With His Dying Breath (6 page)

“S K I N M O R E”

“Okay, thanks, ever heard of that name before?”

“Well, not a person. But there’s that cartoon.”

“Cartoon? What do you mean?”

“In the comics section, in the
Monitor
next to the back page, that cartoon ‘Skinmore.’ Don’t know why it’s in the comics though. It’s not very funny, if you ask me. It doesn’t make a lot of sense.”

“Patsy, please call downstairs and have Archives send me up the last dozen or so issues as quick as possible. In fact, tell them, I’ll come down and pick them up. Keep getting those messages for me, okay?”

“Yes sir.”

“What time do you get off tonight?”

“At eleven but I can stay, Frank’s at a meeting if you’re going to be here. I don’t think I want to be by myself.”

“Thanks, Patsy. I’m getting the tape of the woman in the lobby at
ten thirty. If you can watch it with me, I’d appreciate it.”

“Cain, of course, you just let me know. I’ll keep listening to these messages.”

“Thanks, I’m going down to the basement.”

Hilda and Jasper were still at the Brockton’s estate at
nine thirty that night. They went through the master bedroom, the master bathroom, two other bedrooms that seemed to be recently used, the kitchen, the great room, a library, and Blake’s office. They even checked the laundry room, a mudroom, the garage, a storage/gardening shed, and two empty rooms and found nothing. They came up completely empty.

They had no hard evidence on Mrs. Blake
Brockton. There was just the phone call at 1:04 p.m. that afternoon to 9-1-1 from Mr. Brockton himself, “help me… Blake, oh, Brock uh ton, at home, unh…I’ve, my wife…my wife’s… kill, no…don’t….no.” There were gunshots, some other loud noises and silence, dead silence. The phone line had stayed open for ten additional seconds. Silence.

There was evidence of fingerprints everywhere. It was obvious a multitude of people had been in and out of the house. There was no dust on the furniture. Hilda did find this interesting. Was there a full-time maid? When was the last time she dusted?

“Did you talk to a maid?” she asked Jasper.

“No, don’t remember it,” checking his notes.

“Does it seem odd there’s no dust but two of the bedrooms are messed up?”

After reviewing the notes she made earlier that day, she didn’t see a maid listed either. She had nothing else to go on.

Jasper told Hilda about talking to some of the neighbors. One of them said there was a big party here Sunday night. He said big cars were dropping people off. You know big SUVs and stretch limousines. One neighbor who was not invited said they could hear some music from the back and party type noise, “no, not rowdy, exactly.” Mr. Brockton liked having cookouts and parties and an entertainment lifestyle.

“He even had a block party three or four mon
ths ago that we were invited to. No wait, it was before Thanksgiving. I haven’t been over there since Thanksgiving,” one neighbor said. “I didn’t know our block was so big, though. I met neighbors I hadn’t even seen in the six years I’ve lived here,” he said laughing almost hilariously.

Another neighbor said the Brocktons were very nice. Every now and then, they would walk a little ways around the neighborhood. Mr. Brockton liked to meet the neighbors, especially new ones, and welcome them to the area. He was very friendly. Remembered everybody’s name. “That man had some kind of memory,” the man said. “I went to their house when they first moved in about three years ago, I guess. One day I was out walking my Sheltie and I just stopped by to say hello, to see if they needed anything. I mean Mr. Brockton has lived in River Town most of his life, but he was new to the neighborhood. Just thought I’d ask, you know.
”

Jasper nodding while made notes.

“
He was very appreciative. Said he’s looking forward to getting to know the neighbors. Wanted to have a cookout and invite everybody over. You know just the neighborly stuff. And he did. Invited about ten, maybe twelve, families over. Grilled out steaks. We all helped him open up the pool. He didn’t quite know what to do it seemed. But it was very nice. Had a good time. But what I was starting to tell you, I saw them out walking one day about a year later, and he remembered my name but what was really impressive, he remembered Becky’s name, you know my Sheltie.”

             
Neither Hilda nor Jasper talked at length to the man who found the body. Checking her notes, Hilda read the name as Jonas Attaway.

“Jasper, this Mr. Attaway who found the body is the man who can help the most,” Hilda said. “He’s got the timeline
, and it’s very possible if he passed by the house just a few minutes before, he saw or heard something, that maybe he hasn’t remembered yet.”

“Yeah, you see what you expect to see. Could’ve seen a different car in the street, or other neighbors out walking, working in the yard, children playing, dogs barking, noises—anything that wasn’t right?

“Exactly, we need to ask him a few questions some more in-depth questions.”

Detective Nelson went back to Blake’s office
returning a few minutes later. “Hilda, come in here for a second. I gotta show you something.”

Hilda followed the short, round detective back into Blake Brockt
on’s office. “What is it, Jaz?”

“Look at them books, those on that top shelf.”

Hilda smiled. “Jasper, you’re a doll. How in the world did the techs miss that?”

“
I got something else. You ever heard of this rag before?” He held up several editions of “Saga,” a true crime magazine. It was a small magazine found at the checkout line of the grocery store.

“No, don’t think so, have you?”

“No, I ain’t never heard of it. There’s six dating back to October. It’s printed up in Forsyth. Think I’ll check it out.”

Hilda looked at the subscription label addressed to Brock Blackson, P. O. Box 451, River Town, GA 31218.
Is that his office address? And who’s it addressed to?”

“Never heard of him, but sounds awfully close to Blake Brockton. Think it was just typed wrong, just a mistake? That P.O. number could be addressed to his business,
huh?”

“I don’t know,” Hilda
said. “Check it all. See if they still have the form, who paid the bill, you know what to ask. Might be a mistake, but might be more an intentional mistake! Let’s see what else is being delivered to that box!”

“Yeah,
Well, I’m gonna sit here a minute and see what we got. They look like they’ve been well read. See how some of the pages here are dog-eared.”

“Well, I’m going back up front. See if I can tell anything about that blood splatter. I’ve just never seen that much blood before, have you?”

“Not really, just when I’s a kid, on the farm. I saw a bad accident, won’t never forget it. It was bad. Not from a gunshot though!”

“Might need to get more help on this
case, Jaz. I have some contacts from that team in Brunswick. Would you have any objection?”

“‘
Heck no. Let’s get this thing solved. If Mrs. Brockton did it, we need the evidence. If she ain’t guilty, she don’t need to be sitting in jail, and whoever did it does!”

Hilda loved the way Jasper talked. He was a good ole down to earth man. He loved his job.
Always on the side of right, and it didn’t matter as long as truth was the victor. She liked that about him. He didn’t have any hidden agenda or bone to pick with anybody.

“Oh, Jasper, about that top shelf. Let’s get a photo and get the crime scene guys back out here. Think they missed a big clue. You found it. You make the call, okay.”
Jasper pulled out the cell phone he very seldom uses, and never answers, and pushed pound one to dial the station.

“
I still don’t see how they missed it, and none of this mess in the kitchen was here earlier. Ask them about that. Who made this mess anyway?”

“What is your problem, Jenny? I am not having an affair with anybody, let alone,
Sammi Brockton. Don’t know why you’d even think that!” The last thing Jess wanted was to come home to World War III.               Jenny blasted him with questions and crazy statements from the moment he opened the door of their tiny two-bedroom duplex apartment.

“Well, if you saw your eyes every time you mentioned her name, you’d know why. She’s nothing but a show-off. She rolls into town one day, gathering up men like they’re her toys or something to carry around. Then when she
gets tired of them, out they go to the trash or in this case to the morgue!” 

Jess thought,
sure my eyes ligh
t up, she’s a gorgeous woman. She’s soft, maybe too tense, kind, considerate. She’s the opposite of you!

“
Gathering up men? What? Sometimes you don’t make sense. You never make sense when you get like this. Mrs. Brockton is a client, that’s all. Do you have affairs with the men who come in for a manicure?” I can’t give myself away, yeah, maybe I have a crush on her, but that’s a long way from an affair!

“Why do you ask that?”
Jenny began to back pedal. She didn’t know what Jess knew, and he certainly had never asked her questions like this before. No one knew her history with Blake or anyone else, she hoped. Just because we had an affair for a while a very long time ago and maybe a few other times we’ve been together doesn’t mean I’m sleeping with him now. And I won’t ever again.

“Well, it’s the same thing. She’s a client. We have a relationship sure but not a sexual one.
For crying aloud, Jenny, not even an emotional one. I don’t half listen to what she says when she’s talking.” Jess grabbed a bottled water from the refrigerator and asked Jenny if she wanted one.

“
Don’t change the subject! What do you mean talking? What do you two talk about?”

“You know
talk, conversation, what y’all call down at the shop chit chat. I guess that’s what y’all call it. But if it’ll make you feel better, I’ll drop her, and somebody else can take over.” Jenny was beginning to calm down. Her voice was softer and her words were slower.

“No,
Jess, I’m sorry. This has just been a stressful day. I just want to know why Blake Brockton was murdered. I just saw, uh, did his nails yesterday. Why not just divorce him? Why did she have to go kill him?”

“I don’
t believe she did, babe. She doesn’t have it in her. The last few months it’s almost as if she’s sick or something. There’s no excitement, no passion in her voice, no plans, she’s just very passive about everything. Like today, she said ‘it’s just another day, just another sad day without a dollar, but I’ll have to get through it.’”

Jess’ eyes
widened at his remark. He remembered what she had said. It’s just another sad day. Why would she say that? What did she mean by just getting through it? Like she was aware of something about to happen, but she needed to convince me she didn’t know it. Without a dollar, huh, they have plenty of money.

“Jess, come over here. Let’s sit down on the sofa for a little bit.”

“Jenny, let’s just go to bed, I’m worn out, you’re worn out. It’s almost midnight and I’ve got Mrs. Norman coming in at seven. Oh, how I hate that woman!”

“Well, just be that way. I’m not sleepy
, and I don’t have an early appointment.” She stood and walked toward the bedroom as Jess followed.

“Jenny, you’re not having an affair with any of your clients, are you?”
he asked in a docile voice.

“Wouldn’t you like to know?”
She walked into the bedroom and left Jess staring at the door just slammed in his face!

Friday, March
16, 4:45 a.m.

             
Sammi did not close her eyes all night long fearful of the dreams or worse, the nightmares. Her life was a roller coaster with twists and turns or a run-away train with no tracks. With no defined direction—just freight cars, and oil tankers, wood chips, all crashing together, flying through the air—just endless chaos. A massive collision. There is no stopping a runaway mind.

             
Her mind had envisioned the previous day’s events all night sorting out what happened, when it happened, who it happened to and why. That was the question. Why?

             
She had asked why all her life. She remembered going to her grandmother’s funeral who died two days after her fourth birthday. She cried seeing her grandmother lying in the casket dressed in a blue housecoat. “Daddy, why does God let people die? It makes me so sad.”

             
Her daddy pulled her up into his lap, put his arms around her and said, “Don’t be sad, Angel. Nanny’s with angels up in Heaven. She’s with Jesus and Noah. She’s probably talked about all the animals and how he got them on the ark. Don’t you think Nanny is happy to do that?”

“
Daddy, please don’t ever die. I’m your angel, please don’t die.” Her Daddy assured her he was not going to die. As a child, she believed him.

             
Sammi, or rather Katie as she was called back then, asked her brother why. “Why did you kill our parents?”

             
He looked at her with the most evil eyes and called her a name. She was his twelve-year-old sister, five years younger, and he called her a bad, ugly name and said, “You just don’t get it. They never loved me. They were too busy getting you to dance lessons, piano lessons, birthday parties or who knows where all you went. They never saw me in one thing. Not one thing. Why? You tell me why!”

             
That was the last time she talked to her brother. He and his two friends received the maximum sentence. He sat in a maximum-security prison just up the road. How ironic she thought, brother and sister both sitting in jail. Both charged with murder. There’s that word again. I hate that word.

Katie
skipped school               the morning her parents were murdered. She left for the bus stop at 7:15 a.m. Her mom was taking an elderly woman in her church to the hospital for tests at eight thirty. Her dad was to leave at nine for the Atlanta airport going to Chicago. At mid-morning, another woman in the Sunday school class came by to see why her mom didn’t get the older lady and saw the front walk and porch splattered with bloody footprints. The door was open, and she saw Katie’s mom, Kathy, on the stairs with blood on her gown and a trail of blood up and down the staircase and ran across the street to call police.

Katie
knew nothing about her parents until late that afternoon. An investigator went to school to get her, and the principal said she had not come to school that morning.

             
The house was torn apart looking for the two kids. There was an all-out search around the school, neighborhood and adjacent woods to search for her and her brother. Police presumed the killers kidnapped the son and little girl. Police questioned Katie and Kyle’s teachers about who their friends were. Katie and Kyle were missing but what about their friends.

             
Kyle was not in school, and three of Katie’s friends were absent. Investigators called parents. Parents called each other. Phones were ringing in every house on every block for a mile radius.

             
The four girls were located at one forty-five. They had taken some cigarettes, some wine and their diaries to an abandoned house in a nearby deteriorating neighborhood. One of them got the idea from a movie and thought it would be fun to have that kind of sisterhood with these three other girls. It was chilly but not cold but then we had candles burning all around us. They were good students, as a rule, so nobody would suspect anything other than they were sick at home.

             
At one thirty, they put out the candles and hid everything except their diaries since they planned to do this at least once each semester. Police picked them up near the bus stop just as if they were ending their school day.

             
It was a bad day. Katie watched as each of her friends was dropped off, and parents yanked each one into the house. She was terrified of what her own parents would say. They didn’t go to her house though. She remembered asking, “Why aren’t you taking me home?”

             
The investigator simply said she wouldn’t be going home till later.

             
“Later. I wish later had never come. But then, I don’t think it ever did,” she said to herself. “I never really went home.”

             
A court appointed public defender specializing in juvenile delinquency did nothing for her benefit while detectives fired questions at her. “Why did you kill your parents? Who helped you kill your parents? When did you kill your parents?”

             
“Kill my parents?” She asked the public defender what they were talking about, and he said just answer their questions. “But I didn’t kill my parents. Somebody’s killed my parents?” And she started to cry.

             
Word came through to the detective that her aunt had arrived from Macon and wanted to see her niece. By this time, another detective had talked to each of the three girls individually, and they all had the same story. Embarrassing as it was, the detectives knew Katie was not involved with her parents’ murders.

She swore to never skip school again. All the details were filled in by a file of newspaper
articles Aunt Pat had stashed away. What an awful time in my life, but thanks to Aunt Pat for rescuing me.

             
Aunt Pat and Katie drove to the house guarded by police officers parking under a huge maple near the basketball goal. This pristine family setting from a happy Norman Rockwell portrait was now a scene from a Halloween thriller with all the blood and gore. “Wait in the car, okay, sweetie. I’ll just be a minute.” She returned later with boxes of clothes, books and other items Katie might need or want. Poor Aunt Pat, she was so spooked. We both were.

Sammi
thought about her four cats she had left behind due to Uncle Jim’s allergies.              Aunt Pat had said, “Honey we can’t take them with us.” Then the dreaded why?

             
“Honey, Uncle Jim, is allergic. He has a very hard time breathing.

“But who will feed them and take care of them?”

“They’ll catch their food.” Katie started crying.

             
“Please,” she begged.

             
“They’ll be okay,” Aunt Pat said, “Maybe we can get a dog.” Katie got in the car, crying, and when the car pulled away, she wouldn’t even look back.

             
She doesn’t know how the police found out it was her brother and his friends. She was in Macon at the time starting a new life with her new puppy.

             
“Mrs. Brockton, your breakfast is here.”

             
“Thank you. Thank you for the coffee, especially. And fruit, how nice.”

             
“Yes ma’am, Deputy James got you some fruit.”              As she drank her coffee and ate the strawberries and banana, her mind turned back to the previous night. Mitch, her yardman, had provided her with a lawyer. She was so grateful. Blake had provided him a good living all these years, and he didn’t believe she was guilty. He wanted the real killer found. JJ and her dad vowing to find her innocence. Bill Fritz offering help with a defense attorney. I wish I had as much faith in me as other people seem to have.

* * *

              JJ left for school early to speak to Dr. Jacob, her favorite school counselor. She parked her VW in the student parking lot next to Mr. Grumman who waiting for her in his little red sports car pretending to read the morning paper. “Morning, Mr. Grumman. What are you doing out here in the student parking lot?”

             
“Hi JJ, Couldn’t find a spot in the faculty lot. I’m just reading your Dad’s article about the excitement in town yesterday. Looks like he’s right in the middle of the story.”

             
“Well, he’s not really in the middle. He just writes the facts. Gets it out there to the reader, you know what I mean.” JJ made a motion with her hands pushing them outward eyeing this man as if she had never seen him before. She’d sat in his class every school day for seven months now listening to him speak passionately about such dull topics as how the world was civilized. She heard sadness when he related historical events of famines and wars. She heard laughter as he recounted tales of the knighthood. She had never heard him speak in this tone before. Sarcasm? Was it flippant? Was it to provoke a response from her?

             
“He quoted lots of neighbors and police, the detectives. Looks like he’s in the middle of it to me. Right smack in the middle.”

             
JJ stared at Mr. Grumman walking toward the building. That was odd, she thought. He’s not even from Georgia. Why would he be interested in an article written by my dad? That’s so odd, she repeated to herself. JJ followed him into the building and turned down the hallway to the Counselors’ offices.

             
Dr. Myra Elaine Jacob was usually the first counselor to arrive in the morning and the last one to leave in the afternoon. She was JJ’s favorite of the three.

She had been married and divorced twice.
During her senior year in high school, she developed a crush on an intern, a college student who attended her Sociology class as a research project. He interviewed each of the twenty-five students in her class with various questions about consequences of behavior, emotional expression, social inequities and then asked the individual student opinion about these matters.               During her interview with him was when the personal aspect of these discussions led to some very private revelations. The talk turned to action, and she found herself pregnant. He married her, but then she lost the baby at eleven weeks. It was devastating to her. He completed college but she dropped out of high school to get a GED. The marriage ended in divorce fourteen months after they wed.

             
“Dr. Jacob, do you have a minute for me to talk to you about something?”

             
“What time is your first class, Miss Matthews?”

             
“Math at eight fifteen.”

             
“Will you give me about five minutes to send an email? You may sit and wait in the outer office if you’d like.

             
“Yes ma’am, thank you.”

JJ heard the familiar sound of Windows starting up. “JJ, do you want a glass of orange juice?”

             
“No ma’am, thank you, I’m fine.” JJ was fascinated with Dr. Jacob. She just had a knack of understanding students’ concerns. She could discern what a student wanted to know when they didn’t even know. She never talked down or belittled a student. Even when one of the students had found her story on an Internet site, she didn’t hold a grudge. In fact, she told JJ and some of the female students about it as a caution of life’s disappointments.

             
“Okay, just give me a minute to get signed on to my email.”

             
“Yes ma’am”

             
While JJ waited in the outer office, she read postings on the bulletin board. After school help wanted in another counselor’s office, before school help wanted in the library, tutoring available in almost every subject at the college, a computer laptop for sale, a printer for sale, a photo of a litter of kittens to give away. “Oh how cute.” A part-time job available at Brockton Real Estate. Wonder if that’s still available? Although JJ wasn’t looking for a job.

             
“Come on in, Miss Matthews.”

             
“It’s bad about Mr. Brockton, don’t you think?”

             
“He was a fine man. He really cared for the students and the school. He volunteered his time and his money, but that fact is not well known. Is that what you wanted to talk to me about?”

             
“Oh, no ma’am, he was just very nice to me. He told me about my job, you know my after-school job at the beauty shop. He even helped me with transportation before I got my car. But, no, Dr. Jacob, I wanted to ask your advice about something.”

             
“Yes, JJ, I’m listening.”

             
“I’ll be a senior next year, and I think I know where I want to go to college, but I want to ask you about it.”

             
“JJ, I’m thrilled. What do you have in mind?”

             
“Do you know about the aviation college in Eastman? You know, it’s part of the University system.”