Blood Sisters

by Melody Carlson

  She shrugged and looked down at her dirty tennis shoes. “I’m not even sure. Sort of indifferent, I guess. And it’s weird, because just a day ago, I think I really, truly cared about her. I honestly did. But now, in light of everything that I know, well, I think I could almost hate her too.”

  He set his hand on her shoulder. “You’ve been through a lot, Judith.”

  “Not nearly as much as Jasmine.”

  “No. Not nearly as much as Jasmine. But I think she’d be proud of what her blood sister did for her.”

  She looked up. “You really think so?”

  He nodded.

  She thought about that for a long moment. Was it possible that Jasmine knew what Judith had tried to accomplish? Would she appreciate her efforts? She closed her eyes and sighed deeply.

  “I think you’re overdue for a good, long rest, Judith. Your work here is done.”

  She shook her head. “Not quite. I think there’s still one more thing that Jasmine would like me to do—something I need to do.”

  “What’s that?”

  She swallowed hard, wondering if she could even speak the words. “I need to confront her father.”

  Adam said nothing.

  “Do you think that’s stupid?”

  “No, not at all. I think it’s very brave of you, but are you sure you’re up to it? Maybe you should give yourself some time to rest and perhaps think this whole thing over a little.”

  She shook her head. “No. In fact, I’d like to do it as soon as I can.” She looked at him hopefully. “Is it even possible?”

  His brows lifted slightly. “Well, I think we can work it out. The state police have stepped in to man the Cedar Crest police station. Believe me, those good ol’ boys are either locked up or on temporary leave of absence until a full investigation is complete.”

  “So, I can see him then? Today, do you think?”

  “May as well get it over with.” He stood suddenly, and grabbing both her hands, gently pulled her to her feet. “Mind if we listen in too?”

  “Not at all.” She laughed sarcastically. “Maybe we’ll get a full confession out of him, although I seriously doubt it. Burt Morrison knows how to watch his words.”

  “Well, you managed to get some fairly incriminating comments from him on tape yesterday. Good work.”

  “Thanks. I wasn’t sure it would be worth much, but I tried.”

  He held the branches aside as they passed through the brush. “How about if you follow me in your car?” he suggested. “And on the way over, I’ll call in and see if I can make the necessary arrangements.”

  “Sounds good.”

  When they passed the trailer, Adam paused a moment. “Say, Judith, you didn’t by any chance kick that door open, did you?”

  She nodded sheepishly. “I was feeling a little angry at the time.”

  “Whoa, girl. Guess we better not get you too riled then.”

  “I think I can control myself now.”

  She followed his pickup into town, noticing the letters on his license plates. DBS—or Don’t Be Stupid, as he’d once told her. “Don’t be stupid.” she reminded herself again as they pulled in behind the police station to park. “Dear God.” she prayed, “please help me not to be stupid. Help me to keep my anger under control. But please, help me to speak the truth to that man.” Suddenly she remembered part of a Bible verse about “speaking the truth in love.” Yet at the same time, she felt love was out of the question. Under these circumstances, she’d be doing well if she could simply manage to control her anger, not to mention keep from falling completely apart. She hated the idea of Burt Morrison witnessing her getting upset or crying. It might make him think he’d won. So, she determined, she would remain strong and in control, at least on the outside. Perhaps, with God’s help, and for Jasmine, she could do this thing.

  “Well, it’s all set.” Adam slipped his cell phone back in his pocket as he closed her car door for her. He looked at her with concern in his eyes. “Are you absolutely certain you want to do this, Judith?”

  She nodded firmly. “Yes. That is, unless it’ll harm anything you’re doing. I mean, as far your investigation or the “ prosecution’s case or whatever. I don’t want to mess anything up in that regard.”

  “No. If anything, it’ll probably help us. By the way, Judith, you need to know that Burt’s not aware of the role you played in all this. He may still think of you as his friend. How you handle that is entirely up to you.”

  “The charade is over,” she declared as he unlocked the back door to city hall. “I plan to lay my cards on the table.”

  “Good. Just so you know.” He placed his hand on her back as he guided her around a corner. “It’s this hallway to the left. We’ll have to get clearance first.”

  “Thanks,” she turned and looked at him. “I know it’s your job, Adam, but I appreciate your letting me do this.”

  “Yeah, sure.” He smiled down on her. “By the way, cool shirt.”

  She looked down at his Blazers’ T-shirt. “Yeah, I thought you’d like it.”

  After a few minutes, Judith was taken to a small room with a one-way glass window. And there, sitting on the opposite side of a metal table, was Burt Morrison. He wore a gray one-piece jail uniform that seemed to suit him. His hands, resting on the table, were cuffed. He eyed her with one brow slightly cocked as she entered the room, almost as if he were somewhat amused by this visit. Her heart began to race as the door was closed and locked behind her. This is for you, Jasmine, she thought as she sat down in the chair across from him. “Hello, Burt,” she said in a crisp, businesslike voice.

  “Where’s Ellen?” he demanded gruffly. “I thought she’d be here with you.”

  “I don’t know where she is. I haven’t seen her since last night.”

  “What are you doing here then?”

  “I wanted to talk to you, Burt. About Jasmine.”

  “We’ve already talked about that. There’s nothing more to say.”

  “You’re wrong, Burt. I have something to say.”

  His eyes narrowed a little, and he made a grunting sound. “Well, hurry it up then, Judith. Let’s get this nonsense over with.”

  “Why?” she asked him sharply. “You got someplace you need to be right now?”

  His eyes flashed angrily, but this time he said nothing.

  “I know what you did, Burt. I know that you killed Jasmine’s husband—”

  “You don’t know nothing—”

  “I know you were there. I know your rifle matches the one that was used. I know that you hated Jasmine’s husband simply because the color of his skin wasn’t—”

  He slammed both fists down on the table. “She did it to spite me! To humiliate me! She was selfish and willful and rebellious and just look where it got her!”

  “Look where it got you, Burt! Jasmine was your own daughter—your own flesh and blood! How could you have done that to her? How could you have murdered her husband, taken her only child, and then used this power to force her to marry a man that—”

  “I’m her father.” His voice was cold and hard now; his eyes like ice. “The Bible teaches that children are supposed to respect and honor their parents.”

  “The Bible also says that we are to love one another.”

  He hit the table again. “Fathers are s’posed to teach their children to respect their elders. Children are s’posed to obey their parents!”

  “What about Ellen’s parents, Burt? You didn’t want her to respect and obey her parents.”

  “That was different!” he snapped. “I done right by my family. I brought my children up in the way they should go, and—”

  “Now they are dead, Burt! Constance and Jasmine are both dead! That’s what your hateful ways gave to them. Death!”

  “They brought on their own deaths, both of them, by being rebellious and sinful.”

  “But what about the others, Burt? What about Steven and James and poor little Pearl?”

  H
e shook his head, rolling his eyes as if she were some foolish child who would never get it—never fully understand such grown-up things.

  “You were responsible for their deaths, Burt, weren’t you?”

  He said nothing, but his features became like granite.

  “And, sure, you may not have pulled the trigger when Jasmine died, not like you did with her husband, but you killed her when you informed her that her child was dead.

  You knew that little girl was all Jasmine had to keep her alive, and then you crushed her hopes when you took even that from her.” She leaned forward and looked him right in the eyes, no longer afraid of his evil. “How does it make you feel, Burt, to think you murdered your own grandchild? How does it make you feel to know that you killed your only chance to carry on your name, your line of descendants? How does that make you feel inside?”

  He stared at her with a hardened, even gaze, then spoke in a low yet lethal tone. “I didn’t kill that kid, Judith, but I wish to God that I had. That blasted mongrel would be better off dead.” He stood now and continued in a louder, more venomous voice. “And for your information, I don’t want my line continuing—not if it’s gotta go through some worthless, mongrel, half-breed!” He beat his bound hands on the table again. “Better that my line is dead! And that’s all I have to say about that! And I hope to God that I never see the likes of you or your kind again!”

  She stood too, though not quite ready to leave. “You know, Burt, I used to look up to you. Back when I was a little girl, with no daddy of my own, there was a time when I thought you could almost walk on water. Of course, it didn’t take long to learn otherwise. And now I think it’s just a horrendous shame that you took all the goodness that God tried to give you, and you allowed your hatred and your racism to ruin and poison everything until in the end you’re left with nothing but ashes and death and shame.” She shook her head. “Despite what you may think you’ve done in the shadows, someday it’ll all come out into the light. Someday you will answer to God for all the atrocities you have done.”

  He said nothing, just looked at her as if she were deranged.

  She walked toward the door, then paused. “And, I can’t believe that I’m even saying this next thing, Burt, but the Bible teaches that we’re supposed to pray for our enemies.” She looked at him right in the eyes one last time. “I’ll be praying for you.” Then she turned away from him and waited while Adam quickly unlocked the door.

  Her hands and knees shook uncontrollably as she stepped out of the claustrophobic-sized room and into the hallway, but she held her head up.

  “You okay?” asked Adam with concern.

  She looked at him and nodded, her chin quivering. “I think so.”

  Then he gathered her into his arms and held her close for a moment. “You were absolutely great in there, Judith. Really great! We were all just blown away as we listened in the other room. One guy even suggested that you should assist with the prosecution.”

  She stepped back and fought to regain composure. “No thank you! I think I’ve had enough of this whole nasty business for now.” Then she shook her head as if to clear away the jumbled emotions and thoughts. “But Adam?” she said suddenly. “Did you hear what he said about Pearl? Did he say what I thought he said?”

  He nodded. “I think so.”

  “Do you think Pearl is still alive?”

  “Sure sounds like it.”

  “I’ve got to find her!”

  “I’ll put everyone available on this right now.”

  “And I’ve got some phone numbers I copied from Burt’s address book—they’re in my purse. They might be helpful.”

  “Good. I’d try to get Burt to tell us of the child’s whereabouts, but after hearing him go on about wanting the poor little girl dead, it seems a fairly useless pursuit. But at least we can be fairly sure that she’s alive now.”

  “Yes!” said Judith, amazed at the sense of hope that had suddenly returned to her. “She’s alive!”

  He led her toward the same office he’d occupied that first day she’d met him. “Come on in here and give me those phone numbers.”

  “Is this still your office?” she asked as she sank into a chair.

  “Sort of, but not really.” He took out a pad and quickly began to question her, listing everything they knew about young Pearl Marie Phillips.

  Judith dug in her purse until she found the fake letter she’d written to her mother. She carefully opened the envelope to reveal what she’d written on the inside of the flap. “I should go and get that letter from Jasmine too,” she said, “the one she wrote to Pearl. She mentioned something about Constance in her letter, that somehow she’d been involved in taking Pearl. Maybe we can track down all of Constance’s old connections up in Seattle and figure this out.”

  “Right. Why don’t you go get it. I think there’s enough information here to get the wheels rolling again. And who knows, maybe after your final pep talk Burt will decide to cooperate.”

  She shook her head. “Don’t count on it. He’s a hard and bitter man.”

  “Oh, yeah,” said Adam, as if just thinking of something. “About Ellen...”

  “Ellen?”

  “Yeah. I should probably tell you.”

  She felt the tiniest twinge of concern, yet her voice remained flat. “What about her?”

  “Well, you know how I went missing earlier this morning?”

  “Yes, Hank told us and we were pretty worried. What happened?”

  “Well, it was about 4 a.m. when things finally started to settle down at the lake, our reinforcements had arrived, and most of the arrests had been made. The forest fire was still going pretty strong, but there were firefighters and the National Guard on hand, and everyone was being evacuated. It was a hopping place out there. Anyway, I was over on the west side of the lake at that time, and I saw this person out in a rowboat, out beyond the dock by the Morrisons’ place. It was pretty smoky so I couldn’t see more than an outline, and naturally, I thought it was one of the men, someone we’d missed trying to make an escape. So I ran down there, slipped into the lake, and swam out to see who it was. Of course, that’s why I lost communication— getting all wet like that. Anyway, to my surprise, it turned out to be Ellen Morrison. But she was completely hysterical, crying and praying and talking to herself like she’d really lost her mind. And, to be honest, I felt pretty sorry for her. Maybe it was because of you and the things you’d said about her, I don’t know. But I knew I couldn’t just leave that poor old woman out on the lake like that. Who knew what she might do?”

  Judith nodded. “Yes, she’s not the most stable person in the world. And she told me once that if there ever was a fire, she’d just get in the rowboat and row out to the middle of the lake. I can imagine how upset she must’ve been.”

  “Yes, and with the fire still out of control, she must’ve been terrified. But when she saw me swimming toward her, she got so scared that she stood up right there in the boat and acted like she was going to run—who knows where! And, of course, she capsized the boat, and then I had to rescue her and get her back to the dock, then back inside her house where we could both dry off and warm up. By then I had told her I was a good friend of yours, and that I’d come out looking for you because I was concerned for your welfare. Well, that calmed her right down. But then she was all worried about you because you’d disappeared so suddenly. So I pretended to do some calling around and then finally told her I’d located you and that you were safe and sound at Aunt Lenore’s house.”

  “So is she still out there at the lake, all by herself?”

  “No.” He paused as if unsure how to say the rest.

  “Where is she then?”

  “Well, she pleaded with me to take her to Aunt Lenore’s house too. She said she didn’t want to live out at the lake anymore. She said it was getting too hard. I don’t know how much she’d seen, or if she’d been around when Burt was arrested or not, but I think she kind of knew what was going on
. She asked me to run upstairs before we left; she wanted me to get a quilt off the bed for her. So I did. And I noticed your bags were still up there, so I grabbed them too. They’re at Aunt Lenore’s.”

  “Thank you.”

  “I didn’t know what to do with Ellen. And she kept begging me to take her over to Aunt Lenore’s house. I hope that’s okay with you.”

  “Well, it’s Aunt Lenore’s house, not mine. How did she seem about the whole thing?”

  “She actually seemed quite glad to see her niece. And Ellen just hugged Aunt Lenore like a long lost friend and then started bawling like a little girl. It was actually a rather touching reunion. Both women seemed genuinely happy.”

  “Interesting.” Judith nodded, trying to take all this news in. “Well, I’ll go get that box and the letter and then I’ll get right back to you.”

  “Yeah, and who knows, maybe we’ll get lucky and discover something helpful before too long.”

  “I’ll be praying for a miracle,” she said as she picked up her purse. “And you know, I’ve become a firm believer in the power of prayer.”

  “You and me both.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  JUDITH RETURNED TO ADAM’S house for the box and letter, then called him on the phone to read what few details of information she could find in Jasmine’s letter. “Should I go ahead and bring this over to you now?” she offered.

  “No, there’s no hurry to see it right now. Of course, it’s important evidence and you need to keep it safe. But we’ve got enough information to keep the search for our lost Pearl going strong. And I’ve already gotten a few good tips from the phone numbers you wrote down. I think the trail is starting to reveal itself.”

  “Great, keep me informed.” She paused for a moment. “And if it’s at all possible, I’d really like to go up to Seattle when Pearl is found. I mean, I realize she might have some relatives on her father’s side who’ll want—”

  “Steven Phillips was a foster child. He was in and out of numerous homes while growing up. Amazingly, he turned out to be one of those rare, miraculous stories where the kid who comes from nothing grows up to make a huge success of his life.”