Summer Shadows (33 page)

45

J
ulia looked down the barrel, her focus narrowed and clarified. She noticed the slight tremble in his grip and the gray-black dirt on his hands.

Then she took in the worn leather of his boots, the glint of the charm he wore about his neck, the delicate webbing of wrinkles that lined his face, and the steely glint in a set of blue eyes that reminded her of John. He had none of his brother’s attitude – Michael was all business.

Julia quelled her rising panic and drew herself up.

“What do you want?” she asked, managing to talk despite her suddenly dry mouth.

“Only what’s mine,” he said. “You’re Julia?”

She nodded, and he grinned.

“We met the other night, but I didn’t catch your name. My brother speaks highly of you, though.”

“You’re the one who hit me?”

“That wasn’t my fault. John was supposed to keep you at that party, but he’s never very good under pressure. You’re alone here?”

She thought about Jack, upstairs and asleep.

Please God, don’t let him wake up.

“For now,” she said slowly.

He grinned again. “Good. We can have a little one-on-one then.”

Julia clenched her teeth and her hand unconsciously tightened around the sketch. He noticed and held out his hand. After a moment, she slowly gave it to him. He stepped back, glanced at it, and raised an eyebrow.

“I was good looking back then, wasn’t I?”

“You were her subject, not John.”

“Yeah. First time anyone ever preferred me over John. Everyone else only saw an ex-con, but Stephanie – she could make you feel like a rock-star, you know.” He gazed longingly at the sketch. Something deeper than regret played briefly across his weathered face. “She sure was something, that Lang woman.”

Then with a sudden fierce motion, he crumbled the paper and threw it to the side. He took a step closer to Julia, his eyes bright and hard.

“Let’s go into the back bedroom, you and me,” He gestured with the gun. “After you. Slowly, please.”

Fear of a different sort rose inside her, but Julia turned and led the way, her mind racing. What did he want? What was he going to do? She had to get him out of the house before the kids returned with the dogs.

They were in the hallway now, and she paused in front of the storage room. Without turning to look at him, she asked, “Which way?”

“The bedroom,” he answered.

Julia couldn’t control the shiver that ran through her. She turned to the left and opened the door to the bedroom.

It was still and dark. Julia had hung makeshift curtains earlier that week, to discourage passersby from looking in. The police had taken all the intruder’s tools and some of Julia’s as well, leaving the ladder, the bucket, and a few other things. The rug was still pulled back, leaving the hole in the floor exposed.

She halted in the middle of the room, waiting for her next order, but it didn’t come right away. When she risked a look over her shoulder, she saw Michael with his gun still trained on her back, staring at the bloodstain as though hypnotized. A small segment of the stain had been cut away by the police lab technicians.

She turned slowly and his head snapped back to look at her. His eyes were wild, but Julia kept her calm. She indicated the stain.

“Stephanie?” she asked.

He seemed confused, but quickly recovered.

“Stephanie,” he said. “Lovely, privileged, the-world-is-my-doormat Stephanie Lang.” His gaze wandered about the room, taking in the shabby details, nodding absently. “God. This brings it all back…”

Unconsciously, his hand tightened on the pistol, and Julia stepped reflexively back. He noticed and brought the pistol back up and level.

“Easy, duchess,” he said.

“Just take what you want and get out,” Julia said quietly. “I won’t stop you.”

Michael looked her up and down and leered. “No,” he said. “I guess you won’t. You gave me a real scare when I saw you the other night. Lucky I didn’t kill you then.”

“Like Stephanie?”

“Yeah, like Stephanie. That was an accident, too, you know. I didn’t mean to kill her, I didn’t want to. It just happened. She found out, and she was going to tell her husband. I would have gone back to prison. I’d just gotten out. I wasn’t going back in, not for her, not for anyone. I couldn’t let her tell the police.”

“Tell them what? About your affair?”

He glared, clearly disgusted by her naiveté. “No. I was in debt to some nasty creditors and needed something fast. John and I weren’t going to get paid for this job until the end of the month, so I used the key she’d given me and took some knick-knacks from her place while they were in Boston. Only she came back earlier than I figured and went ape. I gave her the pawn tickets, but she was crazy. She slapped my face and screamed that she was going to have Brad put me away. Brad!” He snorted derisively. “As if he could. He couldn’t even hold on to her. He hit her, you know. He’d drink a bit and smack her around, but she wouldn’t leave him. Crazy woman. I would have helped her if I could.”

“You
killed
her.”

“She was going to send me
back
!” he shouted, the roar echoing throughout the tiny room.

Julia unconsciously stepped back, her heart tightening.

Jack, oh, please don’t wake up. Please don’t come downstairs.

His expression was twisted, fear and anger wrestling for dominance. “She was going to send me back to prison. Do you know what they do to a man there? She did. She knew everything that happened, and she was going to send me
back
rather than face
him
. I’d just gotten out, out of prison. I was not going back. So I hit her, and she fell, and there was blood everywhere. I didn’t want to kill her, but I wasn’t going back then and I’m not going back now.”

He stopped then, drawing a deep, shuddering breath, still glaring at her.

“Go over and kneel in the corner with your hands on your head,” he ordered. “Quick.”

Julia obeyed, facing him and putting her hands on her head where he could see them. She strained to hear upstairs, but heard nothing to indicate that Jack was awake.

Michael kept his eyes trained on her as he began to move about the room. When he got to the far wall, he reached out and felt along it with his hand. After going a few inches, he grunted and stopped. Pulling a long hunting knife out of his belt, he pried at the panel until it was large enough to fit his hand through. He returned the knife to his belt and reached in, pulling out a rolled piece of canvas.

As he glanced at Julia, she ventured, “Your portrait?”

Startled, he asked, “How did you know?”

“Someone told me that she did a portrait of her handyman, that she found his face interesting. But if you were on their payroll, how did you avoid investigation?”

He smirked. “Who said I was on the payroll? I liked to keep things under the table and so did the Langs. I sat for her, yes. She thought I was interesting. No one ever called me that before. Then, when she died, I gave this to John to get rid of. He was too sentimental and hid it instead. Fool.”

“How did you get him to help you?” Julia asked, carefully looking around for some weapon, something she could use to disarm him while he was focused on his find. “He wasn’t involved with her himself, was he?”

“No, John was the good boy. He had the hots for her, but he never had the guts to do anything. He doesn’t know I killed her. He thinks we were having an argument and she fell and hit her head on the wall.” He shook his head in disbelief. “No one but John would be simple enough to buy that story.”

Julia spotted a wooden handle sticking out from under a pile of paper and she recognized the hammer. It was too far away for her to reach, but if she could keep him talking, keep him occupied with memories, perhaps he wouldn’t notice when she started sidling over to it.

That she had to do something was obvious. There was no way Michael was going to let her live to tell what he’d told her today. What surprised her was that he hadn’t killed her already. Perhaps he was afraid the shot would alert one of the neighbors. Either way, the more time she had to think, the better chance she had to survive.

He unrolled the canvas and studied the portrait, holding it so close to his face that Julia wondered if he was nearsighted. She hesitated, then scooted a little to the side.

His head jerked up and she hastily spoke, saying the first thing that came to her head, “Is it yours?”

He glanced at it again, and she looked at the hammer. If she flung herself forward, she could reach it, but she was too far away to use it before he could squeeze off a shot. Cold sweat trickled down her back.

“It’s mine,” he said gruffly. “It’s the only thing that concretely connects me to Stephanie. There’s no paper record that I was working with John on this house, or that Stephanie asked me around to her place to pose and to do some work. I was strictly a handshake and cash back then. There was only ever the sketch, this portrait, and that bloodstain.”

“And if only John was known to have been working on this house, the bloodstain would only incriminate him.”

“Nothing should have incriminated him. We had it set up perfectly so that her husband would take the fall. It would have worked… if it hadn’t been for you and those damn renovations.”

He dropped the portrait, pulled a tie-wrap out of his pocket, and Julia’s heart started to pound.

“He called me the day you arrived.” Mike’s voice was low, even, and cold. “Told me that you were moving into the Purcell place, but that he thought you’d be gone before long. Then you started to change things and he panicked and begged me to clear the evidence out. He was supposed to keep you at the party, but you didn’t stay. That’s unfortunate, Julia. If you had stayed, you would only have been robbed. Now…” The gun trembled in his hand. “Turn around, Julia, and put your hands behind your back.”

Julia froze. “You don’t need to do this,” she whispered.

“Oh, but I do. I’m not going back to prison, Julia, not even for my brother.” His grip tightened on the gun. “Turn around.”

As slowly as she dared, she did, dragging out her motions to buy time. She heard him advance, fumbling with the tie and the gun. He was going to tie her up, then kill her, and she couldn’t think of a thing to stop him. Michael had her wrists, was breathing on her head, so very close…

Then they both heard something.

“Aunt Julia?”

Jack!

His voice cut through the air like a knife. Michael gasped and his grip loosened for a second.

Julia threw herself backwards, knocking him off balance and sending the gun skittering across the floor. Rolling on to her knees, she felt desperately about for the hammer.

Jack stood in the doorway, Yellow Teddy in one hand, opened mouthed. Michael lunged for the gun.

Julia screamed, “Jack,
get out!
” just as her hand wrapped around the handle of the hammer.

Jack hesitated. Michael brought the pistol up to bear on him, but Julia was already swinging the hammer. She smashed it into his hand, and the gun went off. Jack screamed, and the bullet went wild as Michael lost his grip on the pistol. He roared in pain.

Julia tried for another swing of the hammer, but slipped on some wallpaper and nearly lost her balance. Michael, now furious, gave her a vicious backhand that sent her spinning. She fell this time, hitting the floor hard.

He was on top of her before she could recover, raining down blows, as she fought with everything she had - twisting her body, pulling, scratching. She knew if she stopped, Michael would go for Jack.

She fought desperately, but Michael was a big man with nothing to lose. He managed to land a stunning blow across her face, and Julia saw stars. She was reeling as he got on top of her, pinning her arms under his legs, his weight crushing the breath out of her chest. His hands came down on her neck.

She couldn’t breathe. Twisting her head from side to side, she couldn’t shake his grip. Her sight began to fade, and the world shrunk to a pin point.

Then, just when she was about to submit to the blackness, something roared. Michael’s hands jerked painfully, then he fell on top of her. She panicked, her screams coming out in hoarse breaths, fighting to get him off, when he rolled off seemingly on his own. Then other hands were there, grasping her shoulders, touching her face. From far away, Robert’s voice came.

“Julia! Julia, it’s all right, we’re here. Julia, oh Julia.”

She was in his arms then, pressed tight against his chest, his uniform rough against her cheek. Julia reached up and grabbed him tighter. For the third time that week, Robert had come to their rescue.

Another uniformed officer was checking Michael’s prone body, looking for a pulse. He turned and looked grimly at Robert.

“He’s still with us,” he said.

“Call an ambulance,” Robert said, his voice rumbling against Julia’s ear.

Jack was sobbing, at her side, trying to get into her arms, and she pulled him tight against her.

“We’re okay,” she whispered. “It’s all over, Jack. We’re safe now.”

Robert pulled her tight, burying his face in her hair.

46

M
ichael Irwin confessed to Stephanie’s murder while recovering in the hospital, and ignited a firestorm of news coverage in Franklin. For days the downtown was crawling with news vans and crews, pestering the locals and taking photos not only of the old Victorian, but of Julia’s house as well. A. Glenn Bernard was back on the interview circuit: he was more than happy to give his expert opinion on the case - along with the news of his next novel, which had just found a publisher.

Brad Lang was found and arrested for parole violation. He also admitted to breaking into and hiding in his old house in a vain attempt to prove his innocence. As it was his house, there was some question about whether he could actually be charged with anything. In either case, an army of Lang family lawyers descended on New Hampshire, demanding an investigation. The fiasco brought both the Lang and the Milano family considerable media influence, and Stephanie’s paintings enjoyed a sudden boost in popularity.

The story was running on all the news channels. The fact that Brad Lang, even after years of imprisonment, was still a good-looking man made the story even sweeter.

At first, Robert and the police tried to keeps the Budds out of it. However, thanks to the coverage of Ron and Dylan’s exploits on the previous Sunday, it wasn’t long before a reporter put the two together. A week after the Lang/Irwin story broke, reporters began swarming the house, begging for interviews and spinning stories about intrepid investigator children, and the courageous single mom who held off a murderer until the police arrived. They spoke with Mrs. Mone and the neighbors, and even called Mrs. Jurta, who’d somehow made it to New York to be with Dexter. The press tried to corner Julia or the kids when they were out walking or shopping and called the grandparents in Florida and in the South Pacific.

Children uncover evidence of murder in bedroom of family summer home. Boy detective solves murder case. Single Mom Brings Murderer to Justice. Family Vacation turns Deadly. New Hampshire’s own Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew solve the Case!

All sorts of ridiculous headlines plagued them, but the worst were the ones that dug into the family background and discovered the February accident:
Tragedy Drives Family to Franklin, only to uncover a murder…. Struggling single mom solves murder case. Orphans bring killers to justice. Unemployed foster-mother’s conversation with a killer: Full story inside.

Miriam was furious. Far away as she was, she got the news from concerned friends, and she called Julia one night to lambaste her for embarrassing the entire family.

“It looks as though we are cold and hard-hearted!” she fumed. “Everyone knows that we’re well off, and they’re wondering why we aren’t helping, why we aren’t supporting you. Your selfish pride is making us look like the evil grandparents. I’m wiring you money right now, Julia, and I won’t hear of you not accepting it. These are
my
grandchildren and I won’t have them starving.”

The call threw Julia into such a panic that she called Stephen Hall and left a desperate message about the guardianship of the children and her fears that Miriam would start proceedings again. Stephen Hall didn’t call back until the next day. If Robert hadn’t stopped by when he did, Julia might have gone frantic with worry.

“If that lawyer’s any good, he’ll know how to handle this, Julia. No judge is going to want to take the children away from you – it wouldn’t look right, not after all the publicity you’ve been getting from the neighbors about what a good mother you are.”

“People have been saying that?”

“What else could they say?” After a few moments, he asked, “Is he any good?”

“Who, Stephen?”

“Yeah, that… lawyer.”

“Very good. I don’t know what I’d do without him.”

“Oh. Really.”

She laughed at his suddenly dour expression. “I mean, professionally, Robert.”

He looked embarrassed. “I knew that,” he protested.

They were sitting on the porch, side by side on the front steps. As he put his arm around her shoulder, Julia asked him what brought him to the house in time to save her.

“Ron. Dana and Amelia saw the truck parked near the lot behind your house and recognized it. He called me and told me that he thought that you might be in trouble. That kid sure is something. He never lost his cool.”

Julia had to agree with him there.

“It’s done John a lot of good, having this out in the open,” Robert continued. “On the way to the station, he kept telling me what a weight it was off of his shoulders. He was worried about J. C. ‘I’ve made such a mess of everything,’ he kept saying. ‘I don’t know how I’ll tell my poor boy…”’

She nodded, and her head hurt again. She reached up a hand to gently touch the latest wound, which was healing nicely. “He must have gotten nervous when he learned that I was renovating.”

“He was. He kept apologizing for your getting hurt. Even if we hadn’t found the fingerprints, I think he would have confessed sooner rather than later. He was frightened of his brother.”

“He’s not the only one.”

He didn’t answer, just pulled her closer.

Eventually things started to quiet down. One hot, sticky day in August, Robert and Julia packed a picnic lunch and took the kids to the lake. Dylan came along at the last minute. He’d become a fixture at the house, now that his others friends were away at their camps and summer schools.

At the beach, they set up a picnic and rubbed on sunscreen and copious amounts of insect repellant. Robert brought an area lamp to keep the horseflies at bay, but the horseflies were brutal out of the lamp’s range. The only way to keep them off was to keep moving, which the children managed to do easily. They hit the water and didn’t leave it, swimming, playing Marco Polo, or jumping off of the floats they’d brought, seeing who could make the biggest splash. Robert came in to play, too, to their delight and to Julia’s amusement.

Julia thought the water was absolutely delicious. The designated lifeguard, she left her book more than once to join in the fun. It seemed that the stresses of the world melted away.

After one of her brief swims, Julia relaxed on the picnic blanket, propped up on her elbows. Next to her, the tiny portable barbeque snapped and hissed as thick hot dogs roasted and dripped over the heat.

It was all so happy and peaceful that Julia felt contentment growing inside her. With the warmth of the sun on her back, the scent of the hotdogs, and the sight of everyone that she loved having fun, she could have laid there for hours and wanted nothing more.

The jangle of her phone jolted her out of her pleasant reverie. She sat up and dove into her bag for the phone. She managed to pick up halfway through the third ring.

“Hello?”

“I’ve got great news for you, kiddo,” Sherri crowed loudly in her ear. “When you hear it, you’re going to say that I’m the best realtor you’ve ever dealt with in your life. I just got you the asking price on the house. The
asking
price, Julia.”

Julia felt her stomach fall.

The asking price for the Franklin House?

After everything that had happened in that house, she ought to be relieved to sell it and never see it again. It took her a week after Michael Irwin’s attack before she could look in the mirror without wincing, and she still struggled with nightmares involving bloodstains and men with tie-wraps. She had decided more than once to sell it.

But she couldn’t help thinking about all the dinners they’d had in the kitchen and the now-functioning dining room, the kids’ lazy morning in their pajamas around the TV, and the boys’ room with the new basketball hoop. There was the nook in the kitchen that Horatio liked to sleep in, the little garden out back that Dana and Amelia had grown so fond of, and Robert and Amelia next door, so close that Robert could stop for a cup of coffee on his way to work. So much good had happened in those walls that it was hard to remember the evil.

They’d always known that they weren’t in Franklin for long, but now that the end had arrived, it was a jolt. She looked over to the kids in the water, steadied herself, and forced herself to speak calmly.

“Well, that is good news, Sherri…”

“I can’t believe it myself, kid, I was so shocked. You know how bad the housing market has been lately. It’s been tricky getting any house to move, let alone at full asking price. I could have gotten more, too, if I’d mentioned that the Smith family from Boston was also looking at it.”

“You are amazing.”

“More like you lucked out – these people have just come into some money and wanted to move up. They practically bought it from the pictures on the website, but I insisted that they have a look at the place. They walked through three rooms when the hubby – I assume it’s the hubby – might just be the boyfriend… Anyway, he turned to me and said…”

Julia stopped her. “Wait a minute, wait a minute. When did you show the house?”

“Yesterday, silly. Something wrong?”

“Then – you mean the Springfield house?”

“Of
course
I mean the Springfield house! What else would I mean? I’m telling you, Julia, no one’s looking at the Franklin house. Franklin is dead. There’s nothing moving there.”

Julia looked out over the lake, where another family with small children was being welcomed into the water by Dana and Amelia.

“I have to disagree with you there, Sherri,” she said. “There’s lots of life still here.”

“Well, there may be life, but not a lot of real estate prospects. So, what do I tell the Jensens? They’re meeting with their lawyers now and will make a formal proposal this afternoon. Should I give them the go ahead?”

It was a question that she’d been putting off all summer. Could she sell Amanda’s house or did the kids still need it? And if she did sell it, where would they live then? Could she really move them up to New Hampshire without having a job in place first?

She rubbed her forehead, feeling a headache moving in. “I don’t know yet, Sherri. I’ll have to get back to you…”

“Oh, Julia!” She was very annoyed, and Julia couldn’t blame her.

But she was firm. “I can’t make a decision without talking to the kids. I’ll get back to you this afternoon.”

“But…”

“By then the lawyers will have had a chance to draft the proposal. I’ll get back to you, Sherri, I promise. Thanks for everything.”

She hung up and threw the phone back into her purse. Sizzling from the barbeque alerted her, and she turned the hotdogs to reveal the crispy, brown grill marks on the bottoms. She set out things for lunch, but all her contentment was gone, leaving behind the stress and insecurity that she’d been struggling with for weeks.

Summer was slowly creeping to a close, and she was no closer to being employed than she had been back in June. If it went on for much longer, the unemployment checks wouldn’t be enough. Letting Springfield go would make so much sense. But were the kids ready? Could she do that to them?

Dana came running then, her skin glowing.

“I’m starving,” she said. “When do we eat?”

“In a few minutes, honey.”

“Good.”

Dana plopped down on the blanket and sighed happily. In the water, Amelia squealed as Robert tossed her in the water.

Julia turned the hot dogs over and lowered the heat on the barbeque, still musing. Her phone buzzed with a text, but she ignored it and went to the cooler to get out the condiments. When she came back, Dana was holding her phone, looking at a follow-up text from Sherri.

“Are we selling the house, Aunt Julia?” she asked.

Julia nearly choked. She snatched the phone away, snapping, “Dana! That’s private.”

“Sorry.” She was wide-eyed. “I’m sorry, Aunt Julia. But why are we selling the house?”

Julia put the phone in her pocket, regretting her outburst, but too shaken to apologize yet. “We aren’t selling anything yet, Dana. Let’s talk about it later, okay?”

“Okay,” she whispered.

Julia busied herself setting out lunch, watching Dana out of the corner of her eye. She was clearly unhappy, plucking at the grass, and frowning. When Horatio came over, he put his head in her lap and she sighed as she stroked his fur.

Julia was pulling out the salad when Dana spoke.

“We can’t do it, you know,” she said.

Julia steeled herself before she turned. “We can’t do what, Dana?”

Her blue eyes were steady, unafraid. She was certain. “We can’t sell the house. It would be wrong.”

Julia sighed heavily. She’d been right – the emotional attachment to Springfield was still too strong. Dana couldn’t let go and the others probably couldn’t, either. Where did that leave Julia?

She was about to respond when Dana burst out, “It’s just so wrong, Aunt Julia! Ron says we need the money, but money’s not as important as people. We can’t just
leave
.”

“Dana, Dana, please listen to me…”

She shrugged off Julia’s hand and shook her head. To Julia’s surprise, she continued, her voice steady, not shedding a single tear, even though her eyes seemed misty.

“There are
people
here who need us, Aunt Julia. Where would Amelia be without me? Who’s going to walk Mrs. Jurta’s dogs? Who is going to fish with Robert if Ron isn’t here? And who’s going to keep Dylan out of trouble if Ron isn’t here? He needs a friend and Ron’s the best friend anyone could ever have. Who’s going to be your friend, Aunt Julia, if we don’t have Caroline and Joseph and all those people? And Steven Hall is nice, but he doesn’t like you nearly as much as Robert does.”

“
What?
”

Dana looked surprised. “I thought you knew that,” she said. “Aunt Julia, I know some scary things happened, but you were right to bring us here.” She paused reflectively, then said, “I mean, I’ll miss Mom and Dad’s house, but Mom would want us to live where our friends are. She told me all the time how important people are. Well, I think these people are important. I think they helped us. Jack’s not scared of dogs anymore, and I didn’t know anything about gardens until we came here and now I have one. I always wanted a sister, like you and Mom were sisters. Now I do, with Amelia, and I like her, Aunt Julia. I really, really do. You don’t worry here as much, because Robert is nearby.”