought instantly of a car accident. Had Jack somehow driven off the bridge, climbed from his truck, then drowned?
“We don’t have many answers yet,” said Tick. “I just left him. The coroner was taking him to the . . . well, to the city morgue. As soon as we can, we’ll get him up to Columbia for an autopsy. That will give us the details.”
Connie found herself amazingly composed. She had always had an ability to do this, calm herself in the midst of chaos, but to manage it in the aftermath of this news stunned her somewhat. Though she suspected she would fall apart later, she stared at Tick with a clarity that seemed almost supernatural. Of course, she thought to herself, it was supernatural. Then she reached a most logical conclusion.
“They murdered him,” she said, her voice routine.
Tick’s silken mustache twitched downward. “You think somebody killed Jack?” he asked.
Connie didn’t flinch. “I have no doubt,” she said. “Everyone believes these gambling people have Mob connections. Blacker, their lawyer, represents suspicious clients. The newspapers reported it. Jack’s arguments have convinced a lot of people. The gamblers are afraid they might lose in a few weeks.”
“You think they’d go this far, murder a guy just because he opposed their plans to bring a casino to Jefferson City?”
“You’re the policeman,” said Connie, but without animosity. “You know that boats like the one they want to bring here can gross fifty to sixty million dollars a year. Wouldn’t they kill for that kind of money?”
Tick shrugged. “Sure they would.”
Connie nodded, sure of her conclusions. She stared hard at Tick. “You know they did it,” she insisted.
He paused for a beat, then shook his head. “It’s too early to jump to those conclusions,” he said. “We just found him a few minutes ago. I came right over here.”
“I know the gamblers did it,” said Connie, her voice rising as her words picked up pace. “They’ve been threatening Jack for weeks! You go after them, Tick, they’re the only ones who would want Jack dead! They did it, I know it, go after them—”
“We’ll find the killer,” Tick cut her off. “If that’s what happened. But that’s not what we need to worry about right now. For now, we need to get you to Jack and take care of the kids. Let the other stuff sort itself out in due time.”
Though not mollified, Connie knew Tick was right. The police would take care of the murder. She had to take care of her family.
“You said the coroner had Jack,” she said, forcing herself to calm down.
“Yeah, at the morgue. Later today, they’ll most likely take him to Columbia. Better investigation facilities there. Probably start an autopsy Monday morning.”
“Can I see him now?”
“Whenever you want.”
Connie bit her lip, then said, “Give me a minute here.”
He nodded, and she stood and walked away, through the dining room on the back of the house to the deck just past the back door. Stepping onto the deck, she stared off toward the Missouri River. On most days, the view of the river made her happy, helped her mark the passage of life. She loved the gentle flow of the water in late summer, the gradual cooling off in the fall, the sharp ice of winter white, and the wild rush of spring flood. Today, though, the river seemed strange to her, its dark water a symbol of mystery and danger.
Connie stared down at the water and thought of Jack. He had meant everything to her, encouraging her in ways no one ever had. He saw strength in the brown eyes of the young woman behind the big black glasses. He saw her hair and called her Sunset instead of Carrot Top like others. He saw thoughtfulness behind her shyness and power in her small-frame body.
“You’re not a truck,” he joked on the occasions when her temper flared at him or one of the kids, “but you’re not a Tinkertoy either.”
With his encouragement, she had gradually come to agree. Though not tall, neither was she frail. Daily walks of three to four miles with Jack toned her legs, and light arm weights, pumped as she walked, firmed up her arms. Lean, tight muscles rippled on her one hundred five pounds, giving her strength greater than her stature suggested.
Again, with Jack’s eager support, she had resumed her education the year Daniel started kindergarten. Though coming to Jefferson City from Ft. Leonard Wood to begin her schooling at Lincoln, she had stopped after two years to marry Jack. But then, after Daniel started school, she took it up again. Attending classes primarily in the morning so she could meet Daniel when he came home, she made steady progress. By the time she became pregnant with Katie, she had finished her history degree.
Though not having any specific plans to work outside the home, she continued to look ahead after Katie’s birth. The year Katie turned two, she made the surprising choice to attend law school. She liked the logic of legal argument, the intricacies of the discussion of what words meant and could mean.
After a couple of months studying for the law boards, an even bigger surprise came her way. She took the test and made a score in the ninetieth percentile of all who took it. Acceptance at the University of Missouri Law School followed, and the years rolled by as she balanced family and education. With Jack’s help, she managed to take enough early morning and night classes to minimize her time away from the family.
Though it had taken almost six years, her scheduled graduation loomed only a few weeks away, and the bar exam waited in the fall. What happened next, she didn’t know. One local law firm had suggested she work half-days for them or even do consultation from home. She didn’t know if either would prove feasible, but she did know she wouldn’t accept any job that demanded she cheat her children or Jack.
Through it all, Jack had encouraged her to do what she thought the Lord wanted. Raising the kids was holy work, but since they were now well into their schooling, she had some free time and she should use it to utilize her gifts fully. If that meant staying home, then wonderful. If that meant a job outside the home, and she could work and still serve her family, then so be it. He simply wanted her to know he stood behind her whatever she decided.
Connie sighed and tears welled up in her eyes. The Missouri River rushed on. She knew she would never again hear Jack’s eager laughter, feel his warmth, smell his skin. Jack was dead, and she had to live with it.
She wiped her eyes, turned from the river, and stepped back inside. In the living room, she faced Tick again. “I need to tell the kids before I do anything else,” she said.
Tick nodded. “You want me with you?”
“No, this is my job.”
Tick rubbed his head. ”You want me to stay until Tess gets here?”
Connie rubbed her eyes again and thought of her best friend. Skinny and bleached blonde, Tess was as sassy as Connie was shy and had been like an older sister to her ever since she and Tick moved from Sedalia and joined their church. Though Tick and Jack weren’t as close as she and Tess, that didn’t matter. She admired the lead-with-the-chin way Tess attacked life and laughingly appreciated the bright clothes Tess always wore, the rings on three fingers of each hand. You knew when Tess Garner entered a room and noticed when she left. But, even with all the flash, Tess’s heart pulsed pure gold.
Through Tess, Connie knew and loved Tick. Grateful he had come to her instead of some str
anger, she opened her arms and walked to him. Tick stood up and opened his arms too. Connie leaned into them, and he hugged her, his burly arms strong but gentle. Connie relaxed for a second and then began to cry harder, her body shaking with the grief that suddenly overwhelmed her. As the tears cascaded down her chin, she thought of her children. With a silent prayer for strength, she rested against Tick for one more minute, knowing it might be her last minute of solace for a long time to come.
CHAPTER
5
The funeral, delayed an extra day to allow completion of the autopsy, was held on Wednesday afternoon at three o’clock at the River City Community Church. Dressed in a solid black dress and jacket, Connie sat on the front row, two rows up from her normal spot. She kept her arms around Daniel and Katie and fought to maintain her composure. Over the last four days, she had cried enough to bring the Missouri River to flood stage, most of it within the hour after she told the children their daddy would never come home again. That had been the worst of it.
Since then, her tears had fallen sporadically and with much less power than the initial outburst. At the moment, she felt cried out, as if something told her to postpone the rest of her mourning until a less demanding time. To be honest, she accepted that feeling, liked it even. She wanted to hold herself together, not because she thought that showed any more strength than wailing her eyes out but because circumstances demanded it, and she didn’t want to run from the circumstances. Content with her emotions, Connie listened as the choir began to sing:
“O God our help in ages past, our hope for years to come, A shelter from the stormy blast and our eternal home. . . . ” With the words echoing in her soul, she let her thoughts drift back to the awful experience of telling Daniel and Katie that their daddy was dead . . .
Leaving Tick in the living room, she had wiped her eyes, taken several deep breaths, and stepped into the den. After flipping off the television, she directed Daniel and Katie to the sofa and pulled up an ottoman between them. Katie stared at her with her big bug eyes, the picture of naive curiosity. Daniel, on the other hand, slouched his lean frame down in the sofa, his blond head with its buzz cut tilted onto his right shoulder and a baseball in his left hand. For a second, Connie just looked at him. Though already taller, he looked as much like Jack as Katie looked like her. Jack loved his son’s size and so did she. It made it possible for him to star in sports, baseball especially. A left-hander, he pitched for the Babe Ruth League team and won almost every game he started.
With her right hand on Daniel’s knee, she reached out with her left and patted Katie’s arm. Biting her lip, she inhaled deeply again, breathed a silent prayer for courage, and then began to speak. Her voice stayed steady at first.
“I don’t know how to say this,“ she began. “But something bad has happened to Daddy.” She paused, but neither of them interrupted her. She swallowed, then continued. “Daddy won’t be coming home. . . . Daddy is, well, Daddy is with the Lord. He’s . . . he’s dead.”
Daniel jumped involuntarily, as if someone had stuck a needle into his back. One lone tear climbed into Katie’s left eye. It hung there like a piece of crystal balanced at the corner of one of her chocolate eyes. Neither of them said anything. Connie waited several seconds for them to speak, but neither did. She spoke again. This time her throat weakened, and she began to sob.
“Tick . . . Tick told me . . . He found Daddy a little bit ago.”
“What happened to Daddy?” It was Katie who asked, her voice tiny in the face of such horrifying news.
Connie lowered her eyes for an instant, then faced Katie again. No use hiding the truth. She would hear it soon enough. Better to come from her than anyone else. “It’s really sad, honey,” she said, her eyes beginning to seep tears. “But I think . . . I think . . . a really bad person killed Daddy.”
“But why would they do that?” Katie asked, her curiosity momentarily overcoming her anguish. “Everybody likes Daddy.”
For the first time, Daniel spoke. His voice was choking, but strong, filled with grief and anger. “Not everybody liked him!” he moaned. “The people who want gambling here don’t like him! They wanted him to shut up. I bet they’re the ones who did this, they killed Dad, I know they did! They’re the ones the cops need to go after, Tick needs to go after them and kill them just like they did Dad, they—”
Connie let go of his knee and pressed her index finger to her lips. “Shhhh.” She tried to calm him, and herself as well. “Shhhh. We’ll get through this, I don’t know how . . . but somehow, with the Lord’s help . . . somehow we’ll get through this.”
Daniel closed his eyes and dropped his chin to his chest, obviously trying to hide his emotions. Watching him, Connie bit her lip, forcing herself to hold back her own suspicions. The easiest thing in the world would be to blow up in front of her kids and spew out the bitterness she felt for those she suspected had murdered her beloved husband. No one would blame her if she did. But she wouldn’t do it. Not because she wasn’t as prone to such anger as anyone else, and not because she didn’t think she knew who had killed Jack. But because she didn’t want her children’s lives scarred by her own desire for revenge. The way she reacted to this would help teach Daniel and Katie how to respond to the worst life could bring. Hatred in her would sow hatred in them. She didn’t want to plant that seed. Who knew what it would produce in the years to come?
She rocked forward and took Daniel’s chin in her hands, lifting his head and staring into his blue eyes. For a few seconds, her tears stopped, and she managed to speak clearly.
“You’re right, honey,” she agreed, her voice soothing. “Those people didn’t like Daddy. And I suspect they’re involved in this. But we don’t know that for sure. So we’ll just have to wait and let the cops handle it, let Tick see to it. We’ve got other things to worry about right now, don’t you think?”
For a long second, Daniel didn’t respond. Connie tried to read his expression. His eyes were wet with tears, but his chin was set. She wasn’t sure what she saw in his face, either cold hatred or grim determination, she couldn’t tell which.
Then Daniel nodded. “Okay, Mom,” he said, his voice choking. “We’ll let Tick . . . Tick can handle it. But we’ve got to tell him what we know. We’ve got to find who killed Daddy.”
Connie stroked his cheek, then rose from the ottoman, lifted Katie, sat her on her lap and took a spot beside Daniel. Reaching again for Daniel’s hand, she lay her head against the sofa back. Silence came over all three of them. Not knowing what else to say, Connie simply prayed to herself. God promised believers strength beyond all understanding. God promised believers they would never receive more than their shoulders could bear. God promised believers grace sufficient for every need. As her eyes began to gush again, Connie realized she would now discover the truth or the lie of each of those promises. Still praying, she squeezed her baby girl, held her teenage son’s hand, and let the tears roll out. For almost the whole next hour, the minutes before Tess came, the three of them remained there, a trio of misery, locked together in a mutual sadness, the three of them crying and wailing and shedding tears until the sofa turned wet with their grief.
That hour had been the worst of it so far, and she had held her tears in check for the most part since. That didn’t surprise or concern her. She had learned a long time ago to balance her emotions, to let them loose for a season and then chain them up again. As a military brat, she skipped from place to place with her mom and dad like a rock skipping water, and her education included more schools than she could remember. The lessons of living as the new kid became ingrained in her soul. By the time she graduated from high school and her mom and dad divorced, she had learned to handle whatever life brought, to cry when allowed, but to take care of business when circumstances demanded it.
The last four days had forced her to take care of business, and she did. Identifying the body. Tess, who instantly took leave from her state job in the Social Security Department to stay with
her, helped her through that. Making sure someone stayed with the kids. Miss Everhart, bless her sweet soul. Handling funeral arrangements. Reverend Wallace made that job easier, putting his forty-five years of ministry experience at her disposal. He sat with her all day Saturday, even though he had a sermon to preach the next day. He prayed with her time and time again, his sixty-six-year-old voice asking God for grace and strength. He held her with his gnarled hands—the hands aged by long hours in the sun as he worked his garden each summer. He contacted the remains of her scattered family.
That job didn’t take long. Neither she nor Anita, her mom, knew where her father lived. Though not an official orphan like Jack, Connie had felt like one most of her life. Anita, drawn to the bottle to escape the loneliness of one too many army bases, provided little nurture to her only child. Having remarried and settled in Seattle the year after Connie moved to Jefferson City, she hardly ever called. When Reverend Wallace informed her of Jack’s death, she agreed to come to the funeral only after Connie assured her she could leave the evening of the burial. Her husband didn’t want her away any longer than necessary.
Fortunately, Connie’s friends made up for her mother’s lack of support. A whole gang of church ladies came over to manage the normal household duties. Setting up a chart, Tess organized them into an efficient brigade. They established shifts to cook, clean, wash clothes, and stay over for the night. Tess, carrying a small suitcase into the only unused room in the house, set up shop and glued herself to Connie, leaving her only to oversee the work crew. Grateful for the companionship, Connie let Tess run the house, and Tess didn’t let her down.