A Welcome Grave

15

He took us out to a cedar deck that overlooked the woods and a private beach on Lake Erie. The water banged gently against the shore, and out beyond it the clouds were thickening. It made my own beautiful view of the stoplight on Lorain and the small-engine-repair shop across from it seem inferior.

“So, Paul, what can you tell us?” I asked.

He shook his head. “Let’s not get in such a rush. I still don’t know what interested you in the phone call to begin with.”

I gave it to him as concisely as I could, saying simply that we’d been employed by Alex Jefferson’s widow to look into the circumstances surrounding his murder and his son’s death, and that those circumstances had landed us here.

“I’d heard about Alex Jefferson being killed,” he said when I was through. “Didn’t know about the son, though.”

“Haven’t been reading your paper.”

He smiled. “Guess I’m a few days behind. But what makes the phone call significant to you?”

“Matt called his father before two in the morning, and his father then called your house. We’re wondering why.”

“You’re going to love the reason.”

“Yeah?”

“The calls were made because someone was murdered on my father’s property and Jefferson’s son saw it happen.”

It was quiet for a few seconds then, Joe and I waiting on Brooks, who was staring out at the lake. The beach in front of his house seemed to continue all the way up to the winery. Voices and laughter were audible, but we couldn’t see any people because of the pine trees.

“Can you provide a little more detail than that?” Joe said.

“I assume you know of my father?” Brooks asked in response.

Joe and I looked at each other, then shook our heads in unison. Brooks frowned at us, slighted.

“Fenton Brooks? Brooks Biomedical? That mean anything to you?”

“Stents,” Joe said.

Brooks nodded. “Yes, the company makes stents, although we also manufacture many other medical products.”

“But your father made his money on the stents, right?” Joe said.

“A good portion of it, at least.” Brooks looked annoyed, as if he found Joe’s question in poor taste. “The company has gone on to much greater things, though. My father passed away a few years ago. Cancer.”

“I’m sorry.”

For a moment it was silent, and then Brooks cleared his throat.

“Okay, so now you understand the situation. My father owned a large company, had lots of employees, attorneys, advisors. He bought this winery as a side venture and liked the location enough that he built this house as a summer retreat. He used to have parties in the summer for friends, colleagues, that sort of thing. Five years ago, he held a Fourth of July party. There were about one hundred people out here, maybe more.”

“Including Matt Jefferson.”

“Yes, he was here. Alex Jefferson was, too, although he went home much earlier in the night. He was one of my father’s attorneys, you know.”

“We did not.”

“Well, he was. His son was in law school then, I believe. A few years younger than me? That sounds right. At any rate, he was here, and I gather he felt a bit out of place. The crowd began to thin out around twelve, but the man Matt Jefferson had come with was drunk and hanging around, and so he had to stay, too.”

“Who was that man?”

“Another one of the company’s attorneys, James Simon. Matt was working for him, some sort of internship.”

“So what happened?”

“Okay. Well, a few people stayed late—you know how that goes when you’ve got an open bar. Simon was drunk, and Matt got bored or annoyed or something and went up the beach, back toward the winery. We’d had a catered dinner up there earlier, so Matt knew where he was going. Found a guy and a girl up on the deck, apparently engaged in a little late-night illicit behavior. Matt figured they were entitled to their privacy and turned around and started back up the beach. But then he got the impression that the girl was resisting. Heard her shout or something. So he decided to go back in case there was a problem. When he got there he couldn’t see the girl, and the guy was booking around the corner of the building. Matt ran up onto the deck and found the girl. Clothes half off, and dead. She’d been strangled.”

The clouds had made the temperature dip, and Paul Brooks wasn’t wearing anything over his thin shirt, but he looked warm enough, sitting there watching our faces with a hint of satisfaction, a storyteller pleased with his ability to capture the audience.

“So what happened?” Joe said again.

“What do you think happened? The cops were called, obviously. Interviewed Matt and everyone else. Matt was pretty upset by it, I guess, and that was understandable. He wanted to talk to his dad. I think maybe he took the police questioning the wrong way. He called his dad, and his dad told him just to answer the questions and try to help. Then Alex called the house and asked for my father, making sure Matt had been honest about the situation.”

“That’s more than we were bargaining for with that phone call,” Joe said.

“Pretty intriguing stuff, but I don’t see what it could possibly have to do with Alex Jefferson’s murder or the son’s suicide,” Brooks said. “I’d have to say you’re grasping for straws on that one.”

“Who was the victim?” I said. “Did she belong with your party?”

“In a way. She worked for the caterer my father had hired for the party. She was only twenty years old, I think. A girl, really. They’d been going back and forth between the house and the winery, and she was left to clean up there alone. Not a good decision.”

“And the guy who killed her?”

Brooks hooked one moccasin-clad foot over his knee. “Someone she’d gone out with a time or two, then tried to dump. He was a real loser, criminal record nine miles long. Lived in a trailer maybe three miles up the road from the winery. Easy for him to come down that night.”

“He was arrested?”

“Arrested, tried, convicted. He’s still in jail.”

“You know his name?”

“Andy Doran. The girl he killed was named Monica Heath.”

“Quite a story,” Joe said.

“Quite a story,” Brooks agreed. “I imagine that answers your question about the phone call. What I can’t imagine, though, is that it will help you with the current problem.”

“You never know.”

Brooks looked skeptical. “I guess not. The whole situation was quite an embarrassment to my father. I mean, Andy Doran was certainly not an invited guest, but still . . . the girl was working at our party, you know?”

“Nobody else saw or heard anything?” Joe said. “No other witnesses except for Matt Jefferson?”

“None.”

“So Matt Jefferson gave a positive ID on this guy, Doran?” I said.

Brooks started to nod, then frowned and shook his head.

“To be honest, I can’t remember. I feel like he recognized a car, but not the actual guy? I’m not sure.”

“Pretty tough to convict someone with nothing but one eyewitness.”

“They had a lot more than that. Turned up hard evidence at the guy’s trailer, and then he got himself into all sorts of trouble lying to the cops. Changed his story six times before the trial, or something like that.”

“You said Matt called his dad because he took offense to the questioning,” Joe said. “What exactly did you mean?”

“Him being the only witness, I think maybe the police were more aggressive with the questions than he thought they should be. What I mean is, I think he felt—for a little while at least—like he was a suspect.”

“No kidding,” Joe said. “Like he was a suspect.”

Brooks saw where he was going and grinned. “Don’t get ahead of yourself, Detective. The right guy went to jail. Check the case out yourself, but I’m pretty sure you’ll agree with the jury.”

“How well did you know the Jeffersons?” I asked.

He shrugged. “Casual acquaintance. My father knew them better.”

“What did you think of the two of them? Alex and his son?”

“Didn’t know them well enough to make any sort of a judgment, really. But it would appear they were ill-fated, don’t you think?”