Coldwater Revenge by James Ross (best e reader for android .txt) 📕

suppressed emotion were taking their collective toll. “Is it your brother?”

He nodded.

“Oh dear.” Mary eased her weight onto the overstuffed, over-doilied couch. “The hospital told me he checked out. Some doctor has been calling here every hour.”

“He’s pretty sick, Mom. But that’s the least of his problems.” Mary’s face turned from worried to wary. He hesitated. How do I tell our mother that her son may be complicit in a killing?

“What is it, Tommy?”

He shook his head and tried to breathe steadily. Then he began the way he knew best: a lawyer, laying the foundation of a case.

“Dad left you pretty well off.” He could see Mary puzzle at the change of subject and the nervy timbre in his voice.

“He was a good provider. A bit wild, but no dummy.”

“Do you remember the money the funeral home found in his coat?”

She bit her lip.

“You said then that you didn’t think it was anything unusual. That Dad just didn’t trust banks. I let it go. There was no point getting into it then.”

She remained silent.

“But I need to talk to you about it now. Joe’s in trouble and I want to help him, if I can. But if you can’t go there, or don’t know what I’m talking about, then I’ll drop it. You have to let me know.”

He waited for her to examine the corner he’d walked her into and the door he’d left open, and then make her choice.

She made it quickly. “I was a policeman’s wife for twenty-five years, Tommy. There’s not much I haven’t seen or heard.”

“Then you know where that money came from.”

“I have a good idea, yes.”

“The Hellers, the Dooleys, the Cashins, all of them.”

“I don’t know that. I know that it didn’t fall from the sky, if that’s what you’re asking, and that your father didn’t save it out of his paycheck.”

“That’ll do for now. And you know that Joe lives large too, just like Dad did. Larger than his paycheck anyway.”

“He’s a young man, Tommy. Some of them buy toys.”

“And if he’s paying cash?”

“I don’t know that. And neither do you.”

“But you know what I’m talking about?”

“Yes, I do. And I think you’re on very shaky ground, young man.”

“Frankie Heller is dead, Mom. So is Billy Pearce. They got dead on account of some trouble with the two-bit dope business that Hellers have been running, and Morgan sheriffs ignoring, for as long as anybody around here can remember.”

“You said that your brother may be in trouble,” she said firmly.

“That’s right. The state police are here looking into Billy’s death, with Paulie Grogan leading the pack. They’re going to find out that Joe was in the Pearce boathouse when Billy left on his last ride and that Billy didn’t go willingly.”

Mary closed her eyes and pulled in a lungful of air. “Go on.”

He recounted as much of the story as he was confident he had pieced together. His voice firmed as he laid out the items of evidence as if they were exhibits in a courtroom: the NeuroGene/U-Labs connection, his encounter with Susan Pearce’s cockatoo, the dog that didn’t bark at Joe but nearly shredded his mother’s other son, the navigational hazards of Wilson Cove at night, the severed cockatoo’s foot and the fresh gouges on Joe’s head and arms that appeared hours after Billy’s killing and that were identical to the ones Susan’s bird inflicted on Tom a few days later.

Through it all, his mother sat silent and avoided her son’s gaze. When he had finished, she asked, “Have you told this theory to your brother?”

“About an hour ago.”

“And what did he say?”

“Nothing.”

“And you want me…?”

“To tell me that Joe picked you up from the hospital the afternoon Billy was killed and stayed with you until the next morning, that he spent the entire evening moving you into his cabin, setting you up with a snack cart, CD’s and remote TV and that he didn’t leave until he came to pick me up at the airport.”

“And if I can’t do that?” Mary’s voice was soft, but not alarmed.

“Then tell me how we survive as a family if we both know baby brother is a killer and we try to keep it as just another family secret.”

His mother took her time to answer. While he waited for her to utter the unspeakable, his ears found the sounds of the things that made the tiny apartment work: the hum of the baseboard heater, the whir of the refrigerator motor, the ticking of the clock above the combination stove/oven.

“Oh, Tommy,” she sighed.

His response was immediate and merciless. “Billy Pearce was alive when someone stuffed him in that bag. Alive when they dumped it in Wilson Cove. They drowned him.”

“So your brother told me.” His mother’s voice was steady but cautious.

He looked at her and waited.

“And it seems to me that there’s some things he’s been telling me, that for some reason he’s chosen not to tell you.”

“I’m listening.”

“Tommy…”

“Mom, what I know says Joe is involved in Billy Pearce’s murder. I have to decide soon what to do about that. If you know something different, tell me before I might have to tell somebody outside the family what I won’t be able to un-tell once it’s out.”

Mary released a lungful of trapped breath. “Very well. That makes sense I guess. Sit,” she commanded.

He took a half step back, propped his back against the floral patterned wallpaper, folded his arms and looked down.

“Your brother was at the Pearce’s house the night Billy was killed. That’s true. He’s been a regular visitor there these past few months.” Mary paused to let the significance of that confidence sink in.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean temptation comes with the job, Tommy. And your brother…well, someone like Miss Pearce would only have to lift an eyebrow, wouldn’t she?”

Or a shirt.

“Go on.”

“Your brother stopped there last Saturday before the start of his shift. Miss Pearce wasn’t home, but the brother was. Sick as a dog, according to Joe, and coughing blood. But the brother