Chapter 12
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The next morning Doreen got up and was trying to clear her head with coffee before her phone conversation with … What was his name? Derrick. Derrick Hanson. She sat down with a notepad and wrote up a few questions that she wanted to ask him.
When it was time for her appointment, she quickly dialed in and was relatively quickly connected. Derrick Hanson was surly and caustic on the other end.
“Like I care about Devon,” he began in a snarly tone, filled with a mixture of insolence and mocking laughter.
Yet something else was underneath that caught her attention.
“We aren’t related, and he was always a pain in my backside.”
“And yet you agreed to talk to me.”
“Hey, you never know. Might be something in it for me.”
“It sounds to me like you and your father are on the same wavelength.”
“Yeah, of course, the old man asked for a portion of the pot,” he noted, with a snicker. “All he cares about is money.”
“I’m sure he’s thinking that, when he gets out, he’ll need something to rely on.”
“He’s never getting out of prison,” Derrick stated. “And, if he thinks he’s going to, he’s barking up the wrong tree.”
“Why is that?” Doreen asked.
Derrick laughed. “Because I’ll make sure of it.”
“Okay, I’m a little confused here,” she began. “My understanding was that Duke was up for parole in a few months.”
“Yeah, but I’ll go against him.”
“Interesting. And why would you do that?”
“Because I don’t want him to get out. Why should he have a life when he was such a bad father that I ended up in here myself?”
“Ah, so in other words, you want to blame him for your choices.”
Derrick snorted. “It’s hardly blame. A child should be able to expect a decent home life instead of living with a criminal.”
“How abusive was he?”
“Very,” he declared. “He was more interested in his women than his own son.”
“And did he beat up you, your stepmother, or your birth mother, Stephanie?”
“He didn’t beat up anyone once I got big enough to fight back,” he stated, with a laugh. “That’s another reason he’s trying to get the heck out of here because I control a certain amount of the population, and nobody is leaving him alone.”
“So, you’re deliberately trying to make Duke’s life there miserable? Is that what I’m hearing?” she asked in surprise.
“Why not?” Derrick asked, followed by a mirthless laugh. “We have very little entertainment in here.”
“Well, I guess there’s, you know, things like taking care of yourself, learning a trade or a skill or something,” she suggested. “However, I guess that’s really not part of your world, is it?”
“No, it sure as heck isn’t,” he stated, with a snicker. “When I get out of here, I already have places to go and people to be with.”
She could only imagine. Just then, Mugs started barking at her feet. She shushed him several times, but he wasn’t listening.
“What is that?” Derrick asked, his tone surly.
“Sorry, my dog is upset at something here. I’m not sure what.”
“Well, you should keep it quiet. I don’t have all day to waste, you know?”
She stared down at her phone and asked, “Did you just tell me to keep my own dog quiet? They bark. That’s what dogs do.”
“It works just fine if you kick ’em.” Derrick snorted. “You’re just one of those do-gooders who lets animals rule the house.”
She winced because, to a certain extent, her animals did rule her house. But she had a lot of reasons for letting them do that.
He laughed at her silence. “See? I have you pegged already.”
“Well, I don’t have you pegged,” she admitted. “So tell me about yourself. Tell me about your relationship with your father. With Cassandra? Birdie? Devon?”
“Why should I?”
“Because we’re trying to figure out who killed Devon and who is responsible for what, and I’m getting mixed messages from everybody involved.”
“I will tell you some things, not because I have any love for any of them. For one, Cassandra was a lush and drank constantly. Devon didn’t have it easy, but I still hated him.”
“And as your stepmother?”
“Cassandra was awful, and I mean to the point that I didn’t even want to be around her when they got married.
Yet they constantly threw us together. Devon was just nothing but a pain in my butt the whole time.
” He laughed a bit. “I don’t even know what they were thinking.
It’s not like we were ever going to become best buds or anything. ”
“Maybe they thought that he would be a good influence on you or that you would be a good influence on him.”
“Well, considering I was already out causing all kinds of trouble, I don’t think they thought I would be a good influence on him.”
“And did Cassandra know that you were already in that level of trouble?”
“I doubt it,” he muttered, with casual disinterest. “It’s not like I talked to her. Anytime Devon was around, I was more concerned about kicking him than anything.”
“Why? What did he do to bother you?”
“He existed,” Derrick snapped. “He’s a punk. That was enough of a reason.”
“Ah, right, … so jealousy then.”
There was silence, and then Derrick said in a harsh tone, “I don’t know what you’re playing at, lady, but I’m not jealous of anyone.”
“Well, particularly now that Devon’s dead,” she clarified. “Even though you’re in prison, at least you’re alive.”
“And I’ll stay that way too,” he snapped. “I don’t know what you think you’re playing at, but it’s a dangerous game.”
“I’m not playing at anything,” she said. “I’m just looking for information.”
“Well, your time is just about up.”
And the fact that it was just about up, but not up yet, said a lot. “So, you haven’t had anything to do with Devon in a long time then?”
“Haven’t seen or spoken to any of that family in years. The whole lot of them are losers,” he said, “and I’m not interested in having anything to do with them at all.”
“Did you ever have a relationship with the grandmother?”
“Oh, Lord, Birdie? … No way. That woman is a menace. And she takes great joy in making sure that life goes her way.”
And there again was another perspective on Birdie, hardly a pleasant one either. “Interesting,” Doreen murmured. “Nobody seems to like her. Why is that?”
“Because she doesn’t like anyone and goes out of her way to make sure you don’t get to do anything you want to do just because she can. There’s a price tag for everything.”
“And did she ever ask you to do anything?”
“Once,” he replied, with a laugh. “She wanted me to make sure my dad didn’t get out of prison.”
Doreen went silent at first, then noted, “And you were just talking about making sure he doesn’t.”
“Yeah, but not because of her. I don’t do her bidding,” he snapped.
“Interesting. Do you do anybody’s bidding?”
“No,” he declared. “I’m king in here. I don’t play pawn.”
She tried to move along quickly before he hung up on her. “So, do you have any idea who would have wanted to kill Devon?”
“Half the world probably,” Derrick suggested. “He was a sniveling sort. The fact that he got his mom’s house and then was still always broke? What a pathetic punk.”
“Why was he always broke? And besides, how would you even know?” she asked curiously.
“Because I asked him for money once, and he turned me down, saying he didn’t have any.”
“Well, he also asked Birdie for money,” she shared, “and Birdie turned him down too.”
“No surprise there. She didn’t like him either.”
“Even though he was her own flesh and blood?”
“Yeah, but he was useless to her. As far as she was concerned, if you didn’t have value to her, you were useless,” he explained. “And her grandson would have found that out fairly quickly.”
She frowned at that, not so sure that Devon would have known. Yet it seemed as if Birdie had become pretty proficient at keeping people in the dark. “Do you think many people knew what she was really like?”
“No, she was really good at covering it up,” he told her, “and I wouldn’t be at all surprised if she didn’t kill the little puke herself.”
“Why would she do that?”
“Depends where she’s at for money. If she’s short, she would have done it in a heartbeat because she figured the house should have been hers anyway.”
“Why is that?”
“Because she bought it for her daughter. And then, after her daughter died, instead of it coming back to her, Devon got it. And Birdie was fighting it.”
She winced at that. “Interesting, though I don’t think she’s struggling financially, but I don’t know that yet.”
“You should look into it,” he said. “Besides, I would absolutely love it if the old bat got in trouble herself for once. She always had a way to get out of any kind of trouble, and I never understood it.”
“No, I’m sure you didn’t,” she muttered, “and most of us wouldn’t. We would like to think that there’s actually justice.”
“Well, there isn’t for her, and if you think there is? … You’re wrong. People like her, with money like that? Absolutely no way she ever pays a price for the stuff she pulls.”
“Could you give me an example of something she’s pulled in the past?” she asked. “I mean, I don’t have any way to see what’s really going on if I don’t understand what she’s capable of.”
“Well, for one thing, my dad didn’t belong in prison for what he did.”
“You mean, he didn’t beat up Cassandra? He didn’t point a gun at her?”
“No, not at all. Fighting and guns? Those aren’t his things. I mean, … he’s had to do more fighting in here than he ever did in life, but that’s just a part of prison life,” he explained. “I actually don’t mind. It gives me something for … stress relief.”
She winced at that. “So, other than Birdie, any other ideas as to who might have killed Devon?”
“How did he die?”
“Well, there were drugs in his system and needles beside him, but we don’t know whether it was self-injected or something else.”
“Self-injected? No way.” He snorted at that.
“I just can’t see him doing that. He had everything, and there wasn’t any reason for him to knock himself off.
Mark my words that somebody did it for him.
Honestly, whoever it was, … I feel like I owe him a beer or something.
Just because the kid would always be a pain and would piss me off when I get out. ”
“You think you’re getting out?” she asked.
After a moment of silence, he whispered, his tone ugly, “Yeah, I am definitely getting out. You can bet I am. And I don’t care what you or that old bat are going to try,” he began, laughing again, “you’re not keeping me in here.”
“I thought your own behavior would do that,” she noted. “I thought you were up against some extra charges for having beaten up a few people in prison?”
“Whatever,” he muttered dismissively. “It won’t take long to buy that back again.”
She wasn’t sure on the terminology he was using, but he seemed pretty confident that he would get out again.
She could only imagine the chaos he would create when he did.
“I was hoping that you might have known some of Devon’s friends at university or somebody who might have been interested in knocking him off. ”
“No, I don’t. Are you sure he went to college?
That’s not the Devon I knew. No matter. I wish I did know the guy who offed him, since I owe him a beer,” he declared, joy in his tone.
“Good luck with that, except that I would just as soon the old lady didn’t get any of the answers she wanted.
I’m sure she’s behind this anyway. All I can tell you is, you should look at her first.”
After a broken laugh, he hung up on her.