Death Changes Everything

by Linda Crowder

“That’s what I said, Detective.”

  Brugnick disappeared and Danning nodded to Matt, who followed him out of the room. Jake positioned himself in the far corner of the room and leaned against the wall. Another knock and Brugnick escorted Ryan Young into the room. He introduced him to Captain Danning and took a few steps back, a puzzled look on his face.

  “Mr. Young,” said Danning, “Why don’t you tell me what you were doing at your uncle’s house the day he was shot?”

  “I weren’t never there.”

  “Detective Brugnick, has Mr. Young been informed of his rights?”

  “Yes sir.”

  “And this included his right to counsel?”

  “Yes, sir.” Brugnick stepped forward and handed him a form.

  “Mr. Young, do you understand these rights?”

  “I ain’t done nothin’ wrong.”

  “Do you understand that by signing this,” he held up the form Brugnick had given him, “you waive your right to counsel and agree to speak to the police?”

  “I don’t need no lawyer. I ain’t done nothin’ wrong.”

  Danning looked at Jake, who nodded. He turned back to Ryan. “Mr. Young, I’m going to ask you again and I want you to tell me the truth. What were you doing at your uncle’s house on the day he died?”

  “I weren’t there. You deaf or somethin’?”

  “What if I told you I have a witness, who saw you entering your uncle’s house shortly before he was shot?”

  “I’d say somebody’s yanking your chain.”

  Danning reached over and flipped the switch. Ryan sat forward, watching his parents through the glass. Matt was making them repeat their story, while a uniformed officer typed into a notebook computer. When Pam reached the point in her story where she saw her son arrive and slipped out the back door, Danning cut the sound, though he left the glass clear.

  Pam was more relaxed than she’d been when she’d first told her story. She had composed herself, even laughing at something Matt said to her. Ryan sat watching her, his face dark as a thundercloud. Danning nodded at Jake.

  “She told us about the gambling, Ryan,” Jake said softly. “She told us you kept wanting more and more money to pay off your gambling debts.”

  Ryan ran his hands through his hair, clasping them behind his head and rocking in his seat. “She always helped you, didn’t she, Ryan?” asked Danning.

  “She even helped you steal from your grandparents when that bookie had you beaten. How’d a kid like you end up over your head like that? Gonna be a pity, your kid growing up not knowing you.”

  “Whaddya mean, not knowin’ me?”

  “You’ll be in prison, Ryan. For murdering your uncle. Might even get the death penalty.”

  “I didn’t,” moaned Ryan, still rocking with his hands behind his head. “I didn’t do it. I ain’t no murderer.”

  “Just a thief?” Captain Danning reached over to the control panel and flipped a switch. The mirror in their room frosted but in the interview room, it cleared. “Mom would tell me what she wanted and I would go get it and give it to her.”

  Matt watched Pam closely as she realized what she was hearing. Her face paled, then became a wall of solid steel. In the observation room, he heard Jake ask Ryan why he’d gone to his uncle’s house on the day he died. Pam gripped the back of the chair in front of her as her son answered.

  “I went to ask him for a job,” said Ryan, apparently forgetting he’d just insisted he hadn’t been there.

  “At Hill Energy?”

  “Yes.” Ryan looked up, saw that the mirror had frosted, and looked at Danning. “I have a baby comin’ and my girl, doctor says she has to stay off her feet, but we don’t have no money.”

  “Did your mother know you were going to talk to Steven that day?” asked Jake.

  “Nah, Mom woulda been mad. She hated Uncle Steven.”

  “So you went to see him. What happened when you got there?”

  “He was weird, man. He was walkin’ around, wavin’ his gun around. Said it must be his day for leeches. I told him I didn’t know what he was talkin’ about. I just wanted to work and take care of my kid, you know?”

  “Were you talking to Steven in his office?” asked Jake.

  “Nah, I knocked on the kitchen door and he came and let me in. We talked in there for a while, then he told me to go home.”

  “Did you?”

  “I really needed the job,” Ryan’s voice shook and he put his head in his hands again. “I wish I had gone home.”

  “Stop it!” Pam pounded her hand on the table, causing both her husband and attorney, who had been riveted to the scene playing out in the observation room, to jump.

  “Didn’t you?” asked Danning.

  “I went out but I saw my girl sittin’ in the car and I just couldn’t tell her my own uncle wouldn’t hire me. I went back in. I thought if I just tried harder, maybe I’d convince him.”

  Before anyone could stop her, Pam jumped up and started hammering on the glass. Ryan bolted out of his seat and ran for the door, tackling Detective Brugnick, who’d stepped up to stop him. Jake and Captain Danning subdued the young man, Brugnick recovering enough to slap a pair of handcuffs on Ryan’s wrists. They pulled him to his feet and the young man’s shoulders sagged, defeated.

  In the interview room, Matt pushed a silent alarm button under the table and went to subdue Pam, but her husband got to her first. Wrapping his arms around his wife, he pinned her arms to her side and held her tightly as she struggled, screaming obscenities at him and the room in general.

  The same uniformed policewoman who’d come in earlier appeared with reinforcements. Together, they managed to control Pam, though it took both wrist and ankle restraints. This time, Pam listened to the advice of her attorney and refused to answer any more questions.

  With Pam in custody in the other room, Jake turned a chair around and sat down in front of her son. “Ryan, what happened when you went back in?”

  Ryan stared vacantly in Jake’s direction. “She shot him, man. I was comin’ down the hall and she was just standing there, lookin’ into his office. She looked at me for a minute, then she lifted her hand and shot him.”

  “Who shot him, Ryan?” said Danning, standing behind Jake.

  “My mom.”

  19

  “How did you know it really was Pam and not Ryan, who shot Steven?” asked Emma when Jake got home. Matt had driven out with him to pick up Kristy and the four were sharing a bottle of wine by the fire in the living room.

  “It had to be Pam. Like Matt said, all roads were leading to her. I just didn’t know how she made it happen. I kept thinking about what Grace said about the crime being impulsive and that didn’t seem like Pam, but nobody hated Steven as much as she did. Once Lewiston said he’d gone to see her the day before Steven died, I knew that had to be what set her off. She couldn’t afford to lose the money from that fund and she had just read Roger’s will, which Ryan delivered to her that day, leaving everything to her if Steven died first. It had to be her.”

  “So Morty was right. She knew you’d suspect her so she made a bogus confession.”

  “Exactly. I sat there, trying to put myself in the house that morning and it hit me. Pam was there when Steven took out his gun and threatened Valerie. She had to have heard every word they said, including the random shot Steven fired at Valerie, but she said she only heard them arguing. Why would she leave that out?”

  “Because she didn’t want to call attention to the fact that she knew about the gun.” Four sets of eyes turned to see Grace, dressed in a nightgown, bathrobe, and slippers, standing in the hallway.

  Emma jumped up and helped Grace to her favorite chair. “I’m so sorry, Grace. Did we wake you?”

  “I’m fine, Emma, don’t fuss. I wanted to hear what Jacob and Matthew had to say.” She turned to Jake. “So I was wrong. It was Pamela after all.”

  “She’s lawyered up now so we may never know but I could tell you what I
think happened, for what it’s worth.”

  “Please do, Jacob.”

  “Pam went there to do whatever she had to do in order to stop Steven. She initially said she took her own gun with her and she may have, fully intending to kill him, though she’ll never admit it now because that would prove premeditation.”

  “Then she heard Steven’s argument with Valerie,” said Emma.

  “And when Steven left his office to speak with Ryan in the kitchen, she snuck into the office and took the gun. Using Steven’s own gun to kill him would have appealed to Pam and then she could reasonably throw suspicion onto Valerie. She took the diary, by the way. We found it when we searched the house, along with a few pieces of Della’s jewelry she hadn’t managed to sell yet.”

  “Pam just stood there and shot him, with her own son right there watching her?” Emma shuddered.

  “She would be reasonably sure she wouldn’t turn her in,” said Grace. Emma was glad to see the color coming back into her face. Every attack of fever seemed more severe than the last, but it appeared the worst was over for now.

  “But she was trying to throw her own son under the bus,” said Kristy. “What kind of mother does that?”

  “I’m not entirely sure she was trying to do that,” said Matt. “She might have thought her son would get off because there was no evidence against him.”

  “Obviously, she forgot to tell Ryan.”

  “Ryan was always the weak link in the chain,” said Jake. “He wasn’t a smart kid. He really believed his mother was just borrowing the things she asked him to steal. I was betting she wouldn’t have risked telling him, regardless of what her plan was.”

  “So did either of them actually have a gambling problem?”

  “I have no idea,” Matt admitted. “The money’s gone, that’s true, but whether anybody gambled it away or Pam stashed it in an off-shore account, it really isn’t police business. It was her money, at least most of it was and Della’s not going to prosecute for the thefts.”

  “What about her husband?” asked Kristy. “Was he in on it?”

  “As furious as he is with her right now, I don’t think so. He says Pam told him the same story she told us about seeing Ryan go in, then hearing the shot. She convinced him their son was a murderer. Together, they came up with the story they would tell if the police ever got close to the truth.”

  “Do you think you’ll get a conviction? I can’t see Pam accepting a plea.” Emma looked at Jake.

  “Hey, I’m only running for CA, I’m not making those calls yet. Even if I get elected, I’ll have to recuse myself.”

  “What about Pam’s husband?” asked Kristy. “Will he go to jail?”

  Matt stretched and yawned and put his arm around Kristy. “It’s late. Don’t you think we’d better be going home?”

  “Oh for goodness sake, Matthew! Just ask her to marry you.”

  “Grace!”

  “Don’t shush me, Emma! I’d like to be able to dance at their wedding before I die.”

  ***

  “I’m mortified,” said Emma, as Kristy walked into the office the next morning. “I’m so sorry. I don’t know what gets into Grace sometimes.”

  “It’s fine. In fact, I’m really glad she said it. You remember, I promised myself I wouldn’t tell Matt I loved him before he told me because I didn’t want him to think I was only saying it because of his accident?”

  “I remember.”

  “Well, it turns out he promised himself he wouldn’t say it first because he didn’t want to pressure me. I don’t know how long we would have gone on like that if Grace hadn’t blurted it out like that.”

  “So, everything’s good then?”

  “Everything’s fine.”

  “You’re killing me! Did he ask you?”

  The door chimed and Emma’s first client of the day walked in. Mondays were usually reserved for paperwork, but Emma had missed so many days, she’d asked Kristy to fill her schedule. She forced a smile onto her face and turned to greet her client, showing her into her office. As she turned to close the door, she caught a glimpse of something sparkling from Kristy’s finger.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Linda Crowder spent more than 20 years working in nonprofit human services before retiring in 2011. She was born and raised in Colorado and spent 16 years in California before moving to Wyoming. She now lives in the shadow of Casper Mountain with her husband and a menagerie of rescue animals.

  If you enjoyed this book, please consider posting an honest review on Amazon or Goodreads. Reviews are a great way to let an author know you have enjoyed her work.

  You can reach Linda and learn about her upcoming books and events by visiting her website, http://www.lindajcrowder.com/

  Also by

  linda Crowder

  Jake and Emma Mysteries:

  Too Cute to Kill

  Main Street Murder

  Justice for Katie

  Short Stories:

  Ringo the Ghost Cat

  Boots: A Ringo the Ghost Cat Short Story

  Lindsey, A Life Lessons Short Story