J. Jance - Betrayal of Trust

Please don’t think I’m a stalker, but I managed to track down your high school photo. I put it side by side with Hank’s senior photo the year he graduated from Beaumont High School. The two of you could have been brothers or even twins. I can scan the photo and send you a copy if you like.

If you’re still reading this, you probably see my writing to you now, after so many years of silence, as an unwelcome invasion of your privacy. I can hardly blame you for that, and if you choose not to answer, I’ll certainly understand. After all, my family betrayed both of you. For your mother, struggling to raise a child on her own in the aftermath of World War II couldn’t have been easy.

It’s possible that my grandparents didn’t know you existed. I hope that’s true, but I’m probably being too charitable. Otherwise, how could they have turned their backs on your mother when I’m sure she could have used their help, to say nothing of their considerable financial resources, to raise their only grandson? That’s what you are, by the way-their only grandson. I have two granddaughters and a grandson, but that makes him a great-grandson. You were then and still are their only grandson.

So here comes the asking part of the letter-the one you’ve been dreading and the thing this whole exercise has been leading up to. I’m hoping I’ll be able to convince you to come to Beaumont to see Mother while there’s still time.

This would be at no cost to you, of course. I’d be happy to pay your way. If you’re married, I’ll pay your wife’s way, too. I hope you’ll consider it. Mother loved your father so very much, and being able to lay eyes on you would be a gift beyond anything I could ever give her. It would fill an empty spot in her heart that has been there ever since she lost her beloved brother Hank.

I’m putting my contact information at the bottom of this page so you can be in touch if you so choose. Again, I understand that you have every right to be angry with my family, but please don’t take it out on Mother. What happened between Grandpa and Grandma Mencken and Hank was their fault, not hers.

Sincerely,

Sally Mathers

For a long time after I finished reading, I didn’t move. Couldn’t move. At my age, it was astonishing to me to hear someone-a stranger-refer to my mother by her given name. Once my grandmother died, there was no one left in my life to do that. Carol Ann-Kelly-Piedmont was always just Mother to me, and of course that’s where my daughter’s name comes from-my mother’s name.

It seemed astonishing to me that Kelly Piedmont had gone out in the world and found a man whose parents were as difficult and as judgmental as her own. Of course, maybe that was part of the attraction. She and Hank both knew what it was like to try to live their own lives with parents who regarded their children as puppets and who stayed just out of sight, offstage somewhere, pulling their kids’ strings for all they were worth. No wonder Hank Russo Mencken and Carol Ann Piedmont had bonded. And if Frederick Mencken and Jonas Piedmont had ever had occasion to meet, they probably would have gotten along like gangbusters. After all, birds of a feather do flock together.

“Beau,” Mel said. She spoke from behind me, her voice full of concern. “Did you hear me? Are you all right? What is it-someone claiming to be a long-lost relative and trying to put the bite on you?”

“No,” I said quietly. “It seems like exactly the opposite.”

I passed her my open computer and waited while she read Sally’s letter. “Wow!” she said finally, when she finished. “That’s an amazing story. Do you think any of it is true?”

Mel is a cop. Her first instinct is always to question-to wonder if someone is lying, and if so, why. But I knew as soon as I read the words that this was all true, every bit of it. Everything Sally Mathers had said in her letter corroborated what my own mother had told me. J. P. Beaumont wasn’t an orphan. I still had an aunt, one I had never met. I still had a cousin, a cousin who was reaching out to me, and some grandnieces and a grandnephew, too.

“What do you think she wants?” Mel asked. “Maybe she’s figured out that you have money and she’s looking for a handout.”

“That’s not what she said,” I responded. “She claims that the only thing she wants is for me to come visit a dying woman she believes to be my aunt, a woman who’s supposedly my father’s sister. But don’t forget, she also offered to pay my way there. If she had any idea that I had money, she wouldn’t have done that.”

“All the same,” Mel said, “before you go hopping on the first plane to Beaumont. . Now that you mention it, where the hell is Beaumont, Texas?”

“Near Houston,” I said.

When my mother told me my name had come from a city, I had looked Beaumont, Texas, up on a map. As a kid I spent years wondering what it was like and how it would be to live there.

“So,” Mel continued, “before you go hopping on the next plane to Houston, how about if we have Ralph Ames make some inquiries for us and find out if this woman is on the level?”

I probably would have argued with her right then, but the phone rang. Caller ID was blocked, but I answered it anyway. At first all I could hear was sobbing-a woman sobbing.

“Hello,” I said. “This is J. P. Beaumont. Who’s calling, please? Is something wrong? If this is an emergency, hang up and dial 911.”

“It’s Marsha,” she managed. “Marsha Longmire. The cops are here and the ambulance, but he’s gone. Oh my God. He’s dead!”

I had visions of Gerry Willis’s heart giving out from the strain of everything that had gone on the day before. And I couldn’t help but remember that one of the last things Marsha had said to Mel and me before we left the house-that if anything happened to Gerry because of Josh’s misbehavior she would murder the kid herself. I hadn’t taken the threat seriously then, and I didn’t now. It’s the kind of empty threat parents make from time to time-a variation on a theme of “ain’t it awful.”

So I have to admit that my first thought was about Josh. At age fifteen the poor kid had already been abandoned time and again, by his no-good parents and by a child protective services organization that had let him go back to a horrible situation. Now he was being robbed of a grandfather who was, as far as I knew, Josh’s only surviving blood relation. Marsha Longmire had taken on the guardianship more as a duty than as an act of love. From what I had seen of her, she had been less than enamored of the boy to begin with. Now, if she saw Josh as the proximate cause of Gerry Willis’s untimely death, I could well imagine the kind of anger she’d feel toward the kid, to say nothing of the kind of guilt she’d dish out.

“How’s Josh taking it?” I asked.

Marsha practically screamed at me. “Haven’t you been listening to a word I said? Josh is dead. I found him just a little while ago, hanging from the closet door in his room. He had strung together a bunch of Gerry’s old neckties. Then he tied it to the doorknob on one side of the door, threw the rope of ties over the top of it. He stood on a chair, put the noose around his neck, and then kicked the chair out from under him. He’s dead, and I can’t believe it happened! Damn! Damn! Damn!”

“Who’s there?” I asked. “Who responded?”

“I called 911. Olympia PD showed up with the ambulance, but since it’s the governor’s mansion, they weren’t sure about jurisdiction. They said someone should probably call the Washington State Patrol and I’ve notified my security detail, but after yesterday, I decided to call you as well.”