Brody

by Kathi S. Barton

  ~*~

  The courtroom was filled to bursting. Brody was glad that they’d arrived early for this, or they might have been standing in the hall when they needed him. Maybe, he thought, that’s where I’d like to be. Not that he was worried about the outcome. They had enough shit on Rachel that he was sure that some of it she might even have forgotten. The only thing that wasn’t on her list of crimes was bank robbery. And he wouldn’t put it past her to try sometime soon.

  Jordan had been asked to come to the courthouse today too. Brody wasn’t so sure about that, having him there to hear all the things about his mom. But Jake had told him that they’d try and make it easier for him. He didn’t know how that was going to come about—his ex-wife was worse than even he’d thought.

  After they were settled again after the judge came in, both Jake and the court appointed attorney stood. Then they brought in Rachel. My God, Brody thought, how the bitch has fallen. Even Jordan whistled quietly.

  “Thank you for coming, everyone.” The judge, Judge Samuel Bask, looked at Jordan. “Young man, I do want to thank you for coming in as well. And as best we can, we’ll try to keep this clean and non-violent. You and I will talk after this is done.”

  “Yes, sir.” Judge Bask winked at Jordan. “Sir, can I ask you just one thing? I promise you that it’s important, and I’ll take you at your word. But I’d like to come up there, if you don’t mind.”

  No one told him no, and the judge waved him to come up to the front. The attorneys for both sides followed, and Jordan leaned in to whisper in Bask’s ear. It didn’t take him long, but whatever he’d said had shocked the older man. Judge Bask then told both Brody’s attorney and Rachel’s what was said. Whatever it was had Jake winking at Jordan.

  “Doctor Downs. Did you know that I was going to have this short conversation with your son?” Rachel yelled that it was her son. “You just pipe down there, young lady. Believe it or not, I’m in charge here today. Well, Doctor Downs?”

  “No sir. And if it offended you in anyway, I’m truly sorry. While I don’t know what he said, I’m sure that he’d thought about it a great deal before talking to you.” Judge Bask looked at Jordan again as Brody continued. “He’s a good son, sir. And I can’t tell you that he’ll not do it again. To me, it’s good to lay all your cards out. And I’m beginning to think that Jordan being taught the same thing has stuck, don’t you?”

  “Good for you. And no, I didn’t find it offending. The truth never is. The fact is, he is terrified of his mother and her boyfriend, which I find putting the cart before the horse. But then, I’m old fashioned like that. But he in no way wants to be with her. He said he’d rather go to military school than to have to live with her.”

  Brody just looked at Jordan and then hugged him. Rachel was screaming that he was her son, but nothing more was said about it. For as long as he lived, Brody would never forget these words, and how much he dearly loved Jorden.

  The courtroom was put back to order and they began. The first person that Jake called was Rachel. It was his plan to get the shit out of the way so that she’d not be able to say what a good mom she had been.

  “Ms. Downs, I would like for you to read over this paperwork before we proceed.” She took it but didn’t look at it. “You don’t want to look over the prenup that you signed with Dr. Downs?”

  “No, I know what it says. It says that I get nothing. But I have a son that he took from me, and I want to raise him myself. With money provided to me by him.” She pointed at him and Brody watched her. “I put up with him for ten years. Getting up and leaving me in the middle of the night. Having to leave birthday parties for my son.”

  “I’m glad that you brought that up. Because I have pictures here of all of Jordan’s birthday parties, and there is no picture of you. Plenty with Brody and Jordan. Even a couple of times with his grandparents. Christmas is like that as well. There are no pictures of you at any time with your son during any—”

  “Who do you think took the pictures, you moron?” She was told to behave. “Seriously, is that all you have? If so, I’d like to get down to the fact that I have nothing. My home has been taken from me. Even the one that I was trying to set up to leave Brody. He was an abusive man. I tell you, he hit me daily.”

  “Dr. Downs hit you?” Jordan jumped up and screamed at his mom that she was lying. “I don’t think we could get a better witness than your son about that, do you?”

  But Jordan wasn’t finished. “She was never there for anything but having men over to the house. And all my parties were fun because she wasn’t there. She was mean to me, and Mr. Ralph was mean to me too. I don’t want her to take me nowhere. Ever.” Jordan looked at Brody, tears in his eyes. “Please, Dad, please don’t let her take me from you. I want to live with you and Grandma. If you make me go with her, I’ll run away and you’ll never find me again.”

  Brody held his son while Judge Bask called a recess. And then he asked to see Jordan. When his son was about to go in the back with the man, he came back and hugged him, telling him how much he loved him. Then he walked by his mother and said not a single word.

  Everyone just sat in their seats. While Brody didn’t know what was going on back there, he wasn’t worried for his son. He’d talked to him before leaving the house this morning, and told him that he’d hear things that weren’t nice, but that he had to believe that they had nothing to do with him. This was all about Brody and Jordan’s mom.

  It was about an hour before Jordan and the judge came out of the back room. Jordan had been crying more, and he worried about him. But when the judge told him that he could go with his grandma now, Jordan kissed Brody on the cheek and left the courtroom with Howie and Brody’s mom. Brody turned around and waited for whatever happened next.

  “Proceed.”

  The judge was then handed the notebook that had been at the other surgeon’s office. Brody sort of tuned things out while thinking of all the other stuff he had going on right now. The book had some damning information in it, and he just didn’t want to hear it again. Reading it was bad enough.

  Rachel had had forty-three abortions in her lifetime. Two to three a year, it looked like. There was never a year that passed after she turned fifteen where she’d not had at least one. And there was never a name that went with the dates, other than hers. Rachel never filled in who the potential father might have been. Brody wondered if it was because she couldn’t remember or just didn’t care. She’d not even bothered to change her name to something else to hide her actions.

  She was shameless, Jake had told him. She didn’t care what she did or who she did it to, as long as she could get what she wanted. And she had no remorse. If asked, Jake said to him, he’d bet that she’d say that it was better to abort the children than to have to abandon them someplace. It would be just like her, he was beginning to think, to do just that.

  When his name was said, he turned and looked around the big room. Rachel was gone, and the guard standing in front of him had his gun out. It took him a few seconds to realize that something had happened and he had zoned out. Jake came to ask him if he was all right.

  “Yes. I think so. I was deep in thought.” Jake laughed and said no shit. “Where is Rachel? Please tell me that she didn’t get away. Jordan is out there.”

  “No. She’s fine, more’s the pity. I can’t believe that you missed it all. A man—his name was on the list of fathers—came in here to kill her. I didn’t catch it all. I was trying my best not to get myself killed. But when he took out a knife and threw it in her general direction, she hit the floor and so did I. And you can’t believe what I was thinking when I looked to see if you’d been hurt, and you’re just sitting there, like it’s an everyday occurrence for you to have a mad man come in and try to slice up everyone. Brody, you need to get out more.”

  He looked around again, this time looking for things he’d not seen the first time. A k
nife was still stuck in the place above where Rachel had been sitting. Turning around, he could see the doors open and a medic team working. They’d killed the man with the knife, Jake told him, before he could come in and kill anyone.

  Rachel was brought back out, screaming about how this was all his fault. Jake told him not to engage with her, that he’d take care of it. When the judge, who was obviously shaken up, told her to sit down and shut the fuck up, she did so immediately. But she glared at Brody the entire time.

  “Ms. Downs, why is it that man was saying that you took his child from him?” Jake moved to sit in front of him, blocking Rachel from being able to see him. Brody was glad for that. She was giving him the evil eye. “Ms. Downs, that man thought that you took his child from him. Was he the real father of Jordan?”

  “I don’t know.” She tried to look around Jake. “Why is it he gets to sit there in a nice suit, and I can’t even get anyone to bring me a decent meal?”

  “Because, and this might surprise you, he’s not done anything wrong.” Jake picked up the sheets of paper that had been copied from the notebook. “I was wondering if he could be the father of the child you aborted on January seventeenth of six years ago. Or perhaps the one that you aborted in June of the same year.”

  “What are you talking about? This has nothing to do with what I did in my personal life. This has to do with Brody throwing me to the wolves and leaving me with nothing. I want my son to come and live with me, and for him to pay child support so that I can raise him like I’m used to having Jordan raised.”

  “You’re used to having him raised? I wasn’t aware that you had anything to do with the upbringing of young Jordan. Why, if you want him so badly, are you looking into military schools for him? Or for that matter, talking to your mom about her taking him off your hands and you’ll pay her for it?” Rachel asked Jake where the fuck he’d gotten that idea. “From you and your computer searches. You did read that they keep track of the sites that you visit while in jail, didn’t you? Also, they record every conversation that you have when you have a visitor. Then when they find something that isn’t right, such as pawning off your son to someone that doesn’t want him without more money, then they let someone know. In this case, me. And you didn’t answer the questions about the abortions either. We can go over each of the forty plus of them if that’ll help you remember who he might have been.”

  “Again, you moron, what does that have to do with today? I just want to go home, to my home, and bring my son with me. I want Brody to pay for us to live together in my house I had paid for, and for you cock suckers to leave me alone.” Jake handed a sheath of papers to the judge. “What are you doing? This is between us right now.”

  “Your Honor, as you can see by the list there that was obtained from a retired doctor, Ms. Downs had a number of abortions while married to Dr. Downs.” He handed him the signed statement that said that Brody hadn’t slept with his wife for many years before she told him that she was pregnant with his child. “On the next page there, Your Honor, you’ll see the blood tests done on Jordan Downs on the day he was born. Dr. Downs has known since Jordan was born that he wasn’t his son. Yet he continued to raise him like he was. Providing for him when he needed, getting up in the middle of the night with him. Taking him to school and other functions as any biological father would have done. And all the time, he knew that Rachel was having affairs. But he had Jordan, and that was enough. But she began stealing valuable items from the house and selling them to finance not only her forty plus abortions, but also to purchase a house that she was going to have Brody pay for while she lived there with her lover.”

  “Ms. Downs, were you aware that nothing in the house belonged to you?” Rachel said that Brody had told her that almost daily. “Then you blatantly stole things from the house to finance this other life that you wanted to have with another man?”

  “What was I supposed to do? He gave me one of those prepaid credit cards after we got back from our special honeymoon.”

  The judge looked at Brody, asking if it was special.

  “It was special all right, Your Honor. She had a man in the bed when I returned from getting breakfast the morning after we were wed. And when I asked her about it, she told me that he was just some random man that had come by, and she decided that he’d be more fun than me.” The people in the courtroom murmured about that for five minutes. Then Brody continued. “On the way back from Paris, she told me how she’d joined the Mile-High Club. It wasn’t with me.”

  “I told you, he was boring. Not to mention, he laughed at me on our wedding night. How else did you propose I get back at him?”

  Brody told the courtroom about the toilet paper and how he’d been unable to stop. No one in the courtroom could stop laughing either, and Judge Bask was doing his best to not join them. In the end, he burst out laughing as well.

  “As you can tell, that’s just the way I reacted. But after she hit me and stayed in the bathroom all night, I decided to go and get her flowers and give her breakfast in bed. That’s what I came back to.” He handed Jake the name of the waiter that Rachel had hooked up with in the hotel. “Also, as you can see from the birth certificate that was in her possession, his is one of the names listed on the back. It must have been an ongoing affair with that man.”

  No one said anything more while the judge looked over the paperwork. Brody took that time to look at Rachel. Christ, how had he ever thought that he was in love with her? Not to mention, why did he stay with her for so long? That was a question that Jake was going to ask him, and he was no closer to figuring it out than he had been before. Shaking his head, the judge asked for everyone to have a seat. Rachel was moved back to her place at the other table.

  “I’ve never seen a couple so unsuited, yet who stayed together for ten years. I’m assuming for the sake of the child, Dr. Downs.” Brody stood and said that was it mainly. “Yes, well, you’re a good man by all accounts. And my mother just simply loves you to pieces, I might add. And she’s not the only one either. When my family found out that you were getting a divorce and trying to keep your son, you’d not believe the hate mail I got.”

  “I’m sorry, Your Honor, but I do want my son with me. I’ll do whatever it takes, within reason.” Judge Bask looked at him, then at Rachel. “I’m very sorry that others seem to think I’d not be a good role model to Jordan. I’ll try harder, I swear it.”

  Rachel snorted.

  “Yes, I’m sorry. It wasn’t hate mail to have you not get Jordan, young man, but that if I didn’t rule in your favor.” He reached behind him and pulled out a stack of papers, then a second one. “This is the mail that I received only yesterday. The post office is making a killing off this, and there is not one letter or email to me that claims you to be anything but what you are—a good man trying to raise a good boy into a better man. I, for one, thank you for that. And for that, I give Dr. Brody Downs full custody of Jordan Conrad Downs. And as of this day at this time, I formally deem Rachel Sharp Downs and Brody Conrad Downs’s marriage dissolved. Court adjourned. Ms. Downs, your hearing will be in one hour. Do not leave this building.”

  Chapter 9

  Jake was waiting for the hour to be up so that he could get to the next part of the trial for Rachel. It was mostly about the damage that had been done to the hospital when she’d gone there to look for Brody, but there were a couple of things that he wanted to bring up as well. Brody had called home to let them know the outcome of the divorce, and Jake, for one, was happy to have that part over with.

  He did not envy Forrest in the next trial against Fred Simmons. Cam had gone looking for the man’s information, and what he’d gotten was a great deal more than they’d thought they would. But the issue was, for now, that they couldn’t move on it—on any of it—because the man was in jail and they didn’t want the newspapers and such to get hold of it as yet.

  “The Feds are all over the pr
operty, but they’re hiking in from the back end. His uncle on his mother’s side owns it, so that is why it wouldn’t have been traced back to him. Brody, there are at least three dozen cars there. All of them so far that we’ve checked are registered to unsolved missing persons.” Jake had asked Cam if there was any way to attach them to Simmons. “That’s what we’re looking for. My men are out there now working to find any fingerprints, DNA, anything to show that he had something to do with the cars. If we could find his stash—the things in his head were a little unclear as to where they were hidden—that would go a long way to helping us. I was thinking about sending Quincey to see him to search face to face, but I don’t think that’ll work. He’ll kill the man.”

  Jake had no doubt that he was right about that. But Emmi said that she wanted to allow the other women, and now the families of the missing, to be able to know about their absent family members. It would be nice, but Jake was only hoping to get him in prison for a while. But Forrest had it worked out, he said, that Simmons would be gone a long time. And Jake was going to second chair it with him.

  The next trial for Rachel was just beginning when the attorneys were called to the back room. He didn’t know what had happened, but he was worried all the same. As soon as they entered the nicely appointed room, Judge Bask was nowhere to be seen. Jake asked the bailiff what was going on.

  “We have a problem. And I think you can help me with it, Jake. Christ, I hope so.” He nodded and told the bailiff whatever he needed. “Samuel is down the hall. He’s having chest pains.”

  Without asking, Jake stepped out of the room and called for Brody. He supposed there was some look on his face, because Brody didn’t ask any questions but moved to him. Telling him what he knew, Jake ran out to Brody’s Jeep to get his bag. He supposed, as a doctor, he didn’t go anywhere without it.

  Jake kept the crowd of employees out of the way while Brody worked. He talked quietly to the elderly man and examined him at the same time. The ambulance arrived just as Brody was telling him he didn’t think it was a heart attack, but there was no point in taking any chances. Then he scolded the man.