Emily Littlejohn - Inherit the Bones

I shook my head. “Cedar Valley never was never-never land. Where’s Julia?”

“Mrs. Delmonico took her to the mall. Julia was getting antsy about her face creams. I would have taken her, but I think your grandmother’s tired of this old mug.”

I forgot I had promised to take Julia shopping. “So, she’ll be gone a few hours?”

Bull nodded. He watched me behind his dark-rimmed glasses, his eyes unreadable. The lines and shadows in his face were obvious, though. He was tired.

We show the world what we want it to see, don’t we? I saw a man slowly changing from old to elderly; a man who had lived most of his adult life defending, protecting, and upholding the laws of the land. A man who was learning law and order don’t translate so well to chaos of the mind. Julia’s memory and emotions would come and go until she’d seem a stranger.

Bull would walk alongside her on her journey, but I could see, in his weariness, the terrible toll it would take on him.

“I’ll have to catch her another day. I take it we should meet in your chambers?”

His “chambers” was the nickname we’d given to the small study just off the front living room. I’d always loved touring his real chambers at the courthouse and after he retired, it felt appropriate to rename the study.

It was where we’d had all our serious talks, after all. I learned about the birds and the bees in that study. It was where I received an hour-long lecture on the dangers of drunk driving after I came home late one night from a high school party, blasted out of my mind on cheap wine and marijuana. It was where we’d talked, after Julia’s diagnosis, about next steps and future plans.

We took our usual seats in the study; Bull behind the desk, me on the leather couch. I set the hot cocoa down on the coffee table. The thought of drinking the thick, sweet chocolate made my stomach turn.

I took a bite of the quiche. “This is pretty good.”

“Your grandmother always was a good cook. It’s a funny thing, moving from a state of bachelorhood to a state of matrimony. It hasn’t always been easy, Gemma, but I wouldn’t trade my family for anything. That’s the most important thing in this world, besides friends and faith,” Bull said.

He loosened the belt on his bathrobe. “Don’t ever retire, honey. I’ve gained fifteen pounds and an ache in my ass since I left the bench.”

I set the quiche down and clasped my hands in my lap. “Family, friends, and faith, huh. Sounds good in theory. What happens when it all goes sour in real life?”

Bull sighed. “What do you remember, Gemma?”

“What do I remember when?”

“Come on, we’re both talking about the same thing here. What do you remember of Frank Bellington, of Louis Moriarty, Jazzy Douglas… the other guys?”

I closed my eyes and thought. “I remember Frank was a wise guy with a penchant for candies. Louis was bigger than life, I remember he always had his piece on him, in a shoulder harness. Julia hated that he brought it around the house. Jazzy was the first black man I remember seeing in my life. The others are sort of blurry.”

I opened my eyes. Bull was nodding.

He said, “Frank always did like the sweeter things in life. Candy, money. Women. Louis was just trying to make it as a single dad, his wife split when the boy graduated high school.”

“Danny Moriarty.”

Bull was surprised. “How did you know that?”

I shook my head. “You first, Bull. The truth.”

“I’ve never lied to you, Gemma.”

“Yes, you have. I don’t care about that. I want to know what broke up your little group. Was it something to do with the Woodsman? Did one of you kill the McKenzie boys and the others knew, or guessed?”

Bull’s face paled. He leaned forward and gripped the edges of the desk. I saw the color go out of his fingers. I tensed, ready to run, but then Bull sat back and covered his face with his hands. To my surprise, he started weeping.

“It was horrible. It was maybe ten years after the McKenzie boys disappeared. You were probably eight or nine years old. I don’t know. We were downstairs, in the basement, knee-deep in a poker game, all of us drunker than a bunch of sailors on leave. Your grandmother kept sticking her head down and telling us to shut up. Frank got up at some point, needed to use the facilities. After ten or fifteen minutes, one of us sobered up enough to realize he’d been gone a long time. I came upstairs. Frank was gone. Your grandmother was sobbing in the kitchen.”

Bull paused to take a tissue from the box on his desk and blow his nose.

“What happened?” I didn’t remember any of this.

Bull wadded up the tissue and threw it in the small, metal trash can next to his desk. “I asked Julia the same thing. She refused to answer, just kept crying. Then I asked where Frank was. I was dim-witted, drunk and stupid. I didn’t put two and two together.”

“He attacked her?”

Bull nodded. “Thank God he was too drunk to do much more than paw at her. He left bruises on her jawbone, her arms. She was able to push him off with a slap and a few sharp words and Frank sobered up enough with the slap to realize what he was doing. He fled, distraught, embarrassed.”

“Jesus.”

Bull pointed a finger at me. “Gemma, I mean it. Don’t take His name in vain in this house. But yes, your reaction is appropriate, given the circumstances. Of course, I was beyond furious. I wanted to chase Frank down, give him a beating he wouldn’t forget. Julia was distraught but even then, her kindness shone through. She begged me to let it go, said Frank was too drunk to realize what he had tried to do. She wouldn’t let me go after him.”

“So that was it? Did Frank ever apologize?”

Bull shook his head and took a sip of his hot cocoa. “Julia made me swear that I would forget it happened. Of course, I couldn’t, so things just took their natural course. A deep coldness seeped in between Frank and me and as a result, the poker group fell to the wayside. I’m not very good at keeping secrets, though, and I ended up telling Lou. He was aghast and embarrassed and the whole damn thing was just a big mess. Friendships ruined over a night of cheap whiskey.”

“Do you think Frank could have assaulted other women? This probably wasn’t his first time, Bull. You should have gone to the police.”

“And told them what? It would have been Frank’s word against Julia’s. Most of the people in this town were in his pocket, from real estate developers to the mob, and half the folks in between. He was the most powerful man in the valley. She was just a homemaker. And Julia was mortified at the thought of a scandal. She just wanted to forget the whole thing. Frank didn’t really do anything…”

“Bullshit! He tried to rape her. If you hadn’t been in the basement… if she hadn’t managed to stop him…”

Bull sighed. “I’m not proud, Gemma. But you’ve got to understand, this man was one of our closest friends. There was alcohol involved. It was a shock and we tried to do the best we could with what we had.”

“You didn’t answer my question. Do you think there were other women?”

Bull sat back and steepled his fingers. “I don’t know. I think…”

“Yes?”

“I think so. Over the years, I’ve watched Frank. He hid it well, most of the time, but I think a deep violent streak ran through that man,” Bull said, nodding. “I’m almost positive there were others.”

“Rose Noonan?”

Bull sat up. “Rose? No, oh no. Gemma, Frank may have been violent, but he wasn’t a killer.”

“Before that night, I bet you thought he wasn’t a rapist, either,” I said, biting my lip. “Bull, you worked a lot of cases, first as an attorney, then a judge. You and I both have seen the damage that comes when the beast in man’s true nature emerges. Killers, rapists: they’ve got mothers, partners, brothers and sisters. Friends. And every single one of them is always shocked when they find out their son, their husband, is not the person they thought.”