Chapter Four
Driving back to Phoenix, I called the Angelhart office to find out if my mother was in. She wasn’t. According to Iris, our
office manager, she was running errands then had a dentist appointment. After getting the details, I figured she’d be home
by six. I could confront her in front of Jack and Tess, but I also knew my mom—she would clam up if she thought she was being
ganged up on. Which was pretty much my MO as well. I came by it honestly.
No, this was between Mom and me.
I was certain she knew the truth. She would never have stood by Dad’s confession if she didn’t know at least most of what happened the night Devin Klein was murdered. She had stuck by my dad’s side from the very beginning, never wavering,
never questioning his decision to plead guilty. Yet there was one thing she had never said out loud: Your father killed a man.
She’d told us to stand by Dad in this difficult time.
She’d explained what the plea agreement entailed: Your father is pleading guilty to second-degree murder and will be in prison for fifteen years.
She had visited him every week since. But never did she say he pulled the trigger, that he killed someone, that he was taking
his punishment because of remorse for his actions.
She knew. Uncle Rafe knew as well, because he would have taken Dad’s confession, but getting Uncle Rafe to spill confidences from the confessional would literally never happen. Mom wasn’t a much easier nut to crack, but I was going to crack her.
No more secrets. No more obfuscations. The truth had to come out. For my dad. For me. For Liz Swanson’s boys.
I let myself into my childhood home at five thirty that afternoon, just as my phone rang. It was Cal.
I considered ignoring his call, but answered on the third ring.
“Hey,” I said.
“I haven’t heard from you all day. How did your meeting go?”
I hadn’t called or texted Cal about the double homicide.
“It didn’t. We should talk, but not over the phone.”
“What’s wrong?” he asked, sounding more cop than boyfriend.
“I’ll tell you tonight. I don’t know when I’ll be back, but I shouldn’t be later than nine.”
“I’ll meet you at your house. You’re okay, right?”
“Yeah.” Okay really didn’t mean anything. I was physically okay. Hell, I was even emotionally okay. I was just not truly “okay” because my dad was in prison and Liz Swanson and her husband were dead and something bad had happened three and a
half years ago that had my dad keeping a dark and dangerous secret.
And that, ultimately, was what bothered me. My dad was in prison because he was protecting a killer. And that killer he was
protecting had most likely killed the Swansons. Why would he do such a thing?
“Margo,” Cal said, “don’t be too late, or I’ll send out an army looking for you.”
“I won’t.”
I ended the call and sat down at the kitchen counter, my stomach in knots, the gallon of iced coffee I’d drank throughout the day now making me feel ill.
I couldn’t sit more than two minutes, so I rose and walked around the house. So many memories here, mostly good. This was
my home, even though I was thirty-three and had been on my own for fifteen years.
It would always be home.
When I was born, there were three bedrooms and two baths. The bedrooms were large—which was a good thing because otherwise
Tess and I would probably have fought a lot more—but Jack, Tess, Nico, and I had to share a bathroom. When Mom was pregnant
with Luisa they added another bedroom and expanded the family room, but the extra bathroom didn’t come until I was a junior
in high school and Jack had already moved out of the house.
But it was a good house to grow up in, the bathroom fights notwithstanding. A happy house with a happy family.
Until Dad went to prison.
I stared at the family portrait that hung in the large foyer (another expansion from the second remodel). It wasn’t the most
recent, but it was my mom’s favorite. Jack a senior, Tess a junior, me a sophomore, Nico a freshman. We were all standing
in the back, Mom and Dad sitting on stools, their heads tilted just slightly toward each other, my mom’s smile genuine because
Dad had made her laugh. And little Luisa—then barely seven—standing next to Dad, her hand on his arm, his hand on hers. We
all wore jeans, the boys in crisp white button-down shirts, us girls in long-sleeve burgundy shirts, Mom and Dad wearing Christmas-themed
sweaters.
When we all lived under this roof. Before Jack joined the police academy, before Tess went off to college, before I enlisted
in the Army.
Before Dad went to prison.
I heard the garage door roll up and steeled myself for what I knew was going to be a battle. I stood in the kitchen as Mom
entered through the side door. “Hello, dear,” she said and put her briefcase and purse down on the counter. “What a nice surprise,
especially since I didn’t see you at the office today.”
A little jab, but I was used to it. I didn’t like going into the office if I had nothing to do there. Most of my work was
in the field anyway.
She glanced at me before opening the refrigerator and removing a half-empty bottle of white wine. “Jack said you were meeting
with a potential client?”
“Yes.”
“And?”
“She was murdered this morning.”
The bottle dropped to the counter, but didn’t fall over.
“My God, what happened?”
“She called me last night and wanted to meet this morning about something she saw at her place of employment. She didn’t show,
and I learned that she had been gunned down outside her home. In North Peoria.”
My mom paled, but I went on.
“Her name was Liz Swanson. Her husband was also killed. They left behind two teenage boys.”
“Liz.”
“You know her.”
“I don’t know—”
“Don’t lie to me, Mom.”
“I’m not!” With shaking hands, Mom poured herself a glass of wine. Sipped.
“You know her,” I repeated. “She used to work with Dad. She called me because there was a year of data missing from one of her patient files, and when she looked again, the entire file had been deleted, as if he didn’t exist. She wouldn’t give me any details, I don’t know his name, why he was there, but she said he was a patient of both Dad and Dr. Klein, and it wasn’t the first time she’d noticed something wonky in the files.
Do you know why she called me?” I answered
before my mom could respond. “Because Georgia Rollins, Klein’s assistant, told her to reach out to me if she learned anything
that could help Dad. When did she say this to Liz? Right after she sent me on a wild-goose chase in February then quit her
job and vanished!”
“Margo—”
“I went to see Dad today. Why would he protect a killer? You know he’s innocent and you let him go to prison!”
“Margo!” she snapped, sounding more herself, but with a hard edge to her voice. “Stop.”
“I’m not backing down.”
“Cooper made his decision. We have to live with it.”
“He would never have confessed without talking to you first.”
She stared at me, shook her head. “What do you want from me?”
“The truth.”
Mom paced. I watched her.
“What do you know?” Mom asked quietly.
“You want me to tell you what I’ve learned over the last three and a half years so you can decide what you can lie to me about?
Hell no.”
“Do not talk to me like that. I’m still your mother.”
“An innocent man and woman are dead because of . . .” My hands went into the air because I didn’t know how to classify this.
Lie? Farce? Conspiracy? “This,” I said rather lamely. “Two boys are orphans. Do you think that ends it? Do you think Georgia Rollins is still alive? Or
in hiding? She misled me, but why? I thought for a while maybe she was guilty, but I couldn’t find a motive.
Or maybe she started digging after I talked to her and got herself killed.
I don’t know! But Liz Swanson saw something suspicious in the records at the VA, and she was killed less than a day later.
Is that the end of it? Or is another nurse going to stumble onto something and die?
Maybe her whole family, not just her husband! Maybe—”
“Stop! Stop it!” Mom exclaimed.
“The truth,” I demanded, slamming my fist on the counter. “Now.”
Mom looked at me as if seeing me for the first time. She closed her eyes, shook her head. “I can’t.”
“You mean you won’t.”
She gave one nod, turned from me. Was it easier to lie if she didn’t look me in the face?
“I promised your father I wouldn’t say a word. Ever. Do you think his imprisonment is easy for me?” She spun around, her voice dripping with rage and sorrow. “Do you think I would have gone along with it if I didn’t
agree with him that it was his only option? I love your father so much. We had a wonderful life, a blessed life, and it was taken away from me more than it was taken from you. My fortieth wedding anniversary is next June. And the man I love, honor, and cherish is in prison and, God willing, he’ll
survive it and we’ll be together again. I’m alone, Margo. Here, in this house, but I can’t leave it because someday he’ll
be back. Eleven years, five months, and thirteen days he will be back.”
I blinked. She knew the months and days without hesitation. As if she was marking them off on a calendar every morning.
I didn’t want to hurt my mom. She was always strong, the pillar of our home. I had never seen her so vulnerable, so . . .
lost.
I said calmly, “Did you think that the person who killed Dr. Klein was going to have a change of heart and never hurt anyone else again?”
“It’s not what you think,” she said.
“Then what should I think?”
“That your father’s hands were tied and he made the only decision he could. I love him for it.” Her voice cracked and she
whispered, “I hate him for it.”
Then she started to cry, and my heart shattered. The deep, guttural cry that came from my petite, strong-willed mom was unlike
anything I had ever heard.
I went to her and she clung to me, sobbing. I held her, frozen, the reversal of roles sudden and unexpected.
Then she stepped back. “I don’t know the whole story, only that Cooper sacrificed himself for all of us.”
She turned away from me, pulled a tissue from the box on the counter and dabbed at her eyes. I didn’t know what to say, what
to ask. I didn’t even know what to do.
Except I couldn’t put it aside. I was done pretending everything was just fine and we could go about our business. We had
to find the truth, not just for Dad, but for Liz Swanson. She deserved justice. Her boys deserved to know why.
I didn’t know how to push my mom when she was on the edge. “Mom—” I began.
She interrupted. “We’ll go see him in the morning. I’ll tell him we need to talk.”
We. She said we would go see him in the morning.
“I’ll pick you up at eight,” I said.
She nodded. “Margo, please be careful.”
“I will.” Then I realized her voice was shaky and she was genuinely scared. “Do you want me to stay here tonight?”
“No, that’s not necessary.” She paused, then said, “If they thought I knew anything, they would have already killed me.”
That she said it so calmly, so matter-of-factly, jolted me. For the first time, I wondered if I should close the door on this investigation, just let it go. Just forget that an innocent man I loved would be in prison for many years to come.
Then I pictured Josh Swanson’s brother running across the lawn, his face twisted in grief and disbelief.
I pictured the two boys who had covered Liz Swanson’s social media pages; they were now orphans.
Guilt washed over me. I had opened Pandora’s box by asking questions. I had to see it through.