Less Than Frank Part 2

"Did you call a lawyer?" he asked once we were on the way. "Is somebody meeting us there?"

"Not yet. I want to see what's going on first. Is there anything else about that morning that you need to tell me before we get there?" I used the same line, as nonthreatening and unaccusing as possible, that I'd used all through his teenage years. I'd always found that it worked better than "Hey, what did you do?"

With that same line I'd gotten information about dings in a car, a crumpled package of cigarettes hidden way down in a trash can when he was fourteen-a one-time experience, I was told-and various other teen happenings both good and bad. This time there was a lot of silence.

"Not really, Mom. Honest. I don't know anything about how the guy died. I didn't see anything, didn't do anything."

"Is there any reason that Detective Fernandez might think otherwise?" I asked, trying to keep my voice from shaking. We were close to the sheriff's department station now and I was getting nervous.

There was another long pause, but that didn't worry me too much. Ben was being thoughtful, which was okay in this situation. "Nothing I can think of. Definitely nothing that happened that day." Now that remark made me a little confused, but I decided not to push it. We parked in the half-full lot at the sheriff's department and made our way towards the gla.s.s-fronted cube that made up the front of the building.

Inside, all the sounds and smells of the place hit me and I remembered why I didn't like being here. There was stale coffee, burnt popcorn or something else from the insides of a microwave and an overlay of old smoke vying for precedence with the strong smell of industrial cleaners. Phones rang, lots of people moved around the building and at least six conversations went on in various languages that I could hear just in the lobby.

"Come on, we need to go this way," I told Ben, motioning towards the stairs to the lower level. We went down the broad staircase and I headed for the all-too-familiar detectives' division. The door to their waiting room stood open, and Jeannie still sat behind the desk. At least some things hadn't changed.

"Hi. I know you from somewhere, don't I?" she said, looking up from her computer.

I told her who we were and that we were there to see Detective Fernandez. She got on the phone and he was there in a moment.

Just once I'd like to see the man when he truly looked happy to see me. Something other than happiness always came up instead, usually either anger or consternation. And it's a shame because he's got a nice face. He's olive-skinned and lean and quite attractive, or he would be without that little vein in his temple that twitches when he looks like he's coming down with a migraine.

"I was afraid of this," he said by way of greeting. "See, this is why I told Ben on the phone that he needed to bring an attorney if he wanted company. He's not a minor, so I can't let you in with him if I'm asking him questions."

"h.e.l.lo, to you, too, Detective Fernandez. Here we are doing exactly what you asked and coming by the station to have our prints made and talk to you. Now why does that seem to upset you?"

He sighed. "h.e.l.lo, Ms. Harris. h.e.l.lo, Ben. Why don't you go get your prints taken, and then come back here in a few minutes and let Jeannie know you're finished? But I still can't let you in a room where I'm questioning him."

I decided to ignore that statement, and led Ben to the area, also way too familiar from things that had happened last winter, where fingerprints were rolled onto cards and processed. There wasn't too much of a backup, and twenty minutes later we were back in the waiting room with Jeannie.

"I'll be out here praying while you're in there with the detective," I told Ben. "Just tell him the truth and things should go fine."

His eyes were bigger than they'd been when he broke a neighbor's window playing ball at thirteen. "If you say so. I appreciate the prayer part, Mom." Ray Fernandez came out of his office then and motioned Ben in. My son got up, squared his narrow shoulders and followed the detective.

I had to take it as a good sign that Fernandez was talking to Ben in his office. If he had a truly serious reason to suspect Ben of a crime, they wouldn't be in the office right now, but in one of those awful little rooms they used for questioning. They were even grimmer than the ones you saw on television. For now I had to hope that things would be smoothed out quickly. And once they were, I planned to light into a certain detective for worrying me and scaring my son.

After about twenty minutes of waiting in that outer room I felt pretty jumpy. It seemed like forever before Fernandez came back out and motioned for me to come in with him. Ben stood behind him, looking pale and a bit shaken. I wanted to ask him so many questions, but knew that if I ventured any of them now it would make the detective mad. Having dealt with him before, I pretty much knew the rules the man wanted a police investigation to go by. They didn't include witnesses or suspects comparing notes on the way in and out of his office.

I gave Ben a good long look and as much of a smile as I could muster. His in return was pretty weak. Jeannie must have sensed Ben's discomfort, because she was up from her desk, already showing him where to sit to wait for me, and offering to get him a soda from the machine nearby. While following Ray into his office, I could hear Ben agreeing to a cold drink.

I struggled to just sit myself down in the uncomfortable chair facing Ray Fernandez's desk and be quiet, but for Ben's sake that's what I did. At this point I didn't want to do anything that would cause problems for either of us. I knew that my son had no part in anything having to do with Frank's death, but I had absolutely no proof. And I knew from past experience just how little credit Fernandez would give to mother's intuition.

The silence stretched on while Fernandez took a sip of his coffee, looked down at his notebook and then up at me. Those golden brown eyes made me want to squirm about the same way my tenth-grade English teacher did. She always suspected I was up to no good but could never prove it. In reality, the worst thing I ever did in her cla.s.s was sneak a novel behind the book we were supposed to be reading.

"Okay, so what's up? I expected you to be on my case the moment you got in here." Fernandez had one slim dark eyebrow arched in question, making him look sinister.

"I'd like to," I admitted. "But it would only upset you, and I have no proof that you'd accept that would show you that Ben had nothing to do with any of this."

His eyebrow quirked a little bit higher. "Does this mean you have some kind of proof that I wouldn't accept?"

"Not exactly. I can tell you that I'm pretty sure Ben didn't leave the apartment that morning until he heard me screaming in the driveway. But I can't prove it, because I only heard him through doors before that moment in the morning, I didn't see him."

"Okay. Then let's walk through everything that you did see and hear that morning, just to verify the statement you gave me that day." Fernandez was being much calmer than I expected. That probably should have calmed me down, but it didn't. Nothing would calm me down much until he looked me straight in the eye and told me that Ben was no longer a suspect in Frank's murder.

I went through the events of Monday morning as clearly as I could remember them. "So you were in the bathroom and Ben knocked on the door from his side, telling you he needed to shower."

I nodded. "And after that he spent at least forty-five minutes in there, but I didn't see him go in because I closed my door as I left. So I can't prove in any way that he got straight out of bed, looked at the clock and went directly in to take his shower."

"But it's what you would have expected him to do?"

"It is. Ben's not p.r.o.ne to wandering around outside, especially not early in the morning. He's pretty good about telling me where he is, or if he's going out when we're actually under the same roof. I don't always know everything when he's at school."

"And if he's like most eighteen-year-old males, that's probably a good thing," Fernandez said with a hint of a grin. "I'd worry more if he actually told you everything that went on when he wasn't at home."

He looked down at his notes again. "When I talked to you the first time Monday morning, you went back into the apartment to put on a jacket."

"At your urging, I would add." I tried not to snap.

"True. You came out in a dark hooded sweatshirt. Was it yours?"

"No. It's Ben's. He'd left it in the living room and it was the first thing I thought to grab. My lightweight jacket was in the bedroom, and the sweatshirt was handy." I had resolved that I would tell the truth with Fernandez, even if it didn't make me, or Ben, look all that good. I had never found a problem yet that lying helped. Besides, as my grandmother used to say, if you always told the truth, you never had to worry about keeping your story straight.

Fernandez seemed continually surprised by my answers. He must have expected me to defend Ben, and I had every intention of doing that when I could do so and tell the truth. "Before Monday, had you ever seen your son and Frank Collins together?"

"Only when they were both in the apartment over the summer when Frank was working on the remodeling job. And that wasn't very often."

"You'd never heard Ben have any arguments with Mr. Collins about anything?"

"I never saw Ben talk to Frank Collins in much of any fashion, argumentative or otherwise. And I can't imagine what they might argue about."

That finally got Fernandez writing in his notebook again, making me wonder what was behind that question. What had Ben told him that would be a surprise to me? I was going to have to have a chat with my son after this.

"Ben seems like a fairly easygoing guy. And you said Monday that you don't own a gun, correct?" Did Fernandez think he was going to sneak something by me?

"That's correct, Detective. I do not now, nor have I ever, owned any kind of gun besides a water pistol that Ben might have had at one time or another. I don't believe in keeping guns in the house."

"Fair enough." He wrote some more in his notebook while I sat trying not to fidget.

"I take it that Frank was shot, as it looked like Monday, and you're trying to figure out who owns the gun that did it."

"Now you know I can't tell you anything of that sort," Fernandez said, grumbling. That vein in his temple had begun to work overtime.

"Hey, you're asking me questions about my son and I'm telling you the truth. I figured I could at least chance that you'd do the same if I asked you a question." It wasn't likely that I'd get an answer, but I could at least try.

Fernandez gave me a long, thoughtful look. My heart did little flip-flops in reaction. "Circ.u.mstantially there are things that could look like Ben had something to do with all this."

"Like Dot seeing somebody in a dark hooded sweatshirt talking to Frank that morning," I said. "And the fact that I can't prove that Ben wasn't outside before I saw him."

Fernandez sighed. "Exactly. I hoped that Mrs. Morgan wouldn't say something to you, but apparently that was too much to hope for."

"She only told me the truth. And I still don't think the person she saw was Ben. He told me he hadn't had any contact with Frank that morning, and I believe him. We may not have the best mother-son relationship in the world, but he normally doesn't lie to me about anything."

"Even when it would cause him trouble?"

I nodded. "Even then. He even told me when he drove Dennis's new car without permission when he only had his permit in Missouri and Dennis was sure somebody on a parking lot made that horrible scratch in the finish. He spent most of the summer mowing lawns to pay for the bodywork, too."

"I can see why you have faith in him then," Fernandez said. He didn't appear to be teasing me, either.

"Good. So are we free to go?"

"For now. I can't promise that I won't be calling either of you back in. There's still a lot of lab work to be done, and several more people I haven't talked to yet that could clear some things up for me."

"Is Ben still a suspect?"

Fernandez sighed again. "Ms. Harris, I can't rule anybody out at this point, especially not anybody who's young and male. You've apparently told me the truth so far and it would be a disservice to you if I didn't do the same. But he's no more or less a suspect than about half a dozen other young men."

He looked down at his notebook. "You don't happen to have a list of the subcontractors on the job, do you?"

"Not a formal one. I could piece one together, but I'd expect that Frank himself would have kept the actual list, and that Dot Morgan would have a copy as well. But I have to tell you that Frank wasn't nearly as good with paperwork as she wanted him to be."

"I haven't talked to half the people that I need to yet, and that's becoming a familiar refrain. It would appear that Mr. Collins wasn't as great as he could have been about a lot of things." He looked at me sharply. "Not that you should be repeating that."

"I certainly wouldn't repeat it as if you'd said it. But I can't deny saying it a few times myself already. Frank seemed to use fairly decent subcontractors. Both the electrical and plumbing guys seemed to be on top of things, but Frank and Darnell weren't anything to write home about."

Fernandez stood and I felt that the interview was over. It wasn't something I was going to argue with; I was anxious to get out of here and take Ben with me. We stopped by the front room and he cautioned Ben not to leave town without telling the police, and promised to be in touch soon. Ben looked like he'd calmed down a little, but not a whole lot.

I waited until we were about halfway back to the dorm before I said what was on my mind. "Before we went into the station, you said that nothing that happened Monday would have given the police any reason to suspect you. And the detective asked me about any arguments you might have had with Frank Collins. When I put those two things together, it makes me think there might be some reason that somebody would think you two didn't get along so well."

"We didn't." There was more anger in that short sentence than I'd expected.

"Okay, tell me more. It can't have been too serious or Detective Fernandez would have kept you a lot longer. But it means something, Ben."

He fiddled with the radio k.n.o.bs and hunched his shoulders before he answered. "It's embarra.s.sing. Are you sure you need to know?"

"I'd certainly like to know. It would help me understand what's going on here."

He still didn't look at me. "Okay, well...it was about you, Mom."

"About me?" This was even more confusing.

"Yeah. The last time I came home before Thanksgiving there was no vent in the wall where it should be in the bathroom. When I went to put it back in, I found a little hole in the wall that led to the back of my closet. And there was a stepladder in there. I think he was spying on you in the bathroom."

"Eewww." Just the thought, even if it wasn't true, gave me the shivers. "Ben, did you actually say something to him about it?"

"Yeah, I did. I caught him outside his truck on the driveway that day, and I told him what I thought about it. He laughed and said I had things all wrong. But he wouldn't look me in the eye, either. I guess I was yelling. And I guess Mr. Morgan saw us, too."

That would explain a lot. If I hadn't been driving I would have leaned over and hugged my son. I'd never been prouder of him for doing something dumb, if that made sense. At least the argument had been for a good cause and I expected he'd told Fernandez about it.

"Ben, I think you're going to be all right," I said, instead of trying to hug him and drive at the same time. And I prayed that what I was telling him was really true.

Chapter Five.

By the time I dropped Ben off at the dorm he had calmed down enough to promise that he would spend the evening getting something to eat and then studying. And he a.s.sured me that some of his suite-mates would be around, even if Ted wouldn't be. Once I was sure he wasn't alone or too upset, I let him go and waved him off. Hard thing to do, but he was trying to be as adult as possible and I was trying to let him.

Time had gotten away from me, and Christian Friends had already started over at the Conejo Community Chapel. I decided that even if I only caught the last half of the meeting, I needed to go anyway.

If nothing else, I needed to get Linnette and Dot up to date on what happened with our trip to the station, and what Ben had told me. The church building looked homey and welcoming when I pulled up into the parking lot. In the nine months or so that I'd been attending services here it had become a true church home to me. The long brick building with its sanctuary and cla.s.srooms reminded me somewhat of my grandmother's church in Cape Girardeau, Missouri. The folks in Missouri's boot heel would never have considered landscaping with palm trees, of course.

"Great, you made it!" Linnette cheered when I opened the door to the cla.s.sroom where Christian Friends gathered around in chairs. It felt so good to be wanted I almost burst into tears. Being this emotional all the time hadn't happened in a while, not since the worst of the mess after Dennis's death last winter.

"I made it," I said, trying not to sound as shaky as I felt. "Let me get coffee and something to eat and I'll come join you." The coffeepot still held about four cups of coffee and beside it was half of a really nice looking loaf of some kind of nut bread. "It's pumpkin," Lexy Adams called out when she saw me looking at it. "My mother-in-law baked it and it's really good."

I cut myself a generous slice to go with my coffee, slathered the pumpkin bread with cream cheese and found an empty chair. Maybe this wouldn't be the most balanced dinner I'd have this week, but at least I was among friends. That counted for a lot.

"Dot tells us that you were at the sheriff's department with Ben," Linnette said. "That's all she would say, so if you want us to know more, you'll have to fill us in."

"I said a little more than that," Dot piped up. "I told them how rotten I felt about maybe causing your trip."

"You didn't cause our trip," I said between bites of the pumpkin bread. Lexy had been right; it tasted delicious. Surely all the raisins and walnuts in it made it nutritious, right? "You simply told the truth to Detective Fernandez about seeing somebody talking with Frank Collins. The fact that he a.s.sumed it was Ben is his problem." I looked at Dot, wondering how much more to ask her here. Finishing the last of my snack, I decided to plow ahead.

"Have you and Buck talked about all this?"

"Quite a bit," she said, still looking more solemn than I normally expect to see Dot.

"Did he tell you that he saw Ben arguing with Frank one day before Thanksgiving?"

Dot nodded, looking tearful. I explained everything that Ben had told me to her, and to the group in general, and after that Dot looked much more comfortable. "I knew there had to be some good explanation. Ben is just too nice a young man to be involved in anything like this."

"Meanwhile it sounds like Frank wasn't all that nice to anybody," Lexy said.

"I think you're right." Dot's lips thinned to a slender line. "I gave him the job because he was family, and because I thought that surely he couldn't mess it up. I really thought that he'd changed with age like his mother said he had, and he was a responsible human being now." She shook her head, implying that nothing like that had happened. It also made me wonder how much worse he could have been as a young man. Maybe I didn't want to know.

Dot had caught the rest of the Christian Friends up on as much as she knew about Frank's death. Once we'd discussed everything about Ben and his involvement, or rather lack of involvement that Fernandez had kind of blown out of proportion, they had me tell my version of finding Frank last Monday.

It wasn't a particularly pleasant story, and by the end of it Heather was shuddering. "I'm glad I didn't bring Corinna tonight," she said. "I know she doesn't hear or understand everything yet, but I don't want to take chances. She's babbling more every day and some of it sounds like words."

"Is your mom watching her?" Sandy had warmed to being a grandmother in the ten months since Corinna's birth, which was a comfort to all of us. She'd been quite angry about her daughter being pregnant outside of marriage, especially when all the commotion had begun over the baby's father. Heather and I had both been taken in by the same con man, and sometimes I wondered who'd suffered more.

I'd actually been married to Dennis for several years, and he'd managed to weasel more money out of me. Possibly, though, he'd done more damage in Heather's life. At 32, she's now a single mom who's lost her trust in men, starting over with a new job in order to be near family, and she had tossed close to ten thousand dollars after Dennis that was never going to come back.

"Mom's watching her, of course," Heather said with a smile, leaning her head back with her hand to her forehead in a dramatic gesture. "n.o.body else could possibly be good enough for her precious granddaughter. Especially when I am cruel enough to leave her in the community college day care so many hours every week."