“He probably thinks you’re an ass.”
“Maybe, but he’ll still remember it.”
“Doubt it.”
He knocked on the door and Madison Pemberton answered looking tired and a little greyer. Her face registered annoyance and then worry. “What happened,” she said quickly.
“Everything’s fine, Miss Pemberton,” Jaxon said. “We didn’t mean to worry you. We just wanted to ask you a few questions if you have a moment.”
“Don’t you think you should be out trying to catch the man who wants to hurt my daughter?”
“It’s related to the case, ma’am,” Victoria said.
“And you are…?” Madison said.
“Special Agent Elliot, FBI ma’am. The Detective and I are working on the case together.”
“May we come in?” Jaxon said.
She hesitated, and then opened the door wider and stepped aside. Jaxon let Victoria enter first. The layout was very similar to the Harrison house only flip-flopped so the stairway was to their right as they entered and the half bath was to the left. She led them into the living room and asked if they wanted anything to drink.
“No thank you, Miss Pemberton,” Victoria said, sitting in a chair that looked horribly uncomfortable. Jaxon chose the couch.
“Miss Pemberton,” Jaxon said, “we’ve met before all of this, haven’t we?”
She nodded. “I didn’t think you remembered. 1997. I had to call the police on my husband and you were the responding officer.”
“What happened?”
“You don’t know?” she said, surprised.
“It’s been a long time. Refresh my memory.”
“My husband was not a pleasant man,” she said. “He had been drinking and we got into a fight. I was pregnant at the time with Ellie and was not providing him with enough-uh-‘entertainment’ as he put it and he started slapping me. He was a hitter. I ran from him and called the police. Your delayed arrival allowed him to drink even more. As soon as you arrived he started in on you, and you had to-subdue him. Patrick was two at the time and was crying from all the shouting. My husband screamed at him to shut up and you then threatened to take the child away if my husband didn’t settle down. He must have gotten the point, because he stopped struggling and shut his mouth. It was like a switch had been turned off.”
Jaxon nodded, remembering now. The man had been huge. Six-four, six-five, two hundred fifty pounds at least. The only reason Jaxon was able to get him on the ground was because he was staggering drunk.
“Leonard was very protective of his son,” she continued. “He did not appreciate you threatening him and he told you…”
“That I would regret it.”
“Right-so you do remember.”
“It’s coming back.”
“I was surprised you didn’t take him in,” she said, looking directly at him.
“It usually only makes things worse. He seemed under control after that.”
“He beat me with a belt.”
Jaxon didn’t know what to say.
“I almost lost the baby and had bruises that stayed for weeks.”
“I’m sorry,” he finally said.
She turned away from him and stared off into the distance as if it didn’t matter. “It’s over and I’m free of him.”
“Did he ever touch you again?” Victoria asked.
“No. My father took care of that since the police couldn’t seem to.” She turned and looked him in the eye again. He had to look away.
“My father stayed with me for months and pointed a shotgun at him every time he came around. He finally got the point. My father even fired it at him, but if it hit him we never knew. He left and has never been back.”
“I’m truly sorrow, Miss Pemberton,” Jaxon said. “The system failed you and I don’t know what to say. I feel like I let you down.”
“You did,” she said bluntly. Then dismissed it. “It doesn’t matter,” she continued, waving her hand at him. “All that’s in the past. What I want from you now is to not fail me again. You need to find this madman and stop him from hurting my daughter. Can you do that?”
“Yes, Miss Pemberton,” Victoria said. “We can.”
She looked Victoria up and down, and then nodded once.
“Where is he now?” Jaxon asked.
“My ex-husband? I don’t know and I don’t care.”
“You have no idea where he might be?”
“Why do you care? What do you two want from me today?”
“Ellie didn’t tell you about her father?” Victoria asked.
“What about her father?” Madison suddenly looked alarmed.
Victoria looked at Jaxon. Jaxon said, “Ellie got another message from the killer. He said he knows her father.”
She looked shaken. She sat back in her chair, deflated, her hand rising to her face, then stopping where it fluttered for a second and then sank to her lap.
“We need to find your ex-husband, Miss Pemberton. We need to find Leonard Worthington.”
“You can’t,” she whispered. She looked haunted and her eyes grew dark.
“We will,” Victoria said. “Whether you help us or not.”
“You can’t,” she said again. “You can’t, because he’s dead.”
They spent the next half hour getting the full story from Madison Pemberton and then made some hard decisions about her future. It only took a few minutes to decide. It was the right thing to do, and as Jaxon had learned in his years of police work, sometimes people just took things into their own hands and justice was served. Victoria felt the same way. She called Holt back and told him the Worthington thing was a dead lead and not to expend any more time and energy on it.
Jaxon could only hear one side of the conversation but Victoria told him what was said. Holt was curious as to what had happened but did not push it. She hinted it was something she would discuss with him later.
“Are you going to tell him?” Jaxon asked after she hung up.
“I think I’ll have to.”
“What will he do?”
“The same as us-look the other way.”
Jaxon wasn’t so sure. Holt seemed like a by-the-book kind of guy.
After Madison Pemberton’s revelation, they got her talking. Apparently her father had been a better shot with the shotgun than she had originally stated. During one of Worthington’s surprise visits, he became violent and would not leave. Her father broke the gun out and pointed it at him telling him to vacate the premises. Worthington refused and charged the man. He fired the weapon. It took two shots to bring him down.
The father took complete charge of the situation and disposed of the body in a location Madison didn’t have knowledge of. No one missed him. His parents were dead and he had no brothers or sisters. Madison’s father died a few years later and the secret of his burial place died with him. Madison never learned what her father did with Leonard David Worthington.
Jaxon and Victoria talked and told her they would keep the information confidential unless they discovered she had lied to them. She thanked them and swore what she had told them was the absolute truth. Jaxon saw something in her eyes that had changed. The burden of her secret lifted from her shoulders and for the briefest moment she appeared happy. Then, when they mentioned they were going over to check on Ellie, the world came crashing back in on her and the strain of everything weighed her down again. Jaxon suggested she have a stiff drink.
As they were leaving she said, “My father was a good man. Please don’t tarnish his memory by glorifying my monster of a husband. My father was only protecting his daughter and grandchildren.”
Jaxon and Victoria believed her.
They were now parked in front of the Harrison house about to go in and check on the kids.
“Should we tell the girl anything?”
Victoria looked at him and said, “We could lie and tell her we checked him out and there was no way William Smith could know her father.”
“It’s partially true,” he said. “He could not know him if the man is dead.”
“It might make her feel better.”
He nodded. “Alright, we’ll be vague.”
They stepped out of the car and walked over to the uniformed officer parked in front of the house and talked with him for a few minutes. Everything had been quiet he said. The other car was over parked in the court behind the house watching the entrance to the backyard from the pool complex. Quiet there too.