Reasonable Doubt (11 page)

“Raven has some connections in Kansas City. She thinks she might be able to help prove your innocence. I haven’t told her much. I don’t know much, to be honest. But in any case, I felt you should be the one to tell the story.”

“I don’t want the boys dragged into the media.”

“According to Raven, you’ve all three been plastered across the TV screens for days.”

Justin let out a stiff growl. “I have to prove I didn’t
do this thing before they arrest me. It’s only a matter of time before the police find out about the cabin. All they’d have to do is talk to Aunt Toni. I’m sure she’d be more than happy to draw them a map.”

“You two don’t get along?”

He shook his head and gave her a sad smile. “Not really. She tolerated me at best, until I graduated. Then she paid my way into college with the money Mom and Dad had designated for that and told me not to bother coming home on holidays.”

Keri dropped the log she was about to toss and pressed a gloved hand to his arm. “Oh, Justin. I’m so sorry.”

With a sad half smile, he patted her hand and even through the gloves, Keri felt the electricity of his touch.

“By that time,” Justin said, “I knew not to expect any kindness from her. She gave me what she had to and didn’t care what I did as long as I didn’t interfere in her life.”

“That must have been so awful for you. After living the first fourteen years of your life with wonderful parents and friends, to suddenly be all alone…I can’t imagine what that must have been like.” Her teeth chattered.

Justin’s gaze perused her. “Get in the truck and warm up. I can finish this up.”

“No way. We’ll get done a lot faster if I help. The snow’s getting heavier. There has to be a good five inches on the ground as it is. I’ll be all right.”

He gave a grudging nod. “Okay, but less talking and more tossing. I don’t want you getting sick.”

She smiled. “I won’t.”

They tossed wood until the truck bed was filled,
then Keri pulled the Jeep around and took the lead back to the cabin. In the joy of working together with Justin, she had temporarily forgotten that she had to somehow get Josh alone and find out what he knew. Now, that need seemed even more pressing than before.

The pieces of the puzzle somehow didn’t fit if Justin had killed Amelia. But what about Josh? The nightmares? The questions? The way he clammed up as soon as Justin came into the room? The fluctuating emotions?

Oh, how she hoped whatever Josh wanted to get off his chest was as simple as catching Billy stealing a comic book or penny gum from a convenience store. But her best instincts told her that whatever was causing his nightmares was linked to the secret he couldn’t seem to tell.

Oh, God. Please don’t let it be that Justin did this thing. I couldn’t bear it.

J
ustin felt as if he was already on trial. He glanced at the group sitting around the kitchen table. They stared back at him, waiting for him to make them believe in his innocence. A jury of four.

Gathering a slow, unsteady breath, he grabbed his mug, took a swig of bitter decaf, then set it back down. “The police figure she was killed sometime between eleven at night and three in the morning,” he said. “Rick had called me around seven and asked me to take his place at the mission because his wife needed him at home.”

He had been only too happy to get out of the house that night. News of Amelia’s latest fling and the fact that the boys had seen her drunk had thickened the air with tension all day. She was silent and unrepentant, on the defensive, but spoiling for a fight. He was angry the boys had seen her drunk. If not for their housekeeper Mrs. Angus offering to stay the night, he would have turned Rick down for the first time since taking the position as assistant director of the mission. Amelia had
already gone to bed when he left, so he knew the boys were in good hands and would be properly cared for in his absence.

“So your relationship with your wife was rocky, to say the least?” Raven’s question hung in the air for a moment while Justin tried to decide just how far to go back in the story. Would it really help for them to know about how he came to marry a woman like Amelia in the first place? He glanced at Keri. Her face was drained of color, but she gave him a tremulous smile and a nod.

After wetting his throat with another gulp of coffee, he forged ahead, wishing he had a different story to tell. “You have all known me for so long, except for you, Miss Ruth, and you’re practically part of this family. I feel like I should start from when I moved to Kansas City with Aunt Toni.”

Ruth gave him a wide sympathetic grin.

“Go ahead, Justin,” Keri prompted, her voice tense as though she wasn’t sure she really wanted to hear the rest.

Justin smiled, hoping that she would still be able to look at him once she found out how he’d rebelled against God during those years. He glanced from person to person, then focused on a crack in the cup handle. “When I first went to Kansas City, I was determined not to let Aunt Toni’s agnostic views affect me. But little by little I slowed down on Bible-reading and devotions.

“Once school started two months after I moved, I made friends who weren’t exactly good influences, and before I knew it, I had grown bitter with God for my
parents’ death. By Christmastime, there wasn’t much I hadn’t experimented with. Smoking—more than just cigarettes, drinking, even some hard drugs.”

He felt the shame churn in his gut. He couldn’t face Keri at the next admission. He focused on Mac, instead. “Dating and sex were one and the same for me. I grew numb spiritually and emotionally. I acted without thought.”

Silence permeated the room as Justin fast-forwarded through the rest of his pitiful teen years, skipping the details and leaving much to the imagination. “I met Amelia during my sophomore year of college. She got pregnant soon after we met, and I married her.”

A low whistle escaped Raven. Justin glanced up at her to find her studying Keri’s white face.

Clearing his throat, he knew he had to say something to her. Even if it meant doing so in front of the other three people in the room. “I’m sorry you have to hear this, Keri. But now you see why I didn’t come back like I promised. I wasn’t the same boy who went away.”

Silently, Keri nodded, tears pooling, her lips white and tense.

“Go on, Justin. I think we understand about the beginning of things with your wife.” Mac gave him a reassuring nod, and Justin expelled a relieved sigh that there was no anger or condemnation in the wise old eyes.

“Her mom had died a few months before we met, and she had no other family. I was all she had, and she was all I had. Aunt Toni made it pretty clear she wanted nothing to do with me once she considered me grown. So, every month I cashed the check that she sent for my
apartment and necessities out of the funds my parents had left me. We had a roommate, too. My aunt paid the school directly so I stayed in college, and Amelia stayed at home, partying all night, sleeping all day. It didn’t take long to see we’d made a mistake. But the babies were on the way and I had a responsibility.”

Feeling choked, he picked up his coffee cup and glanced inside, only to find it empty. He cleared his throat and set the empty mug back down.

“It was almost unbelievable that she didn’t get an abortion. I begged her not to. As soon as the twins were born, she took off with our roommate.”

Keri stood, and Justin’s heart crashed. She couldn’t handle hearing about his disgrace. She’d despise him now. Secure in the knowledge that God had forgiven him long ago, Justin nevertheless had a hard time forgiving himself when he thought of things from her point of view. She’d stayed pure for him while he’d…

He shuddered, then looked up, startled to find her standing over him. She took his cup and walked to the coffeepot, replenished his coffee while no one spoke, and brought it back to him. With a pat on his shoulder and a reassuring, though shaky smile, she gave him an encouraging nod. “Go ahead and finish the story.”

Speechless, he met her gaze and the years slipped away. Once again she was the skinny, freckled girl he’d loved as a child, and whom he was beginning to love again. He knew that only God could mend the rift in time, if He so willed.

Grateful for her graciousness, he took a sip of his drink, then picked up where he’d left off.

“I knew I needed to raise the boys in church, so I
found a great one close to home. After about six weeks, Amelia showed up again. She seemed ready to settle down and be a mother, so I let her come back. I figured my sons would be better off with a mother to take care of them, and to be honest, I needed help. So she came back and we picked up where we’d left off, only this time, my relationship with God was slowly being restored. Amelia refused to attend services after a few weeks, and I knew I couldn’t force her to live for God. But I was disappointed. My dream was that she would become a Christian, and we could somehow build on that and create the kind of family I had with my mom and dad. I guess she loved the boys as much as she was capable, but she never could quite settle in to motherhood. Before long, she started taking off for days at a time.”

“Why’d you keep letting her come back?” Raven stared at him as though she thought he was the worst kind of chump.

Justin felt heat creep up his neck. He shrugged.

“Right after I graduated from college, Rick and his wife started attending my church and we hit it off right away. His wife even tried to befriend Amelia, but, of course, that didn’t go anywhere. Anyway, Rick had just taken the position as director of the Victory Mission. It was in shambles. I began volunteering, and, before long, I headed up a volunteer program coordinating people who were willing to cook and serve or wash and mend donated clothing. Within a couple of years, the board was looking for a full-time assistant for Rick.

“I quit my job in sales at a large marketing company
and took this one, for a lot less than I was making. Amelia was furious. But the house was paid for out of the last of the funds my parents had put away for me, plus the life insurance policy. We didn’t need fifty-thousand-dollar cars.”

Raven raised her brow. “I have to agree with her on that one, Justin. That’s a good job to leave to slop tuna casserole on a tray once a day.”

“Oh, Raven. Don’t be so shallow.” Keri’s scowl darkened her freckles as she faced her sister. “Of course he had to take the job. Justin has always wanted to help people.”

“Oh, he has?” Raven sent her a teasing grin.

Keri’s face turned bright red. She cleared her throat. “Does anyone want coffee?”

No one did.

Mac turned back to Justin. “Amelia?”

“Anyway, after the first time she left, our marriage was in name only. She chose that. But I agreed to it happily. The deal was that she wouldn’t drink or do drugs around the boys and absolutely no men were allowed in the house. She kept to her end of the deal until the last day.”

“All right,” Raven said matter-of-factly, glancing up from the notes she’d been jotting. “Let’s talk about the day Amelia died.”

“Like I said, we really didn’t talk all day. The boys told me that they’d seen their mom staggering in while Mrs. Angus was feeding them breakfast. When I got home from my regular overnight at the mission around 11:00 a.m., the boys were in school, of course, and Mrs. Angus filled me in.

“I should have calmed down before going upstairs, but the thought of my boys being forced to see their mother in that condition sent me over the edge. Her door was locked, so I kicked it open.”

Mac shook his head. “That didn’t make you look innocent, did it?”

Expelling a heavy sigh, Justin shook his head. “No, sir. It didn’t.”

“What happened next, Justin?” Raven asked.

“Of course, I startled Amelia awake. I remember her being so scared, she screamed and screamed, begging me not to kill her, until I calmed her down, and she realized it was just me.”

“So she may have already known someone was out to kill her.” Raven’s observation took him by surprise.

He shrugged. “Maybe. She was still pretty out of her skull.”

“What about your alibi? Surely you have a ton of witnesses who knew you were at the shelter all night.”

Justin gazed up at Keri. Apparently she hadn’t filled her sister in on too many details. The fact that she’d protected his privacy, even against her sister, or perhaps especially against the reporter, filled him with hope and increased his respect for Keri.

She averted her gaze from him to her sister. “Two residents have come forward who are willing to testify that they saw Justin leave the shelter after lights-out.”

“Oh, boy, this isn’t going to be easy.” Raven leaned forward, frowning in concentration as she wrote something on the pad in front of her. “So the most likely suspect is going to be someone with enough clout to influence a resident at the mission? Your boss?”

Shock zigzagged through Justin with the intensity of lightning. “No way!” He heard the passion in his voice, but didn’t care. He knew what it felt like to be wrongfully accused and he couldn’t abide the thought of one of his best friends being put in that position.

“Okay, take it easy. It was just a question.” Raven rolled her eyes. “We’ll keep him off the suspects list for now. Who else had close contact with the residents?”

Justin did a mental checklist. There weren’t too many possibilities. “Me. Rick. Bob, my lawyer. He helps out with some pro bono cases. But there again, he’s a good friend. Like Rick. There’s just no way he could be responsible.”

Raven gathered a long breath and let it out slowly. She tapped the end of her pen on the table. “O-kay. Two possible suspects who aren’t capable of double-crossing a friend, for whatever reason. Who else then?” She glanced up from the notepad, her brow raised in question.

Mac, Ruth and Keri all turned to him, obviously thinking along the same lines as Raven.

Defenses raised by Raven’s sarcasm and the consensus of skepticism, Justin forced himself not to voice his frustration. Instead he searched his memory and picked through a possible list of the volunteers and part-time employees who might have a vendetta against him. He had named three or four possibilities when the kitchen door opened and Billy stumbled in rubbing his eyes.

“What are you doing up, son?” he asked.

“I’m thirsty.”

Keri stood. “Follow me, Billy-boy. I’ll get you a drink.”

Feeling suddenly stifled in the warm kitchen, Justin stood, as well. “I’m going to call it a night. Maybe we can pick this up in the morning.”

A wide yawn stretched Mac’s mouth. He suffocated it with the back of his veined hand and stood, arching his back. “That’s probably for the best,” he said. With a cautious glance toward Billy, he dropped his tone. “Thank you for opening up to us, Justin. I’m more convinced than ever that you didn’t do this.” He sent Keri a pointed look.

Justin stretched out his hand. Mac ignored the offering and pulled him in for a hug instead. “You just keep your hope in the Lord, my boy. He is a God of faithfulness, and He knows you’re innocent. Keep looking for a way to prove your innocence.” He pulled away and winked. “And don’t mind Raven, there. She’s naturally suspicious.”

“Thanks a lot, Dad,” she drawled, rolling her eyes.

A chuckle escaped Justin despite the difficulty of the last hour. “I’ll try to remember that.” He directed his attention to Billy. “Ready to go back to bed?”

The boy gave a sleepy nod and leaned his head against Justin’s waist.

As they stepped out of the kitchen, Justin overheard Keri’s husky voice. “So, what do you think, Rave?”

“I think Justin is innocent, but very, very naive.” Justin’s ears burned as he slowed his steps. “Someone is setting him up, and I’m sure it’s one of his friends.”