Hometown Favorite: A Novel

by BILL BARTON

  The flat screen that hung in her living room was like a memorial to her son's kindness. When Cherie had found out her son had paid off her mortgage-he did receive that scolding he had anticipated-Cherie had taken a portion of the money she had in a savings account and bought herself the flat screen to watch her son play football. Now, the reminder of his thoughtfulness toward her brought a wave of emotion as she turned on the TV and settled in to rest.

  She was frustrated when a special news bulletin interrupted Oprah's interview with a celebrity promoting the release of her new movie, one she had no intention of seeing. The screen cut to a reporter standing in front of a chaotic scene. Something about being in an upscale, residential neighborhood outside Houston, the reporter said. Cherie thought the house in the background looked so much like Dewayne's, but she could not understand the reporter's words. The masses of peoplefirefighters, police, reporters, and general onlookers behind the police barricades distracted her. But when she heard the reporter say her son's name, she rose from the sofa and began to shuffle backward toward the bathroom, her eyes riveted to the screen. Paramedics were coming out of the Jobe house pushing gurneys loaded down with black bags and depositing the contents in waiting ambulances. As the ambulances began to drive away, Cherie tumbled into the bathroom, voiding everything inside her stomach.

  When she returned to the living room, she held on to the back of the recliner to keep from collapsing and listened to the police spokeswoman give an account of what was known so far. An OnStar representative had received a call from the owner of the vehicle, an occupant who resided in the house, but there was no response. She became suspicious and alerted the police. Four people found inside; Dewayne Jobe was the only one found alive, and he had just been taken to an undisclosed hospital suffering from carbon monoxide poisoning.

  Cherie returned to the bathroom to ride out a second wave of convulsions in her abdomen and chest. The persistent ringing of the phone in the kitchen pulled her out of the bathroom, and as she passed through the living room to answer the phone, Oprah and the crowd convulsed in laughter at the story the celebrity had just told. Cherie could not believe they were laughing. How could they be laughing at a time like this?

  She stumbled over to the television and turned down the sound. She could not abide hearing laughter. She answered the phone, thinking it might be Rosella, but instead it was Jake Hopper. Yes, she did have the television on. Yes, she had just seen the report. Yes, it was unbelievable. Yes, she was also in shock. And why were they even having this conversation?

  "I'll close up the store and be right over;" Jake said.

  Cherie did not reply but carried the phone with her to the television, stretching the cord to its full length. She took the remote in her hands and began to back away from the screen, not wanting to be too close to the horror it had reported. The TV had become an enemy, forcing its sick, repulsive, sanitized news into her home, her life, her heart.

  Her son. Her only son.

  She flipped the remote and found another cable channel covering the story.

  All three children were dead, the reporter said.

  Cherie dropped the phone on the floor, and the taut cord yanked the receiver back into the kitchen.

  All three were brutally murdered, the reporter continued.

  Cherie dropped the remote, and when it hit the hardwood floor, the plastic case broke open, scattering the batteries.

  The reporter ended the segment by saying they could not confirm it, but police were saying Dewayne Jobe was the number one suspect who may have perpetrated these heinous crimes.

  The only thing left to drop to the floor was Cherie, and she collapsed in an agony of broiling pain.

  ' "My son, she whispered. "My only son."

  Rosella had commented to her friends how strange it was that Dewayne did not call on his way to the Stars' training facility once he landed, and had she not been in the middle of a mud bath, she would have called him. There wasn't even a message from either Sabrina or Dewayne when she checked her voice mail after showering off the medicinal dirt, and when she called them, she left a terse message on each of their voice mails. He and Sabrina would get a mild reprimand from her at dinner tonight.

  But the police were waiting for her in the parking lot of the Mediterranean where she had spent an invigorating day with her friends. She would not be going home to prepare the family dinner.

  The two uniformed policewomen who escorted her to their car and drove her to the hospital were very polite, but they gave Rosella little information about what had happened at her house. In an act of benign deception, one policewoman asked for Rosella's cell phone, explaining the battery in her phone had died and she needed to check on her child in day care. In all innocence, Rosella gave it to her. The officers did not want her to receive or make any calls that might give her a concrete idea of what disaster had befallen her family. They tried to keep Rosella from panicking by telling her there had been an accident, people were hurt-to what extent they weren't sure-and she didn't need to go home. They would take her straight to the hospital.

  The policewomen would let someone above their pay grade tell Rosella who was dead and who was still recovering. They had not been at the scene, so they could not comment on the small army of people who had descended upon Rosella's neighborhood, and the reason for the police escort was to avoid the crowds and media that always show up when a celebrity of any kind has an accident.

  All this seemed to reassure Rosella for the duration of the drive, so much so she forgot she had loaned the officer her phone. After the phone call, the officer turned off the phone and concealed it on the seat between them.

  When they arrived at the hospital, television trucks were camped outside the front entrance and a crowd of people moved in and out of the lobby. The driver of the police car spoke to someone on the radio, then drove a few blocks farther down the street and entered a loading dock at the rear of the building. A Detective John Hathaway met Rosella and the two officers at a back entrance leading to the lower floors. Rosella took her phone without noticing it was off, and she dropped it into her purse as the officers told her good-bye.

  John Hathaway and Rosella walked together down the long hall in the lower floor of the hospital. Hathaway had worked as a uniform for four years and in homicide for the Houston Police Department for the last twenty-three. He had been successful at cracking many difficult cases for which he was honored with awards and citations and mayoral handshakes, none of which he cared about. What he did care about was the case, and what he did not like was people telling him how to do his job, people who talked too much and knew even less. He walked with a limp courtesy of a fleeing suspect who did not like the fact of Hathaway's pursuit and so fired at him. In turn, Hathaway did not like the suspect's reaction, especially after he had taken a bullet, so he returned fire and stopped the suspect's escape. That was when he got the handshake from the mayor.

  In twenty-seven years, Hathaway had gone through three marriages, all of them childless, and a couple of girlfriends between each divorce. The job needed him to be sharp, and he feared the comforts of domestic life would make him soft, so a pair of twins, null and void, occupied his current love life. When it came to keeping a steady partner, he was no more successful with his fellow detectives. His leaving-no-stone unturned method of case building and a zero tolerance for sloppy work meant he was in constant conflict with anyone who labored beside him, but in spite of his sour personality few would say that time spent with Hathaway had not made them better detectives.

  "Is my husband here?" Rosella asked.

  "Yes, ma'am, but he's unconscious at the moment. They'll let us know as soon as he wakes up."

  "Unconscious? Why is he unconscious?"

  "Carbon monoxide poisoning,' he said.

  Rosella stared at him in complete disbelief.

  "That's exhaust from a car."

  "I know what that is;' she said as they walked into a small seating area.

&nbs
p; "Yes, ma'am. Why don't we take a seat here and I can walk you through this. Would you like some coffee ... something to drink?"

  "I just want to see my husband. I want to know what happened."

  When Rosella sat down in the red fake-leather chair with metal armrests, she did not notice where she was. She did not notice the other detective and the coroner talking in low voices off to the side in the seating area, an attorney from the DAs office speaking with a uniformed policeman, or a coroner's aide chatting it up with a custodial worker. She did not notice the sign above the double doors that read "Hospital Morgue" or the large viewing window with its drawn curtain concealing two covered bodies on stainless steel tables on the other side. She could not see the two assistants ready to unveil the corpses when instructed.

  What she did see was John Hathaway sliding the wooden coffee table in front of her and taking a seat on the edge. He had her complete attention. Her eyes were fixed on the man whose skin hung from his face in a perpetual 3:00 a.m. sag. He would unlock this mystery.

  "When was the last time you spoke with your husband, Mrs. Jobe?"

  "Last night ... yes. He called from New York."

  "What was he doing in New York?"

  "Filming a football video game. Why can't I see my husband?"

  "What I'm about to tell you is going to be very painful, Mrs. Jobe"

  Hathaway was not devoid of compassion. He never found this task of delivering bad news an easy thing. Policemen and doctors were always telling people bad news, it was part of the territory, and long ago he had lost count of how many times he had to be the message bearer for the Angel of Death. He thought it best to keep direct eye contact while communicating dreadful news. It made the listeners feel as though they were getting the complete truth. If he looked away, they would feel he was hiding something.

  If they ever looked away, which they normally did-as did Rosella, covering her newly cleansed face with her hands and bathing her skin in a cascade of tears-he still kept his eyes in direct contact with the listeners. And once he delivered the words, he was prepared to answer any questions to the best of his ability and offer comfort with a hand to the shoulder and a word of sympathy.

  Hathaway never faked his words or his gestures. It was his way of building trust and relationship. He had grown accustomed to raw distress in times of extreme trauma, but he had not grown calloused to the experience. Each human emotional wreck was different, as was each crime scene, and he treated each with respect and compassion. He offered Rosella tissue after tissue throughout his monologue-sanitizing the gruesome parts and not offering his interpretation of all the evidence he had observed at the scene-and when she could hear no more, he stopped and laid his hand on her bent, convulsing back. Touch in the midst of anguish was a sublime form of empathy.

  But it was not over. He had just opened the doors to torment. Hathaway was a prophet, and there was no turning from his story. He helped Rosella to her feet and guided her to the window. The policeman and the attorney followed and, like muted ghosts, took their stations behind them, alert to every possible reaction from Rosella. It was best to get as much done in the early stages of shock as possible, and so it was critical for Rosella to identify the bodies of Bruce and Sabrina-and if she was able, Robert Jobe III.

  Hathaway knocked on the glass, and the curtain flew back. Rosella refused to look, and Hathaway placed his arm over her shoulders and held her in his firm, supportive grasp until she raised her head. He cocked his head toward the assistants, and they pulled back the sheets covering her niece and nephew. Hathaway squeezed her shoulder as a fresh wave of grief consumed Rosella when she confirmed these children were her kin, but she had not buckled. Hathaway decided to gamble and show her the baby.

  With her head buried in Hathaway's chest, he nodded again, and an assistant rolled a small table into view. He gripped Rosella's arm with his other hand, but it was not enough to support this final wretchedness. In a paroxysm of misery, she jerked back from the vision of her son and almost out of Hathaway's arms. The policewoman came to Hathaway's aid and wrenched her out of his arms. She motioned for the custodian to help, and together they carried Rosella back to her seat and held on to her while her screams echoed down the hallway. Hathaway signaled to an assistant to close the curtain and then looked straight into the attorney's face.

  "She is innocent and she knows nothing," he said, a pronouncement he had never made about a potential suspect this early in the investigative process when a thousand questions still needed to be asked and all the details analyzed.

  The attorney only nodded and kept his opinions to himself. The coroner suggested getting a prescription for Rosella from the hospital pharmacy before departing the hospital and offered to facilitate that course of action.

  As they stood in front of the doors of the doctor's private elevator waiting for it to arrive, Hathaway signaled for the other detective to step forward and hand him the ziplock plastic bag.

  "Do you recognize this handwriting, Mrs. Jobe?" Hathaway asked while he held up the corners of the bag in his fingertips for Rosella to read.

  Rosella leaned forward and stared at the words made slightly out of focus by the plastic. She blinked to see through her watery eyes. Regardless, the handwriting was immediately recognizable.

  "My niece ... my niece wrote that?" It was a question and a statement. "When did she write this?"

  "It appears it was written today;" Hathaway said. "Further tests will make it conclusive.'

  "My niece was in love with my.. .' She violently shook her head as if to sling away that horrible thought. "And she was pregnant?"

  The elevator doors opened, and Hathaway handed the bag back to the detective and waved for him to wait for him there until he returned. He watched Rosella step into the elevator and slowly turn to face the doors. Her motions were rigid, her expression, stoic. He stepped in and punched the button, wondering how much more this woman could take.

  On their ride up to the floor where Dewayne waited, Hathaway explained to Rosella she would not be able to return to her house for several days while they were going over the evidence and making their reports. He suggested that she make a list of personal items she might need during that period and a female officer would collect them and bring them to wherever she would be staying. Did she have any friends she could stay with, any other family who would take her in? Or would she prefer a hotel? They would be happy to make any arrangements. Rosella made no indication she heard anything Hathaway said.

  The doors of the elevator opened, and they stepped into white light and a cadre of reporters. The two uniformed officers went into defensive action, pushing the reporters and camera operators back against the wall, clearing a path for Hathaway and Rosella.

  "Was your husband having an affair with your niece?" a reporter shouted as Hathaway hurried Rosella down the hall to Dewayne's room. "She was pregnant at the time of her death."

  Hathaway swore under his breath and vowed that if he found the officer who had leaked the information, he would have his badge-probably some rookie at the scene who could not resist the temptation of payola from a tabloid. But he couldn't lie to Rosella when she asked for an explanation. He was going to need her to build this case. He needed her trust, and the truth was the only way to get and maintain it, no matter how painful the news.

  "There was a pregnancy test found in the trash, Mrs. Jobe;" he said. "It was inconclusive and partially destroyed, but we're running tests"

  It took a second for Hathaway to realize their forward progress had ceased.

  Rosella stopped in the middle of the hall and jerked her elbow out of the detective's grasp, wondering what other devastating news would come to her today. She felt as if she was devoid of choices, her decision-making capabilities stripped from her. The ability, the will, to put one foot in front of the other had departed.

  "She was pregnant ... ;" Rosella whispered-a question, a statement, a bewildering confirmation of a truth that devastated her.

>   Hathaway reclaimed the tender hold on her elbow. His reassuring touch felt as if he had been a friend for life and not a stranger she had known for half an hour who had spent the time force-feeding her with nothing but horror. He led her to the door of Dewayne's room.

  Rosella stood at the doorway and looked at a husband she no longer knew. When had he changed? What kind of a monster had he become right before her very eyes? An oxygen mask strapped across his face, an IV stuck in his arm, and the other arm handcuffed to the bed. A nurse told Hathaway that Dewayne had been conscious earlier and spoken to the doctor, but he was still not sure what had happened. She would call the doctor and tell him the patient's wife was here.

  In his semi-dream state, Dewayne must have sensed the presence of people, and his eyes flickered open. When he saw Rosella, he reached out his hand to her, but the handcuffs kept him from stretching the full extent of his arm. She started to turn away, but something kept her from moving from the door and it was not Hathaway's body blocking her exit. It was a raging impulse to wreak havoc, to destroy the source of all her pain, to bring down swift justice, and she spun around and rushed toward the bed.

  Hathaway was so surprised, he was unable to move for several seconds, and he stood in awe at this woman pummeling her husband with her fists and cursing him to the lowest points of hell.

  Jake had banged on the door for several minutes and called her name, but Cherie did not answer. He could not see anything through the window because of the closed curtains. He could hear the television, but it did not sound loud enough to mute his pounding. Her car sat in the drive. He went over to a neighbor's house; they had not seen her, but told him she kept a spare key under a flowerpot on the top front step.

  He told them to call the police, dashed back to the house, found the key, and went inside. The phone was still off the hook and the remote was in pieces. Cherie lay crumpled on the floor. The cable channel was carrying the news of the Jobe family tragedy and announced that soon the district attorney would be making a public statement live on the air.