Guardian of Eden (23 page)

“
Back so soon?” My mother asked when we entered the house. She gave us both a hug and a kiss.

“
Yeah,
Maddie
ruined all my plans. I don’t think I like her very much anymore. She’s hurting my brother. She didn’t even get him a real present. Just some address of some guy named Peter Lawson. What a horrible girlfriend. I’m going to take a nap.” Eden marched to her room dramatically tossing her coat on the couch as she went. I was actually relieved that some of her flair had returned. It was like having a goal and working towards it had brought her out of the funk she’d been in. She reminded me of how she danced around on the metro the day she saw me writing a poem to
Maddie
. I felt like she was getting back to normal.

“
Peter Lawson? Peter Lawson. Where do I know that name?” My mother tucked her straight blond hair behind her ears and looked pensive.

“
Eden’s exaggerating.
Maddie
and I were never boyfriend and girlfriend. Not officially anyway. So, technically, she couldn’t be a horrible-”

“
Detective Lawson,” my mother interrupted me as a proverbial light bulb went off in her mind. “Garrett, listen to me, I absolutely forbid you from talking to him. Do you understand me? He’s a crazy old man that has no idea what he’s talking about,” she said seriously. I should have realized that she wouldn’t like me investigating my grandfather’s murder. It never occurred to me that Eden would bring it up in conversation. I had just planned to see Mr. Lawson without ever telling my mother.

“
What?”

“
I’m serious, Garrett. Stay away from him.”

My curiosity was piqued. Staying away would be the last thing I’d do.

 I didn’t want to wallow in self-pity anymore. I realized that accomplished nothing. I still wanted
Maddie
, but I had to find some way to get her off my mind. Peter Lawson and my mother's past were a perfect diversion.

 Several different scenarios of a first meeting or conversation played in my head. Maybe my father killed my grandfather in a violent outburst after he refused to let him marry his daughter. Maybe after months of hiding their relationship, my father decided the only way he could be with my mother was to get rid of her father. Maybe my mother and father planned the murder together. Maybe my mother was actually in jail for the first five years of my life and that’s why I didn’t know her. No, that wasn’t possible. I think I would know if my mother did jail time.

I didn’t know what I expected this Peter Lawson to tell me. I guess I wanted a reason, some sort of motive or logical explanation. I wanted something that would help me accept that my father was a murderer and that my mother still cared for the man that had killed her father.

I went back to school the Monday following my birthday. I wanted things to seem normal so my mother wouldn’t suspect that I was making plans to visit Detective Lawson.

He lived in North Carolina about 50 miles away from
Catolby
prison, so I decided I would stop by before my next visit with my father.

I rang the doorbell of the Lawson home but wasn’t sure if it sounded or not, so I knocked as well.

“
I’m
comin
’, I’m
comin
’,” someone grunted from inside. “I’m old! You’re
gonna
have to be patient.” A few moments later, an old Caucasian man with a walker opened the door. “Who are you and what do you want?”

His abruptness startled me somewhat. “I’m Garrett…um..."

“Do you have a last name?”

I actually didn’t know how to answer that. I wasn’t really Garrett Anthony, but was I Garrett Whitman or Garrett Baker? I wasn’t sure so I just said. “Are you Peter Lawson?”

“
Yeah, what of it?”

“
Um, you knew my mother, Holly Jane Whitman. I was just wondering if you remembered her.”

Mr. Lawson stared at me intently. He
squinted
his eyes making the liver spots on his face draw together and unite. He scrunched his lips and grunted, then turned his back to me as he moved slowly back into the house pushing his walker in front of him.

I waited at the door not knowing what to do. Maybe he hadn’t heard me.

“
Ya
feet got glue on ‘
em
or
somethin
’? Get in here!” I stepped through the door into his living room. A collection of orange and brown furniture from the seventies and a musty smell assaulted my senses.

I stood in the middle of the room as Mr. Lawson maneuvered himself into an arm chair. He seemed to be having difficulty so I offered him a hand.

“
I can do it myself!” he snapped. After a few more moments he had won the battle with the chair and sighed with relaxation. “That’s the worst part about getting old, not being able to do seemingly normal things anymore.
That,
and the hemorrhoids.”

I wasn’t sure whether to laugh or not, so I gave an awkward smile and took a seat on the dusty orange sofa.

 “How old are you, son?”

 
“Sixteen…um… 17.”

 “Well, which is it?”

 “Seventeen, I just had a birthday.”

 “December 10th, no…ninth, right?”

“Yeah, how did you-”

“They say you never forget your first case and your last case. I’d have to agree. I was 65 and ready to retire when I was thrown into the Whitman family.” He folded his hands across his chest then leaned his head back reflectively.

“I’m glad to hear that, sir, because I wanted to ask you a few questions.”

“About what?”

“About my grandfather’s murder.”

“Your mother never told you
nothin
’?” I shook my head as a response.

 “Yeah, I’d expect she wouldn’t. Your mother was never really good at facing the truth.”

Mr. Lawson began shuffling things around on the table next to his chair.

“
Louise! Where are my chocolates?” he yelled in a frustrated tone.

“
You’ve already had too many,” came a female voice from the kitchen.

“
I haven’t had any today.”

“
You expect me to believe that?”

“I expect you to bring me my goddamn chocolates when I goddamn ask for ‘
em
!” Mr. Lawson swung his fist in the air as if he were punching the disembodied voice of Louise. “You see, Garrett, that’s the worst part about getting old, not being able to eat your chocolates when you want to.”

I let out an uncomfortable chuckle then stared down at my hands.

“Do
me a favor, son, and look under that couch. There should be a box.” I obeyed and
dove
my hand under the couch. After grabbing a few fistfuls of dust and cat hair, I felt the box and pulled it out. He gestured for me to bring it to him. Inside
were
miniature Hershey bars. He ate three with unabashed ecstasy before returning his attention to me.

“
You look just like your daddy,” he said with a mouth full of chocolate.
“Except for the hair and the eyes.
I guess you get that from Holly.

Not knowing what to say, I nodded like a tongue-tied idiot.

“I was there the day you were born, you know.”

“
You were? Why?”

“I just had to see you for myself. I
gotta
tell you. I
ain’t
never
been so happy to see a black baby come out of a white woman in my life.”

“
Excuse me?” I asked a little startled at his frankness.

“
You heard me. I was happy you came out black. I probably did a little jig right there in the hospital.”

“
But I don’t understand. Why?”

 “Because it meant you were Greg’s son and not Thomas’.”

“
Who’s Thomas?”

 “Boy, she really didn’t tell you anything.” Mr. Lawson ate another chocolate before he said, “Thomas was Holly’s father.”

My throat tightened and my body tensed. A wave of nausea gripped me. I hoped I misunderstood what Mr. Lawson was saying. I hoped he wasn’t telling me that he suspected my grandfather impregnated my mother.

“Are you saying that my grandfather…
”
My voice trailed off. I couldn’t even say the repulsive idea out loud.

“Thomas Whitman was a perverted bastard that was able to hide behind his money. He had some sort of
soap empire
, you know. My only regret in life was that we didn’t catch him in time so he could spend the rest of his life in jail. But in the end, I guess he got what he deserved anyway.”

“Mr. Lawson, I’m sorry, this is a lot for me to take in. I’m afraid I don’t really understand. How do you know this?”

Mr. Lawson ate another chocolate and sighed. Then he got a distant look in his eye as he started to relate his tale.

“One day, I’m
sittin
’ in the police station and I see this pretty little blonde girl step through the door. She looks around real shy-like then flees back out. She does this two more times before finally she comes in holding hands with this massive black guy. So, I approach them, not really knowing what they could possibly want and ask what the problem is. Then, in this sweet little girl voice, she says ‘my father raped me.’ Well, I just about fell over. I was already old at that time and I’d hoped that I heard her wrong, but I didn’t. I took them both into a room and she gave me the whole story.” Mr. Lawson paused and looked at me. “I’ll save you the details and just give you a general overview.”

“Holly was 15 at the time,” he continued, “and she told me the abuse started when she was eight. I asked her what made her come forward now and she just looked up at her boyfriend. Well, that day, a squad car went out to the Whitman estate and arrested Thomas. We brought him in for questioning and of course he denied everything and since we had no physical evidence, we had to let him go. The next day, Holly came in with her mother, Frances, and retracted her whole statement. The
Whitmans
proceeded to sue the station for false arrest, defamation of character, and whole bunch of other bull hockey and they actually won.

Something in my gut told me Holly was telling the truth and that her mother made her lie, but there was nothing I could do. I tried to visit her once in a while and see if she was ready to face the truth, but she always just smiled and pretended nothing was wrong. After a while, I lost track of her. I didn’t see her again until about a year later, when the call came in that there had been a shooting at the Whitman estate.