First to Fall (9 page)

‘That is really sweet,’ Brandy smiled. ‘What was the song?’

Aiden laughed as he thought back.

‘It was “Wake Me Up Before You Go Go”, by Wham!’ They both laughed at this. Her entire face lit up when she laughed, it was almost magical to watch.

‘Well, like I said, Brandon could be quite the romantic when he wanted to be. One night there was a raging thunderstorm, I hate storms. I hate them so bad. I saw lightning strike a trailer when I was younger and it caught on fire and killed the people in it who were sleeping. It was the worst thing I’d ever seen. Now every time I hear thunder my blood runs cold. Like today, I know a storm is coming, I can feel it in the air, and even locked away in here I know I’ll be scared. So this storm was raging, and I was sat in the trailer on my own, terrified, when Brandon came knocking at the door, soaked to the skin. He said he had been out drinking with the guys but when he heard thunder he knew he had to get to me, to protect me. The rain had come whilst he was running over. He had risked his life to be by my side, and I told him that my life was his, that I wanted to give myself to him forever. He got down on one knee and took off his class ring and handed it to me, saying that he wanted to hold me to that promise and make me his wife. It was such a beautiful moment.’

‘Sounds like he was a good husband.’

‘No, he was a good boyfriend, a great boyfriend. But people change.’

‘What happened?’

‘Well, first of all, we got married.

‘Brandon’s family were well off. His Dad owns a big pine company where Brandon also worked, and they had a gorgeous big house. When I first went round, I couldn’t believe how beautiful it was. I felt so ashamed of my trailer and my Ma, but his family welcomed me in as one of their own. Mrs. White helped me arrange all the wedding, she was brilliant. She booked the venue, invited all the guests, helped me choose my wedding dress, and they paid for everything.

‘Once we had set a date, I tried desperately to find my Ma. I wanted her there more than anything, I wanted her to be proud of me again, but she was long gone. As it drew closer I was so wrapped up in flowers, cake, favours and gift listings that I grew less and less bothered by the fact that my Ma wouldn’t be there.

‘Father West performed the service for us, it was so gorgeous. The church was decked out in white ribbons and red roses, it looked like something straight out of a fairy tale. I arrived in a limousine, I felt like a celebrity! Brandon’s father, Clyde, gave me away. It felt right after how good he had been to me.’

Aiden recalled how Clyde White had stated that he and his wife weren’t happy when Brandon started dating Brandy. Perhaps they had finally warmed to her by the time the young couple were due to wed, although when he had spoken to him, Clyde had only hate for his daughter-in-law, which, under the circumstances, was understandable.

‘So, you had a good relationship with Brandon’s parents?’

‘Oh, the best. We used to be there all the time. But after we got married, we got our own place and we stopped visiting so much.

‘Everyone from town was there.’ She was still recollecting her wedding day, a blissful smile on her face. ‘Brandon was so popular, and people seemed to have forgotten, or at least forgiven me about Miss Southern Star. I had my hair done up and a wonderful dress. Pure white, and mark my words, Mr. Connelly, I had every right to wear white. Not like some girls, no sir, I had saved myself. At least, you know, with Brandon. Back in the trailer park, when Ma had gotten real bad, things had happened… But I’d moved on from that. I wanted our wedding night to be special, I wanted to do everything right!

‘After the service we went back to Brandon’s house. There was a massive marquee in the garden where we were having the reception. We had a band and everything! It was the talk of the town for weeks after. Sheriff Fern even said it was the most wonderful wedding he had ever attended. I felt like a princess, it was almost as good as when I won my title, if my Ma had been there it would easily have been better. But I missed her. Brandon had so many people there for him, his family, friends, work mates. I had no one. It hurt like hell when the photographer took pictures with his family and then quietly asked where mine were. But I told him, “this is my family now”. And that was how I felt, that I finally had a proper family now. Marrying Brandon felt right, and I loved him so much I used to worry that I might burst!’

She was still smiling but there was a sadness in her eyes, still she continued: ‘Our first dance was to the Buddy Holly song, “True Love Ways”. Brandon didn’t want that, he had fought me tooth and nail right up until the very last moment. He wanted “Always” by Bon Jovi, but I’m not much a fan of rock music. I was so surprised when Buddy Holly came on, to me, it just proved how much Brandon cared about me, that he was willing to let me have my song over his. Becoming Mrs. White was truly wonderful, in every sense. He gave me the wedding of my dreams, and in exchange, I gave him myself, unconditionally. Which I guess is what marriage is.’

‘I suppose,’ Aiden agreed. ‘Although, you shouldn’t lose sight of the person you are, else it affects the marriage.’

‘Maybe that is where we went wrong, we lost sight of ourselves. We changed.’

‘How did you change?’

‘Well.’ Brandy’s smile was now entirely gone, replaced with a face shrouded in sadness. Grief was clearly weighing heavily on her mind as she contemplated how to continue.

‘As I said, we got our own house. Lovely little place, two bedrooms, one bathroom, a porch and huge lawn out at the back. On a clear day you could sit out and see for miles. Our house was just outside town, all alone except for the Allens’ place two miles down the road to the east. I wasn’t all too happy about living a bit out like that. I was used to living alone but not being completely alone, there was always people about in the trailer park. There was never complete silence. But out in my house, you could honestly have heard a pin drop some days when there was no breeze. It could be quite creepy, especially at night. Brandon didn’t mind where it was, he could drive and had to work most days. But me, I couldn’t drive and I didn’t know anyone who I could ask to pick me up and take me places. I had to rely on Brandon whenever I wanted to go anywhere.’

‘So, the dynamic of the relationship changed?’

‘Not right away, but slowly, as more and more time passed he got more and more annoyed about things. Some nights he went out with the lads and wouldn’t return home until the following day. I did wonder if perhaps he was cheating on me, but I was giving him what he wanted in the bedroom so he had no reason to stray.

‘I cooked his meals for him; on the table at 6pm sharp for when he got in from work. I washed his clothes, cleaned the house. I did everything but it was so lonely. I asked him time and again for a dog to keep me company but he was having none of it. He stopped treating me like a princess; I guess he started taking me for granted. But he began to change. After our first anniversary Brandon was gone, and what I was left with for a husband, I grew to hate.’

‘Is that what drove you to kill him, your hatred for the man he had become?’

‘In part.’

Aiden knew all too well the changes that people undergo once they enter into marriage. He and Isla had practically become strangers in Chicago, occasionally passing like ships in the night as they went about their lives. He had even started to feel estranged from Meegan as he worked longer and longer hours, and to be distant from his own child he could not bear. One day he came home from work and when he took her in his arms she bawled her eyes out, as if she did not recognise him. That was the last straw; Aiden knew that if he didn’t move his family away from the city they would ultimately be destroyed. He sympathised with Brandy, although he knew not to tell her so.

‘Brandon took to drinking a lot. Or so I thought. The more time I lived as his wife, the more I realised how I had never known him at all. He had shown me just one face whilst we were dating, now I was being introduced to a host of others, and some of them terrified me. He had a drinking problem and it was nothing new. Even at the wedding, he drank so much that when he took me to our marital bed to, you know, do it, he just passed out. He awoke two hours later being sick everywhere. He threw up on my dress, it was terrible. The Brandon I knew would have been ashamed by his behaviour, but the next day he wasn’t sorry. He even shouted at me for insisting that he pay for my dress to be dry cleaned! The day I became Mrs. White, everything changed, and not for the good.’

Brandy hugged herself with her arms and rested her head on her chest. Aiden noted that they didn’t have long left before he would have to leave. They were making good progress but he needed to know more. All marriages have their problems, yet he found it hard to believe that she murdered her husband because he had a drinking problem. There was something else.

‘He had a temper.’ She said it so quietly, that through the Perspex glass Aiden could hardly hear her.

‘Was he violent?’ Tears were now running down her cheeks.

‘Can I trust you, Mr. Connelly?’

‘Yes, of course.’

‘Because…everyone loves Brandon…’ She was sobbing. ‘They don’t listen to me…they just looked away and let him…’

Brandy broke down and cried so hard her tiny body shook. Distressed, Aiden pressed his palm to the glass. Through her cries she recognised the gesture, what he was trying to convey to her, and shakily she pressed her hand against his and the sobs slowly began to subside.

‘He did terrible things,’ she whispered.

‘Brandy, you need to tell me what he did.’

She looked at Aiden through her watery eyes and slowly lifted up the orange sleeves of her jump suit to reveal her arms. They were slender and white, but they made Aiden grimace in horror. The perfect white of her skin was littered with scars, a majority appeared to be cigarette burns, but there were also cuts. She quickly pulled her sleeves back down in shame.

‘They don’t look so bad these days.’

‘He did that to you?’

‘He did much more than that.’

Aiden wanted to ask more but the guards were moving forward to usher her away. He watched her leave, dumbfounded. The local hero, Avalon’s Saint, had cruelly beaten his wife, to what extent it was currently unclear, and in order to save herself, she had killed him, yet she was the villain. A shiver ran down his spine as he realised that he may no longer be dealing with a murder case; he would just need more proof to back up Brandy’s allegations. He would also need to get her to confess to exactly what he did to her, no matter how awful.

His skin was soaked in sweat before he had even got to his car. The heat was ridiculous. Grey clouds hung ominously on the horizon. Aiden began his drive home, his mind awash with broken heroes and tortured beauty queens.

Isla came up with the idea that since it was so hot, they should have a barbeque for dinner. Meegan was in the kitchen, helping prepare the salad, whilst Aiden did the man thing and cooked the meat. He was flipping over the steaks, mulling over Brandy’s case in his mind. If she really had been abused, there were hopefully some records to back up her claims hospital files, police reports, probably disguised as ‘accidents’ rather than violently inflicted injuries.

The grey clouds had now swallowed the entire sky but the heat remained, and if anything had intensified. On his way home Aiden had dropped into work, only to find that neither Edmond nor Betty were there; a brief note explained that the heat was too much and that they would see him tomorrow. However, Edmond had stated in the note that installing air conditioning was now on the top of his to-do list! Aiden was grateful to be able to head home and get out of his suit. Standing outside in just a T-shirt and shorts he felt incredibly relaxed and settled in his new house. Avalon was a huge adjustment for the family but they seemed to be doing well.

‘Baby, how are those steaks doing?’ Isla called from the kitchen. Aiden skewered the largest steak with a knife, and clear liquid oozed onto the burning coals below.

‘Nearly done!’ he shouted back.

‘I want to see.’ Meegan came running over on her podgy legs but Aiden held his hand up sternly.

‘No, princess, it is too hot. Help Mommy with the salad.’ She looked grumpy, and then her lip started to quiver and Aiden braced himself for the tantrum, but luckily Isla intervened.

‘Want to help Mommy with the strawberries for dessert?’

‘Strawberries!’ Meegan cried gleefully, instantly forgetting her banishment from the barbeque area.

‘Thanks for averting that storm,’ Aiden laughed.

‘No problem, don’t think I can stop that one though.’ She pointed out into the distance. Aiden looked up and sure enough, silver forks of lightning were dancing across the sky and didn’t appear to be that far away.

‘I’ll just finish up here; we had better eat inside, just to be safe.’

The family were happily tucking into their steaks when rain started to lash at the windows.

‘Here it comes,’ Isla sighed.

‘Here what comes?’ her little daughter asked innocently.

‘Just a storm, honey, nothing to worry about.’

Aiden found that he didn’t have much of an appetite. Perhaps it was the heat, but he wagered that it had more to do with the uproar his mind was in.

‘Babe, are youOK?’ Isla asked, concerned over the amount of food left on his plate.

‘I’m just not hungry.’

‘Probably this heat.’ He was glad that she wasn’t going to interrogate him further.

‘Although someone can still eat like a horse!’ She rustled her daughter’s hair as the little girl proudly lifted up her empty plate.

‘I like salad,’ she told her parents.

‘Good girl, fruit and vegetables will help you grow big and strong,’ Aiden told her. Meegan raised her arms above her head, showing how big she already was.

‘Wow, you are huge!’ he laughed.

‘Nobody is going to mess with our little girl,’ Isla giggled. Aiden smiled but felt a pang of sadness wash over him. How would he feel if a man attacked Meegan? Small, innocent, beautiful Meegan. Surely any man who could raise his fists to a woman is a monster? If that was the case, then the heroic image Avalon had of Brandon White was all just a sham. How would the town feel towards Aiden if he shattered their dream of their golden boy?