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

Hellers at the VFW. Maybe some of it was b.s.—my cousin’s a bigger bad ass than yours—and they were all drunk as skunks. But it was more than a haircut they were bragging about.”

She gave her son ‘The Look’. “Since when did Hellers start inviting Morgans to their parole parties?”

“It was a long time ago, Mom. When I was bouncing at the VFW. I remember it, though. Pretty rough stuff.”

“I’m told the young man was quite handsome. A little older than Susan. Well mannered… well-traveled… rich. You can imagine the rest for yourself. Your father stumbled across them a couple of times out on Pocket Island.”

Joe felt himself smiling for the first time in days.

“The parents sent the boy home, of course. He pitched a fit before they got him out—threatened to slit their throats. His father had to send some toughs from their embassy to collect him and ship him off to one of their religious schools. Dr. Pearce was going to send Susan away to boarding school. But she threw a fit, too, and the mother was scared she would hurt herself. Then along came your brother.”

Joe felt the release of long held breath. “Wow! How do you know all this?”

“Mrs. Ryan. She told anyone who’d listen after the Pearces let her go. She kept house for them, don’t you remember? She told me she heard the mother telling the father, ‘Better a Catholic than a…. Well… as I said… Mrs. Pearce was from Georgia, or someplace. She used the ‘n’ word.”

“That’s a juicy piece of ancient gossip, Mom. But what’s it got to do with me talking to Tommy about Susan Pearce?”

“I should think that would be obvious.”

He shrugged. “Not to me.”

She spelled it out. “She went back to him.”

“To the foreign exchange student?”

“That’s right. The one you sent your brother to talk to. In Montreal.”

“Dr. Hassad?”

“Whatever his name is. Mrs. Ryan recognized him when he stopped at the Quick Mart on his way to the funeral.”

Joe released another cloud of astonished breath. “And you think he and Susan are involved again?”

“I think they never stopped.”

“What?”

“Opposites attract, Joey. It’s the only explanation for most pairings.”

He felt his mouth open and head wag.

“Oh she’s had other lovers, of course. She’s a big girl and all that.” Joe felt her eyes search for his. “But my guess is that dark foreigner has had her heart all along. That she’s always done anything he’s asked and always will.”

“Wow!” was all he could say.

“Exactly. And the sooner your brother realizes that, the better. It’s not something he’ll be grateful to be hearing from you, I know. But it’s not something he’ll believe at all from his mother.”

Joe sat up straight in bed. “Why didn’t Dad say something to Tommy? Or to me? I would have talked some sense into him. Why would he let his son get sucked into something like that?”

“It suited his purpose.”

“What purpose?”

“Your father felt that your brother wasn’t cut out for the family line of work. He was wrong about that. But until Miss Pearce came along, he was worried that your brother was too smart to be allowed to hang around it much longer. ‘An experienced piece of timely distraction,’ was how he put it. The romance solved both families’ problems.”

“That’s cold, Mom.”

“And what would you have done? How long did it take your brother to figure out that herb garden business… or your moonlight frolic over Billy Pearce’s dead body?”

“Okay. So he’s a bright boy.”

“So are you. Your brother just spent too much time with that priest when he was young, that’s all. He’s an innocent, still. And that’s what’ll get him and you hurt.”

Joe raised his eyes and chin toward the ceiling. “Do you think it’s possible that Susan has been in contact with this Dr. Hassad all along? All those jobs in university labs and bio research companies?”

“I imagine that someone in his line would find those associations useful. But the romance had to be genuine, or Susan would have sensed it and moved on long ago. A girl like that doesn’t lack for attention.”

He felt that one too and winced. Partly to cover, he asked, “I wonder if there was also a connection between Hassad and Billy? Or was Billy just driving Frankie’s cars for pocket change when Susan came back to town and brought him into a bigger game?”

“Mmmm,” said Mary, without enthusiasm. “It’s past the time to be worrying about who did what to Billy Pearce. It’s your brother needs minding now. Or you’ll both end up in the soup.”

But he had to finish the thought. “And if Billy didn’t have a connection to Hassad, then bright boy’s theories of who did what to whom and why, are full of….”

“Holes,” snapped Mary. “Which is why you’re going to talk to him before he falls into one and drags our family down with him!”

CHAPTER 29

When the Feds let Tom go, he returned to Joe’s empty cabin, collapsed into bed and drifted through twilight vignettes staring Susan Pearce, Frankie Heller, the New York Attorney General and a red headed French lawyer he was certain he had never met but would certainly like to. In the more coherent snippets, he found himself noting that when one’s life fell apart, there was not necessarily a visible bottom. Or would there be a final warning just before the god-awful splat?

He might have laid there forever wallowing in the imponderable, had not two hundred decibels of AH-OOGA!! blasted him back to consciousness. Rolling from the mattress to the split-log floor, his first thought among the dust motes and carpet hairs was that Joe’s gun was not outside in the truck. He held his breath and remained still. An innocent visitor—even one of the stenciled windbreaker boys—would soon be shouting apologies and knocking on the sliding glass doors.

AH-OOGA!!

Or maybe they had, and he had not heard them.

He crawled to where he could peer through the gap between the peeled log wall