Jacobs descent, p.15
Jacob’s Descent, page 15
And he was gone.
I scanned the monitors, noting Anna Murphy alone in one room, Benji Hall in another, and a young girl in a third room. I assumed that was Beverly, Benji’s girlfriend and descendant of a Jacob.
Chase said, “Check this out.”
He fiddled with a control board and tapped on a keyboard. I could hear someone singing. The girl in the third room.
“What is she singing? Is that actually ‘This Little Light of Mine’?”
Chase nodded. “She’s been doing it the entire time she’s been in there.”
“Which is how long?”
He looked at his watch. “For almost an hour and a half.”
“And Harvey hasn’t interrogated her yet?”
“He’s been bouncing back and forth between the grandma and the kid.”
Anna and Benji, I thought.
Within seconds, Nolan appeared in Anna’s room, carrying two cups of coffee.
Anna said, “I’d rather have a cigarette.”
“Now look, Anna. Let me be straight with you. Benji claims he wasn’t with you this morning.”
“The kid’s a liar. You know that.”
Nolan asked, “Anna, I’m going to ask you again. Where were you between five and six-thirty this morning?”
“With Benji,” she said. “Eating breakfast.”
I saw her avert her eyes from Nolan.
“She’s lying,” I said into the microphone. I saw the index finger on Nolan’s right hand flick up. He heard me and agreed.
We both knew she wasn’t the intruder. Monsignor Shannon saw a man. I tried to imagine Eunice in a baseball cap. Nope, she still wouldn’t pass as a man. Too petite looking. So why was she lying? Where had she been?
“You know and I know that is a lie. Want to try a new one on me?”
Anna settled into her chair and sipped her coffee.
After several minutes of silence, Nolan said, “I’ve got all night.”
She drained her cup, set it on the table, and said, “And I’ve got to pee.”
Nolan asked the jailer to accompany Anna to the bathroom while he ducked into Benji’s room, carrying a soda pop.
He handed the can to Benji and asked, “Your grandma still claims she was having breakfast with you this morning somewhere between five and six.”
“I told you. She was not home. I was at work by six. Ask Carl,” the kid said.
I remembered him being proud to be a mechanic, glad he had a job at Carl’s Automotive. A kid with a career.
“I did. Why so early?”
“A customer needed his car before work. He wanted to pick it up by seven. I told Carl I’d get it cleaned up and ready so he could sleep in.”
Thoughtful and industrious. Two good qualities, I thought.
“So why is your grandma lying?”
He shook his head. “I don’t know.”
“Neither do I. And she’s not talking. You have an alibi, Benji. She doesn’t. I’d hate to see her arrested.”
Benji buried his face in his hands.
“Harvey,” I said, “ask him if she’s ever lied before. To cover for him.”
Nolan’s index finger flicked. “Benji, maybe she thinks you’ve done something wrong. Maybe she’s lying to cover for you. Could that be it?”
He rubbed his face with the palms of his hands. “I don’t know what she’s thinking. She’s crazy.”
“Tell him it must hurt that she doesn’t believe in you,” I coached.
“It must suck having a grandma who thinks you’re a loser,” Nolan said.
Benji sat up. “Yeah, it does. She always thought I caused fights, defended me at school, even when I wasn’t in trouble. She’d go in and raise hell with the principal, my teachers. Even though I got good grades. It’s like she’s so convinced I’m this loser that she doesn’t see how hard I try, how much I studied. I mean, look at me. I graduated from high school, put myself through a year of trade school to be a mechanic’s helper, and landed a job at Carl’s Automotive.”
“She should be proud of you,” Nolan said.
“But she isn’t. Still thinks I’m a loser. Mostly because of my mom. My grandma takes it out on me.”
“Plus it doesn’t help that you’re dating a Jacob,” Nolan said.
“Why does everyone keep saying that? Beverly is not a Jacob. She’s an Olliver. Her second cousin is a Jacob.”
“Michael?”
He glared at Nolan. “We’re getting married. Father Bill said he’d marry us. In a month.”
“Does your grandma know this?”
“Grandma and old lady Jacob know it. Beverly’s grandma was Edward Jacob’s sister.”
“That would indeed make her a Jacob, Benji,” Nolan said.
Suddenly the boy rose to his feet and upended the table, shouting, “Why does everyone keep saying that?”
I dashed out of the room to help, knowing the jailer was busy with Anna Murphy. I burst through the room in seconds, bumping into Benji, who was making a run for it. With Nolan squirming out from beneath the overturned table, I jumped on Benji, knocking him facedown on the floor, and jammed my knee into his spine until Nolan could slap handcuffs on the kid. The jailer had her weapon drawn and was at the door within seconds.
Nolan motioned for me to get off Benji’s back, and then yanked the kid to his feet. “Because it’s true. When are you going to accept that?”
Benji dropped his head and wept.
TAKING A MOMENT TO compose myself, I drank in the scene. The jailer had returned in the doorway and leveled her gun at Benji’s chest as Nolan steered the kid through the door. I noticed her hands were trembling a bit. Probably not something that happened every day around here.
“Put that away,” Nolan said, nodding at her pistol as he brushed past her.
She lowered the gun and fumbled with the holster before sliding the gun back in her belt. I followed behind her as she escorted Nolan and Benji down the hall of jail cells. She closed and locked the cage door as Nolan removed the cuffs. He shoved the kid toward the bunk.
As the jailer unlocked the door, Nolan turned back to the kid, who was cradling his head in his hands. “Better think about your story. You’ll have plenty of time. And the next time I see you, you might want to try a novel approach. Like the truth.”
Nolan walked through the door that the jailer slammed behind him with a finality that made my teeth clatter.
I hung back as the two walked away. I studied Benji for a time, staring at his undamaged hands. No fighting by him lately. But his sudden temper tantrum reminded me of an injured dog backed into a corner, his reactions irrational and exaggerated. Why? And could a medical condition explain his outburst, like bipolar disorder? If Benji could erupt so suddenly with someone like Detective Nolan, could he also turn on someone like Father Bill, attack a man in a fit of rage despite his adoration for the priest? If so, he must have used an object other than his fists to pummel O.C.
A low wail with periodic gulps of air emanated from Benji Hall as he sat slumped on the cot, unaware I had lagged behind to watch him. I decided to take a few moments to find Michael and observe his reaction to Benji, which he must have overheard in such a tight space. I walked past the next cell and looked across the hall. Michael’s cell was empty.
I glanced in all ten of the cells, finding only Benji’s occupied. I hurried back to find Nolan, who was in his office, pacing. He was holding a bag of ice in his hand.
When he noticed me staring at the ice, he scowled.
“Bumped my damn head.”
I noticed blood on the ice pack.
“Need stitches?’
“No.” Pacing, he lifted the bag to the back of his head and winced.
I left him alone for a minute, returned to the jailer, and bummed a handful of ibuprofen from her.
“Here,” I said, handing him the pills.
He grinned, popping a couple in his mouth and swallowing dry, then stuffing the rest in his front jeans pocket. “What got into that kid?”
I shrugged. “Where’s Michael?”
He cut his eyes toward me. “Free.”
“On bail?”
He frowned.
“Who had that kind of money?” I asked, remembering the unholy amount of bonding required to free Michael Jacob.
“Apparently he’s tied in to some motorcycle gang.”
Mully, I thought. My heart sank. The second Mully posted bond for Michael, the kid disappeared. Bolted. Maybe I’d been wrong about Michael. I’d assumed he was innocent in all this. Maybe that’s what Mully knew all along and lied to me about, which would explain his cryptic messages to me. Maybe Nolan had been right to suspect Michael of beating O.C. and vandalizing his house, leaving Monsignor Shannon for dead. Or maybe Mully had done it.
“Which gang?”
“Lucifer’s Lot. You know about them?”
I nodded, stopped short of telling Nolan I’d just taken a very strange joyride with the outlaw M.C.’s leader. His cryptic messages queued up in my mind as I wondered what connection I’d missed.
“All too well,” I said. “They were suspected of killing my brother’s fiancée last summer.”
“Oh, yeah,” he said. “That’s how your sister and I first met. At the funeral.”
“Why were you there?”
“Sheriff Leonard asked me to go, to see if any of the Lucifer’s Lot members would show up.”
“Convenient.” The sheriff’s response and approach to problems consistently pointed to his cowardice, in my mind. Including the fact that he named Nolan as lead on this case, yet kept imposing himself on the investigation, like casing the Bullock Hotel and interviewing Monsignor Shannon at Rapid City Regional.
Nolan finally stopped pacing and sat down behind his small desk. I found a chair opposite him. “And what was Sheriff Leonard’s take on Monsignor Shannon’s story?”
He held the ice bag to the back of his skull, leaned back, and closed his eyes. “He thinks someone broke in to burglarize the place—probably a broke gambler or a meth head—and was scared off when they saw Monsignor Shannon fall. Probably thought the place was empty.”
“Why’d they ransack O.C.’s room?”
“Sheriff Leonard thinks the burglar was uncertain about whether he should leave or not, went upstairs to see what valuables were there for the easy pickings, tossed Father Bill’s room, and got scared off when he found the cassocks and collars in the closet.”
“So the guy takes off, not wanting to be associated with robbing priests? Takes nothing?”
“Right.” Nolan cut a glance my way. “Nothing.”
“What about the laptop?”
“Sheriff Leonard couldn’t explain why our team hadn’t seen it under the bed the first time and warned we shouldn’t draw attention to the department’s oversight.”
“Makes sense. What do you think?”
He leaned forward, pulling his cowboy boots off the desk, and sat upright in the chair, groaning. “I don’t know what to think about the laptop yet. And don’t distract me with all the conspiracy theories you share with the priests about the past. For now, we have a current beating to investigate.”
He laid the ice on his desk and stood up.
“The girlfriend or the grandmother?”
He said nothing, motioning me to follow, which I did.
“You remember Agent Bergen,” he said.
Anna Murphy’s eyes grew wide. “You never told me that. An agent of what?”
I stuck out my hand. “Special Agent Liv Bergen. FBI.”
She squeezed my hand until it hurt, which surprised me. She was both strong for her age and defiant of my authority. Or perhaps, ornery. I didn’t have to wonder long.
“If I’d known you were FBI, I would have never let you in my house.” She turned her head to the side and spat on the floor.
“What’s wrong with the FBI?”
Nolan grabbed my arm. “Not now.”
We all sat at the table, very similar to the one Benji Hall had hurled at Nolan a few minutes earlier, and I wondered if his grandmother Anna was capable of the same behavior. Perhaps she’d been the one who taught him to express his emotions through violence.
“Make her leave.” Anna had her back turned to me.
“I’m not going to do that,” Nolan said.
“Then I’m not going to talk to you.”
“Step outside?” I said to Nolan, ignoring Anna.
He did. I told him to put his earpiece back in and I’d step in with Chase to watch and listen. Nolan didn’t argue.
“Happy?” he asked as he returned alone.
Anna said nothing.
Her shoulders weren’t hiked as high as when I was in the room, her tiny frame seemed less like a coiled snake ready to strike. Her thin limbs were loose and her eyebrows no longer furrowed. The difference between night and day from having me in the room.
I covered my microphone and asked Chase, “What’s her beef with the FBI?”
“No clue. Never met her before.”
I turned back to the monitor. “Can you zoom in on her hands?”
“Sure,” the IT geek said.
The images of her thin but strong fingers were clear, the cameras of excellent quality. The high resolution allowed me to see every crack, every age spot, every vein. Anna Murphy had no signs of punching someone, although I wasn’t convinced she should be excused from the suspect list.
“Benji insists he was not with you this morning, and he did not eat breakfast with you.”
She glared at him, chewing the inside of her cheek. “He’s lying.”
“You said that before. Why would he lie about something like that?”
“Probably to punish me.”
“Why would he do that?”
“Because he’s angry.”
“About what?”
“We don’t want him marrying that Jacob girl.”
I was about to whisper in Nolan’s ear when he asked the very question I was going to suggest. “Who’s ‘we’?”
Her mouth fell open to answer, but no words came out. She snapped her lips shut and repositioned herself on the chair. “All us Murphys.”
“Okay, so let me follow your thinking here. Benji is willing to give up a perfectly sound alibi that might keep him from being arrested for the assault on Father Bill and the subsequent breaking in and entering of Father Bill’s house, just to punish you?”
She rolled her nubby fingers on the tabletop.
“Does that make a lick of sense to you, Anna?”
She turned slowly to face him. “And what’s his story?”
“Does it matter?”
“Hell, yes, it matters.”
“What do you think he told us?”
“I think he’s trying to blame us. I think his bitch bride caused all of this. And I think Benji is covering for her, blaming us for what’s happening.”
I leapt out of my chair, startling Chase. I rattled off my thoughts quickly to Nolan. “We had it wrong this whole time. She’s not trying to protect Benji by lying. She’s protecting herself, blaming Beverly. Lie, Harvey. Tell her Benji saw her sneak out this morning.”
“You think Beverly caused all this. And you think Benji lied to us when he told us he saw you sneak out of the house this morning?”
Her eyes grew wide. “He told you that? Wait until I …”
“So where did you go at five o’clock this morning, Anna?”
The woman crossed her arms and sank down in her chair. “I need a cigarette.”
I whispered into the mic, “You’ve got her on the ropes. Count to sixty. And if she hasn’t started talking, threaten to bring me back in there.”
I watched as Anna’s stares flicked toward and away from Harvey several times as he sat staring at her, not moving a muscle. She fidgeted several times within that minute, shifted in her chair a couple of times. Never once did she uncross her arms.
“If you’re not going to talk to me, then maybe you’ll talk to that FBI agent I sent out.”
She straightened in her chair and uncrossed her arms, held a stare down with Harvey.
After another thirty seconds, she said, “You let that jailer lady take me outside for one cigarette and I promise you I’ll tell you everything I know.”
Harvey waited a beat, stood up, and left the room.
Within no time, the jailer was leading Anna out of the interrogation room to a side door for a smoke.
Harvey poked his head in the IT room. “Ready to meet Beverly?”
I FOLLOWED HIM INTO the third interrogation room, where we found Beverly Olliver in the final chorus of “How Great Thou Art.” Her eyes were closed and she was singing at the top of her lungs, which meant she hadn’t heard us come in.
She was a lovely young lady with an even lovelier voice. She had long brown hair fashioned in a high ponytail, the bangs swept across her forehead like Audrey Hepburn. Her lips were pouty and perfect and although she wore not one ounce of makeup, she appeared red-carpet ready with her pure, classy looks.
Harvey cleared his throat when she finished and Beverly screamed so loudly, I thought the jailer might barge in again with her gun drawn. But she didn’t.
“Sorry to startle you,” Harvey said, sitting across from her.
I did the same.
“This is Special Agent Liv Bergen.”
I shoved my hand across the table. She grabbed it and shook, smiling as she did. When she smiled, I noticed how young she really was. “How old are you?”
“I’ll be twenty next Friday,” she said, her face beaming with pride. “No longer a teenager. Thank God!”
“Teenage years rough or something?” I asked.
She nodded. “Big difference between nineteen and twenty. No one can treat me like a child once I turn twenty. Twenty. Twennnnty.”
Her smile was even wider than before and I could see her family hadn’t had enough money for braces.
“Parents?” I asked.
She nodded again. “But I’ll be twenty next week.”
“Hate to tell you, but parents don’t stop treating you like a child at twenty.”
Her happiness melted into a frown. “They don’t?”
I shook my head. “I’m thirty and my mom still treats me like her little girl. Parents are funny that way.”
