Truth-Stained Lies (8 page)

T
he police came to Juliet’s at noon that day, pushing through the local media that had set up shop on the sidewalk. Juliet saw them coming and ordered Zach to take Jackson upstairs to watch a movie.

As the police knocked hard on her beveled glass door, Juliet pulled Jay into a desperate hug. “It’s going to be okay, Jay. If they arrest you, it’s just temporary. I’ll get everybody praying, and we’ll work day and night to solve this crime and get you out.”

Jay seemed to brace himself. “Just take care of Jackson. I want him to stay with you. Keep him busy and away from the news.”

The knock came again, louder, more urgently, followed by the doorbell ringing.

They couldn’t wait any longer. She put her hand on the doorknob and looked back at him. “Ready?”

He nodded and she opened the door. Two uniformed officers stood there, and behind them, out by the street, cameras rolled. “Mr. Jay Cramer?” one of the officers asked.

“Yes.” His voice was flat, resigned. “Come in.”

They stepped in, and Juliet closed the door, blocking out the onlookers.

“Mr. Cramer, we have a warrant for your arrest for the murder of Annalee Cramer.”

He nodded. “Okay. If we could just talk quietly so my son won’t hear …”

“Daddy!”

Juliet’s stomach flipped as Jackson ran up the hall.

“Daddy, come watch
How to Train Your Dragon
with me.”

Jay looked as though he might pass out. He turned from the police and squatted down, getting eye level with Jackson. “Son, I can’t come right now. I have to go help these policemen.”

Jackson stared up at them. “Is it about Mommy?”

Jay worked his mouth to keep the emotion from showing. “Yes, it’s about Mommy,” he said. “I need for you to stay with Aunt Juliet and be a good boy, okay?”

Jackson looked uncomfortably up at the cops, then turned back to his dad. “When will you be back?”

Jay frowned. “I’m not sure right now. But you’re gonna have some more sleepovers with Aunt Juliet. And I’ll call you and let you know, okay?”

Jackson didn’t answer. How much more could he take? Jay got back to his feet and turned to the police. He lowered his voice. “For him … could we just not do the cuffs?”

The younger cop looked down at Jackson and gave him that small mercy. “Yeah, okay.”

Jay forced a smile. “‘Bye, buddy. Maybe Aunt Juliet will watch that movie with you.”

“Of course I will,” Juliet said, tears welling. “You go help them. We’ll be just fine, won’t we, Jackson?”

Jackson nodded as Jay gave him a kiss and hurried out the front door with the cops.

The reporters’ cameras were flashing and rolling, and they yelled questions at Jay as soon as they saw him.

Juliet quickly closed the door.

“Who are those people out there?” Jackson asked.

“They’re people who want to talk to Daddy about your mom my.”

“Oh.” Jackson seemed to consider that. Juliet hoped he wouldn’t consider it too long.

“Come on, sweetie,” she said, forcing enthusiasm into her tone. “Let’s go watch
Dragon
.”

C
athy stopped her car at her mailbox before pulling into her driveway and pulled out the mail. She hadn’t checked it at all yesterday, so a stack of it awaited her.

She quickly flipped through it. Bills, bills, junk mail, and some handwritten envelopes that looked like fan mail. She glanced at the return address of each one.

Seattle … Tulsa … and one that said only, “Your New Friend.”

Her throat closed and her heart began racing. Fingerprints, she thought. She shouldn’t touch it. She set the stack of mail on the passenger seat and drove up the driveway. She ran into the house and got some latex gloves from under her kitchen sink. Then she went back to the car and carefully opened the envelope.

Suddenly her phone rang. She jumped as if she’d been caught at something. The caller ID said
Juliet
.

She clicked the phone on and held it between her shoulder and ear. “Hey.”

“Cathy, they arrested him!” Juliet’s voice was muffled, low, as if she didn’t want to be overheard.

Cathy grabbed the phone. “Oh no. When?”

“Just now. I can’t talk. I have to distract Jackson.”

“Did Jackson see it?”

“Yes, but Jay told him he was going to help the police. They didn’t use handcuffs.”

Cathy closed her eyes. “All right. I’m headed to the police station.”

Before she started the car, she pulled the note out of the envelope.

It was handwritten.

Cathy’s heart jolted. Her hands trembled as she checked the postmark. It had been mailed yesterday from Panama City’s zip code.

So he was local.

She racked her brain for what to do. Yes, she’d give the note to the police, but she needed to keep a copy of it. She took a picture with her iPhone, checked it to make sure it could be clearly seen.

Then she emailed it to Michael with the subject line, “Another Message.”

Her head was throbbing, and her mind raced with courses of action.

This person had murdered her sister-in-law. He had left her nephew motherless. He was trying to ruin her brother. He was toying with her as if this were a game.

Rage blasted through her. She got her .38 out of the console in her car, held it as she went into her house. The place seemed clear, but she didn’t let her guard down.

Biting her lip, she went to her computer and pulled up her blog. She clicked on New Post and started typing.

She hit Send and waited as the letter showed up as a new blog post. Then slamming her chair back against her credenza, she checked the chambers of her revolver to make sure it was loaded. Grabbing her keys, she went back to her car.

Now she could go to the police station and take care of her brother.

He laughed as he read her blog. His plan was working. He was smarter than anyone gave him credit for, and soon they would give him the respect he deserved.

But it did bug him that she claimed to know things he
hadn’t anticipated. What could she know? He’d disposed of the clown suit. It was a pile of ashes in the incinerator. There was nothing to connect the murder to him.

And there would be nothing to connect him to the next one. He’d thought it all the way through. It was the perfect plan, with a perfect result.

He wasn’t a psychopath. He was just a deep thinker, one who did what was necessary to take care of himself. Others waited for life to happen to them, and they took the cards they were dealt. They deserved to be victims, but not him.

He was too smart for that. He could shuffle the deck the way he wanted, and choose his own hand. And when it was all over, he would not be remembered as a bottom-dwelling psychopath, or even as a killer.

Not even Curious Cat could trace these deaths to him.

N
o, not here. Take a right after the red light. Then a quick left. Could you stop by the bank up there and let me run in so I can pay you?”

Holly sighed and made the right turn. Her passenger would probably skip out the back door of the bank without paying. But what could she do? It wasn’t like she could run a credit report every time someone called.

“I have to keep the meter running while you’re in there,” she said, turning into the bank’s parking lot.

“Of course, no problem. I’m not gonna run out on you, if that’s what you think. I need you. I just got my license revoked for getting another DUI.”

Holly glanced in her mirror at the woman. “Sorry about that.”

The woman was quiet as she dug into her purse. “Yeah, but I’m going to meetings and trying to get my life together.
Don’t want to lose my job just because I can’t drive. So if you’ll just wait while I run in.” She opened the door, started to get out. “You really will wait, won’t you? I really do have to get to work.”

“Yes. I’m not going anywhere.”

The woman who looked too classy to have a DUI trotted in. Holly watched her.

The passenger seemed more like Cathy than like Holly. Holly couldn’t imagine her sister having a DUI. Cathy didn’t have time for foolishness like revoked licenses and surprise pregnancies.

And she sure would never be caught dead driving a cab.

As she watched for her passenger to come out of the bank, Holly’s phone buzzed, and she saw Juliet’s face on her screen. She clicked it on. “Hey, Sis. What’s the bad news?”

“Jay just got arrested.”

She sucked in a breath. “No! Did you call Cathy?”

“Yes, but they should have told her first, and they didn’t. They took him in, and now Jackson’s asking all sorts of quest ions.”

“I’m coming over after I drop off my passenger.”

“Don’t tell anybody. I know you like to talk to them.”

“Juliet, I’m not sharing our family’s dirty laundry. But it doesn’t matter, because this is going to be all over the news. Probably even nationally because of Cathy’s blog following.”

Juliet sighed. “I know. Poor Jay. What are we gonna do?”

The woman came back out of the bank, her skirt blowing behind her in the breeze. She slipped into the backseat. “Thank you. We can go now.”

Holly nodded. “Juliet, I have to go. I’ll see you in a few minutes.”

“Okay. Drive careful.”

Juliet couldn’t resist mothering her. Holly cut off the phone and glanced in her rearview mirror. “Where now?”

“433 Westhaven Street.”

Holly glanced back at her as she pulled out of the parking lot. “What do you do?”

“I’m an event planner. Parties all the time.” She said it as if the concept disgusted her. “Ironic for someone who has issues with alcohol. Parties can ruin your life.”

“Tell me about it,” Holly said. “I used to take pride in my partying.” She thought of telling the woman that she was pregnant, that she didn’t know how she’d tell her family, especially when they were going through such a tough time already, that she wasn’t equipped to take care of herself, much less a little baby.

After all, she’d probably never see the woman again.

But that was absurd. There was no one she could tell. No one at all.

She dropped the woman off and gave her her card. “If you need a taxi again, ask the agency for me. I could use the business.”

“Sure will. I feel more comfortable with you than with some guy.” The woman got out, then bent back in through the open window and handed Holly the fee. “What are you doing driving a cab, anyway?”

Holly shrugged. “Girl’s gotta make a living.”

As she drove to Juliet’s house, her left hand rested on her stomach. How big was the baby at this stage? Did it have eyes? A brain? Was it already a boy or a girl?

How would this child feel, having a loser mom raising him? Or her?

What would she tell him when he was old enough to ask about why she drove a cab?

Well, see
,
I could have gone to college like my sisters. I could have gotten grants and loans
,
but I figured I’d wing it
.

Or she could tell the truth.

I barely graduated high school and lost every other job I had because of hangovers and oversleeping. Cab driving suits me. I can set my own hours and no one can fire me
.

No, it wasn’t something she would have chosen. She hadn’t grown up wanting to be a cab driver. Her mother would turn over in her grave.

Her overachieving sister had tried to talk her out of it and had made phone calls to get her other jobs. Eventually, Cathy had quit trying, because Holly managed to embarrass her every time.

Now even Juliet accepted what she had to do to pay her rent. She’d lost umpteen jobs, and when no one would hire her because of her own record of failures, she had started thinking outside the box.

She saw a want ad for taxi drivers, and applied. She’d been hired, and for a while had driven the agency’s cab. Then a friend retired and offered to sell her his taxi.

In the interest of keeping her working, Juliet and Bob had loaned her the money to buy it. Ever since, she’d been her own boss, though she still took calls from the agency.

At least she couldn’t fire herself.

But neither of her sisters would respond well to her pregnancy. Her family had been staunch pro-lifers as far back as she could remember. They would never consider abortion an option, but an unwed pregnancy was a fate worse than death, at least to Juliet.

Guilt raged through her as she drove to her sister’s house. Here she was, thinking about herself at a time like this. What kind of person was she? Her brother was traumatized after finding his wife dead, and now he was being
blamed for her murder. His child was at Juliet’s, confused and asking questions. And Holly’s mind was on her own plight. It was just like her.

She hated herself.

She reached Juliet’s house where three TV vans were parked and pulled her taxi into the driveway. As she did, a police car pulled up, with a silver Cadillac trailing it.

Holly got out, hoping they’d thought better of Jay’s arrest and brought him back. Maybe Cathy had pulled some legal strings.

Instead, Warren and his mother got out of the car. What now? Were they going to try to take Jackson again? Holly slammed her door and ran into the house, “Juliet!”

Her sister was at the door in seconds. “Shhh. Jackson’s sleeping.”

Holly tried to catch her breath. “Juliet, it’s the police and Warren and his mother”

“The police? What do they want?”

“Jackson, I’ll bet.”

Juliet looked out as the group made their way through the reporters. Holly felt her sister go rigid.

As they reached the front steps, Juliet said, “My brother isn’t here, and Jackson’s asleep right now. You’ll have to come back later.”

“Ma’am, we have a court order.”

One of the police officers handed her a folded sheet of paper, and Juliet opened it, her hands shaking. “We have to take Jackson Cramer from you and place him in the custody of his grandmother.”

Juliet’s mouth fell open, and she couldn’t seem to speak. “No,” Holly said, “Jay wanted him to stay here. His father gets to determine where his child will stay.”

“His father has been charged with murder,” Warren
said. “We talked to a judge this morning, who ordered that Jackson come home with us. My mother is his next of kin.”

Juliet kept staring at the order. “It’s a temporary order until we can have a hearing. But no one even gave Jay a chance to tell the judge where he wants Jackson to stay? This was decided without him?”

Holly suddenly felt sick. She couldn’t throw up right here, in front of the press and the police. She tried to hold it back. Juliet took a step forward, touched Mrs. Haughton’s arm. The woman looked weak, and her labored breathing suggested this was not easy for her. “Mrs. Haughton, you know Annalee would have been worried about Jackson’s state of mind. I promise you he’s fine here. He’s taking a nap. Jay told him about his mom, so it’s been a tough day for him already. Please … let him stay. Don’t do this.”

“He’s my grandson,” Mrs. Haughton said, breathless, as if that was all she could manage to get out.

“And he’s my nephew,” Juliet said. “He loves being here with his cousins. I’m set up for kids. And you’re not well.”

“
I’m
well,” Warren cut in, “and he’s my nephew too. The judge says he’s coming with us. Are you going to get him, or am I?”

And then the nausea came, roiling up in Holly’s stomach, rising to her throat. She left the doorway and ran for the bathroom. Barely making it in time, she bent over the toilet and wretched.

“Aunt Holly? Do you have the flu?”

Holly finished heaving and looked up to see Jackson, standing sleepy-eyed in the bathroom doorway. “Maybe I do. Honey, I thought you were taking a nap.”

“Where’s Aunt Juliet? Is my daddy back yet?”

Tasting the bile in her mouth, Holly took his hand and tried to lead him back to the stairs. Surely Mrs. Haughton
would think better of taking this child away right now. Surely Warren would care more for his nephew’s fragile state of mind than for his own “rights” in removing him.

“Jackson!” Warren’s voice startled them both, and Jackson turned around.

“Hey, Uncle Warren.”

“Jackson, come here, bud.”

Holly’s nausea made an encore. Holly raced back to the bathroom and threw up again. When she looked up, Juliet was standing in the doorway. “Holly, are you all right?”

She nodded. “Yes … just upset.”

Juliet left her alone to clean up and went back to the front door. When Holly came back out, the travesty continuing, Jackson stood in front of his uncle, who had stooped to his eye level.

“Jackson, Grandma and I want you to come to our house for a while. We want to spend some time with you.”

Jackson looked at him. “Did you know Mommy died?”

Warren looked at his mother, who bent more over her walker, as if her grief prevented her from holding herself upright.

“Yes, we know. We’re all really sad, but we want to make sure you’re okay. If you came, it would make Grandma feel so much better.”

Jackson gazed at his grandmother. Holly hoped the guilt-inducing tactics weren’t working. “Grandma’s going to be sad no matter where Jackson is. Won’t you, Mrs. Haughton?”

Mrs. Haughton couldn’t seem to answer.

“I was gonna swim in a little while,” Jackson said. “Aunt Juliet said —”

“We’ll do something fun at Grandma’s,” Warren cut in. “You can sleep over and —”

“No, I want to sleep over here until Daddy comes back.”

“But your daddy’s going to be gone for a while. Let’s get your stuff. Grandma’s not feeling well. We need to get her home.”

Jackson’s big eyes sought his aunts. Speechless, Juliet struggled with tears. Holly knew she was censoring her words, considering Jackson’s reaction. But Holly didn’t care about that. Rage beat in her face. “Warren, this is making things worse. Don’t be so selfish. Think, for once!”

“Holly, don’t make it harder for him,” Warren said through his teeth.

“But you know this isn’t what his dad wants!”

“Jackson,” Warren said in a sterner voice. “Show me where your stuff is.”

When it was clear the police would demand compliance, Juliet tried to paste on a happy face and convince Jackson that he’d have fun at his grandmother’s. But the child wasn’t buying it.

Holly called Cathy while Juliet helped pack up Jackson’s things, but there was no answer. She was probably with Jay. When Jackson began to cry, Warren just moved faster, stuffing Jackson’s clothes into a suitcase.

“Uncle Warren, I don’t wanna go!” Jackson cried. “Please, can I stay here?”

“No, bud. You have to come with us. Just for a while. It’ll be okay. We’ll watch a movie. I’ll take you to the pet store, and we can pet some puppies.”

The child clearly wanted none of it. He reached for Juliet. She picked him up and held him. “It’s just for a little while. They can bring you back to swim later, can’t you, Uncle Warren?”

Warren didn’t answer. He just zipped up the bag.

Jackson wailed louder as Warren took her from Juliet’s
arms, the police standing beside him, ready to intervene if anyone tried to prevent this. As Warren carried the distraught child out to their car, his grandmother hobbling behind him on her walker, Holly wanted to scream and throw something.

“This is absurd!” she told Juliet. “Why did you just let that happen?”

Juliet burst into tears. “I had no choice. They had a judge’s order.”

“We could have stalled until Cathy called back!”

“I didn’t want to get Jackson more upset. Look at him!”

“It’s going to be all over the news. The little boy whose mother was murdered, carried, crying, out of his aunt’s house. They’re going to milk this for all it’s worth.”

“We need to pray,” Juliet said. “We need a whole series of miracles.”

But Holly doubted God even cared. It was the exact reason she had given up praying long ago.