A Crying Shame: A Jesse Watson Mystery (29 page)

“I’m not little, I’m…”

A loud noise from the other room silenced Benny and startled
the rest of us.

“What was that?” Mom asked. “I just put Maisy in her crib,
but after that noise, she’s wide-awake.”

Maisy started to cry.

“Where’s her pacifier?” Claire asked.

I looked in the crib, picked up the blanket, and found it. “Here,”
I said, handing it to Mom as fast as I could.

I was sure that Brian had come here to get his child. Even
though he had just found out that Benjamin Beard was Maisy’s father, he still
loved her and wasn’t about to give her up. He probably believed the paternity
test was a fake and feared that now that Vicki was gone, the doctor would use
this information to try to take his child from him. But why? If the doctor
killed Vicki to shut her up, why would he now claim that he is the father? It
could only hurt his career and destroy his marriage. Maybe he killed Vicki for
another reason. Was it office rape? Maybe it had nothing to do with the fact
that he wanted the child. The child might be a testament to the fact that he
had done something like this before. Perhaps Vicki threatened to go public with
the information. Could the good doctor have assaulted Vicki in his office and
was now trying to cover it up. How can we be sure that there was ever an affair
going on between them? And if his sick habit of raping his patients became
public, others might come forward and testify to the fact that the doctor had
done this to them. Are paternity tests 100% accurate? Perhaps the test wasn’t
accurate, but the doctor believed it was.

Why would Benjamin Beard want to take Maisy away from Brian?
Vicki was dead and their secret should’ve died with her, until that test fell
into the wrong hands. One simple mistake made by an office girl was about to
change the lives of so many. Actually, I was guessing at what was going through
Brian’s mind and the doctor’s, but I knew that if it were me, I’d be upset at
first, and then I’d question everything. I’d never settle for a piece of paper
controlling my life. I should’ve been born in
Missouri
, because you have to show me everything. You have to prove
it to me before I’d take anyone’s word about something so important. Maybe,
Brian felt the same way. Perhaps the doctor wanted to get Maisy and send her
away. If he was so determined to find out the child’s paternity, he obviously
had something to hide. But what was it? Was Maisy the evidence that could put
him away? Suddenly, it all became clear to me. I’d bet money on the fact that
the doctor probably gave Vicki some kind of tranquilizer, had sex with her in
his office, and she subsequently became pregnant. She probably had no idea what
happened at the time. But he knew and when she discovered what he had done, she
became a liability. That’s it! Vicki and Brian probably did have a good
marriage until Benjamin Beard literally screwed that up with his sexual
depravities. He was a morally corrupt sex pervert! And maybe I had strayed off
the beaten path. My mind does have a tendency to wander. Still, my gut feeling
told me I might be on to something. I would discuss this with Billy.

A loud thump snapped me out of my stupor.

“What was that? Are they fighting out there?” Isabel asked.

“I don’t know what’s going on, but we’re not leaving this
room,” Sarah said. “Get your gun, Jesse. We might need it. I’ve been in a bad
situation like this before, and I want us to be prepared.”

“You’re absolutely right,” I said, walking over to the
dresser. I bent down and picked up my purse off the pile of duffle bags it had
been sitting on and fished through it for my gun. I found the gun, removed it
and stuffed it in my jeans.

“You look like one of those bad guys on TV,” Benny said.
“They always stuff the gun in their pants. Aren’t they afraid it might go off
and blow off their private parts?”

Everyone laughed.

“You know, Benny, I wondered about that myself.”

“Then maybe you should stuff it somewhere else.”

“Perhaps you’re right. Unfortunately, I have no place else to
put it.”

“Stick it in the back. Then if it goes off, you’ll only blow
off your butt.”

I broke out in an uncontrollable laugh.

“Hush,” Mom said. “I’m scared and you’re laughing.”

“Don’t be scared, Grandma,” Benny said. “I’ll protect you.”

We heard another loud crash.

“Thanks, sweetie, I know you will, but right now, the only
thing I can think about is what’s going on out there. It sounds like they’re
fighting.”

“I hope they don’t break anything of value,” Abby said.

“The only thing of real value we have in this house is each
other,” I said. “Family is what really matters.”

“That’s so sweet,” Claire said. “I think I’m going to cry.”

“Don’t cry, Mommy,” Carrie said. “I’ll cry, too.”

Another loud noise echoed throughout the house.

“I can’t stand it any longer,” I said. “I’m going out there.
It’s four against one. What could possibly be so hard about subduing one guy?”

“Now see here, Missy,” Mom said. “You are not leaving this
room until they tell us we can. Look at you. You have a cast on your arm and
you’re pregnant. You’re at a disadvantage.”

“But she has a gun, Grandma,” Benny said. “She can shoot
him.”

“Now see what you’ve done,” Claire said. “You’ve got Benny
thinking it’s all right to shoot someone.”

“Cool it, Claire. He’s a smart kid. He knows it’s not all
right to shoot someone unless you’re protecting your family. Don’t you, Benny?”

“Yeah,” he answered. “Just like that time you shot those two
bad people.” He looked at his mother. “They broke into Ant Jess’s house and
tried to hurt you Mama, remember?”

Claire started to cry. “See, Jesse. Kids remember those kinds
of things.”

“That’s right, Claire, they do. And one day it might just
save their life.”

“You’re crazy! What’s the matter with you, Jesse? You’re
telling my son that it’s okay to kill someone. Have you lost your mind?”

“Wake up, Claire. Benny knows the difference between right
and wrong. Don’t you, son?” He shook his head in agreement. “See, he knows not
to hurt someone. He knows that guns are dangerous and should only be handled by
someone with experience. He knows it’s not a toy, and he knows it’s not right
to shoot someone unless it’s in self-defense.”

“That’s right. Self-defense, Mama,” Benny agreed. “Mama, I
know that I’m never, ever supposed to touch a gun. Uncle Billy told me so. He
said I had to be a man before I touch a gun.”

“Are you happy, now?” I asked her.

“I’m sorry, Jesse, but sometimes you worry me with the stuff
you come up with. You don’t realize how impressionable young children are.”

“Jesse has a good head on her shoulders,” Abby said. “She
knows a lot more than you think. She just has a strange way of showing it.”

“We all have our own idiosyncrasies,” Sarah added. “Take my
husband, for example. He predicts the future, and most of the time he’s right.”

“Terrific,” Abby said as she clapped her hands together. “I
guess that means she’s going to marry my son.” She hugged Claire. “Welcome to
the family, dear.”

“Abby, I hate to break your heart, but I’m not going to marry
your son. I must admit that he’s a wonderful guy. He’s good-looking, and he has
a great sense of humor, but I’m engaged to Cole.”

“That’s never going to materialize, dear,” Abby replied. “I
can see it in your eyes. You want to love Cole for whatever reason, but he’s
not the man for you. The chief was right. You will not marry Cole. I feel it in
my bones.”

“Oh, hush, Abby,” Isabel said. “You’re always feeling
something in your bones. I’m surprised that they’re not worn out. You don’t
know squat.”

We all laughed—even Abby did, too.

“I guess you could be right,” she said.

A twist of the door handle and a loud bang on the door
silenced us.

I walked over to the door and put my ear to it. “Who is it?”
I asked.

“It’s me, Jesse,” Frank said. “Can you come out for a minute,
alone?”

I assured everyone in the room that I would be right back as
soon as I checked out the situation and for them to sit tight. I opened the
door, stepped into the hallway and then closed the door behind me. “What is it,
Frank?” I asked as I walked to the end of the hallway and peeked around the
corner. I saw a man covered in blood and handcuffed to a kitchen chair. The
kitchen chair was handcuffed to a table leg.

“We had to subdue him,” Frank said. “He was out of control.”

“Let me go,” the man yelled. “You have no right to treat me
like this.”

Flashbacks of my incarceration at the hands of a killer
swirled through my head. I got a sickly feeling in my stomach and immediately
drifted back to the time when I was hijacked by a teenager with a gun. I was
then locked up in the bedroom of a dead girl whose father was seeking
retaliation for her death, and I was the object of his revenge.

“Turn him loose,” I yelled. “You’ve tied him up like a
criminal.”

“Get real,” Cole said, walking up to me. “You have no idea
what this man has done. Look at him, Jesse. He’s got blood all over him.”

“Are you Brian?” I asked as I walked over to him.

“Yes, I am,” he said. “I came to pick up Maisy and they
attacked me. I want my baby! Now let me go! She needs to be with her family…
her father. I want to take my child home.”

“I don’t think we can let you do that,” I said. “What
happened at the doctor’s house?”

“That’s none of your business.”

“It might not be any of my business, but I can assure you
that you’ll have to tell your story to someone and it might as well be me.
Maybe we can help you. Did you go over there with the intention of killing
him?”

“I went over there to talk to him,” Brian said. “I got a fax
from his office about Maisy.”

“And what did the fax tell you?” I already knew the answer,
but I wanted to see if he would tell me the truth. Hopefully, he would.

“It was a copy of a paternity test.” Brian hung his head and
tears started rolling down his cheeks. “It said that Maisy wasn’t my daughter.
I couldn’t understand why the doctor would have a paternity test run to begin
with. When I looked at the document closer I found out that it was Benjamin
Beard’s
DNA
that was tested against Maisy’s. It
wasn’t just a routine doctor’s signature—his name was listed as a match. I
figured there’d been some sort of mistake, but I had to confront him. I wanted
to know why his office would send me a fax telling me I wasn’t Maisy’s father.
We got into an argument and that escalated into a fight. I picked up a vase and
broke it over his head. When I heard sirens, I took off. I think I killed him.”

“He’s not dead,” Cole said. “That call I got at the dinner
table was from Sheriff Hudson. He said that Dr. Beard was attacked and was
taken to the hospital. He’s going to get a few stitches in his head, but other
than that, he’s going to be all right.”

“He deserves to die for what he did!” Brian yelled. “He told
me he had sex with my Vicki in his office. He said she was all over him, that
she forced herself on him. He said that he didn’t have a choice, because she
threatened to tell his wife that they were having an affair if he didn’t give
her what she wanted. I knew it was a lie. Anyone who knows Vicki knows that she
wouldn’t behave like that. That’s just plain crazy! The whole idea makes me
sick. He said he didn’t know anything about a paternity test, but I had the
paper in my hand, so he couldn’t deny the truth. Then it came to me like a bolt
of lightning. Just before Vicki got pregnant we had a time where things weren’t
so good in our marriage. Problems started the day she came home from a routine
OB/GYN checkup at his office. She was withdrawn and irritable. I asked her what
was wrong and she said there was nothing wrong. But I knew there was. For two weeks
after that she barely talked to me. She wouldn’t let me touch her. She even
slept in another room for a while. After about a month, she started coming
around. She was back to her old self. Then we found out that she was pregnant.
We were so happy. When that doctor said he had sex with Vicki, it was like a
revelation that hit me. If he had sex with my wife, then he raped her! It all
hit me at once and I wanted to kill him!”

“You realized that Beard raped your wife and you wanted to
kill him,” I repeated what he had said. “That’s understandable.”

“He raped my wife, got her pregnant, and after the baby was
born, he killed her. He killed my wife to shut her up and he’ll probably get
away with it, but he won’t take my daughter.”

“The test showed that Dr. Beard is Maisy’s father. That’s a
hard thing to accept.” I put my hand on his shoulder. “You were out of your
mind with grief, Brian. You were justified in your actions.”

“I don’t think that’s going to cut it,” Frank said. “I’d say
that Brian was temporarily insane when he went to Beard’s house. He flipped out
when he got the fax and didn’t know what he was doing.”