Page 4 of Memory of Murder
Anne closed the door and walked to the center of the room where the sofa and two chairs surrounded a coffee table and fronted a fireplace.
“Have a seat.” She settled into her favorite chair and mentally braced for whatever he had to say.
He placed the box on the coffee table and lowered onto the sofa.
“What’s in the box?” No need to wait for him to begin. The sooner the conversation was started the sooner it would be done.
“Your mother’s personal items.”
Her gaze shifted from him to the box. It was a relatively small box. Apparently her biological mother’s life had been reduced to this. She swallowed, annoyed at the tightness in her throat. “I received a letter from Logan Correctional Center informing me of her death. Why didn’t they send this box at that time?” Wasn’t that the typical way it was done? Personal effects were mailed to the next of kin.
“Your mother—”
“Wait.” She held up a hand. “It’s true that Mary Morton was my biological mother.” Anne took a moment, drew in a steadying breath. “But that’s all she was to me. We never met. Neverspoke. She never wrote to me. Twenty-nine years ago, all she left me was alone. I went from the prison infirmary to a hospital and then to a foster family. From there I bounced from one family to the next. No one wanted to adopt the child of a murderer. So, honestly, I genuinely have no desire to receive anything from her now.”
Now that she thought about it, why had she even opened the door? All those emotions from her earliest childhood memories flooded her: Disappointment. Sadness. Fear. Hatred. More fear.
He nodded. “I understand how you might feel that way. But my dilemma is that the Colby Agency received a request from Ms. Morton, and we have an obligation to honor it.”
Somehow Anne couldn’t see her mother’s name in the same sentence with the wordhonor, but there it was.
“In that case,” she relented, “just get it over with. What’s in the box, and why did you feel compelled to hand deliver it?”
The man—Jackson Brenner—reached out and opened the flaps of the box. “Inside you’ll find a detailed journal, newspaper clippings and a few items I imagine were precious to your—to Ms. Morton.”
Anne stood, crossed the four feet to the table and picked up the box. She took it back to her chair and sat it in her lap. Inside, the item on top was the journal. She picked it up and flipped through the pages. She wanted to remain unaffected, but the handwriting—her mother’s handwriting—shifted something deep inside her even when she wanted desperately not to feel anything at all.
She was not your mother. The words echoed through her soul. Somehow holding that journal… She couldn’t chase away the idea so easily.
“Five months before you were born,” Jackson explained, “your mother was charged with the murder of Neil Reed. All who knew the two, who were engaged at the time, considered themthe perfect couple. There hadn’t been any trouble between Neil and Mary, and both had good reputations at their places of employment and in the community.”
“Until the murder,” Anne spoke up, setting the journal aside. Her skin seemed to tingle from touching it. A glutton for punishment, she reached for the next item in the box—newspaper clippings.
“Yes,” Jackson agreed. “In her letter to my employer, Ms. Morton urged us to find the truth. She insisted that no one had even tried in all these years. At the time she wrote the letter she was aware that her time was limited. She’d just learned she had cancer. Her request was a final attempt to prod someone into finding the truth. Though it wouldn’t help her, she hoped it would be of some comfort to you to learn that your mother was not a murderer.”
The impact of his words hit her hard. Anne rode out the unsettling emotions, then grabbed back her protective shield. “Well, I’m afraid she will be very disappointed. You see, when I was nineteen I suddenly felt I needed to know the whole story. So I did a little digging myself. I have to say that I found nothing to indicate she was innocent. In fact, everything I discovered suggested the opposite. I can’t imagine that you will find anything different.”
“Perhaps I won’t.” He shrugged. “But I will look. I won’t stop until I have irrefutable evidence one way or the other. She deserves that confirmation.”
Deserves. Anne considered the idea for a moment. How was it that this stranger could believe a woman he didn’t know deserved anything?
“What does this have to do with me?” Anne didn’t want to sound uncaring, but frankly, she was. She had no reason to feel anything for this woman. In fact, she remembered well the moment when she had stopped feeling anything. It had been hertwelfth birthday. All those years—at every birthday—she had told herself that would be the day her mother would come for her. She would be released from prison, and she would finally come to reclaim the child taken from her.
Except that never happened.
She never even sent a letter offering happy birthday to her only child.
And on her twelfth birthday, after running away from her newest foster home, Anne had understood that her mother was never coming. The fairy tale she had told herself as a child was nothing more than a self-comforting technique designed to keep the overwhelming sadness at bay.
No one was coming—least of all her mother.
“I won’t pursue your mother’s last request if you ask me not to.” Jackson startled her from the painful thoughts. “If you tell me to let it go, I will. Those are my instructions from the top. This investigation won’t move forward without your approval. I do, however, believe that if that is your decision, you will one day come to regret it.”
Oh, she saw the endgame now. “Am I supposed to pay for this endeavor?” She almost laughed. Please. Absolutely no way. Was this Colby Agency nothing more than some shameful version of ambulance chasers?
“No,” he assured her. “There is no fee involved with this investigation. But I do need your approval to move forward. Victoria made that point very clear.”
“Victoria?” His boss, she presumed.
