Chapter 9
After the funeral, Cade headed back to the RV to unwind and check on Boo, while I made my way to the wake, determined to speak with Martin.
I spotted him in the backyard beneath an oak tree, his face buried in his hands.
He looked like a man who wanted solitude, but I couldn’t ignore the questions weighing on my mind.
I needed answers.
Unlike Gideon’s muscular build, Martin looked as if he’d never set foot in a gym. He was husky, soft around the edges. Only when he lifted his gaze did I notice the one striking similarity between the brothers—those piercing blue eyes.
“Uhh, hey,” he said. “How long have you been standing there?”
“Long enough to contemplate whether I should introduce myself or give you some time to yourself.”
He tipped his head toward his sister’s house. “I can’t be in there, around everyone. None of them knew my brother. None of them cared about him. So why are they here?”
“They may not have known Gideon, but they know you and your sister, and they knew your mother. I hear she was well loved in this town.”
“I guess. It’s just hard to believe most of them didn’t show up to feed on the latest gossip surrounding the murder.”
“I’d wager some of them came for just that reason.”
“Yeah? Well, I’ve got no interest in talking to anyone. But you—I don’t mind. Camille told me she hired you to find out who killed our brother, and I’m glad she did. That sorry excuse for a sheriff might pretend he cares, but if you ask me, he doesn’t.”
I was relieved he was willing to talk to me, though standing over him made me feel awkward, like I was towering over him. The alternative was to sit beside him, but that meant risking grass stains on my charcoal dress—a thought I tried not to dwell on.
Decisions, decisions.
I sat.
“I’ve learned Gideon was bullied as a teen,” I said.
“I’m eight years younger, so most of what he went through was hidden from me. I caught bits and pieces—rumors about him being picked on, about how he stood up to the bullies in the end. He never spoke to me about it, so I can’t say for certain what happened.”
“Your sister seems to know a lot about what went on back then.”
“Gideon and Camille were close in age, just a year apart. I came along much later, an unplanned pregnancy. Camille and Gideon’s father left when Gideon was three and Camille was two.
Years later, my mother met a man passing through town.
They spent the night together, and I was conceived.
She never saw him again, never even learned his last name. ”
Which made him a half-brother.
“It must have been hard on your mother, raising three kids on her own,” I said.
He plucked a blade of grass, rolling it between his thumb and forefinger. “She did her best. I’d like to think we turned out all right.”
We’d gotten through some of the easier topics of conversation.
Now seemed like a good time to shift.
“Do you have any idea why someone murdered your brother?” I asked.
He paused, considering the question. “I don’t. I’ve been asking myself why anyone here would want to kill him. It doesn’t make sense.”
“Are there any possible motives that spring to mind?”
“At first, when the police called, I wondered if it was a robbery gone wrong. Maybe someone thought the bakery was closed and didn’t realize my brother was still inside. But then I found out nothing was taken—the cash was still in the register.”
I pressed him further.
“I heard you had an intense phone call with Gideon before he died,” I said.
“Where’d you hear that?”
“Does it matter?”
“It wasn’t one heated call—we had several. Gideon knew how much the bakery meant to our mother, to Camille, to me, but he didn’t care. To him, all that mattered was the bottom line, and the fact that the bakery was losing money.”
“It was losing money, though. Wasn’t it?”
He tipped his head back, glancing at the branches overhead. “I mean, yes. But it was starting to turn a profit again. It wasn’t much, but it was a start. I had all kinds of ideas, things we could do to pivot, to keep the needle moving in the right direction. He didn’t want to hear about them.”
“How did it make you feel when he wouldn’t listen to you?”
“In a word? Irritated. Gideon treated everything like a business deal. He stripped away the emotion and only focused on the bottom line.”
“I believe he viewed it that way, yes, but I also think the bakery represented something deeper—a period of his life bound up in negative memories.”
Martin shifted from a slouch to sitting upright, bracing his back against the tree. “Are you suggesting my brother wanted to shut down the bakery because it reminded him of past trauma?”
“I am.”
“Maybe you’re right,” he said with a shrug.
“We weren’t close, though I always wanted to be.
I looked up to Gideon. I tried to be involved in his life, to bring the three of us siblings together after our mother died.
Gideon didn’t show much interest. If we hadn’t put out any effort, I think he would have dissociated with us altogether. ”
A sharp bitterness laced his words, the echo of a grudge he couldn’t let go, though moments before he’d admitted he’d once hoped for the kind of bond with his brother he never got.
From what I’d learned, the brothers couldn’t have been more different. Gideon was guarded, never seeking anyone’s acceptance or approval. Martin, on the other hand, seemed to crave it wherever he could find it.
Rejection was a bitter pill, at first stinging like a slap, a failed attempt to win a loved one’s favor. But when that love was never returned, when they didn’t need you—what was left then?
Had such rejection turned to anger?
And anger to a motive for murder?