Chapter 11 #2
“It would have been nice, considering I was bankrolling their lives. Jesus, my own daughter pretty much hated me, thanks to Maxine.” Tears filled his eyes.
The irritation he clearly had toward his wife and daughter drained away, softening his posture.
Or maybe he was reaching the point where he couldn’t hold off the reality that his family was dead and the accompanying grief.
Propping his elbows on his knees, he exhaled hard and dropped his face into his hands, sniffling.
Turner watched him with a stony expression. Josie waited to see if he would break down completely or pull himself together. After the big hand on the clock above Charles’s head advanced twice and he showed no signs of falling apart, she resumed the interview.
“What did the medical examiner from Fauset County tell you when he came to give you the death notifications?” Josie asked.
His words were muffled. “That they were murdered.”
Josie and Turner exchanged a curious look.
There they were, developing an unspoken language, like they’d been doing this together forever.
It was mildly alarming. While it benefited them both professionally to be able to communicate without words, Josie wasn’t sure she wanted to forge that kind of intimacy with someone who pissed her off as consistently as Turner.
Shaking off the thoughts, she asked Charles, “You were told that your wife and daughter were murdered and your first instinct was to get into their tent?”
“My first instinct?” he said, lifting his head and using the backs of his hands to wipe away tears. “No. My first instinct was to punch a hole in the wall. Haven might not have liked me very much, but she was still my daughter.”
“That’s fair,” Josie said. “Tell us why you needed to get into the tent.”
Charles looked away from them as more tears slid down his cheeks.
This time, he used the sleeve of his shirt to sop them up.
“I didn’t know what to do after they told me, you know?
I was in shock. The next thing I know, I’m sitting in the driveway of the house.
Our house. Guess I just wanted to be around all their things or something.
Be in the house where we used to be a family.
But Maxine changed the locks as soon as I moved out.
I needed the key and figured it would be with their stuff in the tent. ”
“You didn’t want to get a divorce initially,” Josie said. “But then you were the one who moved out?”
Charles didn’t answer.
Turner made a sound of disgust. “I see. What’s her name?”
He sniffled again. “What? Who?”
“The woman you’re seeing. ’Cause after everything you just told us, there’s no way you would willingly leave that house and let Maxine have it.”
“There’s no woman,” he insisted.
“We’ll let her know you said that when we interview her,” Josie said flatly.
“Jesus, you’re a pain in the ass. Fine. There was someone when I first moved out, okay?” He rattled off a name which Turner plugged into the notes app on his phone. “It only lasted a month. But Maxine and I were separated.”
“You were separated,” Turner said. “But you continued to harass your wife.”
Charles blinked back more tears. “She wanted me out so I left. How is that harassing her? Anyway, she was my wife. I had a right to talk to her.”
Turner arched a brow. “By talking to her, do you also mean texting her upwards of seventeen times in a single day and calling her an ‘ungrateful bitch,’ a ‘horrible mother,’ and— Oh yeah, my favorite: ‘an annoying, ugly, frigid hag who couldn’t get another man if her life depended on it’?”
Charles’s face paled, his eyes flickering to Josie as if for confirmation that they had, in fact, read the text messages between him and his wife.
Josie said, “This is a murder investigation. We look at everything.”
“Listen,” he said. “It wasn’t as bad as you’re making it sound.”
“I don’t know about that,” Josie said. “It seems like Haven took issue with the way you treated her mother. Just last week she texted you, I quote, ‘leave Mom alone and stop acting insane or I’m blocking you.’”
Josie couldn’t figure out if Charles had a shred of humanity or simply that he understood acting human would be in his best interest, because the lines of his face slackened and his eyes flashed with regret.
Softening his voice, he said, “Okay, okay. Maybe I got carried away. If you read our texts then you know I promised I would leave Maxine alone and that I apologized.”
“Sure,” Josie said. “But you sent Maxine a pretty strong message the day they left for the festival. What did it say, Turner? Do you remember?”
He didn’t take his eyes off Charles. “About as well as I remember that statute we talked about earlier. You told your wife that you drove past the house and the roof over the garage was sagging. Then you told her that if she wasn’t going to keep the house in good repair, you were taking it and she could find some hovel to live in and take her ungrateful kid with her. ”
Maxine hadn’t responded. There had been no texts between Haven and her father for the two days the Barnes women were at the festival. Josie was certain that Maxine hadn’t shared Charles’s latest message with her daughter.
“Okay, so maybe that was a little harsh, but Maxine couldn’t afford to stay there anyway. She quit her job a few months ago and never even told me.”
“Why did she quit?” asked Josie.
Charles lifted his hands and let them fall back to his knees. “Don’t know. I didn’t realize it right away. Not until her direct deposits stopped coming into our account.”
Turner said, “Was she still working at that doctor’s office? Over on Quesenberry Court?”
Charles nodded. Josie knew the area. A lot of medical office buildings were crowded into a two-block radius.
“Listen, I didn’t want to bring this up,” Charles said, lowering his voice conspiratorially.
“But Maxine was acting real weird the last few months. I think she was on drugs. I could never prove it but she lost a lot of weight. She was all twitchy and paranoid. An office manager for a medical office? I think she was getting drugs from work or something and got fired, but didn’t want to tell me that.
I didn’t want her to think that I was going to pay for this habit she developed after we split, pay for her to live in the house when she wasn’t going to work, and if she was on drugs, Haven shouldn’t have been around her. ”
“Did Haven ever mention anything that might lead you to believe Maxine was on drugs?” asked Josie.
Charles blinked twice. More tears glistened in his eyes. “She wouldn’t have told me even if she knew something. I told you, my wife poisoned her against me.”
“Right,” Turner said. “We’ve talked a lot about your wife. Why don’t we discuss your daughter? Was there anyone in her life who might have wanted to harm her? Anyone she might have been having trouble with?”
“How the hell would I know?” Charles said.
“You don’t know the names of any of her friends?” Turner asked. “Teachers at school? Coworkers? People she saw regularly?”
“Why would I know those things?”
“Why wouldn’t you know those things?” Turner asked calmly.
He and Josie both knew why—his daughter didn’t trust him, didn’t seem to like him much either. From where they sat, the father–daughter dynamic was obvious, but Josie knew that Turner was trying to make a point. To get him to admit to their strained relationship in a formal interview.
Charles said, “Maxine turned her against me.”
Turner chuckled darkly. “That’s what you’re going with?”
“What I’m going with?” Charles asked. “What does that mean?”
“Did you raise Haven?”
“What kind of question is that?”
“The kind I’m asking a man whose kid was just murdered who seems more focused on every sin he thinks his wife committed than that his child was killed. Did you raise Haven?”
Charles’s lips flapped before he finally pushed out a stammered “Yeah.”
Turner kept going. “You’re telling me that you held her tiny body in your hands after Maxine gave birth to her?
That you changed so many shitty diapers you can still smell them sometimes?
That you stayed up nights pacing the house with her in your arms when she was teething?
That you spent hours potty-training her when she was a toddler?
That you read her favorite books at bedtime so many times that to this day, you could recite them without even looking at the page?
That you spent all of Christmas Day putting together her new toys and playing with some weird-ass dolls or letting her put fake makeup on you?
That you put together the bike you got her for her birthday because you promised you’d do it even though you just had your wisdom teeth removed, and you were high as hell?
That you checked under her bed for monsters until she was almost thirteen? You did that shit? Dad shit?”
Josie’s heartbeat picked up. She should have been watching Charles’s face for a reaction but she couldn’t tear her gaze from Turner.
A smug, contemptuous smirk tugged at his lips but something vulnerable shimmered under the surface of his professional mask.
Did he even realize how much he’d just revealed?
She waited for Charles to ask him who he was really talking about but instead he hung his head and mumbled, “Maxine did that stuff.”
Turner leaned toward him. “Your wife did all the dad shit. Okay. What’d you do?”
“I provided,” Charles said fiercely even as he dug his knuckles into his eyes. “I worked. All the time. Nights, weekends. Overtime. I worked so my little girl could have whatever she needed. So they could have the lifestyle they wanted.”
“What kind of lifestyle did your daughter want?” Josie asked.
“The kind her mother told her to want.”
“Right,” Josie said. “When is the last time you saw Haven?”
“Two weeks ago. I stopped by the house to get some tools. I asked her about school. She told me to stop acting like I cared. She was rude, like her mother. I left. Next thing I know, Maxine is calling me telling me they’re going to this festival and they’re going to stay at some campsite for a whole week. ”
“Where were you on Saturday night?” asked Josie.
“At home. In my apartment.” He shot Josie a glare. “Alone. No women.”
“Were you alone the whole night?” Josie asked.
“Yeah.”
“You didn’t go anywhere?” Turner said.
“No.”
“You ever get your wife flowers?” asked Turner.
The sudden change in questioning rendered Charles speechless. For a long moment, he simply stared at them.
“Mr. Barnes,” Josie said. “Did you buy Maxine flowers often?”
“Um, no, not really. Our wedding anniversary, but that’s about it.”
“Did your wife have a favorite flower?”
“Hell if I know. Why does this matter?”
“How about your daughter?” Josie asked. “Did you get her flowers? Did she have a favorite flower?”
“No.” Charles shook his head. “I don’t know.”
“Do you recall Haven ever receiving flowers?” Josie said.
“Only if she had a date to her homecoming dance or prom. That’s it.”
“Going back to Maxine.” Josie changed the subject. “Was there anyone she was having trouble with that you’re aware of? Friend, coworker, neighbor? Anyone threatening her? Stalking her?”
“I don’t know,” Charles said. “Her drug dealer, I guess.”
“Oh yeah? What’s his name?” Turner’s voice dripped with sarcasm.
Charles sighed, missing Turner’s tone. “I told you, I don’t know anything about any of that. I’m just letting you know that I think she was on drugs for the past few months. If she was, then maybe she was having problems with a dealer or something.”
“You don’t actually know anything,” Josie said. “Like facts, for example.”
Charles glared at her. His lip curled into a sneer.
Before he could respond, Turner tapped the table, making Charles jump.
“We’re going to need to search your phone and the GPS on your vehicle.
We’d like to do a search of Maxine and Haven’s home, which is also in your name as well as your apartment.
You can consent to those things and help us get them done or we can get a warrant. Your choice.”
“Warrant,” Charles said. “Get a warrant.”