The Adored (23 page)

“Alright, I’m done with what I wanted to find out,” Paiva said. “Parker, you get back to bed.”

Jonathan Barnes, feeling some sympathy now for his son, said, “Captain Paiva, I’m going to walk Parker back to his room. Would you wait for me please?”

“Sure, Mr. Barnes.”

And while the elder Barnes took his charge to bed, Paiva began making notes in the small pad he kept in his shirt pocket. Several minutes passed and Jonathan Barnes returned to the library.

“What do you think, Al,” a concerned Barnes asked.

“Well we know where the blood came from. I’ve got a lot of work to do. Leave things to me tonight, hell, I should say this morning. I’ll get back to you sometime during the day, most likely after I talk with the investigating officers.” Pavia rose, and picked up the white trash bag with the bloody clothes. “I’ll take these clothes for safekeeping.”

“OK, Al, you know best.” Barnes rose to shake Pavia’s hand. “Again, thank you very much for coming here. I won’t forget it, Al.”

“You’re welcome, Mr. Barnes.”

Chapter 33

The following afternoon Captain Paiva drove down Shippan Ave, down Rogers Road and in through the gates at the end of the street. He passed through a narrow aisle of tall cypress trees on either side of the car. It reminded him of a trip he took with his mother and father to Italy when he was a small boy. At the end of the aisle sat Apple Manor. Coming in the dark the night before, he missed the beauty and stateliness of the home.

Upon coming out of the aisle of cypress, the view exploded outward. The large Mediterranean stucco home with the terra cotta tile roofs sat in the middle of a rounded two acres. For a 180 degree arc behind the house was water, Long Island Sound. To the left of the house was a tennis court, to the right in the rear were the slightly damaged garages, and behind the house were the swimming pool, a dock for the Barnes yacht and a massive patio.

Paiva drove to the rear of the house, looked at the damage to the garage without exiting his car and returned to the circular drive and parked just beyond the front door.

The housekeeper Mrs. Williams opened the door and greeted Paiva who was in uniform. “Can I help you, officer,” she said.

“Yes, I’m here to see Mr. Barnes, he’s expecting me.”

“Mr. Barnes, Senior, sir?” Mrs. Williams asked, given what she was aware of from the prior evening.

“Yes, Mr. Jonathan Barnes.”

“Please come in, I’ll let him know you’re here.”

Paiva entered and stood until Barnes came to meet him.

“Let’s go to the library, Al. It will give us privacy.” Barnes said leading the way, “How about something to drink?”

“Sure, but just a soda or water.”

Barnes left Paiva and went to get two sodas from the kitchen. He passed by their part-time housekeeper who mainly worked weekends, Mrs. Louise Strong.

“Mr. Barnes, I’m sorry to disturb you, but could I speak to you when you have a moment?” Mrs. Strong asked.

“Yes, Louise, I’ll be a little while,” and knowing she had seen Paiva, added, “I just need to finish up a couple of police commission responsibilities.”

“Yes, thank you, Mr. Barnes.

With two Pepsis in hand, Barnes returned to the library.

“Well, did you learn anything new, Al?”

“Quite a lot. Let me begin by saying it looks like everything Parker told us was true. His car was at Cummings Beach, a couple of my guys did get the plate number like he said. Regarding the dead guy, he was a dealer, a Guatemalan with a pretty extensive history of drug dealing, and illegal. Was deported twice and managed to find his way back here. My guys found the knife, some prints on it that they’re working on now.”

“Jesus, are they Parker’s,” an alarmed Barnes asked.

“Well, they were. But they aren’t now,” Paiva said with that slight smile.

“Whew, how did you do that,” Barnes said, now relieved.

“One of my best guys is supervising the investigation,” Pavia said and added, “You remember John Walsh, we promoted him to Detective Sergeant last year. He came through the commission because he was moving so quickly ahead of a few of his peers. You helped us on it.”

“Vaguely, rings a bell, I think,” Barnes said, “Hell, Al, I used to have a mind like a steel trap, could remember everything. Now, some stuff slips away. It’s why I’ve got to get Parker through all this crap. He’s the one who has to take over in a few years. Some heir apparent I’ve got here, huh?”

“He’s not a bad kid, Mr. Barnes, just having some trouble finding his way,” Paiva said, continuing; “Now, I also had another one of my guys do an analysis on the blood on the clothes. It is definitely the Guatemalan’s.”

“Shit, Al, I’m getting worried, this looks like it’s going to catch up to us?” an almost trembling Jonathan Barnes said.

“No, it won’t. It won’t. These are my guys. What happens in our family stays in our family. I have never had a breach of trust yet, in twenty years of leading men,” and for good measure he added, “and I don’t intend to start now.”

“So what’s next,” Barnes asked anxiously.

“Nothing on your end. You need to get Parker out of town and into rehab quickly.”

“I’ve already started. I’ve got a couple of places we’re talking to.”

“Good, and regarding the murder. There was an eye witness. She believes she knows the kid who she saw leaning over the dealer. A couple of Walsh’s guys picked him up this morning. We did a lineup and she picked him out. He’s being arraigned on Monday, the poor bastard. So I think we’re all set. But this is important: You must get Parker to understand he can never, not once, talk about this to anyone and not to any of those bleeding hearts in rehab.”

“I’ll make sure it never again enters his mind, under pain of loss of inheritance,” Jonathan Barnes concluded, standing now and again offering his hand to Captain Paiva.

“I’ll walk out with you, Al,” Barnes was saying, and when they exited the front door, “When the weather gets better, maybe you and your wife can come over for an afternoon sail.”

“Thanks, Mr. Barnes, I’d really like that,” Paiva said, knowing that an invitation would not be forthcoming.

“Al, I do appreciate all you have done. If I can ever help you, you only have to ask.”

“You’ve helped me a lot already. I’ll be talking with you, Mr. Barnes.”

When Barnes went back inside, he saw Louise Strong dusting in the library. Feeling much better he walked up and said with a smile, “Now, Mrs. Strong, how can I help you.”

“Mr. Barnes, may I ask you a question?”

“Why yes, Mrs. Strong,” Barnes said as he relaxed in his library.

“Well, it’s about my son, CJ. There was a crime…last night. A man was stabbed and he died.”

“Yes, was that over on the west side,’ Barnes replied barely looking up.

“It was. Well, Mr. Barnes, the police came to my house yesterday. They arrested my son; they think he did it,” Louise Strong said, now crying.

Curtis Strong went to prison for the crime Parker Barnes committed. Parker Barnes went on to Columbia and did quite well at the University. His life going forward was occasionally interrupted by bouts of drug abuse and the necessary return to rehab. Overcoming his afflictions was not a Parker Barnes strength. Besides drugs there was an obsession with wealth, and yet he had more money than all the people who had ever existed on earth, except for but two or three thousand. Well, his father had all that wealth, not Parker. Therein lay part of the disarray of his mind. His great dilemma: how to get hold of it now, not when dear old dad chose to give it up.

There was a certain degree of envy for his closest lifelong friends from Brunswick. Their fortunes were similar, but in a number of cases, they had possession of the fortune. Now he didn’t want all of it, like Sebastian Ball, whose father loved him so much, confided in him as an alter ego, taught him the business, and for his twenty-first birthday gave him one hundred million dollars, taxes paid. Then again the Balls, as they said, had it all. And they did, with Sebastian senior annually making the Forbes list of the twenty wealthiest men in the world, with an estimated fortune of seven to ten billion dollars.

The esteem for a son and a way of showing it was what gnawed at Parker Barnes, or rather the lack of esteem. And he knew he was responsible for part of it; he did this to himself with his behavior. But not all of it. His father was not like the others. There was a stinginess to him as if he had built Barnes Construction himself and no one else could share in it. Mr. Jonathan Barnes was himself an heir to the fortune and at a very young age and did not need to go begging to daddy every time an opportunity arose.

The other Brunswick boys still locked together for life with friendship and their Brunswick Fund had access. Access was important for esteem. Barnes had to have it. And it is why, as his father did turn elements of the business over to him, such as their New York City holdings, that Parker felt it necessary to take liberties to have that esteem.

And when Brunswick Fund was to go to the next level with each member needing to ante up another two million dollars, it was Parker who early on board was cheerleading the creation of something that would advance his wealth independent of his father. But it was a dangerous move for him, one that he needed to watch carefully, for what he did was write four checks for five hundred thousand dollars each to Brunswick Fund and enter them into the ledger as buying additional properties on the upper west side.

In fact after several months passed and nothing came of the bookkeeping falsification, young Mr. Barnes created several entries on the order of another one million dollars. This he felt would help him live in a style necessary to keep pace with his friends. After all, for someone of his age and station in life, who would someday inherit several hundred million dollars, trying to get by on one 150 thousand dollars per year that his piker father had bestowed on him as salary, just did not do it.

Chapter 34

So it was on this day that Louise Strong would find her son content, unconcerned with the outside world; his plate, as he would share with her, was full and about to get fuller.

He saw his mother, and he stood up as he always did at the sight of his mother approaching the visiting area table he sat at. Then he noticed, from sixty feet away, as she got closer the other woman, the younger one, was with his mother. She was familiar; somehow, yes, it was Kathy Jackson. He froze; fear or shock, something gripped him. So out of place here.

CJ’s smile returned as he hugged his mother. Mrs. Strong said, “I have a surprise for you.”

“I can see that,” CJ said, and looking at Kathy Jackson, “Hi, aren’t you a little out of the neighborhood, Kathy?”

“Hi, CJ,” she laughed, “yes, just a bit. And she moved to hug him. CJ put his arms around his high school prom date and girlfriend for too short a time.

For the first time since he had been arrested, he felt a rush, a pleasant rush, almost new. A warmth came over him. He stood back from her. “You are a surprise, a good surprise.”

Louise Strong had been hesitant when Kathy Jackson asked her in the previous week to accompany her on her next visit to see CJ. But realized no harm, nothing but goodness would flow from this vibrant bright beauty to her son. She embraced the idea. The surprise worked.

CJ was so taken with the visit he forgot to mention the two A’s he had recently received. Louise Strong for the first time in years saw a different flirtatious side of her son. It was a side she was happy to see; it meant he had not lost hope and could adjust quickly, if only there were a way out of this hell.

Louise excused herself, “I’ll be back in a minute. That was a long ride, I need to use the restroom.” This was too good to interrupt—she would go back out to the waiting room for a while and read a magazine and let CJ and Kathy have time to talk. She saw the connection—it was electric, it was immediate. Louise and Kathy had talked all the way up on the drive, and having Kathy drive saved her from the excruciating boredom of the much longer bus ride . It was such a pleasure to be in a car again and to have time to talk with such a pleasant young woman. Even the scenery seemed to improve along the drive.

As CJ watched his mother pass by the guard at the door, he turned and faced Kathy. “It is so good to see you.”

“So how’s it really going, CJ?” she asked, assuming he would be able to let his guard down without his mother present.

“Compared to freedom?” he said, but rather than becoming morose, he came right back. “I’m fine; I’m making progress, you know, with school, helping other inmates, sports, my work.”

Kathy Jackson knew why she admired CJ Strong. He was a faithful to his name—he was more than that; he could endure, and progress in spite of his circumstances. She remembered how poised he was in the face of the poverty he endured. Kathy Jackson grew up in Stamford’s south end, poor, with a family struggling, but when they dated in high school, CJ was downright poor, more poor. Maybe the poorest kid she ever knew. But you didn’t know it, not from CJ, not from his appearance which was always fresh, ironed polo shirts and chinos, clean sneakers and he always smelled like a man. It was only when you went to his neighborhood that you saw the poverty. But CJ wasn’t poor; he was not poor of spirit. He laughed, he joked, he was a normal, healthy good kid. And now here was that same good kid with that same even disposition making the best of hell.