grows up in a great foster home. Becomes a successful graphic artist. Marries a woman who is struggling as a young single mother. Adopts her five-year-old boy. Loves and cares for him, and has two other children with her. And the ungrateful boy he adopted, Mason, returns his loving care by allegedly murdering him and his youngest child. Little Jenny.
If there was one word members of the press didn’t mean when they said it, that word was allegedly. But Caleb didn’t believe any of the charges against Mason. Mason might have argued a lot with his dad, but he loved him. And he would never, ever harm Jenny. Mason said that he could not remember anything between a party with some friends the night before the murder and waking up in the hospital almost two days later. His friends vouched for him, and said he had not been drinking, but they had, and admitted their own recollections of the evening weren’t all that clear. Caleb believed someone had set his brother up, but who-and why?
At first, Caleb had considered calling Detective Harriman about it. But Caleb didn’t really have any ideas to offer the police, and couldn’t explain away the evidence in any satisfactory way. DNA evidence. A bottle of scotch taken from his father’s office. A trophy his father had won in a design competition-the murder weapon.
Caleb and his mom had a great many other worries by then, too. The relief of Mason being found, the fear that he would die in those first chancy hours after he was discovered, the growing terror over Jenny, the shock of Mason’s arrest-all compounded their grief over his father’s death. The many arrangements to be made in the wake of his father’s death occupied them as well.
His dad’s business had become almost immediately worthless, since it depended entirely on his father’s talents. Fortunately, there was insurance coverage that allowed outstanding debts to be settled and the return of fees on contracts that would now never be completed. Nothing to speak of was left in assets.
Richard Fletcher’s personal life insurance policy and other investments were intended to pay off the house and studio mortgages, and to leave enough for the rest of the family to live on for a couple of years-or would have, if it had not been necessary to hire a criminal defense attorney.
Caleb didn’t believe that Mason would ever hurt his father or Jenny, but his reasons for believing Mason was being framed went beyond brotherly faith. When Caleb mentioned them to Mason’s attorney, though, the man shuddered and asked him to please not talk to anyone else about his brother’s “former” drug and alcohol problems. When Caleb said that he thought the attorney should talk to Detective Harriman, he got a long lecture about the police not being their friends, and was strictly forbidden from having any contact with the detective.
Caleb didn’t like the attorney his mother had chosen, but there wasn’t anything he could do about that. The man seemed to make an honest effort at defending Mason, which wasn’t easy, given the prosecution’s case.
Two clients, partners in a firm that had hired Richard Fletcher, testified that the day before Richard’s death they had overheard Mason Fletcher in a violent argument with the victim.
His mom wanted to testify that Richard Fletcher obviously hadn’t thought much of this argument, because he hadn’t mentioned it to her that evening, their last together. But the defense attorney decided it wouldn’t be a good idea to put her on the stand, fearing other questions about Mason the prosecutor might ask.
She had been strong throughout the ordeal of this trial. Most of the time, anyway. She had a bad moment when the prosecution showed the jury the oversized photographs of the fatal damage done to Richard Fletcher. Another when they showed the photographs of Jenny Fletcher-alive and well in those photos, three years old then, almost four. A reminder that none of them knew if she was alive or dead. He refused to believe she was dead, no matter what the prosecutors said. She was just five now-her birthdays had been terrible, grief-filled days for Caleb, Mason, and their mother. Did Jenny miss them?
That was the most innocent question he could ask himself about Jenny.
He thought about the less innocent ones all the same, and knew the prosecutors’ insistence that Jenny was dead had undermined his mother’s hope. Even when they had shown the photos of Jenny, though, his mother had summoned her courage and managed to regain her composure.
She was falling apart now.
THE jury came in and was seated. They avoided looking at his brother.
They reached the moment when Mason was asked to stand.
Caleb’s mom was looking at the jury, but Caleb was watching Mason. Mason Delacroix Fletcher. Mason Delacroix, the prosecutors insisted on calling him, even though Caleb’s father had adopted him.
Mason stood next to his attorney, just beyond Caleb’s reach, pale and stone still, and Caleb supposed the reporters would say that as the verdict was read, the defendant showed no emotion. But Caleb could see that he was scared, as scared as he had ever been. Caleb was scared, too.
The judge was talking to the jury foreman, but Caleb already knew what the verdict would be. Caleb thought Mason and his mother knew, too.
Caleb couldn’t hear the words, not over the part of his mind that wanted to reach Mason, to tell him he would always believe in his innocence, that he would keep fighting for him.
He knew that even his mother didn’t believe in that innocence, not completely. He knew the things the police and prosecutors said made her uneasy. Maybe Uncle Nelson’s certainty of Mason’s guilt, and the certainty of her parents, had damaged her faith in Mason more than Caleb knew.
Her parents had wanted her to give Mason up for adoption, all those years ago, but she had refused.
She didn’t abandon him now, either. She sat here dutifully every day, and paid for the defense lawyer out of her already strained resources, and never breathed a word of the doubts she felt about Mason’s innocence to anyone but Caleb, who steadfastly argued that being a problem child didn’t make Mason a murderer.
Caleb could tell that for all the trouble between his mother and Mason, she was hoping for the impossible now, hoping that when the verdict was read, the foreman would say, “Not guilty.”
But that wasn’t what he said, of course. Caleb’s mother made a sound, low and harsh, as if the air was being forced from her lungs by a blow, then half-fainted against him.
Even as he caught her, Caleb looked up at his brother, who turned and gave him a soft smile. Cameras flashed, and the guards pulled Mason away.
CHAPTER 7
Tuesday, July 16
4:12 P.M.
LAS PIERNAS
NELSON FLETCHER didn’t like publicity, but he understood the need to give the jackals of the press a little snack, something to tide them over until some other wounded animal came along and drew their attention. His siblings would make sure their father was able to get away from here, but now, on the courthouse steps, at a bank of microphones, Nelson must take this task on.
He would also try to keep the media away from Caleb and Elisa as long as possible. He was proud of Caleb, who had handled himself well in there. To Nelson’s surprise, Detective Harriman had been there, and helped Caleb get his mother away without letting anyone shove a microphone at her. If he hadn’t known her so well, Nelson would have suspected that Elisa’s fainting was a ploy, but she wasn’t the type to do something like that. He worried, but there wasn’t anything he could do about it now. Caleb would watch over her.
He carefully unfolded his prepared statement. “I’m sure you can understand that this is an extremely difficult time for the family-” he began, but was interrupted by a shouting reporter.
“Did your brother ever express fears about his adopted son?”
He had told himself that he wouldn’t let them distract him from reading the statement, but this question was one he would not let pass. “Richard always referred to Mason as his son. And that wasn’t a matter of hiding anything-we’ve never hidden the fact that Richard and I were adopted together and raised as brothers. I do not believe having the same biological parents could have possibly made us any closer, allowed us to love each other more, made me miss him any more than I do now…” He paused, took a shaky breath, and went on. “Richard Fletcher was a genius. A bright and creative and kind man. A good man. My brother.”
He paused again, pinched the bridge of his nose, set his thumbs hard into his tear ducts. “I see how loyal
