Death on Sunset Hill

by Kristi Belcamino

  “That’s not fair to Parker,” said the managing editor. “After all, it is not common knowledge, but I do happen to know that Miss St. James is dating an officer in the department.”

  Tommy’s mouth dropped open. “My personal life has nothing to do with this! I resent that inference.” She turned to the publisher. “And just for the record, the person I’m dating was not my source on this story.” She glared at the managing editor. “Even he doesn’t know who my source is.”

  “What was your source’s name?” the publisher said, narrowing his eyes.

  “I have the right to protect my sources. I told you it was a member of the police department and that’s all I feel comfortable revealing. Especially in front of the present company.”

  Tommy was pissed. She knew her face was red. The curse of being a redhead.

  The publisher suddenly stood up. “St. James, come with me.”

  Sandoval started to protest, but the publisher held up his hand, “Sit down!”

  Mouths dropped open. But Sandoval sat back down.

  Tommy was puzzled for a moment, but obeyed. Leaving the managing editor sitting there with a scowl on her face, Tommy followed the publisher out the door. He led her down the hall to his office without glancing back. He didn’t make eye contact as he held the door to his office open for her. Once she stepped inside, he closed it, indicated she should take a seat and then instead of sitting behind his desk, sat beside her.

  If he thought he could bully her or intimidate her into giving her the name of her source, he was wrong, Tommy thought.

  He turned to her and smiled. “You don’t need to give me the name of your source, but if it comes down to it — if there is a lawsuit, God forbid, I’m going to ask you to be completely candid with the newspaper’s attorney. Okay? Do you agree to that?”

  Tommy didn’t have to think about it. “Of course.”

  “Well, that’s settled then,” he stood up. “But there is one other thing. You know we have a mandate from the parent company to trim costs. Layoffs are coming and this reluctance on your part might not be viewed in the best light. You’re a good photographer, but frankly, that may not be enough.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  That night Kelly was working the night shift, so Tommy didn’t even get a chance to cry on his shoulder. She called him once, but he sounded harried and quickly said, “I’ll call you back.”

  Shoot. That’s right, Tommy remembered: his unit was on stakeout tonight for a drug raid from some meth house by Lake Calhoun.

  Lacing up her tennis shoes, Tommy decided to go running. The empty apartment seemed depressing right then. It was because Tommy realized that she had no one to call. Nobody to talk to about the possible loss of her job. Her obsession with her job had led to this. She had no life. She had no close friends. She’d turned down overtures from other women to hang out. Big mistake. She was lonely and alone. No friends. No family.

  She was an orphan. For the most part, she tried not to feel sorry for herself, but on days like today, when she was blue, it got the best of her.

  As she stretched on the running path across from her condo, she hastily wiped the tears that were slipping from her eyelids. “Cowboy up, St. James,” she told herself as she began her run. “You’ve got a good life.”

  But it sure would help to have some family around. Both her parents were only children and she was an only child. What she wouldn’t give for a sibling or even cousins.

  It was times like this that the death of her mother overwhelmed her. Everyone was dead. Her loving mother. Her pathetic father. Her generous grandma who had left her enough money to make a huge down payment on this condo. However, as much as she cherished her condo and its spectacular views of the skyline and river, she would have traded it all in an instant to have her grandma still alive.

  An hour later, hot, sweaty and tired, Tommy was back home. She debated taking a shower, but didn’t have the energy. Instead, she pulled a glass out of her kitchen cabinet and reached for a bottle.

  Knowing it wasn’t the best way to handle her loneliness and grief, Tommy poured a half glass of scotch and took it out onto her patio. She felt so alone. But in a way, she thought, she’d always felt this way, it just sometimes was disguised or hidden by the busyness of her life. But during the quiet moments, it was always there just below the surface. The loneliness was always there. Even now, in a relationship with Kelly, it was there. She might as well get used to it, she thought with a sigh.

  About a mile away, she saw the lights of the Twins stadium. She drained her glass and opened the sliding door to go inside. She’d watch some baseball on TV. That sometimes helped to cheer her up. But deep inside she knew it was just that same noise and busyness that helped mask how she really felt: sad and alone.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Tommy pulled up in front of the small house where Timothy Bender had lived with his parents. It was the last place on earth she wanted to be right then.

  But when she had arrived in the newsroom this morning, Sandoval had taken her aside when she asked for her assignments for the day.

  “I’m sorry, but it appears you are being punished for your, uh, scoop the other day. The managing editor requested you specifically go to Timothy Bender’s house with Parker to meet with his father. The head honchos are hoping a story setting the record straight might stave off a lawsuit. I think we’re getting sued every which way from Tuesday, but that’s my opinion. If they want to waste ink on a correction disguised as a story fine by me.”

  The paper had already run an above-the-fold apology to the Bender family in today’s paper. In the newspaper business, this was unheard of. Extremely humiliating for Tommy, but even more so for Parker.

  She’d avoided Parker since the terse meeting yesterday. Now, in her car in front of the Bender house, she scanned the parked cars for his little sports car. Nope. She beat him here. Well, she wasn’t getting out of her car until he was here, too, she told herself. Besides, what if Mr. Bender had a gun or something? He’d looked mad enough to kill on the news.

  Her stomach was flopping around like there was a beached fish inside it. She hoped she didn’t vomit.

  Parker’s Alpha Romeo zipped into a parking spot with a flourish.

  He jumped out, stuck a reporter’s notebook in his back pocket and hurried over to Tommy. She noticed the long lick of hair over one eye was still damp.

  “Rough night?”

  “Always, Snap. Always. Got to keep the ladies happy.”

  “Hardy har. Let’s do this,” she said. She cast a glance up at him. He hadn’t mentioned the other day. Maybe he wasn’t such a big ass after all.

  He cleared his throat and Tommy realized he was nervous as they walked up to the house. It was a small squat home with no flowers, but neatly trimmed bushes lined up underneath the windows. The beige siding had a few cracks in it, revealing the pink insulation underneath, but the grass was freshly mowed.

  Tommy let Parker go first. She stood a bit behind his shoulder as he rapped on the peeling green paint on the front door. Okay, she admitted it to herself, it was in case the knock was answered with a shotgun blast when the father saw who was there. A shadow flittered past the small glass window in the middle of the door. The door slowly swung open.

  Nobody said anything for a second, but then Parker spoke up, his voice containing a small squeak Tommy had never heard before. “Mr. Bender, I’m Cameron Parker and this is Tommy St. James.”

  The man stepped out into the light. His barrel-chest was clad in a worn plaid shirt and the stubble on his jowly chin was gray. His bushy eyebrows were also shot with gray, even though he had a thick head of black hair. He stared at them for a few seconds and then shook his head, his jowl wobbling. Then he backed up. “Might as well come in.”

  Inside, the house was dim with all the curtains drawn. “Have a seat.” The man gestured to an old gold flowered couch that screamed 1970s but looked brand new.

  Above the fireplace, was a co
llection of seashells. The room contained no photographs. One end table contained a crystal clock and a vase with a fake purple rose. Tommy noted that there were no signs that someone lived here. No personal touches. It was almost like a movie set.

  Tommy sat demurely, tucking her camera bag against the couch, behind her calves. Parker spread out his arms and sat back.

  “Coffee?” Mr. Bender said a bit gruffly.

  “No, sir, we’re fine,” Parker answered. Tommy nodded her assent. She hadn’t expected an invitation for coffee. She’d expected a slap in the face.

  The man sat in an armchair across from them, working his lip and staring at them.

  Parker began. “We’re here to talk about your son, Timothy.”

  There was a moment of uncomfortable silence and then the man said, “Don’t you think you’ve done enough ‘talking’ about him already?”

  Tommy spoke up. “We are also here to apologize. We got it wrong. The information we were given was erroneous. I’m terribly sorry.”

  She cringed, wondering if he noticed the apology had switched from “we” to “I.”

  “It’s too late. The damage is done.”

  Parker cleared his throat. “Well, that’s why we’re here. We want to tell people about what your son was like. What would you like people to know about him.” He held his pen aloft above his reporter’s notebook, waiting.

  The man chewed on this for a while, along with his lower lip.

  “Timothy had his problems, it’s true,” Mr. Bender began. “But he was never violent. No, sir. He was mixed up, up here,” the man said, pointing to his temple. “But that was because he got beat up as a kid.”

  “What do you mean?” Tommy asked, leaning forward.

  “Some neighborhood kids cornered him one day. They were always making fun of him because he was a little guy and kind of quiet and liked to talk to the squirrels and stuff. Nothing that would do any harm. He just was a little different. Well, you know how kids are? They pick on anybody who isn’t like them?”

  Tommy nodded. “Kids can be incredibly cruel to one another.”

  “Well, they started pushing him and shoving him. His ma saw the whole thing as she was doing dishes at the kitchen sink, looking out the window, but by the time she dried her hands off and got out there, it was too late.”

  “What happened?” Tommy prodded.

  Mr. Bender was off in his memories. “They didn’t mean it. They were just pushing him around a little, but he lost his footing and, smack, fell back and hit his head on the sidewalk curb. Knocked him clean out.

  “The wife was wailing and screaming I guess and took him to the hospital. The doctor said he would be okay. But he wasn’t. When he came home he was real quiet. But then a week later, I noticed he was talking to himself. All the time. He was mumbling nonsense. I just ignored it. But then I noticed he put black paper up on all his windows. He said it was to keep the squirrels out. He told me and his ma that the squirrels were all banding together and wanted to kill him.”

  The man looked up at Tommy with sorrow. “That’s when we took him to the doctor and we were told he was funny in the head. He takes his meds, but he’ll never be normal.”

  Tommy noted that he still referred to his son in the present tense. And just like that, her heart broke. She felt tears gathering in her eyes and swallowed and blinked furiously to keep them at bay.

  “I think it was just too much for him. His mother died last year and ever since then, he’s spent most of his days lying in bed, staring at the ceiling. I was happy that he decided to take my advice and take a little walk after lunch. I didn’t know that would be cause for him to become a murder suspect.”

  Mr. Bender told the journalists that Timothy would make the two-mile loop around the cemetery and then come back home and get in bed until dinner, around five.

  “He said he liked the walk ‘because he was near the cemetery where his ma was buried. He said he felt like she was watching him when he was out there.”

  “Did he stop at the grave?” Tommy wasn’t sure why she asked this, but couldn’t help but blurt out the question. Maybe because she had spent so much time in that exact same cemetery visiting her mother’s grave. Not her father’s. She would never do that.

  “No, he didn’t. Even during the burial, he wouldn’t get near it. Walking around the cemetery was about as close as he could get to it, I think.”

  Parker then asked questions about what Timothy liked. It was the same questions Tommy had heard him ask parents who had lost a child. Simple questions about simple things, such as Timothy’s favorite color (green), his favorite TV show (Wipe Out), his favorite food (Tater Tot Hot Dish).

  “He wasn’t perfect, but he was my only boy. My only child. Really, my only kin left. Now, I’ve got nobody.” Mr. Bender’s eyes grew glassy, but Tommy could tell he was the type of man who had been told men don’t cry. Instead, he bit his lip and looked away, blinking.

  Parker took a deep breath and was about to ask a question, but Mr. Bender interrupted.

  “I came home from work one day. His bed made. He was gone. I waited until nine at night, hoping everything was okay. But then I called the police. I didn’t sleep at all. The next morning, the cops called and asked me to come down to the station. He’d jumped off the bridge. It took nine hours to recover his body. Was three miles down the river.”

  “I’m so sorry,” Tommy said, feeling the tears well up again.

  “I’m angry at you both,” he said suddenly, sitting up, his eyes bright with fury. “I didn’t have nothing and yet you still took something away from me. You took away my son’s good name. You took away my good name. My reputation. You took away my son even more than his death did.”

  “We’re awfully—”

  “I’m not done. Do you know what it is like to have your only son’s name on the front page of the newspaper calling him a killer and a rapist? Do you know what it is like to have to walk out of your house and to your car, knowing all the neighbors are peeking out their windows watching you? The same neighbors that brought your wife hot dishes when we moved in here forty years ago?”

  Mr. Bender took a breath, and leaned forward eyes boring through Parker. “Do you have any idea what it’s like to go to the corner store to get your coffee like you have every day for nearly all your life and when you get there, the men you have known your whole damn life, turn away from you, rather than say hello? Do you have any idea what that is like?”

  He stopped then and his gaze softened as he searched Tommy’s eyes, noting the tears streaming down her face.

  “You don’t have the right to cry over my son.”

  “No, sir,” Tommy said, fighting for control, madly swiping at her face. “You’re right. I don’t. I don’t.”

  He stared at her for a minute and then sat down.

  “Can I see a picture of him? Of Timothy?”

  Mr. Bender gestured at a small photo album on the end table.

  “Thank you. I won’t take them, I’ll just take my own photos of them to run with the story.”

  Flipping through the album, tears threatened once again when she saw a photo of a freckle-faced boy with a gap-toothed grin smiling up at his father. It must have been before he fell and hit his head, she thought. What a shame. And how terrifying that life could change in an instant. That had always struck Tommy deeply — the fragility of life. How things could be swimming along and in a second tragedy could strike.

  As a teenager, Tommy had thought that living in a house with a father who beat her mother would be her destiny unless she did something drastic. Her answer was to run away from home and become legally emancipated. For months, she was afraid to contact her mother, but missed her too much so they would meet secretly, at the laundry mat, or some other father-approved destination or errand her mother could talk him into letting her do. Tommy begged her mother to leave, but her mother would look at her with sadness and say she still loved her husband and that he couldn’t help it. He had l
ived a hard life and he would die if she left him.

  “Good,” Tommy told her mother. “He deserves to die.”

  Her mother begged her not to talk about him that way. “He’s your father!”

  “I don’t care. He’s dead to me.”

  But night after night, Tommy, who was crashing on various friend’s couches and calling them home, lay awake deep into the morning hours trying to figure out a way to rescue her mother from her father’s clutches. It seemed impossible if her mother wasn’t willing to leave herself. Tommy imagined an entire lifetime of abuse in front of her mother. She was still young, only in her early forties. Tommy pictured her mother old and gray, still being thrown to the floor by her father’s brutal hands.

  But that was not to be the case.

  One day, Tommy’s father threw her mother across the kitchen and her mother struck her head on the corner of the countertop. She died instantly.

  It was Tommy’s eighteenth birthday, she’d reluctantly let her mom talk her into coming back home for some cake.

  But when she walked in, she found her mother dead and her father crouched in the corner holding a gun that he had been too much of a coward to use on himself after he killed her mother. Yet, somehow, he’d mustered up the willpower to call the police reporting his crime. Within the hour, her father was behind bars for the murder.

  Just like Timothy Bender, a blow to the head changed everything. Forever.

  Right then, sitting in Mr. Bender’s living room, Tommy thought that she should quit her job. There was nothing redeeming about what she did. All she did was bring even more grief to those who were already suffering. She was a vulture just like the TV reporters she looked down on. She was no better. She had ruined this man’s life and she could never forgive herself for that.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  The next day when the big correction story ran, Tommy was dispatched to the police department to get some photos of a robbery suspect who had held up three banks in a three-mile radius in three days.