Nobody's Mother

By Geoffrey A. Feller

Vermont State Police Detective-Sergeant Natalie Dvorak is looking for a suspected killer. The trail leads to an isolated house presided over by “Mother” Frances, a woman with dark secrets. She is prepared to take ruthless action against anyone who might disrupt her home, where she has taken in a small group of senior citizens. Mother Frances and her childlike housekeeper try to hide the truth from Natalie when she visits the house. Constrained by rules of evidence and haunted by controversy from another murder case, Natalie pushes forward in her investigation, placing herself in more danger than she bargained for, including a deadly game of hide and seek.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Geoffrey A. Feller
• Release date: Feb 25, 2014
• ISBN: 9781310564260

Geoffrey A. Feller

I was born fifty-seven years ago in the Bible belt but grew up in a Massachusetts college town. I am married and my wife and I have moved frequently since we met. We've lived in Minnesota, Massachusetts, and New Mexico, as well as a brief residency in Berlin, Germany. I have worked peripherally in health care, banking, and insurance. In addition to writing, I have done a bit of amateur acting and comedy performances. I am afraid of heights but public speaking doesn't scare me. My wife and I live in Albuquerque with our chihuahua.

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NOBODY’S MOTHER

by Geoffrey A. Feller

Smashwords Edition

Copyright 2013 by Geoffrey A. Feller

CHAPTER ONE

NO HONOR AMONG THEM

I have to get away from here!

David Dugan was very tired and more than a little drunk as he stood and swayed in the bathroom after flushing the toilet. He decided that having this get-together with Eddie Dawson was one of his dumbest-ever decisions. It was right up on that Top Ten list, just below the day Eddie’s brother Frank had talked the two of them into robbing Brenda Fiedler of the profits from her dope dealing business down in Greenfield, Massachusetts.

Frank had said she was a dumb chick who’d give them no more trouble than to burst into tears as they took the cash from her hands. Since it was illegally-earned money anyway, Brenda wouldn’t be calling the police.

But no, that idiot Frank had been wrong. Crazily, Brenda had fought them, screamed and scratched and bitten, making a huge commotion in that crappy apartment house. And so they’d been forced to shut Brenda up. They’d been angry with her and it made them handle the problem with roughness. Frank had been so rough that he hurt Brenda badly. The three of them then left the girl unconscious in her bathtub, blood flowing down the drain.

Later, David heard that Brenda was comatose. Then word came that she’d died.

He shuddered at the thought and glanced over at the bathtub in this room. It was empty and clean.

David and the Dawson boys had all gotten away with murder, or maybe it had really been manslaughter. Despite the noise from Brenda’s apartment that night five years earlier, no one had called the police, or if anyone had, the cops were too late to catch the killers. They’d made it to Frank’s car and got on up I-91 to cross the state line.

In the several days after the assault, each of them had lived nervously, waiting for that knock on the door. But they must not have been seen. What a crazy risk it had all been. If they’d woken up just one neighbor who might have done nothing more than to look out a window and spot a black 1974 Chevy Impala driving off, a green Vermont plate above the dented bumper...

The days of waiting had stretched into weeks, months, and finally could be measured in years. Media reports of murder cases from a town in another state was hard to come by. David’s main source of information had been the people in his circle who’d also known Brenda; it was the same social overlapping that had led to the robbery in the first place.

Now, five years later, it was probably still an open case. But David wasn’t worried about being arrested. He knew it was impossible to connect him with the crime based on physical evidence; they’d washed off the blood, spent the money, and all of them had been wearing gloves for the holdup.

David had once worried that Frank might confess someday. It wouldn’t have been Frank’s conscience bothering him; unlike the other two, Frank continued his criminal career and been unlucky more than once. There had been arrests for petty theft in and around Burlington. It seemed only a matter of time before Frank would be facing more serious charges and then he might start babbling about the Greenfield incident.

But now Frank was dead, too, killed in a drunk driving accident two years after Brenda’s murder. By then, David had parted ways with Eddie. There hadn’t been a fight or a dispute; their lives had simply moved along in separate directions, following the typical pattern of people in their early twenties.

David was now living in Corpus Christi, Texas, where he was working as a short-order cook at a restaurant near the docks. A few days earlier, he’d taken a flight into Bradley down in Hartford. It had been about a year since David had seen his parents, who still lived in Burlington, and he wanted to visit them. They had met him at the airport and brought him home.

Getting caught up with some of his old friends had led to meeting Eddie at a bar and the former accomplices struck up a conversation. They had never spoken about Brenda after the first few months following the killing and that night was no different. David found out that Eddie had been drifting around over the past year, having a hard time holding down a job, and had recently lost a girlfriend.

Where d’you live now? David asked after a while.

With my parents since I was evicted, Eddie admitted with a scowl. That’s sure lame but I’m staying at a friend’s house for a couple of nights down in Whitby.

Oh, yeah?

I got some weed there, man. You want to come down there with me and get wasted?

I don’t know about that.

Come on.

Eddie, that’s like an hour’s drive from here.

What, you’d rather just go home to your folks? I got more beer at the house, too.

David had liked the idea of smoking some weed but had to weigh that against the way Eddie was acting. There was a sense of jumpiness in his old friend, a reckless kind of spontaneity, as if Eddie hadn’t matured as much as David had.

Ah, the hell with it, David said, as much to himself as to Eddie. Let’s get out of here.

After a short pay-phone call to his dad to say he’d be out late, David had followed Eddie to Eddie’s car. It was a chilly night and there was frost on the ground in the parking lot. The heater in the old Plymouth Fury kicked in after several miles.

During the drive, Eddie finally brought up Brenda. David didn’t like the topic and said little about it himself. Evidently, he felt guiltier about the girl’s death than Eddie, who mainly talked about how they’d gotten away with it. At least he hadn’t expressed any joy over what they’d done to Brenda.

But now, a couple of hours later, David found himself wishing he’d just gone home to his parents’ house. There were more immediate concerns than unhappy memories from 1978. It hadn’t gone so badly at first. Eddie had shut up about their crime and they’d sat in the front parlor of the small wood-framed house, using a bong to inhale the marijuana smoke.

However, when David went to help himself to another can of beer, going into the small kitchen for the first time, he saw that the door had been forced open; there was a broken latch and the inner doorknob was hanging loosely.

Despite his intoxication, David was stunned and afraid of what this looked like. He shakily chose his beer and walked back into the parlor.

Eddie, David had said as he stood in the doorway. You’re watching this house for someone?

Yeah, man, Eddie nodded.

Why’d you break in, then?

Aw, I had to, Eddie replied with a wide grin. I locked myself out earlier. Figured if I had to bust a door, better do it to the kitchen door around back of the house. Found the keys in the pantry where I left them.

Won’t the owner be mad?

I’ll call a locksmith tomorrow. It’ll be okay.

I guess.

Hey, everything’s cool! Come on, sit down.

I gotta take a leak, David told him, putting the beer on a bookcase next to him.

Taking a deep breath, David emerged from the bathroom. He strode into the parlor and stopped across the coffee table from Eddie, who was still slouching on the small sofa.

I need to get back home, David announced. "Right now."

What? Eddie frowned. You look all uptight, man.

Just drive me home.

Fuck that, I’m too wasted to drive all that way. Chill, man. We’ll crash here tonight and I’ll run you on up tomorrow.

No way. You don’t want to drive, I’ll take your car and do it myself.

David was getting angrier as he spoke. Why couldn’t Eddie see that it was crazily dangerous to hang around in a house he’d broken into? Damned if Eddie would get both of them in trouble after all this time in the clear!

You aren’t taking my car, asshole! Eddie snapped, leaning forward over the coffee table.

How do I know you didn’t steal that piece of shit? David asked.

Both of them reached for the car keys lying there next to the bong and a cigar box housing Eddie’s stash. David’s reflexes were better; he snatched up the keys while Eddie was knocking the bong over, spilling the polluted water all over the table top.

David hurried over to the front door, hearing Eddie come crashing over the table after him. Eddie tackled David as he was twisting the deadbolt open. Both men were about the same height and weight but David’s more stable lifestyle had perhaps helped him stay in better shape than Eddie.

He was able to throw Eddie off his back and into the wall next to them. Eddie slid down the wall as David considered kicking his old friend in the head. Then he decided against it and turned back towards the door. Barely had David touched the doorknob before Eddie scrambled up and leapt at him again, this time with a weapon in his right hand.

Luckily for David, Eddie’s aim was still impaired from the drugs in his system. The heavy, black metal object struck the door next to David’s head and took a gouge from the thick wood.

Enraged, David turned to grab the object and pull it from Eddie’s grip. He was only dimly aware that he’d taken hold of a crowbar. He swung the bar at Eddie’s head and connected against the man’s skull. Eddie collapsed in a heap as David dropped the crowbar on the floor.

David gasped at the sight, unsure of whether Eddie was dead or alive. Then all he could think of was escape. Slamming the door behind him, David ran out to the Fury in the driveway and threw himself in behind the steering wheel. He turned the wheel and drove across the front lawn rather than back his way out onto the road.

David took off after making a right turn as a random choice. He wasn’t familiar with Whitby and, as a passenger, hadn’t paid much attention to the turns Eddie had taken when they’d come off Highway 7 into the town. At first, it wouldn’t matter where he went just as long as a few miles separated him from that house.

As his heart rate slowed and his adrenalin levels dropped, David wondered how to get over to the highway and escape to Burlington, a little more than fifty miles to the north. But he didn’t know he was driving the car to the east, away from the highway. David decided to keep going for another five miles and if nothing seemed promising, turn around and go the other way, making sure to avoid the house again.

He started driving through a patch of forest land and figured he had indeed taken a wrong turn. But the thick woods were lined up close to the roadway and there was no obvious place to make an easy U-turn. The odometer passed his five-mile limit.

Relaxing still more, David figured there might not be any rush to make it out of town. He slowed down a little since that seemed prudent in any event. Perhaps he could even find some obscure back way through these woods.