Chapter 10
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Doreen contacted the university first, speaking to the admissions office.
Seemed that Devon had mainly online classes, not so much in-person classes at the campus.
When Doreen asked if they knew of any classmates that Devon was friends with, the lady on the other end of the line laughed.
She reminded Doreen that this office kept records, not really interacting with or meeting the students.
When Doreen asked for a list of students who attended the same classes—even though online—the woman stated confidentiality issues, privacy concerns, flatly refusing her request. Doreen hung up, sighing. “That’s a dead end.”
Then she focused on the prison system and its protocols. It took several phone calls and a scheduled phone appointment before Doreen could actually talk to Birdie’s former son-in-law, Duke Hanson.
When he came on the line, his tone was brisk and unpleasant. “What do you want?” he snarled.
“I’m sorry for disturbing you from whatever you were doing,” she began, trying for calmness. “However, I’ve been asked to look into a death in your family.”
He sucked in his breath. “Who?” When she gave him Devon’s name, he snorted. “Devon? That goodie-two-shoes is dead?”
She winced at Duke’s cavalier attitude. “Yes, he is.”
“What did he do? Kill himself with good works?” He seemed to think that was absolutely hilarious, and she had to wait for him to stop his uproarious laughter before she could reply.
“He was found dead of an overdose, needles beside him, but it has not yet been determined whether he was trying to self-administer or somebody else was injecting him.”
Silence came on the other end, and Duke said, “What a way to go, but I sure don’t believe he would have done it himself. No way he did drugs.”
“No way?” she repeated.
“Nope, no way. You don’t understand that his witch of a mother, Cassandra, was a serious alcoholic.
Every once in a while, she would get lost in drug land too, and Devon couldn’t stand it, hated to be around her, hated everything to do with it.
No way he would do drugs himself. You can get that thought out of your mind. When did this happen?” he barked out.
“A couple days ago.”
“Why didn’t anybody tell me?”
“Well, that’s one of the reasons I asked to speak with you,” she began. “I’ll also speak with your son after this.”
Duke snorted at that. “If you think he’ll talk to you about this kid, forget it.
Those two hated each other. It was just one fight after the other for dominance,” he muttered.
“And my son is more dominant than Devon ever could be. Derrick was also a prank kid, and he is seasoned.” He stopped.
“Let’s just say he’s very experienced in life. ”
“But family shouldn’t be about dominance,” she replied.
“No, it shouldn’t be,” Duke agreed, mildly irritated. “Believe me that we had a heck of a time with them, and finally we just couldn’t do anything about it. Somebody like you will just sit there and judge me for it.”
“Well, I wasn’t planning on it,” she said, with a dry laugh. “That’s not my thing.”
He almost laughed. “Lady, I don’t know who you are, but nothing good came out of that relationship.”
“What was your relationship like with your mother-in-law, Birdie?”
“Absolutely terrible, and she was a witch too. Birdie hated me on sight and kept telling her precious daughter that I was a bad influence. Birdie never accepted that her own daughter was an alcoholic and a junkie, and I didn’t even drink,” Duke declared, followed by a mirthless laugh.
“Can’t stand the stuff. It made me puke all the time, but no.
… Cassandra was just a lush. I’d never seen anything like it.
If I’d seen it beforehand, I would never have gone in that direction, but apparently I wasn’t very smart back then. ”
“And yet here you are in jail for breaking-and-entering.”
“Yeah, into my own house, to get my stuff. After the divorce, Cassie kept all my stuff. I wanted it back, but no, no, no. She had me charged, and here I sit.”
Doreen’s eyebrows shot up at that. “And the judge didn’t see it the way you wanted it to be seen?”
“How would you want to see it?” he asked, his tone simmering.
“Cassie wouldn’t give back my music collection.
She wouldn’t give back my record player, my gaming system, nothing.
So, I finally just went in to get it. Yeah, she had changed the locks, so they classified it as breaking-and-entering.
The whole thing blew up. She said I came back with a gun to get my stuff, which was just lies. I didn’t have no gun.”
Doreen winced. “That explains some things.”
“It should explain everything,” he muttered. “I didn’t have nothing to do with it, and I shouldn’t be here, but, of course, … the old lady got her way on that one too.”
“Did you ever call and ask her for help to get out of this?”
“I called and asked her to look at it reasonably because of how it all went down, but she was determined that I should pay, and pay I did. These trumped-up B&E charges come with long prison terms. I’m just lucky that I didn’t get a life sentence for this.
I’ve still got another eight months in this hole. ”
“No time off for good behavior?” she asked quietly.
“Maybe, if I could stop getting into fights all the time.”
“Yeah, that would help,” she muttered in a dry tone.
“Don’t get smarmy with me,” he snapped, bitterness in his tone.
“Until you’re actually here, you don’t know what it’s like.
And, even at that, you’re female, so you would be in one of those little soft jails and wouldn’t have to deal with the general population like I do,” he explained. “It’s every man for himself in here.”
“I’m sorry to hear that it’s such a rough go,” she replied, “but, considering the time frame, you should be almost there and potentially could be up for time off for good behavior, if that’s something you’ve been working on.”
“Well, I have been working on it,” he growled. “Yet it doesn’t exactly happen overnight in here.”
“No, I get it,” she murmured. “And what about your son?”
“What about him?” he asked, with a certain amount of fatigue in his tone. “He’s part of the reason I didn’t get out last time I came up for parole.”
“And why is that?”
“Because we’re in the same population, and he was getting his butt kicked, so I had to step in and … help out.”
“Ah.” She winced. “That won’t go over well.”
“No, of course not, but a father and son should also not be in the same cell block.”
“I didn’t even think something like that could happen, but I guess there’s nothing stopping it.”
“No, there isn’t, but I did ask for a transfer because of it.”
“To get away from him?”
First came silence and then a snort. “Yeah, my son’s got a heck of a temper, and he’s in here because he needs to be in here,” Duke shared. “I love him to distraction, but I’m not blind. I mean, if he could kill a man, he would.”
“Well, the question is, did he? Or has he been in there the whole time? Would he have been out on a pass or something? Could he have had anything to do with Devon’s death?”
“I don’t think so. But if there was ever anybody who probably would like to, it would be him. I just don’t see how he could have.”
“He doesn’t get day passes or anything?”
“No, he gets in too much trouble for anything like that.”
“And why after all this time would he care about Devon?”
“He shouldn’t, but I’ve got to tell you.
… Devon got a house when his mother died.
He got a nice setup of money from his grandmother, and it was all pretty sweet, whereas my boy got nothing and is sitting in jail, looking at a pretty ugly life ahead of him.
So I’m sure Derrick’s thinking that his life isn’t fair, that he deserves a break too.
” Then he changed his tone and asked, “So, now that the boy is dead, and I know you’re going to think this is a terrible question, but what about his will? ”
“I don’t have the details on that,” she stated. “However, Devon’s grandmother is still alive.”
“That old bat …” he muttered. “Surely she should’ve kicked the bucket by now.”
“No, she has not,” Doreen declared. “I was just talking to her this morning.”
“I’m sure that was fun.” He snorted. “That woman’s got nothing good to say about anybody, unless it’s her daughter, Cassandra.
She never believed a thing about her being a drunk.
She still wants to believe Cassandra had a stroke and died in a car accident, but the truth was, she was driving drunk and killed a man. ”
“Now that’s interesting,” she muttered.
“Well, it’s only interesting if you can pin it on her because, other than that, she’ll weasel out of it just like everything else.”
“Since Cassandra’s dead, she will hardly weasel out of anything.”
He snorted. “Aren’t you funny,” he snapped. “I meant the old bat, Birdie.”
“How so?”
“That woman has got absolutely nothing good to say about anybody, and, as soon as she thinks someone is going to go against what she wants, she makes sure that they pay somehow. And believe me that they always pay a price for going against her.”
“She sounds formidable,” Doreen noted. And she could see how formidable Birdie would have been in her day.
“Don’t ever discount her. I don’t know how she pulls off half of what she does, but the world seems to run according to her rules.
I just never figured out what those rules were.
I’m telling you that things could have been very different for me if I had.
She is tiny but mighty, and very scary if you ask me. ”