Page 31 of 4th Silence
Not a hammer to be found.
Remembering my now nearly cold coffee, I take a swig, hopeful the caffeine will jump-start my brain.
A chime sounds, alerting me that the rear door has been opened. My sister, eyes puffy and shadowed, appears.
“Morning,” she says.
“Hi.” I hold up my mug. “Coffee is on.”
“Good. Matt is five minutes out.”
I nod. “Okay. Maybe fresh eyes will help us out here because we have zip. What’s happening with Mom?”
“The lawyer I hired called. Her arraignment is at nine. Dad is arranging bail.”
Our poor father. The man is destined for sainthood. “I contacted him this morning.”
“Me too,” Charlie says. “He sounds…”
“Broken?”
It suddenly hits me that the Schocks are dealing with all sorts of relationship drama. Charlie got dumped, I’m terrified of a marriage proposal, and Dad is dealing with…well…Mom.
“Yes,” Charlie says. “Good word for it.”
“He’s exhausted,” I say. “Of all mom’s antics, I wouldn’t be surprised if this one puts him over the edge.”
My sister cocks her head, stares at me for a solid ten seconds. “You don’t think he’d leave her. Do you?”
I shrug. JJ just left her. And she didn’t do anything nearly as humiliating.
“I’m tired,” I say. “Everything feels like a catastrophe.”
Charlie nods. “I hear you. Let me take off my coat and get some coffee. Be right back.”
Ten minutes later, Charlie, Matt, and I sit at the table. My sister is directly across from me, with Matt to her right. He rocks back, placing his hands on top of his head.
“You’ve got Gerald on the board. His brother, Phillip, was Mary’s husband, right?”
“Yes. Gerald was the rich party boy spending the family’s fortune while Phillip was the responsible one.”
“What do we know about him?”
Charlie grabs a small stack and rifles through it. “I saw something in here last evening. He was interviewed that night. Claimed he didn’t know anything and barely noticed Tiffany at the party.“
More rifling ensues until Charlie finally holds up a stapled report. “Here it is. The detectives did a deep dive on him. He was quite the drinker. Mary and the kids wouldn’t comment, but a cousin who worked with Phillip claimed the pressure of being the Hartman patriarch—and covering for Gerald’s behavior—was getting to him.”
“And Phillip is where?” Matt asks.
“Deceased,” Charlie says. “A year after Tiffany’s death, he dropped dead of a heart attack during a meeting.”
Interesting.
Or is it?
I mean, with the combined stress of running an empire, a pain-in-the-ass brother whose child had been murdered, and the ensuing media attention on their typically very private family might be enough to give anyone a stress-induced cardiac event.
Matt lowers his hands and sits forward, pointing at the report still in Charlie’s hand. “Anything in there about Gerald and Phillip’s relationship? Aside from Phil being frustrated. Were they on the outs?”
