J. Jance: Justice Denied

“Good,” Jonelle said with a relieved sigh. “I always knew who raped me,” she added. “And it wasn’t rape, either. LaShawn Tompkins was five years older than me, but I loved him to distraction, and I thought he loved me, too. I told my parents it was somebody else because I knew my daddy would have killed LaShawn if he’d known. And then, about the same time, LaShawn got caught up in that other case…”

“The one he went to prison for?” Mel asked.

Jonelle nodded. “Yes,” she answered. “But once he went to jail for that, I knew not telling had been the right thing to do. And it still is. DeShawn has no idea who his father was. I want to keep it that way.”

That stopped me. “DeShawn?” I repeated. “You had LaShawn’s baby and kept him? You named him after LaShawn, but you raised him without ever telling him who his father is?”

“My parents raised him,” Jonelle corrected. “They raised both of us. They helped me get through school, the same way I’m helping DeShawn right now. It hasn’t been easy, but he’s a smart boy. He earned a full scholarship to Gonzaga. He’s studying premed. With all that, what was the point of telling him his father was in prison? And by the time LaShawn was released…” She paused and shrugged. “There wasn’t any point then, either.”

“You knew LaShawn was raised by his grandmother?”

“I knew Etta Mae,” Jonelle replied. “Our old house is gone now. They tore it down and built an apartment building there, but we lived on Church Street, too. Etta Mae and my mother were good friends.”

“You knew LaShawn turned his life around while he was in prison?”

“I guess,” Jonelle said.

“And Etta Mae stood by him the whole time, believing in him, loving him.”

A single tear slid out of the corner of Jonelle DeVry’s eye and trickled down her cheek. “She would do,” she said. “That’s Etta Mae.”

“She’s an old lady now,” I continued. “She’s old and frail, and she’s lost LaShawn, the boy she raised from a baby.” I left the sentence hanging in the air and waited.

“And you’re thinking I should tell her?” Jonelle retorted angrily. “You think I should drag my DeShawn over there to Seattle and tell him here’s your other grandmother-your great-grandmother-and sorry I didn’t tell you because your real father was locked up in prison and now he’s been murdered and have a nice day?”

“I’m not telling you what you should or shouldn’t do,” I said. “But it sounds like you’ve raised a good kid, and I think knowing DeShawn exists would give a dying old woman a precious gift beyond her wildest imaginings.”

Jonelle studied me for a very long time. “I’ll think about it,” she said finally. “But I’m not making any promises.”

A week or so after that, I was due to go to court for a hearing in the Thomas Dortman matter. In the corridor outside the courtroom I ran into DeAnn Cosgrove. The ponytail was gone. Her hair was cut short and her makeup was deftly applied. She was wearing heels and a skirt and blazer. There was only the vaguest resemblance to the overwhelmed young woman I had seen juggling her three children in that messy living room or standing angry and silent next to her husband’s hospital bed.

“DeAnn,” I said, taking her hand. “I almost didn’t recognize you.”

She smiled. “I’m working,” she said. “At Microsoft, so it’s practically just up the street.” She paused and then added, “Did you know Donnie’s moved out?”

“No,” I said. “I’m sorry to hear that.”

“I kept trying to pretend he didn’t have a problem,” she said. “But that day in the hospital you knew, didn’t you.”

“Yes,” I said. “I guess I did.”

“Finally I just couldn’t pretend any longer. If he was so drunk that he’d just leave people to die, I had to give him a choice. Us or booze.”

“I see,” I said, knowing without having to be told which choice he had made.

“But don’t worry about the kids and me, Mr. Beaumont,” DeAnn continued brightly. “I have a roommate now, to help with the kids and expenses. And once Jack’s and my mother’s estate is settled, we’ll be fine.”

She started to walk away then, into the courtroom, when I remembered something else.

“There was one other person your mother was in touch with that weekend, someone down in Portland. Do you remember any friends she might have had down there, someone she might have turned to in a crisis?”

DeAnn shook her head. “Not that I remember.”

And so, because I was curious, I called Barbara Galvin and had her dredge Kevin Stock’s name out of the file. But when I called DeAnn that evening and asked her about him, he still didn’t ring any bells.

A few days later, Mel and I drove to Vancouver, Washington, to meet with the family members of one of the last men to die at Anita Bowdin’s behest-a man who had been placed in a vehicle with the engine running and asphyxiated in his own two-car garage. We finished meeting with the family earlier than we had expected. Mel was anxious to head back north. But Vancouver, Washington, is right across the river from Portland.

“If you don’t mind,” I said, “there’s one more stop I’d like to make.”

“Where?” Mel asked.

“In Portland.” And I gave her Kevin Stock’s address, which I had looked up before we ever left Seattle.

“You just happen to have his address with you?” Mel asked.

“It’s a coincidence,” I told her.

Kevin Stock lived in a small condo overlooking the Willamette River near downtown Portland. I saw the family resemblance as soon as he answered the door. Kevin Stock may have aged twenty years, but he was still Tony Cosgrove. His daughter looked just like him.

“Anthony Cosgrove?” I asked.

“No,” he stammered. “You have me mixed up with someone else.”

“I don’t think so,” I said, handing him my card. “We need to talk.”

Just then a second man appeared in the doorway behind him. “What is it, Kev?” he asked. “What’s wrong?”

Tony shook his head and sighed. “All right,” he relented. “I guess we do need to talk.”

It took the better part of an hour. Sometimes it’s hard to realize how much things have changed since the early eighties. Then, on the other hand, many things have remained the same. Tony Cosgrove had fallen in love with another man. He was also a devout Catholic who didn’t believe in divorce or suicide. So he had chosen to disappear.

“I loved Carol,” he said, “And I told her if she ever needed me, to call. I always made sure she had my number, just in case. But she only called me once,” he added accusingly. “To tell me about you. She was afraid you were going to upset things. And you did, and you’re still upsetting things. Why are you here? What do you want?”

“I want you to think about your daughter,” I said. “And your grandchildren.”

“I think about DeAnn every single day,” he returned. “But at this point, she’s far better off without me.”

“I’m not so sure,” I said. “Her mother’s dead. Her husband’s moved out. She’s on her own with three preschoolers. And no matter what happened, Tony, she never once believed you were dead. She’s been waiting all this time for you to come home.”

“I can’t,” Tony said hopelessly. “Think about the insurance. If I turn up alive, she’ll have to pay it back.”

“Between having the money and having her father?” I asked. “For the DeAnn Cosgrove I know, there’s no question how she’d choose.”

While we were knee-deep in investigative alligators, though, neither Mel nor I lost sight of her one-word answer: “Okay.”