Rite of Wrongs (28 page)

S
IXTY
-T
HREE

Saturday, 8:00 p.m.

Sameen Shahidi announced her relationship to Gina Gardner as if she’d thrown a grenade. The words thudded to a stop, rendering everyone speechless. Melvin crossed his arms and sat back. Beside him, Ballard leaned forward and cursed in a huff of breath. Deputy Chief Judah stood silent, doing no more than shaking his head.

Miriam wondered if the others were surprised by Sameen’s admission. She’d been suspecting something like this for a while now and had a lot of questions ready. “Gina Gardner grew up in foster care. According to her husband, she never spoke of her family. Also, according to her husband, she didn’t know who her parents were.”

Sameen gave a nod. “She didn’t. Not until I found her. Not until she met me.”

“And how did that happen?” Melvin asked, lifting his gaze to Miriam as she walked around the table and stood in the corner of the room. Melvin was a great interrogator, and she wanted to see how this played out.

“I didn’t even know I had a sister until I was maybe ten,” Sameen said. “Gina would’ve been twenty-five or so. Our parents weren’t married—”

“Your last name.” It was Judah who interrupted. “Is it your mother’s? And your father’s was White?”

“Yes. To both,” she said, then went on. “They were addicts, our mom and dad. And alcoholics. They were sober most of the time I lived at home, but they weren’t always.”

Which corroborated what Warren Curry had said, though Miriam wondered about the mother’s activism in the light of her problem with alcohol and drugs.

“The substance abuse,” Melvin said, his focus on his notebook as he wrote. “That’s why Gina was taken away.”

Another nod from Sameen, her gaze cast down. “It was a long time before they were able to tell me about her. When I asked where she was, they admitted they had no idea. They didn’t know the name of the foster family she’d been placed with. They didn’t remember the name of the caseworker.”

She took a moment to brush her hair from her face, tucking it behind her ears. Her hand was trembling, her eyes tired and red. “I wasn’t old enough then to understand how the system worked, or know where to look to find out. But when I
was
old enough, and when I
did
know, then I began searching. I didn’t stop until I found her. And now I’ve lost her.”

At that, she buried her face in her hands, closing in on herself and leaning forward. Her shoulders shook while she cried, but she did so with very little noise, her sadness all the more cutting for its silence, filling the corners of the room.

Miriam gave her several minutes to mourn, then circled the table and pulled out the chair next to Melvin’s to sit. “Did you know she’d been killed before you left for this vacation?”

Sameen looked up, her face ravaged. “I heard it that afternoon on the news while I was at home.”

“And you left, anyway?”

“It’s
why
I left,” she said, the words a plea for understanding as much as an explanation. “She was my family. She was all I had.”

“What about your parents?” It was the first time Ballard had spoken.

She met his gaze, her shrug hopeless. “I don’t even know if they’re still alive. We fell out of touch a long time ago.”

“What about Jeff and the children?” Miriam asked.

Sameen frowned as if she didn’t understand the question.

“You don’t consider them family? You don’t think losing their sister-in-law, their aunt, as well as their mother might cause them additional grief?”

At that, Sameen looked down again, avoiding Miriam’s gaze. “Jeff doesn’t know I’m Gina’s sister.”

“What?” Melvin barked out the word Miriam was certain all of them were thinking.

“She didn’t want him to know.”

“Why not?” Miriam asked, the wheels in her head whirring.

“I belonged to her past, the part of her life she hadn’t told him about.”

“Tell me about the money,” Miriam said, setting aside Jeff and that familial connection for the moment. “The bank account. You bailed out Franklin’s bistro. You were helping Autumn with her private adoption. Obviously, you were doing this for Gina. Or because of Gina.”

Sameen gave a rapid shake of her head. “I don’t know anything about that.”

Melvin pointed at her with his pen. “We have the canceled checks with your signature.”

“Gina gave me the account when she sent me to nursing school. She made deposits occasionally and asked me to sign a couple of checks for when she needed to pull out money. I assumed she needed cash for some reason. I didn’t pay attention who the checks were written to. Gina was the one who balanced everything. I never even saw the statements.”

“If she gave you the account, why were you the only signatory?” No doubt Ballard’s interest stemmed from all the time he’d spent in the financial records related to the case.

“That’s what she wanted. I asked, and that’s all she said.”

Which brought them full circle, Miriam mused. “Because she didn’t want Jeff to find out the money existed? Or that she was spending it on the fosters? That she’d paid for you to go to nursing school? That you were her sister?”

Frowning again, Sameen twisted her hands together. “All she said was that she wanted the money protected.”

“Against what? From whom?” Miriam asked, and Sameen closed her eyes.

“He was going to divorce her,” she finally admitted, her voice catching on a sob. “But what she didn’t know was that he was going to marry me.”

At that, the room came alive. Chris Judah banged out the door. Ballard pushed to his feet. Melvin did the same, then circled his chair and took hold of the back. Miriam, still sitting, slammed her hand in the seat to keep him from throwing it across the room.

So much for Jeff Gardner’s claims of Gina being his everything. Of their never keeping secrets.

“Did he kill Gina?” she asked.

Sameen’s eyes flew open. “What? No! That’s insane. He would never do that. He’s not capable of doing that.”

“But he’s capable of cheating on his wife with her sister.”

“I told you. He didn’t know we were related. And it just happened.” She gestured weakly, so close to broken and hopefully—Miriam had her fingers crossed—to giving them everything. “It wasn’t anything we planned.”

“Did she know about the affair?” Melvin asked, returning to his chair.

A quick nod. “She told me Friday she wanted me gone. Not to come back to the clinic. Not to come back to Union Park.”

“Quitting wasn’t about a promotion, then,” Miriam said.

“No.”

“Then why take off after hearing she’d been killed? Her death solved all of your problems. You didn’t have to leave the clinic, the city, or her husband.”

Sameen stared at the table in front of Miriam rather than meeting her gaze. “I called Jeff that night. He was obviously distraught, and I knew that, but still he said some things . . .”

“What things?” Melvin prompted.

“He blamed me for her death. He said the message on the wall was from God.”

Melvin frowned. “That’s a strange leap to make. From adultery to honoring one’s parents?”

“He said his parents had taught him better. That our relationship hadn’t only ruined what he had with Gina, and with his children, but with his parents as well.”

Miriam looked at her partner, who appeared to be at a loss over that particular logic. “You said Gina put you through nursing school.” When Sameen nodded, Miriam went on. “Did Gina ask Jeff to give you a job?”

“No,” she said, huddling in on herself as if cold. “I met him during one of my clinical rotations. He volunteered several hours a week at Caring Hands. His uncle had lived there during his final years. He wanted to show his appreciation for how well he was treated.”

Miriam cursed foully under her breath. “Jeff was lying when he said he had never heard the name Dorothy Lacey.”

Sameen nodded. “He knew her. He learned about Gina’s abuse from her.”

“But not that the two of you were sisters.”

She nodded again in response to Miriam’s statement, then went on. “He talked about it with me because he couldn’t talk about it to her. It was horrible, knowing what she’d suffered, knowing her husband knew. They needed to talk. They should’ve just talked.” Tears ran down her face. “They let everything get so complicated. Their life was so good. Then I came along. She lied about me. He lied about me. He lied to her about not knowing where she’d come from. She lied to him about . . .”

“About what?” Ballard asked, pushing when Sameen went silent.

“Gina was . . . blackmailing Dorothy,” Sameen said, resigned, as if there was no longer any need to remain true to the promises she’d made to her sister. “She’d been doing so long before I found her. Dorothy had been paying her a thousand dollars a month to keep quiet.”

Ballard’s tone was as incredulous as the arch of his brow. “A thousand dollars a month? For thirty years?”

Sameen took a sip of the water Melvin had brought her when they’d first arrived. “It started when Gina was seventeen. Dorothy’s husband had inherited a small fortune at his father’s passing. And then he was dead, too, and Gina only wanted enough money to live on, to start a new life on. For herself and the others who’d lived there.”

Not
he died
, but
he was dead
. It was subtle, the difference in meaning, but it grabbed Miriam’s attention in a choke hold and wouldn’t let go.

“To keep quiet about what?” Melvin asked.

“Something Gina had seen.”

The something Carolyn and Darius had promised Gina not to reveal? The something that was responsible for Gina, Franklin, and Autumn’s deaths?

Melvin again: “And what was that?”

Just then, Miriam’s phone vibrated in her pocket. Her pulse was racing so fast, she nearly jumped out of her skin. She knew she wasn’t blinking—she might not have even been breathing—as she waited for what Sameen had to say.

Sameen looked from Miriam to Melvin to Ballard, then back. “She saw Dorothy kill her second husband.”

“Fuck me. I knew it.” Miriam spun away, biting off the words as she glanced at the text. It was from Augie.

All it said was:
@ CH. It’s Edward.

S
IXTY
-F
OUR

Saturday, 10:00 p.m.

“My son, hear the instruction of thy father, and forsake not the law of thy mother:

For they shall be an ornament of grace unto thy head, and chains about thy neck.

My son, if sinners entice thee, consent thou not.” Proverbs 1:8–10

The Scripture ran on a loop through Edward’s mind. He had never, not even once, forsaken his mother’s law. He had done everything she had ordered him to. He had never consented to the enticement of sinners, no matter how often she accused him of fornicating with his own wife.

But he hadn’t been able to hear his father’s instruction because he’d been dead.

By her hand.

And only now was he learning she’d killed Gordon’s father, too?

He loved her. He hated her.

She’d raised him. She’d ruined him.

She’d lied to him. She’d taken from him.

It was time to take from her.

He looked from the woman whose face had twisted into a grimace to his brother, holding Gordon’s gaze while he aimed for his thigh and pulled the trigger. His mother’s scream was a guttural sound, more gurgle than cry.

Gordon didn’t make any sound at all. He frowned, then his eyes grew wide and frightened, tears pooling in the corners. He tried to step back but hit the wall and slid to the floor, his hand pressed to the rush of blood pouring from his femoral artery.

The priest lunged forward, foul words spewing from his mouth, but Edward swung around and dug the gun barrel into his chest. The two men locked eyes, the priest breathing hard, and Edward saying, “Take my mother into the bathroom. I need her out of the way.”

Footsteps pounded down the hallway outside the apartment. Voices shouted. Fists pummeled the door. “Mrs. Lacey? Dorothy? Are you okay? What’s going on?”

Edward turned the gun on the door. The priest shouted, “No!” from across the room. Edward looked over, lowering the gun to the base of the door before he shot. Scrambling sounds came from outside as whoever had been near the room scattered. The priest just shook his head.

“Edward.” The old woman had recovered her voice enough to start giving orders from the restroom behind him. “You’ve got to help Gordon. He’s going to die if you don’t help him.”

He was going to die, period. That was the point. On the floor behind Edward, Gordon groaned. Edward motioned the priest closer. “Take off his belt—”

“He’s dying, you son of a bitch. He’s your brother—”

“Take off his belt. If you want to say a prayer over him, do it.” He gestured toward the room’s only extra chair, a straight wooden number pulled up to the small table meant for things like puzzles and cards. “Then you take off your belt, too, and sit there.”

While the priest did what he’d been told, Edward pulled a Ziploc bag from his suit’s inside coat pocket and removed his paintbrush, tossing it to the bed. Using his free hand, he tugged the bedframe from the wall, jerking hard when a leg caught on Gordon’s shoulder.

The priest looked up from his prayer. His expression was one Edward couldn’t remember ever seeing on the face of a man of God. It made him wonder how someone with so much vile hatred inside expected the heavenly father above to listen to anything he said.

Edward waved his gun at the man still on his knees. “Hurry up. I have to finish this before your friends show up to do their duty and stop me.”

“Finish what?” Father Treece asked, getting to his feet, one hand in his pocket, the other holding Gordon’s belt. “What are you trying to accomplish? What are you wanting to prove?”

“Get over there and sit.” He owed the priest no explanation, and once the other man was sitting, Edward used the two belts to bind his chest and arms to the chair. Then he used his own belt to bind the man’s ankles.

He could hear the sirens now, and more activity outside the door. The staff was probably clearing the rooms. Treating him like a random shooter. As if he didn’t have a clear motive for what he was doing. As if he would kill anyone and for no apparent reason—or so the so-called media and tragedy-hungry public would think . . . until investigators discovered some incoherent, rambling screed he’d posted to some online forum.

How insulting was that? To think he didn’t know exactly what he was doing. And why. It made him furious, but he was a pragmatist. He would do what he had to do. He didn’t need the whole world to understand his reasons.

The people who had wronged him knew. He had seen it in their eyes before they died. And he would see it when he finished the final three: Corky, Darius, and his mother.

Gordon was the only one who had died in the dark.

Edward pressed the heels of his palms to his temples. His head felt ready to explode. He should’ve told Gordon what he’d done wrong and why he had to die. He should’ve explained.

The priest had seen him execute his brother unfairly. He would never be able to ask for forgiveness. But forgiveness wasn’t what he wanted. He wanted retribution. And revenge.

He dipped his brush in his brother’s blood. He wasn’t going to be able to manage clean, straight lines this time. And he should be painting with his mother’s blood, not his brother’s. But Gordon had lived here for years, their mother paying his way with Edward’s money.

Ill-gotten gains. Gordon had benefited as much as the fosters had.

“Edward. Ed-wa-a-a-rd.”

Now she sobbed his name. Now she saw the truth of what she’d made of him, all those tasks she’d assigned him. Devilish tasks. As if he were as wicked as she.

Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old he will not depart from it. Proverbs 22:6

Hadn’t she done just that?

“Edward, let’s talk for a minute,” the priest said. “You never did tell me your sons’ names. Things are going to be hard enough on them, but if you stop now, if you give yourself up . . .”

Ignoring his mother’s visitor, Edward looked at the wall behind her bed. It was a long wall and clear of the pictures of garden gazebos torn from magazines that covered the others. As if his mother lay in bed and stared at the images and dreamed of an English country life.

Her words poured into his head along with the priest’s. He didn’t listen to either one, or to the voices outside the room, the sirens, the shouted orders, the screams. He tuned out everything until the Scripture’s first clause was done, and blood dripped down the wall from the letters.

Then he walked to the bathroom where his mother sat, sobbing in her chair. The room smelled of stale pine cleaner and an overly sweet floral soap. He stared at her until she stopped, until she looked up at him and said, “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”

“You’re not sorry.” Did she think he would believe that? “You’ve enjoyed every evil thing you’ve done in your life. Whether to your husbands, to the fosters, to Gordon. To me—”

“What did I ever do to you or to my poor Gordon?”

He would need to cut off Gordon’s hands and use his brother’s fingers as well as his own just to get started counting the litany of her crimes. “You did not love us. Let’s start there. You loved yourself. You’ve always loved only yourself.”

“That isn’t true,” she said. Then the fear she’d been trying to convince him she felt disappeared from her eyes, and she nearly shredded the arms of her wheelchair with her clawlike hands. “Go ahead. Kill me, too. You’ll never see a dime of the money.”

“I told you, I don’t care about the money.” He lifted the gun and moved toward her until the muzzle rested against the skin between her eyes. “You killed my father. And now you die.”

“Edward! Edward!” It was the priest again. “Let your mother go. Roll her chair into the hall; then you and I can talk. We’ll work something out. Do it now. Once the police get here, it will be too late.”

“It’s already too late,” he said, and fired.

In the mirror, he watched the back of his mother’s head open like a watermelon, flesh and blood and brains and bone spattering the reflection.

Finally. That was done. The relief he felt was like feathers, light on the air, tickling as they floated. Huh. He hadn’t expected that. He should’ve gotten rid of her long ago. This euphoria was incredible. His heart rejoiced.

Now, with her blood, he should be able to finish the verse. He didn’t have to worry about having a window of time. As much as he wished he’d been able to rid the world of the Prestons, too, it wasn’t going to happen. He knew that. He wasn’t going anywhere when he was done but to the same place he’d lived most of his life.

Hell.

And if his mother didn’t give up enough blood for him to finish, he could always use the priest’s.