older.
“Sorry to leave you waiting. I was in the back of the house making up the beds.”
Harry held up his shield and introduced himself.
The woman’s face deflated. “I just had another detective here yesterday. Is it about the same thing, that bitch who hurt my son?”
“It’s about Darlene Beckett,” Harry said. “Are you Mrs. Hall?”
“That’s me. Betty Hall, mother of the victim.” There was a weary sarcasm in her voice as if she were repeating a phrase she had heard and read too often.
“There are some things I have to go over with you, your husband, and your son.”
“My husband’s at work and my son’s asleep, and I’m not waking him up for this.” Her voice was uncompromising and Harry knew better than to fight her on the position she had just staked out.
“Then I’ll talk to you now, and I’ll come back to talk to your husband and son later today. What time do you expect your husband home?”
She let out a long, weary breath. “Six, six-thirty. Not before that.”
“Can you arrange to have your son available then too?”
“Why not?” She looked past him and shook her head. “Why not give him another sleepless night.”
She led him through the air-conditioned house, through a set of sliding glass doors, and out on to a lanai that held a small pool. She explained that she didn’t want her son waking up and overhearing yet another conversation about Darlene Beckett. Then she let out a breath as if finally giving in to the inevitable and asked Harry if he’d care for some coffee.
“Thank you, I’d love some,” he responded. He really didn’t want coffee or anything else, but now that he had her in a giving mood he wanted to keep her there.
“Cream? Sugar?”
“Black is fine.”
She went back into the house and returned minutes later with two hot mugs. Even before he tasted it the aroma told Harry it would be good.
Taking his time, Harry eased into the interrogation. “Mrs. Hall, I don’t have any children, myself, so I can’t fully appreciate the pain this has caused you and your family. And I’m sorry I have to revive it for you all. But we have a murder to investigate, and as you know it’s captured a lot of attention from the media. Now, right or wrong, this puts pressure on the people above me, and believe me, that pressure rolls downhill. So I need to solve this case as quickly as possible, which, if I can do that, will serve your interests as well. The sooner I can find out who killed Darlene Beckett, the sooner the focus of the media will turn away from you and your son. Okay?”
“Are you going to protect my son and my family from the media?” Her eyes bore into him.
“As best we can. I’m the lead investigator on this case and I don’t want the media in contact with any of our witnesses. But I can only control it from our end. If you or any member of your family, or any of your friends, chooses to talk to the media, I can’t control that. But no information will come from us.” Harry didn’t say that he also couldn’t control what the brass in his own department might do.
“We’ve already had them calling,” she said, “and right off we changed our phone number. Again.” The line of her mouth hardened, but Harry could tell she was fighting to keep tears from her eyes. “We sold our old house six months ago and moved here. I loved our old house. We all did. Our kids were born there; most of our friends were there. But that woman-what she did and all the madness it brought down on us-didn’t leave us much choice. My son was scared every time he went out of the house, scared that some reporter or some fanatic was gonna jump out of the bushes and start in on him.” The tears began to well in her eyes. “The school system even made him change schools. He got thrown out of his school because of what that woman did to him. One of their own employees.” Both her fists had clenched now. “Oh, they said it was for his own good, but they just wanted to be rid of him, be rid of what they let happen to him. And he saw it for what it was: a punishment.” She shook her head violently. “How else could he see it? Even the church he’d gone to all his life turned against us.”
Harry opened his notebook, which held the notes Vicky had taken. He had to turn the questions to areas where he needed answers and hoped the woman was ready for it. Cooperation, he knew, even among the innocent, was a matter of will.
“Mrs. Hall, when Detective Stanopolis was here yesterday you folks told her that you were all at home together at the time Ms. Beckett was killed.”
“That’s right. My husband and I were in the living room watching a show we like. The kids were in the family room watching something different. We even told her what the shows were about,” she added.
“I know you did,” Harry said. “But according to Detective Stanopolis’s report, no one other than the people who were here could confirm that you were all here together.”
“Well, that’s not true,” she snapped. She shook her head. “I don’t mean that the detective didn’t tell the truth. What I mean is that after she left I realized that my husband’s mother had called that night to say she couldn’t find her medicine. She’s got heart trouble and her husband just passed away a few months ago, so she calls Joe every time something goes wrong. I think she just needs to know someone’s there to help her.” She smiled, weakly. “Anyway, I answered the phone when she called at about ten o’clock and gave the phone to Joe. Then, when she called back an hour later, I answered the phone again, and gave it to Joe.”
“Did she talk to her grandchildren?” Harry asked.
Betty Hall’s jaw tightened. “No, she didn’t. You’ll just have to take our word that they were here.” Her voice was ice.
“It’s good to have whatever confirmation we can get. It’ll just spare you more questions down the road.” Harry offered her a small smile that wasn’t returned. “Can I get your mother-in-law’s name, address, and phone number?”
Mrs. Hall rattled off the information.
Harry consulted the notebook. “Was there anyone in particular who seemed unusually upset about what happened to your son or the fact that Ms. Beckett was allowed to plead to a lesser charge?”
“You mean that she walked away pretty much scot-free?” Her eyes became fierce. “Yeah, there were Joe and me for starters. I don’t think my son cared. I think he was just glad it was over. At least he thought it was.”
“Anyone outside your family?” Harry pressed. “How about anyone at your husband’s job, or friends of yours?”
“No, our friends either tried to be supportive, or just avoided the subject… and us too-at least some of them did. The guys on my husband’s job, well, they all thought it was real funny. Or they were telling him how lucky his kid was, especially after they saw that bitch on television. The only people who really wanted to see her hung out to dry were some of the people at our church. They couldn’t understand why we were willing to let her off the hook without a trial. But they didn’t have to listen to Billy crying in his room, they didn’t have to see him afraid to go out of the house. Even the psychologist we sent him to said to let it go. He said having to testify and live it all over again, plus dealing with all the publicity that a trial would bring, could cause him serious emotional stress. So I said to hell with all of them, I was gonna put my son first. So I just told the prosecutor to kiss my grits and we stopped going to that damned church. My husband never wanted to go to the church anyway. He just did it for the kids, and because I wanted it.”
“What’s the name of the church?” Harry asked.
“The First Assembly of Jesus Christ the Lord.” She pushed back an unruly strand of hair that had fallen across her forehead. “I’ve got a church bulletin. There’s something in it I want to show you, anyway.”
She retrieved the bulletin and gave it to Harry. It was professionally printed and slickly laid out, filled with church information, some short feature articles, and a column by the minister, the Reverend John Waldo. Betty Hall had underlined a comment in that column relating to Darlene Beckett. She jabbed a finger at it. “Just read it. That’s what we were living with every time we went to church.”
Harry read the minister’s column. In it, Reverend Waldo urged his parishioners to fulfill your Christian duty and do whatever you can to bring justice to Darlene Beckett and thereby free the boy she has led astray so he can be returned to the loving arms of Jesus Christ.
“And that s.o.b. pressed for that every chance he got,” she said.
Vicky decided that she and Jim Morgan would take on Darlene’s probation officer before they ventured into the quagmire of the department’s computer systems. Morgan, apparently a closet computer geek, raised a mild objection, but Vicky refused to be swayed.
