Her Final Confession

Chapter Thirty-Eight

Doug Robinson answered on the fourth ring. He sounded rushed and a bit flustered as Josie introduced herself once again and asked him if he’d heard from his son yet. “Uh, no,” he said. “I got the police in Philadelphia trying to find him. I told them I’d call them right away if he turned up, but I know he won’t turn up at my house.”

“Why is that, Mr. Robinson?” Josie asked, seizing the opportunity to ask the questions that had been nagging at her since they first spoke.

“What do you mean?”

“The last time we spoke, it seemed like you felt there was some kind of rift between the two of you.”

He gave a long sigh. “I think I told you that his mom passed when he was in high school.”

“Yes, I remember,” Josie said.

“Well, they were real close. Always. After she died, he found out…”

He broke off, and Josie listened to his breathing for a long moment—not sounds of grief or sadness she realized, but frustration.

“Mr. Robinson?” she coaxed.

“I love my son, okay?”

“Of course.”

“But after my wife passed, he found out that we had adopted him. As a baby. My wife never wanted to tell him. At least, not while he was still a kid. I thought that once he was old enough to know what being adopted meant, that we should tell him. He was always a real curious kid, you know? Real smart. Always asking questions. Always down at the library reading books way above his grade level. You know when he was twelve we found him reading books about serial killers? My wife went through the roof!”

“I can imagine,” Josie said, keeping the conversation moving.

“Well after she died, we had to go through a lot of stuff. Paperwork and things like that. He was snooping around and found some documents. He confronted me. I told him the truth.”

“He was angry that you and your wife hadn’t told him?” Josie guessed.

“Yeah. Really angry. I tried to tell him that it was his mom’s idea to keep it from him, but that only made things worse. He said I was throwing her under the bus since she wasn’t there to defend herself.”

Josie could see how Ethan would think that but kept silent. “So that’s what caused the tension between the two of you?”

“It hasn’t been the same since. To be honest, Detective, I don’t hear from Ethan unless he needs money. I call him once a week, but he never answers or calls me back. Even when he’s here at home—which is not very often—he only talks to me if he absolutely has to, and most of the time he’s not even home. That time he brought James with him, I thought we were making progress—James is, I mean was, a good kid—but once they went back to Philadelphia, Ethan started ignoring me again. I’ve tried over the years to patch things up, but he’s so angry. There’s no getting through to him.”

“Have you contacted all your relatives to see if anyone else has heard from him? Your wife’s relatives?” Josie asked.

“Yeah,” Doug said. “The Philadelphia police asked me to do that straightaway. No one’s heard from him.”

Josie had a thought. “Do you know if he ever looked for his birth family?”

“No, not that I know of. I mean he was mad, you know, but I think it felt like a betrayal to his mom, you know? Adoption or not, she was his mother. She raised him. She loved him.”

Then there was no chance that Ethan Robinson was off somewhere hiding with his biological family. Josie said, “I’m very sorry about your wife, Mr. Robinson. Thank you for speaking to me today. If you hear anything at all, you should call the Philadelphia police immediately. Then, if you wouldn’t mind keeping me up to date, I’d certainly appreciate it.”

“Of course,” he agreed. “Hey, did you guys get James’s killer yet?”

Josie hesitated. She looked across the desks at Noah, who was engrossed in something on his computer. “We’re still working on it,” she said.