Presumption of Guilt

  “How did you get in here?” she asked, pulling her covers up over her as though they could shield her from his wrath.

  He laughed then, that condescending laugh that had crushed the spirits of young and old alike. “Marlene, Marlene. You know there isn’t a lock anywhere that can keep me out.” He came in and sat on the foot of her bed, gazing at her. “I’m hurt, you know. I always thought that, of all people, I could trust my sister.”

  “You don’t trust anyone,” she said, sliding back against her headboard.

  His face was half lit by the hall night-light, half shadowed by the darkness in her room. “That’s true, I guess. Sad, but true. It’s hard to trust, Marlene, when people betray you left and right.”

  She swallowed, and her mind searched for the comfort of Scripture she’d recalled moments ago. Let not your heart be troubled . . .

  “You want to talk betrayal, Bill, let’s talk about what you’re doing to those children.”

  He leaned back against the post at the foot of her bed. “I’m teaching them a trade, Marlene. One they can use all their lives.”

  “One that can ruin their lives and land them in prison when they’re older. You’re warping their minds, Bill; you’re dragging them into hell. You’ll pay for it. You’ll be accountable for it someday.”

  “Is that what they tell you down at that church you’ve been going to? That some invisible force out there is going to swoop down and strike me dead?”

  The fear seemed to have fled, and in its place was a boldness she had rarely felt around her brother. “You’ll pay, Bill.”

  “And so will you.”

  “Yes, I was a part of it. I’m prepared to suffer the consequences. But I’ve been forgiven.”

  “What did you tell her, Marlene?”

  His voice sliced like a knife through her words. She swallowed. “Very little that she didn’t already know. She’s going to expose you, Bill. She’s not afraid of you.”

  “She should be. And so should you.”

  He pulled his hand out of his pocket, and she saw the shiny metal of the pistol as the hall light fell upon it. He got up and came closer; he aimed the gun at her forehead. Even so, that peace hung on, and so did the boldness. She wasn’t afraid to die. “What are you going to do, Bill? Kill all of us? One by one? Me? Beth? Her editors? All the adults who grew up in your home, the ones who know the real story? The children who are working as your little slaves now?”

  “Maybe,” he said. “But I think for now I’ll just settle for you.”

  CHAPTER TEN

  In Cottage B on the back side of the St. Clair Children’s Home campus, seven-year-old Lisa Westin lay still in her bed, clutching her threadbare teddy bear with one arm. She stared up at the ceiling and forced her ears to listen hard, so hard that she’d hear her brother when he finally came home. But some long-held fear told her that he wasn’t coming home.

  She squeezed her eyes shut, trying to hold in the tears and block out the memories of three years ago. She had been only four, and Jimmy told her often that she was too young to remember, that she had gotten it all wrong, but she knew he was just trying to make the memories seem like a misty dream that hadn’t really happened. But she knew better. They weren’t her first memories—there were others, but they came more in sensations and scents, feelings that seemed warm and sad, tiny glimpses of happiness that she knew she’d felt then. The memory she had of what happened that day—the day their mother hadn’t come home—was more vivid, more distinct. She remembered harsh faces of policemen, words that she didn’t understand: neglect, abandonment, addiction. She remembered the realization, after two whole days of going without food, that their mother had forgotten them. And she remembered the inescapable panic, the what’s-going-to-happen- to-us terror. Jimmy had seemed so much older than seven at the time; he had been the rock she had clung to, her big brother. But he had been the age then that she was now. He had promised her, as the policemen had carted them off to become wards of the state, that he wouldn’t allow them to be separated—that, even though no one else in their lives had stuck around, he would never leave her.

  She wiped her tears, held back the sob pulling at her throat, and slid out of bed, careful not to wake the other little girls sleeping in the beds around her. The home was supposed to look and feel like a real home, with ruffly bedspreads donated by local church groups, and frilly little dolls that no one was allowed to play with. But Lisa suspected that real homes weren’t filled with fear, as this place was. Her long white gown dragged the floor as she padded barefoot across the carpet and peered out the window. Maybe Jimmy was out with Bill, doing that job he had said was so important. But she had heard Bill’s car a few minutes ago, and had gotten up then to see if Jimmy was with him. When she saw under the streetlight in front of Bill’s cottage that he was alone, she had known something was wrong.

  Still clinging to one last fragment of hope, she padded out of the room and into the hall, past Stella, their house mother, whose loud snores reassured Lisa that Stella was asleep, and to the big room where all the boys in this cottage stayed. She tiptoed close to Jimmy’s bed. Maybe he had come in quietly, not wanting to wake anyone. Maybe he didn’t know she had waited and waited . . .

  But the bed was still neatly made. Jimmy wasn’t there.

  She looked around for some of his belongings, wondering if he’d packed them. Then she’d know if he had planned to leave her.

  She got down on her knees and peered under his bed, and found the box in which he kept everything in the world he owned.As quietly as she could, she slid it out. In it, she saw his baseball glove, his ball, the Atlanta Braves cap he’d gotten somewhere . . .

  And she saw the envelope with the snapshots of them taken a few years ago, snapshots he kept because he said he always wanted to remember that they were sister and brother.

  Wouldn’t he have taken those if he’d intended to leave? Or had he left them here for her, so she could remember even though he’d chosen to forget?

  “What are you doing in here?”

  The harsh whisper startled her, and she swung around and saw Brad, one of Jimmy’s roommates, sitting up in bed.

  She put her finger to her lips to quiet him, and quickly slid the box back under the bed. But she kept the envelope of snapshots.

  “I’m telling,” he whispered louder. “I’m telling Stella. And I’m gonna tell Jimmy when he comes back. You’re not supposed to be in his stuff!”

  Another of the boys stirred. “Will you shut up? This is the first night I’ve been able to sleep all week!”

  “That little creep is going through Jimmy’s stuff.”

  “I am not,” she whispered back. “I was looking for something that’s mine. He was keeping it for me.”

  “What is it?” Brad taunted. “A pacifier?”

  “I don’t suck a pacifier!” Lisa flung back, struggling to hold her tears back. She got to her feet and headed for the door.

  “I’m still telling!” he whispered.

  She ignored him and tiptoed out into the hallway and past Stella’s room. Her snoring hadn’t changed its rhythm, and Lisa breathed a grateful sigh of relief. Maybe Brad wouldn’t tell. If he did, Stella would spank her, then send her to Bill for further punishment. She’d never been sent to Bill before, but Jimmy had. She had seen the bruises herself.

  She got back into bed and lay down, staring at the ceiling as she clutched the pictures to her chest. What would she do if Jimmy didn’t come back?

  Now she let the tears come, heavily, deeply. She turned over and buried her face in her pillow, muffling her sobs.

  A dusty ray of sunlight from the attic window woke Jimmy the next morning, and it took a moment for him to realize where he was. He was hiding at the bottom of an old Christmas tree box, and the prickly tree still covered him.

  But he hadn’t been found.

  He reached above him to move the tree and tried to stand up. Quietly, he set it down beside the box and stretched to his fu
ll height. It felt so good to stretch after a whole night crammed into that box. He listened . . .

  Was the lady home, or had she gone to work? If she had, he could escape. He could get back to the home, let Bill punish him, and get back to normal.

  He heard a television downstairs, and his heart sank. She was still here.

  He sank back into the box, afraid to move. He needed to go to the bathroom, and he was hungry, and his body ached, and it was getting hotter in here.

  When would she ever leave?

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Beth sat at her kitchen table. Spread out in front of her were the documents she’d collected from Nick about the things the children’s teachers had said, as well as the statistics on the rise of burglaries in St. Clair and surrounding cities, and the few citizens who’d mentioned seeing children breaking in. She had spent most of the night transcribing Marlene’s interview from the tape, and now she sat with a highlighter pen, marking off quotes she’d use in her story and trying to decide what her lead would be.

  The television in the living room was on, and the Tampa news anchor droned on about last night’s city council meeting, a fire in Oldsmar, a murder . . .

  She tuned it all out and sipped her coffee as she reviewed the transcript of her conversation with Marlene.

  “The victim was identified as fifty-one-year-old Marlene Brandon . . .”

  Beth looked up, stunned. Through the doorway of the living room, the television flickered, showing footage of the police cars surrounding the house where she’d been last night. Slowly, she got to her feet.

  “The murder was a result of an apparent burglary. Ms. Brandon’s body was discovered early this morning by a neighbor . . .”

  Gasping, Beth dove for the telephone and punched out the number of the newspaper. When her editor answered, she cried, “She was murdered, Phil! The woman I interviewed last night was murdered! Marlene Brandon. What do you know so far?”

  “That was the woman you interviewed?” he asked, astounded. “Wow, Beth, all we have is that it was a burglary. The house was ransacked, according to the police.”

  “She was murdered because she talked to me!” Beth shouted. “Her brother did it, Phil!”

  “Now, wait, Beth—unless you have proof, something we can take to the police . . .”

  The floor above her squeaked again, this time twice in a row, and Dodger started barking. Catching her breath, she turned toward the staircase, the phone still clutched to her ear. “Phil, I’ll call you back. No! Better yet, you hang on. I keep thinking I hear someone in my house. I’m going upstairs to look, but if I don’t come back to the phone in a few minutes—”

  “Beth, you’re going off the deep end. You’re overreacting a little, don’t you think?”

  “I’m not overreacting, Phil. The woman is dead. If he killed his own sister, he’ll come after me next. Now, hold on, and call the police if I don’t come back.”

  She set the phone down—and heard the squeak again. She grabbed her gun out of the drawer and, hand trembling, aimed it toward the top of the stairs as she started up.

  Dodger tried to follow her, his fat stomach making it nearly impossible for him to pull himself up from one step to the next.His yelping gave her some degree of comfort, though. As long as she could hear it, she felt grounded in reality.

  She swallowed as she got to the top of the stairs, crossed her little office, and flung the attic door open.

  “All right,” she said, beginning to sweat and tremble as she clutched the gun. “I know you’re in here. I’ve heard you, and you’re not going to get away with it, so you might as well come out and show yourself now, or I’m going to start shooting. I mean it!”

  She looked around. Everything looked undisturbed. There was no sign of anyone. Mentally, she tried to calculate exactly where she’d heard the squeak. She’d been standing at the telephone, near her kitchen table; directly over that would be that back corner, where the Christmas tree box sat. Was that tree sticking further out than it had been last night?

  Her heart pounded in her ears as she stepped closer to the box, breathing so loud that whoever was hiding there would know how terrified she was. Someone was in that box. Bill Brandon? Was he in here playing with her, trying to frighten her to death? Was she going to be his next victim?

  Terror overwhelmed her, and she cocked the pistol. “I’m giving you to the count of three to come out, and then I’m going to start shooting. One. . . . two . . . three . . .”

  Nothing happened, so she slipped her finger over the trigger. “I warned you,” she said through her teeth. “You’re underestimating me, Bill.”

  She heard a noise behind her and swung around. The gun went off.

  The puppy yelped and squirted a puddle onto the floor. He had made it up the stairs, but now he stood there trembling just inches from the bullet hole.

  She had almost shot her dog.

  For a moment, she thought of dropping the gun and comforting the puppy, but someone was still here. She turned back around, took a step closer to the box, grabbed a branch of the Christmas tree, and in one quick motion jerked the tree out.

  The box was empty.

  Drenched in sweat now, she backed away, so relieved that she wanted to cry. The puppy got between her feet, almost knocking her over. She picked him up and gave the attic one last look around. Maybe she was losing her mind. Maybe what she’d heard was an opossum on the roof, or a squirrel, or even a rat. Any of those things would be preferable to Bill Brandon.

  She left the attic and closed the door behind her, then hurried down to get a towel to clean up the dog’s puddle. On her way to the kitchen, she went back to the phone. “Phil? Are you there?”

  “Yeah, Beth. What’s going on there? Did I hear a gunshot?”

  “It was me. I thought I heard someone, but it was a false alarm. Maybe I am a little paranoid. But Marlene Brandon is still dead. I have to go to the police. Who’s covering her story, Phil?”

  “I don’t even know if we’re going to print anything about it, Beth. It was all the way in Tampa, and our St. Clair readers wouldn’t be that interested. Besides, they’re saying it was just a routine burglary.”

  “It was not a routine burglary, Phil!” she shouted. “She was the sister of Bill Brandon, who’s the subject of the story I’m working on. She got killed right after telling me everything. You really think that’s a coincidence?”

  “Well—okay, no. But what do you want to do? Do you want to cover it?”

  She hesitated and tried to slow her thoughts. “I don’t know . . . yes. I guess I should go and see what I can find out.”

  “If what you’re saying is true, Beth, then don’t you think your time would be better served by finishing the story? Then the murder of Marlene Brandon will tie in and make more sense.”

  Confused, she sat for a moment, eyes fixed on the ceiling.

  “Yeah, I guess you’re right. But would you put someone else on it?

  It’s important, Phil. We have to know everything about her murder.”

  “All right. I’ll send Todd.”

  “Good. Let me know everything you find out. Even if it seems insignificant.”

  “And you finish that story.”

  “I’ll have it there this afternoon.”

  She hung up and started for the kitchen to splash water on her face, but the doorbell rang, startling her again. She snatched up the gun and peeked through the curtain. It was two police officers. Breathing a sigh of relief, she shoved the gun back into its drawer and answered it.

  “Can I help you?” she asked, wondering if they noticed how badly she was still shaking.

  “Yes,” one of them said. “Are you Beth Wright?”

  “Yes.”

  He introduced himself and showed her his badge. They were not from St. Clair, but from Tampa. “We’d like to come in and ask you a few questions about the murder of Marlene Brandon.”

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  The two police officers l
ooked around her house as she ushered them in. She wondered if they had been there when she’d fired her gun. “I just heard about the murder,” she said. “On the news.” Her eyes welled with tears. “I couldn’t believe it.” “We understand that you were the last one to see her alive.”

  She sat down and gestured for them to take the couch. “Obviously someone saw her after I did. How did you know I was there, anyway?”

  “Her pastor.”

  “Her what?”

  “Her pastor spoke to her after you left. Apparently she called him. He said she seemed exhilarated, because she had confessed some things to you. What we’d like to know from you is whether you saw anyone hanging around the house, a strange car, or someone walking up the street. Anything at all.”

  She closed her eyes and tried to think. “I didn’t see anything, at least not at her house. But I was followed most of the way home.”

  “Followed?”

  “Yeah. Someone was after me. I called 911, but I lost him before the police got there. And when I got home, I kept thinking someone was in my house. I even had the St. Clair police come out last night to check.”

  One of the cops began to jot that down. “Who were the officers?”

  “Well, there were several, but I remember Larry Millsaps and Tony Danks.”

  They jotted the names down. “What time was that?”

  “Around midnight, I think.”

  “Miss Wright, do you have any idea who could have followed you home?”

  She hesitated, glancing at the table with so much evidence waiting to be printed. If she told them too much, and word got out, the rest of the media would jump on it before she had the chance to get her story into print. Because she was the last one to see Marlene alive, other reporters would piece it together, until they discovered more than she wanted them to know. Still, if she could get Bill Brandon off the streets . . .

  “She mentioned that she wasn’t getting along too well with her brother, Bill Brandon. And the things she confessed to me—they had a lot to do with him. Have you questioned him?”