Ghostly Ordeal

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Ghostly Ordeal Page 7

by Lily Harper Hart


  “I’m afraid it’s probably too late to stop that.”

  “Then we need to keep it from getting out of hand.” Mel was firm. “I’ll call the judge’s office and see if we can move the paperwork along.”

  “And I will have a paralegal gather files that will probably be of interest.”

  “Then we’ll go from there.”

  “That seems to be the best plan.”

  Seven

  Fran Gibbons was a small woman. Jared estimated her height at just over five feet. She had tiny hands and diminutive shoulders ... and she seemed downright surprised to find two police detectives knocking on her door.

  “Is this about Carl?” She looked uncertain.

  “Yes, ma’am.” Jared instantly felt sorry for her. She almost looked afraid to let them into her house, which to his way of thinking suggested emotional abuse. He had no way of proving that, of course, but it was the first thing that jumped into his head.

  “Come in.” Fran led the men to a tiny living room. The house was a two-story bungalow, probably built in the 1940s, Jared guessed as he looked over the moldings and antiquated light fixtures. The house was tidy but there was very little furniture and almost nothing of value spread about for visitors to “ooh” and “aah” about.

  “We don’t want to take up much of your time,” Jared offered, annoyance at a dead man threatening to take him over. “You obviously heard about Carl’s death, though.”

  “I did,” she agreed, gesturing toward the kitchen table. “I’m making tea. I only have chamomile, but if you want some ... .”

  “Tea would be lovely,” Mel said hurriedly. He was also taken aback by Fran’s living conditions. “Did you learn about your ex-husband’s death via television?”

  “I don’t have a television.”

  That only served to infuriate Jared more. “You have heard about his death, though, right?”

  “Yes.” Fran removed the teakettle from the stove just as it started to whistle. “One of the neighbors actually told me. I turned on the radio news station so I could hear about it ... although they didn’t go into much detail.”

  “He was discovered during the snowstorm yesterday,” Mel explained. “Someone stabbed him multiple times.”

  “That’s awful.”

  There was very little inflection to the words and Jared didn’t have to guess as to how she really felt. “It’s okay if you’re not sorry he’s dead. Quite frankly, we’ve yet to find anyone who is appalled by his passing.”

  Fran’s expression never shifted. “He’s the father of my son. I don’t want him dead, no matter what he did.”

  “Then you’re a much better person than him,” Jared offered, leaning back in his chair as he regarded the woman. The fabric at the elbows of her cardigan looked as if they were about to give way and her hair was shot through with gray. She was the exact opposite of Gloria, something that Jared couldn’t help acknowledging. “We need information about your relationship with Carl.”

  “I figured as much.” Fran’s hands were steady as she poured water into mugs. “What do you want to know?”

  “How did you end up together in the first place?” Mel asked. “Forgive me for saying, but you don’t seem like Carl’s type.”

  “I wasn’t always poor and in need of a good dye job.” She was rueful as she carried the mugs to the table. “I come from money, if you can believe that. Well ... at least money in this area. I went to the same college as Carl — Rochester University — and we met when I was a sophomore and he was a senior.

  “I thought he was ridiculously charismatic and fell for him right away,” she continued. “My parents warned me against dating him. They were always strict when it came to boys and I was starting to chafe under their watchful eye. I didn’t listen — heck, I didn’t want to listen — but it’s become glaringly obvious over the years that they were right. That doesn’t do me much good now but back then, well, I probably should’ve listened to them.”

  Jared was appalled. “Are you not in contact with your family any longer?”

  “They wrote me off when I married Carl,” she replied. “They warned me it wouldn’t end well. They didn’t want him included in our family, were embarrassed. My father is an attorney, too, you see. He’s a criminal lawyer in Oakland County. He said he recognized Carl as an ambulance-chaser from the start and wanted me to cut ties with him.

  “I was infatuated with Carl, though, and thought we could live on love,” she continued with a weak laugh. “That turned out to be one of the more naive things I ever believed. Still, I jumped in with both feet.

  “Carl insisted that I marry him right away and not finish school,” she said. “My father screamed up and down about it, carried on like a spoiled toddler. He wanted me to stay in school, but I thought Carl made sense. I was an idiot back then. If I had to do it over again, I never would’ve left school. Ah, well.”

  She broke off and rubbed her forehead as she sat. “I left school. I think Carl thought my father would eventually soften his stance. That’s what he wanted. I can see that now, although I was blind back then.”

  “You mentioned your father was an attorney,” Jared prodded. “Did Carl think he would be able to benefit from that relationship?”

  “Definitely. My father was one of the most well-regarded attorneys in the tri-county area. Carl kept trying to find ways to ingratiate himself with my father, but it never ended well. My father was mean ... and dismissive ... and he didn’t want anything to do with me while I insisted on being married to Carl.”

  Jared felt sick to his stomach. It was clear Fran had been mistreated by more than one man. “So ... what happened?”

  “Pretty much what you would expect.” She held her hands palms out and shrugged. “I got pregnant before the ink on my voluntary withdrawal papers was dry. We were married within two months. We had a baby seven months after that. Carl, Jr. I just call him Junior.” She smiled at mention of her son. “He’s the only good thing that came out of this.”

  “How long were you married?” Mel asked gently.

  “We divorced when Junior was ten.”

  Jared did the math in his head. “And how old is he now?”

  “Twenty-five. He’s putting himself through law school … with a lot of help from my parents, that is. He works hard to supplement what they give him, though. He says he wants to be like my father instead of his.”

  “Does he know your father well?”

  “My father doesn’t have much use for me,” she answered, choosing her words carefully. “He thinks I was weak when I married Carl. It only got worse when we divorced and he found out how Carl managed to railroad me. He was furious ... at me as much as Carl.”

  Jared found his fury building. “I’m sorry to hear that. It sounds like you’ve had it rough all around.”

  “Oh, I’m fine.” Fran forced a smile for Jared’s benefit. “I’m the manager of the bakery over at Thirteen Mile and Groesbeck now. I get benefits and a retirement package. I’ll have to work until I’m seventy-five, but eventually I’ll get there.”

  “Yeah, well ... it’s still unfair,” Jared noted. “You didn’t do anything wrong and yet you were screwed on every side.”

  “One might say I earned some of that by not listening to my parents when they warned me about Carl. They saw him for what he was when I didn’t.”

  “They’re still your parents. They should’ve supported you no matter what.”

  “They didn’t see it that way. They did support Junior, though. Once Carl and I were separated, they went out of their way to help Junior. They took him once a week and spent time with him. They saw that he had decent clothes when he was in school. My parents helped pay his college tuition and for law school. They’re very good like that.”

  The information didn’t make Jared feel better. “I don’t understand why they can’t forgive and forget where you’re concerned.”

  “There’s too many bad feelings to contend with. It’s better th
is way. I only care that Junior gets what he needs, and he seems to be ... so that’s that.”

  “Yeah, well ... .” Jared dragged a restless hand through his hair as he regrouped. “It’s been explained to us that Carl completely screwed you over in the divorce. He somehow arranged it so he didn’t have to pay you a penny, even in child support.”

  “That’s true.” Fran swallowed hard. “I wasn’t all that upset when Carl said he wanted a divorce. We hadn’t been happy for a very long time. In fact, I’m not sure we were ever really happy. I digress, though.

  “He announced he wanted a divorce, said he was giving me the house and planned to move out, and that we would meet in a few weeks to discuss how everything would shake out,” she continued. “Instead, I was served three days later, found out the house was going to drag me under financially, and the divorce was rammed through six weeks later ... and I didn’t get a thing. It was an eye-opening experience.”

  “But how?” Mel asked. “I can’t see a judge simply allowing that to stand. You had a minor child.”

  “On paper we shared custody and that’s all that mattered,” Fran explained. “He acted like he was doing me a favor by not seeking full custody of Junior. I have to admit ... I was so terrified that he would take my son that I willingly let him screw me to keep Junior in my life. I believed him when he said a judge would take away Junior because I had no marketable job skills.”

  Jared was convinced, if Carl wasn’t already dead, he would strangle the life out of the diabolical man. “I’m sorry you went through it.”

  “It’s over now.”

  “What about your son, though?”

  “I’m here.” A new voice entered the fray and when Jared jerked his eyes to the back of the room, he found a twenty-something man with brown eyes watching him dubiously.

  “You’re Carl, Jr.?” Mel asked.

  “I prefer going by Junior,” he said as he moved to the spot behind his mother. His eyes reflected suspicion as he glanced around the room. “May I ask what you gentlemen are doing here?”

  “It’s okay, Junior,” Fran chided. “They’re here to talk about your father. They were just asking simple questions.”

  “It’s not okay.” Junior was firm as he folded his arms across his chest. “I assume you’re looking to pin my father’s death on someone and my mother makes an enticing target. Well, let me tell you something, she’s innocent and I’m not going to let you railroad her.”

  “We have no intention of railroading her,” Mel reassured the young man. “We simply wanted to hear about your mother’s marriage to your father.”

  “It was an unhappy time,” Junior volunteered. “My mother is a saint, though, and works sixty hours a week. She didn’t kill my father.”

  Jared was impressed with Junior’s fortitude. Of course, if Fran was his mother, he would’ve gone overboard standing up for her, too. The woman had been through a terrible ordeal and yet she came out the other side refusing to blame anyone for the things she was forced to overcome. She was a pure soul, something Jared figured out five seconds upon meeting her.

  “We’re not accusing your mother,” Mel promised. “Since she didn’t regularly engage with your father, now seems like a weird time for her to finally get her revenge.”

  “Yes, well ... .” Junior remained suspicious as he grabbed the kettle and poured more hot water into his mother’s mug. “If you’re not here because she’s a suspect, why are you here?”

  “We were hoping she might have some information regarding your father’s enemies,” Mel replied. “It seems he had quite a few of them.”

  “That was something he took pride in,” Junior explained. “He always told me that he wasn’t doing his job correctly if he didn’t make someone want to kill him.”

  “That might be a colorful saying, but it creates a problem for us,” Jared noted. “We need to find out who hated him enough to kill him.”

  “I don’t know what to tell you.” Junior rested his hand on Fran’s shoulder. “My mother didn’t kill my father. She doesn’t have it in her.”

  “What about your relationship with your father?”

  “It was ... fairly normal,” Junior replied, tilting his head in consideration. “He wasn’t a bad guy where I was concerned. I only saw him one day a month, though. He would take me to the mall and buy me something on the fourth Saturday of each month. He thought that would mean he was my favorite because my mother couldn’t afford to buy me anything.

  “All that did was make me realize what he truly was,” he continued. “I didn’t dislike my father. I didn’t hate him. He was emotionally limited, though. He wasn’t an easy man to get along with. On top of that, my mother was the true parent. She’s the one who went to all my parent-teacher conferences.

  “She played with me when I was a kid, helped me with my homework, and sat with me when I had a broken heart as a teenager,” he continued. “She taught me right from wrong. My father had a more flexible moral code.”

  “Yes, we’ve heard about that flexibility,” Jared drawled. “Your father was considered a shark in divorce lawyer circles.”

  “That was a title he happily carted around. In fact, I believe the last set of business cards he purchased said exactly that.”

  Jared arched an eyebrow. “I see. What about your relationship with your father now? How would you describe it?”

  “Boring,” Junior replied without hesitation. “I saw him occasionally. I guess it would still be about once a month, but as I got older those visits moved from the mall to a restaurant. He would always pick an expensive one and buy me lunch. It was almost as if he was bragging.”

  “Did that bother you?” Mel asked.

  “Yes. I can’t remember when my mother last got to have an expensive meal.” Junior’s eyes momentarily fired. “I take her out for her birthday every year, but she always selects the cheapest thing on the menu because she doesn’t want to be a burden. I hate that my father did that to her.”

  “And yet you still spent time with him,” Jared noted.

  “He was my father.” For a brief moment, helplessness washed over Junior’s features. “I don’t know how to explain it. Part of me hated him. No, Mom, I often hated him.” He squeezed Fran’s hand when she made a move to protest the words. “It’s not easy for me to admit, especially since it probably makes me a suspect, but he wasn’t easy to deal with.”

  “He was still your father, though.” Jared understood the sentiment. “You saw him once a month, which probably means you weren’t very close. What were those meals like?”

  “I basically sat around and listened to him brag about how he screwed people in court,” Junior replied. “He got off on it. Winning was more important than money, but the money was really important, too. He couldn’t stop himself from bragging. It’s simply who he was.

  “When you compare that to my grandfather, a man who happens to believe justice is more important than winning, he becomes even more of a louse,” he continued. “My grandfather is a jerk in a different way. And, before you think I’m talking bad about him, I’ve told him that more than once. He thinks it’s funny when I stand up to him ... which is exactly why he’s still paying for my schooling.

  “I plan to pay him back,” he said. “I’ll make sure he gets every penny. For now, though, I have an uneasy relationship with him. It’s for different reasons than why I had an uneasy relationship with my father, though. I respect my grandfather. I tolerated my father.”

  The young man was soft-spoken and yet blunt. Jared liked that about him. “Did your father ever mention having enemies to you?”

  “He bragged about it. He was proud people hated him.”

  “I guess I’m more interested in him being worried about someone wanting to hurt him,” Jared hedged. “Whoever killed your father most likely issued the sort of threats that would cause chills instead of laughter.”

  “I understand what you’re saying.” Junior stroked his chin as he thought about it. �
��He didn’t mention anything at our last lunch. That was about two weeks ago. All he talked about at the time was the new woman he was seeing.”

  A sense of dread weighed down Jared’s shoulders. “And what did he say about her?”

  “I can’t really remember. Um ... her name was Gloria. He said she pretended to be forty-four, but she was really in her fifties. Apparently she was quite ... energetic. That’s the word he used to describe her.”

  “Did you meet her? What about the other women he dated?” Mel asked.

  “Oh, I met very few of Dad’s dates, although I’m familiar with Gloria’s name and fairly certain I’ve met her at various functions,” Junior replied. “I might’ve even met her at a party not too long ago, although I can’t be certain. If I did, it was brief.

  “I don’t particularly remember her offhand,” he continued. “As for my father’s dates, they were never around long enough for me to even remember most of them. He liked to brag about his sexual conquests, but I once saw he had a Viagra prescription — he pulled it out of his wallet once when trying to boast about all the money he had in there and didn’t notice me looking — so I figured those stories were mostly made up.”

  “That’s probably a good presumption,” Jared agreed. “The thing is, someone out there hated your father enough to kill him. It’s possible that one of his former clients — or more likely the ex-partner of one of his former clients — bided his or her time and then went after him when they thought the coast was clear. It’s more likely, though, that he upset someone recently and that’s who went after him.”

  “Are you looking at the girlfriend?”

  Jared cleared his throat, uncomfortable. “We’re looking at everyone right now. In fact, we’re about to pick up a warrant so we can go through your father’s case files. We don’t have a specific suspect right now. We hope that changes relatively quickly, though.”

  “I hope so, too,” Junior said. “The man was a lousy husband and an absent father, but he was still my dad. I don’t want anyone to get away with his murder.”

 

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