FAMILY TIES
Flesh & Blood Trilogy, Book 2
By Christina Morgan
FAMILY TIES
Copyright © 2016 by Christina Morgan.
All rights reserved.
First Print Edition: July 2016
Limitless Publishing, LLC
Kailua, HI 96734
www.limitlesspublishing.com
Formatting: Limitless Publishing
ISBN-13: 978-1-68058-733-3
ISBN-10: 1-68058-733-1
No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to locales, events, business establishments, or actual persons—living or dead—is entirely coincidental.
Table of Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
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Chapter 1
I left my visit with my father, Randy, at the Big Sandy Federal Penitentiary, scared and confused. Almost as much as I had been when I’d been accused of my husband’s murder that July. It was now mid-September and the weather had started to cool off slightly, but the sun was still blazing hot, bouncing off the pitch-black asphalt. I walked quickly to the Toyota Corolla I had rented from Avis, turned on the AC, and let the cool air blow in my face.
I sat there with my head laid back against the leather headrest, going over everything Randy had said to me during our visit. I had gone to the prison to get some closure for the hell he had put me and Mom through after confessing to being the I-75 Strangler when I was sixteen years old. Not necessarily forgiveness, but I had been willing to lay down some of the hatred I was carrying for Randy. After all, I had come to forgive my husband Ryan for the affair I found out he’d had before his death, and I’d even come to accept his girlfriend’s role in the affair. My mother had convinced me that in order to truly heal and move on with my life as I’d planned, I’d have to go see Randy and hear whatever it was he had to say. I had gone to the prison prepared to hear him apologize for the umpteenth time for unwittingly setting Merle Jackson loose on me, and this time I was even willing to move forward, but that was not what happened.
My father, Randall Clarence McLanahan, known to me as a serial killer for the past twenty years, sat right across from me in that frigid prison visiting room and professed his innocence. This came after I told him of my intention to obtain my private investigator’s license. When I told him of my plan, it was as if a bright light was turned on behind his eyes—a light I hadn’t seen since I was a young child. I had secretly harbored some small hope that he would be proud of me. That he would tell me I was making the right decision. But what came out of his mouth instead was beyond preposterous.
Of course he was guilty. He had pled guilty in open court—admitted to killing at least nine prostitutes in the span of twenty-five years and dumping their bodies along I-75. I was in the courtroom when he stood in front of the judge and confessed to everything. Why would he ever admit to being a serial killer if it wasn’t true?
But the look in his gray-green eyes when he told me he was innocent was sincere. He actually looked as if he had hope that I could help clear his name. Me. I hadn’t even received my PI license yet, although I had sent in my application before boarding the plane from Norfolk to Lexington, presumably to say goodbye to Randy once and for all.
I had moved to the Outer Banks, North Carolina as soon as the dust had settled from my ordeal in July. Partly to start over and deal with the grief of losing my husband, and partly because I felt like everyone in my small hometown of Nicholasville, Kentucky would always think of me as “that girl.” You know, the one who killed “that guy.” True, I had killed that guy. But that guy was attacking me. He wanted appreciation for killing Ryan and his whore as some sort of misguided, twisted favor to me and, according to the crazy journal he had left behind, he was under the delusional impression that we belonged together. He quite possibly might have killed me, since I had rebuffed his advances when I found him sitting in my living room, watching Friends reruns, waiting for me to come home so we could finally “be together.” In fact, he had tried to kill me, which is why I had to plunge one of my Paula Deen kitchen knives into his heart. Within two days of his death, the prosecutor not only dropped all charges against me in Ryan’s death, but declared my killing of Merle Jackson an act of self-defense. I asked him if I was free to leave the state and when he said that I was, I packed my bags and boarded the next plane leaving Kentucky.
I was truly enjoying my new life living on the Atlantic Coast. Especially my little rented two-bedroom condo on Hatteras Island. I hadn’t made any new friends yet, but part of me liked it that way. Plus, I still kept in touch on a semi-regular basis with my best friend, Dani, who lived in Cincinnati. The only reason I had come back to Kentucky was to put my relationship with Randy to rest, so I could move on with my comfy new beach-bum life.
Now all of that was uncertain, at best. Was I really going to consider helping Randy? First, I had to establish whether or not I believed it was possible he might be innocent. Second, if I did make that leap and believe him, I’d have to figure out a way to look into his case in Kentucky while living in North Carolina. That seemed nearly impossible, so the only way I could even consider helping Randy would be if I moved back to Kentucky. I had already sold the house Ryan and I had lived in. It was the same house he’d been murdered in, and even if I hadn’t decided to move to North Carolina, I couldn’t have stayed there one more day. Not only had Ryan died there, but a psychopathic killer had broken into that house and I had been forced to kill him right there in my kitchen.
This meant I would have to stay with Mom again—at least until I found a new apartment or house to rent in Nicholasville. God, I did not relish the idea of going back there. Kentucky was my home state and it would always have a special place in my heart, but so much had happened to me in that tiny little town where everyone knows your name and your business. Could I really return after all that had happened to me there?
It’s only temporary, I told myself. It probably wouldn’t take more than a few months—a year, at most—to look into Randy’s case. Then I could go right back to the beach and spend my days and nights following unfaithful husbands and catching bond jumpers.
And as to my private investigator’s license, I had applied in North Carolina. I wouldn’t have my license in Kentucky, which meant I would have no investigating powers there. I would have to apply for my license in Kentucky, as well.
Shaking off all these thoughts like a dog shaking off fleas, I put the Corolla in reverse and pulled out of the prison parking lot. I had a scenic two-and-a-half-hour drive back to Lexington to figure it all out.
***
By the time I reached the airport parking lot, and after calling Danny for advice, my mind was made up. Ultimately, it came down to family. True, I had lived the last twenty years believing my father was a monster living a double life—strangling some poor young girl to death, dumping her body along some isolated stretch of I-75, and then coming home and sitting down at the dinner table with us, while Mom served him pot roast and potatoes. But there was the first sixteen years to think about. The sixteen years before. I couldn’t deny that Randy had been a loving and devoted father to me when I was growing up. He tucked me in every night, even when I was a teenager, and kissed me on the forehead, telling me I was his “munchkin.” Our favorite movie to watch together was The Wizard of Oz, and I especially loved the Lollipop Guild.
Guilty or innocent, Randy was my father. And if there was even the tiniest, remotest of chances he might be innocent, I felt obligated to help him. I wasn’t sure how much I could do to help, though. At that point, I only had my paralegal experience under my belt. Sure, being a paralegal involves a lot of investigative work, especially working in criminal defense, as I had for sixteen years. But even though I was expecting my PI license to be in my mailbox when I arrived home, I had never worked on a case by myself. So my very first case as a PI would be my father’s case. God help him. God help us both.
***
When I finally arrived at my condo in Avon, the first thing I did after dragging my purple suitcase up two flights of stairs to the front door was to check the mailbox. Sure enough, among the bills and circulars stacked six inches deep was a large yellow envelope from the State of North Carolina Department of Justice. I tucked the mail up under my arm and wheeled my suitcase through the doorway. After tossing my keys on the kitchen counter, I picked up a knife and slid it along the top of the thin envelope. This brought back a very unpleasant memory of plunging a butcher knife deep into Merle Jackson’s chest. I brushed the thought aside and pulled out two pieces of paper and read the first.
Dear Mrs. Carter:
Thank you for your application to the North Carolina Department of Justice to become a privately licensed investigator. It is with extreme pleasure that we advise you that your application has been accepted. Your license and ID are enclosed herein and are good for two years. You must apply for your license renewal on or before September 1, 2017.
Sincerely,
Bradley Cundiff
Division Chief
North Carolina Department of Justice
The page behind the letter was my license. It had a blue scribbly-lined border with the words “Elizabeth Carter, PI” typed in the middle in bold, black sans serif font. I tipped the envelope and the ID badge fell out onto my palm. It was a small card, the size of my driver’s license, laminated with an embossed seal in the shape of North Carolina in the bottom right-hand corner. Fat lot of good my NC license was going to do me in Kentucky. But I thought perhaps having my NC badge would help lend me some credibility and open some doors until I could get my Kentucky license.
***
Later that night, I sat cross-legged on the couch with my Dell laptop and filled out the Kentucky PI license application online. It cost me another three hundred dollars, but I still had plenty left over from Ryan’s life insurance policies. The largest of the two, which had held out for a while, eventually sent me the distribution once my name had been cleared. I was pleased to find that even though the requirements for obtaining my Kentucky license were a bit more stringent, I still met them all. After double-checking my application for errors, I clicked the submit button and sent it out to the Commonwealth of Kentucky Board of Licensure for Private Investigators. I used Mom’s address so the license would be delivered there, since I had no idea where I’d be staying two to four weeks from then.
I closed the tab and opened a new Google Chrome window and entered Randy’s full name in the search bar. I figured there was no time like the present to begin the investigation. Plus, I didn’t need my Kentucky license to start doing some background research on his case. After thinking about it for several seconds, thanks to the spotty Wi-Fi service on the island, Google finally told me there were one thousand, one hundred and sixty-three results, most of them news reports. I clicked on the first link and up popped the Wikipedia page for my father, which included a photo of him in the upper right-hand corner. It was a picture I had seen a million times before of him in a tan prison jumpsuit, shackled at the wrists and ankles, walking down the courthouse steps, surrounded by police and reporters, after his sentencing.
I remembered that day vividly.
It was like watching a slide show on one of those old-timey projectors, like the one my great-grandparents used to have. Mom and I sat on the back wooden bench in the courtroom during the hearing, ducking down in hopes no one would say a word to us, even though we’d already been swarmed by reporters on the way into the courthouse. The prosecutor for the Commonwealth of Kentucky advised the judge that the parties had reached a plea agreement. The judge, a woman in her sixties with her hair pulled back in a bun so tight her eyes seemed to float around to her temples, took off her glasses and let them hang on the pearl string around her neck. She looked shocked at the latest turn of events. She asked if the prosecutor was sure, and he said he was, even though he looked disappointed with the idea he wouldn’t get to prosecute “the most prolific serial killer the South had seen since the Briley Brothers.” Sidebar—the Briley Brothers killed eleven people in Richmond, Virginia in the 1970s. He had made this comparison at Randy’s first hearing, shortly after his arrest.
We sat there in the courtroom listening as the judge turned to Randy and asked him a series of questions: did he understand he was giving up his right to a trial by a jury of his peers; did he understand he was giving up his right to cross-examine his accusers; did he understand he was waiving his privilege against self-incrimination; did anyone force him into taking this plea deal; and, did he acknowledge and admit that he was, in fact, guilty as charged? Randy quietly answered “yes” to each of these questions with his head hung low.
Mom grabbed my hand and squeezed it so hard her French manicure dug into my palms, leaving little pink crescent moons on my skin.
Finally, when the judge seemed satisfied with the plea deal Randy had accepted—nine consecutive life sentences, one for each life he had admittedly taken—she told him he had to admit to his crimes in open court. The courtroom grew eerily silent. So much so you could hear one of the prosecutor’s assistants nervously clicking the end of her Bic. He shot her an angry look and she stopped, slowly setting the pen down on her legal pad with an apologetic shrug.
Randy cleared his throat. His attorney, B. Cecil Hayes, a septuagenarian referred to us through a friend at Mom’s church, placed a wrinkled, spotted hand on Randy’s back, urging him to speak.
I turned to Mom and whispered, “Are you sure you want to listen to this?”
“No,” she said. “But I have to. I have to hear it from him or it won’t be real.”
I squeezed her hand and braced myself for what I was about to hear. Randy had refused to let either of us visit him in jail after his arrest, so we had never heard his version of what happened. He cleared his throat again and began to speak. He spoke so softly at first, the bailiff had to admonish him to speak louder. His voice rose and he slowly began to tell everyone in the courtroom the details of how he had killed nine prostitutes. He had picked them up at truck stops during his twenty-plus years as an over-the-road trucker. He never had sex with them, which was consistent with autopsy findings. Instead, he tried to minister to them. But when and if they failed to listen to the Good Word and refused to repent of their evil ways, he felt it was his calling from God to punish them and strike them from the earth. We had heard this part from his attorney and knew this was the basis for the insanity defense he had prepared should the case go to trial, but hearing it from Mr. Hayes and then hearing it straight from Randy’s mouth were two totally different beasts.
; He finished by admitting he had disposed of the bodies by dumping them in various isolated locations (rivers, abandoned fields, parking lots) along I-75, hence his nickname, “the I-75 Strangler.” When he was done, the judge picked up her clear-rimmed glasses and set them back on her pointy nose. She took a few minutes to express her deep and abiding disdain for Randall Terrance McLanahan, and told him he was “the most evil and soulless person” she had encountered in her many years on the bench. She promptly accepted the plea deal and pronounced his sentence, making it official. If it were possible to live that long, Randy would be in prison for one hundred and eighty years. The judge closed my father’s file and banged the gavel, sending an electric jolt through me I can still feel to this day.
***
This trip down memory lane made me question my decision to help my father. How could he possibly expect me to believe he was innocent after he freely admitted twenty years ago that he was, in fact, guilty of everything he’d been accused of? But he had been so convincing when I met with him in the visiting room of the prison. Plus, I’d already promised to help him. What was the worst that could happen? I find out he’s lying and that he is guilty after all? I’d already lived with his crimes for twenty years. The only thing I would lose was the hope which had crept up into the smallest recesses of my brain, like a little mouse burrowing into the tiniest hole for warmth, and set up residence there. No, I’d stay the course. I promised myself I’d spend one year on his case, and no more. If I couldn’t find anything by then, or if it became glaringly obvious he was lying to me, I’d give up and come right back here to North Carolina and continue with the new life I had already begun to carve out for myself.
Family Ties (Flesh & Blood Trilogy Book 2) Page 1