Tell No One

by Taylor Sissel, Barbara

  On the porch, Caroline rang the bell and listened to it echo. Footsteps approached, light and quick. The woman who opened the door introduced herself. “I’m Julia,” she said.

  Caroline was speechless. She’d expected Julia to be blonde and curvy like Tricia, but this woman was tall and slender, a near wraith, with dark, silver-streaked hair and dark eyes that were finely drawn. She stood very straight and wore a loose caftan-type sweater over a knit turtleneck top. Her regard of Caroline was steady, even kind. The only hint of agitation came when she touched her throat. Caroline noticed she was trembling. That made two of them.

  “You must be Caroline,” she said, breaking the strained silence. She held open the screen door. “Won’t you come in?”

  Caroline followed her from the foyer into an expansive living area. A wall of windows overlooked a series of landscaped gardens, terraced beds that were bordered by less constrained plantings of spiny prickly pear and assorted agaves interspersed with native grasses now gone to seed. A man standing at the windows—obviously Harris—turned from the view and approached her. He was four years younger, forty-one, but he looked so haggard and drawn he might have been ten years older. He looked to Caroline as if he’d just come up from hell. Her heart dipped with something like compassion, but truthfully, her mind had been overtaken by a storm of mixed emotions. She and Harris exchanged names, and as if by mutual agreement, they didn’t shake hands.

  “Would you like something to drink?” Julia asked. “I’ve made coffee, or there are soft drinks, water . . .”

  “I’m fine,” Caroline said. “Thank you.”

  Julia and Harris sat down on the sofa opposite Caroline.

  Moments of silence built one upon another, a precarious tower.

  Caroline knotted her hands in her lap to hide their shaking. Across from her, Julia seemed diminished, bruised in a way that suggested long-term suffering. Maybe it was the result of Harris’s recent arrest, but Caroline was afraid her visit was responsible, that exactly as she’d feared, it had opened old wounds. “I’m not sure where to begin,” she finally said.

  Julia uncrossed and recrossed her legs. Harris set his elbows on his knees.

  They weren’t going to help her, Caroline thought. “I’m sorry to have waited so long to meet you. I regret it now.”

  “It’s all right,” Julia said.

  “You decorated a bedroom for me.” Caroline looked up, suddenly aware that bedroom was here, possibly right over her head. It occurred to her that had she been more amenable, she might have grown up tending the gardens, exploring the woods beyond them. She might have known this quiet, elegant woman.

  “Your father and I were always hopeful of enticing you to visit.”

  Caroline looked at Harris. “You didn’t mind that your mom remarried?” You weren’t jealous of me the way I was of you? That was what she meant.

  “No,” he said.

  “Harris has few memories of his birth father,” Julia cut in quickly. “It was such a blessing when Hoff came into our lives. He and Harris bonded right away. They were great together. I used to tease Hoff that he fell in love with Harris before he did with me.” Julia’s smile was warm and genuine.

  Caroline’s felt pasted on. Looking at Harris, she said, “Dad talked a lot about your talent on the football field, how much you loved the game, but I heard you coach baseball, right? At the high school in Wyatt?”

  “I did, yes.” Harris glanced at Julia, and after a moment, bringing his gaze back to Caroline’s, he said, “To be honest with you I’ve been in some legal trouble recently. The result of—well, I could say it was drugs—”

  “He’s not taking anything now—” Julia interrupted again.

  “I heard about it.” Caroline spoke over her, and maybe it was rude, being so direct, but Harris had introduced the subject, and she didn’t see the point in further small talk. “Steve Wayman is a friend of mine. He’s helping me with the search for my dad. That’s why I wanted to talk to you both. The fact is I should have come years ago, but I was afraid, and more recently—well, I didn’t—I didn’t want to rake up the past. It can be so painful—”

  Caroline stopped and waited for a response, but none was forthcoming. The Fentons regarded her, blank faced, stoic. She went on. “You know Lanie—my dad’s sister—she’s in the hospital, in the ICU right now, dying. She—she wants to see her brother, Hoff, you know, before—before it’s too late. We all lost touch, and I’ve been trying to find him with no luck. I wouldn’t have bothered you about it, but I literally have no place else to go, no one left to ask. So here I am.” She divided her gaze between Julia and Harris. “Do you know where Dad is?”

  “No,” Julia said.

  “Yes,” her son answered.

  “Harris!” Julia’s utterance of his name was a protest, a command.

  “We had a plan, Mom.” Harris kept Caroline’s gaze. “I’m so sorry to tell you—”

  “I shot him.” Julia spoke over Harris.

  Caroline looked at her, breath gone, head vacant. “You shot him?” The words seemed to echo in her brain.

  “I’m so sorry.”

  “I don’t understand.” Caroline jerked her gaze to Harris. “What is she saying?”

  “Hoff is dead,” Julia said, and her voice was eerily flat. “I killed him.”

  “Mom!” Harris was warning her. “You don’t have to—”

  “This is how it will be!” She addressed him sharply.

  He slumped forward, elbows on knees, head hanging.

  Caroline watched them; she heard them, but they might as well have been speaking in a foreign language. She couldn’t grasp the import of their words. Her breath was shallow, and her heart was beating too fast. She put her hand over it, moved it to her throat. She’d never fainted in her life, and she refused to do it now.

  Julia said, “You were estranged from him.”

  Caroline looked at her. Was that an accusation?

  “He missed you horribly. It was awful to see, his heartbreak over—oh—” Julia pushed herself to stand. She paced to the window. “I sound as if I’m blaming you, and it’s not that at all. You know he fell at the stadium in Omaha. You were what? Sixteen?”

  “What does it matter how old I was?” Caroline demanded. “My God! You killed him? Are you insane?”

  “Please, if you could just hear me out.” Julia spoke quickly. “He was never the same after that fall, but you couldn’t have known because you weren’t here. I’m not accusing you. It’s just a fact, okay?”

  Caroline fought to keep her composure, her wits. She made herself breathe.

  “I wanted to go to him, but he forbade me. I found out later he had a girlfriend, Tricia. Maybe you know that he was cheating on me?”

  Caroline nodded curtly. “I met her.”

  “Then you know Tricia was younger, and possibly that’s why Hoff trusted her with his care. His excuse to me at the time was that he didn’t want me burdened with his disabilities.” Remembered anger sharpened Julia’s tone. “It wasn’t until January, a month after his discharge from the rehab facility, that he came back here. But he wasn’t the same man. He smoked. He’d always liked a beer, but he switched to hard liquor—a lot of it. But the worst thing was his temper. Every little thing set him off. He wouldn’t see a doctor, so I went myself to a neurologist.” Julia paused, voice cracking. She flattened her fingers over her mouth. “I described the man Hoff had been, gentle, fun loving, and caring, the best husband, a wonderful father to Harris—” She stopped again, anguish thick in her voice.

  Liar! The word burned on Caroline’s tongue, but some element in Julia’s demeanor prevented her from speaking it. Her grief over the telling was dark in her eyes. It was etched into the grooves that bracketed her cheeks. There was her frailty. Her bones were nearly as visible as Lanie’s. Her skin was translucent. Caroline crossed her arms over her middle, holding herself tightly.

  Julia went on. “The neurologist couldn’t be specific without se
eing Hoff, but he said a head injury as severe as the one Hoff sustained could alter areas in his brain that controlled his impulses and emotional balance, the parts that essentially made Hoff who he was. The doctor advised that the changes might be temporary, but it was just as possible they were permanent. He recommended Hoff find a psychiatrist.” She paused as if she were steeling herself for whatever she would say next. “When I came home and suggested it, Hoff shoved me up against the wall, hard enough to rattle my teeth, and told me to mind my own business.”

  Caroline stared at the floor. Shut up! She would have screamed it, but her tongue was useless, thick and dry in her mouth.

  “He once dislocated her shoulder,” Harris said.

  “He fixed it, though,” Julia said. “He knew exactly what to do.”

  Was she defending him? Proud of him? A man who had assaulted her? Caroline was appalled. Were Harris and Julia really talking about her dad?

  “Sometimes he was sorry too.” Harris’s tone, his expression, was some mix of anger, defense, and remorse. “But never sorry enough to stop. Mom asked him—we both wanted him to leave. I don’t understand why he didn’t, why he stayed—he was so pissed all the time. No one could do anything right.”

  “I’ve always thought he was scared,” Julia said.

  Scared of myself, for myself . . . The line from her dad’s letter fell through Caroline’s mind, a brick through water. Had she been wrong to suspect his fear was related to his involvement in Tillman’s athletic scheming? Had he instead been frightened of the man he’d become after his head injury? Had he been aware of the monstrous changes within himself and powerless against them? It would be terrifying, she thought. Even hearing about it was terrifying. Her brain kept trying to rebel. She wanted to wake up, wanted to run.

  “I knew I had to do something when he went after Harris,” Julia said, and she was speaking now in a kind of robotic monotone. But her eyes were jumpy, and she was continuously rubbing her left thumb over her right palm. “I knew we couldn’t live that way any longer. Hoff was bound to kill one or both of us.”

  “You didn’t call the police?”

  “Are you kidding?” Harris asked. “Once I spilled my glass of milk at the dinner table, and he ordered me to clean it up, but then he didn’t like how I was doing it, and he grabbed the mop I was using and broke it across my back. What the hell do you think he’d have done if we’d called the cops on him?”

  “I don’t know! I just want the truth!” Caroline was on her feet now. She switched her attention to Julia. “Tell me”—Caroline hurled the demand at her—“when you shot my dad, did you do it to keep him from killing Harris?”

  “Hoff attacked him. He had Harris in a headlock. I—”

  “When?” Caroline flung her hand in the air. “How long ago did it happen? Harris was young, wasn’t he? Just a kid—? Were you ever going to tell me?”

  Julia looked away.

  “It happened in November,” Harris said in a flat voice. “The day before Thanksgiving in 1989.”

  “In 1989.” Caroline repeated it softly. “That long ago, and in all these years, you never once thought about what Lanie and I were going through?” Her voice rose again, becoming shrill. She was shaking and gripped her upper arms. “Do you have any idea how difficult it’s been, the sheer hell it’s been, not knowing where in this world he was?” Caroline locked Julia’s eyes. “My God! Lanie called you. It was early in 1990. She told you she’d filed a missing person report, asked you if you’d seen him, heard from him, and you lied—”

  “You have to understand—”

  “Understand what, Julia? That you killed my dad and never told us?” Caroline grabbed her purse. Her head swam when she straightened, and she locked her knees.

  “He had his hands around her neck,” Harris shouted, coming to his feet. “He was going to kill her.”

  Caroline stared at him. “What did you say?”

  “Harris! Stop.” Julia came away from the window. “If we could sit down, if you could give me a chance to explain.”

  But Caroline was done. She didn’t care what more they had to say. She’d heard enough. She walked swiftly from the room, bent on leaving, but flinging open the front door, she was astonished to find a man standing there. It was a moment before she recognized him. “Steve?” Her heart faltered.

  “Harris called me.” He looked past Caroline, and following his gaze over her shoulder, she saw Harris standing, white faced and quiet, in the arched living room doorway. Julia stood behind him. Her agitation and grave alarm were palpable.

  Caroline turned back to Steve, knees weak in her relief at his presence. “Julia shot my dad.”

  “Why don’t I come in.” He spoke gently, but it was the note of authority in his tone that calmed her.

  She stepped away from the door, and she allowed it when Steve slipped his hand beneath her elbow. They followed Harris and Julia back into the living room, and when Steve said they should sit, they obeyed him. Caroline resumed her place on the sofa she’d deserted minutes ago. Steve sat beside her, a cushion away. Harris and Julia sat on the opposite sofa.

  Caroline addressed Steve, her confusion apparent. “Why did Harris call you? What is happening? I don’t understand any of this.”

  Reaching over, he put his hand on her arm. “I know this is really hard for you, Caro, but I think if you can let me handle it, we might get your questions answered more quickly.” He held her gaze, waiting for her to acquiesce, and when she didn’t, he said, “There are legal considerations here, statutes that may still apply. Do you understand what I’m saying? I think that’s why Harris called me.”

  “You know Julia shot my dad? He told you?”

  “Harris explained a bit about what was involved when he phoned me earlier this morning. I called you, but you didn’t answer.”

  Caroline pulled her phone from her purse and saw it had been silenced. By accident, she thought. Maybe when she’d stowed it in her purse earlier. Turning it on, she saw there was a call from Steve and a voice mail too. Returning the phone to her purse, she met his gaze. “Did Harris tell you his mother shot my dad?”

  “He only said your dad had been killed here and that there were extenuating circumstances. He asked if I could be here—”

  “I asked him to come because I trust him,” Harris said.

  Caroline looked at him. Her heart pounded in her ears. “I don’t understand any of this.”

  “I think Deputy Wayman’s concern is that, depending on the facts, a murder charge could be made,” Julia said in her monotone voice. “It doesn’t matter how long ago it happened; there’s no statute of limitations on murder, is there, Deputy Wayman?”

  “You shot Dad on purpose?” Caroline was horrified.

  “No,” Julia said.

  “Julia, Harris”—Steve looked between them—“you understand you can have an attorney present, that it might be best in this situation if you did.”

  The two exchanged a glance. More than that, some kind of private dialogue took place, one only they could understand.

  They’re protecting each other. The thought surfaced in Caroline’s mind.

  “There’ll be time for that later,” Harris said.

  “Julia?” Steve asked.

  “I just want to explain.” She seemed resigned.

  “All right,” Steve said.

  “When it happened”—Julia found Caroline’s gaze—“Harris was so young, not yet thirteen. I was afraid of what would become of him if I was arrested. His birth father was abusive. I left him when Harris was six. My parents were dead, killed in a motorcycle accident when I was four. I was raised in the foster care system, bounced from one home to the next. It was a nightmare. I couldn’t bear the thought that my child would be forced into it too.”

  “It wasn’t a matter of her getting yelled at or hit once in a while.” Harris sat forward, ignoring his mother’s whispered protest. “She was made to do things—sexually.”

  The word sat a
mong them, tainting the air.

  Caroline’s heart broke a little.

  “It was only in two of the homes.” Julia spoke to her knees.

  “In one of them, the wife watched.” Harris’s gaze remained fixed on Caroline. Did she get it? he seemed to ask. Did she understand the magnitude of the cruelty his mother had endured?

  “I couldn’t let it happen to Harris,” Julia said. “I did think of telling the police what I’d done when he turned eighteen, but he was still struggling with Hoff’s . . . loss, and I was afraid—I’ve always been afraid to—to not be . . . nearby, in case he needed . . .” She didn’t finish.

  Steve interrupted. “Let me stop you here, Julia, and ask you once again: Are you sure you don’t want to call an attorney? I can pretty well guarantee from what I’ve heard already that I’m going to have to take you both in for further questioning. No doubt there’ll be an investigation.”

  “I understand,” Julia said. “I don’t want an attorney.”

  “Mom—” A low note of warning lay deep in Harris’s voice.

  “No, Harris. Let me tell it. It’s the only reason I’ve agreed to this, to speak at all.” Julia was adamant. “You promised.”

  What had he promised? Caroline wondered.

  He shot her a glance, one that was at once infuriated and bleak.

  He would lose his mother after this. Julia could well end up in prison. But Caroline had little sympathy. At least Harris would know where his mother was; at least he could visit her.

  “You know I work at the high school in Wyatt?” Julia addressed Caroline.

  “Yes,” she answered. “You’re a guidance counselor.”

  Julia nodded. “So that day school let out early because of the holiday. I remembered I’d forgotten cranberries and stopped at the grocery store. It was mobbed, and I was late getting home. Ordinarily, Hoff wouldn’t have been there that time of year. With the football season in full swing, he’d have been on the road, scouting. But since his head injury, he hadn’t resumed his schedule. He’d actually talked about changing careers, maybe going into coaching. He had a teaching certificate.”