Peggy Holloway - Judith McCain 02 - Portrait on Wicker (7 page)

On the third night, after Tracy left for Florida, we
got the call in the middle of the night. It was the sheriff’s department of St. John’s County in St. Augustine. They were trying to locate Julia. They hadn’t been able to reach her at her condo in New Orleans. She had given Mimi’s number in case of emergency.

At 3:00 a.m.,
I heard the phone ring and Mimi answer. “What? Oh, my God, no!”

I ran to Mimi’s room expecting to hear bad news about Julia.
She had attempted suicide once while in psychiatric treatment before.

When I got to her room, Mimi was lying face down on her bed crying so hard she was shaking.
I put my arms around her and she turned her head onto my shoulder and wept.

I was afraid to ask
, but she finally said, “Julia’s beach house has been burned to the ground. An accelerant was used. It was arson. They found two bodies but no positive identification has been made. There were a man and a woman in two of the bedrooms.”

We held each other and cried for what seemed like forever.
Then Mimi said, “We have to tell Mark.”

“I’ll do it Mimi.
Mark and Brad are going to be devastated.”

Mark came to the door fastening his jeans.
It was all he wore. He took one look at my face and broke down and started crying.

“How,” he said when he
had calmed down some.

“They believe it was a
rson. They haven’t finished the investigation but they do know an accelerant was used. There hasn’t been a definite identification…”

“Son of a bitch,” he yelled, “I told her not to stay there…”

I watched as sweet gentle Mark proceeded to destroy everything he could get his hands on. Mark, the man who had held me all night while I slept when I was a scared sixteen year old.

I would have let him destroy the house just to get his emotions out
, but there was Brad to consider. He came down stairs rubbing his eyes.

When he looked at his dad he looked scared to death.
I ran to him and picked him up. I carried him to our house and tried to put him down but he clung to me.

“What’s wrong with
d-d-daddy?” He cried. I looked at Mimi and she shook her head.

I took him into the kitchen and began making hot chocolate.

“Is it time for breakfast?” He asked.

“No, I just thought you’d like to have some cocoa.”
I had him distracted for the moment and decided not to mention Mark until he brought him up.

He pulled a chair up to the counter top and stood on it to help me
. He looked so sweet and innocent it broke my heart. I wished I could hold him and take away all the pain to come but knew there was nothing I could do.

By the time Brad was finished with his hot chocolate he was nodding off and I took him to bed with me.
We left Mimi dozing on the couch. Sometimes when a person has had news that’s impossible to deal with, they numb out and sleep. It’s partly shock.

We didn’t stir until almost noon
the next day, and we hadn’t heard from Mark. We went to break the news to Julia. We would talk to her psychiatrist and see what he said first.

Dr. McKinsey was Julia’s psychiatrist and his approach was altogether different from Dr. Anna Stevens which was why I chose him.
He was tough and was more of a cognitive/behaviorist.

We met with him in his office after leaving Brad with Julia.
He was coloring her a picture. She had looked at us with questions in her eyes but didn’t ask any questions.

“Look, Julia already knows something is going on.
I think it’s better if you go ahead and tell her,” Dr. McKinsey said after we told him about Tracy.

“She’s doing extremely well about opening up and not bullshitting me.
I really think she can handle this. She will be able to grieve here where she has major support from the other patients and staff.”

He was right.
We told her, and we all cried together, after leaving Brad at the nursing station drawing a picture for one of the nurses. We still hadn’t told Brad anything and decided to wait and let Mark tell him.

When we got home Mark’s car was gone so we took Brad inside our house and made sandwiches.

“I want peanut butter and jerry,” Brad said. After he ate a few bites he put the sandwich down on the plate and started out the front door.

I hurried after him.
“Hey, Brad, where are you going?” I said.

“I have to talk to daddy.” He said opening the front door.

I picked him up and closed the door. “We’ll see him later. I don’t think he’s there right now.”

By 10 p.m. Mark was still not home
, so we got Brad ready for bed.

“You want to sleep with me Brad?”
I asked.

“Oh, all right Aunt Judith.
But I have to go home tomorrow. Daddy might need me for something.”

It broke my heart looking at him.
He was so sweet and innocent.

After Brad fell asleep, I went back downstairs and found Mimi in the kitchen.
I’ve never seen her so angry.

“Where in the world can Mark be?
I can’t believe he would leave his little boy like this, after busting up his house like he did. I just went over there and looked. He’s made a mess and it’s after eleven. He’s not home nor has he let anyone know where he is…”

While she ranted and raved in this way
, I put on some coffee and got out the cups, cream and sugar. When it was ready, I was pouring us a cup when we heard Mark’s car pull in front of our house.

When he came in he was drunk.
He walked in and slammed the front door. Coming into the kitchen, he took one of the bar stools and slung it against the wall.

Mimi lit into him
“How dare you,” she said. “You don’t get to indulge in your temper tantrums. I know you’re hurting, but so are we all. You have a little boy up there that needs you. He knew something was wrong before his daddy disappeared. We finally got him to sleep and I won’t allow you to come in here, in the middle of the night, and wake him up to make yourself feel better.”

She took a deep breath and
before Mark or I could say anything she continued, “I’ve never known you to be selfish, Mark. Go home and sleep off whatever it is you’ve been drinking and come back in the morning so we can figure out what we’re going to do about this situation. Oh, and by the way, clean up that mess before Brad sees it.”

Without another word, Mark turned to go.
I ran after him and asked what he planned to do. He looked at me like I had lost my mind.

“I’m going afte
r the son-of-a-bitch of course,” he said before gently closing the door.

CHAPTER 16

Mark asked me to be there when he told Brad about his mom. I took Brad over the next morning after giving him pancakes for breakfast.

Mark had cleaned up the house and the three of us went into the den.
Mark began by telling Brad how much he loved him.

“I love you too dad, but I’ve got to get ready for school.”

Mark took Brad on his lap and said, “No school today Brad. I have something to tell you and you need to be a big brave boy.”

“I’m a big brave boy
, daddy.”

“I know you are, son.
I have to tell you that mommy is not coming home…”

Before he finished Brad jumped down from his daddy’s lap and grabbed his teddy bear and started hitting it.

“She promised me she would be back. She promised me. I told her she should take me with her.”

I could see tears in Mark’s eyes and he looked to me with a pleading look in his eyes.
I picked Brad up and started gently rocking him.

“Do you know about heaven, Brad?”
I asked.

“That’
s where you go if you’re good,” he recited. “That’s what my teacher said.”

“That’s right.
And your mommy was very good wasn’t she?”

“Sh
e went to heaven? Oh, that’s okay, then. When will she be back?”

“When you go to heaven you don’t come back.
I’m sorry, Brad. We will all miss her.”

His little arms went around me and he clung to me.
Mark came over and put his arms around both of us. We all three wept. I knew it was the beginning of the healing process but it would take some time.

Mark had Tracy’s body shipped back to Houston and we prepared for her funeral.
Brad was a changed little boy, but I hoped he would be back to himself eventually. Julia was allowed a pass from Westpark. My best friend, Ben, came to support me. It had been awhile since I had seen Ben. He was still working offshore but Mark was still trying to talk him into joining McCain Oil. I think he was pretty close. We went through the routine of daily life for a few days afterwards. Brad returned to school and tried to concentrate on his school work.

CHAPTER 17

Mark went to see Tracy’s boss, Alan Coleman.
When he came home he asked me if I would go somewhere and have coffee with him. We went to a small coffee shop in Montrose.

After taking the first sip of coffee he looked at me and said, “I don’t see any progress in this investigation, Judith.
It took all I could do to not to tear Tracy’s boss apart. He sat there in his plush office telling me they’ve done all they can. They have no leads and they didn’t find anything in the remains of the house to connect anyone to the arson.

“I don’t know, Judith.
I think there’s some major covering up going on. I need to look into this myself. I’m leaving for St. Augustine tonight.”

“What about Brad?
I’ve seen how he clings to you since losing his mother.”

“He’s also been clinging to you and to Mimi.
I’ve talked to Mimi and she’s going to have him live at the big house with her. She’s also bringing in a nanny. You know her. Her name is Jesse Evert.”

“Jesse?
You mean Jesse from Dave Boudreau’s?”

He was laughing.
“I caught you off guard on that one, didn’t I? Yes, one and the same. What you don’t know is that after Dave’s house was closed down and Dave and the girls served their time, a judge by the name of Chester Gadsby started a program to help former hookers…”

“Wait, wait,” I interrupted him.
“What about Dave?”

Dave was the person who had picked me up
, at the bus station, when I was a fifteen year old runaway. He had inherited his parent’s house in the Garden district of New Orleans.

Dave basically has
a good heart and wanted to help young girls but he also wanted to make some money in the process. He carefully chose the girls he took in and wouldn’t take in any seasoned hookers. He had taken in three other girls besides me.

He also had a drug business on the side and I was a drug runn
er for him but, being a naïve fifteen year old, straight from the backwoods of Georgia, I didn’t realize all those trips to the park, exchanging paper bags with other kids and old men, were drug runs.

I had met Mark there when h
e came to be my date for Mardi gras. He had known who I was before I did myself and he had begun to unravel the puzzle from one end while I was unraveling it from the other.

It was during the trial
, when the DA was trying to prosecute Mr. Reynolds for the murder of mine and Julia’s parents and our kidnapping that I found out that Mark was my uncle.

Anyway, getting back to Dave, I was to have my first “John” one night and he turned out to be a cop.
We were all arrested and Dave’s house had been closed down. Since I had been under age at the time, I had ended up in a run-away shelter where I ran away and stole a car. I had eventually ended up with the Lessiters and ran again after Mr. Lessiter tried to rape me.

“Dave has co
mpletely turned his life around,” Mark continued. “He now uses his house for a placement service for former hookers who are trying to have a more normal life.”

I was amazed.
“This is wonderful news. When will Jesse be here?”

“She’s coming in l
ater on this afternoon. Dave called me earlier today and told me all about his business. He’s so proud of himself. He called to ask if I had any work for any former hookers. This couldn’t have happened at a better time.”

“I can’t wait to see Jesse.
I don’t know what I would have done if she hadn’t taken me under her wing all those years ago. I want to see Dave while we’re in New Orleans too.”

“Does that mean you’re going with me?”

“It does, but I need to arrange for someone else to see my patients while I’m gone. None of them are in crisis right now, so it shouldn’t be a problem. This judge sounds promising. He sounds like someone we can trust.”