Chapter 8
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“Now,” Doreen began, as everybody sat up straight, “Birdie.” Doreen turned to the tiny woman. “What can you tell me about your son-in-law?”
She sniffed. “You mean the one in jail? Duke? What a Neanderthal he is.”
“Do you know what he’s in jail for?” Doreen asked.
“Breaking-and-entering. Armed robbery.”
“Oh.” Doreen winced. “That’s a little more violent than I was hoping for.”
“Right. You would think he would have found something better to do with his life.”
“And do you have anything to do with him?”
“No, not at all,” she replied. “Technically he’s my ex-son-in-law, as my daughter divorced him. I lost her quite a few years ago, so”—she shrugged—“I have nothing to do with him.”
“Okay, so you lost her too. I’m so sorry. How long has she been gone?”
She grimaced as she thought about it. “About nine years, I believe.”
“Okay,” she murmured. “Nine years. And what about Derrick?”
“That’s his son,” she clarified, with another sniff. “Another Neanderthal. Like father, like son.”
“What’s with the sons?” Richie asked, looking from one to the other. “You can’t go skipping spots here, we don’t know about any of this.”
Nan interjected, “Duke had one son and one stepson from two different relationships. So one is Birdie’s step-grandson, who is in jail, along with his father, Birdie’s ex-son-in-law, who is in jail for armed robbery.”
“Derrick’s in jail for drugs too,” Birdie declared, “and remember that he is Duke’s son, so not my grandson.”
“And your grandson is Devon?” Doreen asked.
Birdie blinked back tears, and then her shoulders slumped. “Yes. He just passed away. His mother was my daughter.”
Doreen nodded. “And was he the only family you had left?”
“Yes. There was only him.”
“Okay, now I know this is a harder question to answer, but I have to ask nonetheless. Is there an estate for anybody to inherit?”
“Well, there is, … whenever I’m gone,” Birdie replied, frowning at Doreen. “Hopefully that won’t be today or tomorrow. Neither my daughter nor my grandson had anything much to leave behind.”
Doreen nodded but added, “Still, somebody may hope to get the inheritance once you’re gone.”
Thaddeus, who’d been quiet up to now, took a moment to straighten up and walk down Doreen’s arm before flapping his way over to Nan.
Nan chuckled as he crawled up her arm and snuggled in.
“Thaddeus loves Nan. Thaddeus loves Nan.”
“And Nan loves Thaddeus,” she murmured, rubbing her head against his feathered one.
Birdie looked at Nan in shock, then switched her gaze back to Doreen. “Oh dear. I haven’t set up anything in case I had no one left.”
“So, the question is, and I want you to think hard before you answer, did you change your will after losing your daughter?”
“No, it was all to go to my daughter, then after her to my grandson.”
“But your grandson,” Doreen pointed out quietly, “won’t inherit it now.”
Tears came to Birdie’s eyes, and she nodded. “No, he won’t.”
“So, we have to look at who else would inherit, and would you change your will in order to have that not happen?”
She blinked. “What are you saying?”
“In other words, would somebody know who was next in line to inherit if your grandson were dead? Who is the next person in line?”
“I don’t even know that there is anybody next, as I have no knowledge of whether Devon had a will or not. Regardless I need to make changes to my will now,” she declared, shaking her head, as the reality suddenly hit her. “That’s a horrible thought.”
“It is a horrible thought, but we do have to consider potential motives as to why people do things like this.”
“And, of course,” Maisie interjected, “we’re assuming this is a murder.”
“We’re going on the assumption that it is,” Doreen confirmed, looking around the room, “until the coroner tells us differently.”
“Devon wouldn’t have done this to himself,” Birdie declared. “He had a lot to live for.”
“Of course he did,” Doreen agreed. “And he was a young man, so obviously there have probably been some tough times, but we want to believe he would have overcome them.”
“And he would have,” Birdie stated robustly. “He was working his way through life.”
“And what was he doing?”
“He was a student here, up at the university.”
“And did you have any contact with him?”
“I already told you that,” Birdie replied in a testy voice.
“Yes, you did, but I have to ask it again and then again and again,” Doreen began.
“Partly to see in what way the answers change, depending on how I word the question. I will ask again partly to jar your memory and partly just trying to get to the truth. I’m not looking for right or wrong here, just answers. ”
Birdie slumped in her chair. “He asked me for money not all that long ago.”
“And what did you tell him?”
“I told him that he needed to get a job, just like I did, just like everybody else did,” she said crossly. “And he wasn’t happy with that. He told me that I had enough for him too and that I should share.”
“Did he ask for a substantial amount of money or just enough to put food on the table? He was at school after all,” Nan added shrewdly.
Birdie flushed. “I didn’t really give him much chance to tell me,” she shared finally.
“I don’t like it when people ask me for money.
I know that he was young and that he probably could have used a hand, but it’s also not something I was raised with.
I was taught that, if you need money, you go out and get a job. ”
“Did he work?” Doreen asked.
Birdie frowned, then shrugged. “I don’t know. But, if he was working, he wouldn’t need to ask me for money.”
“Depends on whether it was for tuition or not,” Doreen added.
“I don’t know what it was for,” Birdie snapped. Then she turned a grim gaze to Doreen, revealing some of that inner steel that had her jumping on the mayor and her local MLA rep to get some action on this case. Birdie added, “Next question, because this one’s done.”
Doreen stared at her for a long moment and noted, “It’s done for now.”
Birdie glared at her and then nodded. “Fine,” she muttered, “but, as you can tell, it’s a touchy topic.”
“They will all be touchy topics,” Doreen pointed out. “There is no good way to ask you about your grandson, so we’ll just have to do the best we can.”
“Fine,” Birdie mumbled, with an irritable shrug. “He was a good boy.”
“If he was a good boy, why didn’t you help him then?” Maisie asked immediately, setting Birdie off again.
“That’s not ours to judge,” Doreen interjected. “What we need to know is, what was he doing in that location, and what was his purpose? If he had no money, then how did he buy the drugs? They’re very expensive.”
“Oh, good point,” Birdie agreed. “And, if he just wanted to buy drugs, no way I would have given him money for that.”
“But you didn’t know that,” Richie stated, “so that wasn’t why you turned him down.”
Birdie didn’t like being questioned about her motives, but Doreen had dealt with enough seniors to understand that there was no winning this particular argument.
She deliberately asked another question.
“So, given that, and the fact that he didn’t have any money, do you have any idea where he could have gotten the drugs? ”
“From his school friends, I presume,” Birdie suggested, with a sniff. “Kelowna has drugs, just like every other town.”
“That is one of the questions I’ll go to the university and ask, finding his friends, getting anything anyone might know,” Doreen offered. “That doesn’t change the fact that, too often, family does know but doesn’t want to share.”
Birdie turned her gaze on her and narrowed those eyes.
“Now I’m not saying you would hold anything back,” Doreen clarified preemptively. “All I’m saying is that, when it comes to what’s going on with a person, sometimes family is the first to know, and sometimes family is the last.”
“Well, count me in the category of last to know,” Birdie stated bluntly.
“And, if I had known … and if I could have done something, I probably wouldn’t have, as you can tell.
I come from the school where, if you’re in hard times, you just get out and work harder,” she muttered.
“Whether right or wrong, I refused to give him any money. I don’t know how he ended up with the money to get drugs.
And, if he was just going to buy drugs with the money he asked me for, it’s a good thing I didn’t give it to him. ”
“Unless he found somebody much less savory to get money from in order to get the drugs,” Maisie pointed out.
“And again that’s all speculation at the moment,” Doreen pointed out. She could tell that this would be an issue because Birdie was pretty adamant that she was in the right. Yet it didn’t matter now because the young man was already dead.
It was easy for everybody to judge, but not everybody out there was like Nan.
As Doreen thought about that, she glanced over at her grandmother to see her eyeing Birdie with a harsh glare.
Knowing what her grandmother was about to say, if given the chance, Doreen quickly jumped back into her questions.
“Do you know what he was studying at the university?”
“No.” Birdie shook her head. “Computers or something.”
“Oh, that’s a good field,” Doreen replied, “and would have held him in good stead.”
“Well, it would have if he had lived.”
Doreen could say nothing to that. The conversation wasn’t going too well, no matter what direction she tried. “Okay, so you can’t tell me what he was taking specifically, and I presume you didn’t know his friend group,” she began, turning to look at Birdie directly, and cocking one eyebrow.
Birdie shook her head.
“Where was he living? Was he living on campus or elsewhere?”
“In his mother’s house,” Birdie replied, “which was my house.”
“Okay, and where was that?”
She gave the address, close to Mission Creek in Rutland.
“And is it a nice house?” Doreen asked.
“Yes, it is.” Birdie gave an eye roll. “It’s not fancy, but it was a good home.”
“Okay, so he had a good home. What’ll happen to that now that he’s deceased?”
Birdie just stared at her, bewildered. “It comes back to me.”
“Okay, in that case, nobody would have killed him for that—unless they didn’t know that you owned the place,” she noted.
“That’s a terrifying thought,” Birdie muttered. “I mean, it’s not as if any of us talk about our finances, at least I never do.” She gave a sniff and a prim tilt to her head. “That was considered to be very vulgar and poor form in my day.”
“Absolutely,” Doreen agreed, “but society has changed tremendously over the years.”
“I know it has,” Birdie acknowledged, her shoulders slumping. “I feel very much like a dinosaur at times.”
Richie immediately nodded. “I think we probably all do,” he shared, “so stop thinking it’s only you. You’re not alone. It’s definitely a world for the young people now.”
“And what happens when there are no young people left? He was young, but he wasn’t stupid.” Birdie turned to Doreen. “He wouldn’t have done this.”
“Now, are you saying that because you want that to be the truth, or are you saying that because you believe that to be the truth?”
Birdie frowned but did take a moment to seriously consider the question. “He would not have done it,” she replied. “And I don’t know whether drugs had anything to do with it or that was just a cover-up.”
“Now, as a cover-up,” Doreen began, “it’s fairly effective because we do have a drug issue in town, and it’s definitely possible that he overdosed, either accidentally or on purpose.”
“There are so many drug-related deaths here in town every year that the figures are just staggering,” Birdie murmured. “And I hear you. I just know that it wouldn’t have been Devon’s way. After he lost his mother, he was really shaken up, and he had a really hard time adapting.”
“And you know that in itself lends credence to his having done it himself,” Nan piped up.
At that, Birdie stiffened.
Nan added, “I know that’s not what you want to hear, but that is what the police will say.”
“They won’t say that now because Doreen is on the case,” Birdie declared, tilting her head and turning a dour look in Doreen’s direction. “You will solve this, won’t you?”
“Well, that’s the plan,” she replied. “However, it’s always possible that I won’t be able to figure it out, but thankfully that hasn’t happened so far.”
“No, she’s really good,” Nan declared, with a bright smile.
“But we also know that things can happen,” Doreen reminded her. “As much as I would like to say I can definitely do this, we also don’t know what is going on and just what I’ll be up against.”
“That’s very true,” Richie noted. “We can’t put Doreen on the spot like that. The pressure would be unbearable.”
Maisie nodded. “That would be very unfair to her,” she said, with a concerned look.
“I don’t mind a certain amount of pressure,” Doreen clarified, “because, after all, I’m here, and I’m trying to help.
Yet there must be some understanding that just because I’m trying, it doesn’t mean all will go how we want it to.
The answers will come at some point, but that doesn’t mean you’ll like them. ”
Birdie’s shoulders sagged, and she nodded. “I know. … I don’t like hearing what you’re saying, but I do understand. However, if it comes out that he did commit suicide, I’ll be heartbroken. I don’t want to think that it’s because I wouldn’t give him any money.”
Doreen looked over at Nan, who was clearly poised to say something about that, so Doreen gave her grandmother a hard look. Nan glared back but subsided. Doreen focused on Birdie again and asked, “Do you have any communication with your former son-in-law and step-grandson who are in jail?”
“No,” Birdie stated stiffly. “They both have messaged me at one time or another, asking for me to help their case and to pull some strings to get their sentences reduced. Yet I wouldn’t.”
“And you firmly believe that they did what they did?”
“Oh yes,” she stated. “They’re a violent pair, the two of them. My poor Cassandra had a terrible time with them.”
“How did your daughter die?”
“Car accident,” she replied. “She had a stroke while she was driving, so no one was at fault, and it was one of those medical emergencies that couldn’t be helped, or at least that’s what they told me. She didn’t die during the accident but soon afterwards.”
It was obvious from her tone of voice that she didn’t necessarily believe it. Getting up, she turned and looked at Doreen. “It’s time for my nap. I’ll talk to you later. You can get my phone number from Richie. He’s got it,” she added, and she walked out.
Nan looked over at Richie, one eyebrow raised.
He shrugged. “I didn’t know I even had it,” he whispered sheepishly.