Simply Lies

Chapter 28

And parents.

The clue had finally come to Gibson as she made pancakes for her kids while they impatiently watched her.

Clarisse had said, One can buy excellent day care if one has enough money. That goes for children and parents.

And days later she had taken a call, presumably unaware that Gibson could still hear. It seemed like a woman had gone missing.

That was what the person on the other end of the line had said.

And the woman had called Clarisse “Ms. Frazier.” Another alias. Gibson wondered how many she had.

Probably more than the number of shoes I own. She looked down at her ratty pair of Adidas sneakers. Yeah, definitely more.

No one would really say that about their parents, not when talking about day care. But they might if they had parents in assisted living or a nursing home. So did Clarisse have that in her life? Until her mother went missing?

She had an intriguing thought. Could Clarisse be Francine Langhorne? She sounded around Gibson’s age, which would be in the ballpark with what she knew about Francine.

She buttered the pancakes, ladled syrup on them, and put them on plates with the scrambled eggs, and the turkey bacon already cut up into easily swallowed pieces. She then poured the milk into plastic cups with snap tops and built-in straws, making them spill proof.

Whoever invented these cups must have had kids.

Tommy asked for more syrup and said, “Me do it,” when she brought it over. He made a mess of it, but she said nothing. She had long ago learned to pick her battles, and making a lake on your plate with syrup was not a hill she was willing to die on.

As Tommy and Darby ate, Gibson munched on a piece of bacon. She pulled out her laptop and looked at the material she had downloaded on the Langhorne family, studying the image of Francine Langhorne in particular. It looked like the kids were being rushed into a car by their mother, Geraldine. The hulking Doug Langhorne, his face dour and pinched, had turned to stare into the camera. She didn’t like that look at all.

Gibson next turned to Francine. Her look was far more nuanced than her brother’s. The girl’s large eyes were sad, but there was an underlying determination that spoke of strength, of resiliency. Such a person could survive much, Gibson surmised, including a crooked dad, the murderous mob, and a stint in WITSEC. And, finally, abandonment by her parents.

Earl Beckett had said Doug had stayed with his sister until she was old enough to voluntarily leave WITSEC. Under the circumstances, they probably had only each other, and a circling-of-the-wagons mentality would be perfectly understandable.

My problem is, I don’t know enough about the Langhornes, particularly the kids. But then it occurred to her. Idiot, you have a source that can help you on that.

When Silva arrived and took over, Gibson rushed to her office and made the call.

Earl Beckett was actually in Williamsburg for a meeting today and could meet her for coffee nearby in about an hour, he told her.

She ran upstairs, showered, and changed, and was at the coffee shop in the historic district of Williamsburg five minutes early. When Beckett came walking up, she greeted him, and they went inside and ordered their coffees.

Once they were settled at a table, Beckett said, “I thought I might hear from you.”

“Why is that?”

“I looked you up after you and Sullivan came to see me. Even talked to some folks who knew you. ‘Dog with a bone that won’t let go’ is how you were described.”

“I guess I don’t like unanswered questions.”

“So what questions can I answer for you?”

“I’d like you to tell me about the Langhornes. The kids. The family dynamic. The relationship between husband and wife, but particularly about the kids.”

“You think one of them tracked down their daddy and doled out their own justice?”

“It’s certainly a possibility.”

He nodded and sipped his coffee. “Family dynamics are a strange thing. You see similarities in some families, but every one of them is unique, too. Now, WITSEC families are not the norm. They are as far from the norm as it is possible to be, in fact, except if you’re in a family of serial killers.”

“You mean the stress and the upheaval?”

“Yes, and having to build a new life from scratch, but it can’t be any kind of, well, special life, I guess is what I’m trying to say. You’re not going to grow up to be a rock star or CEO or a pro athlete after being in WITSEC. At least I’ve never seen that happen. Your opportunities are definitely limited, and that’s a damn shame, really.”

Gibson fingered her coffee cup, thinking of her own children at the moment. “And for the kids it had nothing to do with them and everything to do with decisions their parents made. Well, in this case, Harry Langhorne mostly.”

“Exactly. And let me tell you, that can build up to a volcano of resentment. I’ve seen that happen to quite a few WITSEC families.”

“Is that what happened with the Langhornes?”

Beckett nodded. “When I got assigned there the kids were young teens. And Harry, to put it politely, was a Class A asshole. He rode both of them hard. Whatever they did, it wasn’t good enough. Whatever bad happened, it was their fault. And he seemed to resent when either of them had any fun or tried to be normal.” He eyed Gibson. “I mentioned the psych eval we do for all of the people coming into the program?”

“Yeah?”

“Well, the Langhornes read like a horror story. Harry was a psychopath with some creepy tendencies. Geraldine was a lush who never made a decision in her life, and had so many insecurities the shrinks stopped counting. And the kids?”

“What about them?”

“Let’s just say they were not very well-adjusted. Remember, they’d been living the mob life since they’d been born, unwittingly or not. That is not healthy for anyone. And Harry? Well, let’s just say his actions didn’t help matters.”

“Can you give me an example?”

“I sure can. I remember it well. Francine was a junior in high school, and she was the lead in her school’s Christmas play. She was quite the actress, and she had been involved in local theater and performed in all the school productions. Hell, when I was off duty I went to some of them. She was good, I mean real good. A born actress, you could say. And, despite what I just said about nobody in WITSEC going on to do anything exceptional, she might have broken that rule if she’d had the chance.”

“I majored in theater in college. It’s intense as hell, but there’s no rush like being up on that stage,” said Gibson.

“I’m sure.”

“Which play was it?”

“I don’t know why, but I remember it all these years later. Twelfth Night. You know it?” asked Beckett.

“Yeah, we did a lot of Shakespeare in college, but not that one. So what happened?”

“The night came for her to do the play. They’d sold out the show. But before Francine left for the school the house alarm went off. Not the normal burglar alarm; this was the alarm tied directly to our office. Our protocol was strict. When that alarm went off, the family was taken to a safe house, no exceptions. And kept there until we determined there was no threat. Well, we followed our procedures, and because of that Francine missed the play.”

“I’m sure she was devastated.”

“She was even more devastated when she found out her father had intentionally set off the damn alarm, not because there was a threat, but because she had brought a stray cat home to feed it, and the thing had crapped on the floor. And he thought a good lesson would be to have her lose out on starring in the Christmas play.”

“How did you find that out?”

“Hell, he told her, and us. He laughed. But I read him the riot act. I told him if he pulled something like that again, I would rip his hand off. Shortly after that, he vanished.”

“So he presumably had already decided to disappear?”

“Oh yeah. No way he could have vanished so effectively without some planning.”

“And the son?”

“Dougie was strong as a horse. Wanted to play sports and all, but his old man wouldn’t let him. So he just stayed in the garage and lifted weights. At age eighteen he was six two and over two hundred pounds and none of it fat. Blond hair, nice-looking kid. He had all the girls swooning over him. But he didn’t seem to care about that. He sort of closed off that part of his life. He wasn’t a typical teen and he knew it. Why get close to someone if nothing was going to come out of it? At least that was my take. So he stayed in the garage and lifted weights.”

“How about Geraldine? What was her role in the dynamic?”

“She did what her husband told her to do.”

“Didn’t stand up for the kids?”

“Not that I ever saw. The kids pretty much raised themselves. I’m not saying Geraldine was a bad person. But her life basically fell apart after the family got moved into WITSEC. She didn’t cope well. But she apparently liked the mob money that Harry was paid. They had a good lifestyle back in Jersey. But he was no millionaire, at least not back then. Strictly upper-middle-class.”

“Did she work outside the house while in WITSEC?”

“Yep, like I said, that’s a rule. Got to get a job. And it’s not just about the money. We don’t want people sitting at home moping. Only bad things come out of that. So she was a maid for a while at a motel chain, and she also worked at a bowling alley. Then at a Walmart. There were other jobs. All menial stuff. But after the mob business, it was like every bit of energy and ambition left her. I didn’t get all that just from my time with them. Other marshals filled out the story for me.”

“And the kids resented their mother’s not taking their sides, not being there for them?”

He eyed her. “You got kids?”

“Yes, very little ones. And we were all kids once.”

“Well, then you probably know the answer to that.”

Gibson let out a long, subdued breath. Yeah, I guess I do, she thought. “How did the kids get along?”

“Francine could get Dougie to do whatever she wanted. She just had that way about her. Now, I might have given you the wrong impression before about Dougie staying in the garage and lifting weights. The boy was not stupid. He was a brooder, but intelligent. His grades weren’t the best, but not because of ability. He just seemed bored. But he loved his sister. Would do whatever she told him to do. I think that’s why he waited around for her before heading out.”

“Well, a good actress can be very manipulative,” said Gibson. The conjured image of Clarisse and the image of the young Francine Langhorne from the photo appeared in her mind’s eye. She mentally blended one into the other and got a real mess in return.

“Yes, they can. And she was.”

“Manipulative enough to have him kill their mother? I mean, you said she vanished, but do you really know that for sure?”

“We never found a body, and the kids disclaimed all knowledge of her disappearance.”

“Would someone have seen anything if they did do her harm?”

“Another WITSEC family with kids, name of Enders, lived near them. The Langhornes would socialize with them. The fathers got along, I mean really well. It was like Harry had found a kindred spirit in Darren Enders. We talked to them, but they weren’t home the night she vanished. Geraldine’s kids reported her missing the next morning. Part of me thinks she went to join her husband. We never found a trace, but, like her husband, she had a good head start.”

“One last thing.”

“Sure.”

“Can you find samples of Francine’s and Dougie’s handwriting?”

“Handwriting?” asked Beckett.

“Yeah.”

“You have something you think they both wrote out?”

Do as I say, not as I do, she thought. “Not right now, but I might stumble on something in the future.”

“You’re talking a long time ago.”

“I’m not expecting miracles. Just asking you to make some phone calls to see if something turns up.”

“Okay, I’ll see what I can do,” replied Beckett.

“Thanks, and thanks for all the info.”

“You really think his kids found Harry Langhorne and killed him?”

“It’s certainly possible.” And I might be working with one of the killers, thought Gibson.