Day by Day (28 page)

E
arly Tuesday morning, Barbara and John arrived at Whitman Commons, where John kept his office. Located within easy walking distance from the elevated train, the former school building had been renovated and turned into an office building a few years back. The sound of the trains rumbling by every seven or eight minutes during rush hour added a sense of urgency to a day already filled with anxiety.

They entered the building through the rear door and used a back staircase to avoid running into other people who were arriving for work in the other offices. When they reached the third floor, she followed him to his office. He had called his secretary last night and asked her to come in an hour later than usual so his office was dark and quiet when they arrived just before nine o’clock.

While he turned on the lights and the office equipment, Barbara hung their coats on a hall tree just inside the door.
She paused, held on to the sleeve of her coat and closed her eyes. She had been waiting for months to hear what the police had determined to be the true circumstances of the day Steve had been killed and to learn who was responsible for his death. Now that the moment was nearly at hand, she was tempted to bolt. Run away. Disappear. Do something, anything that would make the dread pooling in the pit of her stomach and the awful visions her imagination had created go away.

She opened her eyes and let go of her coat sleeve. If she ran away now, the wrenching pain in her heart would never be eased and her desperate need to see justice done for Steve and the daughters he had left behind would never be satisfied. She had no choice. She had to stay and bear the pain today’s meeting would bring and pray that God’s love and mercy would sustain her now and in the challenging days ahead.

“We can wait in my office.”

She turned toward the sound of her husband’s voice. He was standing in the open doorway that connected his office with the waiting room where his secretary worked and greeted clients.

Detective Sanger entered the office before Barbara had a chance to join her husband. “I’m a little early. I’m glad you’re both here.” She slipped out of her ankle-length, quilted coat, stuffed her gloves into the pockets and hung it on the coat tree next to Barbara’s. In a dark pantsuit, she moved with an ease and confidence that Barbara envied in this moment, as knots were tightening in her stomach.

After they all stepped into John’s office, the petite detective closed the door and took control of the meeting.
She signaled John and Barbara to sit in the club chairs that faced his desk. For herself, she pulled the executive chair out from behind John’s desk and joined them.

“We really appreciate your coming here,” John offered.

“It’s the worst part of my job and the best part,” she replied. “It’s been a long and tedious investigation, and I know it’s been hard for you to wait, but I’m hoping our meeting today will finally give you some peace of mind. You may not find it easy to hear the details we’ve learned about your son’s death, but I have to caution you that the process is far from over.”

Barbara reached over and took her husband’s hand. “We know.”

The detective continued. “The district attorney’s office may or may not be in touch with you later, but for now, let me assure you both that we wouldn’t have made the arrests yesterday unless we were absolutely certain and the district attorney’s office was satisfied that we had sufficient evidence to proceed.”

John squeezed Barbara’s hand. “We understand.”

Sitting upright, the detective watched both of them closely. “Despite anything you might read in the newspapers or see on the news, here’s what we believe happened. You’ve lived in South Jersey most of your lives, if not all, so I’m assuming you’re familiar with Senior Week at the shore?”

“That’s when the kids who are graduating from high school more or less invade the resort communities and generally run wild. We have some friends who have summer homes at the shore. We’ve heard the horror stories,” John replied.

The detective nodded. “It’s a rite of passage, of sorts, I suppose. There are hundreds of kids there from high schools in South Jersey as well as Philadelphia and beyond. It’s usually pretty harmless. Loud music. Big parties. Some underage drinking. The local police have clamped down in recent years, so it’s not as bad as it used to be.”

“I guess that depends on whether or not you happen to be on vacation that week or have a year-round home there and have to deal with all those kids,” John countered.

“What does Senior Week at the shore have to do with Steve’s death? He was killed in Philadelphia.”

“As a result of our investigation, we know that one of those kids at the shore was Jason Whittle. He hadn’t actually graduated. He’d dropped out of school in Philadelphia the previous February when he turned eighteen, but he decided to crash the scene and join up with some of his old friends who had graduated. That’s where he met Julia Radcliffe, the younger of the two sisters. I believe she was fifteen at the time.”

“Jason Whittle?” John repeated the boy’s name out loud.

“Is he the one who killed Steve?”

“No, but it was his gun,” the detective replied.

“But he didn’t kill Steve. You’re sure?”

She nodded. “He has a rock-solid alibi. He was at work when Steve was killed. But he’s involved,” she added.

“From everything we were able to learn, Julia and Jason met at a party and had a fling that didn’t end when Senior Week did. In fact, we can prove that Whittle spent the weekend before Steve’s death with Julia at the Radcliffe home outside of Cape May while her parents and sister were away.”

Barbara gasped. “They left a fifteen-year-old girl at home alone?”

“She was supposed to be staying with a girlfriend and her family.”

“So she lied to her parents,” Barbara charged.

“Yes. We believe she did. In fact, neither her parents nor her sister had any idea Julia had been sneaking off to any of the Senior Week parties or that she had met Jason, either.”

“Then she’s an accomplished liar,” John snapped.

The detective cocked her head and waited a moment before she continued. By then, John’s breathing was no longer rushed and his cheeks were not quite so flushed.

“After Jason left that Sunday afternoon, Julia cleaned up the house to make sure there was no sign they’d been there all weekend. That’s when she found the gun.”

“Jason’s gun?” John asked.

“Yes. The girl’s only fifteen. She panicked. Apparently, she was too upset to go to school the next day. That night, she broke down and confessed what she’d done to her sister, Augusta, and showed her the gun.”

Barbara closed her eyes for a moment and tried to keep her mind from racing ahead toward the possibility that Steve’s death might have indeed been an accident. When she opened her eyes, the detective met her gaze and held it for a few moments.

“Augusta was seventeen. She was older, and she should have known better. That’s not to excuse Julia. Either one of the girls could have prevented the tragedy that ended with the death of your son if they had gone to their parents, right then and there. Or they could have disposed of the
gun. Or they could have gone to the police right away instead of waiting until later.”

She paused and shook her head. “These are kids from a good neighborhood, with good parents, good upbringings and good future prospects. But they’re still just kids. Like Julia, Augusta panicked. The next day, that would have been Tuesday, both girls played sick and stayed home from school. After their parents left for work, the sisters drove to Philadelphia to return the gun to Jason. They’d only been to the city once or twice before with their parents so neither one of them had any idea how to find Jason’s address. To make matters worse, the air-conditioning in the car was broken so they had all the windows down as they drove around and they got turned around in some really rough neighborhoods. They were hot. They were scared. And they were totally lost. Julia was so frightened she took out the gun and held it on her lap for protection, despite Augusta’s protests.”

The detective paused. Her expression softened, and she lowered her voice. “At three-thirty, the girls found their way back to Center City where Steve was at the ATM. When they stopped at a red light, Augusta and Julia’s argument exploded. When Augusta tried to grab the gun and take it away from her sister, it discharged. The bullet passed through the open window and struck your son.”

Barbara struggled to breathe, but suddenly, it seemed as if all the air had been sucked out of the room. She looked at her husband. He was so pale she wondered if he were breathing at all.

He let go of her hand and waved away the detective’s account. “Are you serious? The chance that the bullet hit
my son and didn’t strike either one of the girls or something inside the car or—or a building or a passerby is almost beyond comprehension. What are the odds? One in a million? A billion? A trillion? Are you sitting there and telling us that after months and months of investigation that’s what happened? You expect us to believe it?” He snorted and glanced up at the ceiling, refusing to look at either the detective or his wife.

Barbara realized at once that she had mistaken his expression. He had not paled from shock. He was angry, furiously angry, as he voiced her own disbelief. But beneath his outrage and disbelief, she knew, he was also as distraught as she to learn that Steve had lost his life in an idiotic, completely preventable accident.

Despite John’s bitter fury, the detective never flinched. When she spoke again, her voice remained low. “I wouldn’t be sitting here if we didn’t believe this is what happened. We’ve uncovered absolutely nothing to indicate otherwise, and with their lawyer’s permission, the girls have been very cooperative helping us reconstruct every circumstance of Steve’s death. The girls did not drive to Philadelphia with the intent to kill anyone. They were only trying to return the gun to Whittle.”

“But the girls have been arrested, haven’t they?” Barbara asked. “They’ll be held accountable? Someone needs to be held accountable. Even if the gun was accidentally fired—”

“Yes, they’ve been arrested, but it’s up to the district attorney’s office to decide on the specific charges they’ll face. Remember, both of the girls are under eighteen and fall under the jurisdiction of Family Court.”

“Unless the district attorney’s office petitions the court to see that the girls are tried as adults,” John argued.

“True, but that’s something you’d have to discuss with the district attorney’s office.”

“What about Whittle?” he asked. “It was his gun. If he hadn’t left the gun behind, none of this would have happened.”

“Whittle is a whole different story. Legally, he’s an adult. The ballistics test confirms the gun that killed your son is also the gun that was used in a robbery in North Philadelphia in which a storeowner was shot and badly wounded.” She smiled for the first time since she had arrived. “If it’s any consolation to you, the investigation into your son’s death led directly to Whittle’s arrest yesterday for robbery and attempted murder. In addition, he’ll face charges for the statutory rape of Julia Radcliffe and any other charges the district attorney’s office can justify related to your son’s death. I don’t think Whittle will be on the streets to hurt anyone else for a very long time.”

John stared down at the floor and shook his head.

Her emotions in turmoil, Barbara folded her hands together to keep them from trembling. “Wh-what do we do now?”

“Go home. Grieve for your son. Let the justice system do what it’s supposed to do—find justice. How involved you become as the process unfolds is entirely up to you. I’ve seen some families of victims stay very involved, others don’t. Do whatever feels right for you and for Steve’s daughters. Don’t let anyone pressure you into anything. In the end, no matter how this case is ultimately charged or the
punishment is decided, the most important thing for you to remember is to celebrate Steve’s life, not his death.”

She stood up and pressed a card into Barbara’s hand. “I put my cell phone number on the back. If you have any questions or you just need to talk, call me. Whenever,” she whispered and quietly left the office.

John suddenly got up and followed the detective into the waiting room, leaving Barbara alone with her thoughts. She had never really given much credence to the girls’ early claims that the shooting had been accidental, but she could not afford to waste any of her limited emotional energy on finding fault with the results of the police investigation. If the police and the district attorney’s office were satisfied that they had uncovered the truth, then Barbara would simply have to accept that.

The truth, however, did not bring the peace of mind she had hoped.

The truth only opened up a whole host of disturbing thoughts that led Barbara down a path littered with questions that all began with one word: why. Why had Julia lied and sneaked out of her parents’ home to go to the parties at Senior Week? Why, out of all the young men she might have met, had she met Jason Whittle? Why had she lied again and disobeyed her parents again and had Jason spend the weekend at her home? Why hadn’t she or her sister immediately turned the gun she found over to her parents or the police? Why had they gone to Philadelphia on that specific day and driven down that specific street at that specific time when Steve would be at the ATM? Why had the bullet chosen one path in a million or more that had led straight to her son? Why? Why? Why?

If she knew the answer to just one question, she might begin to understand the answer to the greatest question of all: why had Steve been taken away from them at all?

Was it mere coincidence that the lives of these girls and Jason Whittle and Steve had intersected in such a tragic way? Was it something that happened to remind everyone that evil existed in this world, an evil that claimed the good and the innocent, to test their faith? If so, was it necessary for Steve to be part of this? Or had the pastor been right when he had told her that there were no accidents or coincidences that were not part of God’s plan for the greater good?