Secrets and Lies

by Rachel Sinclair

  They go into my medicine cabinet, I guess they figured out that Tracy died of an overdose, they’re looking in my medicine cabinet to see if I got some horse in there. I tell them ‘have at it, knock yourself out, loser,’ then they come out and tell me that they’re taking one of my BP meds in for testing. They tell me they found a suspicious powder in my BP med bottle.

  They take him away, I think that’s it, then two cops show up at my door three months later. They’re telling me that I’m responsible for his death. They’re saying that they did an autopsy and some kind of test, toxic test or something like that, and-“

  “Toxicology test,” I said. “It’s to find out about the presence of drugs or poison in a dead person’s blood at the time of death. Go ahead.”

  “Yeah, toximology test, or whatever, anyhow, they tell me that the toxic test showed that Tracy died of a heroin overdose and that it’s my fault ‘cause I gave him the drug. Then they tell me that my BP meds weren’t BP meds at all, but high-grade heroin. I tell them to go to hell, and to fuck right off, in those words, ain’t nobody responsible for Tracy’s death but Tracy, and that I don’t know nobody who would sell me that junk and that they made a mistake. I don’t possess horse and I never have. Well, they don’t like me telling them off like that, so they haul me down the station. They’re asking me questions for God knows how long, not letting me pee, freezing my nipples off. They’re keeping the room colder than a witch’s tit, which is bull, if you ask me.”

  I knew what she was talking about, and I thought it was nonsense as well. I knew why cops did it, but it didn’t make it any less ethical. They were trying to get a confession from my mother, in any way that they could. They deliberately tried to make her uncomfortable to the extreme, so that she would confess to a crime just to get out of there.

  My mother was talking way too fast, and I wanted to slow her down.

  “Mom, it’s okay. You don’t have to tell me the entire story right now. I’ll be coming down to the jail within the next half-hour.”

  Nate and Amelia were home with Gretchen. I had arranged for Gretchen to come and watch the both of them, because I needed to speak with the counselor completely alone, because I needed her advice for what I needed to do with Nate. Turned out that everything that she was telling me, about how I needed to slow down, maybe even take a sabbatical, was going to go right out the window. My mother was charged with murder. As much as my mother and I did not get along over the years, and we didn’t get along over the years because of the way that she was when I was growing up – drinking all the time, a revolving door of men, just basically being neglectful – I had forgiven her once I found out the reason why she always had her own share of mental problems. She was raped by a very wealthy man, Josh Roland, and I was a result of that rape.

  Josh Roland was then bludgeoned to death by an oriental lamp that was in his office, and I was charged with his murder. It turned out that the person who really did murder him was Addison Weston, the first lady of the state of Missouri. She had hired somebody to actually do the deed, Jaclyn Peterson, who ended up getting charged with manslaughter and was currently serving 10 years in prison for her role in the murder. As for Addison, she managed to be acquitted on the basis of temporary insanity. She hired the best attorney that money could buy, which was the reason why she got that result, while her patsy did the time that she needed to. It was the best justice that money could buy, which unfortunately was the way of the legal system. If you got money, you get away with anything. If you don’t, you’re going down no matter if you did it or not.

  Now my mother was charged with murder. A nonsense charge in this case, if ever there was one. I had heard of people being charged with murder just because they were taking drugs with somebody who happened to die, and also instances where people were charged with murder because they bought drugs for somebody. But in this case, it was none of the above. My mom wasn’t doing drugs with him, she just let him sleep on her couch. So she happened to be in the room when he died, and that makes her a murderer? Seriously?

  Something was very off about this entire thing. To say the very least. I was just going to have to go down to see her in the jail and try to figure out what was going on. And then I was going to have to storm over to the prosecutor’s office, and find out what the hell they were thinking. How could they possibly charge my mother with murder for something so stupid?

  Then I realized something. My mother was probably lying. She said that she didn’t do drugs, but I knew that she did. She also drank a lot. It was entirely possible that when they took a urinalysis at her home, after she called 911 about Tracy’s death, they found out that she had drugs in her system as well. And, if they were the same drugs as the ones that were found in this Tracy Dunham’s system, they could charge her with murder. It would still be a baloney charge, but it would be a much more solid charge than if she was just sitting in her house when he came to visit, he passed out on her couch, and then he died, and she had nothing to do with it.

  I had a feeling that there was more to the story than what she was telling me. Probably he came over, and the two of them started doing drugs, she went to bed, he did as well, and he was dead when she woke up. If that was the case, then definitely her urinalysis would prove that. If the UA showed that she had opium in her system, then the state would have a much better case than if she was sober and just let him sleep on her couch.

  I was definitely going to have to find out the results of her drug test before I went and spoke with her. If the drug test showed that she was clean at the time that she was arrested, then it would be no problem getting the case dismissed. I didn’t know why they would actually charge her in this case unless there was something else that I didn’t know. At any rate, the prosecutors would have to drop the charges against her if she was clean at the time of the death, because there would be no way that they could win at trial, unless they showed that she supplied the drugs to him somehow. It would be an open and shut case, and a waste of money for them.

  I called Gretchen, told her what was going on, and then immediately headed down to the police station. I was going to get my mom’s records, see what kind of questions they asked her in the interrogation room, and, most importantly, get the results of her urinalysis and see if she had drugs in her system.

  I left the office building where I had been talking to Dr. Jordan, opened the door, and a blast of cold hit me in the face. When I went to see Dr. Jordan, the weather had started to change from the 70° it had been earlier, dropping to around 50°. That was the one thing that people always said about the weather in Missouri – if you don’t like it, just wait a minute, and it’ll change. And it certainly did on that day. It was early fall, October, and the leaves were just starting to change and fall from the trees.

  I hugged my coat closer around my body as I made my way towards my Mercedes SUV that was out in the parking lot. It was a new car for me, the one luxury that I bought when I settled a large medical malpractice suit a few years back. In that case, it turned out that the doctor who had given my client’s son anesthesia that he was allergic to, did so deliberately. He was an angel of mercy, which was what he fashioned himself to be, for he was an anesthesiologist who was killing people who were terminal. It turned out he had a son who had died slowly of cancer, going through much pain and agony along the way, and he didn’t want anybody else to have to suffer that. So, when he got the records of his patients and found out that they were terminal, and that they were going in for surgery of some sort, he would deliberately give them the wrong anesthesia or too much anesthesia, and they ended up dead. The upshot of that was that everybody was entitled to punitive damages against him because it was an intentional act, and I was the first in line and I got a large settlement from him.

  Once I got that $4 million settlement, I put most of it away for my kid’s college, and I gave Harper a good percentage of it as well. I bought a new house, close to where Harper lived in the Brookside area, and this new Merce
des SUV. The rest of it, I squirreled away. After growing up poor, in a trailer, with a mother who didn’t work and who was constantly cycling men in and out of the home, I was constantly insecure that I was going to be poor again. No matter how much money I had, it was never going to be enough for me to feel like I was never going to be on skid row again.

  I got to the jail, and told the guard that I needed to see my mom’s file. They knew me there, because I was there all the time, so they gave me her file without questioning me or asking me for an ID. I opened it up and immediately saw the results of my mother’s blood test – she had tested positive for opiates. Also in the file were the results of the toxicology test that they did for Tracy Dunham, and he too, had opiates in his system. Specifically, the results of the toxicology examination showed that the heroin that showed up in his system was high-grade and extremely pure.

  And, it did look like mom’s “blood pressure” meds weren’t actually blood pressure meds, but was heroin. The officers indicated that they had probable cause to seize the meds and test them because mom dropped a dirty UA and her companion had died of an apparent overdose. So, the label on the pill bottle said Nifedipine, but it was actually heroin, according to the toxicology report on my mother’s prescription BP pills.

  I looked through the interrogation documents and saw that my mom did not admit to doing anything except for what she told me – she told the cops that she was sitting in her trailer home, minding her own business, when Tracy came to her door. According to my mom, Tracy told her that he’d been thrown out by his wife, Priscilla. She then went to bed, and she woke up to find him dead. That’s what she told the cops, over and over again. They never told her that they knew that she was lying, and that she had opiates in her system at the time Tracy died.

  It looked like I was going to have to confront my mother with her lie.

  I went back up to the guard station, and told them I was there to see Olivia Ward. The guard nodded her head. “Just a second, I’ll let you through.”

  I went through the first set of double doors into the hallway, took the elevator up to the fifth floor which is where my mother was staying, went down the long corridor door and got to her pod. Once there, I rang the guards, and they let me through. I told the guard inside the waiting area I was there to see Olivia Ward, the guard nodded her head, and told me to wait just a few minutes.

  Mom came out a few minutes later, looking her usual self. She was down to about 100 pounds or less, and her hair, which was usually dark or bleached blonde, was currently pink. Or, rather, it was streaked pink. I could see her usual brunette hair peeking out from underneath the pink streaks, along with a lot of grey roots. She was dressed in an orange jumpsuit that absolutely hung from her skinny frame.

  “God, I could use a smoke, and a drink.” She put her hands on the table, and they were shaking. It looked like she was going through the DTs, and I wouldn’t be surprised if that was the case, as much as she drank. “I’ve been puking in this place. Nobody cares. Got the shakes so bad I feel like I’m going to rattle and roll right out of this joint.”

  “Mom,” I said to her. “You tell me that you need a smoke and a drink. And I’ll be honest with you, you look like you’re worse for the wear.”

  “I look like something the cat dragged in, and I know it. You don’t have to rub it in, kiddo.”

  “I’m not saying this to be mean. I do need to ask you a question, though. You told me over the phone that you were not doing drugs with this Tracy Dunham person.” I stopped my sentence right there, because I wanted to see her reaction to what I was gonna say to her. I wanted to see what kind of facial expression and body language she displayed.

  To my surprise, she didn’t flinch. “Yeah, I told you that, because it’s the God’s honest truth. I told you that I wasn’t doing drugs with him, and that’s what I mean. I was sitting in my trailer, minding my own damn business, and he came over and crashed on my couch.” She narrowed her eyes at me. “Why do I think you think I’m lying? I got the sneaking suspicion that you’re over there thinking that I told you a tall tale.”

  I leaned forward. “Mom, I took a peek at your file before I came to see you. According to the file, there were opiates in your system at the time you were arrested. Heroin was also found in the bloodstream of the victim. You care to explain that?”

  “Dammit. I told you I wasn’t doing drugs with him. I told you I don’t do drugs. I drink, I get shit-faced on that, I smoke a lot. I do weed. And that’s it. No cocaine, no meth, no heroin, no hillbilly heroin, no nothing. I don’t get into that crap. I know, I know, I used to do all that crap. All of it. But I gave it up about 10 years ago, and I’ve never looked back. Drinking, smoking cigarettes, and smoking bud are all I do now.”

  “Mom, I don’t believe you. If it’s true what you’re saying, why were opiates found in your system?”

  “Hell, I don’t know. You tell me.”

  I closed my eyes. “Mom, this is important. If there were not drugs in your system, then there would be no way that the prosecutor could possibly prove that you were doing drugs with him. If they can’t prove that, then the whole case goes away, unless they can prove that you supplied Tracy with the heroin that killed him. I mean, they could still try to pursue charges, but it would be so easy to prove to the jury that you had nothing to do with his death that they would have to drop the charges. But if there was really heroin in your system, it’s gonna be a little more difficult for me to have the charges dismissed.”

  She shook her head. “What is this bullcrap, anyway? Is that how it’s going to be? You doing drugs and somebody bites it, and suddenly you’re on the hook? I never heard of that.”

  “Unfortunately, it’s not unheard of. All around the nation, people who were just doing drugs with another person who died are being found guilty, or at least charged, for their death. Usually, however, the charge is a murder only when somebody actually supplies the other person with the drugs. Regardless, it would be helpful if there were not drugs in your system.”

  “It sounds like somebody was cooking the books here.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Just what it sounds like. Somebody doctored up my damn record and made it look like I was taking drugs when I wasn’t. And you know when those pigs found drugs in my house, I knew for sure that they’re full of crap, because I damn well know I had no drugs at the house. Listen, everything I said to you earlier on the phone is the God’s honest truth. I didn’t give that man no heroin, I didn’t take no heroin with him, I had nothing to do with none of it, and I certainly didn’t have no heroin in no prescription bottle.”

  I made a steeple with my hands, and stared at them for a minute or two. “Did you know that he was on drugs?”

  “Hell no. I told you me and him were sex buddies, nothing more, nothing less. We get together, drink and smoke weed, hit the sack, he’d leave. That was all there was to it.”

  “How did you meet him?”

  She rolled her eyes. “At some fancy-schmancy thousand dollar plate dinner. The governor himself was the guest of honor.” She shook her head. “I met him at a bar. A dive bar. He asked me to dance, I said yes, we hit it off, he came back to my place, boom boom boom, that was that. No muss, no fuss.”

  “Do you remember the bar you met him at?”

  “Why the hell does that matter? I don’t remember which bar it was, probably someplace in Lee’s Summit where the fake bikers go. You know the guys I’m talking about, the muckety-mucks who got full-time jobs as executives who like to ride their hogs on the weekends and act like they’re tough. A bunch of those fake bikers were hanging out at the bar that night, that’s all I remember. I don’t remember which bar it was.”

  I made notes as we spoke. “Was Tracy Dunham one of those fake bikers?”

  She shrugged. “I suppose so. I don’t really know. All I know is that I get up to go to the little girl’s room and take a leak, and when I come back, there’s a guy sitting there
at my barstool. Never seen the guy before in my whole life. It’s crowded, there ain’t no place to sit, and he’s sitting in the one seat that was open. My seat. I even have my purse on the bar in front of him. I go to take my purse from the bar, and try to find some other place to sit. He just looks at me, drags on his cigarette, tells me to sit on his lap. I ain’t in the mood for that, I tell him to go to hell. He keeps going, says he wants to buy me a drink because he took my seat, I say why not? Free drink, all I got to do is hang out with the guy. So I did. I hung out with him. Got my free drink. Free drink turned into about six more, next thing I know, we’re back in my dump screwing around. He leaves, I figure I’m never gonna see him again, but he pops back in a couple weeks later, and it just kind of went like that. He’d come over like a booty call, and I let him come over like a booty call. I didn’t know nothing about him, he didn’t know nothing about me. That was how I liked it. He liked it too.”

  “Okay. So you knew nothing about this guy. You don’t even know if he was doing drugs on a regular basis, then.”

  “Yeah, that’s right. Why do you keep asking me these questions like you don’t believe what I’m telling you? Listen, you’ve always been a shit to me. You’ve never trusted me any further than you can throw me. But I’m telling you the God’s honest truth right now. I knew nothing about that guy.”

  “What else can you tell me?”

  She shrugged. “I told you everything I can tell you. Everything I’m gonna tell you. You can either believe me or not, but I’m telling you what I know.”

  I tapped my fingers on the table, wondering why it was I had a nagging feeling that there was much more to the story than what she was telling me. Maybe there wasn’t more that she knew, but there was something that was behind this case. Something I wasn’t seeing, and maybe my mother wasn’t seeing it either. I just wished she knew something more about this guy. I believed her when she said that she didn’t know anything about him, however. My mother was just that kind of person. She had sex with men that she didn’t know, and she didn’t always get their backgrounds or histories. She wasn’t somebody who would even get a person’s last name all the time.